Summer People (33 page)

The summer was fading fast. It got dark earlier, and there was a chill in the air at night. Garrett read the last two books on his summer reading list; he started running three miles each morning to get ready for soccer. Anything to lend normality to the very abnormal set of circumstances that bore down on him as surely as the impending autumn. Piper wanted to have the baby.

“But why?”

This was the question Garrett had asked over and again for the past three days. Garrett realized he should stop asking, because every time he asked, Piper came up with a more convincing answer. She valued the life inside her, she believed in a woman’s right to choose and her choice was to have the baby, she couldn’t bring herself to destroy a life that had been formed out of her love for Garrett.

Garrett countered with the predictable arguments—they had high school to finish, college to attend, years and years of life experience to acquire before either of them would be remotely capable of raising a child.

“Who said anything about raising a child?” Piper asked.

She wanted to have the child and put it up for adoption. There were thousands of good people in the world who were aching for a baby, she said.

“What about your senior year?” Garrett asked.

“What about it?” she said. “The baby isn’t due until April. I can accelerate my course work, take my exams early and graduate.”

“Yeah,” Garrett said. “But you’ll be pregnant.”

Piper stared at him like he was the stupidest person on earth. “That’s right,” she said.

Being pregnant empowered Piper. From the second she saw the positive result at Smith’s Point, she had transformed before Garrett’s eyes. She stopped being his girlfriend and became someone’s mother. She scared Garrett now, the way religious fanatics scared him. Only Piper’s religion was her body. Her body was changing, producing a hundred thousand new cells every hour, she said. She was desperate to see a doctor, to have an ultrasound and blood tests—but to do this, she needed access to her father’s insurance.

They had to tell their parents, she said and soon. There were only two weeks before Garrett returned to New York.

Garrett read and ran and moped, avoiding Beth and Winnie and Marcus. He moaned internally over his bad luck. He threw the remnants of his box of condoms into the trash. They were doubly useless—Piper didn’t want to have sex anymore. She didn’t want anything to harm the baby. She quit smoking for good, she said, and she began eating a lot of red meat and vegetables, although she was having a hard time keeping food down. Piper was going to have the baby and that was that. Garrett couldn’t believe he had no say in the matter. For the rest of his life, Garrett would have to live with the fact that his child was walking the earth.

Piper insisted on presenting a unified front. She wanted to tell their families together, in one large group. She stopped by one day at lunch, and Garrett entered the kitchen to find her and Beth sitting at the table planning an end-of-the-summer barbecue. Beth seemed energized by the idea. His mother was so predictable—she wanted to keep the last bits of summer alive by filling the house with people.

“You don’t mind that David is coming?” Garrett asked his mother later.

“I cleared the air with David,” Beth said. “I think he should come. He’s been an integral part of the summer.”

There was an understatement. Garrett felt just as he had at the beginning of the summer when his mother announced that she had invited the Ronans for dinner. He didn’t want them to come! If Beth hadn’t invited them in the first place, Garrett wouldn’t be in this gut-wrenching position. They might have had a peaceful summer.

Over the next few days, Garrett watched Beth pull out all the stops. She ordered clams and lobster tails from East Coast Fish, and beer from Cisco Brewery; she bought New York strip steaks; she bought French cheese and summer sausage and baguettes, and a jar of mustard that cost sixteen dollars; she made potato salad and coleslaw and corn pudding. She bought red and yellow tomatoes and made her own pesto. She made peach pie and homemade ice cream. She baked a chocolate cake. She decorated the house with zinnias and gladiolas and huge black-eyed Susans.

“I wish it could always be summer,” Beth said wistfully.

Garrett wondered what Beth would say when she heard the news. He was surprised to find he didn’t care what she thought— there was no way that she could be more distraught about Piper’s pregnancy than he was. He couldn’t wait to get back to New York. In less than a week, his feelings for Piper had changed. His love for her had evaporated, and in its place was fear of her and her plans.

On the evening of the barbecue, the Ronans arrived at six o’clock, the three of them unpiling from the front seat of David’s truck. Winnie and Marcus were already out on the deck drinking Coke and holding hands. Winnie was trying to convince Marcus to eat a clam. Garrett eyed them enviously. They hadn’t been stupid enough to let themselves get pregnant; they had made it through the summer intact. It wasn’t fair—except that Garrett knew they would both be supportive when they heard the news, far more supportive than Garrett would have been under the reverse circumstances. First Garrett shuddered at the idea of Winnie bearing Marcus’s child, then he shuddered at his own flawed character. He deserved a life of nasty surprises, he decided, and he steeled himself for what was to come.

The dinner went smoothly. David and Beth shared a big bottle of Whale’s Tale Ale, Winnie talked to Peyton about what it was like to start high school. Piper held on to Garrett’s hand and beamed benignly at everyone, in a fantastic imitation of the Virgin Mary. She said very little and ate even less—just a tomato and a tiny piece of steak. Beth noticed right away. Garrett wasn’t surprised; his mother always noticed when someone wasn’t eating.

“Are you okay, Piper?” Beth asked, as she began to clear the table. “You barely ate a thing and you’ve been so quiet. This isn’t like you.”

Piper squeezed Garrett’s hand under the table. Here it comes, he thought. All hell is about to break loose. He wished for a final time that God would step in and save him.

“Thank you for noticing, Mrs. Newton,” Piper said, in a loud, attention-seeking voice. “I didn’t eat very much because I feel sick.”

“I didn’t realize you were sick,” Beth said. “That’s too bad.”

“No, it’s good,” Piper said. “I feel sick because I’m pregnant.”

Winnie let out a shriek. Everyone else was silent. Garrett stared at his plate—a mixed pool of juices from the steak and tomatoes, a few kernels of corn, a smudge of pesto. After what he considered to be a reasonable amount of time for this bombshell to detonate in each diner’s mind, he glanced up. Someone was going to have to say something. One of the adults?Beth had retaken her seat without so much as a creak or a whisper, and now she sat with a stack of dirty plates in front of her, a totally blank look on her face, the way she must look, Garrett thought, when she first wakes up in the morning and she can’t quite place where she is or where she’s been. David was inspecting his glass of wine as though an insect or a small piece of cork were floating on the surface. He was so intent on this task that Garrett thought he hadn’t heard; however, a few seconds later, he was the first to speak. When he did, it wasn’t to Piper at all, but to Beth, across the table.

“How about that?” he said, raising his glass. “We’re going to be grandparents.”

“What?”
Beth said. “Are you kidding me?Surely she’s not keeping this baby?”

Garrett turned to watch Piper. Her face was unwavering in its calm repose. “That depends on what you mean by ‘keep,’ Mrs. Newton.”

“You’ll have an abortion,” Beth said. “You’re still just a child.”

“I will not have an abortion,” Piper said. “I’ve given it a lot of thought and I’ve decided that I want to have the baby and put it up for adoption.”

“Adoption?”
Beth said.

“Adoption,” Piper said.

“What you want may not matter,” Beth said. “You have to do what’s best for everybody involved.”

“I’m the mother,” Piper said. “I have to do what’s right for me and for the baby. Maybe you’re not aware of the law. It’s the mother’s right to choose.”

“That’s a very self-centered attitude,” Beth said.

“I think what’s
self-centered
is wanting me to get an abortion so the matter is taken care of and you don’t have to worry about it.”

“She’s got a point,” David said.

Piper glanced at her father, and as if strengthened by this confirmation, continued. “I don’t want to terminate the pregnancy. I want to give the baby life, then share that life with another family. That’s the choice I’ve made. It’s one I can live with.”

David stood up and moved to Piper’s chair. He knelt in front of her and she fell into his arms in a way that made her seem like a very young girl to Garrett. He got a lump in his throat.

Peyton started to cry. “You always do things like this,” she said to her sister. “You do it for attention. But you never think of anyone else. Me, for example. Everyone at school is going to make fun of me.”

Winnie rubbed Peyton’s arm. “No one will make fun of you.”

“They’ll say my sister is a slut.”

“They’ll think Piper is brave for sticking to her principles,” Winnie said. “I think you’re brave, Piper.”

Piper couldn’t respond. Her face was hidden in David’s shoulder.

Garrett looked around the table. He was both relieved and offended that no one was paying attention to him. Everyone was focused on Piper. This moment was all about her.

“I think you should take some time before you make a final decision,” Beth said. “Even if you don’t plan on keeping the baby, simply giving birth can be traumatic, physically and emotionally. And then there’s your schoolwork, applying to colleges—”

“Don’t try to talk her out of it, Mom,” Winnie said. “After all, we’re talking about a human being here. A human being who is related to everyone at this table—well, except for Marcus.”

Marcus held up his palms as if relinquishing all claims of being related to the baby.

“We’re talking about a cluster of cells,” Beth said. “A microscopic organism. Not a human being, not yet.”

“It’s a human being,” Winnie insisted.

Piper separated from David. “I’m having the baby. You should take as much time as you need to absorb that fact. I’m going to see a doctor and I’m going to research adoption agencies so that I’m sure the baby ends up in the best possible home. They’ve made it so that you can practically handpick the family that takes your child.”

Peyton shook her head. “You are such an alien,” she said. “I can’t believe you’re my sister.”

David returned to his seat, only now he gripped the table and lowered himself gingerly into the chair, as if he were an old man. “Honey, we need to show your sister support. We have to rally around her.”

“What about me?”

These words came from Garrett. He waited a beat to see if anyone had heard—yes, everyone at the table turned to him.

“I guess the question for you, young man, is why weren’t you more careful?” David said.

“I was careful,” Garrett said. He’d used condoms every time, and it was just the one time when his mother startled him when he wasn’t paying full attention. But he couldn’t explain that. “We had some bad luck.”

“Good luck,” Piper said, rubbing her still-flat stomach. “I consider this good luck.”

“You consider this good luck,” Garrett said to Piper. “So I guess what I think doesn’t matter. And this is my child, too.”

“I care what you think,” Beth said.

“So do I,” said Winnie.

“So do I,” said Marcus. “What do you think?”

Garrett’s eyes blurred with tears. What he thought was that if he had to sustain any more growing pains, any more major changes in life or death, he would explode. What he thought was,
thank you
to his mother and his twin sister and yes, even Marcus, for caring about him despite the fact that he possessed a despicable character. What he thought was,
I amsorry, I amso, so sorry
to the child that Piper carried within her. I want to do better by you, but right now, I just can’t.

When Garrett spoke, his voice was thick with confusion. His normal voice had abandoned him.

“Let’s just do what Piper wants,” he said. “She’s the mother. It’s her decision.”

Beth sighed. David clapped Garrett’s shoulder. Winnie said, “Well, congratulations, then!” Marcus saluted Garrett. Peyton went over and touched the top of her sister’s hair, as if checking for a halo. Garrett fell back in his chair, he was exhausted.

“Is there dessert?” he asked. He was grateful when Beth said, “Of course! Yes!” and bounded into the kitchen to serve it. Anything predictable, to Garrett, was now unspeakably precious.

Winnie couldn’t believe it, but she was jealous. For years she had heard of girls her own age having babies—once even a girl at Danforth—and it was always spoken of with distaste. It was called “getting in trouble.” But why?As Winnie lay in bed with Marcus that night, she longed to be filled with another human life, a life that could miraculously be created out of thin air and passion.