Me, Him, Them, and It Read online

  “What the fuck do you care?”

  “I don’t. I’m just surprised.”

  I shrug. A symbol for if-you-want-this-conversation-to-continue-you-better-say-the-next-word.

  “You really want to get out of here? You can sleep at my place. I don’t think you’ll get Lizzie to leave for a while.”

  I almost snort out my water. “Great idea. Like your mother wouldn’t rip out my eyes and fry them for breakfast.” Todd’s mother is totally a Sitcom Mom. She knows who I am—a friend of her son—and who we all are. She honks at us when she drives by. She welcomes us at their home. But she wouldn’t be happy about me if she knew I’d been screwing her son.

  Todd laughs. His hand rises off my knee and even though I hated it, his laugh makes me miss it. My knee feels cold.

  “I mean, in the guest bedroom. I’ll tell her your parents had a fight and you didn’t want to go back there after the party. She knows what they’re like, anyway.”

  She knows about my parents? How is this possible?

  “That’s okay,” I say. “I’ll wait for Lizzie.”

  “Look,” Todd says, “I know I’m not the person you want to accept help from right now, but you look exhausted and Lizzie is going to be here for another three hours and everyone is going to get drunk and puke more and this whole place is going to smell even worse than it already does. What I’m offering you is a double bed with clean sheets in a house that’s only silent at night. Okay?”

  My head feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. O-kay. Only two syllables. It foams around my voice box. Just say okay. That’s it. Then you can go to sleep and this awful day will be over. You don’t need to forgive him, just sleep.

  Todd keeps going. “Mom and Rick will be asleep now. You can just go to bed and leave in the morning. You won’t even talk to her, but we won’t do anything so she wouldn’t mind anyway.”

  The syllables finally form outside my head. “Okay.”

  Todd swings his keys around. “Just so you know, though. Right now we’re playing Trivial Pursuit in Tom’s basement.” I nod, even though I don’t understand how a guy with a mother like that could lie to her. But this is the guy who told me he could abandon his child, so I guess it’s not that surprising.

  I find Lizzie, tell her not to drive and to be safe, and leave. She barely acknowledges me but I leave anyway. I don’t know what else I can do.

  Just tell her.

  But I can’t.

  26 Days Till It’s Too Late to Change My Mind

  I sneak out of Todd’s at nine a.m., prepared to walk into a war zone. I leave the guest bed unmade so he’ll have to deal with it.

  But the house is silent when I get home, so I collapse into my bed, grateful.

  Beneath me the coffeemaker churns and the toaster spits out a bagel. My dad’s shoes squeak and my mom’s heels clap; they are both in the kitchen at once. Finally, the door to the garage swings open and one Beamer hums in the driveway. They’re going to Mass. Together. This is the biggest bull in our entire house. Every Sunday, they zip their mouths shut and play happily-married-couple-with-a-rebellious-teenager for the benefit of the priest and parishioners. Today they will pray for me. God will curse me further after the prayers of hypocrites.

  I used to go with them. I actually kind of miss it. I don’t believe in it, but I love the singing. And it felt like such a peaceful way to turn one week into the next. I didn’t think about God or whatever, but I went. I didn’t stop because I didn’t want to go anymore or even because I got sick of those two faking it with drippy voices and somber faces. I stopped because Bad Evelyn doesn’t go to church. I expected a big, satisfying fight that first Sunday that I stayed in bed, but like always they clamped their mouths shut. They never ground me, yell at me, or even question any of the Bad Evelyn decisions. They barely even look at my report cards, which is good because my GPA is the one thing I wasn’t willing to risk for a Bad Girl Rep. Until now, I guess.

  They’re gone, so I have like ninety minutes to myself. I fall asleep.

  I’m naked again, but I’m soaring on my stomach, Supergirl style, through dark-gray clouds with neon-blue edges. It’s fun. I’m warm and the clouds feel like teeny-tiny raindrops tickling my skin. I clasp one hand on top of the other in front of my head and soar faster. The baby assumes the same position inside me. Even though it is encased in there, I know its little bean-body can feel all of these clouds too. And I know they are erasing us, sucking us into the blue just like the halo-vacuum. I feel happy like I haven’t since before I was pregnant. Like I’m dancing with my daddy in the kitchen.

  Something bangs into my door and I jolt upright, rubbing my eyes so my contact lenses scrape my retinas back and forth. “Come in.”

  Mom stands: her spine a ramrod, her lawyer mask securely hiding any maternal emotions. The Stranger looks like he’s either going to cry or punch something. I am tiny. I’m a little ant about to drown in all of these blankets.

  She told him.

  “We need to talk, Evie-Teeny.” She hasn’t used that name for me since I was about three, but when she sits on the foot of my bed, she looks like she’s perching on hot coals.

  “You told him?” I guess she had to. But how did she do it? How could she string those words together when they can’t even talk about the weather? How did they have that conversation and yet the house is still standing? Last week a simple question of dinner summoned a hurricane in the kitchen.

  She doesn’t answer. Dad stands in the doorway. “Did that kid who keeps coming over here do this to you?” he growls. He’s Daddy-Dad. Angry Daddy-Dad from before. He’s still Stranger-Dad, but he’s also Daddy-Dad.

  “What?” I ask the bare ceiling.

  “Who did this to you?” he grunts, each word requiring effort and precision.

  “I did this to myself, Dad.” I lace my voice with the sarcasm teenagers use on television and in the movies.

  “Who—” he starts again, but the Ice Queen cuts him off.

  “Stop, Jim. We said we wouldn’t.” He storms into the hallway and the air pressure releases slowly from the room. One parent is better than two.

  “What’s your plan, Evelyn?”

  I curl into a ball and turn away from her. She pats my knee, which twitches.

  “This is scary for us, too, Evie. But we need to talk.”

  Sure, Mom. We don’t ever talk. Silent is who we are.

  “Are you keeping the baby?”

  I curl my knees closer to my chin.

  “Are you considering abortion?”

  Would she let me get an abortion? Does she want me to get one so we can pretend everything is the same?

  “Are you going to stay in school? Are you thinking about your GPA?”

  She doesn’t even know what my GPA is. Her presence on my bed is like a ringing in my ear—I want it to go away but I don’t know how to make it stop.

  She just sits there. Five minutes tick by. I start to nod off again, but she shakes my knee.

  “This is serious stuff, Evelyn. Your father and I don’t want to decide everything for you. What are you going to do?”

  “You’ve got to talk to us, Pumpkin.”

  Somewhere in the ringing he wandered back to the doorway. I whip myself around in the bed. “You don’t call me that anymore.”

  He throws up his arms. “I’m sorry.” He retreats a step into the hallway.

  Mom’s eyes grow to the size of quarters. The three of us freeze for five minutes, ten minutes, half an hour, two hours, two days, two weeks. I always thought three silent people in a house was the most uncomfortable feeling imaginable: turns out that three silent people in your bedroom is worse.

  After an eternity, Mom says, “If I make an appointment at a doctor tomorrow, will you go with me?”

  I nod and crash back into the bed. He vaporizes. She clicks out of the room. They leave my door open and by the time I trudge across the room to close it, I’m too awake to go back to sleep, of course.

  M
y big toe connects with something cold on the floor. I reach down: it’s a can of ginger ale. Mom must have left it during all that silent lingering. It’s freezing, just the way I like it. It opens with a hiss and fizzes over my fingers, but I don’t care. I lick it off like it’s the elixir of life.

  I am the loneliest person on the planet, even though I never get to be alone. I pound my fist on my abdomen, where I imagine the beanyblob to be floating around. I can’t talk to it, though.

  If I call Lizzie, she’ll yell at me again. If I call Todd, I’ll look desperate and heartbroken. If I try to talk to my mom, we’ll just stare at each other. If I go back and see Mary, I’ll have to listen to her squeaking in my ears. If I call anyone else, they’ll wonder why the hell I’m calling.

  I settle for Lizzie.

  She doesn’t answer.

  I wish I had asked Mary about sleeping pills. If I take a Tylenol PM I might kill the baby, but if I stay awake another minute, I might kill myself. Finally, I reach for my chemistry textbook and tell my brain to start sifting through chapter five because tomorrow is Monday and Mondays always mean quizzes.

  The full weight of the textbook is resting on my abdomen, but I don’t care.

  25 Days Till It’s Too Late to Change My Mind

  Last night, I outlined the chapter, took the practice quiz, solved a hundred and fifty practice problems. I went through twenty pages of notes and turned them into flash cards. I have never been so ready for a quiz in my life, but when I wander down to the kitchen in my uniform in the morning, Mom is sitting at the table, still in her pajamas.

  “Why are you wearing that?” she asks. That’s my question. She should be in a suit by now, in some courtroom, looking comfortable with a ramrod back and a pinched expression.

  “It’s what I wear to school.” Duh.

  “You’re not going to school. We’re going to see a doctor.”

  “No, not now!” I feel like stomping my feet.

  “Yes now. You promised yesterday, sweetie. That was the deal.”

  “No. Not now. After school. I have a chemistry test today.”

  “Evelyn, you need to get to the doctor immediately. I couldn’t make an appointment for just anytime. I had to ask Dr. Elizabeth to come in early to get you in right away. You have been preg—in this condition for a while now and still haven’t seen a doctor. You need to do this.” Mom stands to walk toward me.

  “Dr. who?”

  “Dr. Elizabeth. She’s married to one of my colleagues and is the best in the field.”

  I just need a damn doctor, not the best in the field. “Mom, chem is first period. I spent all of yesterday studying.”

  I want the pressure of a pencil nudged between my fingers while they chart out the answers to equations and map atoms with the appropriate number of electrons and neutrons. I want to turn my brain off and sit down in the plastic desk answering questions that actually have answers.

  “Evelyn, I’m pulling the Mom Card. I’ll drop you off at school after the appointment, but you’re coming with me now.”

  What freaking right do you have to pull the Mom Card? I just want to take a test! You won’t listen to me about a chemistry test; how will you ever listen to me about this parasite?

  “I’ll take my own car.”

  Dr. Elizabeth Whatever is late. Of course. I sit on the table, sweating into my pleated skirt. The Control Freak sits on the stool next to me, shaking her sensible heel from her toes and punching buttons on her BlackBerry, until finally one of Dr. EarlyMorning’s minions starts pulling things out of my body: blood, urine, whatever else she finds in my vagina with that prodder. By the time we sit down with the actual doctor, I might as well be inside out. She sits in a big burgundy armchair, and everything in the room is new and clean and white and beige. My mom and I sit on the other side of the desk, which is so big it feels like we’re at a dining room table except that she has these plush and comfy armchairs that make me want to fall asleep. The doc looks at me. She can see blood running through my veins and the inside of my hair follicles and to her my eyes look like golf balls with red lines running all over them because I am inside out now. The Stiff-Ass sits on the very edge of her chair and I want to tell her to sit back and relax because the chair is so darn comfortable but she would never. She has a notebook on the edge of the desk and a pencil in her hand and she’s leaning into it like she’s ready to take notes even though Dr. Keep Waiting hasn’t said anything yet. Finally, she looks up.

  “I hear you have been drinking a lot of ginger ale, Evelyn,” she says in this low, womanly voice, and I nod, thinking how she and this whole place are the opposite of Mary and her office.

  “How have you been feeling?”

  I shrug. My uniform feels itchy, like this blouse is made of sandpaper.

  “Any morning sickness? Vomiting? Diarrhea?”

  I shake my head. I did puke twice last week, but I think it was the cafeteria food.

  “Well, you are in fact pregnant.” I like how she says it: not like she’s pitying me or expecting me to jump up with joy, and not like I’m the stupidest person on the planet for getting knocked up in high school. Just like it’s a fact. Or it’s not such a big deal.

  “I knew that.”

  “So.” She puts the folder she has been looking at on her desk. “What do you want to do?”

  Mom repositions her pen, as if I’m the one she’s going to be taking notes about.

  I shrug.

  “Jesus, Evelyn!” My mother’s voice makes me jump in my seat. “You have to tell us something. We’re all trying not to be mad at you and not to go out and murder the kid who did this to you and not to drown you with lectures on things like safe sex and contraception because we know you already know this stuff. We are not grounding you or punishing you. We’re trying to be supportive. But you have to talk to us!” Her voice shakes. Is she mad at me for being silent?

  My mouth opens, but nothing comes out.

  After a while, Dr. Elizabeth says, “Well, let’s start here. What are your goals?”

  Mouth still open, I turn to look at her. Isn’t that the same question?

  “I mean, regardless of the pregnancy.”

  “Evelyn wants to go to college,” Mom answers.

  No duh.

  “Let’s give Evelyn some time to answer here. Evelyn?”

  I nod.

  “Any idea where you wanted to go?”

  My mother says “University of Florida” at the same time that I say “One of the Ivies.” I watch her face out of the corner of my eye, but I keep looking at Dr. Elizabeth, whose blond hair is loose and smooth and crinkly like tiny little waves. I wish my hair could do that. She raises one eyebrow. I wish I could do that too.

  “I’m number one in my class right now: 3.9. I think I could get into one of them. Or maybe Stanford.”

  “You are?” my mom’s voice leaks between the doctor and me, but I ignore it.

  “I want to get out of Florida, as soon as possible.”

  “Why?” asks Dr. Elizabeth. Again, she’s asking for a fact.

  “Because I hate it,” I answer. I expect her to push this further, but she nods. Mom scribbles in her notebook.

  The doctor turns over a paper. “Your mom tells me that Mary from Planned Parenthood says that you want to deliver the baby.”

  I snort a laugh.

  Her head jolts up. “Is that not true?”

  I could still get an abortion. The idea dances into the back of my head like a sexy belly dancer swaying her hips and curling a finger right at my middle. Mom would let me. This could be over.

  I lurch forward when I get punched from the inside. No, I can’t. It was never about Mom anyway.

  “I want to not be pregnant.”

  Dr. Elizabeth says, “Okay, so you’re going to have an abortion?”

  I glance at my mom. Her face is all lawyered, her expression unreadable. It would be so easy. She and the Stranger would pay for it. She could drive me home. She could call in
to St. Mary’s and tell them I have the flu and they could send my homework home with Lizzie and two years from now I would be sitting in my dorm room at Stanford or Brown or Yale and I could just completely forget it all. I’m going to do it. It will be easier now that everyone knows.

  But when I look at my mom, her mouth is open. Her eyes are still but they’re tan, the brown has drained out of them to somewhere deep and hurt. She’d let me do it, but I can’t. The three babies she didn’t get to have swim to the surface of her eyes. Damn it, I can’t. I fucking can’t.

  I look up. “I can’t.”

  Dr. Elizabeth pauses. “Okay, so you’re going to deliver. Have you spoken with anyone at school about this?”

  Only Todd. “No.”

  “Do you know what St. Mary’s policy is on pregnant students?”

  “No.” The nuns can’t know. They can’t know.

  “Well, that is something that you need to look into right away.”

  “No!” Four eyes swing to study my inside-out face. “I mean, I don’t want anyone to know.”

  “What?” says Mom.

  “How would that be possible?” says Dr. Forceful.

  “Evelyn, you know what a pregnant person looks like eventually, right?” The Control Freak thinks I am a total bonehead. “How are you going to hide a belly like that from everyone at school?”

  I shake my head. I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. I haven’t cried since I found out, but there is a stinging on the inside of my eyeball, which is now the outside of my eyeball, and I imagine how ugly it will be when the tears trace their way down my inside-out face.

  I wait for Dr. Elizabeth’s voice, low and melodious, but instead my mom chirps in her direction. “We’ll figure this out.”

  I snort and glance up at the Control Freak in time to see her mouthing some secret message across the white plane that separates us from the doctor.

  “What about after you deliver, Evelyn?” I look at Dr. Elizabeth. “Do you want to raise this baby as a teenage parent, or place it for adoption?”

  I don’t know. I don’t like the thing, but if I don’t like it, why would anyone else?