by Megan Walker
“It’s okay,” she says. “We just want to make sure, you know? Get your expert opinion.”
“I’m not a gynecologist.”
The better-dressed woman rolls her eyes dramatically. “We don’t need a gynecologist. We need someone who has seen pubic lice before. And can tell us if we have it, too.”
That I suppose I can do, and they know it.
Delia clasps her hands over mine. “Please? We’ll be quick. We have to be at work in twenty minutes, anyway.”
It’s more like ten before the faire opens, but maybe Beer Wenches get more leeway in start times than I do.
“Okay,” I agree, wondering how much I’m going to regret this. But I’m actually curious now—do they all have crabs? Sir Reginald must get around. Is he the blond guy Delia said she had a date with the other night?
They all file in, which I realize a little too late probably isn’t a great idea, given the space limitations in the infirmary and the size of their skirts. “Don’t sit on the cot,” I warn. “I don’t have spare bedding.”
They lift their skirts and drop their underwear one-by-one, and much like I did with April, I inspect them by the light of my phone flashlight.
And see crabs on every single crotch.
Delia swears when I give them all the news, and one of the other wenches—a girl with blond hair so pale it’s almost white—makes a little squeaking, “Oh, no.”
The woman in the fancier gown scowls. “This is quite literally the last thing I needed.”
Normally, I think people who say that misuse the word literally, but in the case of pubic lice, she’s probably got it right.
“There’s like . . . medicine or something for this, right?” Delia asks.
“Do you have any?” the other wench, a bigger girl with bright blue eyes, asks eagerly.
“There is, but I don’t have any,” I say. “I’m sorry. You can get some at a pharmacy, though, or at a clinic.”
“Goddammit.” Delia looks like she might be about to either punch someone or cry, and is leaning into feeling the former. “Is it expensive? We make pretty much nothing doing this, and I’m already behind on rent . . .”
The pale blond girl puts an arm around her. I have a feeling there’s several things going on in Delia’s life that make this a really bad time to be dealing with crabs.
The girl with the blue eyes and the woman in the gown look like they feel about the same, and it occurs to me that just because the one woman has a more fancy outfit doesn’t necessarily mean she makes any more money than the others. It might just mean that the faire put her in a different position. I’m guessing that with my specialized nursing skills, I make more here than any of them—and it’s not like I’m raking in a fortune.
I feel terrible. I know what’s it’s like to stare into the void of a near-empty bank account. If I wasn’t pretty much there myself, I’d be tempted to buy them all the medicine out of my own pocket.
I chew on my lip. “Maybe I can ask Mama Mags if I can pick some up for you all and get reimbursed. Clearly there’s some sort of outbreak here at the faire.”
“Would you?’ Delia grabs at my hands again. “That would be amazing. Incredible. The best ever.”
This may be overstating the effort it’ll take to ask my boss a question, but I smile back at her. “I’ll give it try.” Then I pause. I’m not sure I want to stir this up, but if there is a faire-centered outbreak that I’m taking even limited responsibility in treating, then I probably need to know who else might be affected—and who might be patient zero.
I’m struggling to figure out the best way to ask, when the blue-eyed girl starts the conversation for me.
“Did you all have sex with Kevin, too?”
The woman in the gown glares and nods, but the other two shake their heads.
Delia wrinkles her nose, like that’s a gross thought. “Kevin? The barbarian?” I’m hoping that’s a comment on his role at the faire and not on his demeanor in life in general.
“Not me,” the pale blonde says in a little squeak. Maybe that wasn’t embarrassment before, maybe that’s just her voice. She frowns. “I did sleep with Sir Lawrence, though. And Sir Reginald. And Brett the Pickle Guy—”
“Sir Reginald!” I blurt out, and the others all look at me. I flush. I’m not sure how much of what April told me about him is supposed to be in confidence.
Luckily, it doesn’t seem like it’s a big secret. “Yeah, April said she got it from him,” Delia says. “But I wasn’t sleeping with Reggie. And I doubt either Nick or Brett—the two guys I’ve been with recently—were, either. I don’t think either of them is bi.”
“Brett the Pickle Guy?” I ask. It’s hard to keep up with all these names.
Delia flushes a little.
“And then there was Craig at the smithy, and Trevor, who works with the goats,” the blond girl continues in her tiny voice, as if no one else has spoken since she started making her list.
Wow, has this just been in the last few days?
“Goat guy?” the busty blue-eyed girl says in surprise. Delia and the woman in the gown both make faces.
“What?” Blondie shrugs. “He’s not good-looking, but he does have skills.”
“Hopefully not ones he practices on goats,” Delia mutters.
They continue the cross-interrogation of each other for a few more minutes, but there doesn’t seem to be a clear link, someone that all four of them have slept with, and the faire hasn’t been running long enough for one of them to have passed it to a guy and for him to have become contagious enough to give it to the others. Outside, a trumpet sounds, indicating the opening of the faire for the day.
“I’ll talk to Mama Mags and see if I can pick up some medicine for you guys,” I say. “But don’t have sex with anyone until you get treated, okay? Any kind of sex,” I add, because I’ve seen pubic lice on eyelashes, and I can guarantee that would make the situation even worse.
They agree, Delia firmly and the blond girl reluctantly, and the other two somewhere in between. Delia thanks me effusively once more before she leaves.
I don’t see Mama Mags for the first part of the morning, which passes in fairly usual fashion. I don’t get my dehydration cases until the afternoon, but there’s a twisted ankle from a kid climbing the Rapunzel’s Tower Climbing Wall, and someone else who thinks I’m Lost & Found. Apparently we need better signage.
Now that I’m several days in, Mama Mags hasn’t taken to checking up on me as frequently as she used to, so I hover near the entrance and keep an eye out for her. About a half hour before my lunch break, I see her over by the King’s Bounty souvenir stand across the pavilion, talking animatedly with someone in security. From what I’ve seen, the security guys are all in what I have since been informed is called a “doublet”—a kind of overshirt thing that laces up in front—in the faire official colors of green and yellow, and have rather anachronistic walkie talkies strapped to their leather belts.
There’s no one in the infirmary, so I dart over to catch her before she scurries off. Mama Mags does a lot of scurrying, considering the probable weight of the huge fancy gown of hers.
As I approach, I can hear staticky chatter from the walkie-talkie. Something about pink pants?
“Pantaloons,” the security guy says back into the walkie-talkie. “Pink pantaloons. I repeat, be on the lookout for a shirtless man wearing pink pantaloons.” He looks at Mama Mags, as if for confirmation.
Mama Mags nods and gives him a quick “You are dismissed” gesture—or maybe “Be gone with you, lackey”—and he strides off. Looking for this shirtless man in pantaloons?
“Is it the shirtless part that this guy’s in trouble for?” I ask. “Or the pantaloons?”
Mama Mags’s narrow face pinches together even tighter, but she doesn’t look angry. Just exhausted. “He’s been harassing t
he belly dancers.” She sighs. “Every year,” she says, more to herself than anything, and I’m not sure if she means that every year there’s some pervert who harasses the belly dancers, or if every year this douche in particular does so.
Sadly, I could see it going either way.
“Oh. I hope they catch him, then.” I’m briefly entertained by the idea of pink pantaloon creeper being put in the stocks, but probably they’ll just kick him out of the faire.
“Can I help you?”
It’s not me I’m hoping she can help. I explain the situation to her, trying to avoid saying any of the girls’ names—not that I know any of them except April and Delia. I remember her warning me against having sex with a knight on the job, and while I don’t know if any of these exploits happened while on the clock—or sundial, or whatever—I don’t want anyone losing their job in addition to dealing with crabs. But Mama Mags doesn’t seem to need specifics; she just wants to know what I recommend we do about it.
“There’s stuff you can buy to treat it, over-the-counter,” I tell her. “It’s not that expensive—maybe fifteen to twenty dollars? But I know for some of the girls even that might be tough to swing right now. Without it, though . . .” I pause, letting the implication sink in.
“A widespread crotch-bug epidemic.” Mama Mags says with a heavy sigh. “And god knows we don’t need that again.”
“Again?”
Mama Mags doesn’t answer. “If I give you an extra hour on your lunch break, could you go purchase as many as needed? I’ll make sure you’re reimbursed.”
Well, that was easier than expected. “Absolutely. Thanks, Mama—I mean, Maggie.”
There’s a ghost of a smile across her thin, tightly pursed lips. Then she gives me the same imperious wave off.
Lisa from Lost and Found comes to relieve me for my now two-hour lunch break, and I leave the faire and head for the nearest drugstore. I find the right aisle and the lice-killing lotion with permethrin and start loading up my basket.
A middle-aged woman checking out the probiotics across the aisle openly stops and stares at me. Which I can kind of understand. I am, after all, wearing medieval clothes and buying out the whole store’s worth of pubic lice treatment.
I can’t help myself, though. “I’ve got a big weekend planned,” I say.
Her eyes widen further, and she all but darts out of the aisle. I grin, a little too pleased with myself—I can’t wait to tell Will about this.
Until my gaze catches on something else on the shelves, and my grin slips.
Pregnancy tests.
I blink and my heart skips a beat, because suddenly my mind latches onto something it should have realized way sooner: I’m late. Like, nearly a week late, which is normally not a thing for me, especially on the pill. I would have noticed this sooner, but I’ve been so worried about Will and me, and starting a new job, working nonstop . . .
No. It can’t be. I gingerly pick up one of the pregnancy tests.
Except . . . I was on those antibiotics a couple weeks ago, which can reduce the efficacy of the pill. And we didn’t have much sex then—sickness being a deterrent of its own—but there was that night when I got home late and it had been a really stressful day at work and I climbed into bed with Will, and he happened to still be awake, and—
And we definitely didn’t think to use a condom. Even though I was still at the tail end of the antibiotics.
Even though I’m a freaking nurse and I know better.
Oh no.
Oh no no no.
I’m gripping the pregnancy test box so tightly it’s crumpling, like I’ve suddenly become The Missed-Period Hulk.
It’s probably nothing, I tell myself. Stress can delay a period, even on the pill. And I haven’t really had any noticeable pregnancy symptoms.
I’ll just take a test and then I’ll know, and feel much, much better.
So I go to the counter and buy my stack of pubic lice treatment in one transaction and my pregnancy test in another—enduring another strange look from the cashier, though I’m way too freaked out to make a joke now.
And then, because I need to know the answer immediately, I run to the bathroom in the drugstore, and I pee on the pregnancy test. With my heart pounding against my ribs, I settle in to wait for the two longest minutes of my life.
Except it actually only takes about twenty seconds before the result appears.
“No,” I whisper to myself in the stall. But the test doesn’t change its mind based on my pleas—in fact, that pink plus on the indicator looks even brighter than before. Practically a neon-glowing sign announcing a huge, unexpected life change ahead.
I’m pregnant. And though I haven’t had any nausea before this moment, now I definitely feel like I’m going to throw up.
Twelve
Will
I’m sitting on our cushioned couch, staring at my laptop screen. I have this app up that starts flashing every time I stop typing. It’s supposed to motivate me to write, but in reality it’s going to give me a seizure. The screen has been flashing at me for five minutes straight, because all I’ve done is write and rewrite the same sentence over and over. Badly. In fact, I think it’s getting worse with each attempt.
I slam the laptop closed. I’ve been working on this sequel on and off for three years. I’ve gotten three quarters of the way through a completed draft before realizing I was telling the wrong story, scrapping most of it, and starting over. I’ve outlined with index cards, post-its, fancy programs and yellow legal pads. I’ve revised the beginning chapters so many times that my critique group has told me they can’t give me feedback on them anymore. They’ve read so many versions that they’ve lost all objectivity.
I’m supposed to be working on a new draft of the act break, working forward even though I know the beginning isn’t right yet.
Instead, all I’ve accomplished today is to do the dishes, Google how to fix our leaky sink faucet, fail to actually fix it, and scrub the last bits of paint out of the carpet from our sex tarp endeavor. Gabby tells me over and over again that my writing is the most important thing, that she doesn’t mind making sacrifices so I can focus on it.
But I mind all the sacrifices she makes so I can fail to focus on it. I know this kind of work takes time, and that while I wrote most of the second half of my first book in six weeks, I’d spent years thinking about it, outlining it, working out the kinks and the details.
All so that my first book could be sent to every respectable publisher known to man and then not sell. Even if I finish this one, there’s no guarantee it’s going to fare any better.
I lean back on the couch, rubbing my temples.
My life is going nowhere fast, and I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t even know how to talk to Gabby about it. She’s the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me, and she believes in me wholeheartedly, without reservation.
I don’t know how to tell her how badly I’ve failed her.
The key turns in the lock, and I open my laptop again. I hate myself for wanting to pretend I’m accomplishing anything. What I need to do is figure out how to actually make the progress Gabby believes I’m making, so I don’t have to have that conversation at all.
Gabby walks in still wearing her corset and sinks her fingers into the back of Cushionless Couch like she needs it to stay upright. She looks at me, and then looks away.
“Long day at the Ren faire?” I ask.
“You could say that,” Gabby says. “I had to look at a bunch of vaginas today.”
I wince. “More crabs?”
“More crabs,” she says. “And that’s not even the worst part.”
I wonder how her job could get any worse than having to wear a corset, introduce herself as a Healer Wench, and diagnose an outbreak of pubic lice. And she’s still not meeting my eyes. I start to feel
a pit in my stomach. Did something go wrong? Is she still worried about our sex life? Though how that would be related to a bunch of other women’s crab infestations is beyond me.
“Maybe you should sit down,” Gabby says.
“I am sitting down.”
“I know,” Gabby says. “I’m talking to myself.”
Now I’m starting to wonder if Gabby has some of that heat exhaustion or dehydration she’s been diagnosing so often. “Maybe I should get you some water. Have a seat, and—”
“I’m pregnant,” Gabby says.
I stare at her, all thoughts vanishing from my mind. “What?”
“I’m pregnant,” she says again, more firmly than before, like she’s just convinced herself of it. “My boss gave me permission to stock a bunch of lice shampoo, so I went to the drug store to buy them out, and I saw the pregnancy tests and I remembered that I was late, and there was that one time a couple weeks ago when I was on the antibiotics and I forgot that we were supposed to use backup birth control, and oh my god, Will, I’m pregnant.”
Gabby is looking at me like her dog just died, and while we don’t even have a dog, I feel the same. Well, that and total shock. So maybe more like a dog that died suddenly, unexpectedly.
Why am I still thinking about this nonexistent dog?
“Maybe you should sit down,” I say, glad that I’m already doing so. My heart seems to have forgotten how to beat for a moment there and is now doing so unsteadily.
She nods and then walks over to sit next to me on the couch. My laptop screen is flashing again, and I shut it and shift it to the coffee table.
“You actually took one of those tests,” I say. “You’re sure.”
“I took three of them,” Gabby says. She’s sitting too upright, clutching her knees tightly. “I’m very sure.”
We’re staring at each other, and somewhere at the back of my mind, there’s a version of me who knows he’s supposed to be having some kind of reaction to this news. I should probably be telling Gabby that maybe I’m actually happy about this and that it’s going to be okay, but I don’t think I am, and really, is it?
