The How & the Why

by Cynthia Hand

  I feel like an elephant, like you’ve been in there for two years and you’re never coming out. Like a stuffed turkey in the oven. Or a beached whale. I’m bloated and ready to pop.

  I want to do all the things that are listed in the What to Expect book you can do to bring on labor. I’m taking long walks through the neighborhood. It’s cooled down a little, like Melly said it would, so the walks would be so nice, except I can’t walk properly. I duck walk, though, and I manage to get where I need to go. I’m also eating spicy food, drinking a bunch of water to stay hydrated, doing the pelvic rocks, which is a move Melly taught me where you get on your hands and knees on the floor and move your pelvis back and forth to strengthen those muscles and get the baby moved into the right position. There’s something about castor oil you can try if you get desperate, which as far as I can tell brings on labor by making you have the worst diarrhea of your life, so no thank you. And you can have sex. Orgasms, according to my trusty book, can stimulate your body into going into labor.

  I’m sorry, X, but ha ha ha. Orgasms. I’d laugh, but then I’d start to cry.

  I shouldn’t complain—I realize this. You’re healthy. You’ll come out when you’re ready. And I probably shouldn’t be in a hurry to get to that part, because you coming out is not going to be so fun for me.

  I hope you’re not too big. The doctor says you’re about seven pounds. Which seems like a lot.

  When I was kid, we had a dog who had puppies. This was before Evelyn, obviously. My parents got her as a fixer dog, as opposed to a new fixer baby. Actually she was a distraction dog, to attempt to distract my brother and me with a puppy so we wouldn’t notice how bad things had gotten between my parents. Anyway. The dog’s name was Noodle. I don’t know why that was her name, because she was a yellow Lab and in no way resembled a noodle. I suspect that it was me who named her, though, since I was like six. Noodle sounds like a name a six-year-old would give a dog.

  And Noodle was awesome. She loved to play fetch and run around everywhere I went and sleep snuggled up next to me, and she was, honestly speaking, the perfect distraction from my horrible, fighting parents.

  When she was about a year old, my dad decided to breed Noodle. She’d cost him more than a thousand dollars to buy, because she was a purebred with champion bloodlines, because if we had a dog it had to be the very best dog, so he thought he’d breed her and sell the puppies and get a return on his investment. She had a visit with another purebred Labrador across town, and returned properly knocked up.

  I didn’t notice anything different about her until this one day she was sitting next to my bed and instead of her usual happy self she looked completely miserable. She was panting. Her belly was all distended and her little dog breasts were swollen, and she kept looking up at me like, make it stop.

  That’s me, about now. Make it stop.

  My mom got a big cardboard box for Noodle to lie in on a pile of towels, and late one night, she woke me to tell me that Noodle was having her puppies. I was right there when it happened. I saw the first one come out. It was in a little slimy sac, and Noodle twisted around to look at it, all confused, like, “Hey, did that thing come out of me? How embarrassing.”

  Then the thing moved, and Noodle yelped, like, “Oh my God! It’s alive! What is that? Get it away from me!”

  She would have crawled away, terrified, but my mom reached in there and broke the sac from around the puppy and then lifted it and put it next to Noodle’s head. Noodle sniffed it. It whimpered. She started licking it. And then the next puppy came out, and the next one, and the next, until there were seven puppies lined up against Noodle’s side, whimpering and whining, and Noodle licked all of them thoroughly and then looked up at me again, her tail thumping against the towels. I guess she was happy. She finally understood what she had to do.

  That was my experience with birth, until I got to Booth, that is. I’ve been through two of the other girls’ labors while I’ve been here, and they were night and day different, Brit in the basement and Teresa with her hmms. Neither one makes me feel excited to go through it myself.

  Noodle the dog, I should add, was never quite the same after having puppies. Before she had this smooth little belly she’d turn over for me to rub, and afterward she was all lumpy and saggy and sad. I thought that maybe she’d go back to the way she was before, but she never did.

  “She looks old now,” I told my mom, and my mom laughed and shook her head and said, “She looks like a dog who’s had puppies. That’s all.”

  I’m going to be that way, too, I know it. It might not be as obvious, my stretch marks hidden away under layers of clothes, but they’ll still be there. I like the idea. It will be something to remember you by, like an epically bad tattoo. There will be a story behind those marks. Our story. Yours and mine.

  S

  39

  “Hey, Cass, wait up!” I turn to see Bastian dashing toward me in the hall. The bell has just rung to let school out for the day. I’m on my way to find Nyla, who should be coming from AP Government, which Nyla loves because, while my backup plan if I don’t become a Broadway star is to be a drama teacher, what Nyla’s decided to do if the whole Hollywood actor thing doesn’t pan out is to go to law school and become a judge.

  I can totally picture it: Judge Henderson.

  “Hey, beautiful!” Bastian reaches me and twirls me around like we’re dancing.

  “What’s up?” I laugh.

  “Do you and Nyles want to get food? With me? Later?” He gets down on one knee, and the students part around him, staring and giggling. “Please say yes.”

  It’s been about a month since I made a fool of myself with Bastian on closing night. After we established that I was going to wait for Mom to get back on her feet before we do any further digging into my birth-mother situation, things have settled down. I auditioned for theater scholarships at C of I, although I still don’t know if I’ve been accepted there. We had Christmas, a real Christmas, on the real day. Mom wore the pearl earrings out on a date with Dad. We all went to a movie and survived. We’ve been taking it day by day.

  Through it all I’ve gone to school and hung out with my friends, with Nyla, of course, and Alice and Ronnie and Bender, too, and Bastian, and with Bastian it feels like he’s been my good friend for a lifetime now—we can practically finish each other’s sentences. But Bastian and I never talked seriously about what happened the night I kissed him, outside of the “You okay?” “I’m okay” text exchange we had right after. I didn’t want Bastian to think I had any hard feelings, so I’ve been extra super overboard friendly every time we’ve been together. And he’s been the same way with me. We’re overcompensating, but I guess that’s okay.

  I pull him to his feet. “You don’t know what to do with yourself if you’re not in a play, do you?”

  He shakes his head. “Thank God there’s an audition for another one on Saturday. You are auditioning?”

  “Of course.”

  He claps his hands together. “Peter and the Starcatcher! I still can’t believe it. That was my favorite book when I was a kid.”

  “And you want to be Peter, I suppose.”

  “Well, I mean, Peter’s the star of the starcatchers,” he says, grinning. “Or Black Stache.” He wiggles his eyebrows. “I could grow a mustache,” he says in the low, grown-up version of his voice.

  “Could you, though?”

  “You offend me, woman,” he scoffs. “And you probably want to be Molly Aster?”

  “It’s either Molly or Mrs. Bumbrake,” I point out. There are only two female characters in this show, and Mrs. Bumbrake is an old grouchy lady who’s only in like two scenes. What was Mama Jo thinking? But we’ll handle it, like we always do. “Anyway, the answer is yes, I will go eat with you, but first I’m going to retrieve Nyla, and we’ll meet you by the entrance.”

  But it turns out Nyla can’t come. “I’ve got twin duty,” she says with a sigh when I locate her at her locker. “Alexei’s got the
flu, so I have to take the girls to dance class. For, like, hours.”

  “Oh, boo hoo, you have brothers and sisters,” I fake moan.

  “Shut up.”

  “You know I love you,” I sing sweetly.

  “I do.” She pouts. “Have fun with Bastian. Without me.”

  Bastian’s not by the school entrance, though, when I get there. It takes me a little while to find him. He’s sitting outside on the concrete steps by the gym. And he seems like an entirely different person now from the happy-go-lucky boy who danced me around five minutes ago. His eyebrows are all screwed up.

  “What happened to you?” I ask.

  He lifts his phone. “I got the early-acceptance email from College of Idaho.”

  A mix of terror and hope zings through my entire nervous system. I sink down on the steps next to Bastian. “So you were accepted?”

  He nods.

  “Isn’t that supposed to be a good thing?”

  He nods again.

  I can’t get my phone out fast enough, and miraculously, there’s an email for me, too, from College of Idaho. I read it in like a millisecond, and what it says makes me put down my phone and hold back a girly squeal. “I got in,” I gasp. “I got in I got in I got in!”

  But getting in wasn’t the part I was worried about, now was it?

  “Congratulations,” Bastian says, beside me. “I knew you’d get there.”

  “Give me a minute.” I click on the file they’ve attached with my awards letter.

  “Show me the money,” I whisper.

  I scan down the list of funding I’ve been given. I received the highest possible theater scholarship. The highest academic scholarship. A separate little side scholarship I didn’t know about. And a grant.

  I’m holding my breath, but I can’t help it. What’s listed here is not enough without taking loans, or it wouldn’t be enough, if that was all there was. But there’s more.

  There’s what I like to call flower money.

  A couple weeks ago, Grandma and Uncle Pete were over at the house, and when Uncle Pete and I were alone setting the dinner table, he started trying to tell me something, but he couldn’t seem to spit it out.

  “I never had kids” is what he said at first, his face getting all red and splotchy under his scraggly beard.

  I didn’t understand what he was getting at. “I know,” I said slowly. “Did you want kids?”

  “I don’t have any kids, so you’re like my kid.”

  “Oh. Well, thanks, Uncle Pete. I love you, too.”

  “I’m not exactly rich,” he said as he placed the circle of plates on the table. “But I do all right. It’s been a good year for flowers.”

  This was getting awkward. “Good for you. I’m . . . glad.”

  “So I could afford to give you something.”

  I stopped and stared at him, my hands full of forks. “What?”

  “I can give you some money to go to College of Idaho.”

  I was totally surprised. I never expected to get help from Uncle Pete. I never would have even considered it. Then later that same night, after the dessert had been eaten and the dishes were done, Grandma took me aside.

  “I’ve been selling some of my crafty-type things on Etsy,” she told me. “I make paper roses, mostly, out of the pages of old books. Gives me and my glue gun something to do while I watch Wheel of Fortune. And it turns out young people desperately want to buy these roses, for proms and weddings and such. I’m making a killing.”

  “That’s awesome, Grandma. You’ll have to teach me.”

  “Sure, but my point is,” she said, taking me by the arm and leading me farther away from the rest of my family. “I’ve got some extra money lying around from all these flowers, and I want to give it to you.”

  “To me?” Once again, I was totally surprised.

  “To go to College of Idaho.”

  So. I have flower money.

  Now, sitting there on the steps, I do the math quickly, adding in the flower money to the total of my financial aid statement. It’s close. I’m still going to have to work full-time in the summers, and probably at least part-time during the school year, but it’s doable. It’s workable, without taking loans, even. So, yes. Yes yes.

  I’m going to College of Idaho.

  “I’m actually going,” I breathe, and then I’m laughing, until I start crying a little, because I’m so overwhelmed and relieved and thrilled and humbled by the willingness of my fricking amazing family to help me and I feel so . . . loved. That’s the word. Loved. I’m bursting with it. I can’t wait to tell my parents.

  “I guess it’s good news,” Bastian says. “I’m so happy for you.” But his face is still drawn, his eyes missing their usual sparkle.

  I sober up a bit. “What’s wrong? Can you not afford it?”

  “Money’s not the problem,” he says. “My uncle’s going to pay for my college.”

  I gasp. “Mine offered to chip in, too, actually. Yay for uncles, right?”

  He smiles a sad little smile. “My uncle’s the best.”

  “So what is the problem?”

  “Nothing, I guess. I should be happy. I should be jumping up and down. I should have”—he points at my face—“that expression right now. And I did. I saw the email, I opened it, I was excited, and then . . .”

  “And then?”

  He sighs. “And then I wanted to call my parents. I wanted to cheer with my mom, and for my dad to, I don’t know, say he’s proud of me. But that’s not going to happen.”

  “I’m sorry.” I put my arm around him. He lays his head on my shoulder. “But you are going to College of Idaho?”

  “Yes. I’m going,” he says in a determined voice. “No matter what they think.”

  I pat his cheek. “Well, then I’m cheering for you. I’m proud of you, and I will be there with you, and we will have the best time.”

  He lifts his head. His eyes are suspiciously shiny. “Thanks, Cass.”

  “Now let’s get off these steps, because my butt is freaking cold. Let’s go eat.”

  “I’m not actually hungry,” he admits as we get to our feet.

  “Then let’s go somewhere else. Somewhere we can talk. I think we’re overdue for a heart-to-heart conversation, don’t you? Do you have your car?”

  40

  We end up at Thunder Ridge, of all places. It’s quiet, and it has a nice view.

  Bastian thinks this is hilarious. “This is the town make-out spot?” he asks incredulously after he parks his car on the edge of the hill facing out. Below us it’s starting to get dark. Idaho Falls feels bigger from up here, spread out onto the whole valley, surrounded by a patchwork of potato farms. It’s kind of beautiful.

  “You want to make out?” I turn to him and lift an eyebrow suggestively.

  He lifts an eyebrow, too. “I thought we established why this would not be a good idea.”

  “I am sorry about that. It’s so embarrassing,” I groan.

  He shakes his head. “It’s not your fault. You were blinded by my debilitating hotness. It could happen to anybody.”

  I stifle a laugh. This isn’t too far from the truth, actually. “You really do rock a pair of tights.”

  “You know it. But seriously, I should have paid more attention to your signals, too, Cass. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

  “I know. I’m okay now, but how silly is it that I actually believed for the longest time that you were going to be my boyfriend? You’re the perfect guy.”

  He makes a sound that’s half laugh, half snort. “Right. Me, perfect. That’s a good one.”

  “No, really,” I insist. “You are. That much is still true. I was just wrong about the part where the universe had destined us to be together.”

  He’s quiet for a minute, and then he says, “I spent a long time wishing I was straight. A long, long time. It would have been so much easier.”

  “It would have been easier for me, too,” I agree. “You’ve ruined
me.”

  He stares at me. “What?”

  “After our brief time together, primarily as the baker’s wife and the prince, but still, you set the bar so incredibly high that no one else can measure up,” I say mournfully.

  Bastian nods. “Oh. Well, that’s the plight of straight women everywhere, I’m afraid.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “I did date a girl once,” he says. “I don’t want to brag, but I was the best boyfriend ever.”

  “What girl?”

  “Her name was Katie. We were in ninth grade, and I took her to the winter formal. I do think I kind of broke her heart.”

  He looks sad.

  “Sounds like maybe she broke yours, too,” I say.

  He shakes his head. “No, it’s not that. It’s just, that was a hard time for me. I knew who I was, the real me, deep down, but I was afraid nobody else would care about that person. I was so far in the closet I found like Narnia back there.”

  I laugh and nod. I think I get it, at least in part. Idaho Falls is a tough place to grow up if you’re not the same as everyone else. Like anywhere, I suppose.

  “So when did you come out?” I ask.

  “Last year.” He sighs. “At my birthday party. I got caught kissing a guy from school. I thought he was gay . . . and I still think he is, actually, but he was not ready to come out, so he kind of threw me under the bus. Said I was trying to corrupt him, or something. And that is basically why I had to change schools.”

  I grab his hand. “I, for one, am glad you changed schools.”

  He smiles, but it doesn’t last on his face. “That was the last time my dad spoke to me. Literally. That was the last time.”

  My heart squeezes for him. “I’m sorry. I’m just . . . sorry.”

  “Oh, he’ll come around,” he says lightly, like it doesn’t hurt. “But it might take him a decade or so. He’s religious. I mean, both of my parents are very religious. It’s a hard thing to let go when you think the God rulebook says your son is going to burn in hell. I know not everybody who’s religious thinks that. But my dad does.” He coughs. “So what about you? You’re not without drama.”