“By the way, this is Amy. Amy, this is Grace.”
Now Amy was no babe in the woods. She wasn’t the kind of girl you took home to Mother — he actually thought about stuff like that, though he wouldn’t admit it. Grace was the kind of girl you took to Sunday night dinner: good grades, perfect manners, kind of preppy. Amy, on the other hand, was the kind of girl you had fun with. She knew as well as he did that this wasn’t going anywhere serious, and she was fine with that. When she slipped her hand inside his bathing suit, it was because she wanted to, because she liked the way his cock felt, not because she thought he would like it and she was doing it just to please him. That made all the difference for Nick.
Grace, on the other hand, was complicated. She was someone who needed attention, who wanted a boyfriend, someone to talk to and someone to listen to her. It wasn’t all about living in the moment for a girl like Grace. In her mind, every guy was potential husband material. Not what he was looking for the year before he went to college. Amy just wanted to smoke pot and get naked. It was no contest. He probably should have thought about that a little more before he worked his charm on Grace. It had been too easy, like trapping a helpless little bunny, and now, looking at her, a mass of dripping wet hair and chattering teeth, he kind of regretted taking advantage of her. Somehow she had been more virginal, and vulnerable, than most virgins, and he should have hit the brakes. Now she was coming to tell him off. It had probably taken her the whole summer to work up the nerve to come tell him, in perfectly grammatical English, what she thought of him. Well, he guessed Amy could wait a little. If she was as horny as he was, a quick swim while he listened to Grace vent for a few minutes (he knew he owed her that, after what he’d taken from her) wouldn’t be enough to take the edge off.
“Could we have a minute alone?” Grace said to Bikini Girl as she pulled herself onto the dock, still sucking in her stomach, feeling extremely self-conscious next to this waif in the handkerchief that passed for a bathing suit. She was so thin, her stomach was practically concave. Grace wondered where she kept her internal organs.
“Who is this toad?” Amy asked, furious that an otherwise perfect afternoon was being interrupted by some doofus in an old-fashioned one-piece who looked like she’d escaped from the day camp at the YMCA. The fact that Amy didn’t recognize Grace, even though they’d gone to the same high school for three years, and the same middle school for three years before that, confirmed to Grace everything she already knew, and everything Jennifer had reiterated: the kids who sat in the cool section of the cafeteria were completely unaware of those who sat in the social ghetto next to the kitchen.
“She’s nobody. Give me a minute, and I’ll get rid of her.” Nick ran his hand across Amy’s chest and she shivered with pleasure. “Don’t go too far.”
Nick was definitely worth the wait, so she shrugged, and said, “Fine, but you’d better have more pot.” Giving Grace a withering look, she executed a flawless dive and disappeared under the water, surfacing about ten yards away. She swam effortlessly towards shore.
At Nick’s characterization of her as a “nobody,” Grace’s heart fell to somewhere down by her feet. While she hadn’t expected a kiss and an apology, she hadn’t been prepared for such a royal dis, and she wished with all her might that she were anywhere else, anybody else.
“So, what do you want?”
Nick waited. He figured he knew what was coming, and although he didn’t understand why Grace needed to swim out to the middle of Silver Lake to scold him for not calling her all summer and lying about going to Europe, he could understand how she must feel. Getting dumped sucked, even when in his mind they’d never really been together. Nice girls required too much effort. He made a vow, which he already knew he probably wouldn’t be keeping, to avoid such complications in the future. Definitely not worth having to stare into those puppy dog eyes after all was said and done, and he knew there was no way she would ever go down on him.
Taking a deep breath and looking him square in those clear blue eyes, which, even after all that had happened, made her heart pause, Grace stammered, “I’m … I’m pregnant.”
The warm sun, the deliciously wooly dizziness, the anticipatory throbbing between his legs — all gone in an instant as his blood turned to ice, seemed to stop flowing through his veins. Inside his bathing suit, his hard-on, courtesy of Amy’s practiced hand, wilted.
“What did you say?” Nick had heard exactly what she’d said, but he needed time to let it seep into his brain.
“I’m going to have a baby, your baby. I’m almost eight weeks pregnant.”
This wasn’t nearly as bad as telling her parents had been. Nick had no moral authority over her. Her only fear had been that he didn’t care about her, but she already knew that he didn’t, that she had just been one of many back seat conquests — definitely not the first, and certainly not the last. Her shoulders fell as the tension left her body and her breathing returned to normal.
When he felt he could speak without his voice shaking, Nick said, “It can’t be mine. I used a condom. I was careful.” He didn’t doubt for a second that it was his — until he got to her, she’d been convent material. It was a knee-jerk reaction. That’s what guys were supposed to do. Deny, deny, deny.
“That was my first … and last time. Apparently condoms don’t work all that well. It must have been defective, or you put it on wrong.”
Although Grace had vowed not to lay any blame, since she had willingly gone along with the program, he had been the one wearing the condom. Closing her eyes for a second, she waited for him to reach out to her, to wrap his arms around her and tell her everything would be okay, that they would figure this mess out together. But she wasn’t in charge of his feelings, and Nick just sat there, mouth hanging open, his hands balled up in fists, glaring at her with anger and frustration.
This couldn’t be happening to him. “What are you going to do about it?”
Nick wanted to grab her by the hair and drag her to the nearest clinic, but he knew that ultimately it wasn’t his choice. He could see his whole life slipping away through what must have been a microscopic hole in the fucking condom, like sand sliding through that tiny opening in the center of an hourglass. Since he was fifteen, he’d been a loyal Warrior Condoms customer, buying the giant box at PriceSaver, coasting on their reputation as the protection you can depend on when you march into battle. There was no way he had put it on wrong — he could unwrap it and get it on in the dark in under ten seconds, including blowing into it to check for any holes. But in spite of that extra step, the Warrior Corporation had failed him. He wondered if he could sue them for wrecking his life. The way he saw it, Warrior should have to pay for the abortion, or the baby, or the hit man.
“I don’t know.”
She noted that he hadn’t asked what we were going to do about it. Whatever happened, she was going to have to handle this on her own. But she wished he would at least ask her how she was feeling, if she had morning sickness or if she was scared. It wouldn’t have cost him anything to show a little sympathy.
“Did you tell your parents?”
Nick’s family, although not nearly as devout as Grace’s, belonged to the same church as the Warrens. He was well acquainted with their very public abstinence outreach program and their prim, first-pew sensibility. In fact, although now he felt embarrassed to admit it, that had been a large part of her appeal. Nailing Grace had been like winning the Heisman Trophy of sexual conquest. She wasn’t just your run-of-the-mill virgin — she was an über virgin. Sticking it to her was an ego boost for an ego that needed very little boosting.
Bile rose in his throat as his new reality took shape. If Grace’s parents knew about the baby, Nick was sure he was doomed to become a father. Panic engulfed his body as he thought about the lacrosse scholarship that had been a certainty until this second. He didn’t know anything about becoming a father — could he still go to college, or would he have to get a job to support Grace and her k
id? His mind spun out of control as he started adding up the cost of diapers and formula and rent. For a second he hated being a guy, because being the guy meant he had all of the responsibility (except for carrying the thing for nine months and pushing it out and taking care of it), and none of the rights.
“I did. They’re not speaking to me.” Just thinking about that made the tears well up and Grace wondered if she would ever be able to stop crying, or whether the baby had turned her into a blubbering mass of blubber.
“I bet. Fuck.” Although he was furious with Grace for not telling him first, letting him have some say in what came next, Nick felt a little bit sorry for her. The Warrens’s numerous high-profile good works had made them minor celebrities in Silver Lake, and Grace’s little foray to the dark side in the back of his Jeep was likely an unforgivable crime. Based on his limited knowledge of them, it wouldn’t surprise Nick if they never spoke to their daughter again. That last night with Grace, the night they had apparently made a baby, Grace’s main worry had been getting home before curfew, because she didn’t want to get in trouble with her parents. “What about me? Did you tell them I was the father?” Not that he was scared — no one was going to force him to do anything — but it would be nice to know if Grace’s dad was going to show up at his house with a shotgun and a marriage license. And what would Nick’s parents have to say about this? If he had to give up his scholarship, his parents would likely cut him off as well. He could hardly comprehend how a perfect day could fall apart so fast.
“I told them I was pregnant, they said some mean, horrible things to me, and now they’re giving me the silent treatment. That’s pretty much it. My mom knows it was you, but I don’t think she cares — it’s the fact that I did it at all. I’m the one who’s related to her, and I’m the one who’s going to have the evidence under my shirt for the world to see. I’ve humiliated her and my dad. Apparently that’s an unpardonable sin.” As miserable as she was, Grace felt slightly better talking it out with Nick. Not that he was saying anything kind or comforting, but as her accomplice, he had to have some empathy, even though he was doing a good job of hiding any feeling at all. How she wished she’d seen this side of him before her panties came off.
“So why didn’t you just have an abortion and leave them out of it? They didn’t need to know what happened. You should have come to me right away, and we could have taken care of everything ourselves. What did you think was going to happen when you told your fucking parents?”
“I don’t know,” Grace said quietly. She didn’t want to admit that she’d stupidly thought that telling her parents would make it better.
“Now that you’ve dragged the moral majority into this shit show, my future’s about to drive off a cliff, and for no good reason. It could’ve been a dented fender, and now it’s going to be a fucking ten-car pileup,” Nick seethed.
“That’s what Jennifer said, but how could I keep it from them? They would figure it out. Besides, I thought you were on the other side of the Atlantic, and I don’t have five hundred dollars for an abortion.” Grace was already regretting her decision to own up to her sin to Betsy and Brad. Jennifer had vigorously advised against it, and now Nick was raking her over the coals.
“They wouldn’t have figured it out if you’d gotten rid of it right away.” Calling the baby, or fetus, or whatever it was, it, felt wrong somehow, but it was much easier to distance himself from an ‘it’ than from the soft, round, blue-eyed baby that ‘it’ would become in a matter of months. “Fucking idiot,” he muttered to himself. “So your friend Jennifer knows. You haven’t told anyone else, have you? You saw what happened when you told your stupid-ass parents. This mess is nobody’s business.” If word got out that he’d knocked up the poster child for the purity pioneers, his life would be over.
Frustrated by Nick’s failure to focus on the actual problem of what to do right now, Grace let out a small shriek of exasperation. Although his reaction was not surprising, she had hoped for something different. But she could be tough if that’s what was called for. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell another soul you’re the father. I’d sooner die than have anyone know what I let you do to me in the back of your shitty car. But right now, we’ve got bigger worries than who’s privy to our dirty little secret. We both screwed up in a big way eight weeks ago, and I need to figure out what to do today. You need to help me. It’s your baby, too.”
Nick flinched at the words “your baby.” He lay back on the warm, wet wood and stared directly into the sun. The white light burned his retinas, but he refused to blink. Athletic scholarships and hot girls who spread their legs when he smiled at them were no longer a given. This was really happening, and for the first time in his life, Nick Salter felt like a total loser.
CHAPTER 5
It was still dark outside when Grace’s mother shook her awake on the Friday before Labor Day weekend. “Get up. Get dressed.” Her voice was stern, but at least Betsy was speaking to her. Those were the first four words either of her parents had addressed directly to her since the night she’d confessed to her terrible crime.
“Mom? What’s going on?”
The strain of her parents’ hostility and the needs of the baby growing inside of her were a draining combination, and sleep was Grace’s only escape. If the sound of a car backfiring or a door slamming didn’t wake her, she could sleep fifteen hours at a stretch. At four in the morning, she was nowhere near ready to face the day.
Not providing any information, just standing in the doorway watching as Grace dressed quickly and quietly, Betsy yawned and looked at her watch. Wherever they were going, Grace thought, her mother was in a hurry. Betsy examined Grace’s profile in the light from the hall, trying to see if her belly was starting to stick out. It was hard to believe there was really a baby in there: her own flesh and blood, her grandchild. Nausea gripped her, and she turned away.
In the car, Betsy flipped to a new radio station and turned it up loud. Silence invited conversation, and Betsy had nothing to say to the person sitting next to her. In the few seconds it had taken for Grace to tell her parents what she had done, she had become a stranger in her mother’s eyes. It was a surprise even to Betsy that she could so easily relinquish her maternal instinct. The bond between mother and child should have been much stronger than that, but Betsy had no control over what she was feeling. As much as she longed to feel loving and protective toward Grace, who was curled up in a ball in the front seat, practically glued to the passenger door, instead she felt only rage and betrayal. It was clear that the daughter was afraid of the mother, and though Betsy was sorry her daughter felt that way, she couldn’t bring herself to reach across the front seat and still her daughter’s shivering shoulders. It would have been like reaching across the Grand Canyon.
For three hours they drove, across the Connecticut state line and into the heart of Massachusetts. If not for the annoyingly enthusiastic deejays on an endlessly changing stream of radio stations, Grace would have had no idea where they were, as she had not opened her eyes once since the mystery road trip had begun. The car sped along, and the only thing Grace knew was that she was being taken farther and farther away from anything familiar. Afraid that her mother was going to drop her off at some home for unwed mothers, Grace wept silently. As terrible as it was living with the disapproving stares and deafening silence at 78 Hill Road, the thought of being abandoned at some orphanage for wayward teens was much worse. She hadn’t seen a suitcase, but maybe Betsy had hidden it in the trunk. And if Betsy left her someplace, she wondered if she would pick her up afterwards, if life could ever go back to the way it was before. A dozen unanswered questions raced in circles through Grace’s mind.
In the midst of imagining a series of asylums her mother could be taking her to, Grace fell asleep again, the hum of the air conditioner and the engine too hypnotic to resist. Only when the car was parked did Grace wake up, slowly swimming up through her muddy brain into consciousness. When she awoke, for just a second, li
fe was as it had been before. But then there was the jolt of her new reality, and that heavy feeling, like a cold, hard rock in her stomach, returned.
“Grace, wake up. We’re here,” Betsy said tersely, poking Grace’s shoulder with her index finger, making as little physical contact as possible.
At her mother’s touch, Grace sat bolt upright. Thus far, the top-secret mother-daughter outing had not prompted much of a thaw in family relations, but at least her mother was still talking to her.
“Where’s here?” Grace sat up and stretched, looking out the car window at a large mirrored glass office building. The landscape was completely unfamiliar to her.
Ignoring Grace’s question, Betsy got out, slammed the car door behind her, and marched across the parking lot toward the glass cube. Running to catch up with her mother, Grace considered the possibilities. Perhaps Betsy was taking her to a doctor before she took her to the home for unwed mothers. Or maybe there was an adoption agency in this building. It was no use asking. Betsy was clearly still not speaking to her unless absolutely necessary, and Grace would find out soon enough.
Two minutes later they were in the waiting room of a place called the Women’s Health Center of Massachusetts. Grace could understand that Betsy wanted to avoid the local obstetrician, but had it really been necessary to drive all the way to Massachusetts to get a prenatal exam? Taking a seat at one end of a worn leather sofa, Grace picked up a parenting magazine and pretended to read. Across from her, a blond girl who looked about her age gnawed nervously on her fingernails and stared at her feet. In another chair sat a forty-something woman, clearly the biter’s mother, flipping violently through an old issue of National Geographic.
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