by Sarina Bowen
“The wastebasket is right here,” Norah says. “Or you could always try the toilet.”
“Oh,” I moan. My stomach feels foamy and hot. I stand up and take myself into the bathroom just in time to puke again. I wipe my mouth with toilet paper and flush twice.
“All right.” Norah sighs. “You’re going to be fine. It’s not the most memorable ending to your first concert, but everybody does it at some point.”
“It’s not,” I say. It’s bitter medicine to be cared for by Norah.
“It’s not what?”
“My first concert.”
“My bad.” Norah is giving me a wide berth, but I don’t take it.
“I was thirteen. He played Orlando.” I open my eyes to find Norah watching me, curiosity written all over her face. I close my eyes again. “I spent all my money on a scalped ticket.”
“Oh Rachel,” Norah whispers.
Unfortunately, that’s only part of the story. First, I’d begged my mother to get tickets. The concert had been in June. “For my birthday,” I’d bargained. “My only present.”
“Well, that’s just pathetic,” my mother had said. “It doesn’t make sense for us to pay for tickets to his concert.”
“Then ask for them,” I pleaded. There was a P.O. box number on the checks. My mother always said she didn’t know where he was, but I knew it was just an excuse.
“You know I’m not going to do that,” she’d said. She wouldn’t even speak his name, let alone ask him for a favor.
I’d expected my mother to cave in and buy me a ticket. But she didn’t. For my birthday, I received a pretty dress from Abercrombie and an iTunes gift card.
“You went to the concert by yourself?” Norah asks me now. Her voice is cautious.
I burp before answering her. “I was grounded for a month afterward.”
And it hadn’t even been worth it. I was high up in the second balcony, and Frederick was a tiny Lego minifigure below. Every fantasy I’d ever had about meeting him was shattered that night. Somehow, I’d expected that he would notice I was there, or someone would spot me and alert him.
I was only thirteen. That night, I’d felt lost in the crowd of thousands. The cheering mob, concert T-shirts I couldn’t afford, and a long bus ride home afterwards just added to my misery. And the funk had lasted for months, souring my interest in everything.
Norah’s voice cuts through the fog in my head. “Rachel, did you ever tell your father about that?”
“No.” My voice sounds like gravel. “And neither will you.”
* * *
I throw up only once more, after which there’s a lull in my misery. Then my head begins to ache. I lay alone in the dark. The doors between our rooms are left ajar, and I can hear Norah turning the pages of her book.
I must have fallen asleep, because when I register my father’s voice, he and Norah are arguing in the dark.
“Why didn’t you come and get me?” he asks.
“There was no need. It’s not a big deal.”
“Like hell it isn’t! There are creepy guys who work these things. If she wants to come along on junkets, this can’t happen. I have to be able to turn my back for a couple of hours without hiring a nanny.”
The sound of his voice comes closer, and I flinch.
“You wait a minute,” Norah’s whisper is a hiss. “Calm down first. There’s something you don’t understand. Not all of us are used to sitting at the cool kids’ table,” she says. “This is all pretty hard to take. And I have a question.”
I stop breathing. I’d been stupid to confide in Norah. But the temptation to shock her had been too strong.
“What?”
“Have you ever had a serious argument with Rachel? Has she ever challenged you in any real way?”
He’s quiet at first. “I suppose it doesn’t count that we don’t like the same things on pizza.”
“What did she say when you told her I was pregnant?”
“She said… ‘Wow, really?’ And ‘I guess this means you’re staying in Claiborne.’”
“I rest my case.”
“And now I’m totally lost.”
“Look, Frederick. What she meant was, ‘How could you, asshole?’ I know you think the world of Rachel, and you should. But getting along perfectly—that’s not a sign of her good nature, that’s fear.”
“Well, that’s heavy. Thanks for that.”
“She has to test you, Frederick. She knows you’ve got her back when she’s got straight A’s at Claiborne. But she has no idea how you’d deal with her if she needed bailing out of jail.”
“And you got all this just from watching her puke?”
“Insecurity and I are very old friends. We go way back.”
He laughs, but it has a nervous quality. “So instead of yelling at her, oh great one, what would you have me do?”
“You still get to say your piece. But you say it tomorrow, calmly, and when she’s sober enough to hear you. Right now you can check her breathing, be nice, and tell her the worst is over.”
“How much did she drink, anyway? Should I be worried?”
“It was just your average teenage puke. No records were broken.”
The edge of my bed depresses a minute later. “Rachel.” He puts a hand on my shoulder.
“Hmmm?” I do my best impression of a sleeping drunk. Not like it’s hard.
“I hear you tossed your cookies.”
I turn my face away.
The mattress wiggles as he lies down on the bed next to me. One hand skims over my hair. “Rachel, I love you anyway.”
My eyes burn. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard those words from him. I blink into the darkness, trying to hold still. And he stays a while beside me, which is all I’ve ever wanted from him.
After I begin to doze, I feel him rise and tiptoe away. I hear him slide the door barely closed, as if trying to shut it without the loud click. But a minute later I feel the breeze of my door fanning open again in the pitch dark. The pain in my head has ramped up, and there’s an evil taste in my mouth. But I feel too poorly to get up and fix it.
“Oh, honey,” I hear Frederick say. “I’m getting a tattoo. You know what it’s going to say? Three words. ‘Listen to Norah.’”
“Can I choose the location?” There’s the sound of soft laughter, and then a rumpled silence which implies kissing.
I’ve almost fallen asleep again when I hear him speak one more time. “Marry me, Norah.”
My eyes snap open again.
But Norah’s answer surprises me. “One of these days I’m going to say ‘yes,’ and then you’ll have to go through with it.”
“Try me,” he says.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Spring finally shows signs of arriving in Claiborne. It’s still cool, but the snow is gone. There are little buds on the trees, and the air smells muddy and green.
But I’m completely depressed.
I’m annoyed with Frederick and lonely for Jake. Aurora is preoccupied, and midterms loom.
It’s a Thursday afternoon, and I usually spend those with my father. “Guitar today?” he asks me on the phone. “I could bring it over to your place.”
At least he’s noticed how uncomfortable I am at Norah’s house. But I feel too troubled to sit and struggle with the guitar. “I would rather walk. It’s nice out.”
So we meet in front of the library and head west.
“What’s the matter?” my father asks after only about ten paces.
Perhaps my poker face needs work. But what to say? Of all the things on my mind, most of them have to do with him. Except for one.
“Spit it out already,” he prompts.
“Well… There’s a boyfriend.” Or there was, anyway.
“And he’s a problem? Wait, is it that guy from Florida?”
“No.” I shake my head. “You haven’t met him. He’s great, and he likes me a lot.”
Frederick waits.
“And I like him a
lot too.” We turn left to angle toward the pond.
“I’m still waiting for the ‘but,’” my father says. “So far this is a happy tune. Nobody is singing the blues.”
“Right.” And that’s as far as I get. I’m too chicken to go on.
“So, is this conversation about sex?”
I feel my cheeks get hot. “It might be.”
“Well, hallelujah! My area of expertise.”
I laugh for the first time all week.
“Seriously, I’m on very solid ground here. Also, I don’t embarrass.”
“Okayyy…” We continue walking. “Well, it’s just not something I do. It’s a deal I had with my mom.”
“And when was this deal struck?”
“At birth.” My whole life, she’d made it clear that she blamed herself for her own setbacks. If I’d had you at thirty instead of twenty, I’d probably be a doctor right now. But you’re smarter than I am, she’d always add. Translation: Don’t even think about it.
“I see.” He’s silent for a moment. “Do you think she expected you to carry it to your grave?”
“No.” I snort. “But she wanted me to graduate from college more than anything.”
“I’m sure that’s true. But I’m also sure that you will.” We reach the pond and turn onto the grass. “Rachel, it’s great that you take this seriously, and God knows you don’t want to get pregnant. But telling yourself that sex just isn’t part of your life is a doomed strategy. It’s part of being human; you can’t just turn off the urge. When you try to steamroll nature, that’s when the stupid shit happens.”
I grimace. “I guess you do know a thing or two about this.”
“Yes ma’am, I do. The trick is to know your heart ahead of time. Don’t let a guy do your thinking for you. He will go until you say stop.”
That sounds depressingly familiar.
“Now, abstaining, that’s very effective birth control. But you have to be upfront about it. Tell him when he can hear you, which is when you both still have clothes on. If he’s a good guy, he’ll understand. He might not even mind. There’s a lot of fun two people can have in a bed without doing the deed.”
I’m glad I don’t have to look him in the eye. He wasn’t kidding about not getting embarrassed. “Because…” I clear my throat. “Every method of birth control still leaves a risk.”
“Sure, but it’s risky just crossing the street, right? And a smart girl like you—if she wants to—can figure out how to protect herself. If I were you…” He thinks for a second. “At this fancy school, I’m sure they give out the Pill like candy. If that’s where things are going with this boy, make an appointment and go get them. But then you keep that information to yourself. Make him wear one every time. And he won’t mind, because he’ll think it’s the only thing standing between him and the world’s most awkward conversation.”
“Isn’t that dishonest?”
He shakes his head. “That way if you forget one, you don’t have to worry.”
My head spins. “Okay—winner! This is our weirdest conversation ever.” Although my birth must have turned him into a birth-control connoisseur.
He stops. “Rachel, it isn’t even close to our weirdest conversation. It wouldn’t even make the top ten.” He leans down to palm a stone. “The winner is the one about why I couldn’t even send you a birthday card for seventeen years.”
But we never actually have that conversation.
Aloud I say, “I thought you didn’t embarrass?”
He tosses the stone into the pond. “There’s a difference between simple embarrassment and deep shame.”
* * *
We walk back the long way, past the college football field.
“Can I ask you something?” I ask.
“Anything.”
“Did you mean to have a baby with Norah?”
He whistles. “I’m not going to lie, Rachel. The short answer is no.”
I hold my breath. That’s just what I’d guessed.
“But now I’m really excited about it,” he says. “It broke us up for a little while, though.”
“I see.”
“Well, you probably can’t see, honestly. Because there’s a lot more to the story. Before I met Norah she was trying to have a baby, all by herself.”
“Really?”
“It’s a little weird, telling you her troubles. But I don’t think she’d mind. She went to doctors who deal with that sort of thing, and it wasn’t working.”
“And then…it suddenly did?”
“Yeah. And it freaked both of us out. But I got over it. The trouble was that she didn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, she felt so damned guilty. The thesaurus is full of words for women who end up pregnant by accident. Knocked up… You’ve heard them all.”
“Did you know that the Spanish word for ‘pregnant’ is embarazada? Embarrassed.”
“I didn’t. But what do you call a man who sleeps around?”
“A player.”
“That’s right. So there’s Norah, who had always organized her life the way you do—college degree, graduate school. A smart lady. And she has to tell her boyfriend—who has a shitty track record with relationships—that she’s pregnant. So just to prove that I wasn’t on the hook, she vanished. She cut me off. That got my attention, because I’d gotten used to having a sane, intelligent woman sitting across the table every night. That’s when I figured out that being a player wasn’t fun anymore. I had to beg her to let me settle down.”
“That seems backwards.”
“It does to you, because your life isn’t a wreck. But when you’re me, backwards is forwards. Every good thing that’s ever happened to me was an accident. Think about it. I became a singer because I was too lazy to do real work. My first record deal happened because the producer showed up at the wrong club on the wrong night. And then there’s you, another accident. And your poor mom dying gave you back to me. Then Norah thought she was too old to get pregnant, so now I get to have an even bigger family.”
It is, hands down, the longest speech Frederick has ever given me. “You’re, like, a double negative. Everything wrong goes right.”
“Eventually, anyway. And what’s the trouble with double negatives?”
“They’re confusing.”
“Absofuckinglutely. There were plenty of tears over Norah’s pregnancy, and that’s between two people with good jobs, and enough money, who love each other. So if you want to avoid a lot of heartache, keep doing things your way. Have a plan.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Two days later, I come home from class to find a paper bag leaning against our door. “Rachel” is penned on the outside. I open it to find a big box of condoms inside—a variety pack. There’s a note. Rachel—These expire four years from now. So no hurry. Dad.
“Oh my God!” I yelp, blushing in the empty stairwell. Then I go inside to find a good hiding place for them.
Since our confrontation on his bed, Jake and I haven’t shared more than polite conversation. And today I’d spied him in the dining hall, surrounded by a laughing cluster of junior-year girls.
I’d felt it like a kick to my gut.
“Where’s Jake?” Aurora asks from the window seat, as if reading my mind. She glances around our messy room, as if she might have misplaced him. “I haven’t seen him in a while.”
“I guess he’s busy,” I say, trying to keep the pain out of my voice.
Aurora eyes me over the top edge of her computer screen. “Too busy for you? Never.”
I’d been meaning to plunge into my Spanish homework. But my mind is too cluttered right now. “I’m going to clean up a little bit. I can’t think.”
“Digame, Rachel. What’s the problem with Jake?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I begin stacking the papers on my desk, where things have gotten out of hand.
“That boy loves you. It can’t be all that bad. Tell me.”
> “I’ll tell you,” I snap. “Just as soon as you introduce me to your secret boyfriend.”
Aurora gives me a look of anguish. Then she puts her eyes back onto her computer screen, and doesn’t say another word to me.
Feeling guilty, I go into our bedroom and begin to clean up, hoping it will clear my head. I ferry a big stack of last semester’s notes into the recycling bin. I stack up Aurora’s magazines, where they’ve slid all over the floor of our bedroom. It feels good to do something productive.
Missing Jake makes me crabby. I don’t like thinking of myself as someone who needs a boy’s attention. “The trouble with so many women,” my mother used to say, “is that they think they need a man to define them. But the man, on the other hand, he wants only one thing.”
Dropping another armload of old paper into the bin, I get stuck on a very uncharitable thought. My mother had a lot of things to say about men. But no man ever set foot over the threshold of our house, unless he was there to fix an appliance or read our water meter.
Why was that? Fear? It’s like Frederick giving up driving after hitting a single tree.
And no matter what Mom might say, right this second I’d give anything to be able to call her up and pour out my heart. Anything.
Tidying up my dresser gives me something to do with my hands. I banish all the hair bands and brushes into the top drawer. I change the sheets on my bed, knotting all of my dirty laundry inside them.
Plugging in the old vacuum we’d bought at the second-hand store, I attack the dust bunnies in the corners of our bedroom. The place is starting to look better. Using an old T-shirt, I even dust the things on my bureau. My mother’s jewelry box is there, with a dust-free rectangle underneath it. I set it down on the bed while I work.
The jewelry box is the last thing I wipe clean. Opening the top, I set the tray of my mother’s jewelry aside and turn my attention to the pictures underneath. There I am on Santa’s knee, smiling. I’d been six or seven. My mother told me that when I was littler, we’d wait in the line to see Santa, only to have me chicken out at the last minute.
