sedona files - books one to three

by Christine Pope

  Thankfully, Jerri didn’t say anything except “Hi, Kara, how’s business?” before scanning the barcode on the pregnancy test and dropping it promptly in a bag, as if she instinctively knew that the less time it was visible, the better.

  “Fine,” Kara managed, before handing Jerry a twenty. This was one transaction she definitely didn’t want on her debit card.

  And then she was done and was out, hurrying back to her car and tearing out of the parking lot at a speed that was definitely not safe. Good thing Sedona’s finest all seemed to be occupied elsewhere at the moment.

  Kara pulled into the garage and rushed into the house, ignoring Gort’s inquiring brown eyes, dropping her purse on the living room, practically sprinting into the bathroom. No need to look at the instructions; she’d had to use one of these things years ago, in a scare when she was still with Alan and she was sure the Pill had failed her then, too. That was all this would turn out to be, she told herself. Just nerves. Just jumping to conclusions because she’d been so on edge lately.

  Peeing on a stick was not a graceful endeavor no matter how you looked at it, but she performed the task with a minimum of mess and somehow managed to wait the required three minutes. Then she bit her lip and looked down at the little pale pink stick.

  Two lines.

  The bile rose in her throat again, and she choked it back. After swallowing, she looked back down again, but those two lines were still there, staring up at her.

  It was impossible. It had to be impossible. But the test claimed to be ninety-nine-percent accurate.

  Yeah, well, they say the same thing about the Pill.

  Then again, the Pill had never really been designed to stand up to alien super-sperm, had it? Or maybe she was forgetting how it really worked.

  Logically she knew the test could still be wrong. Somehow, though, she realized it wasn’t, that despite her precautions, something had happened. Something she had never imagined in a million years.

  Shaking, she bent her head, unable to tear her gaze away from those two accusing little lines. Finally she shut her eyes, although she knew that wouldn’t make them go away.

  Oh, God. What do I do now?

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Kara debated between going to the Planned Parenthood in Flagstaff or the one over in Prescott, then decided there was less chance of running into anyone she knew over Prescott way. True, it had been years since she’d gone to college or lived in Flagstaff, but you never knew. And there was no way she was going to her regular G.P., Lisa Michaels, for this. If it turned out she really was pregnant and not just having a screaming case of the heebie-jeebies, she’d figure it out then, but in the meantime Kara wanted to keep things as much on the down-low as possible.

  So she got in her car and headed out at roughly nine the next morning, after asking Kiki if she could watch the store until she got back. Of course Kara didn’t say where she was going or why, but Kiki somehow seemed to sense that any questions she asked weren’t going to get answers. She’d only said, “Sure, no problem,” and then asked if it was okay if Jeff hung out at the store for a while.

  By that point Kara was feeling so wretched that she really didn’t care if Jeff took up residence in the place, so she said that would be fine, and hung up. What was really going on between those two?

  With a head shake she dispelled nightmarish visions of Jeff Makowski as her future brother-in-law and pointed the car south on 179. This route was slightly out of the way, but she just didn’t feel like dealing with the switchbacks on 89A as it went over the mountains. Besides, she had no wish to go back through Jerome and be reminded of her idyllic day with Grayson there.

  She brought along some bottled water in case the nausea returned, but it seemed to have retreated for now. Her thoughts jumped this way and that, not settling on any one thing. Foremost among them, though, seemed to be, What the hell am I going to say to Lance?

  Worry about that when you need to, she told herself sternly, and forced herself to look at the sere golden fields passing by, the rock formations, the bruise-colored mass of clouds piling up to the south and east. It might be raining by the time she returned home, but she couldn’t worry about that now. The Prius had new tires, and she was a good driver.

  The miles blew past. She knew she was speeding, although she couldn’t seem to ease off on the accelerator. Stupid, really, because if she got there too early all she’d end up doing would be sitting and waiting with a bunch of pregnant women, some of whom — maybe most of whom? — would have small children with them. Not that she minded kids, but dealing with a horde of screaming toddlers was really not what her nerves needed right now.

  She came down into Prescott, drove through its quiet streets, past the historic downtown area, and pulled into the parking lot for Planned Parenthood. The building was new and modern and very clean, and it helped put her mind at ease somewhat. Also, the waiting room wasn’t too crowded — just two other women sat on the chairs there, one who looked as if she was about to pop at any moment. The second woman was barely more than a girl, and she didn’t appear any more pregnant than Kara herself did. She looked around furtively in between bursts of rapid-fire texting on her phone. Kara wondered if she was there for a morning-after pill.

  Too late for that for me, she thought, as she signed herself in and sat down to wait.

  The pregnant woman was called almost immediately, which was something of a relief, since that seemed to indicate the staff there were dedicated to making sure patients were seen quickly. Instead of looking down at her watch, Kara forced herself to gaze over at the closed-circuit TV with its ongoing round of bite-sized shows with information about pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, family planning.

  What about family not-planning? she wondered, and had to bite back a small, nervous giggle. Luckily, Texting Girl didn’t seem to be paying her any attention.

  The minutes crawled by. After a bit, Texting Girl got up, had a brief whispered convo with the receptionist, and scurried out, looking both frightened and relieved at the same time. Had she come for a morning-after pill? A D&C? Free birth control pills after being pressured by a boyfriend?

  Impossible to know, although worrying about someone else’s problems helped Kara take her mind off hers for a while.

  Then the receptionist, a comfortable-looking redhead in her fifties, said, “Kara Swenson?”

  Taking a breath, Kara got up and followed the woman to a place where she was weighed, then guided into an exam room and given a cup.

  “Just put it on the ledge over here when you’re done. A nurse will be in to take your blood pressure in a moment,” the receptionist instructed her.

  So which was worse, peeing in a cup or peeing on a stick? Kara really didn’t know, but she performed the procedure with too much trouble, put the cup on its ledge, and headed back into the exam room, where she put on the paper garments they’d left for her and waited.

  A minute or two later the nurse came in, asked the standard questions, then took her blood pressure and temperature. “So what are your symptoms?”

  “Nausea, sore breasts.”

  The nurse made a few notes. “Got it. We’re going to run the test, and then the doctor will be in to see you.”

  Kara nodded, not quite trusting her voice. Every passing moment in the place seemed to make the possibility more real, that she could actually be pregnant. She’d wanted to think it was just a mistake, that the home test had thrown back a false positive for some reason. Never mind that those things were actually highly accurate.

  So she sat there with her feet dangling off the exam table, and stared down at her toes. The polish was starting to chip, she realized. She’d have to schedule a pedicure sometime soon.

  Oh, yeah, I’ll just squeeze that in between handling an alien invasion and having E.T.’s baby, she thought, and made an odd little hiccuping noise, halfway between a sob and a laugh. Maybe coming here alone wasn’t such a great idea. Maybe she should have told Persephone,
had her come along —

  The door opened, and the doctor, a pretty Filipina probably around Kara’s age, came in. She smiled, her brown eyes warm and sympathetic. “Hi, Ms. Swenson. I’m Dr. Santos.”

  “Hi.”

  “We just ran the test, and you are pregnant.”

  The bottom seemed to fall out of the world, or at least it tilted on its axis, swung crazily around her. Kara gripped the edges of the exam table and told herself, You will not pass out. You will not pass out…

  Dr. Santos’ voice was very kind. “I take it this wasn’t planned.”

  Somehow Kara managed to nod. “I’m on the Pill.”

  “I see.” A pause, then, “If you’re planning to continue with the pregnancy, then of course you need to stop taking it immediately.”

  Was she planning to continue with the pregnancy? She couldn’t think about that right now, couldn’t seem to think about anything except those three words swirling around in her brain. You are pregnant. You are PREGNANT. You ARE pregnant…

  Hazily, she realized Dr. Santos had said something else. “I’m sorry, can you repeat that?”

  The doctor paused. “Are you all right, Ms. Swenson? Did you bring someone with you?”

  “No, I’m fine. Really. What did you say?”

  “I said that, based on the level of HCGs in your system, you’re about three weeks along. It’s still very early.”

  Never mind that three weeks ago she hadn’t been with anybody. Maybe the test was off. “Is this where you start to talk to me about my options?”

  “Do you need me to?”

  Wearily, Kara shook her head. “No, I think I know what comes next. But I’ve got time to decide.”

  “Some, yes. But in the meantime you should still take care of yourself, rest, eat healthy, avoid alcohol.”

  Naturally. Never mind that at the moment she wanted a margarita roughly the size of her head. “Thanks, Dr. Santos. I’ll be careful.”

  The doctor didn’t appear entirely convinced, but she just made a notation on her chart before adding, “We can set you up for a follow-up appointment in a few weeks, or if you have a doctor back in…” She stopped to read Kara’s chart. “…Sedona, we can forward the results there.”

  “I’m not sure yet. I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

  “Not a problem. Take care, Ms. Swenson.” And she went out, no doubt to see a patient who wasn’t pregnant with an alien’s baby.

  Kara peeled off the paper examination gown, got dressed, and headed for home.

  * * *

  If possible, the drive back seemed even longer. As she turned off Highway 69 onto I-17 northward, rain began to fall. She turned on the windshield wipers. With every scratch back and forth across the windshield, they seemed to be saying, “You’re pregnant! You’re pregnant!”

  Angrily she switched on the radio, but of course out here she couldn’t get much more than static, and she’d forgotten to bring her iPod with her as she rushed out of the house earlier that morning. Nothing to do but push grimly northward, heading home, even though it didn’t seem to be the refuge it once was.

  Over the years she’d reconciled herself to the fact that she didn’t have any kind of mother figure in her life, but now she longed for someone like that, someone she could just fall upon and weep, someone who would tell her it was going to be all right, even if it wasn’t. Yes, Kiki was very dear to her, but Kara was her sister’s mother figure, not the other way around.

  As she turned off the freeway and onto 179 to head up into Sedona, she pulled out her cell phone and called Persephone. Persephone would listen to her, would help her figure out what she was supposed to do next. Persephone wouldn’t judge.

  She sounded a little surprised to hear an obviously shaky Kara request a meeting at the Secret Garden Café, but she agreed right away. “Paul and Michael and Grayson are all huddled in Paul’s study, having some sort of council of war. I’d complain about the sexism of them locking me out, but I know I suck at strategy. So you’ll be there…when, a little after one?”

  “Something like that,” Kara replied, relieved beyond measure that Persephone didn’t have a client scheduled. She actually kept pretty busy, had even retained a few of her L.A. clients, who would make the trek out to Arizona once a month to receive her pearls of wisdom. One of them was some sort of big-shot producer who flew in on a private jet and then hired someone to drive him around Sedona for the weekend. Kara couldn’t really wrap her brain around that kind of extravagance, but it didn’t seem to faze Persephone.

  The café was a little crowded, since it was the tail end of lunch, but luckily Persephone appeared to have gone early so she could snag them a shady table in one corner of the patio. The rain hadn’t gotten here yet, but the heat, instead of feeling oppressive, seemed to wrap itself around Kara, helped to still the shakiness of her limbs.

  She’d barely slid into her chair when Sharon, one of the restaurant’s co-owners, came up and asked what they’d like.

  “Iced tea,” Kara said automatically, then realized she wasn’t supposed to be drinking caffeine. Sorry, kid…you’ll just have to suck it up this one time.

  Persephone ordered the same, and then sat back a little and watched Kara with speculative eyes. “You’ve just had some bad news.”

  “Seph, please don’t do the psychic thing right now. I called you because I needed a friend.”

  At once the other woman leaned forward and clasped her hands on the tabletop. “Sorry, Kara. It’s just — it’s coming off you in waves. It’s hard not to pick it up.”

  Sharon emerged then with their iced teas and asked if they wanted to order anything. Kara’s appetite seemed to have deserted her, but Persephone came to the rescue and said they’d like to split an order of bruschetta while they made up their minds.

  “So what is it, Kara?”

  There was no way to say it easily. She blurted, “I’m pregnant.”

  That obviously surprised Persephone. Her hazel-green eyes widened, and she sat silent for a moment before venturing, “How is that possible? I mean, you’ve only been with Lance a few days, and even Grayson…”

  She trailed off, and Kara said, “According to the test, I’m about three weeks along. Never mind that three weeks ago my only sexual partner was a vibrator, and I’m pretty sure those don’t go around knocking people up.”

  Persephone’s cheeks flushed, but she replied steadily enough, “Then how is this possible?”

  “I don’t know! I don’t know anything, except I’ve been feeling sick, and my boobs feel like a couple of sandbags, and two separate pregnancy tests are telling me I’m pregnant.”

  “But you…you were careful, weren’t you?”

  Kara smiled humorlessly, and wondered if the expression made her look a little bit like a shark. “I’m on the Pill. And I used a condom with Grayson every time. Every time…except one.” Her voice faltered a little as she recalled those moments of abandon, when all she’d wanted was him, just the feel of him inside her. She’d thought the Pill would be protection enough. Guess she thought wrong. Those suckers weren’t designed to stand up to alien super-hybrid sperm, apparently.

  Wow. She’d actually managed to render Persephone Oliver speechless. The woman just sat there, staring at Kara, obviously searching for something appropriately comforting to say and coming up empty.

  “It’s okay,” Kara said, “I’m feeling pretty gobsmacked right now, too.”

  The bruschetta showed up then, and surprisingly, it smelled great. Kara picked up a piece, bit into it, while Persephone appeared to gather herself before saying,

  “So…have you thought about what you’re going to do next?”

  Well, since I can’t drown myself in a margarita, not really. Kara set down her half-eaten piece of bruschetta, hesitated a long time before answering. The answer had begun to surface all during the drive here, even though at the time she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it, didn’t want to face what she knew she had to do.

/>   “I’m…well, I guess I’m going to stay the course. Not because I’m some sort of holier-than-thou right-to-life person, but because of Kiki.”

  “Kiki?” Persephone asked, surprise once again lifting her eyebrows.

  Kara reflected on how much they still didn’t know about one another, despite becoming friends over the past five months. “Kiki wasn’t exactly planned, you might say. And my mother, being the mess she was, sort of waffled over whether or not to get an abortion until it was too late for her to do anything about it. And if she had, well, I wouldn’t have a little sister. So I just don’t think I could get rid of this baby and be able to look at myself in the mirror in the morning, not when I know that about my sister.”

  Unexpectedly, Persephone reached across the little wrought-iron tabletop and gave Kara’s hand a quick squeeze before releasing it again. “I understand. But if you’re already supposedly three weeks along when it’s only been a few days…”

  “I know,” Kara said, and forced herself to take another bite of bruschetta, although her mouth at the moment felt drier than the desert outside town. “It’s not going to be a normal pregnancy. But if I can’t get help for this sort of thing from a group of UFO chasers, then where can I?”

  Persephone stared at her for a second or two, then actually laughed. “You’re right. Guess I hadn’t thought about it that way. I’m sure Paul has some connections.”

  And I’ll have to hope they know how to keep their mouths shut. But Kara didn’t give voice to this worry, instead drinking her iced tea and then managing a smile. Of course it was fake; her insides felt like ice. This talk with Persephone was the easy part.

  She still had to face Grayson and Lance…and she had no idea which of those interviews was going to be the worst.

  * * *

  Lance watched Grayson as the hybrid and Paul went over an aerial map of Boynton Canyon, and wondered whether he’d be quite that calm if he were planning his own death.