The Ordinary Life of Emily P. Bates

by Anna Cackler

  “Well this isn’t your business either!” I snatched back the beaker and tried to measure out four milliliters for the fifth time.

  “Emily P. Bates, you are driving me insane with curiosity!”

  “Curiosity killed the cat.” My hands were shaking too badly now. I just gave up and dumped the inaccurate amount into the mixture over the Bunsen burner.

  “I’m not a stupid cat, Emily!”

  This was just too much. I ripped off my goggles and apron and dropped them on the counter.

  “Emily?” Shannon asked, startled.

  “I’m getting out of here.”

  “But-”

  I pushed open the door that led to the classroom and stalked through it. There was no one in there, not even Mr. Lankford, which was odd. I didn’t care, though. I wasn’t thinking about the fact that I was preparing to skip school, nor that I was planning to do it without a car. I grabbed my coat off of the back of my desk and stepped out into the hallway.

  “Ms. Bates?” Mr. Lankford was walking toward me from the direction of the office.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, thinking fast. “I have a project I’m working on in--ah--art class. I’m done with the lab.”

  “Wait, Ms. Bates.”

  “Sorry, I’ve got to go.” I walked by him.

  “Stop!”

  I halted and turned to look at him. I expected him to be mad, but I wasn’t prepared for the look of worry on his face. “Your dad’s just arrived. He needs to see you in the office.”

  My heart stopped. Dad was here? That could not be good news. There was no way. The only reason he’d ever bother coming up to school was if Mom had gotten worse. Much worse. She would be in the hospital.

  I turned and sprinted down the hall towards the office where I found Dad pacing the small lobby area.

  “Dad?” I said in a choked voice. “What happened?”

  He grabbed my elbow and led me right back out of the office. “She passed out,” he said as we walked. He shoved the front doors open and we stalked through into the icy wind. “I had to call an ambulance an hour ago.”

  “An hour ago? Why didn’t you call me?”

  “Because I didn’t want to worry you while we got her taken care of! There was nothing you could do, anyway.”

  “Well you’re worrying me now!”

  He let go of my arm so that I could walk around to the passenger’s side of his blue sedan and I climbed inside.

  “She’s all right now,” Dad said, brushing his unkempt hair out of his eyes. “She’ll be fine, but the baby’s having a hard time of it. As of right now it’s stable.” He pulled the car out of the parking lot and before I knew it we were speeding along the highway towards the hospital.

  “They’re going to deliver?” I asked.

  “In the morning. They’ve scheduled a c-section.”

  “But the baby? Isn’t it too early?”

  Dad didn’t reply. His eyes were red, but he hadn’t cried yet. Not yet. He wouldn’t cry until the news was definitive.

  I, on the other hand, had lost control. My eyes were streaming now, and so was my nose. Dad dug around in his back seat and produced a box of tissues. I took several and started dabbing at my eyes. “She’s gonna be all right, isn’t she?”

  “Your mother will be fine.”

  “How fine?”

  “She’ll be fine!” He spoke much more forcefully this time, making me jump. I sniffed and turned to stare out of the window. There was nothing more to say. Not now.

  Twenty

  When we got the hospital, we ran inside. Dad completely bypassed the nurse’s station and led me into the elevator. Mom’s room was on the third floor. Aaron was already there.

  “Mom?” I whimpered. Her face and hands were clammy and pasty, but her expression was one of pure contentment. I stopped short. “Mom? Are you high?”

  She grinned at me. “Prescription painkillers are wonderful.”

  “Your mother is a little loopy,” Dad said.

  “You know,” Mom continued in a conversational tone, “I was having the worst cramps and headaches earlier, but now I’m feeling great! Great!” Aaron was shaking his head from his seat in the window.

  “I’m glad, Mom,” I said. I went over to the side of her bed and took her hand, careful to avoid the IV sticking out of it. “Are you worried?”

  “Worried?” she asked. “Why should I be worried? I’m excited. We’re having a baby in the morning!”

  I smiled despite myself. “Yeah, we’re having a baby in the morning.”

  She returned the smile easily and her head fell back against her pillow.

  Mom fell asleep shortly after that and stayed out for the rest of the day. Nurses were coming in and out every couple of hours to check on her, but she was doing okay so far. They did a couple of ultrasounds just to check on the baby, but they didn’t seem too concerned about anything they saw in the fuzzy black and white image.

  “The baby’s still holding in there,” said the ultrasound technician around nine that night. “It must have a strong will to survive.”

  Dad snorted. “Or to get its own way. Judging by its predecessors, anyway.” I glared at him, but didn’t say anything. Every time a nurse came into the room, he stiffened up again, but when they left unconcerned, he seemed to relax a little.

  As soon as the ultrasound technician left, Dad turned to study my face. “You look a little tired. You two should go home and get some sleep.” Aaron was already dozing with his head against the window.

  “I’m not going anywhere, Dad.”

  “I don’t want you two sleeping on this hard floor tonight.” There was only one reclining chair in the room, and he’d already called dibs on that. “Go get some sleep. Your mother’s just going to be sleeping until it’s time for the surgery anyway.”

  “But what if something happens?”

  “I’ll call you straight away. You can be back up here in five minutes. You won’t miss a thing, I promise.”

  “I’m not going home,” I said. “I couldn’t stand being there by myself.”

  “Aaron’s going with you.”

  “Aaron doesn’t count!” I said. My brother snorted and shifted his position against the cold glass.

  “Emily, just go get some sleep. Go to Shannon’s place, maybe? I’ll even give you Mom’s cell so you can be sure to get the call. You can sleep with it in your hand if you want to.”

  I looked over at Mom and the tent her belly was making under the blanket. She looked so peaceful in the dim light, but I couldn’t imagine away the stark white sheets and her clammy face. “You promise you’ll call if something happens?”

  “I promise. I’ll be here with her the whole time.”

  I went over and punched Aaron in the arm to wake him up. We had to repeat the whole discussion with him, but we finally convinced him to take me home after a good twenty minutes of arguing.

  Dad gave me Mom’s cell phone and the spare key to Mom’s car so that I could drive it to Shannon’s house. I turned the volume up to the max and turned on vibrate as well, just in case.

  It was Finn’s house, too. He’d just be in the next room. Between Ethan’s idiacy and my own, Finn probably hated me now.

  I shook my head and forced myself to focus.

  Aaron didn’t say a word to me the whole way home, and went straight up to his room the instant we arrived. I went up to my own bedroom and started gathering up a few necessities: toothbrush, pajama pants, and a bag full of the chocolate chip cookies I’d made a few nights before. I’d really brushed Shannon off the last time I’d talked to her so I had to arrive with a peace offering.

  I climbed into my mother’s Volvo and started the engine. It only took me ten minutes to make it across town to the O’Malley house, but I sat out front for a good half hour before I could work up the courage to go knock on the door. One of the O’Malley twins was in love with me and was probably now under the impression that I’d thrown that right back in his face by gett
ing back together with Ethan. The other one I’d thoroughly alienated by refusing to confide in her when she knew good and well something was terribly wrong. Mr. O’Malley was a pushover, though. The only thing I was worried about on his account was the late hour. I hadn’t even called to say I was coming over.

  It was almost ten thirty when I finally got up the courage to ring the doorbell. Mr. O’Malley answered almost immediately, his red hair disheveled. He still had the phone in his hand. “Emily. I just got off the phone with your dad. Come on in.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Do you need anything? Can I get you something?”

  I shook my head with a sniff. “No. I think I’ll just go up to Shannon’s room if that’s all right.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, go on up. She doesn’t know you’re here yet, though.”

  “All right. Thanks.” I smiled up at the big red headed man, and he smiled back kindly. I winced and looked away. He and Finn had the same smile.

  I climbed the stairs numbly and hesitated in front of Shannon’s door for a full minute and half before finally knocking.

  “Go away, Finn!” she shouted from inside.

  I knocked again, and this time I got a response. Shannon whipped open the door with an angry look on her face. “I told you I--oh.” She stopped, waiting for me to say something.

  I held out the bag of cookies and said, “I brought you cookies.” That was all I could get out before everything came crashing down on me. Everything that had happened in the past two days, everything over Christmas holidays just collapsed around my shoulders. My throat constricted, sending stabbing pains all up and down my neck and the tears started to flow in real desperation. There was no helping it.

  “Oh Emily!” Shannon cried. “Come here! What happened?” She held out her arms and I stepped into her embrace gratefully. She kicked the door shut behind me.

  “Come here.” She led me over to the bed. I laid down and continued sobbing uncontrollably while Shannon dashed off to her bathroom to fetch some tissues. She sat on the edge of the bed and put one arm over me while I pressed the tissues to my face. I wanted to tell her everything, and I would have if I could just get my throat to work properly. As it was, all I could do was choke and sob into Shannon’s pillow.

  “Shh,” she whispered, getting up again. “Hold on. I’ll get Finn.”

  “No!” I practically screamed it, shocking Shannon back to her seat. She stared at me for several moments while I tried to force my voice out of my throat. “No. Not this time.”

  “Okay, all right,” she said. “So what happened?”

  “Mom-Mom passed out a-and she’s staying at the hospital to-tonight,” I stuttered between the jerking sobs. “Sh-she’s having a c-c-sec-tion in the morn-morning.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “So f-far. But we w-won’t know until tomorrow.” I blew my nose noisily and tossed the used tissue into the floor.

  “Oh honey,” she said, throwing her arms around me. “She’ll be all right, right? They’re just worried about the baby, not your mom.”

  “I kn-know!” I started pulling tissues out of the box, five or six at a time and rubbing them on my eyes pointlessly. I was only going to need more in a few seconds. “I c-can’t help it. I just c-can’t stop thin-king that sh-she’s gonna be that t-two percent or whate-ver that doesn’t ma-make it!”

  “You can’t think like that,” Shannon said. She stroked my hair out of my wet face. “How did you get here? Why aren’t you at the hospital?”

  “Da-Dad sent me and Aaron ho-home to sleep.” The tears picked up again when I realized that I had left my mother lying sick in the hospital. “Oh god! I have to go back!”

  “No!” Shannon pulled me back down. “No, if your dad sent you home, he must not be very worried that your mom is in any danger, right?”

  I thought about that for a few seconds. “I guess.”

  “You’re just worried. You’re overreacting a little, I think. Just relax, your mom’s going to be fine, okay?”

  “Yeah.” I sniffed. This was why I loved Shannon. She was such a flighty mess most of the time, but she could really make me feel better when I needed her to. “Okay. Okay.” I sniffed, desperate to get a hold of myself. “Can I stay here tonight?”

  “Yeah, of course. Let me run down and ask Dad.”

  “No, my dad already called him. It’s taken care of.”

  “Oh. Okay.” She sat cross legged in the bed next to me and pulled the bag of cookies towards herself. “So are you all right for the moment? Can I ask you something?”

  I sniffed and tossed another handful of tissue onto the floor. “I guess.”

  “Why didn’t you want Finn in here for that?”

  My face crumpled up again and the tears started flowing with renewed force. “Oh Shannon, what am I going to do?”

  She dropped the cookies and turned her attention back to my sobs. “Oh honey! What? What are you talking about?”

  “I mean what am I going to do about Finn?”

  “What about him?”

  I couldn’t say it. My throat clogged itself up again and no words came out, just one shrill, wordless wail of despair as I collapsed back onto the bed.

  Her eyes narrowed and she leaned towards me. “What did he do?”

  “He kissed me,” I managed to croak.

  “When?”

  “Yesterday, after school.” I took one large sniff and sat up. “And let me tell you this was no sibling kiss. No. It was a knock your socks off kind of thing. There was groping.”

  She winced. “Okay, I didn’t need to know that last part.”

  “Sorry, but it’s true. And I just let him walk away without saying a thing. He was really upset, I think.” I pulled her big down pillow to my chest and hugged it tight. “And then this morning when stupid Ethan turned up! Oh!” I fell sideways onto the bed and buried my face into the pillow.

  “Wait, stop,” Shannon said, her hands raised, palms out. “So what are you upset about? Is it that Finn kissed you, or that Ethan ran Finn off this morning?”

  “Both!” I dug in the almost empty box for a fresh tissue. “It’s bad enough that Finn’s just turned my world on its side without Ethan screwing it up even further!”

  “How did Ethan screw it up?”

  “Because now Finn thinks Ethan and I have gotten back together!”

  “But you haven’t.”

  “No!”

  “And you don’t want Finn to think that you have?”

  “No! I don’t!” There was a clicking sound somewhere across the room and I looked up expectantly. “What was that?”

  “What? I didn’t hear anything.”

  I shook my head. “Great, now I’m hearing things. Never mind.”

  “Okay, so why don’t you want him to think that?”

  “Think what?” I asked.

  “That you’re getting back together with Ethan.”

  I stopped and studied Shannon’s triumphant expression. “I don’t know.”

  “Because you want to be with Finn, right?”

  “I don’t know!” I glared at her.

  She returned my gaze calmly, but didn’t say anything.

  “Tell me something,” I said, wadding several tissues into a ball. “When did you first figure out that Finn wanted me? Because it feels like everybody saw this coming except for me.”

  Her eyes fell to the floor. “Yeah, it was the day that he finally asked Margo out.”

  “What do you mean? Tell me exactly.”

  “Well.” She hesitated and shifted her weight. “It was when you said whatever it was you said to convince him to notice Margo. I didn’t see it right away, but the fact that you were trying to get him to date someone else kind of threw him over the edge. When he left, he looked at you funny. He looked really hurt.”

  “What have I done?” I hugged the pillow even closer. My throat was still tight, but the sobs had finally subsided.

  “It wasn’t your fault! You didn�
�t know!”

  “But I knew yesterday and this morning! It’s my fault now!”

  “Who could have expected you to be rational about this yesterday? And this morning was just a misunderstanding. If Finn had stuck around for another two seconds this wouldn’t even be an issue.” She sat back against the bed frame and grabbed the cookie bag again. “No wonder you’re freaking out so much. Having all of this come down on you at once? First Finn, then your mom.” She shook her head and took a bite. “Hey, these are pretty good.”

  I rolled over to face her. “So what should I do?”

  She eyed me and chewed her cookie slowly for several seconds before answering. “I promised I wouldn’t meddle in this one.”

  “You’re involved now,” I said irritably. “You’re doing double duty. You made that promise as Finn’s sister, now you’re acting as my best friend. I need an answer.”

  “I can’t,” she said. “Not on this one.”

  “Come on, Shannon! You’re the only one I can ask!”

  She shook her head. “Okay, a compromise. I won’t tell you what to do, but I can help you decide. How’s that?”

  “Okay. Whatever. What should I do?”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know! That’s what I need you for!”

  “Okay, fine,” she said. “We need something more specific.” She looked me straight in the eye. “Are you attracted to Finn?”

  I thought about it, sort of taken aback. I thought back to that moment, our moment in the hallway. I remembered the heat under my skin, his hands on my back and in my hair, his heavy breath when he finally pulled back.

  “Yes.”

  The word seemed too small too account for just how big of an admission it was for me. My face bloomed red and I buried it in Shannon’s pillow.

  A ghost of a smile flashed across her face, but it was gone almost immediately. “Okay, so do you want to date him?”

  “I don’t want to lose him!”

  “That’s not what I asked,” she said. “I asked if you wanted to date him.”

  “Even if I did date him, how could I know it would last?” Ethan’s stories about his short lived dating exploits were still fresh on my mind. “If we dated and it didn’t work out, then I’d lose one of my best friends! And it’d be hard for you and me because wherever you are, there he is, too!”