by Dina Silver
“Hi, roomie!” she said, excitedly. “Let me help you with those.” Kendra grabbed one of the two oversized duffels I was dragging.
“Thanks, this one’s a beast,” I said and followed her down the hall to the apartment.
“I was thinking we could go for pizza tonight,” she suggested, and pulled my bag over by her balcony doors once we entered the apartment.
“Sounds great.” I threw myself down on her new, pullout futon, and landed with a thud. “This couch is terribly uncomfortable.”
“It’s cute though, right?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty cute,” I agreed, then yawned.
“If you don’t want pizza, we can go somewhere else, or I can order in if you’re too tired.” She was in full hostess mode, wanting me to meet her enthusiasm and rally for a girls’ dinner, but all I really wanted to do was find a way to get comfortable on her wooden couch.
“Pizza’s fine,” I said and rested my heels on her glass-top coffee table.
Kendra grabbed me a bottle of water from her fridge. “I have a blow-up mattress for you in the bedroom, but if you’d be more comfortable sleeping out here, and having some space to yourself, just let me know.”
“Thanks Kendra,” I smiled at her. I really did appreciate all she was doing, and I could tell she was overcompensating for my parents. lt’d been a couple weeks since I broke the news to them, and my father still refused to take my call. Kendra had threatened not to speak to either of them unless they gave me their support, but that hadn’t worked, and I begged her not to make them suffer even more for my mistakes. It killed me that I’d brought so much pain on my father. After everything he’d done for me. He was speechless where I was concerned, and I got it.
“Have you talked to Dad lately?” I asked.
“About you?” she asked with a reserved smile, cocking her head.
“Yes, about me?”
Kendra took a spot next to me and briefly looked down before answering. “We didn’t really talk about your situation. Just that you were going to be staying with me.” She patted my leg. “He did give me some extra money for us to go out to dinner and buy groceries.”
I smiled at the consolation prize. “I’ve shamed the family.”
She burst out laughing, bent her knees and put her feet up on the couch. “You haven’t shamed the family.”
“I’ve shamed Dad,” I nodded, imagining him bravely facing his friends on the golf course after their wives had passed along the gossip about the ‘Shephard girl.’
Kendra held her gentle grin. “No you haven’t, he’s worried about you and he loves you. He just doesn’t know how to deal, but he will.”
“He won’t even take my calls.”
She nodded. “He will.”
We unpacked my things and put some clothes away in the drawers she’d cleared out for me. The rest of my stuff was jammed into a storage cage in the basement of her building. Once we were done, we ordered a pepperoni pizza and a tomato, gorgonzola salad from O’Fame in Lincoln Park. Once Kendra ate all the tomatoes, I was free to dip my pizza slices in the left over gorgonzola.
“I told Kevin today,” I said and wiped the grease from my chin. We were sitting on her floor with our backs resting against the futon.
Her eyes popped, and then she silenced the television with the remote. “Oh my God, today?”
“Yup,” my lips curled.
Her gaze was fixed on me. “And?”
“And let’s just say, you should hold off on buying him a World’s Best Dad mug,” I said and took a swig of my water. I’d cried enough on the car ride back to Chicago, and convinced myself that Kevin’s reaction was for the best. How could I count on someone who behaved so violently under pressure? I wanted nothing from him, and only wished I’d been able to convey that more clearly in my conversation to him. As a glimpse of the Sears Tower came into view, and I crossed over the Gary, Indiana border, I vowed never to shed a tear over Kevin Hansen again.
“I want to know everything,” Kendra demanded then sat up and grabbed another square slice of pizza.
I nervously played with my napkin, and then tossed it on the coffee table. “He wants nothing to do with me, or the baby.”
“What do you mean?” she mumbled with food in her mouth.
“Which part?”
She kicked her feet like a child. “What was his reaction exactly?”
“Exactly what I said, although I spared you the profanities.” I paused to reflect on his comments to me. “He wants nothing to do with either of us, and I’d be surprised if I ever see or hear from him again.”
She was dumbfounded by this news. Apparently she thought he would’ve been happy to be a father only months after graduating college, and that maybe she could start planning the bachelorette party?
“What a piece of shit,” she murmured. “How could he say that to you?”
“He was pretty pissed off, and just didn’t want to be bothered,” I told her. “The weirdest thing was that he said he knew I was going to tell him that I was pregnant,” I said and started picking balls of gorgonzola out of the tin salad container with my hands and popping them in my mouth.
“When did he know?”
“Last night, when we were with our friends I asked him to come over to talk, before he left town, and he said he suspected that I was going to tell him that.”
“So basically, his asshole behavior was entirely premeditated.”
“That’s one way of looking at it.”
She shook her head in that, ‘you poor thing’ sort of way that I loathed. “I’m so sorry, Syd, I can’t imagine that makes your situation any easier.”
“Please don’t say it like that.”
“Sorry,” she shrugged.
All the practice I was getting by confessing to people about my pregnancy didn’t make it any easier. I don’t know what I expected from Kevin, but his fury-laden rejection was even further isolating. Even though it was my choice to go it alone, I’d expected to at least have his respect, and assumed he’d have treated me with a shred of decency. Jenna was even more shocked than Kendra was because she knew Kevin very well, and knew the depth of our friendship. There weren’t too many things that put Jenna at a loss for words, but his reaction to the news and the way he’d treated me was one of them.
“You must be joking,” Jenna had said when I called her later that night. Jenna had moved to New York after graduation, and was working at her father’s law firm. She held a degree in journalism but was unable to find a job in publishing, so instead she was typing letters and answering phones.
“I’m not making up one word of it.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I almost don’t believe it myself,” I’d told her.
“What did you say back to him?”
“Nothing, I said nothing. I told him I thought he should know, and then he just went off on me. I honestly didn’t know he had it in him, I’ve never seen him get angry about anything.”
“I’m calling him,” she stated.
“Don’t you dare! And don’t you dare say anything to Rocco or anyone, please, Jenna.”
“Fine, I won’t,” she assured me. “I’m so sorry, Syd, what a complete dick. Are you devastated?”
“You know what, Jen, I had it out in the car, but once I was able to digest everything I was just really disgusted, and confused, but not sad.”
And that was the truth. Kevin’s behavior was so revolting to me that all it did was make me more confident in my decision. His cruelty gave me new strength, and even though I felt he owed me an apology, I knew I would never hear from him again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I located an apartment in Old Town, after only four weeks with Kendra, and just three days before I was set to start my job at the Intercontinental Hotel in their client services department. I used some money that my grandmother gave me as a graduation gift for the security deposit, and emptied my savings account of three hundred and eighty dollar
s to buy a few necessities. Kendra gave me an old phone, an alarm clock, an end table which I used as a coffee table, her blow-up mattress and a floor lamp. I had wall hangings from my school apartment and milk crates for some of my sweaters and books, and I was going to try and go as long as I could without a dresser. It was a small one-bedroom apartment, much smaller than the place I had at school, and barely affordable at $550 a month on my annual starting salary of $28,000.
My first day of work, I was greeted by my supervisor, Midge Larsen. Midge was very tall, at least six feet, and built like a man. Large hands, large feet, large face, basically one of the most physically overbearing women I have ever encountered. And she started almost every sentence with my name.
“Sydney, I’m Midge.”
“Sydney, you’ll be training on the phones with Trevor and Keri.”
“Sydney, your desk is over there.”
“Sydney, your blacks don’t match.”
“My what?” I asked.
Midge grabbed a small section of my sleeve and elevated it like a puppeteer. “Your top is about four shades lighter than your slacks. Please see that they are the same shade of black from now on, otherwise one looks grey, or worse…navy.”
She released my arm and left me scanning myself.
“She’s very particular about that,” Keri leaned over and said to me, referencing our required dark uniform.
“Gotcha,” I said. “I guess in this light…,” my voice trailed off as I pondered my shirt.
“Don’t let her get to you. She runs a tight ship and no one is immune to her neurosis.”
I took a chair next to Keri at a square table with four phones, four computers, and four seats that would be my desk for the next year. “How long have you been here?”
“A little over two weeks, just graduated from Indiana.”
“Purdue.”
“Uh oh, we’re bitter rivals from day one,” she joked. Keri’s family was from Naperville, a suburb west of the city, and she was still living at home and commuting downtown every morning. Her plan was to save some money over the winter and then move to the city with her best friend from high school. Keri was short like me, and loved to snack. Everyday she’d bring in a variety of Tupperware containers with things like celery and peanut butter, Wheat Thins with cheddar cheese slices, pretzels, peanut brittle, and my favorite, mini bagels with walnut cream cheese.
My other co-worker, Trevor, had been working under Midge’s tutelage closer to three weeks, and was an Indiana graduate as well. Apparently their job placement seminars went over well in that state. The three of us sat together each day at that square desk/table and answered calls and faxes all day long. Thankfully the three of us got along great, and shared an aversion to Midge’s management skills. We determined early on that as long as things around the office went smoothly, and we did as we were told, Midge would stay out of our hair.
“Sydney, can you return these messages regarding the Baker’s convention?” Midge asked me through the intercom system.
“Sure, Midge,” I said, and then realized I didn’t have the messages or know what Baker’s convention she was referring to. I turned on the intercom system again to get more information from her. “Where are the messages?”
There was a long silence, in which Trevor, Keri and I exchanged looks of ‘did she hear that?’ After about a minute, Midge answered my question. “Sydney, only I am allowed to use the intercom.”
I hadn’t told Midge or my co-workers about the pregnancy, since I hadn’t gained much weight, and could easily hide my belly with large tops and stretch pants. I was pretty slim before, so at that time I just looked like someone who ate too many platters of biscuits and gravy in college. My sister advised me to wait as long as possible so that they couldn’t fire me, but then Jenna said it was against the law for them to fire a pregnant lady anyway.
Soon after I started my job, I found a new gynecologist who informed me that baby and I were progressing nicely, and my official due date was January 22nd. He also said that he’d be able to reveal the baby’s sex on my twenty-week appointment if I was interested in finding out. I was.
I left my doctor’s office that day with a huge smile on my face and immediately thought of Ethan. I’d wanted to call him so badly and tell him everything. He and I had kept in touch, talking twice a week; mostly short conversations when it was on Kendra’s long distance dime. I was always thrilled to hear from him.
“Hello,” I answered my phone on the third night alone in my new apartment.
“Hey, Syd, how are the new digs?” Ethan asked.
I smiled when I heard his voice. “Quite palatial.”
“And how are you feeling?”
“I’m good, you know, hanging in there, and I feel good,” I said and sat on the edge of my blow-up bed, filing a chipped thumbnail and balancing the phone on my right shoulder.
“Glad to hear it,” he said. “I talked to my parents yesterday, and my mom said to send her love to you…and the baby.”
My heart sank a little. His parents were two people I’d admired and slightly feared for many years. Two people who seemingly had everything together, down to matching coasters and lampshades. Ethan’s mother’s approval was something I’d tried hard to obtain. Humiliation set in as soon as he confirmed their knowledge of my situation. “I’m sure that went over well,” I replied somberly.
“You don’t give my mom enough credit, Syd, she was actually very proud of you, very happy for you, and really worried about how you’re going to support yourself and the baby.”
I stopped filing and held the phone in my hand. “Really?”
“Yes, she was very sincere in sending her blessings.”
“Please tell her thank you.” I arched my back and heard a crack.
She must’ve been thrilled to know that Ethan and I weren’t dating anymore. I could only imagine what his parents actually said to him. Things like ‘you really dodged a bullet, son’ came to mind. Would she have been sincere in her blessings had I been carrying Ethan’s child?
“I’m coming home in two months for my sisters’ birthday, and I’d love to see you,” he said.
I slumped my shoulders forward, looked down at my bloated stomach and chipped nails, and tried to imagine what I might look like in two months, when I’d be six months pregnant. “I really don’t want you to see me this way.”
He breathed a short snicker of air out his nose. “Are you joking?”
I was shaking my head. “I’m really not. I mean, I would obviously like to see you, but I’d thought about it before you even asked, and I decided I don’t want you to see me pregnant.”
I imagined him shaking his head at me as well. “It doesn’t make it go away, Syd.”
“I’m not trying to make it go away. I just don’t want you to see me.”
He didn’t say anything else about it. I knew he understood, and there must’ve been a small part of him that wasn’t eager to see me pregnant with someone else’s baby either, because he didn’t press the issue.
“Fine, if your hormones change your mind, let me know.”
A few days before the ultrasound that would reveal my baby’s sex, I decided it was time to inform Midge about my pre-existing condition. Kendra and I spent two days thinking of the best possible way to relay the news. Part excitement, part straightforwardness, and part sympathetic smile.
I waited until after she’d had her morning coffee and demi-baguette with honey butter, before knocking on her door.
“Yes?” I heard from deep within.
“It’s Sydney, do you have a sec?” She didn’t answer immediately, so I peeked in through the open door crack. She was staring right at me the moment I got my head all the way through and glanced over to her. “Hey, Midge, do you have a sec?” I repeated.
I took her silence as an invitation to bring the rest of my body in the room.
I closed the door behind me and sat down. She never took her eyes off me. Nothing like a good ho
nest creep factor to make a situation go from nerve-wracking to worse.
“I just wanted to chat with you about something,” I chirped.
She leaned back in her chair; gaze focused, and crossed her arms over her abdomen. Her eyebrows rose, an indication that I should proceed.
“Well,” I laughed nervously, and looked upward for a moment. “I’m pregnant,” I resorted to blurting it out, my favorite method of disclosure.
Midge was still, then took her reading glasses off her head and tossed them onto her desk. “Sydney, you’re pregnant?”
“Yes, twenty weeks,” I said proudly, trying to elicit that joyous, congratulatory reaction that most pregnant women expect.
“I thought you were single.” She went straight for the judgmental blow.
“I am single.”
“So you’ve obviously known about this for some time.”
“Yes, well,” I shifted and smoothed my black sweat pants as if I was wearing a ball gown. “I was told I shouldn’t say anything to anyone until I was safely through the first trimester,” I said, nodding.
“That was eight weeks ago, according to what you’ve just told me.”
“That is correct…,” I began to explain.
“What can I say? I have no idea what your personal life entails, nor do I care to. I’m sure you’ve researched the laws and know that we cannot let you go, and must provide your same job opportunity to you once your non-paid maternity leave is over.”
I nodded again.
“So, just like I expect everyone else to keep their personal business to themselves, you are no exception. And as you must also know, you have no sick, personal, or vacation days until after twelve months of consecutive employment. Which means any appointments you require in your condition must be done on your own time.” She paused to convey her annoyance with me. “Sydney, do you understand?”
“Yes, Midge, thank you.”
I sat frozen for a moment, and then stood quickly and watched her eyes shift to my stomach.
