Farah's Deadline

by Brenda Maxfield

  “Who’s ‘they’? Your parents? Your church?”

  Her eyes flashed to mine. “The church doesn’t know. No one knows, remember?”

  “Oh yeah, only Ned and your parents. I forgot. So they’re the ‘they’?”

  She nodded again.

  “What do you want?”

  She sighed. “I want it to be over.”

  “It will be soon. What do you have, five or six more months?”

  “Five and a half.”

  “That’s not so long.” I patted her on the back. Comforting someone wasn’t my thing. In fact, I’d done it so seldom, I wasn’t sure how.

  The tears hovering in Lizbet’s eyes dried up a bit. She blinked. “We can choose who gets it.”

  “Whoa. I didn’t know.”

  She took a deep breath. “I don’t want to choose. I don’t want to know anything about whoever gets it.”

  “You don’t have to choose, do you?”

  “I don’t think so. I guess I’ll find out.” She checked her watch. “Twenty more minutes. Just twenty more minutes, and it will be decided.”

  She sounded ready to cry again. I sat still, uncertain what to do. The furnace kicked on, filling the silence with a whining rumble. Lizbet stood, walked over to her own bed, and folded herself up in the middle of it. She put her head on her knees and her long braid fell over her arms, trailing down her body.

  Exactly twenty minutes later, there was a loud rap on the door. “Lizbet?” It was Edie. “Come on, honey, they’re ready for you.”

  Lizbet stood, cleared her throat, and tossed her braid over her shoulder. Her stomach pooched ever so slightly beneath the waistband of her skirt. The pale pink blouse she’d tucked in didn’t even strain at the buttons. She squared her scrawny shoulders and strode out of the room.

  Lizbet seemed to suck the air with her when she left. I put my hand to my chest. A hollow feeling opened up in my stomach. I inhaled sharply and then returned again to my homework.

  ****

  I didn’t know how long the adoption meetings were supposed to be, but I was concerned when Lizbet hadn’t returned by eight-thirty. I’d decided earlier I wasn’t going to go out there at all. I didn’t want to appear even a little interested in what they were doing. But I was worried about Lizbet. Maybe they were browbeating her or pressuring her. Maybe they were forcing her into something she didn’t want.

  I was wearing my sweats, but my feet were cold, so I put on my slippers and ventured out. I figured the meetings were probably in the little office. When I entered the living room, Rosaline and Jasmyn were sitting on the couch like they were in a doctor’s waiting room. Their eyes met mine.

  “You talking to the lady, too?” asked Jasmyn.

  “No way, don’t need to. Only wondering where Lizbet is.”

  Rosaline motioned with her head toward the office. The door was closed and there wasn’t a window in it. “Still in there,” she said. She checked her watch. “My time was supposed to be fifteen minutes ago.”

  Jasmyn patted her huge stomach. “Like you’re in a hurry. I’ve got less than seven weeks left.”

  “I thought your arrangements were already made,” Rosaline said.

  “Yeah, but there’s last minute stuff.”

  I stared at the closed door, and worry wiggled its way up my spine. Lizbet should have been out by now. I glanced over at Jasmyn and Rosaline, who were still bickering. Rosaline was acting like a kid, and here she was in her twenties.

  I shook my head and traipsed back down the hall to my room. I wasn’t there long before Lizbet came back. I could tell she’d been crying. Her face was puffed up and spongy-looking.

  “Well?” I asked the second she shut the door. “What happened?”

  She lowered herself onto her bed as if in pain.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m okay. It’s over.”

  “You were in there forever. They didn’t try to force you into anything did they?” It occurred to me she’d been forced into things her whole life. I doubted she’d even recognize when it was happening.

  She shook her head and unbraided her hair, her fingers flicking in and out as her hair unwound over her shoulders. “No. I told them I didn’t want to know anything. They could take it when it came. I don’t want to choose the parents.”

  Her voice had taken on a deathlike monotone. I scrutinized her face, searching for some kind of emotion. After planning to give a baby away, shouldn’t there be some feeling? At least a sense of relief? But Lizbet was closed up tighter than a locked safe.

  “Lizbet, I know I’m not the best listener ever. I do the talking most of the time, but I’m here if you want me.”

  She moved to the closet and took her nightgown off the shelf. She scooted behind the closet door and changed clothes. “What’s it like?” Her voice was muffled.

  “What?”

  She moved from the closet, her skeletal shoulders making ridges under her gown. “Knowing you’re going to keep it?”

  I leaned against the headboard and twirled my pencil through my fingers, back and forth across my hand. “I think I felt the baby kick this morning.”

  Lizbet’s eyes grew wide, and a look of utter fear pinched her face.

  “It’s not scary,” I said. What was the matter with her? What was so frightening about feeling the baby move?

  “You couldn’t have. It’s too early to feel it.”

  “How do you know? I felt what I felt.”

  She rushed over to me, sat on my bed, and leaned into my face as if to warn me of something. “I’m telling you, it’s too early.”

  I tried to back away, but I was already pressed into the headboard. “Man, lighten up, would you? What’s the big deal?”

  She crumpled like an old newspaper at my feet. I reached over and pulled on her arm to try to get her into a sitting position. I bent down to check her face. “What’s wrong? Tell me. Are you sick?”

  I got onto my knees on the bed and tried again to hoist her into a sitting position, but she flopped into me like a sleeping child. She lay against my chest, her hair fanning over her body. I flinched and backed up with my arms out and my hands wide. I didn’t know what to do. Was I supposed to hug her? Hold her?

  I didn’t hug girls.

  She shook. It began like a buzz passing through her and into me, but it got stronger. Soon, she was shaking with sobs on my chest. The bed beneath us vibrated.

  “Lizbet, what are you doing? What’s going on?”

  She sucked in a huge breath. “I feel it moving all the time,” she said. Her voice squeezed out like a wounded animal.

  I pulled her off of me and searched her eyes. “You’re supposed to feel kicking. It means the baby’s healthy.”

  “I don’t want it to be.”

  “What? You don’t want it to be healthy? Are you crazy?”

  “No, it’s not that.” She hiccupped and sniffed. She shook her head back and forth. “I don’t want it to be real.”

  She shriveled into a weeping lump on my bed.

  Watching her cry made my heart stiffen. I would not end up like her. I would not.

  Pete. He was my answer. I needed to step up my plan. I needed to get it settled with him soon.

  ****

  The next day in the cafeteria, I marched over to the busiest, most crowded table in the place. It was a mishmash of guys and girls. Some were sitting, others were arriving, many were standing reaching over the table for each other’s food. They were laughing, chatting, and chewing with bulging cheeks.

  Without waiting for an invite, I plopped myself down right in the middle of them. I opened the tidy sack lunch Edie had packed. I spent a lot of time hungry these days, and right then was no exception. I bit off a chunk of ham sandwich and chewed quickly.

  I elbowed the guy next to me. He stared, and I saw his brain spin through his list of people trying to place me.

  “I’m new,” I said, solving the mystery for him.

  He grinned, and a piece
of apple stuck out from between the alarming gap in his front teeth. “Name’s Jacob.”

  “I’m Farah. Hey, could you tell me which school bus goes closest to Edgemont?”

  He picked at his teeth with his right pinkie finger. He looked as if he were enjoying high tea somewhere in London.

  “No. Why d’you want to know?”

  I pulled the banana from my sack. “I have my reasons,” I answered.

  “Hey, guys.” For a scraggy kid, his voice belched out like he had a microphone. “Which bus goes by Edgemont?”

  Everyone stopped their banter and turned to him. “Thirteen,” a girl at the end of the table said. She nodded her brown curls, and they bounced against her cheeks like old mattress springs. “Bus thirteen.”

  Right then, a cloud must have moved because a shaft of light broke through a high cafeteria window and blazed directly onto the table with a dazzling shimmer of light. I grinned. It was a sign. The heavens were smiling on me.

  ****

  I decided to wait until the next day after school. Friday was better anyway, because then I could stay with Pete the whole weekend. I wasn’t sure what his work schedule was anymore, but no matter. He had his own apartment, so I could stay there by myself if need be.

  That afternoon, the bus dropped Ariel, Jasmyn, and me at the end of the drive at about four o’clock. Lizbet had recovered from her breakdown the night before, but she’d stayed home from school. After the bus ride, I had to go to the bathroom so badly I raced to the house and almost knocked Edie down in the entryway.

  “Pregnant girl coming through,” I hollered, tearing into the bathroom. Edie laughed behind me.

  Three minutes later, I pushed open the bedroom door. Lizbet gasped, leapt up, and rushed to the closet. She threw something inside and slammed the door.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  She jumped back on her bed. Then she swallowed and pressed her lips together. Her wide eyes watched me as if I was stalking her. It was creepy.

  “Lizbet, what were you doing?” I repeated and started toward the closet. Her reaction was immediate.

  “Don’t!” she yelled. “Don’t look in there.”

  I raised my hands in surrender. “Okay. I won’t look. But you could tell me. I can keep a secret. I’m made of secrets.”

  She shook her head.

  “I said I wouldn’t look. Now I need a favor from you.”

  A wary expression crossed her face. “What?”

  I hung my backpack on the bedpost. I fidgeted with the straps, straightening them.

  Lizbet sniffed and coughed.

  I twirled and faced her. “Okay, here’s the thing. I need to get to Edgemont tomorrow. I have a ride, so it’s no problem. But I need you to cover for me with Edie. Tell her my dad picked me up at school for the weekend with him. Or a new friend invited me over. Yeah, that might be better. Otherwise, my dad would have called and made arrangements.”

  As I spoke, disbelief flashed in Lizbet’s eyes. Her mouth opened slightly.

  “I’m doing you a favor. Whatever you have in there,” I waved with a wild gesture toward the closet, “is safe. I’m not asking for so much.”

  My insides trembled. If she wouldn’t agree, my plan was dirt.

  “Why are you going? Is it the guy? What was his name, Pete?”

  “Yes, Pete,” I said, searching her face. “Will you do it?”

  “I don’t lie.”

  My heart deflated. A heavy weight pushed down my shoulders. “Please, Lizbet.”

  She shook her head. “I want to help you, but I can’t lie.”

  “Okay, how’s this? How about I lie to you, and you believe me and only repeat what I say to you? Then you wouldn’t be lying. I would. Everyone already knows I’m the queen of lies.”

  “Wouldn’t that be the same thing?”

  “No, not at all.” I rushed over to her bed. “It would be all me. In fact, I did make friends today with this big-toothed guy. He helped me at lunch, so I’m thinking he wants to hang out. You know, all innocent and everything.”

  “Edie isn’t going to like it being a guy.”

  “Fine then. There was a girl at the table, too. Corkscrew hair. Seemed nice. I’m going to be friends with her.”

  Lizbet nodded, and I could see her weakening. “All right. You tell me what you’re going to do tomorrow, and I’ll tell Edie what you said.”

  I closed my eyes, and the nervous lump in my stomach dissolved into a spark of hope. It was going to be all right. Everything was going to be all right.

  I squeezed Lizbet in a quick hug. I wasn’t sure who was more surprised by my sudden burst of sisterhood — Lizbet or me.

  Chapter Seven

  I was on clean-up duty after dinner. Jasmyn stood at the sink with a towel hanging from the hand she’d planted on her hip. “What’s with you, Menins? You’re like a chirpy bird tonight.”

  I laughed. “Am I? Hadn’t noticed.”

  She grabbed my arm when I pushed by her to get to the cupboard. “I’m not kidding. What’s going on?”

  She searched my eyes as if probing for some hidden crime. I stopped moving, feeling the tension creep into my muscles. I shook off her arm and kept stacking the dirty plates.

  “Nothing. Man, Jasmyn, lighten up.”

  She pressed her lips together until they made a tight crack across her face. Then with a huffy sigh, she threw the towel on the counter and plunged her hands back into the water full of greasy pans.

  I finished putting the leftovers into the fridge. I worked to control the gurgling excitement pinging against the sides of my stomach. Twenty-four more hours. Only twenty-four more hours, and I’d be back with Pete.

  When I hummed, I knew I’d gone too far.

  “Farah, tell me right now. You haven’t been this cheery since you came.”

  “Pregnancy hormones.” I smiled at her and left the room.

  Edie and Steve were playing a board game with Rosaline in the living room. All three of them huddled around the coffee table with frowns of concentration on their faces. Steve blew on the dice in his hand and threw them across the board. Ariel was sprawled upside down on the other couch, her feet hanging like limp bunny ears over the back cushions.

  “Don’t slide off,” I warned her as I breezed through.

  Lizbet was in our room, curled up on her desk chair with a book.

  “Lizbet, we’re clear, right?” I asked. “I’m going to a new friend’s house for the weekend. Here’s the phone number.” I wrote Pete’s number on a post-it note and stuck it on her corner of the mirror.

  “Whose number is it?”

  “Are you sure you want to ask? Remember, the less you know...”

  “Right. A friend’s number. Got it.”

  I flounced on my bed like a seven-year-old going to a sleepover. “I’m so happy.”

  Lizbet looked at me with eyes of droopy melancholy. I expected tears to spring forth at any moment, but none came. My heart opened in an unaccustomed rush of compassion. It so surprised me, I sat there stupidly blinking at nothing.

  “I’m glad someone’s happy,” Lizbet finally said, going back to her book. She flipped a page and glanced over. “Aren’t you afraid?”

  “Of what?”

  “You won’t be able to take care of it? Something might be wrong? You won’t be a good mother?”

  I laid my hand on my shirt and drew circles on my stomach where the baby grew. “No. All I want is to raise it with Pete. It will be a beautiful baby. Pete will love it, you’ll see. I’ve already thought of names. How do you like Ethan, if it’s a boy, and Regan, if it’s a girl? They’re nice names don’t you think?”

  “What about taking care of it? You said your mother wouldn’t help.”

  “My mother is out of the picture, which is more than fine by me. I don’t want her involved. She’s a witch.”

  Lizbet winced. “You call your mother names?”

  “Why shouldn’t I? It’s true.”

  W
e both fell silent. I checked my watch. It wasn’t even eight o’clock, and I was pooped. “I’m going to bed. See you in the morning.”

  Lizbet nodded at me then flipped another page. I noticed she hadn’t read a word.

  ****

  Something was wrong. I put my hands over my ears to stop the squealing. Was there trouble? Someone was shaking me. “Farah! Get up! It’s the fire alarm!” Lizbet hurtled my slippers onto my bed. She was already stumbling out the door.

  My heart skidded to my throat. “What? Fire?” She was gone. I threw off the covers and ran after her. I hopped down the hall, crashing into the walls, struggling to pull my slippers on. I burst from the hallway.

  “Farah!” Edie hollered, scurrying to me. “Here’s a blanket. Get outside. Is Lizbet out?”

  “She’s out!” The alarm screeched its frantic cry. The wall sconces were lit, throwing long shadows as we rushed across the floor. Rosaline shoved me from behind. “Hurry up! Get out of my way!”

  “I am!” I yelled at her. It was like we were running in slow motion, trapped in a black and white movie, eyes straight forward, aiming for the door. Everything went into surreal mode. None of this was happening.

  Steve stood at the door, his face stricken. “Edie, I already called 911!” he yelled toward the kitchen. “Farah, Rosaline, you’re the last.” He herded us outside to the portico. The cold air slapped at me. I hopped up and down and rubbed my hands together.

  Everyone’s breath came out in clouds of white in the dim porch light.

  “I didn’t smell smoke,” Ariel said. “Where’s the fire?”

  She moved to me and pressed herself into my side, hunching as if to steal some warmth.

  Jasmyn’s eyes darted around the circle. “Edie? Where’s Edie?” Her voice rose.

  Steve patted the air with his palms. “It’s okay. She’s coming. I’m so sorry about this, girls. There was a fire in the kitchen. I sprayed it. I hope I got most of it.”

  “Then what are we doing outside?” asked Jasmyn. “It’s freezing.”