Girls on the Verge

by Sharon Biggs Waller

  Inside the market, people sit at picnic tables eating tamales. A man stands next to a tacos al pastor truck, slicing pieces from a huge cone of meat topped with a pineapple. He flicks a piece of pineapple off with his knife and catches it with a tortilla, handing it to the next person in a long line of customers. Other people leave a stand clutching cups filled with icy raspa. A Mexican band plays Tejano music while a bunch of people dance, scuffing their western boots against the dirt floor. A man with an accordion sings a Spanish song into a microphone. It’s colorful and lively, and I wish I could enjoy it.

  “This place is huge,” Bea says. “It’s going to take forever to find that pharmacy booth. Should we ask someone?”

  I look down the line of booths selling cowboy boots and hats, jewelry, rugs, towels, furniture, cleaning supplies that line the inside of the building. It’s crammed with people who jostle us as they walk past us. “Let’s just go up and down the aisles.”

  After a few minutes of wandering, we find a farmacia tucked next to a flower cart and a booth selling pan dulce and churros. A man wearing a cowboy hat, a plaid western shirt, and a bolo tie stands behind a table laid out with bottles and packages. We look through the table for the Cytotec, but all we find are boxes of cold medicine, Alka Seltzer, cough syrup, and aspirin. The man sees us looking and comes over.

  “Can I help you find something?” he asks.

  I clear my throat. “Cytotec? Cytoteca?”

  “Don’t have it.” His eyes shift away from us. “Can’t sell that anymore.”

  “It’s for an ulcer?” I say.

  He shrugs. “Like I said, I don’t have it.”

  “Seriously, you don’t have it?” Annabelle takes out a ten-dollar bill. “Can you look?” She holds out the money, and the man shifts his eyes from the money to Annabelle.

  “Keep your money, mija. I don’t have it. Last week the police raided a farmacia at the market in McAllen and took it all away. It’s not worth going to jail, so I don’t get it anymore.”

  “You’d go to jail?” I ask. Fear surges through me. “It is illegal?”

  He shrugs again. His gaze shifts to a security guard standing near the doorway.

  “Is there any other farmacia booth that sells it?” Annabelle asks.

  “No sé.”

  “Do you know any other place where we can buy it outside of the market?” I try again. “There must be somewhere. We’ve come a long way.”

  But he’s done with us. A man in a denim shirt approaches and the booth owner shouts a greeting. He turns his back and starts in on a conversation in Spanish.

  “Hey,” Annabelle says. But the booth owner ignores us, talking away as though we’re invisible.

  “I knew it,” I say. “Why would the police raid that other flea market if it isn’t illegal?”

  “It’s probably illegal to sell the drug, not to have it, which is some bullshit.”

  “Maybe,” I say, but I’m not convinced.

  Bea doesn’t add to the conversation. Her face is pale.

  “Why don’t you wait for us by the taco truck, Bea?” I say.

  “No, I want to help.” Her voice wavers, and I know she’s scared.

  We keep looking. Embarrassment and shame follow me down aisle after aisle. We find two other pharmacies, but no one sells Cytotec. One person acts like she doesn’t know what we are talking about. She looks down at the floor and doesn’t respond to any of our questions. I feel like every single person in the whole market knows exactly what we’re up to—three dumb girls looking to get an over-the-counter abortion.

  “So, it’s Mexico,” Annabelle says.

  “Can we bring drugs across the border?” Bea whispers, darting a glance over her shoulder like a border patrol officer is listening in. “Maybe we’ll get caught for smuggling drugs when we try to cross back into the US?”

  I picture the border patrol putting us in handcuffs, hauling us off, and calling my parents to tell them I am in jail, that I tried to buy drugs in Mexico to abort my pregnancy. I swallow and shift from foot to foot. Suddenly I don’t feel so good.

  “Let’s get something to drink, and we’ll talk about it,” Annabelle says.

  Annabelle parks me at a picnic table and gets in line at the drink stand. She comes back with three large horchata drinks. “I don’t see any option other than going to Mexico,” she says. “We’re, like, barely a mile to the border.”

  “Are you sure?” Bea asks. “It doesn’t seem safe. I saw this thing on Vice about kidnapping and drug gangs there.”

  Annabelle shakes her head. “Americans cross the border all the time and come back okay, don’t they?” But Annabelle says all this to the top of the picnic table. I don’t think she’s really any happier about going to Mexico than we are.

  “What if we can’t bring the pills back with us?” I say.

  “You can take the first pills in Mexico,” Annabelle says. “We can buy a bottle of aspirin and hide the rest of the Cytotec in the bottle. We’ll buy some dumb souvenir and act like tourists.”

  I get out my phone. “There are three border crossings near us,” I say. “It looks like Brownsville is the easiest one. We can cross into Mexico to Matamoros.” I find a website with advice for traveling into Mexico. “If we leave Buzzi in a parking lot and walk in, we won’t have to buy special insurance. The town is right there, so maybe we will find a farmacia close by.”

  Bea scrolls through her phone. “This website says to leave everything in the US apart from the money we need and to dress like we’re poor so we won’t be a target for kidnapping. To be honest, I don’t even understand how we ended up here, searching for some illegal drug.”

  I close my eyes and try to remain calm. “The reason we’re here, Bea,” I say—and let’s be real, no one is buying the calm act—“is because a man following a law most certainly made up by another man—”

  “Most definitely,” Annabelle throws in.

  “—decided that I, a seventeen-year-old girl in the top ten percent of her class—”

  “That’s a slight exaggeration,” Bea says.

  “Whatever, he decided that I shouldn’t have the right to make choices about my own body. He prevented me from having an abortion at a real clinic. He ruled against me, Bea. He made the decision for me.”

  “Tell her about the judge, Camille.”

  NINETEEN

  JUNE 27

  “Camille Winchester.” Mr. Daniels sorts through the stack of papers on his desk. “This is about a judicial bypass for an abortion?”

  I nod. My face burns red with embarrassment that Mr. Daniels knows I’m pregnant. That he knows something about me that I don’t want anyone to know.

  “Have a seat, and let’s get acquainted.” He waves to a folding chair and I sit. He pushes away from his desk with both hands and wheels his desk chair over to me by paddling his feet on the floor. He stops in front of my chair and leans forward, dangling his wrists over his knees. A Mickey Mouse watch adorns his left wrist. “Now, I understand you’re looking to get an abortion, and you don’t want to let Mom and Dad know, is that right?”

  I’m a little skeeved out by him calling my parents “Mom and Dad,” as if they are his parents, too. I nod and stare at my shoes. There’s a big scuff mark across one toe, and I hide the shoe behind my ankle. I should have worn the new ballet flats my mom bought on sale for school that are tucked away on the top shelf of my closet.

  “Can you tell me why you can’t tell Mom and Dad? Are you afraid of them?”

  I jerk my head up. “No!”

  “Well, then, why won’t you tell them?” A whiff of aftershave drifts my way.

  The clock hanging over his desk is a Mickey Mouse one. Mickey’s gloved hands are the clock’s hands, and his eyes swing back and forth as the clock ticks.

  “You’re going to have to help me, Miss Winchester, otherwise I can’t advise Judge on what is best for you.” He’s talking to me in that way adults sometimes talk to small children: that fak
e friendliness that even little kids don’t believe.

  “I just don’t want to tell them, and that’s really it, I guess.”

  “Is it a spiritual reason? Are we a religious household?” He foot-wheels over to his desk, picks up a pen and pad of paper, and shoves off the desk to sail back to me, his legs stretched out. He clicks on the pen and holds it up, waiting for my response.

  “No. We aren’t.” My hands are shaking and I tuck them under my legs.

  He lowers the pen. Unclicks it.

  “It’s nothing like that, I mean. I don’t want to disappoint them. I’d rather just do this … and pretend it never happened.”

  “I don’t think it’s in your best interest to pretend your pregnancy didn’t happen. We don’t want an unplanned pregnancy to happen again, do we?”

  He writes something down and then bounces the pen on the notebook, unclicking it. “Now, Miss Winchester. In my opinion, I think you should tell Mom and Dad, but you can present your case to the judge because that is your right to do so.”

  He holds out his hand, and I shake it. His palm is cold. “I’ll see you in Judge’s chambers.”

  I close the door behind me, and I can hear him shuffling that dumb chair around. Part of me wants to run away from all of this and hide, and another part of me wants to go back into that office, yank the Mickey Mouse clock off the wall, and stomp it to pieces with my scuffed-up shoes.

  The real me goes into the ladies’ room and pukes.

  I walk across the street to the courtyard in front of the courthouse to meet Nicole, the lawyer who Jane’s Due Process, the abortion rights nonprofit, hired for me. She’s wearing a gray pencil skirt and jacket and has short blond hair. Just like when I met her yesterday, she’s kind and friendly.

  “How did your first appointment at Planned Parenthood go yesterday?”

  I shrug. “Okay, I guess. A little embarrassing.”

  “I’m glad you got in so quickly; sometimes it can take a week or two. You have all your documentation and proof of the appointment? The judge will want to see that.”

  I hold up the folder.

  “Did you book your second appointment?”

  I nod. “Yes, for a week from Monday.” I cross my fingers when I say this because if I don’t get the bypass, I’ll have to tell my parents I’m pregnant, and then ask them to sign this awful consent form which is six pages long and has to be notarized. It includes sentences like I understand the abortion will result in the death of the fetus. It lists a ton of unlikely things that can happen to me with an abortion, including hemorrhaging, blood clots, a possible hysterectomy, a hole in the uterus, and sterility, even though my Planned Parenthood doctor told me that abortion is safer than a colonoscopy or having a penicillin shot. I got so mad when I read all that. How can the state of Texas lie to women so blatantly?

  “I know you’re prepared for this, Camille,” Nicole says as we walk upstairs to the judge’s chamber. “The judge can’t help but see that you are mature enough to handle making this decision on your own.”

  I start to get nervous, way nervous. I don’t think I can sit in a roomful of men and answer personal questions about myself. Nicole said he might ask me questions about that pamphlet Planned Parenthood gave me about abortion, which I barely had time to read. I’ll pretend to be someone else, a character from a play. I flip through all the roles I’ve played over the years. But I can’t think of any character who would work. Not Blanche from Streetcar. Not Ophelia or Juliet and for sure not Desdemona, who Othello smothered to death. I can’t think of any female character who could or would rise to this occasion. And that makes me more upset. I’ve never noticed how weak these characters are. How they’ve never had a say in their own lives.

  “You okay?” Nicole asks.

  “Who will be in there? I mean, why are there so many people?”

  “Well, the judge, the court reporter—in case we need a transcript to file an appeal—and the guardian ad litem, whom you already know.”

  I picture that guy rolling into the judge’s room in that chair of his, all decked out in his Mickey Mouse best. “I’m not sure about Mr. Daniels,” I say. “I don’t think he liked me very much. He told me straight off that I should tell my parents.”

  Nicole pauses on a stair step. She sighs. “I don’t know about some of these people the judge assigns. I had a priest last week—a Catholic priest of all people. Of course he fought for the girl to go through with her pregnancy.”

  “What if that happens to me?” I ask.

  Nicole takes me into a little hallway in front of the restrooms. “It’s okay, Camille. I’m here with you.” She takes me by the shoulders. “Look at me. Try to calm down. I know this is daunting, but I’m with you. You don’t have to do this alone.”

  I try to breathe like Nicole says. But every time I get control of myself, I think about having to cancel that appointment, and I start to choke up again.

  “I’m not going to lie; it can be very daunting to discuss your personal life with a bunch of strangers, especially ones you’re trying to convince,” Nicole says. “But I’ll be with you. I’ll be there to support you.”

  After a couple of minutes, the ball of tears starts to back down. But I know it’s there, right at the surface.

  “I want you to tell yourself that this is your right. You deserve to be heard, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Nicole looks at her watch. “We have to go in now.”

  We enter the main hall, and a uniformed police officer opens the door to the judge’s chamber. A black-robed judge sits behind a desk, and he barely looks up when we enter the room. He’s around seventy or so, and a horseshoe of hair surrounds a bald spot. A bowl of foil-wrapped candy sits on his desk. A woman in a pink sweater set and a green plaid skirt sits behind a small keyboard, waiting, her hands in her lap. Her long blond hair is clipped back on each side with mismatched barrettes—one tortoiseshell, one brown. And then there is Mr. Daniels. He smiles when he sees me, but I just nod.

  It smells like old library books and dusty curtains, and I swallow back the nausea. I swear to God, if I puke in here …

  Nicole and I sit on chairs in front of the judge. I put my purse on the floor neatly and tuck my scuffed shoes under the chair. I force myself to sit up straight and hold my head high. This is my right. I deserve to be heard. This is my right. I deserve to be heard.

  Nicole presents my case, explaining that I wish a judicial bypass to get an abortion. The judge listens, his hands on top of a manila folder with my name on it. After Nicole finishes, the judge opens the folder, squints at the paper on top, and then closes it. “Now, Miss Winchester, tell me a bit about yourself. Where you live, where you work, where you go to school.”

  I stumble through all the answers, trying to keep eye contact with the judge like Nicole said. But it feels too personal, so I focus on the bridge of his nose instead. The judge smiles when I tell him I’m an actor.

  “I’m a theater buff myself,” he says. “Been in some community plays, The Music Man, Carousel. Have you been in any of those?”

  I loathe both of those musicals with a personal hellish passion. There isn’t a decent female role in either one. The best you can hope for is dopey Marian the Librarian in The Music Man, who falls in love with a man she knows is a con man, or Carousel’s stupid Louise, who says her father’s ghost slap felt like a kiss.

  I sit up tall and smile. This is my right. I deserve to be heard. “I haven’t. I’m not in many musicals. I mean, the theater group I belong to is mostly Shakespearean, and we focus on other classic playwrights like Chekhov, Hellman, Ibsen. I’ve done some high school musicals, like Sondheim ones, but I’m not much of a singer.”

  And then he does something that wipes that phony smile off my face. He starts to sing a song from Carousel. His voice is deep, and he sounds like an old-fashioned crooner, like he could sing in a barbershop quartet.

  I want to slap my hands over my ears.

  “Walk on,
walk on, with hope in your heart! And you’ll never walk alone!” He points a finger at me.

  The court reporter keeps typing, and somehow it makes me feel better that his stupid performance is being copied into the permanent court report.

  Finally the judge stops singing. The room is silent. Nicole’s cell phone vibrates; she glances at the number and then slips the phone into her pocket.

  “I think the words to that tune are incredibly inspiring and uplifting,” the judge says.

  “Okay,” is all I say.

  “You have a job, Miss Winchester?”

  “I work at an ice cream stand called Iggy’s.”

  “Save up your money, or do you spend it quick?”

  I clear my throat. “I save. For school, I mean. For college. I want to study acting?” I don’t know why I say this like it’s a question.

  “You don’t care for shopping or makeup?”

  “I’m saving all my money for school.”

  “Drama school is probably expensive.”

  “Yes.”

  He sits back in his chair and studies me. “The chance of making a successful career in acting is pretty slim, did you know that?”

  “Yes.”

  He shakes his head and frowns. “So many kids these days are choosing to study things like art or drama or humanities that won’t land a ding-dang job. All they end up with is crushing debt that follows them around for years.”

  “I’m going to minor in accounting.” Those words slip out of my mouth. I’m horrible at math. No way would I study accounting. I feel like I’ve entered an improv class, “yes, and”-ing the judge.

  He nods. “That’s a very good choice. Accounting will help you manage your budget when you get married and have a family of your own.”

  “That’s a good point,” I say, nodding. “I really love numbers. They are so … so useful in many walks of life.” I can’t believe the crap I’m saying.

  “And how did you get pregnant?” His switch in subjects startles me. He opens the folder and scans it as though the story of the conception might be listed there. “Were you raped?”