Sophie could feel herself beaming as she took her seat. When the critique began, she mostly got praise. Finally Mr. Young stepped in. “Sophie has nailed it,” he told them. “And I’m going to tell you why. She picked one subject and stuck to it. She explained the problem with humor and insight. She kept it simple and succinct. She obviously did some research to support her opinion. And she wrote about a topic that concerns everyone.” He smiled at her. “As a teacher, I’d give this piece an A plus. And as a publisher, I’d run it in the editor’s column because I’m asking Sophie Ramsay to accept the position of chief editor. I’ve already asked Wes Andrews to assume the role of managing editor, which he has accepted.”
He pointed to Sophie. “So, how about it? Don’t you think it’s about time this paper was run by a woman?”
She nodded. “I do.”
He grinned. “Sophie Ramsay, I now pronounce you chief editor of the Panther Paw.”
Wes started to clap, and when the rest joined in, it took every ounce of Sophie’s self-control and composure to keep from crying. “Thanks,” she told them in a husky voice. “As chief editor, I think we better get to work.”
“That’s right,” Wes said. “We’ve got a paper to get out.”
The last thing Sophie wanted to spend her whole Saturday doing was trying on formals with her girlfriends. Shopping with friends who were thinner had never been good for her self-image in the first place, but watching them modeling all these strapless, backless, low-cut, figure-hugging dresses was making her want to lose her lunch.
“Come out,” Carrie Anne urged her.
Sophie looked at her image in the mirror and frowned. “It’s not working for me,” she called back.
“Just let us see,” Kelsey said. “I think that shade of coral is going to be great with your complexion.”
“Fine.” Sophie emerged from the room, held her hands out to her sides, and made a sour face. “I look like an overgrown pomegranate.”
Her friends laughed.
“And speaking of fruit . . . ,” she put her hands beneath her breasts and gave them a little push-up, “. . . these melons are about ready to bust out of here.”
Her friends laughed harder, and she joked more. Of course, her jokes were all at her own expense. Not that anyone noticed. Besides her.
“It’s useless,” she said finally.
“No, it’s not,” Carrie Anne declared. “We just need to look harder.”
“No.” Sophie shook her head. “Not until you listen to me.” “What?”
“I don’t want anything that’s low-cut or strapless or backless or tight.”
“Why don’t you just wear your bathrobe?”
“Good idea.”
“Seriously, Sophie,” Carrie Anne said. “You sound like you want to go as a nun.”
Sophie pointed at Carrie Anne. “And you look like you want to go as a slut.”
Carrie Anne blinked. “A slut?”
“Well, look at you. You’re like half-naked.”
“You sound like my dad now.”
“Speaking of your dad, what will he think of that dress?”
Carrie Anne frowned.
“I’m not trying to be mean,” Sophie said. “But you guys are all sending mixed messages here.”
“Mixed messages?” Kelsey tugged the bodice of her skimpy dress a little higher. “How so?”
“You know what I’m talking about.” Now Sophie wished she’d never opened her big mouth. Who was she to talk anyway?
“I know what she means,” Hannah said quietly. “We’ve all made the purity pledge, and here we—”
“Except me,” Jenny chimed in.
“Yes, except you.”
“Although, just for the record, I am still a virgin and I do not plan on having sex anytime soon.” Jenny smiled smugly. “Thanks for the news flash,” Carrie Anne said.
“But Sophie’s actually making a good point,” Hannah continued. “And what about what Jeanette and Phil told us at youth group last week? What about making a promise with our lips and not with our hearts?”
“They said that?” Sophie waited to hear more.
“Phil said that it’s better not to make a promise than to make a promise and break it.” Jenny nodded. “See, he’s helping to support my theory.”
“And if we really are serious about our purity pledge . . .” Hannah turned around and looked at herself in the big three-way mirror. Her hot pink strapless dress was so tight that Sophie wondered how she could possibly breathe, let alone sit down in a chair or eat. “Why are we dressing like this?”
“So what are you suggesting we do?” Kelsey directed this to Sophie. “Should we all go to the dance wearing baggy turtleneck dresses that cover every square inch of flesh?”
Sophie shook her head. “I probably shouldn’t have said anything. Just forget—”
“No,” Jenny said firmly. “I think you’re right, Sophie. We do need to tone it down a little.”
“Yeah.” Carrie Anne said. “My dad would probably have a cow if he saw me in this dress.”
Kelsey frowned at her own image in the mirror. Her formal was a sparkly turquoise number but cut so low in the back that Sophie thought Kelsey might have a serious problem if she actually attempted to dance in it. “But I like this dress. It brings out the color in my eyes.”
“Check out the back side,” Hannah said as she spun her around.
Jenny reached over and tugged the dress down another inch. “I can see your underwear, Kelsey.”
“Hey!” Kelsey smacked Jenny’s hand. “Watch it.”
“Well, would you rather reveal your behind to us or to everyone at the dance?”
“Or to your parents?” Hannah challenged.
The girls continued to argue, but Sophie managed to stay out of it. Finally, as they were bickering about which was worse—showing too much cleavage or too much back—Sophie slipped back into her changing room and got dressed in her own clothes. She was sick of trying things on. Something about a pregnant girl shopping for a formal gown and lecturing her friends about purity promises was just way too creepy.
As it turned out, Mr. Young was right. The more distracted Sophie became with her new role as chief editor, the less she obsessed over other troubles. This was the first year the school had done both an online daily newspaper as well as the bimonthly printed one. Keeping up was a challenge.
“It’s almost like a full-time job,” she admitted to Wes as they put the paper to bed on Friday afternoon.
“But this experience is going to look really great on the college apps.” Wes turned off his computer. “Have you started applying yet?”
She shook her head.
“Well, you don’t want to put it off too long.”
“No . . .” She reached for her bag.
“So, are you going to the big game tonight?”
“As much as I’d like to just go home and sleep for a couple of days, I promised Carrie Anne I’d go with her.”
Wes grinned. “Great. See ya there then.”
She nodded, feigning a smile. “Yeah.”
“And, uh, my mom told me to ask you what color your dress is . . . you know, for tomorrow night’s dance.”
“Black.”
“Black?” His tone was curious.
“Yeah. You have a problem with black?” She was ready to lay into him if he did. She’d already taken enough grief from her friends about her choice of color. They were all going with tropical shades and felt like she was the spoiler for choosing black. But her mom had helped her find a dress that Sophie felt was appropriate. Well, for a pregnant girl anyway.
Wes held up his hands defensively. “Black is good.”
“Good.”
“So, I’ll see you at the game then.” He grabbed up his laptop case and hurried out of the journalism room.
“All finished?” Mr. Young asked as he locked his office door.
“Yep.” Sophie nodded.
“And you’re still glad yo
u’re chief editor?”
“Well, it’s keeping me busy.”
He chuckled as he gathered up his briefcase and things. “And out of trouble?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right.”
“Have a good weekend. I’m sure you’ll be busy with all the homecoming activities.”
“Yeah, pretty much.” She didn’t bother to tell him that she wasn’t looking forward to all the activities or that she’d rather just take a long nap. Better yet, she wished she could just hibernate until, say, mid-May.
She felt even more tired that evening. Despite the fact that their team was winning—although the margin was shrinking in the second half—and the crowd was rowdy and loud and wound up, all Sophie wanted was to go home and sleep.
“Are you okay?” Wes asked. He’d invited himself to join her and her friends. Naturally she hadn’t told him no. Still, she knew that some friends were beginning to think they were really a couple, which was so not the case.
“I’m fine,” she snapped.
“Sorry.” He looked slightly wounded.
“Sorry,” she said more gently. “The truth is, I’m tired. It’s been a long week and—”
“Want to make a fast break and get out of here?” he said.
“Seriously?” Sophie stood up and nudged Carrie Anne. “Wes and I are getting outta here.”
“But the game’s not even—”
“I know.” Sophie rubbed her forehead. “But I have a headache and the noise is getting to me.” Now that wasn’t even a total lie.
“Okay.” Carrie Anne frowned. “See ya.”
As they walked across the parking lot, the night air felt cool and good against her face. “Thanks, Wes,” she told him. “I really was relieved to escape. But I hope I didn’t ruin your—”
“Hey, you know I’m not much of a sports fan.”
“Well, I know you’re not much of a sportswriter.” She socked him in the arm.
“Thanks a lot.”
As they got into his car, Wes asked if she was hungry. The truth was, she was hungry. But she told him no thanks and that she mostly wanted to get home. Fortunately he didn’t seem to mind.
“Thanks again,” she said as he pulled into her driveway. “And I’ll see you at Carrie Anne’s tomorrow night. It sounds like her mom’s got something really great for dinner.”
“Cool.” He smiled at her. “Can’t wait.”
She nodded and tried to look enthusiastic. Really, shouldn’t this be a fun time for her? Shouldn’t she be enjoying all this senior year stuff?
As she went into the house, she reminded herself that she wasn’t the only pregnant girl in their high school. Of course, the pregnant girls she’d noticed weren’t like her—not honor students, newspaper editors, or Christians who’d made abstinence pledges. As far as Sophie knew, the girls who walked around school with their pregnant bellies hanging out were known for sleeping around. They were the kind of girls you expected to get knocked up. And they acted totally nonchalant about it, strutting around in maternity wear like they were setting a new fashion trend.
Somehow Sophie knew she just couldn’t do that. As much as she liked making jokes at her own expense, she couldn’t bear to have her peers laughing at her—the way she’d seen them laugh at others—just because she was pregnant. So not funny.
11
“You look hot,” Carrie Anne told Sophie the following night. The two of them were dressed for the dance and standing in front of Carrie Anne’s mirror doing their final tweaks. They’d already spent the afternoon helping Mrs. Vincent with the dinner preparations, trying to make everything perfect, until she had finally shooed them away to get dressed.
Sophie studied herself in the mirror and had to concede with her friend. She did look unusually good in the simple black dress. “I was worried that it might look too boring,” she admitted. “But Mom talked me into it. She was so convinced it was perfect that she even paid for it too.”
“Well, it’s definitely hot.” Carrie Anne added another bobby pin to secure Sophie’s pinned-up hair. “And slimming too.”
Sophie’s hand automatically slid down to her midsection. Sure, she wasn’t really showing, but suddenly she was reminded of what was going on inside her body. It was funny how sometimes, even if only briefly, she would forget about it. She would be tricked into thinking she was just the same as ever. Just Sophie Ramsay enjoying being a normal teenage girl. Then something would happen or someone would say something . . . and she would remember.
Fortunately the dinner and dance proved to be fairly good distractions. Although Sophie wasn’t enjoying herself as much as she portrayed, it wasn’t as bad as she’d expected either. Still, she was glad when it was over with. It seemed that was all she lived for anymore—getting things over with.
“Thanks for going with me tonight,” Wes told her as he walked her to her door. Carrie Anne and Drew were still in the car, and suddenly Sophie felt nervous. She so hoped that Wes wasn’t going to ruin what had been a sort of okay evening by trying to get a good-night kiss.
“Thank you,” she told him, extending her hand as if to shake his.
He took her hand and made a goofy grin. “Good night.”
“Good night.” Then she pulled her hand away from his and hurried inside her house. Awkward moment averted.
As exhausted as Sophie felt, she was wide-awake when she finally got into bed. She felt restless and edgy and uneasy. Like something was about to happen.
Suddenly it occurred to her that her body could be telling her something. Like maybe something was wrong with the pregnancy. Like maybe she was going to have a miscarriage. On one hand, it would be such a relief. On the other hand, she knew it was wrong to wish for an innocent baby’s death simply to escape her own mistake.
Even so, she’d already done some research about this online. She had actually hoped to discover some simple solution to ending the pregnancy without having an abortion. Of course, she felt guilty at the hope she’d experienced when she discovered that miscarriages were fairly common, at least statistically. But her research hadn’t revealed anything terribly helpful. It seemed most miscarriages had to do with serious illnesses or DNA problems or aging. None of which seemed applicable to Sophie. She also learned that things like exercise, foods, or even sex do not cause miscarriage. Not that she was considering sex. But she had been open to a strenuous workout regime or eating weird foods—though now those things seemed pointless.
Sophie got up and turned on her computer. Once again she was surfing the Internet looking for information about miscarriages. Finally she found an article that gave her a smidgeon of hope. It seemed that stress could actually cause a miscarriage. Well, who was more stressed than Sophie? That had to be her answer. She read on to discover that her stressed-out body was quite possibly producing a hormone that could put her pregnancy at serious risk. She exited the site, removed it from her file history, and shut down the computer.
Could that be what was happening to her? Was it possible that her body was taking care of this problem itself? She had read that one in eight pregnancies miscarried in the first trimester—and she had hoped that she would be that lucky one. She was still in her first trimester and would be for at least one more month.
If Sophie was still on speaking terms with God, she might’ve asked for his help in this. But, on second thought, God probably wasn’t inclined to listen to prayers from pregnant teenage girls who had broken their vows and were now desperately begging him to straighten things out. Or worse yet, who were hoping that a human life might end simply for convenience’s sake. No, that didn’t make much sense. As far as she knew, God didn’t work like that. But perhaps her own body would help her out of this mess. Because one thing she knew for sure, she was totally stressed. As weird as it seemed, maybe stress would be her new best friend.
Sophie felt a tiny ray of hope as she got back into bed. Who knew that stress could actually be good for something?
Although Sophi
e’s stress level felt higher than ever, sometimes so much so that she worried she was about to have a nervous breakdown, the next few weeks passed without the slightest sign of a miscarriage.
“So what are you kids doing for Halloween this year?” Dad asked her one night when her family of three actually sat down to eat a take-out pizza together.
“Oh, I thought I’d dress up like a pumpkin and go trick-or-treating,” she said sarcastically. “I’m like almost eighteen, Dad.”
“You keep pigging out on that pizza, and all you’ll need is to borrow my orange T-shirt to pass yourself off as the Great Pumpkin,” her dad teased.
She set down the piece and frowned. “Thanks a lot.”
“Lighten up, Bud,” her mom warned him. “Your waistline isn’t anything to brag about.”
“You making fun of my little old beer belly?” He winked at Mom. “And here I thought you liked it.”
“I’m just saying . . . The truth is, I think we could all use to take off a few pounds,” she said. “Maybe we should make a goal to cut back before the holidays hit and we all overdo it.”
“And maybe I should sign us all up for one of those reality shows,” he shot back at her. “You know, like The Biggest Loser. Only we could do one for families.”
“Count me out.” Sophie pushed back her chair and stood. “Aw, come on,” Dad said. “I was just kidding about the pumpkin thing. Finish your pizza, honey.”
“I’m full.”
“See what you did, Bud?” Mom shook her finger at him.
“I didn’t mean anything by—”
“Seriously.” Sophie faked a smile in hopes that her parents wouldn’t get into some big stupid fight over her now. “I am full.”
She went upstairs to her room, shut the door, went over to the mirror, and pulled up her shirt to stare at her rounded tummy. Her favorite jeans were too tight now, and even her usually loose khakis had gotten snug. According to what she’d read, she shouldn’t require real maternity clothes until her second trimester. But that was just around the corner now. In the meantime, she couldn’t go around busting out of her clothes. If her dad was noticing her weight gain, surely others would too.
Anything but Normal Page 9
