Strange but True

by John Searles

  I was freaking out, Missy. But I finally had the balls to do it.

  As she stands there staring over at the pregnancy tests, the words on the packages seem to shout at her: First Response!, 99% accurate! e.pt.!, Early Detection! Melissa looks around to be sure no one is watching. Other than a line of old ladies over by the pharmacy and a woman with a stroller studying a Children’s Tylenol container, there isn’t anyone in the immediate vicinity who might see what she is about to do. In two quick movements, Melissa thrusts out her hand, swipes a pink and white box off the shelf, and drops it in her basket. Before going to the register, she gets the idea to pick up a few random items so the pregnancy test will not stand out as much at the counter. She grabs a bag of fish licorice, a copy of the local newspaper, a flimsy pair of $3.99 sunglasses, plus those three cards for Ronnie’s family. Even though Melissa plans to pay the Chases a visit sometime soon, she figures she will mail these cards first with a note telling them how sorry she is for their loss.

  Their loss.

  That’s how her parents make her feel anyway. Like this is a terrible tragedy for the Chase family, but a mere inconvenient blip in the grand scheme of Melissa’s life. When they come into her room to pray with her, they say things about moving on, putting “this incident” behind her, preparing to take the next step toward her future with God on her side. There have been so many times when Melissa wanted to scream at them to shut up, to tell them that they don’t understand how she feels and never will. But she stays silent. She keeps her face as still and motionless as possible, because it hurts to make even the slightest of expressions.

  After she selects a card for each of the Chases—one with a purple lilac for Mrs. Chase, another with a burning sunset for Mr. Chase, and a third with a field of red poppies for Philip—Melissa takes a breath and approaches the register. She doesn’t know any of the women behind the counter or anybody waiting in line, and for that she is grateful. When it’s her turn, a lady with a butterfly barrette in her frizzy black hair rings up the items. She glances at Melissa’s face, then promptly looks away. It is exactly what her parents do—exactly what Melissa used to do too whenever she saw a handicapped person, because she thought it was rude to stare. Now she realizes how rude that deliberate looking away is. The woman puts the kit in the bag along with the rest of Melissa’s purchases. With her eyes still focused on the counter, she tells her that the total is twenty-four dollars and eighty-seven cents. Melissa shoves the twenty and the five into her hand, grabs the bag, and walks out of the store without waiting for change.

  Back in the car, her mother has popped a classical music tape into the stereo and pumped up the air conditioner. The tinkling piano clashes with the Taylor Dayne song still echoing in Melissa’s mind. The cold air blowing against her bare legs makes her all the more uncomfortable. Her mother starts the engine and says, “It looks like you got more than a few cards in there.”

  Melissa shoves the bag against the passenger door in case the pink and white box is visible through the cloudy white plastic. She says nothing.

  “You’ll be glad to hear that the cops didn’t come around to bother me,” her mother tells her.

  “I didn’t think they would,” Melissa says and slouches in her seat.

  As they pull out of the handicap spot, she stares up at the blue sign with the wheelchair symbol. Her thoughts linger on that woman with the butterfly barrette at the register, the way she looked away from her face—just like her parents. I am a freak, she thinks, sliding her hand into the CVS bag and fishing around for the sunglasses. No matter what anyone says, I will never be the same again.

  Once she locates the glasses, Melissa attempts to put them on, but the bandages are so bulky they get in the way. Her mother sees what she is trying to do and says, “Don’t worry. Once your wounds heal, your father and I are going to take you to a plastic surgeon like Dr. Patel suggested. He gave us a list of almost a dozen names, and we are going to find the very best one. It is all going to be fine. You’ll see.”

  Again, Melissa says nothing. For weeks, she has been hearing about this magical list of plastic surgeons and all the miracles they are going to perform. But she has seen her face with the bandages off. Even though Dr. Patel did not want her to look, Melissa caught a glimpse of herself in the reflection of a silver towel rack while the bandages were being changed, so she knows full well how impossible it will be to make her look like her old self. Thinking of that reflection now, Melissa rolls down the window and tosses the sunglasses outside. She watches in the side-view mirror as they clank and bounce off the curb before snapping against the pavement.

  “What did you do that for?” her mother asks.

  “They don’t fit,” is all she can say. Then she remembers the red light-bulb and asks, “Whatever happened to my purse and my dress and all the rest of my stuff from the prom?”

  “I—” Her mother stops speaking a moment. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because it’s my stuff, Mother. I want to keep it so I can remember that night.”

  “Why on earth would you want to remember something so horrible?”

  Melissa looks out the passenger window. They are driving along a stretch of road where the tree branches arch overhead. The resulting shade makes it possible to see the faintest of reflections in the glass. Because it is all I have, Melissa thinks as she stares at her bandaged face, remembering how ugly and disfigured she is beneath, Because even if I wanted to love someone else, which I don’t, who is going to want me now? No one, that’s who. Not like this anyway. To her mother, she simply says, “I just do. That’s all.”

  “Well, we got your dress and shoes back from the hospital and your purse back from the police station. As far as I know, your father put all of it in the garage. But I suggest you leave it there. It will be too painful for you to look at right now.”

  After that, they ride along with only the sound of the tinkling piano between them. Melissa’s reflection is gone, and she stares out the window at the lush, leafy summer woods blowing by. She wonders what her first step will be if the pregnancy test turns out to be positive the way she hopes. She wonders exactly how her parents will react if she has to tell them that she is going to have a baby— Ronnie’s baby. Then Melissa thinks of a documentary she watched the other day about a rhino, or maybe an octopus, or a rare species of bird, she cannot recall exactly. Whatever it was, she remembers that the creature sought seclusion before giving birth. Maybe she will do the same, Melissa thinks. Maybe she will move away somewhere and have the baby without telling a soul.

  Her mother turns the car onto Church Street. They pass the white clapboard church where Melissa has gone to services every Sunday for as long as she can remember. She thinks of the repetitious cycle of sermons her father has given over the years. There is the one about faith, during which he quotes a passage from the Bible where Jesus shouts up at God from the cross, “Why hast Thou forsaken me?” There is another about miracles, during which he quotes the passage where Jesus turns water into wine. And then there is that one about the importance of praying to Christ and Christ alone in times of need, since he does not believe in praying to saints or to the Virgin Mary the way Catholics do. As Melissa recounts her father’s greatest hits in her mind, they drive past the wooden board and stones on the side of the road, which made up the jump Wendy Dugas and those girls were attempting to Rollerblade over only a few weeks before. The sight of it fills Melissa with deep sadness because she remembers how excited and hopeful she had felt about her trip with Ronnie as she watched them from the window.

  “Now that you seem to be feeling a little better,” her mother says, breaking the silence as she pulls the car into the driveway, “your father and I think it would be a good idea if we took you to a dentist sometime soon as well. You’ll want to get your teeth fixed before starting college in the fall.”

  College in the fall.

  Not once since the accident has Melissa thought of Penn, or September, or classes, o
r schoolbooks, or any of the other details she might be mulling over if things hadn’t gone so horribly awry. No matter what the pregnancy test shows, one thing is certain: Melissa cannot—she will not—go off to Penn now that Ronnie won’t be going with her. How can she when every single day will be a reminder of the life they planned?

  If you’re on dish duty, I’ll help you scrub…

  “Did you hear what I said?” her mother asks as the car comes to a stop.

  Melissa stares at the closed garage door and wonders about her dress and purse inside, that red lightbulb, which must be shattered into hundreds of tiny shards. “I heard,” she says.

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  Her mother turns off the engine and lets out a long breath. “And—I don’t know. When would you like us to make the appointment?”

  Melissa looks away from the garage door at her mother—her poor hapless mother who has never been good at handling small tragedies, like when the toaster catches on fire or when the sump pump in the basement breaks and the downstairs floods. She is far better at tackling the minor problems life serves up, like a tear in a sweater that needs sewing, or a stuck zipper on a winter coat that needs fixing. The way she treats Melissa is just like one of those minor problems, as though her daughter can be easily fixed—sewn up, zipped up, made as good as new. Melissa opens her mouth and tells her, “Make the appointment for whenever you want. I really don’t care.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t care? These are your teeth we’re talking about. Your smile.”

  Melissa pushes open the car door and steps out into the hot summer air. She hears some sort of banging sound, like a faint series of gunshots or perhaps a muffler backfiring far off in the distance. “Mom,” she says, ignoring the sound and looking into the car. “Even if I had something to smile about, which I obviously do not, it hurts to move my face. Do you understand that? It hurts to smile or frown or smirk or even talk to you right now. So like I said, I don’t care when you make the appointment. I don’t care.”

  With that, Melissa slams the door, storms into the house, and marches up the stairs, clenching that CVS bag in her hands the whole way. When she passes her sister’s room, Stacy is inside, stretched out on her bed, yammering away on the telephone. Ever since the accident, all phone restrictions have been lifted. Their parents did not make any sort of official decree, but Stacy is on it at all hours, and neither of them has told her to get off the way they normally would.

  “Chaz called me twice from the base already,” Melissa hears her say to the person on the other end of the line. (Probably Seneca Lawson, she guesses, or another one of Stacy’s fellow “technical virgins.”) “I think he is still in shock. In a way it’s a blessing that he had to leave so soon afterward.” She pauses. “I need to call Rutgers about registering for my fall classes, but I haven’t felt up to it yet. Hold on a sec—” Stacy puts her hand to the receiver and calls out, “Hey, Miss.”

  Without uttering a word in response, Melissa keeps going down the hall. They have not spoken since the accident, and she isn’t about to start now. Not only did Stacy ruin a big part of that last night with Ronnie, but while Missy was stuck in intensive care for more than a week, Stacy and Chaz were released from the hospital after only three days.

  They went to the memorial service.

  They went to the wake.

  They went to the funeral.

  They got to say good-bye.

  On top of everything else her sister has done, those facts make Melissa hate her all the more. She walks into the bathroom and shuts the door. After double-checking to be sure it’s locked, Melissa leans against the wall and says a prayer to God that the test will turn out the way she hopes. In the mirror of the medicine cabinet, she catches another glimpse of her face. The same thoughts that have been haunting her for weeks wash over her once more: Who is going to want me now? Who is ever going to hold me, or kiss me, or love me again? No one, that’s who. Not like this anyway. It is all the more reason why Melissa wants to be carrying Ronnie’s baby—not just to keep some part of him alive, but also to keep some part of her old self alive as well. She sees this as her last chance at the life she might have lived. Finally, she pulls the e.p.t. kit from the bag, trying her best to keep quiet despite the crinkling plastic. She tears open the box and reads the instructions:

  After removing the plastic top, hold the tip in the urine flow for a minimum of five seconds. The test must be kept on a flat surface while developing. Wait three minutes for a result. If a single pink line appears in the windows you are not pregnant. If two pink lines appear in the windows you are pregnant…

  Melissa pulls the wand from the foil packet, which looks vaguely like a toothbrush. She tugs down her shorts and sits on the toilet, holding the tip between her legs for five seconds. When she is finished, she sets it on the edge of the vanity. Since she is not wearing a watch, Melissa stares at the tiny windows and silently counts, One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three… When she gets to one thousand fifty, there is a knock at the door. Melissa sucks in a nervous breath and holds it.

  “Missy,” her father says in his Sunday sermon drawl. “Are you okay in there?”

  “I’m fine.”

  After his footsteps recede down the hall, she looks at the windows again. There are no pink lines yet, and now she has lost count. For what seems like an eternity, she waits, forcing herself to look away in order to make the time go faster. Melissa stares up at the ceiling, then back at the windows. She stares down at the white linoleum floor, then back at the windows. She even stares in the mirror again, holding her gaze the way no one else will, then back at the windows.

  Still, no lines.

  Finally, she picks up the instructions and searches the fine print for some scrap of information about what to do if nothing appears at all. The only thing she finds is an explanation of something called human chorionic gonadotropin, which goes on forever. When Melissa can’t stand reading anymore, she tosses the paper on the floor and stares at the windows one last time. And that’s when she sees it: a single pink line before her eyes.

  I am not pregnant, she thinks. I am not pregnant after all.

  Even though it hurts to cry, Melissa’s face crumples and the tears begins. She puts a finger to her mouth to keep her lip from quivering as she wonders if the test could be wrong. It even says right there on the box that these things are only 99 percent accurate. Doesn’t that mean there is a 1 percent chance? And if she isn’t pregnant, then why has her period not come? Melissa thinks again of that sermon her father used to give about the importance of praying to Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. But where has that ever gotten her? For the first time in her life, she defies that stupid rule and prays to whomever she damn well pleases.

  Melissa prays to Ronnie.

  “I love you,” she whispers. “I love you, and if you can hear me, I want to have your baby.”

  There is so much more Melissa wants to say to him, but she realizes that it is best not to say it in this house where her father, her mother, or her sister might hear. Melissa gathers up the contents of the kit as well as the plastic bag and the instructions from the floor. She takes one last look around to be sure she has left nothing behind before stepping out of the bathroom. Down the hall, she hears Stacy whining about her broken arm. Melissa tucks the CVS bag beneath her T-shirt then rushes past her room and down the stairs.

  “Missy,” her mother calls from the living room. “Where are you going?”

  The screen door slaps shut behind Melissa and she hurries across the yard. Her mother comes to the front porch and calls out to her again, but she doesn’t follow any farther. At the corner, near Wendy Dugas’s dismantled jump, Melissa stops and takes off her flip-flops so she can move more quickly. The pavement feels hot and gritty against her bare feet, a feeling that reminds her of childhood as she continues on past the church. She takes a left onto Runnymede Avenue, then a right onto Hashen Street, heading in the dir
ection of the cemetery on Faldoma Road. Melissa has been there before, but not since Ronnie was laid to rest. Years ago, the place was an airfield, and on summer days like this one, her parents sometimes took Melissa and her sister to watch the biplanes do loop-de-loops and the wing walkers perform midair stunts. After too many fiery crashes, though, the place was shut down. It went unused for ages—the grass grew tall, the metal hangar rusted and collapsed—until last summer, when it was announced that the field would be turned into a cemetery.

  On her way there, Melissa cuts through the town park, which is more crowded than usual. People are laying blankets all around as though they are getting ready for a game. She walks by a young mother sitting on a bench holding a book in front of her child’s face. “Blue,” she says. “This is the color blue. Can you say it? Blue. Blue. Blue.” The child says nothing so the mother turns the page. “Red. This is the color red. Can you say it? Red. Red. Red.” Melissa keeps going past the tennis courts, where two women dressed in white are hitting the ball back and forth over the sagging net, grunting each time they swing and make contact. When one of them finally misses, the other lets out a throaty heckle and shouts, “Yes! I got you! I finally got you! It’s about time I got you!”

  In the distance, Melissa hears the same banging sound as earlier. She ignores it and continues walking. In bare feet still, she cuts back onto the road and heads through another series of streets. Nearly forty minutes later, she reaches the entrance to the cemetery. Sweaty and breathless, Melissa stops at the mouth of the unpaved driveway, looking over the field before entering. Since her father drags the family to every single funeral of an old person from church who has no loved ones alive to attend, Melissa has been to her fair share of cemeteries. But this place feels different from the others. Those are usually cluttered with headstones, as well as the occasional statue of a lamb or angel, its eyes and mouths worn away from years of rain and snow. Here, there are no statues at all—only a small cluster of a half-dozen or so stones in the far end of the field where the hangar used to be, since not many people have been buried here yet. There are no fancy wrought-iron gates either—just the old chain-link fence that used to be here way back when she came to see those air shows. Most of the field is still covered by tall grass, burned brown by the sun so that it resembles a wheat field.