Our New Normal (ARC)

by Colleen Faulkner

  “You smell like wine. Are you drunk?” I ask her.

  She slams the car door. “No, I’m not drunk.” She nods in the direction of the guy with the dog, walking away. He looks kind of old for her. Like, older than my dad. “Jason Purdue. He just moved into town. Four doors down. Divorced.”

  “Seat belt. Think he’s really divorced?”

  She looks at me like that’s a dumb question.

  “Mikey?” I remind her. “He said he was divorced. Turned out he wasn’t.” I give her an exaggerated sad face. She was really upset when she found out that the guy she was dating, Mike the podiatrist, was still living with his wife. And daughters. And the wife didn’t know anything about a divorce. There was a lot of drama, as I remember. It involved Aunt Beth coming to our house in the pink robe and Dad having to go out for another box of wine. “Seat belt,” I say again. “Granddad’s got to be getting cold, walking around in his undies.”

  “His name wasn’t Mikey. It was Michael.” She puts on her seat belt. “And he was getting divorced. It was just that she was trying to take him to the cleaners. He didn’t think he should have been paying a mortgage on two houses, just so she could be a slut.”

  I don’t say anything, even though I remember the story differently. If I’m recalling the right guy, he was the slut. I pull away from the curb.

  “You’re being awfully judgey today,” Aunt Beth remarks, “for a knocked-up sixteen-year-old.”

  “I’m almost seventeen. And that was mean.” I glance at her. She doesn’t have any makeup on and she looks tired.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry, sweetie.” She reaches out and grabs my forearm.

  I pull away. I like to keep two hands on the steering wheel at all times. We’re coming back into Judith proper now. “I’ll drive. You look for Granddad.”

  “How are things going with you?” she asks me, gazing out the window.

  “Awful.”

  “Awww, sweetie.” She looks at me. “What’s the matter? What’s going on?”

  “Oh, you mean besides this?” I take my right hand off the wheel just long enough to point to my baby belly that I can’t hide anymore.

  She glances back out the window. “Your mother?”

  “Yes, no . . .” I huff. “Everyone. People aren’t being very nice to me at school.”

  “Mean girls?”

  I think about it for a minute. “No . . . they’re not being mean, they’re just . . .” I come to a stop sign. “Left or right?”

  She points right, I signal, and turn, staying in my lane perfectly. “No one’s inviting me to things anymore. I was never super popular or anything, but I used to get invited out for pizza, to a football game tailgate. Stuff.”

  “I thought you and Katy were best friends.”

  “I don’t mean Katy. Other girls. Guys. People are nice to my face, but I think I make them feel uncomfortable. This makes them feel weird.” I rub my hand across my belly before putting it back on the steering wheel. “And I get that. It makes me feel weird and uncomfortable, too. But . . .” I shake my head. “I don’t know. I didn’t think kids would care. It’s kind of lonely,” I say softly.

  “It’s always the guiltiest people who are the judgiest,” she says. “They want you to think they’ve never had sex, but they’re the ones out doing it every night.”

  I make a face. “It’s not about the sex. Lots of kids in my school are having sex. It’s not a big deal. I just feel like . . . they don’t like me because I got pregnant.”

  “Probably because you’re a reminder that they could easily be in your shoes. Take a left at the end of the street. Maybe he walked to that little park near the library.” Aunt Beth points in that general direction.

  “And I’m fat,” I tell her, making a pouty lip. “I’ve gained fifteen pounds and Mom had to give me a pair of her flannel pj bottoms last night because I’m too fat for mine.”

  “You don’t look fat.”

  “Look at my face.” I pinch my cheek between my thumb and pointer finger. “My face is fat and my hands and feet are swelling. We went hiking Sunday at Beachhill, me and Dad. Mom was working.” I roll my eyes. “And my feet were all puffy when I got home. Like my sneakers were tight and left marks on my feet when I took them off.”

  She gives a wave. “That’ll all be over in a few months, sweetie.”

  “Right. And then my boobs will be leaking milk and my V will be stretched out so bad—” I groan really loud in frustration.

  “What about Tyler?” she asks, getting a nail file out of her bag.

  “What about him?”

  She starts filing her nails. “Is he being supportive?”

  “Mom hasn’t told you?”

  “You’re not the center of every conversation your mother and I have, Hazel.”

  I glance at her filing her nails. “Are you even looking for Granddad? You’re supposed to be looking for him.”

  “How hard is it going to be to miss an old man in his underwear?” She says it sarcastically, but she drops the file back into her bag and looks out the window again.

  “Tyler isn’t being very supportive. He’s not even being very nice to me.” I signal as I come to a stop. A lady pushing a stroller with a little girl in it is waiting to cross the street. I wonder how old the girl is. I’m not good at that kind of thing. Two, maybe? Once the mom realizes I’m not a teenage driver who’s going to plow into her, she starts crossing in front of me. She meets my gaze and smiles. I wonder if she’d smile at me if she knew I was in the eleventh grade and pregnant. I smile back.

  “Tyler’s being a total dickwad.” I ease across the intersection after the lady with the stroller has reached the other sidewalk. “I hardly see him anymore. We only have one class together and now we have assigned seats, so we don’t get to sit together. Then half the time at school he’s eating with his shitty friends at lunch. He says he’s working every day after school at his uncle’s garage, but I was at Walgreens last week getting trick-or-treat candy and he pulled out of the parking lot as I was pulling in. Which means he wasn’t at work.” I’m quiet for another block. No sign of my granddad and now I’m starting to get worried. It was a pretty warm day for early October, but it’s going to start getting cold soon. “I don’t think Tyler loves me anymore.” It sounds pathetic when it comes out.

  We ride for another block in silence, then Aunt Beth says, “Pull over.”

  “What?”

  “Pull over,” she says again, pointing. “Right there. You won’t even have to parallel park. A bus could park there.”

  “I know how to parallel park,” I argue, feeling insulted. “I got a hundred percent on my driving test and the written exam.”

  “Bully for you. Pull over.”

  I ease into the spot in front of a pretty little white house with flowers in window boxes hanging off the front porch.

  Aunt Beth turns in her seat, taking off her glasses. Her eyes look puffy and red. Like she’s been crying. Not in the last five minutes, but like crying hard, a lot, for hours. She makes eye contact with me. “Hazel, you don’t have to do this.”

  I put the car into park and shut off the engine. “I don’t have to do what?”

  “Have that baby.” The expression on her face is making me feel like she thinks I’m going to be in the next Alien movie. One of those horror movies where a monster baby rips its way out of my belly.

  I put both hands protectively around my swollen middle. I’m twenty-five weeks pregnant. My baby is the size of a cauliflower. It’s a real baby, a baby I can feel kicking now, or moving, or whatever. “Yeah, I do have to have this baby, Aunt Beth. Nobody does abortions this far along. I’m not aborting my baby.”

  She holds up her hand, palm to me. “Save the drama for your mama.” She puts her sunglasses in a case and tucks them into her bag. “Yes, you’ve got to pop this baby out of your V, but you don’t have to keep this baby. You can put it up for adoption and—”

  “I’m not giving up my baby.�
� I look at her like she’s crazy. “What kind of person gives away her baby?”

  She stares me down, narrowing her tired-looking blue eyes. “A smart one, Hazel. A smart young woman like you who realizes she made a mistake and decides not to let it affect the rest of her life. I mean think about it. This wasn’t a big mistake, I mean it was in a sense of the end result but—Exactly how did you get pregnant?” She holds up her hand, palm toward me. “Wait, let me guess. Ding-Dong didn’t have a rubber?”

  I feel my cheeks get hot and I look straight ahead, through the windshield. I still have my arms wrapped around my belly.

  “Hazel,” Aunt Beth says quieter. She tugs on the sleeve of my white North Face jacket that I can barely zip now. “Just because you said you wanted to keep this baby two months ago, doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind now.”

  I feel like I’m going to start crying. I keep staring straight ahead, watching cars go by us. People who I imagine don’t feel like their lives are caving in around them. Smothering them.

  “As much as you know I hate to admit it, your mother, my sister, is right on this one. And, Hazel”—she grabs my hand—“this isn’t about not wanting to do what your mother wants you to do. We’re not talking about buying the green prom dress because your mom thinks the blue one looks better on you. We’re talking about something, someone who’s going to affect you for the rest of your life. Someone who is going to ruin the rest of your life. Because you’re being stubborn. And stupid.”

  I swallow, blinking. I feel like telling Aunt Beth that she’s not really in a position to be telling people what kind of life decisions they should be making. It’s not like she’s killing it in that department. But I can’t find my voice because I’m trying too hard not to cry.

  “Hazel, sweetie, it’s not that I don’t think, that we don’t think you can raise a baby.” She’s not sounding so mean now. “We think you could if you had to, and I think you’d do a pretty damned good job.” She gives a little laugh. “Better than I ever could.”

  She’s quiet and I finally turn to look at her, hoping she doesn’t notice that I’m tearing up.

  “The thing is, even though you could raise this baby, you don’t have to. Things are different now. Things aren’t so rosy with Baby Daddy. And changing your mind doesn’t have to be about your mom being right and you being wrong.”

  I look away, shaking my head. “That’s not what it’s about,” I whisper.

  “Are you sure?” she says softly. “Are you absolutely sure? Because having a baby when you’re seventeen, it could screw up your whole life, sweetie. You get that, right? It’s going to screw up all your dreams. Because you saying you’re going to be a doctor and take your kids to Switzerland for Christmas, you know that’s not going to happen if you become a mother at seventeen years old, right?”

  “What happened to you thinking I could do anything?” I ask her, not daring to look at her again. “When I was growing up, it didn’t matter what I said, what I did, you supported me.”

  “Truth? That was bullshit you tell a kid. It’s what you’re supposed to tell kids: You can be president of the United States, you can make the volleyball team, you can get an A on that stupid test you’re so worried about. Only you’re not a kid anymore. Are you?” She points at my belly. “That means you’re not a kid anymore. And when you’re not a kid anymore, when you’re a grown-ass adult, you have to face the facts. And the facts are, you might as well kiss your dreams of being a doctor good-bye. Sure, maybe you’ll make it through community college, if you’re lucky, and learn to be a dental hygienist or something.” She holds up her hand. “And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. But it’s not what you want. And if you keep that baby, the fact is that you’re going to be a single mom, working as a hygienist, and borrowing money from your parents to put gas in your car.” She throws up her hands. “Do the math. You know that statistically, that’s what’s likely to happen.”

  “I want my baby,” I whisper.

  “Why? So you have someone to love? Someone who loves you? That’s what teenaged girls always say.”

  I tear up.

  “Hazel, you’ve already got more people who love you than most will ever have.”

  I just sit there watching cars go by. I watch a couple walk by who are like my parents’ age. They’re walking two little white dogs. They’re holding hands. They’re also wearing coats. And my granddad might be out somewhere cold and maybe confused about how to get home. I turn the key in the ignition.

  Aunt Beth stares out the window.

  I pull out of the parking spot. “Where could he be?” I say, deciding the best thing to do is to just let the “you should give away your baby” conversation go. “Where would he go?” I grip the wheel. “Call Gran and see if she’s heard anything. Then call Mom. Maybe some other neighbor has seen him.”

  We get lucky fifteen minutes later. Gran and Mom don’t know anything, but while we’re sitting behind a UPS truck delivering on Main Street, some lady Gran knows from her old gardening club knocks on the car window and tells us she just saw Granddad in the bookstore. Wearing a blanket around his waist.

  I let Aunt Beth out at the next corner and she goes to the bookstore, which has recently been bought by people from Maryland. Turns out that’s why they didn’t call Gran when Granddad walked in wearing his brown barn coat, his hiking boots, and no pants. They didn’t know who he was and he wouldn’t tell them. When I walk into the bookstore, I find Aunt Beth sitting at a little table across from Granddad looking at her phone. He’s drinking black coffee and looking at a hunting magazine, which is interesting because he’s never hunted, as far as I know.

  “Hey, Granddad.” I’m a little out of breath because I had to park a block away and ran most of the way here.

  “Hello, Hazel.” He doesn’t look at me.

  I glance around. “I didn’t know they added a coffee shop to the bookstore. This is really cool.”

  “Want a caramel latte?” Beth asks. “I’m going to order one to go. Jeannie and Rob are the new owners. Coffee bar’s got a good menu; they’re doing pourovers. Beans are roasted down the road at that place, what’s it called? On Route 1. Camden, maybe?” She’s texting someone as she talks to me and I wonder if that guy gave her his number.

  I look down at Granddad’s legs under the table and see that he’s definitely wearing a blanket around his waist. I see his bare calves above his Bean boots. He doesn’t seem cold or hurt, or even scared. My first impulse is to ask him what the hell he was doing walking around town without his pants, scaring us half to death because we didn’t know where he was. But I don’t because I’m not his mother. Or his daughter.

  “You call my mom?” I ask Aunt Beth.

  She shakes her head. She’s grinning at her phone screen.

  “Gran?”

  She’s texting again, her fingers flying. She’s a lot better texter than Mom is. “Not yet.”

  I groan really loud and then realize it’s something my mother does when she doesn’t like my answer. “You order the coffees, I’ll call them.” I raise my hand like I’m in school. “I’ll be the adult here.” I walk away, pulling my phone out of my yoga pants’ pocket. “Because somebody’s got to be,” I mutter.

  17

  Liv

  When I try to pull into my parents’ driveway, I have to wait for the pizza guy to back out. He waves at me as if he knows me as he slams on his brakes in the center of the street and shoots forward. I return the wave and pull in. I’m surprised not to see Beth’s or Hazel’s car in the driveway. I’m equally surprised to see Oscar’s. Hazel called me about three forty-five to say she and Beth had found Dad. That he’d gone to the bookstore in town. I didn’t get any more details other than that he was fine.

  Now I’m concerned. It’s only five o’clock. Oscar should still be at work. I hurry inside, afraid my dad has a medical issue. Or Mom. Or both. It’s happened.

  I walk into my parents’ kitchen to find nothing out of the
ordinary. Dad’s sitting at the table playing Candy Crush on his iPad. Wearing pants. I hear the TV on in the other room. I suspect that’s where Mom is.

  “Hey, Dad,” I say, trying to keep my concern out of my voice. I smell the pizza and glance over to see a box on the counter. “Everything okay?”

  “Beth was here,” he says, not looking up at me. “She left.”

  I nod, annoyed she didn’t at least stay until I got here. Feeling guilty because I’m annoyed and I shouldn’t be. Because my sister actually came through for once. Hazel said she helped her find Dad. Oscar and I were having a conversation the other night . . . well, a disagreement. He told me I’m never happy, no matter what anyone does. It was over something silly like how he loaded the dishwasher. I argued it wasn’t true. It was just that the way he was loading it, the dirty surfaces facing away from the center, the whole load would have to be run a second time. In my mind, he was being passive-aggressive in his offer to “help” me clean up after dinner. He was saying he was going to do the dishes, but in reality, he was setting up the scenario of me coming downstairs in the morning to start to unload them, find them still dirty, and then I would have to take the time to rearrange the dishes and run them again.

  But he wasn’t really talking about the dishwasher; he was talking about my general dissatisfaction with him, with the kids, my parents, Beth. Was he right? Am I never satisfied? Can no one ever live up to my expectations?

  I know I never live up to my own.

  I glance down at my dad. “Where’d Beth go?”

  He shrugs. The volume of the game is loud. I resist the impulse to reach over his shoulder and turn it down.

  Am I really never satisfied?

  For a moment, I chew on my lower lip and that thought. Then I ask, “Is Oscar here?”

  My dad swipes candies across his iPad screen. “Little boys’ room.”

  I glance in the direction of the powder room off the kitchen. The door’s slightly ajar. The light’s out. “Doesn’t look like he’s in there.”