Two days since I phoned him.
It seems pointless putting on make-up let alone a minidress. I’ve been dishonourably discharged, the uniform no longer means anything. Anyway, the last thing I feel is sexy.
What’ll I do, then? Go back to wearing my mother’s skirts and dresses that I shortened using Scotch tape because my father, who’s still convinced she’ll waltz through our front door one day, refuses to let me “sabotage” her clothes with a needle and thread? Go back to my virginal look? I’ll bet that would make Alice happy. Despite the cheerful interest she seems to have taken in my transformation, I can’t believe she isn’t praying for me to come to my senses: “Please, dear Lord, restore Louise to the path of decency and modesty.”
With a fingernail I scrape the vomit crust from the corner of my mouth and get out my tube of lipstick and try to remember that I made the decision to become someone else before Abel and I reunited (only a few hours before, it’s true … still, before). Except I wouldn’t have acted on it. The belief that he loved me is what gave me the courage, and everything I did from then on I imagined he could see.
Up until now. I can’t imagine him seeing this, the throwing up and sobbing. But I can’t imagine him seeing me calm or sleeping either, if he has stopped loving me. If he has pushed me out of his mind, I don’t even have the ghost of him. I have nobody worth being interesting for. I am nothing.
I choose my green-and-black-striped empire-line minidress owing to its relative looseness. Since getting out of the shower I have the feeling that the least pressure will shatter my torso. I feel hollow, the empty shell you hear about. Putting on my underwear and then the dress and my shoes is a cruel chore. As for breakfast, forget it. I have only a couple of mouthfuls of orange juice. My father looks at me piercingly over his coffee mug. “Are you sure you shouldn’t stay home?”
“I’m dressed,” I say. All that work!
“Your eyes are bloodshot.” Because I almost never cry in front of him, he fails to diagnose grief. “I wonder if you’ve got conjunctivitis. Pink eye. It’s highly contagious, you know. You could have got it from your mascara, especially if you share it around.”
I tell him to leave me alone, I’m going to school. I forget why I’m so determined. Something to do with not wanting to cry in bed all day, not wanting to slit my wrists in the bathtub. He offers to drive me but I feel I need the walk to fortify myself.
Alice is waiting at the corner, of course. I apologize for not showing up yesterday. “I had the flu,” I say.
“You still look a little green around the gills,” she says.
“I do?” I touch my stomach. It feels rubbery and big, twice as big as an hour ago. A nauseating dread wallows through me.
“Whoops-a-daisy.” She grabs my hand. She is as solid as a wrestler. “I’m taking you straight back home.”
“No, no.” I pull free. “I don’t want to go home. I’ll be okay.”
She adjusts her books so that she’s cradling them in one arm. “Come on, then,” she says, linking her free arm through mine. “We’ll try and keep you on your feet at least.”
The walk is a little under a mile, not far compared to the distance some kids have to travel. Our route goes through the subdivision to a small plaza (barber shop, smoke shop, bank, milk store, beauty salon), around the plaza into Matas Parkette with its wooden benches and granite statue of Dr. Adolph T. Matas, 1812—1882, Physician, Surgeon and Linguist, Friend to All (which doesn’t stop people from saying Doctor Fat Ass and Fat Ass Park), then along a sidewalk that runs adjacent to a main road.
As we’re entering the park I feel sick again. “I’ve got to sit down,” I say, yanking myself free and staggering over to a bench.
Alice bustles up behind me. “Put your head between your knees.”
I obey.
She sits and snaps opens her purse. From my bent-over position I look at her calves under the thick nylons that crush her blond leg hair into a mat. I hear her unscrewing the lid of her hand-lotion jar. “Nobody’s watching,” she says. ‘You might feel better getting it out of your system.”
I know what she means but I decide I am being urged in another direction, and so I say,“Can you be pregnant and still get your period?”
Silence, except for the faint sound of her hands rubbing together. “I’m not sure,” she says at last.
“What about morning sickness? Do you know if that can suddenly start after two months?”
She clears her throat. “I remember when my mother was carrying Teddy she had the worst time that way right in the middle, the fourth and fifth months. Before and after she was fine.” She screws the lid back on and closes her purse. “How are we feeling?”
“Okay.” I sit up. Would Dr. Matas, Friend to All, have given me an abortion? “The thing is,” I say,“they weren’t my usual heavy periods.”
Alice picks up her books and purse. “We should get a move on.”
I let her take my arm again. “Oh, God,” I say at the thought of the rest of my life.
“Have you seen that sign in the window of Parker’s Drug Store?” she asks.
“What sign?”
“Pregnancy tests.” Her cheeks flare up. “Confidential and quick.”
Why would she, of all people, have noticed that? “No.”
“I’ll bet you any money you’ve only got a touch of the flu, but if you want to put your mind at rest …”
“You pee into a bottle, don’t you?”
“Yes, they need a specimen. First thing in the morning is best, before you’ve eaten anything.”
“Alice—” I force us to stop. She looks at me. Her burning little face. “You won’t tell anybody.”
“Tell? Good heavens, no! Who would I tell?” She gestures zipping her lips. “There. Tucked away all safe and sound.”