I’m on a cold table, practically naked. I’m under a cold sheet. My butt’s asleep. The paper crinkles when I wiggle. It rips. Now my naked butt is right up against cold, hard plastic. Where other naked butts have been. Chévere.
“I’m so excited to see her!” Teri’s feet salsa the floor though she’s sittin’ down. She wrangles her cell out of her olive-green Old Navy schoolbag. The one that was her brother’s before her. “You think they’ll let me take a picture of the picture?” She positions the phone in front of me. She’s been documenting everything. Fine by me. Means I don’t got to do it. But Ter can get a little agitada. Last week, I said hell no to some carajo idea to make a cast of my belly. Like, who would ever want that?
“Baby Angela!” I poke my stomach and make a face for the video. “This is yo mama talkin’.” I lower my voice and hum Darth Vader’s theme.
Heavenly snorts. She does that sometimes when she laughs. Once, we was all at McD’s during that Monopoly game they have, the one where, if you win, you get tickets to the World Series or somethin’. Teri peeled her sticker off real fast—she can never wait—and leaned over, tellin’ Yaz to hurry up and peel hers. She was even more excited ’cause the Yankees was in the playoffs. Yaz turns, all calm, like she the queen of Santo Domingo, and says, “What? You wanna know if we gonna be sittin’ next to each other?” Heavenly snorted so big, leche came out her nose. We all got sprayed. We was so loud, hooting and slapping the table, they kicked us out. I had McFlurry in my hair for three days. It was on my coat all winter. All ’cause my fancy fashionista friend snorts.
Yaz goes to the machine next to me. It’s part brown, part white. Like medio pollo—coffee with milk. It looks like some fancy vacuum cleaner, those ones with all the parts hanging off the sides so rich people can clean their curtains without getting the dog hair from the floor on them. Only this one’s made for a giant. Bigger than those Smart cars we always make fun of. Yaz’s palms are up, fingers counting one another like she’s deciding which nail polish to choose. “¡Anjá!” she says. “This thing is huge! Was it this big at your other appointment?”
“I don’t think you’re supposed to touch that.” Teri glances at the door. She’s gumming her lips. Like she’s tryin’ to spread gobs of old lipstick smooth again. She does that when she gets nervous. Which is probably half the day. But not usually when she’s with me.
“Doctors always run late. We waited for like half an hour for the last one. Won’t hurt for me to take un chinchin of a peekypeek.” Yaz picks up something that looks like a wand and jabs the air with it like it’s a sword. She steps over the cord so it’s between her legs and holds the wand up in front of her crotch. She thrusts like she’s onstage with Beyoncé. “¡Qué arrecho!”
“Yaz!” Teri’s face goes all red. She and Yaz be opposites when it comes to the deed. Not that Yaz is an avión or anything. She just talks like that. Fact is, she only been with one guy more than I have. But that’s three more than Ter, who’s still making up her mind about the whole thing. Like I said, she be the nervous one.
“Why won’t this TV work?” Heavenly, the only one of us tall enough to reach, presses buttons on a monitor hung from the ceiling. Her black skirt is some fake snakeskin. It matches her heeled ankle boots and lace knee-highs. Up top, she’s got an off-the-shoulder cable-knit sweater the color of custard caramel. Jo-jo supports Hev’s fashion habit. It’s nice having an older man with a job to pay for stuff. Especially when Hev shares so much. Hev jabs the TV again. “What’s the point in having it here if we can’t watch our shows?” Heavenly’s got more experience in the man department than all us combined. Not surprising given the Nicki Minaj butt that sits atop those long legs. But while Heavenly shares her stuff, she don’t share much of what goes on in her boys’ beds. “I’m a doer, not a talker,” she says. It ticks Yaz off. Yaz and me, we made a promise when we was twelve to tell each other everything. She was the one crammed in the stall with me when I found out baby Angela existed. We jumped up and down, hugging and screaming ’til the coffee-shop guy banged on the bathroom door. I was gonna trash the place. Stuff the two toilets with paper and squirt soap all over the floor. To get him back for ruining my moment. But Yaz pulled me out by the hand saying we didn’t have time ’cause we had to celebrate. It was one of those crazy May days where the sun got confused into thinking it was August. We skipped school and sat on a rock by the Hudson, sucking on pipas, chucking the shells at pigeons and making lists of what we was gonna do different from our parents.
“Now show me the belly!” Yaz is pointing the vaina at me. She does a hip circle like she’s JLo this time. At least the plastic stick’s not near her crotch no more.
“Here.” Teri, not looking at Yaz, folds the sheet down from my stomach. She sits back on the chair, wedges her hands under her legs.
Yaz puts the tip of the vaina on my belly button.
We all hear the knock at the same time the door opens.
Teri lets out a yip. Her phone slips off her lap, clatters to the floor.
“It helps if you turn it on first.” A Prince Royce face under blond hair and above a white coat smiles at us like we’re little-kid cute.
“Qué papi chulo,” Heavenly mutters as Doc Hottie pulls the curtain in front of the doorway. Coño, she’s got that right. He’s even hotter than Heavenly’s Jo-jo.
Doc Hottie steps around my feet. “Here, let me help you with that.” He takes the wand from Yaz, puts it back on the machine. He extends his hand to me. “It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Pujols. I’m Dr. Love. I’m one of the doctors who’ll be performing your fetal echocardiogram today.” He covers my belly with the sheet again. “We’re not quite ready yet. I don’t want you to get cold.”
Huh. Too late for that. I want to complain about the too-cold table and the too-cold sheets, but I like him. And it’s not just that he’s hot. Bonus! Teddy-bear blond hair, eyes gold like a caffeine-free Coke can with a little bit of Pepsi blue, stubble so I know he doesn’t take himself too seriously, glasses so I know he takes this seriously. It’s that he called me “Ms.” and introduced himself. A lot of peeps think I’m difficult. I’m not. Not really. You want me to show respect? You got to do me one first.
Teri and Yaz stare at Doc like he’s a fudge sundae on Friday night. They’re following some crazy diet where they only eat sugar on the weekend. Just makes them eat more of it, but they don’t listen to me. Heavenly has let off with the TV. Her eyes track Doc as she takes a seat and crosses her legs, straightening her back to show off what she’s got that I don’t. Comes from having a black mama. My dumbass mama was white. Wasn’t ’til I got pregs that anything real showed up on top. Coño, was Abuela relieved. Bertie was crackin’ juiced, even though he’d told me before he didn’t care they was so small. Teri and Yaz, their mamas are morenitas, so they filled out just fine.
“Hi there, I’m Dr. Love.” He’s offering his hand to Yaz. She reaches for it like it’s her mama’s necklace. The one her papi gave her before he split.
“I’m Yazmeen.” She gulps but her grin’s still there. “I’m Mari’s cousin.”
We ain’t no cousins. If we was related, we’d be sisters. Yaz is just scared he’s gonna throw her out. Teri read something about how only family members should be coming to these appointments.
“My name’s Teri.” Teri’s voice is like a three-year-old scared the doctor’s gonna give her a shot. Her fingers barely touch Doc’s before she pulls them back. “I’m her cousin, too.” Don’t know why she’s sounding like that. She knows I’d never let those hospital guards lay a hand on her. Or Yaz. Or Heavenly. You want me, you gotta take my girls, too. Don’t matter that I’m pregs. My fist still knows how to swing. When Bertie and me first met, he called me la galla, after those fighting cocks back in the DR. Said if he could bet on me, he would, ’cause I always win. I didn’t mind the nickname. I always thought it was stupid they only ever let the boy birds fight. That’s Dominicans for you. Bertie don’t call me that no more. But sometimes, when we in bed, I give him a few cluck-clucks. It always sets him off laughing.
Heavenly’s standing again, hands smoothing down her skirt. “Cousin Heavenly.” She says her name like it’s something you’re not supposed to think about in church. Her grip on Doc’s hand is solid. Like she’s not planning on letting go.
“Pleased to meet you all.” Doc doesn’t look surprised I have so many cousins. Or that none of them look like me. He flips a switch on the machine. It’s like he reached right into me and flipped my squirming stomach over. I grip the small mound of my belly. I squeal and kick my toes. Yaz squeals back. She grabs a piece of Doublemint from her bag and scurries to the other side of the bed so she can see better. She grabs one of my hands and one of Teri’s. Pretty soon, we’re all giggling. Even Heavenly. It’s like we all kids again, squeezed into one of them cages on the Wonder Wheel in Coney Island, waitin’ for it to lift off and show us the beach, the ocean, the sky.
Doc Hottie is working the keyboard. He hasn’t let off smiling. “You’re all excited, I see.” Coño. He even has Prince Royce’s dimples.
There’s another knock and Doc looks up. “Is it all right if another fellow—another doctor—joins me?”
I shrug. “Sure.” The more docs want to look at my baby, the better, far as I’m concerned.
Yaz whispers behind my hair, “Maybe this médico es para mi.” She’s grinning.
Heavenly aims a glare dead at her. “Then I call him.” She points toward Doc Hottie, my doctor, with her chin.
I slap her wrist off my table, bring my thumb to my chest. No way, he’s mine, I say with my stare.
“Fine.” She sits back, flicks her hands up. Her silver rings catch the light. “You’re right. Guess I need to get knocked up first.” She scrolls her phone, looking bored again.
A woman doc enters. She’s blond, too, but not a real blond like Doc Hottie. She goes to stand behind him. She doesn’t even look at us.
“Hey, she’s a woman.” Teri’s chewing her lip again, looking all confused. “You said it was a fellow.”
“By ‘fellow,’ I mean a doctor-in-training, a pediatrician studying to be a cardiologist.” Dr. Love finishes typing. He turns to the TV hanging behind him. He finds some hidden button and powers it up. My name and today’s date show along the top of the screen. “Ladies, this is Dr. Goldstein. Dr. Goldstein, Ms. Pujols and her cousins.”
Goldie head-bobs us then goes back to reading the sheet in her hands. “This is the HLHS rule out?” she asks.
I jut out my jaw. I don’t know what she said. I know it was about me. About the baby. Weren’t many rules in my house growing up, but not speaking Spanish in front of English speakers was one of them. It just be rude. Even my abuela, who never went to high school, knows that.
Doc Hottie doesn’t answer the other doc. It almost looks like he’s making a point of not answering her. He takes a seat in front of the machine. He adjusts his chair and the height of the table I’m on. He asks permission to lower the sheet and apologizes for the temperature of the jelly he squirts onto my skin.
Goldie frowns at my belly. “Are we sure she’s twenty-one weeks? She doesn’t look that far along.” I look at Doc Hottie’s face. Bertie’s mama said the same thing. That I’m too skinny. She calls me canillas—“chicken legs”—or “chata”—flat butt. I hate that woman. She’s such a cacata. She didn’t even believe us that I was pregnant ’til I peed on a stick in her own bathroom.
Teri pats my leg. Heavenly’s nose is still in her phone, but her hand is warming the top of my foot. Yaz squeezes my hand even harder. My girls, they got my back.
“The OB scan confirmed it. She’s just thin, Miriam,” Doc Hottie says.
I pluck at the edge of the sheet. “Yeah, Abuela—my grandma—she keeps trying to feed me more. I eat a lot, I swear.” Abuela cooks me breakfasts of huevos fritos and tocino, salchicha, fruit, and always pan with mantequilla. I don’t know what it is with Abuela and bread, but ever since I told her about the baby, she pushes it on me like a dealer. No matter that she hadn’t made a meal for me since I started to use deodorant. “I just don’t gain.” I shrug again.
“You lucky,” Yaz says, squeezing my bony hip. “It’s ’cause you got that flaquita, blanquita mama.”
Yeah, I’m lucky all right. I won the parent lottery. My mama ditched me with Abuela when I was eight. Said it was because of a new job. More like a new boyfriend. Weekly visits turned to monthly. Monthly turned to Christmas. Christmas came, I got a card. Haven’t seen her white ass for like five years. At least there’s mi papi. I know where he’s at. Sing Sing. I write him. Every month. Sometimes he writes me back. I know he loves me. He wouldn’t have done what my mama did if he had a choice about it.
I look at my belly. It is little. But it’s round. Inside it a baby is growing. Mi bebé. And I can’t wait for her to come out.
I pinch Yaz back. She pretends what I did hurt, but then she’s all smiles and taking my hand again. She’s just trying to make me feel better. It’s not like I don’t know what men in the Heights are attracted to. It’s sure not my skinny booty. Bertie’s the exception.
“Tch-tch!!” Heavenly swats at Yaz. “Sit back, mami. I can’t see.”
The wand sinks into the jelly on my skin. It’s different than the one Yaz was playing with. Wider. And not as long. I hold my breath. Yaz and Teri do, too. On the TV, black-and-white speckles grow big and then small. It’s quiet. Too quiet.
“I can’t hear nothing. How come I can’t hear it?” Yaz says real loud.
Doc Hottie adjusts a button. A sound fills the room.
Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump.
It’s the most beautiful sound I ever heard.
Yaz claps and shrieks. Teri laughs and holds up the phone. Heavenly smiles real big. So big, I see her gold cap, the one she got in DR and is always trying to hide.
“Sorry, we usually keep the volume turned down,” Doc Hottie says.
“Why? Why would you do that?” I ask. “Us mamas want to hear our babies.”
“Us aunties, too!” crows Yaz.
Doc Hottie nods. He’s focused on the screen. Goldie is, too.
“I bet she’ll have your eyes, Mar. Big and brown.” Yaz grins at me.
“Nuh uh. I want her to have Bertie’s eyes. Gray-green.” My baby is going to be U-NIQUE. Green eyes are the rarest. So she’s going to have those.
“As long as she don’t get Bertie’s ears.” Heavenly smirks. Girl’s got a point. Bertie’s got big ears.
“Do you know the sex yet?” Doc Hottie’s looking back at me.
My face goes warm. Is he stupid or something? The man is looking at a baby inside of me. How does he think it got in there?
He tilts his head since I’m not answering. His gold-blond hair brushes his cheek. Most guys I know have their hair real short. Only way to tame the kink. If Doc lost the glasses, it’d be like he’s going for some manso rock-star look. It works for him. Even with the glasses.
“Do you want to know if it is a boy or a girl?” he asks. And suddenly he’s not a rock star. He’s something more. It’s like a hot, kindly lion is staring at me.
Oh. My face goes even warmer. I’m not usually such an idiot. “It’s a girl,” I say.
“Did Dr. Millar tell you that?” That’s my real baby doctor. She’s this super nice lady with frizzy hair who’s always late. I pegged her around Abuela’s age, though the nurses were sayin’ she just came back from having her third baby. Reminded me of the Duane Reade bags Toto lugs into the apartment, his contribution to their living arrangement. Even doubled-bagged, I can always see the tampon boxes, pressed up against the toilet paper and Clorox. Those tampons ain’t for me no more. The thought of the two of them getting pregs makes me feel like when Teri told us about her brother going to emergency for an ear pain. The doctors found a cucaracha in his ear. Alive. Gross.
The doc’s still looking at me. I almost forgot he asked a question.
“Nah,” I say. “Doc Millar didn’t tell me either way. I just know she’s a she.”
Something takes shape on the TV. It kicks up bubbles of water, but I don’t feel nothing. Is that . . . a leg?! Two legs? But there’s something else.
“Doc, is that what I think it is?”
“What do you think it is?” He smiles at me. All rock-star hair and nerd glasses.
Heavenly sits forward, frowning at the image. “Does that baby have three legs?”
“Two legs,” Doc Hottie says. “And a boy part.”
What?!
“A boy part?” I repeat. “You mean that huge thing in between the two long things is a PENIS?!”
Doc Hottie blushes. Doctors aren’t supposed to blush. My face goes all warm. Again.
“Oooh, Mari’s em-BAR-rassed!” Yaz’s silvered fingernails are tripping up my arm. Coño, this fuckin’ white skin of mine. I can barely ever hide what I’m thinking. “And she’s embarazada!” Yaz sweeps her hands from below her boobs out and around to her thighs, ballooning an invisible stomach. She roars a laugh.
I elbow Yaz hard. In the boob.
“Ow!” But she’s grinning.
“Sorry to disappoint you, Ms. Pujols. But you are having a boy.”