JUNE 22
The orange neon sign for Fred’s Pharmacy stutters on and off; the top part of the F is burned out. A plastic grocery bag dangles from a lamppost, and Sonic cups stabbed with straws lie scattered under the parking lot lights, their contents sucked dry long ago.
The clock in my mom’s old Buick ticks as the second hand sweeps around once, then again and again.
I stare at my hands, begging them to let go of the damn steering wheel. But I sit here, seat belt clicked in place; my hands stuck to the faux leather like a bird clutching its perch.
My phone dings in my purse, shaking me out of my zombie state. I scramble through my bag to find it. A text message from my mom:
Where are you? Who said you could take the car?
Shit. I open the door and a rush of hot air blasts in. My phone dings again.
You’d better be on your way home.
I didn’t expect to be gone this long. I saw someone I knew in the pharmacy at Bridgetown and so I drove to this drugstore, which is a half hour away from my house. I’ve never taken my mom’s car without permission before and never driven it this far, but I didn’t know what else to do. I thought she’d still be at church with my dad.
I shove my phone in my back pocket, cringing at the ding that follows. I can almost feel my mom’s anger radiating hot through the screen. I run-walk across the parking lot.
I rummage in my purse for my sunglasses and slide them on. Sunnies aren’t much of a disguise, but it makes me feel a little better. The automatic doors slide open.
I search for the sign marked FEMININE NEEDS and force my feet in that direction, taking a shortcut down the INFANT NEEDS aisle. The only person there is an employee tagging baby formulas.
My sneakers squeak to a stop on the scuffed tile floor. I know that employee.
What the hell is Annabelle Ponsonby doing here?
Annabelle sports a tomato-red vest with HOW MAY I HELP YOU? written on the back in peeling iron-on letters. I have to get out of here, find another pharmacy. No way can Annabelle Ponsonby see me buying a pregnancy test. I step away, and a loud ding! comes from my pocket. Annabelle glances over. I think her eyes light up when she sees me, but then her face instantly falls.
“Hey, Annabelle,” I say. “I thought that was you. Um. Aren’t you supposed to be in England?”
She goes back to tagging the formula.
“I’m home for the summer,” she says. Click, click, click.
Go! Go now! Find another drugstore. “Oh, that makes sense. I was in the neighborhood, and I got thirsty, so I thought, you know, I’d get something to, uh, deal with that. The thirst.”
“Aisle one.”
“Cool, thanks.” I walk away from her toward aisle one, just in case Annabelle is watching, and pull my phone from my pocket.
WHERE ARE YOU?
I look over my shoulder at Annabelle, who’s gone back to tagging.
“Hey, Annabelle.” A skinny guy with neck acne wanders down the aisle toward her. “The toilet overflowed in the bathroom.”
“So clean it up,” she snaps.
“Not me, dude. You’re on bathroom duty.”
Annabelle shoves the tagger into the guy’s hands and heads off, disappearing through a pair of swinging doors at the back of the store.
I make a U-turn to the feminine needs aisle. Just grab it and go! My heart is pounding, sweat starting to pool in my armpits.
Tampons, personal lubrication, feminine wash, ovulation kits … Where are the pregnancy tests? I start at the beginning of the aisle again and stare the shelves up and down. Finally I find them tucked on top of the last shelf next to a dusty display of women-only vitamins and locked in a plastic box. PLEASE SEE AN ASSOCIATE FOR ASSISTANCE, a label on the box reads.
Ding!
CAMILLE. WHERE. ARE. YOU?
I race to the checkout, and I get in line behind a woman buying six gallons of milk. There’s a candy rack nearby. I reach for a king-sized Hershey’s bar with almonds. I notice a stack of Altoids in the rack next to the chocolates. My stomach twists at the sight of the black lettering scribbled across the cheerful red-and-white tin boxes.
The woman begins to argue with the cashier about her coupon.
A man moves in behind me and stands so close, I can smell his breath: Beer Nuts and bourbon. I step forward and hold my breath, closing my eyes a little. The woman storms off, leaving the six milks on the counter.
The cashier sighs. She’s maybe in her seventies with gray hair permed into tight curls. The perm must have been recent, judging from the ammonia scent wafting off her head. “Next,” she says, reaching over the milks for my chocolate bar. She smiles. “Oh, that used to be my favorite, darlin’, but I can’t eat it anymore. The almonds get stuck in my bridge.”
“Yeah, me too. Um … I need some help with one of the products, ma’am,” I say, lowering my voice. “The pregnancy tests are locked up.”
“The whats, honey?” she says, her fingers pausing over the register. “You’ll have to speak up, I’m a little hard of hearing.”
I clear my throat and lean forward. “The pregnancy tests, ma’am. They are, uh, locked in a box?”
“Oh, those are locked up because they get stolen a lot.” She sets the chocolate bar on the counter. “You’ll have to talk to the pharmacist.”
The man behind me grumbles under his breath.
“Oh, okay,” I say, trying to sound like it’s no big deal.
“Do you still want that candy bar?”
The guy reaches around me and tosses a Slim Jim on the counter. The bright red stick spins to a stop against the six milk jugs.
I shake my head and walk to the back of the store to the pharmacist’s counter. There is a long line of people waiting to pick up their prescriptions, and I get in behind them. I hitch my bag over my shoulder and pretend to be interested in the nail polish display. The pink, green, blue, and gold colors blur into a rainbow through my sudden tears. I shove the sunglasses onto my head and rub dry my eyes with the palms of my hands.
Finally, it’s my turn.
“Next,” he says. He shoves a pen into the pocket on his white medical coat. The top of the pocket is dotted with blue ink stains.
My cheeks instantly start to burn. “Um. I need a pregnancy test.” I wave my hand toward the feminine needs aisle. “You have them locked up down there.”
He frowns so hard that the furrows on his brow squash together. “Is this for you?”
“Does it matter?”
“Are you married?”
“No.”
“How old are you?” he asks, and not very nicely.
“I’m, um, seventeen.”
He draws his head back. “Seventeen? You’re seventeen and you’re asking for a pregnancy test?” He tuts.
I don’t say a word.
“You haven’t been treating your body well, young lady, if it’s a pregnancy test you’re after. You know, the more boys you allow to have their way with you, the less you’ll have to offer your husband. No one wants a piece of chewed-up gum, now do they?”
I feel tears prickling at my eyes again. I don’t want him to see me cry. But it’s too late.
“Can you just—”
“Do your parents know what you’re up to?”
“No,” I say. “I mean…” I don’t know what to say now.
“Go on home and talk to your parents. My conscience won’t let me sell something like that to you without their knowing. I’m a father myself, and I wouldn’t like it if my daughter could buy pregnancy tests or contraception or anything else like that without my knowledge.”
I see people looking at me, watching the show. I step back against the shelves, as if the bottles of vitamins and pain relievers will protect me from their stares.
The pharmacist rubs his chin; I hear the scratching of his stubble under his hand.
A man behind me pipes up. “When I was your age, young lady, girls used aspirin as birth control. Hold an aspirin between your legs and you’ll never get pregnant.”
My tears are falling now, fast and heavy. I duck my head and turn to leave.
And there stands Annabelle Ponsonby, a mop and bucket in her hand, watching me with a look of shock on her face.
I bolt for the car.
I lay my forehead on the steering wheel. What now?
I hold my hand flat against my stomach. What is going on in there? I can almost feel cells dividing. An image of me pregnant flashes into my head. My stomach poking out while everyone else heads off to begin their lives. I think about my parents helping me raise a baby, and I can barely breathe.
No. That won’t happen. I can’t let it happen.
I sit with my head against the steering wheel, when a tap on the window makes me jump. I look up to see Annabelle, gesturing for me to roll the window down.
I start the car and hit the window button. “Annabelle,” I say. “What—”
“Here,” she says. She tosses something through the window. First Response pregnancy test.
Annabelle turns and trudges across the parking lot, pulling off her smock as she goes. She drops it on the ground and kicks it. She flips the building the bird and then climbs into a beat-up Ford Focus. I watch as she screeches out of the parking lot, barely pausing at the stop sign and disappearing around the corner.
My phone starts to ring. Mom lights up the screen. I don’t answer it. I shove the box and my phone in my purse, start the car, and drive home, staring at the road through a waterfall of tears.