Macon stuck his hand out and shook my father’s, then leaned back against the mower, taking off his hat. “Man, that is one tough yard you have there,” he said. “Those tree stumps out back almost killed me.”
My father, hesitant, couldn’t help but smile. He wasn’t sure how my mother would want him to react to this. “Well,” he said, easing back and sticking his hands in his pockets, “they’ve brought down a few in their time, let me tell you.”
“I can believe it,” Macon said. I looked over his head, back toward the house, and saw my mother standing in the doorway, still watching. I couldn’t make out her expression. “This thing is equipped with sensors and stuff, so it makes it easier.”
“Sensors?” my father stepped a little closer, peering down at the mower’s control console. He was clearly torn between doing the Right Thing and his complete love of garden tools and accessories. “Really.”
“This thing here,” Macon explained, pointing, “shows how far you’ve gone. And then anything over a height the blade can handle pops up here, on the Terrain Scope, so you can work around it.”
“Terrain Scope,” my father repeated dreamily.
Then we all heard it; the front door opening and my mother’s voice, shattering the lawn reverie with a shrillness she had never been able to control. “Brian? Could you come here a moment, please?”
My father started to back away from Macon, toward the house, his eyes still on the mower. “Coming,” he called out, then turned to face her, climbing the steps. I could see her mouth moving, angrily, before he even got to the porch.
“Thanks,” I said to Macon. “You saved me.”
“No problem.” He started pushing the mower back to the curb. “I gotta get this thing back, though. I’ll see you later, right?”
“Yeah,” I said, watching him climb back into the truck. He took his hat off and tossed it onto the seat. “I’ll see you later.”
He drove off, beeping the horn twice as he rounded the corner. I walked as slowly as I could up the driveway and front walk to the porch, where my mother was waiting.
“Halley,” she said before I even hit the first step, “I thought we had an understanding that it was your job to mow the lawn.”
“I know,” I said, and my father was studying some spot over my head, avoiding making eye contact, “he just wanted to help me out.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s just this guy,” I said.
“How do you know him?”
“We have P.E. together,” I said, opening the door and slipping inside, making my getaway. “It’s no big deal.”
“He seems nice enough,” my father offered, his eyes on the lawn.
“I don’t know,” she said slowly. I started up the stairs, pretending not to hear her, turning away to keep my secrets to myself. “I just don’t know.”
Part II
SOMEONE LIKE YOU
Chapter Five
“I need you,” Scarlett said to me as I was busy weighing produce for a woman with two screaming babies in her cart. “Meet me in the ladies’ room.”
“What?” I said, distracted by the noise and confusion, oranges and plums rolling down my conveyer belt.
“Hurry,” she hissed, disappearing down the cereal aisle and leaving me no chance to argue. My line was long, snaking around the Halloween display and back into Feminine Products. It took me a good fifteen minutes to get to the bathroom, where she was standing in front of the sinks, arms crossed over her chest.
“What’s wrong?” I said.
She just shook her head.
“What?” I said. “What is it?”
She reached behind the paper towel dispenser and pulled out a small white stick-shaped object with a little circle on the end of it. As she held it out, I saw that in the little circle was a bright pink cross. Then, all at once, it hit me.
“No,” I said. “No way.”
She nodded, biting her lip. “I’m pregnant.”
“You can’t be.”
“I am.” She shook the stick in front of me, the plus sign blurring. “Look.”
“Those things are always wrong,” I said, like I knew.
“It’s the third one I’ve taken.”
“So?” I said.
“So what? So nothing is wrong three times, Halley. And I’ve been sick every morning for the last three weeks, I can’t stop peeing, it’s all there. I’m pregnant.”
“No,” I said. I could see my mother in my head, lips forming the word: denial. “No way.”
“What am I going to do?” she said, pacing nervously. “I only had sex one time.”
“You had sex?” I said.
She stopped. “Of course I had sex. God, Halley, try to stay with me here.”
“You never told me,” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She sighed, loudly. “Gosh, Halley, I don’t know. Maybe it was because he died the next day. Go figure.”
“Oh, my God,” I said. “Didn’t you use protection?”
“Of course we did. But something happened, I don’t know. It came off. I didn’t realize it until it was over. And then,” she said, her voice rising, “I thought there was no way it could happen the first time. It couldn’t.”
“It came off?” I didn’t understand, exactly; I wasn’t very clear on the logistics of sex. “Oh, my God.”
“This is nuts.” She pressed her fingers to her temples, hard, something I’d never seen her do before. “I can’t have a baby, Halley.”
“Of course you can’t,” I said.
“So, what, I have to get an abortion?” She shook her head. “I can’t do that. Maybe I should keep it.”
“Oh, my God,” I said again.
“Please.” She sat down against the wall, pulling her legs up against her chest. “Please stop saying that.”
I went over and sat beside her, putting my arm around her shoulders. We sat there together on the cold floor of Milton’s, hearing the muffled Muzak playing “Fernando” overhead.
“It’ll be okay,” I said in my most confident voice. “We can handle this.”
“Oh, Halley,” she said softly, leaning against me, the pregnancy stick lying in front of us, plus sign up. “I miss him. I miss him so much.”
“I know,” I said, and I knew now it was my job to hold us together, my turn to see us through. “It’ll be okay, Scarlett. Everything is going to be fine.”
But even as I said it, I was scared.
That evening, we had a meeting at Scarlett’s kitchen table. Me, Scarlett, and Marion, who didn’t know anything yet and ate her dinner incredibly slowly as we edged around her. She had a date with Steve/Vlad at eight, so we were working with a time frame.
“So,” I said, looking right at Scarlett, who was overstuffing the napkin holder with napkins, “it’s almost eight.”
“Is it?” Marion turned around and looked at the kitchen clock. She reached for her cigarettes, pushed her chair out from the table, and said, “I better start getting ready.”
She started to leave, and I shot Scarlett a look. She looked right back. We battled it out silently for a few seconds before she said, very quietly, in a voice flat enough to ensure anyone wouldn’t, “Wait.”
Marion didn’t hear her. Scarlett shrugged her shoulders, like she’d tried, and I stood up and got ready to call after her. I could hear Marion heading up the stairs, past the creaky third one, when Scarlett sighed and said, louder, “Marion. Wait.”
Marion came back down and stuck her head into the kitchen. She’d had to get two two -hundred-and- fifty-pound women glamorous that day at Fabulous You, one of whom wanted lingerie shots, so she was worn out. “What?”
“I have to talk to you.”
Marion stood in the doorway. “What’s going on?”
Scarlett looked at me, as if this was some kind of relay race and I could carry the baton from here. Marion was starting to look nervous.
“What?” she asked, looking from Scarlett to me, th
en back to Scarlett. “What is it?”
“It’s bad,” Scarlett said, and started crying. “It’s really bad.”
“Bad?” Now Marion looked scared. “Scarlett, tell me. Now.”
“I can’t,” Scarlett managed, still crying.
“Now. ” Marion put one hand on her hip. It was my mother’s classic stance but it looked out of place on Marion, as if she was wearing a funny hat. “I mean it.”
Then Scarlett just spit it out. “I’m pregnant.”
Everything was really quiet all of a sudden, and I suddenly noticed that the faucet was leaking, drip drip drip.
Then Marion spoke. “Since when?”
Scarlett fumbled for a minute, getting her bearings. She’d been expecting something else. “When?”
“Yes.” Marion still wasn’t looking at either of us.
“Ummm ...” Scarlett looked at me helplessly. “August?”
“August,” Marion repeated, like it was the clue that solved the puzzle. She sighed, very loudly. “Well, then.”
The doorbell rang, all cheerful, and as I glanced out the front window I could see Steve/Vlad on the front porch carrying a bunch of flowers. He waved at us and rang the bell again.
“Oh, God,” Marion said. “That’s Steve.”
“Marion,” Scarlett began, stepping closer to her, “I didn’t mean for it to happen—I used something, but ...”
“We’ll have to talk about this later,” Marion told her, running her hands through her hair nervously, straightening her dress as she headed for the door. “I can’t-I can’t talk about this now.”
Scarlett wiped her eyes, started to say something, and then turned and ran out of the room, up the stairs. I heard her bedroom door slam, hard.
Marion took a deep breath, composed herself, and went to the front door. Steve was standing there, smiling in his sports jacket and Weejuns. He handed her the flowers.
“Hi,” he said. “Are you ready?”
“Not quite,” Marion said quickly, smiling as best she could. “I have to get something-I’ll be right down, okay?”
“Fine.”
Marion went upstairs and I heard her knocking on Scarlett’s door, her voice muffled. Steve came in the kitchen. He looked even blander under bright light. “Hello there,” he said. “I’m Steve.”
“Halley,” I said, still trying to listen to what was happening upstairs. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Are you a friend of Scarlett’s?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, and now I could hear Scarlett’s voice, raised, through the ceiling overhead. I thought I could make out the word hypocrite. “I am.”
“She seems like a nice girl,” he said. “Halley. That’s an unusual name.”
“I was named for my grandmother,” I told him. Now I could hear Marion’s voice, stern, and I babbled on to cover it. “She was named for the comet.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” I said, “she was born in May of 1910, when the comet was coming through. Her father watched it from the hospital lawn while her mom was in the delivery room. And in 1986, when I was six, we watched it together.”
“That’s fascinating,” Steve said, like he really meant it.
“Well, I don’t remember it that well,” I said. “They say it wasn’t very clear that year.”
“I see,” Steve said. He seemed relieved to hear Marion coming down the stairs.
“Ready?” she called out, all composure, but she still wouldn’t look at me.
“Ready,” Steve said cheerfully. “Nice to meet you, Halley.”
“Nice to meet you, too.”
He slipped his arm around Marion as they left, his hand on the small of her back as they headed down the front walk. She was nodding, listening as he spoke, holding her car door open. As they pulled away she let herself look back and up, to Scarlett’s bedroom window.
When I went upstairs, Scarlett was on the bed, her legs pulled up against her chest. The flowers Steve had brought Marion were abandoned on the dresser, still in their crinkly cellophane wrapper.
“So,” I said. “I think that went really well, don’t you?”
She smiled, barely. “You should have heard her. All this stuff about the mistakes she’d made and how I should have known better. Like doing this was some way of proving her the worst mother ever.”
“No,” I said, “I think my mother’s got that one pegged.”
“Your mother would sit you down and discuss this, rationally, and then counsel you to the best decision. Not run out the door with some warrior.”
“My mother,” I said, “would drop dead on the spot.”
She got up and went to the dresser mirror, leaning in to look at herself. “She says we’ll go to the clinic on Monday and make an appointment. For an abortion.”
I could see myself behind her in the mirror. “Is that what you decided to do?”
“There wasn’t much of a discussion.” She ran her hands over her stomach, along the waist of her jeans. “She said she had one, a long time ago. When I was six or seven. She said it’s no big deal.”
“It’d be so hard to have a baby,” I said, trying to help. “I mean, you’re only sixteen. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”
“She did, too. When she had me.”
“That was different,” I said, but I knew it really wasn’t. Marion had been a senior in high school, about to go off to some women’s college out west. Scarlett’s father was a football player, student council president. He left for a Big East school and Marion never saw or contacted him again.
“Keeping me was probably the only unselfish thing Marion’s ever done in her life,” Scarlett said. “I’ve always wondered why she did.”
“Stop it,” I said. “Don’t talk like that.”
“It’s true,” she said. “I’ve always wondered.” She stepped back from the mirror, letting her hands drop to her sides. We’d spent our lifetimes in this room, but there had never been anything, ever, like this. This was bigger than us.
“It’ll be all right,” I told her.
“I know,” she said quietly, looking into the mirror at herself and me beyond it. “I know.”
It was going to be done that Friday. We never talked about it openly; it was whispered, never called by name, as a silence settled over Scarlett’s house, filling the rooms to the ceiling. To Marion, it was already a Done Deal. She went to the clinic counseling sessions with Scarlett, handling all the details. As the week wound down, Scarlett grew more and more quiet.
On Friday, my mother drove me to school. I’d told her Scarlett had something to do and couldn’t take me; then, we pulled up behind her and Marion at a stoplight near Lakeview. They didn’t see us. Scarlett was looking out the window, and Marion was smoking, her elbow jutting out the driver’s side window. It still didn’t seem real that Scarlett was even pregnant, and now the next time I saw her it would be wiped clean, forgotten.
“Well, there’s Scarlett right there,” my mother said. “I thought you said she wasn’t going to school today.”
“She isn’t,” I said. “She has an appointment.”
“Oh. Is she sick?”
“No.” I turned up the radio, my father’s voice filling the car. It’s eight-oh-four A.M., I’m Brian, and you’re listening to T104, the only good thing about getting up in the morning....
“Well, there must be something wrong if she’s going to the doctor,” my mother said as the light finally changed and Scarlett and Marion turned left, toward downtown.
“I don’t think it’s a doctor’s appointment,” I said. “I don’t know what it is.”
“Maybe it’s the dentist,” she said thoughtfully. “Which reminds me, you’re due for a cleaning and checkup.”
“I don’t know,” I said again.
“Is she missing the whole day or just coming in late?”
“She didn’t say.” I was squirming in my seat, keeping my eye on the yellow school bus in front of us.
&
nbsp; “I thought you two told each other everything,” she said with a laugh, glancing at me. “Right?”
I was wondering exactly what that was supposed to mean. Everything she said seemed to have double meanings, like a secret language that needed decoding with a special ring or chart I didn’t have. I wanted to shout, She’s having an abortion, Mom! Are you happy now? just to see her face. I imagined her exploding on the spot, disappearing with a puff of smoke, or melting into a puddle like the Wicked Witch of the West. When we pulled into the parking lot, I was never so glad to see school in my life.
“Thanks,” I said, kissing her on the cheek quickly and sliding out of the car.
“Come home right after school,” she called after me. “I’m making dinner and we need to talk about your birthday, right?”
Tomorrow was my sixteenth birthday. I hadn’t even had much time to think about it. A few months ago, it had been the only thing I had to look forward to: my driver’s license, freedom, all the things I’d been waiting for.
“Right. I’ll see you tonight,” I said to her, backing up, losing myself in the crowd pushing through the front doors. I was walking through the main building, headed outside, when Macon fell into step beside me. He always seemed to appear out of nowhere, magic; I never saw him coming.
“Hey,” he said, sliding his arm over my shoulders. He smelled like strawberry Jolly Ranchers, smoke, and aftershave, a strange mix I had grown to love. “What’s up?”
“My mother is driving me nuts,” I said as we walked outside. “I almost killed her on the way to school today.”
“She drove you?” he said, glancing around. “Where is Scarlett, anyway?”
“She had an appointment or something,” I said. I felt worse, much worse, lying to him than I had to my mother.
“So,” he said, “don’t make plans for tomorrow night.”
“Why?”
“I’m taking you somewhere for your birthday.”
“Where?”
He grinned. “You’ll see.”
“Okay,” I said, pushing away the thought of the party my mother was planning, complete with ice-cream cake and the Vaughns and dinner at Alfredo’s, my favorite restaurant. “I’m all yours.”