Thank God for good friends. Even though they have brains the size of peas, at least they got Carter’s mind off of things for a few seconds. I wish the same could be said for me. I wish I could let my friends distract me and remember all the other stupid, silly things we’ve done together, instead of the sadness that is consuming our lives right now. I wish I could go back to a time when I actually knew how to make things better for my best friend.
Twenty-five years and nine months ago… D-Day. Or is it P-Day?
“REMIND ME AGAIN why we decided to major in business? This business math bullshit is for the birds,” I complained as I walked into our dorm room and tossed my backpack on my bunk. “Someone needs to get it through these professors’ heads that we will NEVER need to use algebra to find X at any time other than in college. X can go fuck himself right in the face if he gets lost or can’t figure out who he is.”
When Claire didn’t immediately reply back with an “Amen, sister!” I knew something was wrong. I saw her car parked downstairs, so I was pretty certain she was here. I’d been a shitty friend lately, not spending enough time with her since Jim decided to fuck with my head and my heart and I happily went along for the ride. I finally put my foot down today and told him I needed to spend some time with my girl. She’d been acting weird the last few weeks and I didn’t like it.
“Claire?” I yelled as took off my coat and tossed it on top of my backpack.
I heard a sniffle come from the tiny bathroom in our dorm room. Pushing the door open, I found her sitting on the shitty yellow tile, surrounded by pregnancy tests with tears and snot running down her face.
“What’s going on? Is this some kind of experiment for one of your classes?” I asked dumbly.
“I drank an entire gallon of milk in less than three minutes and did you know cows don’t take pregnancy tests? A farmer sticks his hand up a cow’s ass and feels around for a little ball of baby cow in her uterus. You have no idea how glad I am that I’m not a cow. No one needs to be up to their elbows in my anus,” Claire rambled as she wiped the tears from her face.
“What in the actual fuck are you talking about right now?” I asked in horror, trying to get the image of an entire human arm shoved up a cow’s ass out of my head.
“No need to fear, pasteurization does NOT mess with the hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin, or in layman’s terms, HCG. This hormone is produced right after a fertilized egg attaches to the wall of a woman’s uterus and OH, MY GOD I feel like I’m in fifth grade health class all over again and I WANT TO DIE!” she wailed as a fresh set of tears started pouring from her eyes.
Kicking the pile of plastic tests out of the way, I got down on my knees next to Claire and pulled her into my arms. She sobbed and mumbled random facts about sperm and I reminded myself to tell her at a later point to stay the fuck away from the library reference books. No good can come from those things.
I reached down with one hand and picked up a test from the pile and sure enough, a big, fat pink plus sign was right smack in the middle of it. My heart dropped to my toes and I felt like crying myself all of a sudden.
“Maybe the tests are wrong. They could be wrong, right? Women get false positives all the time. I saw it on Oprah,” Claire rambled as she snot all over the shoulder of my shirt. “This one woman thought she was pregnant and when it came time to deliver, she found out it was a giant tumor. Maybe I have a tumor? A tumor masking itself as a baby. Both of them could suck the life right out of me and make me want to die, but I think I’d rather have a tumor. You can remove a tumor and never have to see it again. You can’t do that with a baby, right?”
I tossed the pregnancy test down onto the pile of others and rested my cheek on top of her head. “I hate to break it to you, but I’m pretty sure it’s not a tumor. I don’t think you’d get twenty-seven positive pregnancy tests out of a tumor.”
“Thirty-two,” Claire mumbled. “I took five at the grocery store while I drank the milk.”
We sat on the floor of our dingy bathroom and I let her cry it out for a few minutes before I spoke again.
“Are you going to tell me who the rat bastard is so I can chop off his balls?”
That just started a whole new round of wailing and crying from Claire and I did my best to calm her down, but nothing worked.
“I’m a slut! I’m a dirty, dirty slut! I had a one-night stand at a frat party and I didn’t even get his name! I’m the girl parents warn their daughters about. They’re going to put my face on a billboard telling teenage girls what NOT to do. MY LIFE IS OVER!”
I turned to face Claire and grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to look at me. “Stop it, right now. No one talks about my best friend like that, got it? I shouldn’t have pushed you so much to lose your virginity to the first guy who came along. It’s that douchebag’s fault for not using a fucking condom! We are going to get through this, Claire. You’re going to dry your eyes and stop the girly crying shit. You’re stronger than this! You are a total badass and I am not about to let you wallow in misery. We’re going to get up, get out of this bathroom and go hunt this motherfucker down.”
She nodded her head during my speech, so hopefully I was doing something right. I didn’t even bring up adoption or abortion because even though Claire never ever wanted to have kids, she was definitely pro-life and one of those women who owned up to her mistakes and took whatever consequences came her way, including having a baby.
Jesus Christ, my best friend was going to have a baby.
“First thing we’re going to do is feed you. Have you even eaten anything today?” I asked as I got up from the floor and pulled her up right along with me.
“Are we counting the milk, because I’m pretty sure an entire gallon should be considered its own food group.”
I shook my head at her and she sighed.
“Well, I had seven sticks of string cheese and an entire loaf of bread before I went to the store to buy the tests,” she replied. “Also, we’re out of bread. And string cheese.”
I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and led her out of the bathroom. “I’m going to call Jim and see if he can do some detective work to find out who this guy is. If anything, we’ll just go back to the frat house during the day when there’s a chance of them being sober and see if they know who he is.”
“Just promise me you won’t kick his ass,” Claire begged.
“Why the hell shouldn’t I kick his ass? He knocked you up and never even told you his name,” I argued.
“We were drunk! It’s not like I told him my name either,” she fired back. “He was nice, Liz, really nice. I was the idiot who snuck out of the bedroom the next morning and did the walk of shame out of the house.”
I really couldn’t argue with her at that point. When I finally made it home after spending the day with Jim the day after the party, I was completely ecstatic that she’d finally done the deed. I almost shed a few tears when she told me how she hit it and quit it and never looked back. My girl was finally all grown up and taking a page out of my book. Minus the whole getting knocked up at a frat party thing.
“Fine, so he was a nice guy. I still think he needs his ass kicked on principle alone. For your sake, we’ll do this nice and civilized. We’ll ask around and we’ll find him. I mean, how hard can it be? Ohio University isn’t that big. We’re bound to find someone who knows who this guy is.”
Claire took a few deep breaths and wiped the remaining tears from her face. She put her chin up and had a look of determination on her face. “You’re right. How hard can it be?”
I grabbed Claire’s purse from the desk next to our bunks and handed it to her, throwing my own over my shoulder as we headed for the door to pound pavement and find her baby daddy.
“No matter what happens, I’m going to be here for you, okay? I know it really sucks right now, but you’re not alone. That baby is going to be the coolest kid in the entire fucking world because he has you for a mom and me for an aunt.”
&nbs
p; Claire smiled at me as I held the door open for her. “We should probably try cutting back on our swearing before this thing gets here. I don’t think its first words should be ‘fuck’ or ‘kiss my ass’.”
I shrugged as I locked the door behind us and we headed downstairs. “Could you imagine having a kid who repeated everything we say? Kid would be a Goddamn genius, I’m telling you.”
“YOU CAN’T IGNORE her forever.”
I look up from a pile of paperwork at my desk and scowl when I see Jim standing in the doorway of my office at Seduction and Snacks. Now that Gavin and Charlotte both worked at headquarters, Claire and I had been able to spend more time lately in our flagship store, our baby and where we loved to be.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I tell him.
I look away from him and back down at my paperwork so he can’t see my eyes and know I’m lying. It’s stupid. I know it’s stupid. He knows I’m lying, I know I’m lying, EVERYONE knows I’m lying.
Claire has been home from the hospital for three days and I haven’t gone to see her. I’m ashamed of myself but what the fuck am I supposed to do? I’m scared to death. I have no control of this situation and it makes me want to scream.
“I talked to Carter last night. He said she’s doing really good and sleeping a lot,” I tell him.
“Hon, you have to go see her. She needs you,” Jim reminds me.
I slam my pen down on top of the desk and stare at him. “She doesn’t need me! She needs a fucking cure for what’s happened to her and I can’t give that to her. For the first time in our friendship I can’t do anything to help her and it’s fucking killing me!”
I swallow back the tears, refusing to cry. I know once I start, I’ll never be able to stop. I’ve been working like a maniac since Claire got out of surgery and the doctor told us she was stable and the surgery went well. I didn’t know what else to do. After Carter’s breakdown in their kitchen and the shaved cat incident, I drove right to Seduction and Snacks and buried myself in work. Working takes my mind off of things I can’t control. Work is the only thing keeping me sane right now. Who knew that organizing orders of butt plugs and anal beads would actually keep my insanity at bay?
“She doesn’t need you to fix her, Liz. She just needs you to be there for her,” Jim tells me softly as he walks across the room and squats down next to me.
He grabs onto the seat of my chair and spins me so that I’m facing him.
“It’s too hard,” I whisper.
Jim rests his hands on my thighs and rubs his thumbs comfortingly over my skin. “I know it is, babe. You guys have been through a lot together but this is the worst. Through thick and thin, isn’t that what best friends are all about? What would Claire do if the situation were reversed? I’m guessing she’d be all up your ass and pissing you off so much that you forgot all about what was happening. That’s all she needs from you right now. She just needs to know that you’re there and you care.”
Of course I care. It’s absurd for anyone to think otherwise. She’s my person, my other half. I care so much that it’s killing me right now not to be there for her, but I don’t know what to say and I don’t know what to do. That whole saying about actions speaking louder than words runs through my mind and just like that, I know exactly what to do. It will most likely piss Claire off, but maybe it will take her mind off of things and in my own way, I can show her that I’m sorry for flaking on her the last few days.
I give my husband a quick kiss and grab my phone, calling Jenny and getting her on board with my plan.
“DO YOU KNOW how hard it was to get an appointment at the last minute?” Jenny complains as we walk up the sidewalk to Claire and Carter’s front porch.
When I called her earlier, she was about two hours away meeting with a new marketing company and said she wouldn’t be able to make it back in time to join me for my own appointment. I wouldn’t let myself get discouraged though and told her to just do it on her own and then we’d meet up later tonight at Claire’s house.
“Quit your bitching, Claire is going to love this,” I tell her as I knock a couple of times on the door to announce our presence before walking inside.
“Are you sure she’s going to like this? It makes absolutely no sense,” Jenny complains.
I have no idea what she’s talking about and I don’t have time to argue with her because as soon as we get in the house, I see Claire sitting on the couch under a pile of blankets.
She looks pale and tired and I panic for a minute. I shouldn’t want to run away from my best friend, but I do. I want to turn around and run out the door and pretend like this isn’t happening. I want to close my eyes and walk back into the house and imagine that it’s three months ago when I walked through the door to celebrate her birthday and she was already halfway to being trashed, her face flushed and her smile bright as she called me a bag of dicks and thrust a beer in my hand.
“Claire, you look like shit,” Jenny tells her.
I smack Jenny’s arm as Claire laughs.
“I feel like shit too,” Claire informs us with a low, raspy voice.
Carter walks into the living room from the kitchen with a glass of ice water and sets it down on the coffee table in front of her. I watch him slide his arms behind her and help her sit up and I want to scream. She’s the strongest person I’ve ever met and she needs help sitting up on the couch. I should have been the one to race over there and help her. I should have instinctively known she needed help but I didn’t. Or maybe I did but I’m just too fucking scared to get close to her.
“We have a surprise for you!” Jenny announces as Carter fusses over Claire’s blankets and she smacks his hands away.
Carter starts to walk away but immediately stops in his tracks when Jenny pulls her shirt all the way up until her tits pop out.
“Is that the surprise, because I like it,” Carter says with a nod.
“Oh, for God’s sakes,” I mutter, grabbing onto the hem of my shirt and tugging it up just enough to show off the skin over my ribs.
Claire stares back and forth between Jenny and I, a look of confusion on her face.
“One of these things is not like the other,” Claire sing-songs.
I lean forward to get a look at Jenny’s side, trying to avoid her tits hanging out for the world to see.
“What in the fuck is that?” I shout, pointing to whatever the hell it is.
Jenny looks down at herself and then back at me. “It’s what you told me to do! I’ll admit, it sounded a little weird when you told me on the phone, but I kind of like it and it totally makes sense.”
Carter cocks his head to the side and squints. “I believe what we’re looking at is a rack of ribs tattoo. Awesome!”
I turn to face her, pointing to my own tattoo. “Pink ribbon on our ribs, Jenny! PINK RIBBON ON OUR RIBS! How in the hell does a rack of ribs make any kind of sense right now?”
Jenny stares at me in confusion for a few minutes and then the light goes on. “Ohhhhhhh, yeah. I guess that makes sense. But, I mean, it’s a rack. Get it? Save your rack? I really think mine is better.”
Jesus Christ, when I called Jenny and told her we should get matching tattoos of a pink ribbon in support of Claire, I should have known she’d get it all wrong. I never should have let her do it on her own.
“Well, the sentiment was nice,” Claire tells us with a shrug, trying to hide her laugh.
“Dammit, now I’m hungry for ribs,” Carter complains.
Jenny finally pulls her shirt down and walks over to the couch, flopping down next to Claire. “Drew has been driving me insane since I got the tattoo earlier. He keeps wanting to lick it because he’s convinced it will taste like barbeque.”
Carter scrunches up his face in disgust. “And now I’ll never be hungry for ribs ever again. Thank you for that.”
Carter leaves us alone, most likely to go throw up somewhere and an awkward silence fills the room when he’s gone.
Thank
fully, Jenny doesn’t know how to shut up for more than two seconds so she starts rattling on and on about barbeque sauce in places one should NEVER put barbeque sauce and I tune her out.
Claire stares right at me like she’s waiting for me to say something. I know I should apologize for not coming over sooner, but I can’t make the words come out. Is there a book called How to Talk to Your Best Friend When She Has Breast Cancer For Dummies? I might need that. I’ve always been there for her when she needed me. I’ve always known the right things to say, why should now be any different? Maybe because all the times in the past weren’t life or death situations. To quote The Breakfast Club, when Claire messed with the bull, I shoved my horns up someone’s ass to make them pay. Okay, I’m paraphrasing there, but whatever.
If Claire had a problem, I fixed it. End of story. Why in the fuck can’t I fix this? Why can’t we just go back to when things were crazy and fun and I could make everything better for her?
Twenty-five years ago…
“THIS IS FUCKING BULLSHIT! If you don’t have drugs then get the fuck out of my room!” Claire screamed at the poor nurse who came in to take her vitals.
The nurse took one look at Claire, told her she’d come back later and ran from the room.
“Oh, that was really nice. Great attitude, Miss Exorcist. Will there be green vomit spewing from your mouth for your next trick?” I asked as I handed her a cup of ice chips.
She snatched the cup out of my hand and snarled at me. “Eat. A bag. Of Dicks.”
“Classy. I hope those are your son’s first words,” I told her as I pulled a chair up to the edge of the bed and sat down.
“Where the hell is Jim? He left like three hours ago to get me a grape Popsicle. I WANT MY FUCKING GRAPE POPSICLE!” Claire screamed.
“He left five minutes ago, cranky ass,” I reminded her.
Claire had been in labor for exactly one hour. ONE HOUR and she was already losing her shit. I feared for anyone within a mile radius of this woman when she actually had to start pushing that thing out of her.