Thumped

  Ram loves any opportunity to go outside the gates. He loved arriving for parties early and leaving late—usually without me. Before he left tonight, I was tempted to remind him to be discreet when choosing his company, especially now that we’ve come this far. But I didn’t say a word because I’ve come to believe that he has the right to spend his time with whomever he wishes. I’ve agreed not to acknowledge his secret, as he has so generously elected not to acknowledge mine. Mutual denial has brought us closer than ever and keeps our marriage—such as it is—alive.

  “Look at me, Harmony. I’m a mess.”

  Ignoring the low wail of the kettle, I do as he asks. He’s slumped over the table now, wearing a desperate hangdog look I’ve never seen before. Not even his luminous smile can lift him up.

  He is a mess.

  He’s a bigger mess than I am. And I’m the adulteress here.

  I take a step toward him and he rises from his stool at my approach. For a few seconds we just stand there, not talking, not touching, until I bravely reach out with a single finger and tug gently at his torn jacket pocket.

  “You think you can fix me up?” he asks.

  He’s not referring to any mending that can be done with a needle and thread.

  melody

  ZEN IS KISSING ME AND I’M KISSING HIM BACK.

  We are kissing. Oh my god. Zen and I are kissing.

  OH MY GOD. WE ARE KISSING.

  WE HAVE TO STOP KISSING.

  “Stop!” I gasp, “We can’t . . . we can’t . . .”

  We can’t stop kissing. Our mouths have made their way to each other again. . . .

  “We can’t do this!” I shout, pushing Zen off me. How did we get horizontal so quickly? And in my condition?

  “I disagree,” Zen says, breathing heavily. “I think we can. And should.” Then he takes my left hand and kisses it right between the third and fourth knuckles, and I swear there has never before been a more romantic gesture performed by a seventeen-year-old boy. Ever.

  “I think it’s time to use it,” he whispers.

  And even though I think I know what he means, I have to ask what he means, because what I think he means cannot possibly be what he means, because that would be OFF-THE-SPRING INSANE.

  “Use what?”

  “This.”

  And he holds up the padlocked condom and beams.

  Oh, just terminate me now. That’s what I thought he meant. Zen obviously has Sympathetic Gestational Psychosis. Which is even crazier than crazy, considering my bogus gestation.

  “As our grandparents used to say,” he says, shaking the padlock, “‘no glove, no love.’”

  “Glove? What’s that have to do with it?”

  “It’s one of the slogans I thought we could reintroduce to the world as part of the Mission . . .”

  The Mission. Always with the Mission.

  “Gah, Zen! Dose down, already!” I exhale loudly. “I understand that this is all part of your grand vision and all, but what good are the slogans when that,” I say, pointing to the padlocked box, “is one of the last condoms left in the country? Now, I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure it’s not, like, recyclable, right? I mean, you can’t reuse it. . . .”

  “No, I can’t,” he says. “But very soon I won’t have to share. Don’t you see how your big reveal could be the beginning of a reproduction revolution?”

  I am way too tired to have this conversation right now. But that’s the thing about Zen. I just can’t stop myself from getting tangled in his hypotheticals.

  “Reproduction revolution? Isn’t that going a bit too far? Some people have to procreate, Zen. Or the human race will—”

  He starts laughing before I even finish.

  “Go extinct? Ha! That’s the greatest lie about the Virus.”

  I give him my blankest stare.

  “Look, before the Virus, parents were totally neggy about their kids having sex. Like, if you had sex before marriage, you were definitely going to hell. And dads would take their daughters to these things called purity proms where they got all dressed up and the girls signed pledges saying that they would stay virgins until their future husbands got, like, written permission from daddy.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I say. “You seem to forget that adolescent oppression in the early to mid 2000s is one of Ash and Ty’s favorite topics.”

  When my parents aren’t coaching other parents in the science of “Breeding a Breeder” (their most popular seminar to date), there’s nothing they enjoy more than going manifesto about their own sexually repressed youth.

  “Abstinence only. Remember that ridiculousness?”

  “Hahahahahahahaahaha . . .”

  “Ooooh. Babies having babies . . .”

  “It was a teen pregnancy epidemic, remember?”

  “Right,” Zen says. “So you know that if their generation refused to heed the warnings and decided to do it anyway, they were told that they had to do it with a condom or else their penises would fall off and their wombs would fall out.”

  “Harsh,” I say.

  “Totally harsh. And guess what? It didn’t stop everyone from having sex with and without protection. You’ve heard our president get all nostalgic about how we were number one in the world in teen pregnancy, right? Teens had every incentive NOT to pregg. They were shamed out of it. Scared out of it. And teens still did it in record numbers.”

  I was slowly catching on to his overall point.

  “So you’re saying that even if condoms were legalized and made available to the gen pop, there would still be enough couples doing it without them that the human race would be in no danger whatsoever of extinction?”

  “Exactly.”

  This is so not what we were taught in school. It’s hard to wrap my brain around it.

  “So . . .” he says, sliding his hand up my leg. “Can you think of a more fun way to lead a revolution?”

  harmony

  JONDOE LOOKS DOWN AT MY BULGING MIDSECTION, THEN UP AT me. I answer his inquisitive expression with a nod. He tentatively reaches out to place his hands on my belly and I close my eyes in anticipation of his touch. . . .

  “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

  The kettle screams.

  I abruptly break away to remove the kettle from the heat. What am I doing? I am a married woman! I made one big mistake one night eight and a half months ago that can’t be undone now. But that’s no reason to compound that mistake with an even bigger one!

  Turning my back to him isn’t a solution. Fussing with the tea can only keep me busy for so long. Eventually I will have to turn around again and look straight into the face of what I’ve been missing for the past eight and a half months.

  No, what I’ve been missing my entire life.

  The screeching kettle has woken up the twins, who are more rambunctious than ever after their brief rest. I pitch forward, clutch my underbelly, and try not to groan, but one escapes me anyway.

  “Ooooh my graaaaace . . .”

  “Are you okay?” Jondoe is right behind me now, a capable hand on each shoulder. “What’s happening to you?”

  “I’m fine,” I say through gritted teeth. I take a few shallow breaths until the pains go away. “It’s normal. The twins are just stretching out.”

  I right myself and rotate around just in time for one of the girls to ram her head right up against my stomach. Jondoe jumps backward, smashes into the countertop, and nearly topples to the floor.

  “HOLY MOTHER. WAS THAT A FACE?”

  My top is so tight that yes, one can actually see specific body parts as the twins are wrestling around in there. I’ve never seen a face before, but that’s not to say that it’s not possible.

  Jondoe is paler than any veil I used to wear. “For serious. I think I saw a nose and a mouth. A FACE. That’s the freakiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “You’ve never seen a pregnant woman’s belly before?”

  “Not a real one. Up close. Like that.”

  “Ho
w is that possible?”

  He sighs. “My business is all about before and during. Not after.”

  I take a moment to let this sink in. Then he corrects himself again.

  “Was,” he says. “My business was. Because I’m not in the business anymore. I’m opting out. And not because I have to, either. I’m not shooting blanks or anything. I quit because I want to make this—us—work.”

  Isn’t this exactly what Melody has been saying all along?

  “Stop talking like this,” I protest. “I’m married.”

  “But are you really married, Harmony? In the eyes of God?”

  He has a point there. Ram and I have never . . . consummated. We’ve always been more like brother and sister than man and wife. Explaining our peculiar circumstances to the Church Council would require confessions that Ram and I are unwilling or unable to make.

  I feel Jondoe’s eyes on me and I can’t return his gaze. When I look away, I catch sight of the canvas rucksack that Ram had given me. I’d left it on the counter and forgotten all about it. Jondoe notices it now too.

  “What’s in the bag?” he asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  Without asking, he scoops up and unzips the bag. He roots around for a few seconds before pulling out an electric razor and a box, which he hands over to me for closer inspection.

  It’s a package of hair dye in Basic Black.

  And it brings tears to my eyes.

  Ram had actually listened when I told him I wanted to shave off my hair and dye it black. And he wanted to help me do it. He went out of his way to buy it on the way to the party because he of all people understands my urge to be someone else. Dear Lord, I pray he’s okay.

  I channel the urge to cry in a more productive way.

  “Is this meant for you?” Jondoe asks.

  “Yes!”

  I’m overcome by another rush of giddy energy that makes me want to do something.

  “You really want to do this?” he asks.

  I nod vigorously. I do.

  Jondoe grins mischievously, rubs his hands together in anticipation, all at once shucking the hangdog and returning to the man I fell for all those months ago.

  “Then let’s do it.”

  melody

  “LET’S DO IT,” ZEN SAYS. “WHY NOT?”

  “Why not?” I ask incredulously as I stand up. “Are you serious? With me looking like this?”

  I do a slow, ungraceful twirl, making sure he takes in every lumpy inch of me. How can he possibly find me attractive?

  “There are positions that are suited for your condition,” Zen says, helpfully pantomiming one such position that resembles an isometrics exercise I used to do in soccer practice to strengthen my quadriceps. If that’s sex, there is nothing sexy about it.

  “Um, I don’t think so, Zen.”

  “This can work, Mel. I’ve—”

  If he finishes this sentence with the word “practiced,” I will cut a cord right here and now.

  “—diagrammed the whole thing, taking your new, um . . . physique into account.”

  “Wow, this is sounding sexier and sexier.”

  “I’ve calculated the premium positioning for maximum penetration. . . .”

  “Stop talking.”

  “. . . What goes where and how. . . .”

  “Seriously. Stop talking. We’ve been through this a million times, Zen. I can’t do it while I’m wearing this,” I say, holding up the MOM bracelet. “If I take it off, the alarm will go off. And if I get off, the alarm with go off. So we’re at an impasse here.”

  Zen smirks at me knowingly. “When’s the last time your alarm went off?”

  When I saw you and Ventura playing tonsil hockey.

  “Why does that matter?”

  “It matters,” he insists. “When?”

  “Right after I met the Jaydens,” I lie. Part of me wants him to call me out on it, if only because it means that he wasn’t so obliviated by Ventura’s tongue that he didn’t hear the alarm go off.

  “We were getting pretty hot and heavy before, weren’t we?”

  Cheeks burn bright just thinking about it. “Yeah? So?”

  “Your adrenals were pumping away,” he says, like he’s giving me a hint. “Your heart rate increased, your blood vessels contracted. . . .”

  He stops talking and just stands there smirking at me. Has he always smirked so much? Or is this Ventura’s influence?

  After a few moments of smug silence, the truth hits me.

  “No!”

  “Yes!”

  “Please tell me you did not hack into and deactivate my alarm!”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Zen! That can get you—get us—in major trouble. Messing with MOM is a national offense! Isn’t the Mission enough to get us into trouble already?”

  Zen stands up and plants himself right in front of me. “I don’t care anymore!”

  “You don’t care?”

  “I. DON’T. CARE.”

  He’s got his determined face on, the one he wears against his opponents, be it in Ping-Pong or debate. The one that says he won’t back down until he’s victorious.

  I do not like the idea of being something he has to conquer.

  “How can you not care? When we came up with The Hotties, we agreed that we were all in this together. I don’t understand why you would want to blow it when we’re so close to making the Mission a reality. I thought the cause meant everything to you.”

  He looks up at me with sad eyes. “Not everything.”

  There’s a bit of a gap between my IQ and EQ, so it takes me a moment to figure out what he’s talking about.

  Me. I’m the everything.

  “But I’ll still be here when it’s all over, Zen. I’ll still be me. And we can finally unburden ourselves of our virginity together.”

  I say this part like, way overdramatically, so it seems like I’m taking it less seriously than I really do.

  “But not now, Zen, not like this. . . .”

  “Why not now?” He looks at me with something like desperation. “Why not like this? How you look doesn’t matter to me.”

  He keeps tugging on his hair spikes and is bouncing his knees up and down so rapidly that the whole bed is vibrating.

  “Are you high?” I ask him.

  “No! I’m just . . . ready. Really, really, really ready to do it. Is that so wrong? I want to use this while I still can!”

  No one can break through when Zen is going full-on manifesto. Before I can stop him he punches the padlock, removes the condom from its box, and tears open the square foil package.

  When he examines the contents, his crazed grin disappears.

  “What? Can I see?”

  I’ve never seen a condom out of its wrapper, but I’m afraid Zen might mistake my scientific interest for interest of an altogether different kind.

  “Mutherhumper,” he mutters. He tips open the package and a small pile of brownish dust collects in his palm.

  This is not what I was expecting. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, but that definitely wasn’t it. Zen laughs in a cheerless way, gets up, and brushes the dust into the nearest trash bin.

  I gasp. “That was one of the last condoms left in the country!”

  “No,” Zen replies flatly, rubbing the last bit of residue off his hands. “That’s what happens to one of the last condoms in the country when it’s improperly stored for more than a decade.”

  Zen sits back down on my bed, his head in his hands. Crushed.

  “I want to do it with you. I’ve always wanted to do it with you.”

  “But why the emergency? Why right n—?”

  And before the question leaves my mouth, it hits me.

  I look at Zen and he looks back at me guiltily. We silently share this new bit of information as swiftly as a MiChat, only our exchange is totally no-tech.

  Something could happen between Zen and Ventura. And I’m not talking just physically,
but like, emotionally.

  Which is way, way worse.

  harmony

  I’M PERCHED ON A STOOL IN MELODY’S PARENTS’ BATHTUB with a shower cap on my head. Jondoe is blasting my scalp with the hair dryer. It’s impossible to talk over the whooshing air, which is probably better right now anyway because there’s still too much to say and I have no idea where to start.

  He turns off the dryer but my head still feels like it’s smoldering.

  “That’s normal,” Jondoe assures me. “That’s how you know the color activation process is . . . um . . . activated.”

  “Oh,” I say. Part of me wishes he would turn the hair dryer back on again to ease the burden of conversation.

  I remove the cap and shake out my dry, freshly dyed hair with my fingers.

  Jondoe is agog.

  “You hate it,” I say.

  “On the contrary,” he says, “I’m just surprised how the darker color suits you. It’s like you were a brunette trapped in a blonde’s body all this time.”

  I have a quiet laugh at this. I’ve spent my whole life feeling trapped, but hair color does not rank high on my list of oppressors.

  “You still want to go short?” Jondoe asks.

  I nod.

  “I’ll have to cut it down with scissors before you use the shaver. . . .”

  “I’ll have to cut it down,” I say. “I’m doing this. Not you.”

  I had also insisted on applying the dye all by myself with him hovering over me, coaching me through it. It wasn’t merely a matter of propriety. It’s important for me to be in control of my destiny, even if it’s just my hair at stake. Plus the task at hand required my full concentration, so all conversations were put on hold.

  “I’ve done business with so many actresses and models—” He stops short, slaps his hand over his mouth. “What I mean is, I have a lot of experience.” He grimaces and corrects himself again. “Styling experience! I have a lot of styling experience, you know, from all those photo shoots and spending so many hours with the fashion elite. . . .”

  Jondoe is mistaken if he thinks any reminder of his past will convince me that he’s in no way ready to repent. He seems to be forgetting that the worst sinners always have the best testimonies, that the most powerful conversion stories are told by those who had the hardest and longest journey from sin to redemption. Every time he hints at the man he used to be, he serves as a reminder of the person he has become.