Another groan, indicating Jeremy has delivered the punch line. I smile. Still with closed eyes, I try to imagine myself at Brooker University, in the dining hall, sitting under one of the tall pine trees in the main quad, just being there. It’s going to be so great. I’ll miss my old friends, and Mr. Rogers, and my mom and Steve, but I’ll be getting a whole new life, all on my own.
It’s nearly eleven when our buses arrive at Disneyland. There must be thousands of schools here, buses even from Nevada and Arizona, two from Oregon. And I thought we had a long ride.
Jeremy catches up to me as I step off the bus.
“We’re all starting off at Star Tours, before the place gets too crowded,” he says.
“I didn’t know Christy would be here,” I say.
“So? It’s a free country. Come on. You should be relieved that someone’s taken her off your hands. You want to be free, right?”
“Right,” I say, walking along beside Jeremy.
A crowd has gathered around one of our buses and we stop to see what’s happening. Four burly security guys are walking someone over to a Disneyland security car. I get a glimpse of the guy’s jacket.
“Shit. It’s Benny,” I tell Jeremy.
I spot Mark in the crowd and we walk over to talk to him.
“What happened?” I ask.
“Oh, man, that sucks.”
“What?”
“On the way down, on the bus, Benny had a beer can tucked inside his jacket and he was drinking from it with this extra-long straw. We were all laughing at him. It was just a joke. Then all of a sudden that narc Rochelle came out of nowhere. She ripped open Benny’s jacket and grabbed the beer can.”
“Stupid Benny,” I say.
“Anyway, Rochelle took the beer can up to the front of the bus, and then it looked like they were having a big conference. Then Benny started yelling about how she stole his beer. So then the bus driver pulled over to the side of the freeway. Rochelle made Benny trade places with this schoolboy guy who’d been sitting next to her.”
“What’s going to happen now?” Jeremy asks.
“I don’t know. As soon as I saw the driver talking into his two-way radio, I knew security would be waiting. It sucks. Benny paid all that money for his ticket and now he’s probably going to spend grad night locked up in that little holding-tank place they’ve got down on Main Street, waiting for his parents to come get him.”
I watch the black and white car drive off with Benny in it, feeling sorry for him but knowing there is nothing I can do. Jeremy and I start walking toward the gates.
“Benny acts really stupid sometimes,” Jeremy says.
“Maybe it’s not an act,” I say. “Did you know he didn’t graduate?”
“No. History?”
I nod my head. At the gate we have to take off our jackets, turn our pockets inside out, and let some old guy who’s probably a pervert pat us down. Finally they let us in and we go directly to Star Tours.
The rest of the debate group is already there, singing “Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me . . .” I don’t know why everyone is singing the song from the Pirates of the Caribbean when they’re in the Star Tours line. It’s probably ditzy Trin’s idea.
Dashan is in line with everyone else, but Christy is sitting on one of the benches in front. As the line moves forward I see a sign that says no one with heart trouble, or high blood pressure, or who is pregnant, is allowed on Star Tours. I guess that’s why Christy is sitting this one out.
At the last minute, just as it’s my turn to move inside, I step out of line and go back to where Christy is sitting. When I get there I don’t know what to say, so I just sit down next to her. She looks at me, then looks away.
“Christy . . .”
She sits looking at the little white twinkly lights.
“What’s with you and Dashan?” I say. It doesn’t come out right. But at least she looks at me.
“What do you care?”
“I’m trying to be friendly,” I tell her. “I don’t like that we can’t even talk to each other anymore.”
She turns her attention back to the lights, then says, “Dashan and I are mostly friends. He’s there for me. Not like some other people I know.”
Now it’s my turn to stare at the lights.
“He takes me to the doctor. He picks me up at Teen Moms every day so I can still be in debate and still be an aide in the Hearing Impaired program.”
“Oh, so he’s like your chauffeur?”
Now she turns to look at me. “No, he’s not like my chauffeur. He’s like someone who cares, and who’s not afraid to go out of his way to help a friend . . . You couldn’t even be bothered to hear your own baby’s heartbeat, but Dashan has.
“Dashan puts his hand on my stomach and feels your baby kick. Dashan’s seen the sonogram and knows whether your baby is a girl or a boy. You don’t even know that much.”
Christy gets up and walks over to where our group is leaving Star Tours. Dashan turns and walks to meet her.
“You doin’ okay?” he asks, taking her hand.
There’s that lonely, empty feeling again. What’s wrong with me, anyway? I’m glad we broke up, so why should I still miss her?
I talk Jeremy into taking the train ride that circles the park. I want to get away from the debate group for awhile. As soon as the train enters the “Grand Canyon” area, Jeremy starts in on how he’s going to see all the wonders of the world before he’s thirty.
“Starting with the real Grand Canyon—not this phony Disneyland stuff.”
But then he gets all into the Disneyland version—what kind of materials they used to make the dinosaurs in the big picture dioramas, how they got the color on the canyon walls, what they did to make the vegetation look so real. That’s okay. I need a distraction after my attempt to talk with Christy. I guess I thought she’d be happy to talk with me again. I guess I was wrong. Oh well.
I don’t even know why I tried to talk with her. It just seems so strange, that once we’d been so close and now we don’t even say hi. I wish I could at least say hi to her when I see her at school. Not that I’ll be seeing her at school anymore.
“Hey, you’re not listening,” Jeremy says.
“No. What?”
“The guys who put this stuff together were as scientifically advanced as the guys who did the first moon rocket.”
“Whatever you say, J.J.,” I tell him.
As soon as we get off the train in Fantasyland we hear this screeching.
“Jeremy! Jeffrey! The two Big Js!”
It’s Delia and Dawn, from the Kennedy debate team.
“The two Big Ds!” Jeremy yells back.
We decide to ride Thunder Mountain with them, then end up walking around with them, going from ride to ride. We sort of pair up, Jeremy with Delia and me with Dawn.
It’s nothing, but the next time we see Christy and Dashan I reach for Dawn’s hand.
It’s nearly three in the morning and I’m dragging. Dawn and Delia went back to meet some friends from Kennedy and Jeremy and I are standing in line with the rest of the debate group, waiting to get on “It’s a Small World.” Christy is in line, too. I guess this little-kid boat ride is safe.
I’m half asleep, floating past the singing Chinese dolls, when a scream pierces my small world. I look to the front of the boat and see Dashan and Trin hovering over Christy.
“What is it? What is it?” I hear him asking, but I can’t hear her answer. I can see that she is covering her face with her hands and I think she is crying. I climb over two seats, and the people in them, to get closer.
“Is she okay?” I ask Dashan.
“I don’t think so,” he says.
She doesn’t look up but keeps her face covered.
“I think something’s happened,” Trin says. “Like . . . I don’t know. Something scared her.”
“Christy. Christy,” I say, but she won’t answer, just keeps her head down, crying in strange little ga
sps.
We are near the end of the ride. I jump out onto a narrow ledge and run down to where the attendants are helping people off the boats.
“We need help!” I say. “Fast.”
One of the guys in a Disneyland uniform takes me aside.
“What’s wrong?”
“My girlfriend. She’s pregnant and something’s happened. I don’t know what. Get a doctor!”
By this time the boat Christy is in has come to a stop. Dashan is trying to help her out.
“No. Just stay there,” the attendant says. “We’re getting help.”
Now there are a bunch of Disney people around, closing off the ride at the entrance, helping people out who were stuck in the middle, talking on their walkie-talkies. Two women are sitting with Christy, asking her questions and reassuring her.
“Where is the pain? How far along are you? Just stay calm, everything will be fine. Help is on the way.”
It seems like a long time but finally the paramedics arrive. They help her out of the Small World boat and I see that there’s a watery puddle where Christy was sitting. Suddenly I feel weak in the knees and I have to hold on to the iron railing to keep from falling.
The paramedics work quickly, checking blood pressure, asking questions, hooking up some kind of I.V. I’m so woozy myself I’m not exactly sure what’s going on.
Two of the Hamilton chaperones come running up behind another Disneyland security person. It’s Mrs. Rosenbloom and another English teacher, Miss Bailey.
“Tell me your name, Honey,” Miss Bailey says.
“Christina Calderon,” Dashan answers for her.
“I think you have the first part of the alphabet,” Miss Bailey says to Mrs. Rosenbloom, who starts shuffling through a cardboard file of permission slips. They show the consent for emergency treatment form, signed by Christy’s mom, to the paramedics and to a Disneyland official, and the paramedics begin rolling Christy on a stretcher thing toward an ambulance. I run to catch up. Dashan is right behind her, talking to her. We both try to climb in back with her, but the attendant blocks our way and looks toward the teachers.
“You can’t leave the park,” Miss Bailey says.
“Why not?” Dashan says.
“The only way any student can leave the park is by the bus they came in on, or if their parents come get them.”
“But I’m eighteen,” I say.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “Those are the rules.”
The ambulance moves slowly away, down the fake Main Street, red lights blinking.
“God, I think someone should be there with Christy,” Dashan says.
I nod my head in agreement, thinking how frightened she must be.
Mrs. Rosenbloom says to Miss Bailey, “I think they’re right. It will take her parents at least forty-five minutes to get here. You call the parents and I’ll drive these two to the hospital.”
“But . . .”
“That’s why I drove down here, so we’d have a car available in case of emergency. I think this situation qualifies.”
The attendant tells Mrs. Rosenbloom how to get to the hospital, and Dashan and I follow her out to the parking lot. We park in the Emergency section and go inside. Mrs. Rosenbloom identifies herself and asks about Christy. They say she is being seen by an obstetrician, and show us to a cold, gray waiting room. Mrs. Rosenbloom goes to find a telephone so she can call our parents. I don’t know what the big deal is, Dashan and I both are eighteen—adults. Why are we still treated like kids? But she says we’re still the school’s responsibility on official field trips.
While Mrs. Rosenbloom is off making phone calls, a man comes in and asks if Christy’s parents have arrived yet.
“They’ll probably be here pretty soon,” I say.
He says he’s the emergency admitting doctor, or something I don’t quite get, and asks, “Which one of you boys is the boyfriend?”
Neither of us speaks.
“Well?”
“I guess I am,” Dashan says.
“You guess?”
“I used to be,” I say.
“Meaning you’re the father of this baby?”
“Yes.” I say.
“Well, your baby is trying to get here early and your girlfriend, or whatever, isn’t in great shape.”
“Will she be okay?” I ask.
“Hard to say yet. The ob/gyn will be able to tell you more later,” he says. “Pregnancies with girls this age are sometimes a bit risky.”
He turns and leaves as quickly as he appeared. He seems angry. I don’t like him. Dashan and I are alone in the room with only the sound of the air conditioning unit humming in the background.
“What do you think the doctor meant, about risky pregnancies?” Dashan asks. “Do you think Christy’s going to be okay?”
“I don’t know. I hope so.”
Dashan says, “I hope the baby’s okay. I don’t think Christy could handle it if he wasn’t.”
“He?” I say.
“Yeah, he. The little baby.”
“It’s a boy?”
‘Yeah. Didn’t you know that? I guess it’s not for sure a boy. The doctor says from the looks of the sonogram, it’s almost for certain though.”
A boy. A son. All my life, when I’ve thought about what kind of dad I’d be, and told myself how I’d be a better dad than the one I got, I’ve pictured myself grown up, like in one of those insurance ads you see in Time magazine. I’d be married, living in a big house, probably about thirty. Maybe I thought I’d be like my Uncle Steve. But here I am, with a son on the way, and I don’t feel grown up at all. Not even close.
Mrs. Rosenbloom comes back to the waiting room.
“I talked with both your mothers,” she says. “They said the same thing you did, you’re adults. They’d like you to call back in a few hours, though, when you know more what’s happening . . . Have you had any news about Christy’s condition?”
We tell her what the doctor told us.
“Well, I hope things turn out all right. It makes no sense to me, this having babies so young.”
She sits with us for a while, then says, “I’m going to walk out front to wait for Christy’s parents. Then I’ll go back to the park. Congratulations on your scholarships,” she says to us both, like she can’t think of anything else to say.
After Mrs. Rosenbloom leaves, Dashan says, “I probably should leave before Christy’s parents get here. Her dad really doesn’t like me.”
“Her dad doesn’t like any guy who likes Christy.”
“Especially not any black guy,” Dashan says. “I mean, he gets all crazy if I even call her on the phone. I can see why he doesn’t like you, but I’ve never done anything to hurt her.”
I want to explain—it’s not my fault, she said she was on the pill, etc., etc., but it all sounds worn out to me now. I’m worn out. I rest my arms on the back of the cold, plastic chair and try to make a pillow for my head. I can’t get comfortable.
I’m pulled out of sleep by familiar voices. Christy’s parents are standing just a few feet away from me, talking to a woman in green hospital clothes—a nurse, I guess. At first I think it’s a dream that we’re all together in a little square room with plastic furniture and no windows. But slowly my memory comes back—Disneyland, Christy’s scream, the watery mess. I look at my watch. Five-thirty a.m.
They’re saying something about balancing danger to the mom and danger to the fetus. Dashan and I both stand and walk closer, so we can hear what’s being said. We all stand together in a circle, listening to the woman who I thought was a nurse but is really a doctor. Dashan and Mr. Calderon are standing so close their shoulders are touching. I guess we’re all so worried everybody forgets to be angry.
The doctor explains that the water bag has ruptured, and that leaves the baby very vulnerable to infection. Also, Christy’s blood pressure is higher than it should be, which can be dangerous to her if it can’t be brought down.
Christy�
�s dad asks, “Is my daughter’s life in danger?” at the same time that Dashan asks, “Will she lose the baby?”
“It is highly unlikely that either of those things will happen,” the doctor says. “But the situation is serious and she needs to be very closely monitored. We’ll admit her to the antepartum unit, try to bring down her blood pressure and hold off on labor. We can also better protect her against infection by keeping her in that unit. She is apparently in her thirty-first week. There’s a much better chance of getting a healthy baby if we can keep it in the womb for another couple of weeks. Luckily this hospital has an excellent antepartum and neonatal unit. Christy is better off here than she would be in most other hospitals.”
My head is spinning. I only understand half what the doctor is saying, but I understand enough to know that things aren’t looking great right now.
“You can go see your daughter for a few minutes now, if you’d like,” the doctor says. “But we don’t want any excitement or emotional stress, so be sure to stay calm and to reassure her. We don’t want her worried or upset. Can you do that?”
‘”Yes,” Mrs. Calderon says.
All of us, including Christy’s mom, are looking straight at her dad. If anybody’s going to pass around the old emotional stress, he’s the one to do it. But he says, “I just want my daughter and my grandson to be healthy. I can be strong for that.”
“Which one of you is Dashan?” the doctor asks.
Dashan lifts his hand.
“Christina’s been asking for you, so as soon as her parents come out, you can go in. But only for a few minutes.”
Chapter
16
Dress shirt, tie, dark socks, black dress pants, jeans, sweatshirt, what am I missing? Oh yeah, underwear. I check the zippered pocket of my backpack one more time. There it is, a round trip ticket on American Airlines LAX to New Orleans. God. I can hardly believe it. Three hours from now Jeremy, Trin, Mr. Rogers and I are going to be flying high out of L.A.
I look at the trophies lining the top of my bookshelf. When I first started debate, in the ninth grade, I didn’t think I’d ever take first place in anything. Now, I have a secret hope that maybe I could get a national trophy. I doubt it, because the competition at nationals is unbelievable. Mr. Rogers says both Jeremy and I have a chance. But really, I’ve already got my scholarship.
Too Soon for Jeff Page 13