In spite of the glowing resumes and magazine-perfect photographs of each and every couple, Grace couldn’t stop thinking about Couple Number One. There was something about the Millers that was both familiar and comforting. Was it because Rebecca’s dark hair and green eyes unconsciously reminded Grace of herself, or that Michael looked so solid and grownup, yet gentle and kind the way he stood in the photo, his arm protectively around his wife’s shoulders? Would they ever tell their daughter that she was stupid or that they regretted having her? Would they kick the bean out of the house if she broke the rules or threatened the family’s honor? There was no way to know, but Grace had a feeling these two people wouldn’t be capable of such malice. At least she hoped they wouldn’t be.
CHAPTER 11
Dear Baby,
Today was one of the worst days of my life, and I probably shouldn’t even be telling you that, because it’s not your fault, it’s mine, and I should be way stronger already, considering everything that’s happened and all that’s yet to come. The thing is, sweet Baby, they know about you. My baggy sweatshirt isn’t baggy enough to hide you anymore, and you’re no longer my little secret. I’ve never been so humiliated in my life, and I’m not sure which part is worse, that everybody knows I had sex with someone (I should probably blab that Nick is the father — at least that would distract those mean girls while they try to figure out why the handsome prince decided to throw a bone to the slimy frog) or that I was dumb enough to get pregnant. It’s probably the second part, because all those girls who were talking about me have probably done it, way more than once. They were just smarter about it than I was. I don’t know how I’m going to go back tomorrow.
I love you so much,
Grace
After eighteen weeks and no whispers, Grace had almost forgotten to worry about the shit hitting the fan when her baby bump bumped. Wearing sweatpants and oversized sweatshirts Charlie had given her, collected from exotic universities all over the world, Grace was playing the role of hardcore senior who was too busy writing college essays and studying for her AP classes to waste time on grooming. So far she’d done a good job camouflaging her slowly ballooning figure, because no one had uttered a word — not a single comment from anyone about one too many Hershey bars, or too much reading and not enough running — and thankfully seniors didn’t have to take gym class. Either her disguise was working, or Jennifer and the entire student body were being incredibly diplomatic. Not a likely scenario.
But in the third day of her nineteenth week, Grace was in the bathroom before school, where she was spending an inordinate amount of time these days, when her big fat ship hit the iceberg. A break-off herd of girls from Nick’s popular planet ambled in. The school day hadn’t yet begun, but it was time to reapply their eyeliner and lip gloss before first period. Crowding each other in front of the mirror, each certain that she was by far the hottest girl in school, they pretended that they actually liked each other.
Awesome Girl A: “So did you hear the news?”
Awesome Girl B: “What news?”
Awesome Girl A: “Grace Warren is up the duff.”
In a panic, Grace lifted her feet off the tile floor and held her breath. If they discovered she was in the bathroom, they might strip her down to see if it was just gossip or she was in fact packing a little person. The single blessing of obscurity in this whole unblessed event had just blown up in her face.
Awesome Girl C: “What? That’s impossible. Straight-A, so-perfect-her-shit-doesn’t-stink Grace Warren?”
Awesome Girl A: “That’s the one.”
Awesome Girl C: “No way. Her mother practically runs our church. She’s the parent adviser for this class the pastor runs teaching kids how to keep it in their pants. Grace won’t be spreading her legs until her wedding night, if then.”
Awesome Girl D: “So who’s the babydaddy?”
Awesome Girl A: “I heard it was some guy she met at church camp. He popped her cherry during Bible study.”
Awesome Girl B: “Someone’s definitely yanking your chain.”
Awesome Girl A: “Maybe. Either way, we’ll know soon enough. It’s not like she’ll be able to suck it in for nine months.”
Awesome Girl D: “She has been dressing like a chunky rug muncher lately. I thought maybe she was practicing for one of those women’s colleges.”
Awesome Girl A: “Why don’t you just ask her?”
Awesome Girl D: “Why don’t you?”
Awesome Girl A: “Because I don’t give a shit if she fucked every member of the chess club and is hauling around triplets.”
Awesome Girl B: “If she’s got a kid in there, it had to be an immaculate conception. No one but God could be porking Warren.”
Awesome Girl C: “Whatever.”
Awesome Girl C didn’t give a rat’s ass what a charter member of the geek squad was up to when she wasn’t changing the batteries in her calculator. In her thousand-friend Facebook universe, high school was for looking good, getting hammered, and hooking up, not gossiping about losers who sat at the front of the class with their lips permanently attached to some teacher’s fat ass.
When Grace didn’t think she could hold it in a second longer, the bell rang and the demons posing as high school girls left. Burying her face in Charlie’s sweatshirt, she didn’t move. The graffiti-decorated stall — it was only a matter of days until her life story figured prominently in the scribbles on the metal walls surrounding her — felt like the only safe place in the building. Sitting on the toilet, Grace wept bitter tears for the loss of her dignity, the loss of her family, the loss of her flat stomach, and most of all, for the loss of the person she used to be and knew she could never be again.
The late bell rang, and Grace sat up, blowing her nose on a piece of toilet paper. Who had ratted her out? Jennifer had a big mouth, but Grace knew she would sooner cut out her own tongue than sell out her best friend. Nick? No way. His name hadn’t come up once in the bathroom conversation, and except for Mrs. T., the doctors, and her parents (who would deny she was pregnant if she gave birth on the altar during Sunday services), nobody else was in the loop. It had to be the sweats. Stupidly believing that miles of cotton fleece would be the perfect smokescreen, Grace had unwittingly outed herself. Coming out of the stall, she examined herself in the lipstick-streaked mirror hanging on the tile wall. That was definitely it. She started to laugh at her reflection, this person she hardly recognized anymore, wondering why Jennifer or Charlie or Mrs. T. hadn’t said anything. Unlike her parents, who had no qualms about telling her exactly what they thought of her, those three people loved her so much that either they didn’t see the Jabba the Hutt she had become, or if they did, they had the good sense to know that pointing out a blemish that couldn’t be covered with Maybelline Cover Stick would be at best a worthless exercise, and at worst, cruel. But she couldn’t figure out where the Bible camp fuck buddy had come from.
Not sure what to do next, Grace stared at the floor, as if the answer could be found in the grimy gray tiles. Spending the day in the girls’ bathroom wouldn’t solve any of her problems, and she couldn’t hide out in a stall until the baby was born. Retrieving her backpack from the hook behind the door, Grace took one last look in the mirror and went off to class, or war, or whatever the day would bring.
“Come in, Grace. You’re late. Where’s your pass?” Miss Hawkins stood in front of the whiteboard, marker poised.
She had been late to class before, and no one had ever asked her for a pass. If a student like Grace was tardy, there had to be a good reason, so a note from the office would be a waste of paperwork. “I’m sorry, Miss Hawkins, I don’t have one. I was in the restroom.” Twenty-three snickers combined into a single deafening guffaw.
“Whatever. Take your seat, and next time try to take care of your business at home.”
Resuming her lecture, Miss Hawkins droned on about Skinner boxes and operant conditioning. Collapsing into her seat accompanied by a second round of sniggeri
ng, Grace dug out her notebook and pen and pretended to listen to her teacher. If her not-so-delicate condition was obvious to her classmates, didn’t that mean that the teachers, who were certainly smarter and less self-absorbed than their students, must also have solved the whodunit … or whodidher? That would explain the unprecedented request for a late pass and the snide comment.
The bell finally rang, ending Miss Hawkins’s attack on video games as modern examples of Skinner boxes, destroying America’s youth and threatening to become the one-way ticket to last place for the United States. “For your sake, for the sake of this country, you people need to rethink your priorities. Our futures depend on it. Check the syllabus for your homework. Class dismissed.”
Miss Hawkins turned to erase her whiteboard in preparation for the next round of fertile young minds. It was only 8:30 A.M., and she didn’t know how she was going to make it through the morning, let alone the five years she had to endure until she could retire with a pension.
“Boooo!”
“You just haven’t found the right joystick, Miss Hawkins.”
“Don’t be such a noob!”
“If you’d ever fragged someone, you wouldn’t be saying that.”
“This class is a total wankfest!”
Slamming her hand down hard on her desk, Miss Hawkins turned to face the class and spoke through gritted teeth. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Such disrespect didn’t exist twenty-five years ago. You’re a bunch of animals. Not worth my time. Get out of my classroom.”
Too curious to leave it alone, and also wanting to apologize to Miss Hawkins for being late — she was still the good girl, no matter what her uterus said — Grace stopped in front of Miss Hawkins’s desk. “I’m sorry I was late this morning. I had the start of a migraine or something. It won’t happen again.”
“I hope not. You and your associates need to get your collective acts together. You’re seniors, not a bunch of wide-eyed freshmen who don’t know up from down. It’s so disappointing for us as teachers to see young people throwing their lives away like empty soda cans. Squandering one’s gifts is an unforgivable sin. Do you understand that, Grace?” Miss Hawkins stared not at Grace’s face, but at her stomach. Maybe she was reading Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, or maybe she was trying to decide if Grace looked any fatter than she’d looked a few weeks earlier.
Close to melting down, Grace just nodded. Second period students began trickling in, and Grace blinked back her tears. Another bell rang, but instead of going to her next class, Grace lumbered towards the office. Having inadvertently mutated into one of those disappointing young people the teachers were wasting their precious time on, Grace knew she would need a late pass to get into AP English.
CHAPTER 12
School had become a walking, talking bad dream. Based on how Grace felt every day since she’d come out of the closet, or the bathroom stall, she would gladly stick pins in her eyes if it meant she could stay home. But what was the alternative? Dropping out like those girls on TV, taking classes online so she could get her GED. After all that had happened, Grace still wasn’t ready to give up on the dream of going to a first-rate college, and dropping out of high school in the middle of her senior year because she couldn’t take the whispers and smirks was beyond chickenshit. At some point they had to get bored with her, had to get tired of smiling hypocritically, asking where the father was, suggesting names for the baby — “Loser” worked for a boy or a girl.
Within a week, everyone from the night janitor to the Chinese transfer student who only spoke three words of English knew about the Girl Scout who’d gotten storked at church camp. Rumors spread faster than the flu at Silver Lake High School, and the moral demise of a member of the National Honor Society and an AP Scholar was far more interesting than someone in the vocational training program getting knocked up. That would be business as usual; this was news. Grace used to feel like she was the only one who hadn’t done it, but now she felt like she was the only one who had. Her slowly expanding stomach advertised her moral depravity and was reflected in the condescending stares and snickers of those either smarter or luckier than she had been. Even girls she thought were her friends were blowing her off.
“Hi, Kim,” Grace said to the girl standing at the locker next to hers. They had been lab partners in biology, teammates on the mathletes, and had known each other since elementary school.
Kim didn’t answer, just put her books away and zipped up her backpack.
“Kim, what’s the matter?” Grace pleaded. Without a word, Kim, who wasn’t even part of the cool crowd, who Grace had always thought was a sweet, compassionate person, turned and walked away. Even her fellow geeks were abandoning ship.
Every night Jennifer spent an hour on the phone with Grace, trying to convince her to give up Nick. “Why are you protecting him? He’s a first-class douchebag. He’d stab you in the back without a second thought. You get that, don’t you?”
“I do, but ….”
“But what? You’re not still into him, are you? Dick can’t be that powerful. Besides, you said it wasn’t even any good.” Sex was still a mystery to Jennifer, but she couldn’t imagine anything on earth could command that kind of authority over a brain with an IQ of 145.
Grace cringed. Tact, subtlety, and sensitivity were not part of Jennifer’s makeup. “It has nothing to do with that. I hate him. I hate every part of him, including that part of him.” As Jennifer had so succinctly pointed out, if she could allow his junk inside her, she should be able to say the word for it out loud, but it still stuck in her throat.
“Well, that’s good news. So what’s the problem? If you tag him as your sperm donor, I guarantee you there will be significant heat transfer to his sorry ass. Can you imagine? No one has any idea that the biggest man on campus is the one who stole your v-card and planted his seed. People will be talking about it for years, like where you were when you found out Michael Jackson died.”
“But that’s exactly my point. If I tell the world that Nick is the father, that’ll just add fuel to the fire. Instead of jokes about Bible study and virgin births, they’ll be laughing about how Nick had to fuck me for community service or how he was trying to win a bet about whether or not my encyclopedia was stapled shut. The possibilities are endless, and horrible.”
“It would be so worth it, though, to see Nick get dragged through the mud. He deserves to suffer.” Jennifer rubbed her hands together gleefully at the thought of Nick being burned in effigy at the homecoming game.
“You just don’t get it. No matter what, I’m going to be the villain in this story, and Nick’s always going to be the hero — it’s simple genetics. The only thing that’ll bring an end to this nightmare is getting away from here, but I’ve got no place to go. So I’ll just have to suffer through it.” At the thought of at least twenty more weeks of taunts and whispers, Grace’s stomach dropped. It was going to feel like twenty years.
“You’re giving up too easily. You can’t be sure that’s how it would play out.”
“This from the person who didn’t think that we, co-captains of the math team with matching 4.9 averages, were geeks. Shows you how in touch with reality you are.”
Shouting into the phone, Jennifer was determined to straighten Grace out. “I love you, Grace, like a sister, but you need to pull your head out of your ass and realize that high school isn’t the fucking Academy Awards, and those small-minded assholes you’re so afraid of aren’t the Oscar winners you think they are. They’re not even extras in the movie that is our life. They’re losers who just haven’t gotten the memo yet. But they will, and when they do, you and I will be collecting our diplomas from Princeton and deciding which six-figure job we should take. So, Grace, you’re the one who needs to get in touch with reality.”
“I want you to be right,” Grace whispered. “I need you to be right.”
“Don’t worry, I am,” Jennifer said with her unshakable confidence. “Now that we’ve got tha
t misconception cleared up, let’s talk about what you need to do today.”
“I’m still not outing Nick, no matter what you say. I don’t want to have anything to do with him ever again. It’s too upsetting.”
“Fine, whatever. But you still need to deal with him at least one more time. If he doesn’t sign off on that document, you’re going to have to find a new adoption agency or practice your diapering skills.”
“I know. I will.”
While Jennifer had generously, and a little too enthusiastically, offered to track down Nick and explain to him about giving up his parental rights, Grace decided it was a task that she needed to do herself. Every time she saw him at school, her heart jumped into her throat, even as Nick quickly turned away, not even acknowledging her presence, as difficult as she was to miss as the bean grew into a melon. After several attempts to catch him in the hallway at school, in which he fled like a pickpocket through a crowd in Times Square, Grace decided to catch him when he wasn’t expecting it. One morning she stationed herself behind a tree, a hunter tracking her prey, and waited until he pulled into the parking lot, still driving the scene of the crime. After he shut off the engine — less danger of him driving away or running her over — she dashed, more like plodded, over to the car. His deer-in-the-headlights look told her that she’d succeeded in surprising him.
Looking around to make sure no one was watching, he rolled down the window and said, “What do you want now?”
There was no point in pretending anymore: she was way past the point of no return. This baby was already a baby. But then his brain caught up with his emotions, and he realized that now, more than ever, he needed to keep his cool. As promised, Grace hadn’t revealed his role in her problem, and except for Jennifer, who even though she had a big mouth had proved she knew how to keep a secret, nobody knew he was the father. He had no idea why Grace had chosen to take the high road. Even he could see that he was being a total dick, from start to finish, if you were looking at it solely from her point of view.
Screwed Page 14