“Here you go,” she said, handing over a plastic bag that hung limply with their one purchase inside it. “Have a nice day.”
Audrey took the bag, looping it around her wrist. Does it seem like I’m having a nice goddamn day? “Thanks.”
They stopped off at a 7-Eleven on the way to Audrey’s house, where she almost bought a Big Gulp of Diet Coke before she got distracted with wondering whether you could drink soda when you were pregnant, which led to wondering what else she wouldn’t be able to drink—coffee? What about tea? Beer, obviously.
And that led her to wonder whether her thinking of all this meant something, because if she didn’t care about the possibility that there was a tiny bundle of cells that would become a baby inside of her, would she even be considering what was good or bad for it?
Eventually she gave up and bought the biggest bottle of orange juice that she could find. Vitamin C couldn’t hurt.
Could it?
Audrey stood in her bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror. If her life were a movie, now would be the point when she lifted her shirt, pressed her hand flat against her abdomen, and turned side on, as if she’d be able to feel anything other than the regular soft and yielding flesh of her belly. Why do they always do that? she wondered idly. Like it’s not happening if they can’t see it with their own eyes? And of course they never have an ounce of surplus fat on their bodies, and they usually look superhot, and they’re always, always half naked, too. What is with that? Who takes a pregnancy test in their fanciest lingerie or—
“Audrey?”
Julian’s voice pulled her back from her dreamland, and she began clawing at the box containing the tests as she answered him. “What?”
“Can I come in?”
She paused. “Um . . .” She’d always drawn the line there—some kind of mystery would be nice.
However, Julian had seen her naked more times than she could count, had touched her places no one else ever had, and quite possibly had knocked her up. The time for shyness was long past.
Audrey unlocked the door, and Julian stepped inside, one hand tangled in his hair. “Sorry,” he said. “But I was freaking out by myself out there.”
“That’s okay.” Audrey managed a tiny laugh as she finally ripped open the package and sent the contents clattering into the sink. “I was freaking out in here.”
Julian sat on the edge of the bathtub, peering up at her with his forehead creased and cheeks flushed patchy white and red. “It’s probably nothing, right? We use protection. It could be your body being weird, right?”
Audrey nodded. “Probably.” She didn’t want to tell him about all the stories she’d read on the internet where women had said the exact same thing as him only to find out they were wrong.
Audrey tapped her nails on the sink, muted clicks on the porcelain. “Can’t put it off any longer, can we?”
Julian stood and put his hands on her waist. “It’s okay,” he said quietly. “No matter what it says, it’ll be okay.”
Audrey felt the way his fingers gripped her tightly, betraying the calm in his voice, but forced a smiled anyway. “You’re right. We’ll be fine.”
NINE
Audrey’s heart was drumming so hard and so fast that when she put her hand on her chest, pressed her palm flat there, it felt as if it were about to burst out. She had that hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach, too, an emptiness. How much longer could it take?
Julian laced his fingers through Audrey’s other hand, his palm clammy-cold. They stared at the three plastic sticks—They really are almost nothing, Audrey thought; how can my future rest on such slight little things? Her future. Art school, maybe; Rhode Island School of Design, that was the place she dreamed about, the dream she kept quiet because it was crazy hard to get into and embarrassing, almost, to admit that she even wanted to try. But that didn’t matter now; whatever she’d been imagining—RISD or Syracuse or Illinois, photography or illustration or a very useful liberal arts degree—might be gone.
It felt like way longer than the two minutes the directions said, but eventually it happened. First the one in the middle, then the left, and then the right. All three the same.
Three big, fat positives.
Julian took a deep breath and squeezed her hand. “It’s okay. We’ll be okay.”
Audrey squeezed back, his clammy fingers damp in her grip.
I wish he’d stop saying that.
They weren’t much of a surprise, those positives. Not truthfully. Since she’d thought it, thought she might be pregnant, she’d known it was happening. Audrey could feel the trouble brewing in the pit of her belly, all the way down in the blood streaming in her veins.
“You should go.” She registered the confused look on Julian’s face and amended her words. “To work. You’re going to be late.”
Julian checked his watch and groaned. “Shit.”
“It’s all right,” Audrey said, slipping her hand out of his—but only so she could loop her arms around his neck instead and kiss him. “We’ll talk about it later.”
Julian kissed her back with a fervor that, for a second, made Audrey forget all about the P word.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I know this is scary, but it’s going to be okay. We’ll figure it out. We’ll be fine.”
Who is he trying to convince, Audrey wondered, me, or himself?
But as soon as Julian left to go wait tables, as soon as she’d disposed of any and all incriminating evidence, when she was lying facedown on her bed, the reality came rushing back.
Pregnant.
I am pregnant.
But it’s okay, she reasoned. Because things are going to be okay. Julian said so. Julian’s never wrong. He never lies.
She pressed her face into the pillows so her world-weary, soul-deep moaning couldn’t be heard. Fuck. Fucking fuck shit fuck.
Okay. She had to calm down. She had to relax. And most of all, she had to forget about that tiny thrill, of nerves and disbelief and something almost like excitement, that she’d felt in the split second between seeing the results and Julian squeezing her hand.
Easy.
TEN
Sitting in a cracked vinyl booth opposite María and next to Rose, Audrey tried not to look too much like she wanted to disappear. Which wasn’t easy, because if she could have figured out some way to make the ground open up and let her in, she would have.
Then again, she was hungry, and Bettie’s was the best place to get burgers after school (which was why half their class was crammed into the place). And since she now seemed to be nauseous more often than hungry, she had to take advantage of this moment.
“I think I have the perfect costume for Friday,” María said over the seventies hair metal playing over the speakers. “One word: Flashdance.”
Audrey ripped the paper off her straw. “Is that one word or two?”
“Flashdance?” Rose asked. “So, leg warmers and underwear?”
María shook her head. “Overalls and a welding mask. I will be comfortable, citing an iconic pop culture moment, and refusing to pander to the male gaze all at the same time.”
“It’s Halloween,” Rose said, picking up her milk shake. “What better time to strengthen our feminist ideals?”
María grinned, mischievous eyes behind her pink-framed glasses. “Exactly.” She turned to Audrey. “Have you decided yet?”
Audrey made a face. Last year she and Rose had gone Clueless, rocking knee-high socks and supershort pleated skirts as Dionne and Cher, and two years ago the theme had been Prohibition-era gangsters—Laura had let them raid the costumes at the theater for wide elastic suspenders and painted on sharp mustaches for them. Usually Audrey loved it all, but this time around she was kind of lacking inspiration.
Juno? Maybe a little too on-the-nose.
The server kid, a sophomore fellow art freak, arrived at their booth then and set down their food. “Careful,” he warned. “Onion rings are fresh out of the fryer.”
>
As he left, Jen appeared with Olivia in tow. “Hey,” Jen said, and she waved toward Olivia. “Sit wherever. Do you want anything? I’m going to order.”
“Um . . .” Olivia looked at the board, her eyebrows furrowing. “I don’t know. What’s good here?”
“Everything,” Audrey said, and she brandished an onion ring as if to illustrate her point. “But if you want the best thing, get the bacon cheeseburger. It’ll change your life.”
Olivia laughed. “Okay, I guess I’ll have one bacon cheeseburger.”
Jen nodded. “Excellent choice.”
She headed up to the counter, and Olivia hovered there, looking uncertain. “Come on,” María said, and she patted the bench. “We’re discussing Halloween.”
“We’re T-minus three days,” Rose said, “and still have no costume. I mean, I wanted us to be Heathers, but Audrey thinks it’ll go over everyone’s heads.”
Jen came bounding back and pulled up a chair. “What’s a Heather?” she asked.
“See?” Audrey said. “My point exactly.”
Olivia smiled. “A Heather is cool,” she said. “But Veronica would be cooler.”
“Finally,” Rose said, allowing her lips to curve into a half smile. “Someone who gets me.”
Audrey picked up her burger and eyed the gloopy mustard spilling out of the bun. God, was she starving, but everything tasted so weird to her now. Now that she was pregnant. Every time she’d remembered that today—every four seconds or so—she’d inexplicably heard the snotty voice of her ninth-grade health teacher reverberating in her head: The only one hundred percent effective birth control is abstinence! AB-STI-NENCE.
Which, yes, was true, but God was it ridiculous. Even ninth-grade Audrey had known that. People—teachers, parents, old-white-guy politicians—liked to say that if you were going to have sex, you needed to be prepared to deal with the consequences.
Well, no shit, Audrey thought. Of course you did. But what they actually meant was that if you got knocked up, you’d better not complain about missing out on your teenage years, because it was only your (bad, very bad) decisions that got you in that (bad, very bad) situation. She knew what those people would say about her now. She was trying not to care.
Audrey forced that to the back of her mind and made herself take a big bite of her burger. Had to maintain as normal an appearance as possible; otherwise her friends would start to notice. Rose had already started to notice, before Audrey even had, and if she didn’t get her act together, it would become obvious. She wasn’t ready for that—she and Julian hadn’t even talked about what they were going to do about this piece of news. No, if she could just pretend like everything was normal, then maybe everything would be normal.
Jen stole an onion ring. “So, Olivia, are you bored of this place yet?” Then, in her typical Jen way, she continued without pausing to let Olivia answer. “Are you coming to the Halloween party? It’s going to be excellent; I can already tell.”
Olivia shrugged. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I mean, I’ve heard about it, but . . . it’s only my second week here. And I don’t want to crash.”
“Cooper won’t care,” María said. “Is he here? Oh, there he is. Coop! Hey!”
A backward-baseball-hatted head popped up from a table near the windows, and Cooper looked in their general direction, pointing at himself questioningly.
“Yes, you!” María let out an exaggerated sigh. “What other Cooper could I mean?” She turned back, sinking into her seat again and nodding at Olivia, who seemed bemused by everything. “Trust me,” María said. “It’s fine.”
Audrey watched as Cooper made his way over to them, catching wide-eyed stares from a group of freshman girls too shiny-new to know better. Sure, he had that Pretty White Boy thing going on, but that faded once you got to know the inside of his dirty mind. He was fun, though, Audrey couldn’t deny that.
He climbed into the booth behind them and leaned over between Rose and Audrey. “What’s up, Cortez?”
“Halloween is what’s up,” María said. “Your party. You don’t mind if Olivia comes, do you?”
“That depends,” Cooper said. “Who’s Olivia?”
Olivia cleared her throat, leaning forward. “Me.”
“Oh, right.” Cooper stared, a slow smile spreading over his face. “The new girl. I’ve been wondering when I’d get to meet you.”
“Her name is Olivia, not New Girl,” Audrey said shortly. “And can you answer the question?”
“All right! Jeez, Audrey, who got your panties in a bunch?” he said. “No, I don’t mind. Olivia—last name?”
“Lee.”
“Olivia Lee!” He extended his hand in an enthusiastically theatrical manner, almost smacking Audrey in the face. “It would be my greatest honor to have you in attendance at my Halloween party. Costumes mandatory—the smaller the better,” he added.
Audrey rolled her eyes as María said, “Don’t be a skeeze, Coop.”
But Olivia was laughing along with Jen. “Thanks,” she told him, and looked over at Rose. “Are you going?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Rose said.
Olivia looked like she was giving it serious thought, her teeth digging into her bottom lip and her eyebrows sloping together, before she finally nodded. “Okay,” she said. “I guess I’ll be there.”
Cooper bounced to his feet, grinning mischievously as he backed away from their table. “Excellent. Can’t wait.”
Audrey watched him leave while she twisted her napkin into ribbons. She did not want to be at that party.
But if she wasn’t there, she’d have to give Rose a reason, and what was she going to say?
Jen clapped gleefully, interrupting Audrey’s thoughts. “I think someone has an admirer.”
“I agree,” María said, nudging Olivia. “Cooper was totally checking you out.”
Jen laughed. “Of course, Coop checks everyone out, but . . .”
Olivia laughed, a small flush appearing in her cheeks. “He’s not really my type.”
“Too pretty?” María asked.
“Too loudmouthed?” Jen said.
Olivia shook her head again, the small silver hoops that dangled from her left ear swaying. “Too boy.”
“Gotcha,” Jen said. “Well, there are going to be plenty of cute girls at the party, too. Okay, mainly straight girls, but, hey—you never know, right?”
Audrey pushed away her food and forced herself to participate some more. “Right,” she said. “People keep secrets.”
“I hear rumors of Saint Francis in attendance,” María said. “Wasn’t Aisha at Coop’s last time, too?”
“I have to pee,” Rose said abruptly. “Audrey, move.”
Audrey got up so Rose could slide out and made a face at the others as she sat again. “Oops.”
“Was it something I said?” Olivia asked, and it sounded like she was half joking, half serious.
“No, no! Don’t worry,” Jen said. “It’s Rose.”
“It’s Aisha Forrester,” Audrey said, watching Rose cut between the tables. She had this mix of dancer grace and violent determination that made people’s eyes find her without trying. Audrey would go after her in a minute, listen to her pretend not to be bothered by the mention of Aisha’s name until she admitted it and came back. That was the way it usually went—Rose retreated, ran away, and Audrey found her and held her hand until she was okay again. “They went out, it didn’t go well, the end. Just—” Audrey gave Olivia a pointed look. “Don’t hook up with Aisha, and you’ll be fine.”
“Duly noted,” Olivia said. “So . . . Rose is gay, too?”
“Bi,” María said. “But I’m sure she’ll tell you the password.”
“Password?” Olivia frowned.
“To the underground network,” María said seriously. “You know. Of girls who like girls.”
A smile dawned on Olivia’s face. “Ha,” she said. “Well, I think I’m going to need it, so she’d better s
pill.”
The server came back with Jen’s and Olivia’s food this time, and Olivia picked up her burger and stared at it, hard. “Okay,” she said to it. “I have high expectations for you. Impress me, burger.”
Audrey watched as Olivia took a bite, her eyes at first thoughtful and then widening as she chewed. Audrey grinned. “Good, right? I told you.”
Olivia finished chewing and shook her head at Audrey. “Remind me never to doubt you.”
“That’s a good policy,” Audrey laughed. “Stick to it and you’ll do well.”
ELEVEN
Audrey shoved her textbooks into her locker while trying (unsuccessfully) to avoid the skeleton hanging on her neighbor’s locker. There was no doubting it: her Halloween spirit had been completely wiped out. Even Ms. Fitz dressed as eighties Madonna—fingerless lace gloves, ropes of fake pearls around her neck, a shiny tiered skirt that bounced as she danced around the art room, and a drawn-on mole—hadn’t brought a smile to her face. All she wanted to do was go home, lock herself in her bedroom, and scarf all the candy her mom had bought for trick-or-treaters. And maybe try not to fixate on the fact that she was pregnant.
She pushed an old sketchbook to the side, squeezing her math book next to it, and then slammed her locker shut. As if she could think of anything else but that; as if she’d let anything besides that enter her mind for the past week.
A touch on her waist made her jump, and suddenly Julian was beside her. “Jesus, Julian,” she hissed. “Do you always have to do that?”
“Sorry,” he said, sounding anything but. “What time do you want me to pick you up tonight?”
Audrey hitched her bag onto her shoulders. “I don’t—I’m not going.”
“What?”
“I’m not going,” Audrey repeated. “I don’t feel good. I just want to stay home.”
“But you said you wanted to act as normal as possible,” Julian said. “The other day, you said—”
“I know what I said, but I don’t want to go,” Audrey snapped.
Julian was silent for a second. Then he said, “Fine. But have you told Rose? Because she’s going to be pissed.”
You Don’t Know Me but I Know You Page 5