* * * * *
Alli gave a nonchalant look around the drug store to make sure she didn’t see anyone she knew. Browsing the aisles, she pretended to be interested in some bandages.
A girl around her age walked by with a bored expression on her face. She half smiled at Alli fervently studying the bandages. The girl had jet black hair, with the exception of a vibrant swatch of atomic purple. She was wearing black lipstick, and black nail polish. A goth chick. Alli could smell cigarette smoke on the girl as she passed. She pretended not to watch as the girl made her way into the break room of the drug store.
Pregnancy tests were kept next to the ovulation kits, condoms, lubricants and yeast infection medications. There was no non-embarrassing reason to get caught in that aisle.
Without being able to read the boxes, she was just going to have to grab the first pregnancy test she saw, and hope it was the right kind. Were there different kinds? She was hoping to get the kind that only required you to pee on a stick and wait for two minutes.
An older man wandered by with hemorrhoid cream. He didn’t look at her as he passed.
Pretending to search through the tampon selection, she realized she had a better view of the tests. She thought she saw a box with what she wanted. Grabbing a box of pads and a box of tampons, she quickly snatched a pregnancy test and sandwiched it between the two.
Thankfully, the checkout area was deserted. She put her purchases on the counter, and craned her neck, looking for the clerk.
To Alli’s horror, she recognized the checkout clerk from her English class of all places. Yvette something. She was a popular, snobby girl, that would no doubt relish the gossip to be told concerning a classmate having a pregnancy scare. Alli panicked. She was about to grab her stuff and pretend like she forgot something when goth girl swooped past Yvette and took her place at the counter.
“You’re on break, Yvette.”
Yvette looked disgusted that goth girl had touched her in passing. She scrunched up her nose and flounced away. Alli wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard Yvette mumble, “You stink like an ashtray.” under her breath.
Alli was literally trembling with nerves as goth girl reached for the top box. She focused on the girl’s name tag to avoid eye contact. “Jainey” it said. Alli looked up at Jainey’s voice.
“Uh, you want me to wait to ring these up until you’ve used this one?” She asked, holding up the pregnancy test.
Alli tried to smile. Her heart was beating in her throat. She looked around, hoping nobody was watching.
Seeing Alli’s discomfort, Jainey quickly stuffed the test into a double bag. She left the pads and tampons on the counter, knowing Alli didn’t really want them.
“That’ll be eleven dollars and seventy two cents.”
Alli’s hands shook as she unfolded the bills from her pocket. She dropped the wad of fives and ones. Jainey reached down and picked them up. She counted out twelve dollars, and carefully folded the remaining bills before giving Alli her change.
“Hey, it’s going to be all right.”
Alli felt a sudden wave of gratitude wash over her at Jainey’s kind words. Her eyes flooded with tears and she had to fight down a lump in her throat. She couldn’t speak without crying, so she smiled a watery smile and turned to go.
“Wait.” Called Jainey. “Do you need some company? Someone to be there if it doesn’t go the way you want?”
Alli was surprised by Jainey’s offer. She was even more surprised by how relieved she was to have someone to share her burden with - even if that someone was a stranger from the drugstore. She cleared her throat. “I think that would be great, actually. Thank you.”
“Sure. I’ve been where you’re standing right now. I promise you, it will be ok. Just let me tell the princess that I’m leaving early.”
“Don’t you need to check with your manager or something?” Alli asked. She didn’t want to get Jainey in trouble.
“I am the manager. It drives the princess crazy that she has to answer to me. Ah, the price of financing one’s social life.” Jainey gave a half chuckle and headed toward the break room.
She came back a minute later, followed closely by a sulking Yvette. “Family emergency, huh? She doesn’t look like your family to me.”
Alli’s dislike of Yvette tripled instantly. “Actually, her mom sent me...” Alli noted the tattered bus pass hanging from Jainey’s wad of key fobs. “...to give her a ride home. We’ll be sure to let her know you send your regards.” Alli matched Yvette’s acidic smile and turned toward the door with as much bravado as she could muster.
Yvette stared daggers at their backs as they left. Moping over to her place behind the counter, she started to ring up an old lady buying a jar of laxative powder. When she went to give the lady her receipt, she noticed the receipt from the previous transaction was still on the roll. She ripped it off before giving the proper receipt to the laxative lady. A wicked grin split Yvette’s smug face as she read the receipt.
Jason dabbed his brush against his palate and brought it to the canvass. With each stroke Alli’s face materialized in more detail before him. He was so caught up in his work he didn’t hear Emiline’s quiet steps until she was coming up beside him. She watched him silently a moment before speaking. “Don’t portraits usually require the presence of the subject?” She teased.
Jason smiled, but didn’t stop working. “I’m very behind on this particular piece. I need something worth showing the client before Friday.” He explained.
“I’m impressed,” Emiline mused. “You’re not even working from a picture.”
Jason just hummed in reply.
Emiline offered him tea, and when he declined, she sat behind him watching him work. They stayed like that a long time, Emiline watching the way Jason held his brush. Paying close attention to the smooth caress of bristles on canvass. Marveling at the way Jason could make a subject jump off the easel. When she spoke again her voice was soft.
“How long have you loved her?” She asked.
Jason lowered his brush and stared at Alli’s portrait staring back at him. “It’s right there in the painting.” Emiline continued. “You wield your brush as if she could feel it. You paint her like a lover...”
There was a beat of pregnant silence. Emiline’s voice was almost a whisper. “How long?”
“A long time.” Was all he said.
Alli’s hand shook as she reached for the door knocker. Jason’s truck was in the driveway. He was definitely home.
The door opened just as she was raising her hand to knock again. Jason’s expertly crafted look of cold indifference crumbled immediately upon seeing Alli’s distraught expression.
“My God, Alli, what’s wrong?” He asked.
Alli’s lips trembled, but no words would come out. Her mouth became parched, and her breath started coming in short gasps. She was becoming light headed.
Alarmed, Jason grabbed her by the arm and led her to the couch. “Sit down and put your head between your knees.” He instructed as he ran to the kitchen for a glass of water.
Alli did as she was told, and Jason sat beside her, holding the water in one hand, and gently rubbing her back with the other.
Her breathing was starting to slow. She could feel her pulse calm from a rapid sprint to a steady tat-too. She could probably sit up straight now, but Jason’s gentle rubs were so comforting she decided to milk it a little longer. Finally, when the blood rushing to her head started thundering in her ears, she gave a heavy sigh and straightened up to face the task at hand.
Jason tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and handed her the water. He watched her slowly take a sip.
“Better? Are you ill?”
Alli shook her head and took a deep breath to steady herself. There was no easy way to do this. Might as well just jump in.
Alli set the glass of water down on the coffee table, not trusting her shaking hands to keep it upright.
“I’m... I’m sorry.” Her
words came out in a raspy squeak.
“Alli, we’ve been over this before. You shouldn’t be here. I’m sorry too, but we can’t be together. I’m not going to say our relationship was ‘wrong’, but it was... premature.” Alli’s eyes welled with tears. Jason gently wiped the moisture from her cheek with his thumb. “As much as I’d like to hold you right now Alli, I shouldn’t. We’ve got to stop torturing ourselves like this.”
Alli found it difficult to speak around the lump in her throat. All she could manage was another, “I’m sorry.” before breaking into hysterical sobs.
She leaned into him, clutching at his shirtfront. Alarmed, Jason tried to gently pry her hands lose. Failing, he settled for patting her back awkwardly like an uncomfortable camp councilor. It took every ounce of willpower he possessed not to hold her tightly and offer her what comfort he could. He could feel her hot breath puffing against his skin through his shirt. Her voice was muffled, and he couldn’t quite make out what she was saying in between sobs.
“Alli, sweethea-” he stopped himself from uttering the endearment. “Alli. Alli look at me.” Alli looked up, tears streaming down her cheeks, and rasped out, “I’m pregnant.”
It took a few seconds for her words to sink in. She watched as they registered in his brain, and his face drained of all color.
Jason felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. He sat there, dazed and shell shocked. Alli buried herself in his shirt again, and this time his arms wrapped warmly around her. He was numb. Someone was shaking. Was it Alli? Was it him?
“You’re sure?” He asked.
She sobbed a hot “yes” against his shirt. She sat up to face him again. “I took two tests, and they were both positive.”
Jason dabbed her tears with the sleeve of his shirt. “Okay, it’s okay. Shhh.”
“D-do you hate me?” She stuttered.
“Alli,” He sighed, pulling her onto his lap and tucking her under his chin, “I could never hate you. I hate myself right now, for putting you in this situation, but I don’t hate you.”
Alli had stopped sobbing, but her breath was still coming in stuttering hiccups. “I’m not exactly blameless here.”
Jason made a humorless “Humph” sound. “No, you’re not.” He agreed, “But let’s not split hairs.”
They sat like that for a while, neither of them saying anything, together, but each one examining their own thoughts.
Jason’s mind was a chaotic jumble. He examined his thoughts in a detached manner, noting that he must still be in shock. He was surprised and relieved to find a small part of himself that was not only open to this new revelation, but a bit excited as well. A baby. A new person. He was going to be a father. That was, of course, assuming Alli intended to keep it. Jason startled at the thought of abortion. Was Alli considering abortion? He could certainly see how an unintentionally pregnant seventeen year old might find abortion an attractive option.
At length, Jason shifted Alli’s weight on his lap and tried to think of a sensitive way to ask the question utmost in his mind.
“Alli?”
She lay limply against his chest. “Hmm?”
“I want you to know I’ll support your decision either way...”
She cut him off before he could finish, her words tumbling out in one breath. “I’m keeping him. I’m terrified, and confused, and I know it will be more work than I can even fathom right now, but he’s mine and yours, and that makes him perfect and I’m keeping him.”
She had straightened on his lap to look into his eyes as she spoke. He gently pulled her back against him again.
“This isn’t how I envisioned this happening, but under the circumstances...” He let his sentence trail off, not sure how to finish the thought. “Alli? I know you’re young, and... God, I’m a stumbling idiot! Alli? Do you want to get married?”
He was unprepared for her startled reaction. She gasped and looked at him. “God no! We can’t get married!”
Jason frowned in confusion, stung.
“Like I said, I know you’re only seventeen, but-”
“No, it’s not that. I would love to be with you Jason. Believe me, I would marry you tomorrow, even without a baby, but I can’t marry you now. We can’t tell anyone this baby is yours!”
“What?! Why the hell not?”
“My father. He’ll put you in jail! You’ll lose your job, and all those other things you said when you found out my age!”
“Alli, don’t be ridiculous. We have to tell them. I’m not letting you do this alone.”
“Please, Jason. Let me do this my way.” She pleaded. “You’ll be no good to anyone in jail. The shock of this news is going to be upsetting enough without them knowing the father is my teacher for God sakes.”
Jason cringed at the word ‘teacher’. He really did feel like the lowest class of sleaze. He couldn’t think of a more reprehensible person than one in a position of authority and trust that abused their power. That wasn’t exactly what had happened in this case, but the result was the same.
He rubbed his hands over his face and tousled his hair. “Fine. For now you may keep my role in this anonymous, but after they have a few days to adjust to the shock of the pregnancy, you have to tell them. I’ll tell them.”
Emiline pulled another canvass from the rack and handed it to Jason. “How many all together?” She asked.
“Fourteen.”
“So... three more then.” She pulled the next canvass from the rack. Jason set it against the wall next to the others. They were quite dramatic when they were laid out together like that. He put a few up on easels, and hung a few on the wall to try and get a feeling for how he should group them for the show.
“Wow,” Emily looked around at all the paintings. “It almost feels like we’re underwater or something.”
Jason’s siren series was admittedly a bit otherworldly. He felt a hint of embarrassment as he looked at them all out in the open together like this. He ha dn’t pulled them out in years, and never all at the same time before.
“Did she sit for these, or did you do them from memory?”
Jason didn’t need to ask to whom Emiline was referring. The sirens had clearly been modeled after Alli. They all had her face, her supple body - well, the top half anyway. Jason hadn’t made them mermaids, but he felt sirens needed some element of the sea about them. Most were from a perspective that didn’t show their lower halves. He had focused on their piercing eyes, and putting movement in their hair which gave them a distinct underwater-like effect. Two of the paintings showed the siren’s full body; one had the legs of an octopus, the other the sweeping cape of a sting ray. They were beautiful and lethal at the same time.
“It’s funny,” He mused as he took the last canvass from Emiline. “That she shows up out of the blue like that, just before we open this particular show.”
Emiline nodded. “As if summoned by the art.” They both snickered at her dramatic tone. “You know what I find funny? That you would wait so long to feature these. They really are incredible.” Emiline tilted a canvass to get a better look at a siren tangled in a fishing net.
“Yeah, well, these were more than just a series for me. I don’t think I was ready to deal with them until recently.”
“I can tell.” Emiline set the canvass gently against the wall. “That’s part of what makes them so amazing.”
It was getting a little too maudlin in the room for Emiline’s taste, so she perked up and got back to business. “Do you want me to start taking these down to the holding room?”
“No, just leave them for now. I’ll have Reggie move them down after the Urban Youth show.” Jason stepped out from the forrest of easels and headed toward Alli’s portrait. Greg was supposed to stop by for a look at it today, but it was fast approaching closing time and he hadn’t showed. “Are you guys almost finished down there?”
Emiline nodded and assured him everything in the gallery was ready for a grand show. “The caterers and party planner are schedu
led to arrive at three. Doors open at six.”
“Excellent. It gets bigger every year.”
The tone of the front door opening sounded in the gallery. “I’ll go see who it is.” Emiline said, scurrying out the door and down the stairs.
“Alli. What a nice surprise.” Emiline greeted. “We were just talking about you. You’re going to love the portrait. It’s as amazing as the others...”
Alli smiled at Emiline. There she goes again, alluding to the fact that she has seen me naked. Alli must ask Jason about her old nude painting. It simply wouldn’t do to have that sucker floating around. Especially here, where Greg’s mother was a regular visitor. Alli could just imagine how that conversation would go.
“Jason’s up in the studio.” Emiline waved her toward the stairs. “I’ll uh... I’ll just lock up and be on my way. You’ll tell him I said ‘goodbye’?”
Alli nodded, thanking Emiline and wishing her a good night. The girl seemed a little preoccupied. Alli shrugged it off and ascended toward the studio.
“Knock knock.” Alli said at the studio door. Jason looked up from her portrait.
“Oh. Alli. I was expecting Greg.” Jason looked behind her, half expecting to see Greg in the hall.
“He couldn’t make it.” She said. “But he’ll be at the show tomorrow and he said he would just sneak up and see it then.”
“Right.” Jason hooked his thumbs into his belt loops, then took them back out again.
“Uh... Emiline wanted me to tell you she was leaving.”
“Oh? Okay.” Jason leaned against the work bench. He was feeling a little off. He felt like a nervous eighth grader at his first co-ed party.
Alli tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.” She seemed a little hesitant to bring up whatever it was she wanted to talk about. Jason was immediately intrigued. He raised his brows in interest. “Hmm?”
“Well, I was wondering what ended up happening with...” Alli took a fortifying breath. “I was wondering what you did with my painting.”
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