It is a magical moment, the first of what will hopefully be many magical moments this evening.
“You look beautiful,” he says. And if I thought my parents were only saying nice parent-speak a moment before, I fully believe him now.
I feel beautiful.
After my parents take what seems like a million pictures, Danny escorts me out to the limo he’s ordered for the evening. Even though he said he wasn’t planning on drinking tonight, and I certainly can’t, he said he didn’t want to have to worry about driving, that he wanted to sit back and enjoy the ride.
Danny told me Todd said he and Karin expected to go with us tonight, but that Danny said no. We’d all do something together another time, but tonight he wanted things to be just like this.
When we get to the place where the prom is being held, the Sapphire Room, we stand in line with everyone else to get our official prom pictures taken. Everyone says hi to Danny, some say hi to me, a few even saying “nice dress.” When it’s our turn, Danny stands behind me, his arms circling me, covering my hands, which are still holding the flowers over my big belly.
Even though we have had other formal parties before, it is always strange seeing everyone dressed up like this, as though they are practicing for who they might become later. And even though we didn’t drive here with Karin and Todd, of course we still sit with them during dinner. I know I ordered the chicken instead of the beef for my meal, and when I look down at one point, I see that my plate is empty, but I certainly don’t remember doing anything as mundane as eating. I am having too good a time.
Before and after dinner there is dancing. But so far when Danny has asked me, I’ve said no. As good as I feel, it just seems like it would be too awkward, trying to dance while being so big. Plus, everyone would stare.
It comes time for the crowning of the king and queen, the results to be based on the ballots we all filled out as we came in earlier. When I filled mine out, I couldn’t help but notice that Danny’s name was one of the five guys listed, and that Ricky D’Amico’s name appeared on the list of girls.
Well, I certainly didn’t vote for her.
Everyone listens as Denise Holmes, our class president, reads the results at the microphone on the bandstand.
“Our queen” she says, glittering, “is head cheerleader and the chair of the prom committee … Ricky D’Amico! “
I don’t think anyone is surprised by the selection. Whatever else Ricky is, she is certainly popular. And, as always, she is stunning in her emerald dress as she makes her way out onto the dance floor to receive her crown. She looks expectantly out at the crowd.
“And for our king” Denise Holmes says, “I’m sure you’ll all be pleased to learn that it’s our own king of the basketball court … Danny Stanton! “
The basketball players all rise to their feet, shouting, “Da -nny! Da -nny! Da -nny!” as they clap their hands and stomp their feet to the rhythm they are creating with his name.
I turn to Danny as he starts to rise from his chair, a half smile on his face. I’m the only one close enough to him to hear it when he says, “No,” the rest of the crowd able only to read his lips over the din.
“What?” Denise Holmes cups her hand over her ear. “I can’t hear you.”
“No,” Danny says much louder, and everyone completely shuts up, the room screeching to a silent halt. “No.” He smiles more fully this time. “But thanks.” He looks down at me, and it is his widest smile yet. “I’m too busy with … other things, to assume any courtly duties.”
There are groans around the room.
“Really,” Danny says. “Just go to whoever’s next on the list.”
Whatever happens next, whoever gets crowned king instead of Danny, I don’t even notice. I am too busy staring at him. I am dimly aware of applause in the background, and then the music starts again. It is an old song, Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight.”
Danny rises, holds out his hand to me. “Dance with me?” he says.
I start to shake my head, but he says softly, “Come on. I’ve been waiting for this all night.”
He leads me out onto the dance floor, and suddenly I am surrounded by other couples, all crowded together. Even as I feel his arms go around me, I hear, or imagine I can hear, the sound of people whispering around us.
“What is he doing with her?” “Can you believe he turned down being king?” “If it wasn’t for her, he’d—”
I look quickly to see if he’s bothered by this, but all I see is him smiling down at me, and I can see that, no matter what he does, he will always be Danny Stanton, and nothing will ever touch him.
And I can also see that, okay, maybe I will always be that person in the room that everyone talks about. And maybe that is okay now.
Being in Danny’s arms like this, being dressed like this on this night, even if everyone is whispering, it is like I am having the magical evening I hoped for. I know it’s silly in a way, silly in the face of the seriousness that lies ahead, and yet I cannot fault myself for wanting what everyone else has for just one night, can’t fault myself for being thrilled with the magic of it all.
“You do,” Danny says.
“Excuse me?” I say. I’m not following.
“The song,” he says. “You do look wonderful tonight.”
And then he bends his head to kiss me, his lips touching mine so softly it is like my lips are brushing up against the wings of an angel.
Danny pulls back, just a bit.
“I love you, Angel,” he says.
“I —I —I—ow
“What?” he says, pulling back so he can look at my face more closely. “What’s wrong?”
But then that sharp feeling I just experienced subsides, and I move toward him again, smile into his dark eyes.
“It was nothing,” I say. “Must have been one of those Braxton Hicks contractions the Lamaze instructor told us about. You know, the false alarms.”
Certainly, I am the only girl at the senior prom experiencing false contractions.
Afterward, when everyone else goes off for the afterprom and early breakfast, Danny takes me home. Sure, it would be fun to go too, but I have had my shot at normalcy for the night, and now I am just a very pregnant girl who needs her sleep more than anything else.
Outside my parents’ front door, as the limo waits, Danny kisses me one more time, good night. It is a lovely kiss, but when he breaks away, he doesn’t repeat what he said earlier in the evening right before I had the false contraction, that he loves me, and I don’t say anything about it either. I am sure he must have said it just from the excitement of the moment.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he says, “see how you’re doing.”
“Okay,” I say. And then for once, making the bold move, I go up on tiptoe, kiss him softly on the lips. “Thanks,” I say, “for everything.”
Inside, my parents are up watching TV as if they are normally up this late watching TV, which they never are.
“How did it go?” my dad says, eyes still on the TV, pretending not to be really interested.
My mother masks her curiosity less well, snatching the remote from his hand and clicking off the screen.
“How did it go?” she asks anxiously.
“It was … wonderful,” I say melting.
“Really?” She’s shocked. “Tell me all about it. Would you like a snack?”
“I could make some eggs/’ my dad says.
“Tomorrow,” I say, floating up the stairs as if on a cloud, or at least I float as well as I can with my bulk. “There’ll be time enough tomorrow.”
In the bathroom I take the gold stars and glitter out of my hair. In my bedroom I remove my pretty dress, gently hang it over a chair back, put on the oversize pink T-shirt I’ve taken to wearing to bed. As I pull back the covers, turn out the lights, I relive the evening in my mind, at least the good parts. The clock downstairs starts to chime, and as I lie down, as the old day ticks over into a new one, seven days b
efore I am due to have this baby, my water breaks and I go into labor.
Week of May 27/Week 39
Labor is harder than I ever could have imagined it being.
“Mom! Dad! Come quick!” I’d shouted while still at home. I could almost feel my mind fill with panic and confusion as my body was hit with another contraction, much stronger than the one earlier in the evening. This contraction wasn’t joking around.
“What is it, An —,” my dad said, rushing in.
“Omigod,” my mother said, right behind him, “her water’s broken. We’ve got to get her to the hospital.”
“You call the hospital and tell them we’re coming in,” my dad said. “I’ll start the car.” Then he scooped me up in his arms as though I weighed only fifty pounds, not a hundred and fifty.
“I can walk, Dad,” I said. “I’m not a baby.”
“Why take any chances?” he said, carrying me out to the car.
“Call Danny!” I yelled over his shoulder to my mom.
“Don’t forget to call Danny!”
Danny was already at the hospital when we arrived, despite the look my mother shot me when I yelled for her to call him. He still had his tux on, although the bow tie was undone, and as another contraction hit me, I figured he hadn’t been as quick to change as I had.
“You can do this thing,” my dad says now.
“You’re going to be just fine, honey,” my mom says.
We leave them behind in the waiting room as the nurse leads us to the labor room.
“We want room number one,” Danny says, remembering the Lamaze instructor’s words.
“Room number one’s taken,” says the nurse, who seems bored. I guess she goes through this every night, but for us it is the one and only.
“Room number two, then,” Danny says.
“That’s taken too,” she says, leading us to an ordinary room. “We’ve got a full house tonight.”
“It’s okay,” I tell Danny, even as I feel another contraction starting. “I never would’ve used that Jacuzzi in front of you anyway.”
The labor is more painful than I can say, going on for longer than I imagined possible. There are just no words for how awful the pain is. After the night I had sex with Tim O’Mara, I remembered nothing of the act itself: not pain, not pleasure. All I remembered was the sensation of everything slipping away from me and the exact way the stars looked, winking overhead.
There are no stars to look at now, and despite everything the books say about pregnant women later forgetting how painful labor and delivery are, because otherwise there would be a much smaller human race, I know that I will remember every single second of this pain, its length and breadth, as though it were a perfect hard diamond.
But between the bursts of pain, there are glimpses of joy. While my contractions are still ten minutes apart, between them Danny walks me along the hospital corridor, reminding me that the Lamaze instructor said physical activity and remaining upright would help the baby come out more quickly: gravity.
“Maybe you could call the baby Gravity/’ Danny says, his hand firm under my elbow.
“I don’t think so,” I say.
“So what will you name her instead?” he asks. I have convinced him the baby is a girl.
“You’ll see soon enough,” I say.
But soon enough doesn’t come soon enough, and the hours of pain, fear too, go on. It is hard to believe, at moments, that it is possible to withstand so much pain and still keep going.
Then things start to move more quickly. But the maternity ward is full tonight—Dr. Caldwell actually has two other patients delivering—and it takes a while for the nurse to bring her.
“Okay,” Dr. Caldwell says, snapping on rubber gloves, “let’s see what we’ve got here.”
My feet are in the stirrups, sweat beading my face, as she looks between my legs, sees what’s there to see.
“Oh, my,” she says. “What I’m seeing here is that we’ve got a baby coming.” She looks up at me. “Now’s your big moment, Angel. I’m going to need you to push.”
Half of my mind screams, Can I do this? How can Ido this?
Then one of Danny’s arms is around my back supporting me upward as he holds tight to my hand with his other hand, and I squeeze back, not even caring if I hurt him. I hold on to that hand tighter than I have ever held on to anything.
“I love you, Angel,” he says.
“I love you, Danny,” I say back, finally.
“Now … pushl” he says.
And I do what I could not have imagined doing a moment before: I hold on to his hand tighter still as, with eyes wide open, I push my baby out and into the world.
june
Week of June 3/Week 40
I WISH I COULD SAY THAT EVERYTHING WILL TURN OUT ALL right, but I do not know the future yet, do I? And, anyway, life is not an ABC After school Special. Not that there’s anything wrong with ABC Afterschool Specials — life just isn’t like that.
I do not know what is around the next corner.
Karin will undoubtedly go off to Yale. Hopefully we will still stay in touch. Hopefully we will remain best friends. But I know that, going on different paths as we have, it will take work to achieve that.
Danny will undoubtedly do well at UConn, at least at basketball. I know that, for a while, he will still want to be a part of this, here with me. But who knows how long that can last, will last?
I don’t delude myself into believing that there is going to be some neat little happily-ever-after for me. I don’t delude myself into thinking that any of this is going to be easy. If life is not an ABC Afterschool Special , it is also not a fairy tale, even though some moments may make it seem so.
My story should come with a warning, and that warning should say, in big letters, “HEY, KIDS, DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME!”
I will go to the community college, in three months, as planned. My mom will help take care of the baby during the days. But I don’t know if I will ever see my other dream come true, my dream of being a writer.
I don’t know if I will ever go on a proper date again, if I will ever feel as though I am like other people again.
I do know that I probably would not have chosen this if I were poor, would not have felt free to choose this if I were poor, if I didn’t have so many people behind me.
I do know that my parents didn’t have to help me, Danny didn’t have to help me—these are the choices they made, although I know that, in the future, they may make different choices.
And then I think that all I do know now, as I sit alone on my parents’ porch on this hot early day in June, as I gaze down at Jo asleep in my arms, is that she is the most beautiful thing I have seen in my life.
And, in this moment, that has to be enough.
And, for today, it is.
LAUREN BARATZ - LOGSTED is the author of many adult books, including the international bestseller The Thin Pink Line. This is her first book for teens. She lives with her family in Danbury, Connecticut.
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