by Dean Koontz
If Mother could have her way, Amy thought, if Daddy didn't stick up for me now and then, I wouldn't be permitted to date at all. I wouldn't be permitted to do anything except go to church.
“You're dynamite,” Jerry Galloway whispered as he took her in his arms for another dance. “You make me so hot, baby.”
Dear, dear Mother, Amy thought bitterly, just look at how well all your rules and regulations have worked. All your prayers, all those years you dragged me to Mass three or four or five times a week, all those nightly recitations of the rosary that I had to take part in before I could go to sleep.
You see, Mother? See how well all of that has worked? I'm pregnant. Knocked up. What would Jesus think about that? And what will you think about that when you find out? What will you think about having a bastard grandchild, Mother?
“You're shivering again,” Jerry said.
“Just a chill.”
A few minutes after ten o'clock, while the orchestra was playing “Scarborough Fair,” and while Jerry was pushing Amy around the dance floor, he suggested they cut out and spend the rest of the night together, in their own way, just the two of them, just (as he so transparently put it) proving their love to each other. This was supposed to be a special night for a girl, a time to store up good memories, not just another cheap opportunity to screw around in the backseat of her boyfriend's car. Besides, they had arrived at the dance only two and a half hours ago. Jerry's eagerness was unseemly and more than a little selfish. But after all, she reminded herself, he was just a horny teenager, not a real man, and certainly not a romantic. Besides, she couldn't really enjoy herself anyway, not with everything she had to worry about. She agreed to leave with him, although what she had in mind for the remainder of the evening was much different from the steamy makeout session he was contemplating.
As they left the gymnasium, which the decorating committee had tried desperately to transform into a ballroom, Amy glanced back wistfully, taking one last look at the crepe paper and the tinsel and the carnations made out of Kleenex tissues. The lights were low. A revolving, mirrored globe hung above the dance floor, turning slowly, casting down splinters of color from its thousand facets. The room should have looked exotic, magical. But it only made Amy sad.
Jerry owned a meticulously restored, fussily maintained, twenty-year-old Chevrolet. He drove out of town, along narrow, winding Black Hollow Road. Eventually he pulled off on a single-lane, dirt track near the river and squeezed the car in among the high brush and the scattered trees. He switched off the headlights, then the engine, and he rolled down his window a couple of inches to let in a warm current of fresh night air.
This was their usual parking spot. It was here that Amy had gotten pregnant.
Jerry slid out from behind the wheel. He smiled at her, and his teeth looked phosphorescent in the calcimined moonlight that streamed through the trees and the windshield. He took Amy's right hand and put it firmly on his crotch. “Feel that, baby? See how you get to me?”
“Jerry—”
“No girl has ever gotten to me like you do.” He slipped one hand in her bodice, feeling her breasts.
“Jerry, wait a minute.”
He leaned toward her, kissed her neck. He smelled of Old Spice.
She took her hand off his crotch and resisted him.
He didn't take the hint. He removed his hand from her bodice only long enough to reach behind her for the zipper to her dress.
“Jerry, damn it!” She shoved him away.
He blinked stupidly. “Huh? What's wrong?”
“You're panting like a dog.”
“You turn me on.”
“A knothole would turn you on.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“I want to talk,” she said.
“Talk?”
“People do, you know. They talk before they screw.”
He stared at her for a moment, then sighed and said, “All right. What do you want to talk about?”
“It's not what I want to talk about,” she said. “It's what we have to talk about.”
“You aren't making sense, baby. What is this— a riddle or something”
She took a deep breath and blurted out the bad news: “I'm pregnant.”
For a few seconds the night was so perfectly still that she could hear the soft gurgling of the river washing along the shore twenty feet away. A frog croaked.
“Is this a joke?” Jerry asked at last.
“No.”
“You're really pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Ah,” she said sarcastically, “what an eloquent summary of the situation.”
“Did you miss your period or what?”
“I missed it last month. And I'm overdue this month again.”
“You been to a doctor?”
“No.”
“Maybe you aren't.”
“I am.”
“You aren't getting big.”
“It's too early to show.”
He was silent for a while, staring out at the trees and the black, oily river beyond. Then: “How could you do this to me?”
His question stunned her. She gaped at him, and when she saw he was serious, she laughed bitterly. “Maybe I wasn't paying much attention in biology class, but the way I understand it, you did it to me, not the other way around. And don't try to blame it on parthenogenesis either.”
“Partho-what?”
“Parthenogenesis. That's when the female gets pregnant without having to find a male to fertilize her egg.”
With a note of hope in his voice, he said, “Hey, is that possible?”
God, he was a dolt. Why had she ever given herself to him? They had nothing in common. She was artistically inclined, she played the flute, and she liked to draw. Jerry had no interest whatsoever in the arts. He liked cars and sports, and Amy had little tolerance for conversation about either of those things. She liked to read, he thought books were for girls and sissies. Except for sex, cars, and football, no subject could engage him for more than ten minutes; he had a child's attention span. So why had she given herself to him? Why?
“Oh, sure,” she said in answer to his question. “Sure, parthenogenesis might be possible—if I was an insect. Or a certain kind of plant.”
“You're sure it can't happen to people?” he asked.
“God, Jerry, you can't really be that dumb. You're putting me on, aren't you?”
“Hell, I never listened to old Amoeba Face Peterson in biology,” Jerry said defensively. “That stuff always bored my ass off.” He was silent for a minute, and she waited, and finally he said, so what are you going to do?”
“I'll get an abortion,” she said.
He brightened up immediately. “Yeah. Yeah, that's the best thing. It really is. That's smart. That's the best thing for both of us. I mean, you know, we're too young to be tied down with a kid.”
“We'll cut school on Monday,” she said. “We'll find a doctor and set up an appointment to have it done.”
“You mean you want me to go with you?”
“Of course.” Why?
“For Christ's sake, Jerry, I don't want to go by myself. I don't want to face it alone.”
“There's nothing to be scared of,” he said. “You can handle it. I know you can.”
She glared at him. “You're coming with me. You've got to. For one thing, you'll have to approve the doctor's fee. Maybe we'll have to shop around for the best price.” She shuddered. “That's up to you.”
“You mean . . . you want me to pay for the abortion?”
“I think that's fair.”
“How much?”
“I don't know. Probably a few hundred.”
“I can't,” he said.
“What?”
“I can't pay for it, Amy.”
“You've had a real good job the past two summers. And you work weekends most of the year.”
“Stocking shelves in a grocery store doe
sn't pay a whole hell of a lot, you know.”
“Union wages.”
“Yeah, but-”
You bought this car and fixed it up. You have a pretty good savings account. You've bragged about that often enough.”
He squirmed. “I can't touch my savings.”
“Why not?”
“I need every dollar for California.”
“I don't understand.”
“Two weeks from now, after graduation, I'm going to blow this stupid town. There ain't any future here for me. Royal City. What a laugh. There's nothing royal about this dump. And it sure ain't a city. It's just fifteen thousand people living in a dump in the middle of Ohio, which is just another, bigger dump.”
“I like it.”
“I don't.”
“But what do you expect to find in California?”
“Are you kidding? There's a million opportunities out there for a guy with a lot on the ball.”
“But what do you expect to find there for you?” she asked.
He didn't understand what she meant, he didn't feel her slip the needle in. “I just told you, baby. In California, there's more opportunities than anywhere else in the world. Los Angeles. That's the place for me. Hell, yes. A guy like me can go real far in a city like L.A.”
“Doing what?”
“Anything.”
“Such as?”
“Absolutely anything.”
“How long have you been planning to go to L.A.?”
Sheepishly, he said, “For about a year now.”
“You never told me.”
“I didn't want to upset you.”
“You were just going to quietly disappear.”
“Hey, no. No, I was going to keep in touch, baby. I even figured maybe you'd come along with me.”
“Like hell you did. Jerry, you have to pay for the abortion.”
“Why can't you pay for it?” He was whining. “You had a job last summer. You've been working weekends just like me.”
“My mother controls my savings account. There's no way I can withdraw that much cash without telling her why I need it. No way.”
“So tell her.”
“God, I can't. She'd kill me.”
“She'd scream a lot, and you'd probably be grounded for a while. But she'll get over it.”
“She won't. She'll kill me.”
“Don't be stupid. She won't kill you.”
“You don't know my mother. She's very strict. And she's . . . mean sometimes. Besides, we're a Catholic family. My mother is very devout. Very, very devout. And to a devout Catholic, abortion is a terrible sin. It's murder. My father even does some free legal work for the Right-to-Life League. He's not so fanatical about religion as my mother is. He's a pretty straight guy, but I don't think he'd ever approve an abortion. And I know my mother wouldn't. Not in a million years. She'd make me have the baby. I know she would. And I can't. I just can't. Oh, God, I can't.”
She started to cry.
“Hey, baby, it's not the end of the world.” He put an arm around her. “You'll come through this okay. It's not as bad as you think. Life goes on, you know.”
She didn't want to lean on him for either emotional or physical support. Not on him, of all people. But she couldn't help it. She put her head on his shoulder, despising herself for this weakness.
“Easy,” he said. “Take it easy. Everything's going to be just fine.”
When the tears finally stopped flowing, she said, “Jerry, you've got to help me. You've got to, that's all.”
“Well . . .”
Jerry, please.
“You know I would if I could.”
She sat up straight, dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief. “Jerry, part of the responsibility is yours. Part of—”
“I can't,” he said firmly, taking his arm away from her.
“Just lend me the money. I'll pay you back.”
“You can't pay me back in just two weeks. And I'll need every dollar I've got when I go to California the first of June.”
“Just a loan,” she said, not wanting to beg but having no choice.
“I can't, can't, can't!” He shouted like a child throwing a tantrum. His voice was high, screechy. “Forget it! Just forget it, Amy! I need every penny I've got for when I get out of this stinking town.”
Oh God, I hate him!
And she hated herself, too, for what she'd let him do.
“If you don't at least lend me the money, I'll call your parents. I'll tell them I'm carrying your child. I'll put the heat on you, Jerry.” She didn't think she really had the nerve to do something like that, but she hoped the threat of it would make him be reasonable. “God help me, I'll even make you marry me if that's the last resort, but I won't go down alone.”
“What do you want from me, for Christ's sake?”
“Just a little help. Decency. That's all.”
“You can't make me marry you.”
“Maybe not,” she admitted. “But I can cause you a lot of trouble, and maybe I can force you to contribute to the support of the baby.”
“You can't force me to do anything if I'm in another state. You can't make me pay up from California.”
“Well see about that,” she said, although she thought he was probably right.
“Anyway, you can't prove I'm the father.”
Who else?”
“How should I know?”
“You're the only one I've been doing it with.”
“I sure wasn't the first,” he said.
“You bastard.”
“Eddie Talbot was the first.”
“I haven't done anything with anyone else since I started going with you six months ago.”
“How do I know that's true?”
“You know,” Amy said, loathing him. She wanted to kick him and hit him and scratch his face until it was a bloody mess, but she restrained herself, hoping she might yet gain some concession from him. “It is your baby, Jerry. There's no doubt about that.”
“I never came inside you,” he argued.
“A couple of times you did. Once is all it takes.”
“If you tried to nail me in court or something like that, I'd get five or six friends to swear they'd been in your pants during the past couple of months.”
“In my whole life there's never been anyone but Eddie and then you!”
“In court it'd be your word against theirs.”
“They'd be committing perjury.”
“I've got good buddies who'd do anything to protect me.”
“Even destroy my reputation?”
“What reputation?” he asked, sneering.
Amy felt sick.
It was hopeless. There was no way she could force him to do the right thing. She was alone.
“Take me home,” she said.
“Gladly,” he said.
The drive back to town took half an hour. During that time neither of them said a word.
The Harper house was on Maple Lane, a solidly middle-class neighborhood of well-manicured lawns and shrubs, fresh paint, and two-car garages. The Harpers lived in a two-story, neo-colonial house, white with green shutters flanking the windows. Lights were on downstairs, in the living room.
As Jerry pulled the Chevy to the curb and braked in front of the house, Amy said, “We'll probably be passing each other in the halls during final exam week. And we'll see each other at graduation two weeks from now. But I guess this is the last time we'll be talking.”
“Bet on it,” he said coldly.
“So I wouldn't want to miss this opportunity to tell you what a rotten son of a bitch you are,” she said as evenly as she could.
He stared at her but said nothing.
“You're an immature little boy, Jerry. You're not a man, and you'll probably never be a man.”
He didn't respond. They were parked beneath a street light, and she could see his face clearly, he was impassive.
She was angered by his refusal to react to her. She wa
nted to leave with the knowledge that she had hurt him as badly as he had hurt her with his comment about her reputation. But she was not very good at vituperation. She didn't have a talent for quarreling. Ordinarily she preferred to live and let live, but in this case the injustice she had suffered at Jerry's hands was so great that she felt an uncharacteristic urge to retaliate. She steeled herself to make one last attempt to sting him.
“One other thing I want to tell you as sort of a favor to your next girlfriend,” Amy said. “There's another way you're like a little boy, Jerry. You make love like a little boy. You're immature in that department, too. I kept hoping you'd get better at it, but you never did. You know how many times you managed to make me come? Three times. Out of all those nights we made love, I climaxed only three times. You're clumsy, rough, and quick on the trigger. A regular minuteman. Do your next girlfriend a favor and at least read a couple of books about sex. Eddie Talbot wasn't all that great, but compared to him you're really a lousy fuck.”
She saw his face darken and tighten as she spoke, and she knew she had finally gotten to him. Feeling a sick sort of triumph, she opened her door and started to get out.
He grabbed her wrist and held her in the car. “You know what you are? You're a pig, that's what.”
“Let go of me,” she said sharply, trying to pry herself loose of him. “If you don't let go, I just might tell you how that pathetic little thing between your legs measures up to Eddie Talbot, and I'm sure you don't want to hear that.”
She heard herself, and she didn't like how hard and sluttish she sounded, however, at the same time, she took a fierce, primitive delight in the shock that was visible in his face.
Several times over the past six months, she had sensed his sexual insecurity, and now it was quite evident indeed. He was furious. He did not merely let go of her wrist, he flung it away from him, as if he suddenly realized he was holding onto a snake.
As she got out of the car, he said, “You bitch! I hope your old lady does make you keep the kid. And you know what? I hope the damned thing's not right. Yeah. I hope it's not right. I hope it's not normal. You're such a smart-mouthed bitch, I hope you're stuck with some drooling little creep who's not normal. Your smart mouth wouldn't get you out of that one.”
She looked in at him and said, “You're disgusting.” Before he could respond, she slammed the door.