I’d been calling gas stations for weeks with zero luck. The date was set for April 16, two weeks away. I was the bride who’d booked the band and ordered the cake but couldn’t find a groom that would have her.
At Lizbeth’s weekly department meeting, Martucci offered up a lead, a guy he knew by the name of Armando who managed an Umpco station in Burbank. The location had me drooling since it was close to where so many of the major news studios were located.
“What’s in it for me?” Armando said when I called him to ask if we could have the gas giveaway at his station. He continued working the register as we talked. I could hear the chinging of the drawer opening and closing.
“It’d be great publicity for your station—plus we’d bring in lots of business.”
“How do you figure? Didn’t you say you were going to surprise customers? So how would new people be coming to spend their money at my station?”
“Well, yes, but—”
I heard him shout away from the phone, “Not that pump! That one’s got a broken handle…pump five! Use pump five!” Then he was back. “How much new business you figure we’ll get that day?”
“It’s more about goodwill. You see—”
“Goodwill! Unless it’s green and has a picture of a president on it, I can’t use your goodwill. Pump five, I said! Jesus, can you count? One, two, three, four, five!”
“The idea is that people will see your station on TV or hear about it on the radio and—”
“No shit it’s not working, Sherlock! You’re at the wrong pump!” he shouted. He came back to the phone. “Not interested.”
When I reported to Martucci that I’d struck out when I called, he said, “You called? Well, no wonder. You’re not going to get anywhere on the phone. You’ve got to go there in person and talk to him.” He pulled a scrap of paper from his desk and wrote down directions to the gas station. “And for Christ’s sake, Parker, wear something tight.”
“WE’RE ON!” I announced jubilantly at the department meeting later that week. Thanks to those five pounds I’d gained—and possibly more, but having dumped my scale, how was I to know?—virtually every item of clothing I owned was tight. I’d gone straight from work to seal the deal. While I’d like to say that Armando was no match for my charms, to be truthful, he’d put up quite a struggle. In the end, however, I prevailed—especially after I assured him that I’d do everything in my power to make sure he got on camera. That, and yes, I’d wear the red top again.
Although I could have gone through with the event with just one gas station committed, Brie had come through with another as well. Some friend of a friend owned a Union 76 near the airport. Everything was shaping up just as I’d hoped.
My confidence was such that I even had T-shirts printed up at Kinko’s for the staff to wear. I held up a shirt, which was bright purple with white lettering: The Great Gas Giveaway on the front and our logo and phone number on the back.
Lizbeth managed a wan smile. “Cute…although I don’t know how ‘great’ it is seeing as we only have the two locations.”
I wanted to jab her with a sarcastic, “Oh yeah?” but besides the fact that it was hardly the sort of witty retort that she had coming, I absolutely refused to let that woman get to me. This event was going to be a huge success, and that was the best possible revenge for her sour attitude.
After the meeting, Brie pulled me aside and gave me a teasing nudge. “This might be worth a call to your traffic reporter friend. The one who thinks you’re hot?”
“Shut up,” I said, reddening. “I practically begged for that compliment.”
But she had a point. I should give Troy a call to tell him about the gas giveaway so he could mention it on air.
But not yet.
Two weeks’ notice to ask for a ten-second plug sounded desperate even to me.
“LOOK AT YOU! How adora—” I started to exclaim, until Deedee widened her eyes and shook her head vigorously at me to stop me from continuing. “—ble,” I finished on a much quieter note.
“Let’s go,” she said stiffly.
She’d answered the door wearing one of Brie’s outfits—jeans jacket over a striped Lycra top and pink pants that rode low on the hips. Sure, the clothes might have been a size too small for her, but it was a refreshing change over the huge shirts and baggy pants. Even though I can’t say the outfit was entirely flattering, it begged for comment.
“Buenos días,” I called to her mother as I always did as Deedee ran out of the house.
When we got into my car, I said, “What’s the deal? Does your mom not want you wearing stuff like that?”
“Are you kidding? She’d love it. She’s been on my butt to stop the sagging and dragging for forever.”
“I see.” I remembered back to Deedee’s mother complaining to Rose Morales on my first visit. Deedee’s choice of clothes had obviously turned into a power struggle between the two of them. She wanted Deedee to dress more femininely, and apparently Deedee had wanted the same thing but wouldn’t admit it.
“The way I figure it, she only needs to think I’m wearing the big clothes.” She had a triumphant grin. “I gotta be careful, though, because she’s not totally blind. I need to keep it low on the colors if she’s around.”
“Clever. Too bad you couldn’t hide those good grades from her, too.”
She caught my sarcasm and returned it in kind. “Rose ratted me out on those.”
“You’re probably the only teenager in America hiding her good behavior from her mother. Anyway, what I was going to say is that you’re adorable.”
“Thanks. You’re not going to tell her, are you?”
“How?”
“Oh yeah. Heh.” Then she added, “She can speak some English, and she understands a lot more than she lets on. They talk English around her at the restaurant where she works.”
“She works?”
“Yeah, she works. She’s a cook. Real fancy restaurant.”
“That’s amazing. I’m a terrible cook, and I don’t even have a disability. You’d think she’d burn herself, or—”
“She never burns herself. She’s too perfect.” Deedee picked at a button on her jacket. “I hear every damn day how much she can do even though she can’t see. She’s always harping on how I need to make something of myself like she has. Not follow so many of the girls who start popping out the kids right away. She wants me to go to college first and make a lot of money.”
“Isn’t that what you want?”
“Sure, but maybe I want kids first. You know, before I’m all old.” She must have realized what she said as soon as she said it, because she added hurriedly, “Not that being old when you have kids is bad.” A few seconds passed before she asked, “You ever thought about having kids?”
“Sure. Even though I’m so aged that I’m certain my ovaries are shriveled and filled with dust, I may give it a shot.”
“Or maybe you can adopt.”
“I’m thirty-four. You act as if it’s hopeless.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. It’s only that where I’m from, women your age are grandmas.”
WE MET SEBASTIAN and Kip at a laser tag in Pasadena. That hadn’t been the original plan. I’d set up lunch so that Sebastian could talk to Deedee about her writing. He asked if Kip could come along, however, and since it’d be the four of us, couldn’t we have a little fun? I’d switched plans, and watching them together, I was glad I had. They had a blast. Deedee let loose in a way she rarely did—screaming back and forth in Spanish with Kip, making up Mexican mafioso games, and laughing hysterically.
Unfortunately, the whole concept of laser tag eluded me. The room was so dark that I kept getting lost in the maze. The gun didn’t shoot anything I could see, and I never did catch on to how I was supposed to recharge. They made fun of me later because I’d been killed and didn’t even know it. Apparently, I walked around for three rounds already dead—nothing but a ghost pulling the trigger over and over with no effect o
n anyone.
We parted ways at the laser tag, and I took Deedee home. “Good luck sneaking in without being seen,” I called as I let her out of the car. “And don’t let me catch you doing anything good!”
She rolled her eyes.
The phone was ringing when I walked into my apartment, and when I picked it up it was Kip.
“Calling to gloat about your victory?” I asked. “Because I’m wondering if the term poor sportsmanship rings any sort of bell for you.”
“I need to talk to you about Deedee,” he said, his voice stiff.
“Did something happen?”
“I could be wrong about this…”
“Okay…”
“But I don’t believe I am. I’m speaking as a medical doctor who’s worked with a good number of young women recently, almost exclusively Latina, so I know the body type, and I know what their skin tone usually looks like, and—”
“Kip…what?”
“I think your Little Sister has a bun in the oven.”
I SPENT THE REST of the weekend fretting. Could Deedee really be pregnant? She was only fourteen! Of course, Kip could be wrong—but what if he was right? I should say something to Rose Morales. There was probably Big Sister–Little Sister protocol I should be following. Not that a situation such as this would be in the handbook. Not that there was a handbook.
But if I talked to Rose and I was wrong, Deedee would never trust me again.
The devil perched on my shoulder told me to pretend Kip had never called. Que será, será and all that. The angel perched on the other shoulder, however—who looked suspiciously like a thin, baby-faced gay man with a goatee and glasses—said I had to do something…fast. The things he’d noticed—the protruding belly and the discoloring of the skin—were signs she was getting pretty far along. If that was the case, every day mattered if she wanted to um…er…
“Wanted to what?” I had asked Kip earlier on the phone.
“Not have the baby,” he’d replied.
“Oh.”
“All I’m saying is that—if that’s what she decides—the sooner the better. The worst thing would be if she missed the time when a doctor would be willing to do it. You don’t want to know what these girls resort to when they get desperate.”
He was right about that.
I didn’t want to know.
BY THE TIME I met Martucci on Monday for our six-thirty a.m. run, I was no clearer on what to do than I’d been every hour on the hour that I’d woken up the night before.
Yes, it was a crazy time.
Deedee might be pregnant. I was organizing the biggest promotional event of my career. My libido waged its own campaign for me to get in touch with a certain traffic reporter who should hate me but seemed to be indicating otherwise. I had ten items out of twenty left to do on a list that I felt honor-bound to complete in a matter of months.
And I was training for a 5K run three times a week—every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—with, of all people, Dominic Martucci.
Was it any wonder I was having trouble sleeping?
Originally, I’d hoped I wouldn’t need to do anything as drastic as train in order to cross off #5: Run a 5K. There was a race coming up in May in Manhattan Beach that I planned to sign up for. I’d recently hopped on the treadmill at the gym, assuming it would be a breeze. After one minute of running—not one mile, one minute—I felt as if I were breathing in bricks instead of air. I was gasping and panting and was so exhausted that I nearly let myself get spewed off the end of the treadmill like a doughnut off the assembly line. I clearly wasn’t going to make it without putting in effort. Knowing nothing about how to prepare for a run, I asked around the office to see if anyone had any tips. To my dismay, the name Martucci kept coming up. As much as I hated to go crawling to him for advice, I asked him anyway. All he said was, “Sure.”
“So are there ways I should go about training…or certain shoes that might help?”
“Sure,” he repeated. “I’ll train you. But I demand one hundred percent commitment. Three days a week. Show up on time and be ready to work. And”—he yanked a box of Hot Tamales candies from my hands—“I suggest you cut down on the crap.”
“I don’t need you to—”
“How’s the running going so far?” he asked, giving me a disparaging once-over.
Not so well. I narrowed my eyes at him suspiciously. “Why would you help me?”
“Let’s say it’s nice you’re doing that list for the girl you ran over.”
“You know about the list?”
“Everybody knows about the list.”
“Hmph. So much for Brie keeping a secret,” I grumbled.
He gave me a friendly swat on the shoulder. “Sorry I missed the day you went braless.”
So there I was—as I had been the week before—at an outdoor track, doing warm-up exercises. Martucci used the interval training method. I’d walk briskly for five minutes, then run a minute, walk five minutes, run a minute, and so on, until I collapsed in a heap on the dirt, at which point he’d pick me up and make me do it again.
I finished the first set of intervals, and Martucci walked next to me as I wheezed and puffed. He wore snug jogging shorts and a racing-style tank shirt that showed off his wiry muscles. “Hot date last night, Parker? You’re more out of it than usual.”
“I’ve got a lot of my mind. A girl I know might be pregnant.”
What was I doing confiding in Martucci? Susan had been out of town for the weekend, so I must have been desperate to talk to someone. Either that or I was losing brain cells with every lap.
He blew out a breath. “Tough break. But running is one of the best things you can do. When you get to the third trimester, you’ll need to switch to walking. But it’s important to stay in shape so you can push when the time—”
“It’s not me,” I snapped. “It really is a girl I know. I met her as part of the Big Sister program a few months ago. Poor kid’s only fourteen. What’s she going to do…I mean, if she is pregnant? My friend who’s a doctor suspects she might not even know herself—she may be in denial of any symptoms. I can’t decide: Should I tell her mom? Or the Big Sister coordinator?”
“Do you like this kid?”
“Yes,” I said, surprising myself with the sureness of my answer. “Quite a bit.”
“Then get one of those home pregnancy kits. Make sure she’s really up the duff before you go telling everybody. If I was this kid, I’d want the chance to tell them myself.”
“I hate to say this, but you’re right.”
“Buy the kind in the blue box—the one with the picture of a rabbit on it. It says pregnant or not pregnant in words instead of having to figure out dots or lines. Makes it less stressful.”
“How is it you’re such an expert on home pregnancy kits?”
“You’re asking that question of an Italian stallion like myself? The women call me ‘sperm of thunder.’ I don’t dare stand too close for fear I may impregnate them with just a whiff of my manhood.”
THE NEXT EVENING, I called Deedee to say I was in the neighborhood and would her mom let her go grab a quick slice of pizza? When I picked her up, no sooner had she shut the car door than I said, “There are two choices for where we can go for pizza. There’s Mario’s on Culver. Or there’s my place, where I have one in the freezer that we can microwave. The advantage of going to my apartment”—I paused—“is that I have a home pregnancy kit there, too. In case you need one for any reason.”
She stared at me, saying nothing.
I continued, “Kip had a hunch you might be pregnant.”
Still nothing.
“Might you be pregnant?”
She sat back in her seat, closed her eyes, and gave a wet sigh. “I don’t know.”
Sounded like microwaved pizza to me.
At my apartment, I read the instructions for the pregnancy kit as neutrally as if I were reading off the side of the pizza box instead. “You need help?” I asked as she headed to th
e bathroom.
“I can pee by myself.”
“Sorry. Thought you might want moral support.”
She added apologetically, “You can come in after.”
Four minutes later, the microwave dinged. The pizza sat untouched, however, because the stick was ready.
Deedee’s hands were in prayer over her face, so I flipped the stick to the side that would show the results.
Pregnant.
Martucci was wrong. I’d have much preferred pink dots over that word staring straight at us.
Deedee closed her eyes and whispered, “I am so fucked.”
I grabbed her close in a hug. “Everything’s going to work out fine,” I assured her. Her body sank against mine. I had to marvel. Just moments ago, I’d been staring at proof that she was surely a woman, yet she’d never before seemed so much like a little girl.
Chapter 11
If Maria Garcia Alvarez wondered why a doctor was telling her that her fourteen-year-old daughter was pregnant instead of hearing it from the girl herself, she didn’t show it. She seemed as glad to yell at him as at anyone. Kip’s face remained placid as they faced each other on the couch, their knees touching, while Maria released a torrent in Spanish. Deedee also sat on the couch, sunk deep in the pillows behind her mother, arms crossed.
Of course, all I could do was watch from where I sat in the armchair. I had no idea what was being said. Kip had taught me the Spanish word for pregnant, embarazada (awfully close to “embarrassment,” which I found interesting), but the words were coming so fast and furious, I couldn’t catch even that.
I had promised Deedee that I’d stand by her whatever decision she wanted to make. We’d talked for an hour before I drove her home. She’d suspected she was pregnant, she’d told me. Just didn’t want to face it. Some simple math—she’d had sex only once with Carlos after the holiday dance she’d been allowed to attend—put her at three and a half months pregnant and due early August. Although what she wanted to do was have the baby and put it up for adoption, she said, she doubted that’s what would happen. I was incredulous: It was more than obvious to me that that was the best plan. The girl was fourteen! She was an honors student who wanted to go to college! When I’d told her so, she’d said, her voice flat, “You don’t get it. We don’t give up our babies. It just doesn’t happen.”
The Next Thing on My List Page 11