Girls on the Verge

by Sharon Biggs Waller

  “No!” The word comes out sharper than I mean it to. I clear my throat. “No, I mean. Would that matter?”

  He closes the folder and sets his hands on top of it, linking his fingers together. “Do you love that fella of yours?”

  “He’s not my fella anymore. Fellow. I … I mean, no, I don’t love him.” I forgot about telling the judge what he wants to hear. I forgot to “yes, and” him.

  The judge raises his eyebrows. “You had intercourse with him anyway? That doesn’t show good judgment, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “I don’t know.” I’m doing a terrible job. I’m only digging myself in deeper. I really don’t like the way he said intercourse. I wish Mr. Daniels didn’t look so interested in my personal life. I’m starting to think the both of them are only trying to humiliate me.

  This is my right. I deserve to be heard.

  “Does this fella know about your pregnancy?”

  I shake my head.

  “Say yes or no,” the judge says. “The court reporter needs a verbal response.”

  “No,” I say, directing my answer toward the court reporter and not him.

  “Have you thought of all your options? No need to rush into something as terrible as abortion when you can find a better solution such as adoption.”

  “I don’t want the other solution,” I say, looking the judge right in the eye. “I know all the facts; I read that booklet, and I’m not continuing this pregnancy.” My voice is high and thin. “I’ve already had the required counseling and ultrasound. I’m following the rules. I’ve made up my mind.”

  “What do you think, Tony?” The judge addresses Mr. Daniels.

  “It’s in my professional opinion that she inform Mom and Dad. She comes from a loving home, and I believe not telling them could cause a problem in the family later on down the road. At this point I feel she’s simply embarrassed and doesn’t want to admit what she’s done.”

  What I’ve done. I want to stand up and yell at these old men and tell them a boy had something to do with it, too.

  “I see no reason for the court to intervene,” Mr. Daniels says.

  “Miss Winchester,” the judge says. “I sang ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ because I think it applies to your situation. Sometimes in life, we aren’t dealt the hand that we want. Sometimes the good Lord puts a challenge in our way to make us better people. And for you that challenge is motherhood.”

  Nicole does the best she can to change the judge’s mind, but it’s clear he’d already decided before we walked in here. I hadn’t done a good enough job getting Mr. Daniels on my side. I should have told him I was afraid of my dad. But the thought of saying such an awful lie turns me cold.

  We go out into the hall to wait for the decision. Nicole squeezes my shoulder. “Try to relax,” she says. “It shouldn’t be too long.”

  “I hate those men,” I say. “I want to punch them in the face.” I don’t know where to stand. I don’t know what to do with my hands. Across from me, the courtroom doors open and people pour out. I don’t want anyone to look at me. If I feel someone’s eyes land on me, I swear I’ll lose it.

  There’s a deep feeling of dread building inside me, and I know the judge is not going to give his permission. I did a stupid thing, and he won’t let me get away with it.

  “I don’t think I did a good job,” I say.

  “You did a great job, Camille. You were confident; you spoke well.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  The judge’s door opens and the bailiff steps out. He waves us back inside. The judge sits behind his desk. Mr. Daniels stands beside him. The judge doesn’t ask us to sit.

  “Miss Winchester,” he says. “I can’t in good conscience as a father and a Christian give you the bypass. I know you want to terminate your pregnancy, and that is your right to do so. However, I don’t think you’ve proved yourself mature enough to make this decision on your own.”

  He thinks I am a child, a dumbass kid who is deluded enough to think she can make a living as an actor; who makes stupid mistakes like getting knocked up by a guy she doesn’t love. I make immature decisions, one after the other, just like my parents always say. The judge doesn’t even know me and yet he saw it right away.

  “Your parents sound like good people, and I believe they should be involved in this important decision. I think you’ll thank me for it in the end.”

  The bailiff ushers us to the door.

  Nicole and I stand outside.

  “That’s certainly not the outcome I had hoped for,” Nicole says. “We can appeal, Camille. I know this is disappointing, but appeals happen all the time. The court has to rehear the case five days after we appeal, which takes us at least a week. Trouble is, we’re bumping up against the Fourth of July, so it’ll be a little longer. At least a couple of weeks. And to be honest, an appeal is rarely granted.”

  “I guess I’ll have to tell my parents after all.” But the thought of telling them knocks the wind out of me. “Get their permission.” I can’t breathe.

  Nicole smiles. “What was up with that singing?”

  “Awkward.” I try to smile, but my chin starts to tremble.

  “You going to be okay?” she asks.

  I nod. My eyes are swimming with tears I don’t want her to see. “I have to go to the bathroom,” I say.

  She pats me on the arm. “Call Jane’s Due Process if you need us, okay?”

  I’m halfway down the hall when I hear a shout. “Miss!” The court reporter is trotting toward me, her heels tapping on the floor, her hand outstretched. “Miss Winchester,” she says. “You dropped this.” She catches up to me and hands me a folded paper.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” I take the paper, but I don’t recognize it. “I don’t think this is mine,” I say, handing it back to her. “Maybe someone else dropped it.”

  She steps back and shakes her head, and I notice that there is a hole in her pink sweater set, right by the elbow, and little balls of wool have accumulated along the inside of her sleeves. And up close her makeup is smudged under her eyes. “Take it.” She reaches out for my hand and folds my fingers around it. Her hands are warm and damp, and she doesn’t let go. “Take it.”

  The bailiff pokes his head out of the judge’s room and calls to her. She doesn’t say anything else. I see her wipe her eyes with the palms of her hands as she walks back. And then she pulls the edge of her cardigan down and enters the room.

  I open the paper. On it are scribbled the words:

  Self-abortion possible through a medication called Cytotec or Cytoteca. Available at flea markets near the border or in Mexico. Hidalgo flea market in Alamo, Texas, usually has it. Ask for Cytotec or Cytoteca, and say you have an ulcer. $13 a pill. Buy at least a dozen pills, and go to womenonweb.org for instructions. PS Important to use within twelve weeks. DO NOT USE AFTER TWELVE WEEKS.

  TWENTY

  JULY 1

  “Such a fucking creep, right? I can’t believe he sang,” Annabelle says. “And that dumb guy with the Mickey Mouse stuff. There oughtta be a law about grown men wearing children’s cartoon stuff.”

  “Right?” I say. “It’s like he’s wearing that stuff to relate to kids or something.”

  “No one’s buying it, dude,” Annabelle says. “That court reporter is a shero, though.”

  “I wonder how many girls she’s given that note to,” I say. “I kind of feel like I should tell her that no one at the flea market carries Cytotec anymore. I mean, she could lose her job.”

  Bea doesn’t say anything. She’s scrolling through her phone. “You don’t know that for sure,” she says. She looks up from her phone. “You don’t know that lady from Adam, Camille.”

  “We won’t stay long. We’ll be all right,” I tell her.

  “I still say—”

  “You don’t have to go!” Annabelle glares at her. “You can stay on the border, how about that?”

  Bea presses her mouth, like she’s physically holding her words in. She l
ooks over at the dancers. A little girl holds her frilly skirt in one hand and swishes it back and forth to the music. Another man holds his little girl and dances with her, smiling.

  “You’ve been to Mexico before,” I say. “Why are you so scared now?”

  “Yeah, Cancún and Puerto Vallarta! The border towns are different. Even the State Department website says so.” She holds her phone up. I catch a glimpse of the American flag on the screen before she puts it down.

  “I know you’re worried, Bea,” I say. “But I have to do this.”

  “We’re too close,” Annabelle says. She’s fuming. “Besides, it’s Camille’s choice to have an abortion, not yours. I told you that on the phone.”

  A man next to us at the table lifts his head from his tacos when he hears her say abortion. A few people stare at us.

  “What? Does that bother you? Abortion! Abortion! Abortion!” Annabelle says, looking pointedly at him. “Not exactly something you would know about since you don’t have a uterus.”

  “Okay, I think we’re done.” I stand up and toss my cup into the garbage can. “Jeez, Annabelle.”

  “Sorry,” she says, not looking sorry at all.

  Bea shakes her head, mutters something under her breath, and stands up.

  “Where are you going?” Annabelle asks.

  “I’m going to get more horchata,” she snaps.

  “Wait a second. I’ll go with you.”

  “Suit yourself,” Bea mumbles.

  * * *

  “Chica!” Over at a nearby picnic table, an old woman with two little girls in braids and matching Frozen T-shirts waves to me. She says something in Spanish, and I start to walk away because I think she’s going to shout at me about Annabelle, but she calls me again.

  The older of the little girls rushes over. “My abuela says not to go to Matamoros. She says there are bad men there.”

  “We’re only going for a little while. Maybe an hour.”

  The girl translates to her grandma, who clasps her hands together and waves them, a pleading look on her face.

  “Abuela says don’t go. She says to go to Nuevo Progreso. We go there all the time. It’s not very far away.”

  The girl’s grandmother says something else and the girl smiles. “Abuela says she hopes that you listen to her.”

  The woman’s kindness reminds me of my own grandma. She used to take me to farmers’ markets and stuff before she moved into the nursing home. My grandma would have bought me a Frozen T-shirt to wear, too. “Tell your grandma that we won’t go to Matamoros. I promise.”

  The little girl tells her grandma what I said, and she smiles.

  Bea and Annabelle come back with three horchatas, and we leave the market.

  We pull out onto the highway and follow the directions on Google Maps. It’s not very far, about a half hour away.

  “So, we’re going to Mexico,” Annabelle says. “Just like in that movie Thelma & Louise.”

  “I don’t think they ever got to Mexico,” I say. “Didn’t they drive over a cliff before that happened?”

  “Oh god, don’t! Don’t say that’s the next thing coming our way.” Annabelle starts to laugh.

  “Now, you get a grip, Louise,” I say, quoting the movie. “Just drive us to goddamn Mexico.”

  Annabelle speeds up. “I’m drivin’.”

  “I never saw that movie,” Bea says to herself, but Annabelle hears her.

  “You should see it, Bea,” Annabelle says. “It’s a classic.”

  “Is it rated R?”

  “I think so.”

  “I don’t need to see it.”

  Annabelle studies Bea in the rearview mirror for a moment and then returns her attention to the road.

  “You know that part in Thelma & Louise?” I ask Annabelle. “Where Thelma asks Louise what’s the one thing that scares her the most?”

  Annabelle thinks for a moment. “Oh, and she says getting old and living with a little dog by herself?”

  “Yeah. I used to be afraid of not getting the part I wanted at the Globe, but that’s not exactly a long-term fear. But now, I have so many fears I can’t settle on the one thing that scares me the most. Right now, it’s this big-ass mistake I made. I’ve lost so much already. How many friends and opportunities did I miss at Willow? And then there’s Léo. Maybe something good would have come out of that.” Sadness sinks over me, thinking of being with Léo on that bank, and how that will never happen again. “What’s your biggest fear?”

  Annabelle doesn’t say anything for a long while. And then she speaks: “I’m afraid of letting people down.”

  I’m surprised by her answer. “You could never let anyone down, Annabelle. Look how you’ve helped me. Look how hard you worked to get to RADA and how proud you’ve made Mr. Knight and Tracy. They’re already getting international students because of you. You’re, like, his best advertisement.”

  “I don’t think that’s true.” She puts on her turn signal and gets into the next lane.

  “Well, I think so, even if you don’t,” I say.

  “If you say so,” she says.

  “I do say so.”

  I watch her for a long while, waiting for her to say more, but she doesn’t.

  TWENTY-ONE

  We exit off the highway to Progreso, on the US side of the border, and after a couple of stoplights we follow the sign to the international bridge. Palm tree after palm tree lines the streets of the town. Annabelle parks the car in the border crossing lot, and we climb out. I pull the seat forward, but Bea doesn’t get out of the back seat.

  “I’m not going,” Bea says, staring straight ahead, her jaw set. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “All right.” Annabelle hands her the keys. “Have it your way.”

  “It’s okay, Bea,” I say. “I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

  “But for God’s sakes, don’t sit in the car,” Annabelle says. “You’ll bake.”

  “Whatever.” Bea climbs out and heads to a nearby ice cream stand. She sits under a patio umbrella, facing away from us.

  I’m about to call to her when Annabelle cuts me off.

  “Forget it,” Annabelle says. “It’s her decision. Let’s go.”

  We follow a group of people through a turnstile and past an adobe building. Next to the building is a little garden with giant terra cotta chickens. For some reason, the chickens make me feel calmer. It’s like nothing bad can happen to you when giant chicken statues are part of the situation.

  “Don’t be mad at Bea, Annabelle,” I say. “She’s trying her hardest to be a good friend. But what I’m doing goes against everything she believes.”

  “I don’t care what she believes,” Annabelle says, “just as long as she keeps those thoughts to herself.”

  We enter a covered walkway that spans the bridge. Green fields stretch ahead of us, and the Rio Grande flows beneath us. I always thought it would be a gushing waterway, but it barely qualifies as a river. A scraggly line of trees and bushes border each side of the water, and it looks more like a creek, something you could swim across in about twenty strokes. My creek at the Globe is wider than this one.

  In the middle of the bridge, there’s a red line that divides the American and Mexican borders. We step over the line and into Mexico. It feels weird to enter another country like that. People are straddling the line and taking selfies. I could take a selfie on that line, smiling away like I’m having the best time of my life: Half in and half out! #Mexico #America #yolo

  People would be jealous of me and my fun in the Mexico sun! They wouldn’t have to know the real picture should be me standing in front of a pharmacy: Looking for Cytoteca to end a pregnancy! #abortion #ashamed

  We reach the end of the bridge. Two boys shove baseball caps through the fence and wave them, begging us for money. Annabelle pretends not to notice and keeps walking, but I can’t help looking through the slats at them. One is little, maybe six or seven. The other looks a bit older but
not by much. I dig into my purse and drop a dollar into each hat. The boys jerk the hats back through the fence and scoop out the money. I run to catch up with Annabelle, my flip-flops smacking the concrete.

  After a few minutes we see a sign over a cement building that reads BIENVENIDO A MEXICO. A long line of cars wait at the crossing, but we follow the other pedestrians into a building where a border crossing guard stops us and asks us our business in Mexico. We tell them we’re going to shop and have a look around for the day. We pass through another turnstile that dumps us onto the streets of Nuevo Progreso.

  It’s like a different world. Traffic clogs the dusty streets and people blare their horns. Some of the sidewalks are busted up, and the buildings are janky, with peeling paint on plywood billboards out front. But everything is so colorful, and the shopkeepers shouting out to people are cheerful. On the sidewalks, people sit in lawn chairs next to open suitcases lined with silver jewelry and boxes of knock-off designer handbags. Men hold out flyers advertising all-you-can-drink bars written in English and Spanish. We walk past line after line of painted terra cotta pots and clay chimineas. Tejano music pours out of the shops. Street food stands are everywhere, and the smell of tortillas cooking makes me hungry again. It feels like a never-ending carnival.

  Several men holding beer bottles catcall us as we walk by. “Don’t say anything!” I say to Annabelle.

  “Don’t worry,” she whispers, linking her arm through mine.

  About a block ahead, next to a health clinic, there’s a sign that says AZTECA FARMACIA. The shop looks like any other pharmacy I’ve ever been in. There are several people, Mexican and American, waiting in line. The Americans look nervous. I hear an older man ask for Viagra while his much younger wife shifts from foot to foot next to him, her cheeks pink with embarrassment.

  I get in line behind them. My heart is roaring in my ears, and I try to breathe in and out to calm down, like I do before I go onstage. But it isn’t working. What if the same thing happens like it did when I tried to buy the pregnancy test? What if the pharmacist makes me explain why I want the Cytotec? What if everyone in the shop overhears?