Girls on the Verge

by Sharon Biggs Waller

  “The hoosegow,” Bea says.

  “Club fed,” I say.

  “I’ve decided I’m going to Chicago. You remember Georgia? From the Globe?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m going to ask her if I can crash on her sofa for a while. Chicago is great for theaters and improv. I can get a job as a server until I figure out what I want to do. I don’t think I’m ready to give up acting just yet. But I’m not going to go unless you promise me you won’t give up acting, either.”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I’m the girl who gave up Willow and the cute French guy. How can I get out from under that?”

  “You can’t give up the Globe,” Bea says. “You can’t care what people think about you.”

  “You can pick up and start again,” Annabelle says. “Get your ass back there, hold your head high. Take your place again.” Chunks of chicken and tomatoes fall off the top of her bread. She looks calm. She looks like the old Annabelle, full of confidence. I want to look that way, too.

  “I think you’re right.”

  “Yeah,” she says. “I think so, too.”

  * * *

  Darkness falls, and Old Town turns bright with lights and Mexican luminarias. A western swing band begins to play on a nearby stage, and fireworks light up the sky. We dump our plates in the trash, hold hands, and run into the crowd, making our way to the front, jumping up and down, dancing and singing along with the crowd. None of us know the lyrics so we make up our own. A group of people near the stage start their own flash performance, dancing the western two-step in perfect choreography.

  A cowboy dressed in jeans and a gingham shirt comes over to me. “Would you like to dance?” he asks me. He’s cute, with a little gap between his teeth when he smiles. He takes his hat off when he talks to us, and there’s a rim around his hair where his hat squashed it down.

  Bea pokes me in the arm and grins.

  “No, thank you,” I say. “I’m dancing with my friends.”

  He doesn’t get angry. He doesn’t try to convince me to change my mind. He puts his hat back on. “You ladies have a good night now.” He smiles and walks off.

  * * *

  Around midnight, we head back to our motel. Annabelle flops facedown on one of the beds and falls asleep. I take off her shoes and pull the blanket over her. I put a bottle of water on the bedside next to her in case she wakes up thirsty in the night.

  Bea crawls into the other bed. “Oh my gosh, I am so tired. You coming to bed?”

  “I think I’m going to take a shower, but you go to sleep.”

  “Okay, sweetie. Sorry if I mumble in my sleep.”

  “You always mumble in your sleep.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry.” She gives me a smile and lies down.

  I take a shower and put on my pajamas. I’m so tired that I can’t wind down enough to sleep. I lie on my bed and try to listen to a podcast on my phone through my headphones, but I can’t concentrate on it. Only a few more hours until I’m not pregnant anymore.

  I put my hands over my stomach and remember that ultrasound and think about the little white speck that’s grown in the past eleven weeks.

  I’m not sure if I believe in God, but I do believe in souls, and I don’t think you can kill a soul.

  I get up and sit down at the desk, where there’s a small pad of paper and a pen.

  Dear Soul,

  I hope you understand why I can’t give you life. I have to find my own life before I can give one to you. I hope you find someone else who wants you and will love you like you deserve. If you want to wait around, I hope you’ll return to me one day when I’m ready for you. I hope to meet you someday.

  Love, Camille

  I find a pack of matches in the desk drawer. I light the paper and drop it into the trash can. The paper catches, my words disappearing into smoke and ashes. And I say goodbye.

  TWENTY-NINE

  There are three protesters outside the women’s clinic. One leans against a giant sign plastered with a picture of the aborted remains of an eight-week-old fetus. She’s looking down at her phone and doesn’t pay attention to us. An old lady stands next to her, leaning on a walker. A man stands next to her reading out loud from a Bible. No one says anything to us. They don’t approach us. It’s so hot out that I can see sweat beading on their faces. I feel sorry for them. I don’t know why.

  I try not to look at the woman’s sign, but I can’t help it. A blob-like fetus with a bulging forehead and teeny fingers floats in a puddle of blood.

  The sign jolts me, even though Annabelle tells me the picture is Photoshopped. But it doesn’t make me change my mind.

  Bea holds my hand, Annabelle holds the other, and we walk up to the clinic together.

  We press a bell outside.

  A voice comes over the speaker. “Names and ID, please.”

  The three of us show our driver’s licenses to the camera, and we get buzzed in. It’s busy inside. Nearly every chair is taken.

  I go to the desk and sign in. A woman behind the desk smiles and hands me a clipboard. I take it back to the chair, but my hands are too shaky to write so Bea fills in the form for me while I whisper the answers to her.

  The reality of what I’m about to do hits me hard. It took everything I had inside me to make it this far. It’s like those marathon runners you see who collapse once they cross the finish line. That’s what I feel like. If they make me sit in a room and explain why I want to have an abortion, like I had to do I don’t know how many times now, I’ll lose it. I’ll fall into myself and never come out again.

  Annabelle puts her arm around me, and I lean my head on her shoulder.

  A woman dressed in scrubs comes out and calls my name. Annabelle and Bea stand up with me. “Can we go with her?” Bea asks.

  “I’m sorry, only patients are allowed back. Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of her, and I’ll come out and let you know when she’s all done, okay?”

  “Hi, Camille. I’m Sarah,” she says when I reach her. She pushes open the door, and I follow her down the hall to a changing room with a bunch of lockers in it. “You can leave your top and socks on but take everything else off. Put all your things in one of the lockers and take the key with you.” She hands me a paper drape. “Tie this around your waist and have a seat in the chair outside the door, and I’ll come and get you.”

  I take my clothes off as fast as I can, cramming them and my purse in the locker. The key is attached to a plastic coiled bracelet, and I slide it onto my wrist.

  A few minutes later Sarah comes back and takes me into a room with an ultrasound machine. I’m going to have to go through the same thing, the doctor explaining what she sees, the turning of the screen toward me.

  None of that happens.

  Sarah gives me a little cup with ibuprofen for cramps and an antibiotic to prevent infection. She also gives me an Ativan to relax me. She does the ultrasound, but she doesn’t make me look at the screen. She doesn’t explain what she sees. She leaves me alone.

  Sarah takes me into another room. There’s an examining table covered with paper and a machine next to it. The doctor comes in. She’s wearing a white coat but underneath she’s wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Her long gray hair is in a ponytail. She shakes my hand. “Hi, Camille. I’m Dr. Maria.” She sits on a rolling stool next to the table. “Do you have any questions for me?”

  “Do I have to tell you why I want an abortion?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “Absolutely not. I’m not the reason police; you don’t have to justify anything. I understand you’re from Texas. If you’ve come all this way, you’ve probably thought it all through, and you know what you want to do. It’s not up to me to change your mind.

  “I don’t want you to worry. The entire procedure is very straightforward and will only take a few minutes.”

  She has me lie back on the table and put my feet up on the metal stirrups. I’m wearing the socks my mom gave me for Christmas. They have pictures of a g
irl riding a unicorn. RUNNING THE WORLD AND STUFF is knit on the cuffs.

  “Cute socks,” the doctor says.

  I hear Sarah and the doctor talking, gathering up the things they need. I see the bright lights overhead and hear the creak of the table.

  Dr. Maria inserts something in me. I feel a pressure in my stomach followed by a pain that feels like the worst period cramps I’ve ever had. But the pain only lasts a few seconds. My paper drape rustles, and I feel the doctor’s hands as she helps me put my legs down.

  “You’re all done now, Camille.”

  I nod.

  “Take your time getting up,” the nurse says. “You might feel a little woozy, okay?”

  I start to cry.

  I try to hold it back, but I can’t. I don’t know why I’m crying. I’m relieved that it’s over, that I’m not pregnant anymore.

  I cannot stop crying.

  Sarah takes my hand. Dr. Maria hands me a tissue and takes my other hand. And they don’t say anything; they don’t leave me. They just wait.

  “I’m … I’m sorry,” I say when I feel a little calmer.

  “Take a deep breath and let it out,” the doctor says, her voice full of kindness. “Do you have someone with you? Someone to drive you home?”

  “My best friends,” I say, knowing it’s true. Annabelle and Bea are my best friends, and I know I’ll keep them forever, like that waitress said. I put my hand up to blow my nose, and the bracelet slides down my arm, the charms clanking—the Texas flag, the bluebonnet, the western boot, the cactus, and the mockingbird.

  Sarah touches it. “Pretty,” she says.

  “My friends have the same one.”

  “The girls waiting for you?”

  I nod.

  “We used to do friendship bracelets when I was little,” she says. “I still have them all. In a jewelry box at home.”

  Sarah takes me across the hall to another room. A group of women are sitting in reclining chairs with heat pads on their stomachs. No one is saying anything. One woman is crying quietly. Sarah settles me into a chair, places a heat pad on my stomach, and gets me a drink of water.

  I sit back, closing my eyes. Five minutes. That’s all it took. Annabelle, Bea, and I have been gone for days. We’ve spent all our money. We’ve been to Alamo, Progeso, Nuevo Progreso, the Texas Panhandle … all this way, all this money, for a five-minute procedure.

  Sarah returns and escorts the crying woman out of the room. A girl about fourteen years old takes her place. She looks at me; her eyes are exhausted. I wonder how far she traveled. How she got pregnant and what she feels now. But I don’t ask her. I don’t say anything. I only smile and then look away.

  After a half hour, Sarah gives me a bag filled with condoms, a box of emergency contraception, and a booklet about the different kinds of birth control. I get dressed and go to the bathroom. Some clots of blood come out when I pee but not too much. I put the pad the nurse gave me in my underwear and wash my hands and splash water on my face. I pull a brush through my hair and put it into a messy bun. I take a breath and glance in the mirror. I look older. My eyes are different—red from crying, for sure, but wiser maybe. I look like I’ve been through a battle and lived to talk about it.

  * * *

  The pain pills the clinic gave me make me feel weightless and calm. I spread my arms and legs out on the bed at the motel in a giant X and pull them back in again and again, like I’m making a snow angel. That desperate feeling that’s been sitting on my chest since closing night of Hamlet is gone. This road trip, the abortion, there are bigger things in my world now, and I think I might be able to handle them.

  I fall asleep again, and when I wake up, Annabelle and Bea are gone. I check my phone. Bea texted to say they’re getting dinner.

  My phone dings with another text.

  Léo: I’m back in France. I don’t know if you want to hear from me anymore, but I want to say that Willow was fabulous but it wasn’t what I hoped for because you were not there.

  Me: I do want to hear from you. I always will.

  Léo: Will you come to France?

  Me: Will you hold my hand?

  I watch the bubbles move across the screen.

  Léo: If you hold mine.

  The next morning we leave for Texas. I drive home the last half of the journey. It’s nighttime and from the passenger seat, Annabelle sleeps, her head against the window, her knees pulled up against her chest. It’s dark, and there aren’t many cars on the highway. I pass a Greyhound bus, its passengers silhouetted in the tinted windows. I think about that Simon & Garfunkel song that my parents love, the one about the couple on the bus eating Mrs. Wagner’s pies, searching for an America they can believe in. I pass by an RV pulling a car behind it, and I imagine a retired husband and wife selling everything, packing up only the things that can fit in that RV, and heading out into the world, completely untethered to any kind of responsibility. Maybe it’s like childhood when your world is bordered by your neighborhood, where Halloween, Christmas, and your birthday is how you measured a year. When climbing a tree or standing up on skates for the first time felt like magic. Where monsters were imaginary and you knew your parents would catch you if you fell.

  I drive and drive until Buzzi’s headlights shine on a road sign welcoming us home to Johnson Creek in Texas, the Lone Star State.

  THIRTY

  I’m home, but no one is there. I put all my things away, sorting my laundry in the hamper and folding my empty backpack onto my closet shelf, like it’s any other day. I dust my room. I change my sheets.

  I carry my laundry downstairs. The step still squeaks, the shag-pile rug is still there, and the pictures remain in the same line. It all looks different to me, though, like I’m noticing things from a different me. That out-of-style rug is comfortable between my toes; the squeaky step reminds me of my dad; and those pictures of Grandma make my heart crack a little.

  I imagine my senior picture in that empty space. In my junior year picture, I look out at the photographer with that fake picture smile and shining eyes. I don’t remember what I was thinking about then.

  I wonder if I’ll look different in my senior picture—if my smile will be real, my eyes focused and sure. When things change inside, do we change on the outside?

  I take my laundry downstairs and start the washing machine, and then I go back upstairs into the kitchen. The dust on my mom’s pots makes me pause. It makes my heart hurt to see them like that. I don’t like the dust bunny trapped in the balloon whisk. I take her stuff down and lay it out on the kitchen island. I fill the sink with hot sudsy water and dunk each piece, scrubbing years of dust and kitchen gunk off. I dry them and hang them back up, all but the whisk and a bowl. I look for my mom’s baking notebook in the bookshelf, and I turn the pages until I find the recipe for cherry cupcakes with Swiss buttercream frosting written out in my mom’s careful handwriting. I get out flour, eggs, milk, cherry flavoring, sugar. I follow each step carefully, mixing the wet ingredients, combining the dry.

  “What are you doing?” My mom stands in the kitchen doorway. She’s in her bank teller uniform, a blue polo shirt and khaki pants, her purse over her shoulder and keys in hand.

  “Making cherry cupcakes. I wanted to take them to the Globe tomorrow.”

  I pick up her red spatula, the fancy one perfect for folding batter. I start to mix, purposely doing it the wrong way.

  She puts her things on the kitchen stool. “Careful,” she says. “You don’t want to overwork your batter. You want to fold, not stir.”

  I push the bowl to her. “Can you show me?”

  She looks at the bowl for a second, and I don’t know what is going through her head. Maybe she feels like Annabelle does, like she isn’t good enough; or maybe she’s embarrassed to try again, that she’s lost her skills. Or maybe she feels like I felt, like it isn’t worth it to try again.

  I shouldn’t have pushed her. I reach for the bowl. “It’s okay, Mom—”

  She grabs
the bowl. “Now listen closely,” she interrupts. She picks up the spatula. “You fold by cutting the spatula down the center and bringing one side of the batter over to the other. Turn the bowl and repeat, gently, until the batter comes together. And when that happens, put the spatula down and don’t touch it again, okay? Otherwise you’ll develop the gluten in the flour and your cupcakes will be tough.”

  I watch Mom work the spatula, her movements sure and practiced.

  “Will you teach me to make macarons?” I ask.

  “Macarons are really hard because they are pure technique, but if you keep practicing your skills, I think you’ll be up to the challenge.” She finishes folding and puts the bowl down. “There.” The batter is smooth, the sides of the bowl perfectly scraped clean.

  “Use the disher to portion out the mix; otherwise the cakes will bake unevenly. You don’t want one burned and one raw.” She watches me scoop the batter into each paper liner. “Careful you don’t overfill.”

  “I didn’t go to Willow, Mom,” I say, releasing the mechanism and dropping a perfectly round scoop into the pan.

  “What do you mean? Where were you all of last week?”

  I put the disher down. I look at my mom. She’s watching me carefully, not zooming around the kitchen doing little tasks or bossing me around like she normally would.

  I’m not embarrassed anymore. I’m not ashamed.

  “Mom. I have something to tell you.”

  Author’s Note

  In 1990, in the small window of time when a woman’s right to choose in the United States was a given, I sat staring at my young female doctor as she gently told me I was pregnant. We discussed the choices—I could continue the pregnancy or not. If I chose an abortion, I could make an appointment on my way out of the clinic. I decided right away to have an abortion. I told my ex-boyfriend what I wanted to do, and he gave me half of the two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar fee. There were no protestors in front of my doctor’s office on the day of my abortion. The procedure took five minutes, and I was out the door in an hour and back to my life within days. No regrets.