Black Contract

by Charlotte Byrd

  The fastest way home is to hail a cab or grab a Lyft. Then I’d be there in five minutes. But I can’t go home directly. I got a prescription for an anti-nausea pill from the doctor and I need to fill it. I need something to make all of this pain go away. It’s giving me a splitting headache. And I need a clear head to think.

  I barely manage to drag myself a block over to the nearest Rite Aid. Walking past the makeup aisle, I glance at myself in the mirror near the lipsticks. Holy fuck. What a sight! My hair is sticking out in all directions - the messy bun is so messy that it’s way beyond being cool. It’s not even in the same ballpark as cool. My skin is splotchy and pale. My lips are chapped and peeling and I have big black bags under my eyes.

  It’s the middle of the day, so there’s no wait at the pharmacy counter. I tell the woman in a white coat my name and that my doctor called in a prescription for Diclegis. She takes my insurance card and walks to the back. A few moments later, she comes back.

  “Actually, your insurance doesn’t cover this.”

  “What?”

  She repeats herself.

  “But my doctor said this was the best. This will make me feel better.”

  “The way that your insurance will cover this is if you first try Zofran. This is a new medication so you need special approval.”

  “Okay,” I say. I have no idea how to deal with this situation.

  “The problem is that your doctor didn’t call in a prescription for Zofran. Just Diclegis.”

  “Shit,” I mumble.

  “You could give them a call and ask them to prescribe Zofran for you first. Then you can try it and if it doesn’t work, you can come in for Diclegis. Or you can pay for Diclegis out of pocket.”

  I inhale deeply. My nausea is coming back with a vengeance.

  “Please step aside, ma’am,” she says. “May I help you?”

  There’s a line forming behind me. I can’t make this decision here right now. Shit. I dial the doctor’s number and wait on the line. In the meantime, I look up both medications online. Diclegis definitely seems safer. It’s just an antihistamine, an over the counter sleeping pill, and vitamin B6 with a slow release formulation to make sure that it stays in your system for longer. Zofran, on the other hand, well, there are people noting that it might be responsible for some birth defects.

  “How much is the Diclegis if I just buy it now?” I ask, after I wait in line for my turn.

  “You want to buy out of pocket?”

  “Yes. I mean, maybe. I mean, I have a prescription right?”

  The woman nods and shakes her head. Then she rings up my prescription.

  “$750.”

  “What?”

  She repeats the preposterous number.

  “But both of its components are available over the counter. Why the hell is it so expensive?”

  “This is America, ma’am,” the woman says in the most deadpan voice ever.

  “Okay, fine,” I say. “I’ll take it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I shrug. “No one is answering at the doctor’s office and I feel like I’m going to die. So, I’ll figure this out when I’m feeling better.”

  I hand her my credit card and she rings me up. Signing the bottom, I suddenly realize how lucky I am that money isn’t a problem. These stupid pills are $750, and that’s a ton of money by anyone’s standards. And yet, here I am, willing to pay for it out of pocket just so I can go home and not throw up so much.

  On the way out, I grab a bottle of water, a bag of potato chips, which look mildly appetizing, some sour candy, and a bottle each of Unisom (the over the counter antihistamine) and B6. Maybe I can see if taking the combination of these two meds will help me on their own and I won’t need Diclegis at all. But I’ll have it as a backup. As I wait to be checked out the second time, I feel sick again and throw up a little into a plastic bag that I grab from the counter at the very last minute.

  I didn’t bother waiting to get home to take the B6 pills and the Unisom. I read the instructions for combining the two on my phone while waiting in line and hope to God that it works by the time I get home. Unfortunately, I’m not so lucky. The nausea just gets worse and worse and three hours later, I’m convinced that my over the counter solution isn’t doing me any good. So, I grab the bag of Diclegis and pop two pills into my mouth. I lie back down in bed, put Friends on Netflix and wait for the room to stop spinning.

  I don’t know how many hours pass as I wait, but eventually it does, somewhat. Netflix asks me if I am still wanting to continue my binge a few times at least, and the afternoon sun has long since disappeared into the Hudson River. The next time I have to get out of bed, it’s pitch black outside and I have to turn on the light just to make it to the bathroom. Much to my surprise, however, I don’t feel that dizzy as I walk there. I only feel somewhat queasy, but not enough to throw up.

  Hallelujah!

  When I climb back into bed, my phone goes off. It’s Aiden. This is not his first time calling me. I’ve been ignoring him. At first, I ignored him because I didn’t want to tell him that I might be pregnant. Now, I don’t want to tell him that I am pregnant. The thing is that I need time. I need to get my head around this thing. I mean, how can I be pregnant? I mean, I know the mechanics of how this happened, but what does it mean now that I am? I need to have time to decide how I feel about this on my own. I don’t want Aiden and his opinion getting in the way.

  What if Aiden is really excited about this? I mean, would that make me excited as well? Probably. But is that right? I mean, all in all, I’m not ready to be a mom. I’m far from ready. I still have my own dreams and hopes and desires. But does that mean that only people without dreams and hopes should be parents? Of course not. And yet, I’ve always assumed that the only way that I would become a parent is when I gave up on my other life. None of these thoughts make any sense. I know that. And I need time to figure them out before I see Aiden again. I can’t have him and his opinions muddling this whole thing for me, at least not any more than it already is.

  And then, there is that other thought. What if…what if he doesn’t want the baby? What if he is adamant and one-hundred percent certain that a baby is not for him? What then? What if he wants me to get rid of it? No, I can’t have his opinions in my head right now. I need to decide how I feel about this baby first. And only then can I let him know what has happened.

  The intercom goes off. I look down at my phone. More texts from Aiden appear, asking me where I am. Could that be him outside? No, please, no. I decide to ignore it. They’ll just have to come over some other time. I’m not taking any visitors right now. But the buzzing continues. Incessantly. After a few minutes, I manage to drag myself out of bed and toward the front door.

  “What?”

  “Hey, Ellie,” she says. My heart drops. I recognize her voice immediately.

  Chapter 26 - Ellie

  When she shows up…

  “Are you okay?” I ask as soon as she walks through the door. I look her up and down. She looks normal. Her hair is cut in a short buzz cut. Her nails are painted black. She’s dressed in tight jeans and a pair of Doc Marten boots. She has about five piercings in each ear, going all the way to the top of her earlobes, and a big forearm tattoo which I can only make out a little bit as it peeks out from under her shirt.

  “Can I crash here for a bit?” Brie asks. “Mom and Dad are driving me nuts.”

  I inhale deeply. Well, that’s a surprise, I think sarcastically.

  “Sure, of course,” I say quickly. “You’re my sister.”

  Brie drags her large duffle bag into my living room and plops it down on my couch. She then heads to the refrigerator and opens it. I follow close behind her and quickly move her duffle bag to the floor - God only knows where this thing has been.

  “Fuck, this thing is like a desert. How are you surviving?”

  I shrug. “I haven’t shopped for a while.”

  “Yeah, I can see that.”

  She l
ooks into my freezer and helps herself to a pint of ice cream. Without bothering to get a plate, she just grabs a spoon and digs in.

  If I weren’t so used to this, I’d be offended. But this is just Brie Willoughby being Brie Willoughby. And no matter how different we are and how I’d never admit it out loud, or much less, to her directly, I’ve missed her.

  Brie is my stepfather’s daughter. My parents got divorced when I was eight and my mom started tutoring kids to make extra income. The pay was the best in Greenwich, Connecticut, where a lot of hedge fund managers and other finance people lived, and that’s where she met Mitch. Mitch paid her $200 per hour to tutor Brie, who was five years old at the time. It’s not that Brie was really behind on anything. It’s just that everyone else’s kids got tutored so it was expected by her school, to keep her from falling behind. Mom also said that Mitch wanted a warm female presence around his daughter after her mom died suddenly from cancer. Apparently, the slew of nannies that took care of her around the clock didn’t exactly cut it. Mitch worked long hours and Brie was pretty much left alone except for the household help. Well, Mom started out as his household help but that didn’t last long. They fell in love and, six months later, he asked her to marry him. They got married in Nantucket when I was eleven and Brie was nine.

  “Mom and Dad are pretty awful sometimes, aren’t they?” Brie asks, opening a box of cereal and shoving a big handful of it into her mouth.

  “Do you want a bowl? Or milk?” I ask sarcastically.

  “You don’t have any milk.”

  “I have a bowl.”

  “No thanks.”

  I smile. Brie isn’t the type to take people seriously who aren’t being direct. And if you obfuscate your true intentions or passive aggressiveness, she will just go ahead and ignore that on purpose. I find it mildly annoying when she does it to me, but I find it hilarious when she does it to my mom who has her share of passive aggressive tendencies.

  “So what are they doing this time?” I ask.

  “Mom isn’t happy about my new buzz cut, as you can imagine, but she won’t come out and say it. Instead, she sent me pictures of a wig that I might like. A wig!”

  I laugh. “Seriously?”

  “It’s like she thinks that I didn’t get this hair cut because I wanted it. Like it’s something that happened to be me.”

  “Well, you know Mom. Looking attractive is quite important to her,” I say. Brie glares at me. “Not that I think you look unattractive. What I mean is that she is pretty conservative about what women should look like.”

  Wow, I really put my foot in my mouth with that one. But Brie just lets the whole thing run off her shoulders as if it’s nothing. One of the reasons why she buzzed her hair is to not look like a regular girl. We both know that.

  “So, what do you think about it?” she asks.

  I look at her hair, or lack thereof. She’s not completely bald, but it’s definitely a close shave. I can see every nook and cranny in her skull.

  “I like it.”

  “You liar.”

  “No, I like it because you like it. It’s like you aren’t wearing any armor. You don’t have anything to hide behind. I’ve been noticing that you haven’t been wearing much makeup recently either. Is it for the same reason?”

  “Noticing? When? You haven’t seen me in —“

  “Months, I think,” I say. “But I do follow you on Instagram and Snap.”

  “Oh, right.” She shrugs.

  “Yeah, well, I haven’t really given it much thought. But I guess there might be something to that. I’ve always felt like makeup created this barrier between you and the world. And it was always odd that only girls wore it. Like, why do we have to insulate ourselves against the world? When guys don’t have to.”

  “Um…because we’re women. And men are still in charge. Not as much as they once were, but for the most part,” I say.

  “Well, fuck that,” Brie says.

  “I agree.”

  “Hey, you know what Mom would say now?” Brie asks. I shake my head. “That men might be in charge, but it wouldn’t hurt anything for me to go out there into the world looking attractive.”

  I laugh. “Yep, that’s pretty much true.”

  “Of course, she never once stops to think about what attractive means. And how different cultures have different definitions of female beauty and beauty in general than we do.”

  I know exactly what she means. “Mom is pretty set in her ways,” I say. “So, what did Mitch say about this?”

  Brie has called my mom Mom ever since she married Mitch, her dad. But because I still see my biological Dad and I still call him Dad, I never felt comfortable calling Mitch Dad, since he’s not really.

  Brie shrugs. “Nothing really. Dad couldn’t care less.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Yes, it is. And you know, he just said he had to go to work. As always.”

  Mitch works a lot and not because we need the money. It’s his way of surviving in the world. It’s his way of checking out of difficult situations. Some people have drinking or drugs, others have yelling…Mitch has his work. He’s a workaholic who probably needs to get treatment, but because it’s so socially acceptable in this country to be addicted to working, no one thinks it’s a big deal.

  “I’m not sure Mom is just upset about my hair, though,” Brie says after a moment, closing the box of Cheerios.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Eh, she wasn’t exactly thrilled when I told her about the other thing I was thinking about.”

  “What?” I ask. She hesitates. “What? Tell me.”

  “You’ll just get upset.”

  “No, I won’t. I promise.”

  “You know how much I hate empty promises like that. I mean, you can’t really promise not to get upset because you have no idea what I’m about to say.”

  I laugh. “You’ve been in college way too long,” I say after a moment.

  “Well, it’s funny that you should bring that up. I’m actually thinking of taking a break.”

  “What?”

  “Just for a semester. I want to go traveling. Central America, I think.”

  I shake my head. “But what about Swarthmore?”

  She shrugs. “It’ll still be there when I get back.”

  “But what about your friends? They’ll all graduate before you."

  “Well, many of them won’t. People are already starting to take gap years just like they do in Europe. I think it’s a really good idea. I mean, how the hell do we graduate and go out in the world without actually seeing any of it? How real people live.”

  I shrug. “You know me, I think travel is really important. I love to travel. But what about your education? Your degree?”

  “My degree in anthropology will just have to wait,” Brie says. “It’s not exactly the most useful thing in the world.”

  I shake my head. “You know how much I hate statements like that. I mean, a university degree isn’t just about its usability. What you learn in those classes defines you as a person, more than you’ll ever know. I had no idea how much my contemporary literature class would influence my writing. Even though I just write romance.”

  “Oh, yeah!” Brie’s eyes light up. “By the way, Mom told me about that. Holy fuck, Ellie! I got your books and…well, you’ve got quite an imagination.”

  I blush. I didn’t exactly want to get into all that. No yet anyway.

  Chapter 27 - Ellie

  When I can’t hide the truth…

  Brie is fascinated by my writing career or rather career. Not really sure what to call what I do at this point. It’s not bringing in enough money to pay even half the rent on this place, but luckily I have the money that I got from Aiden. My heart skips a beat at just the thought of him. Everything is so different and he still doesn’t know a thing. Mainly because I can’t bring myself to tell him.

  “So…how is all that going?” Brie asks.

  “The writing? Real
ly good actually, lots of people are buying the books, but, you know, it’s not much money. The first one is only ninety-nine cents and Amazon only pays me 30% from that. So I make about thirty cents from each book sold.”

  “Wow…that sucks.”

  “I have two other books in the series and they cost $2.99. I make 75% from that, but still, given how long it takes to write a book and how people mainly want to get free books or ninety-nine cent books, it’s pretty hard to make a living.”

  “Do you do that Kindle Unlimited thing?”

  “Yep.”

  “I joined. I like getting books from there.”

  “As an author, you have to be exclusive with them, so your books can’t be anywhere else. And the pay? Well, it leaves much to be desired.”

  “How much?”

  “$0.0045, the last time I checked. Less than half a cent per page read.”

  “How much is that?”

  “About 90 cents for a 200 page book.”

  “Really?” Brie asks. “How the hell does anyone make any money?”

  “They don’t. Not really,” I say with a shrug. “Unless you have a huge following. But in romance, it’s really hard. All the readers want free books. Most readers also complain if a book is priced above 99 cents.”

  “Why the hell is that?” Brie asks. “I mean, everyone pays like four bucks for a cup of coffee at Starbucks and that’s just some beans.”

  “Exactly. But for some reason, people think these books just fall out of the sky. Like it doesn’t take me a month or so of hard work to write them. And I work alone. I mean, I have a proofreader, but I also do all the other self-publishing stuff alone. I make the covers and do the formatting and upload to Amazon. It all takes a lot of time and resources.”