Disappearing Acts

by Terry McMillan

  “Have you told Franklin?” Marie asked.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’d probably want me to go through with it.”

  “How do you know that?” Claudette asked.

  “It’s just a feeling, but the bottom line is that I want this decision to be mine. Franklin has a way of talking me into things that I sometimes regret later. I don’t want this to be one of ’em.”

  “Well, I don’t know what the big deal is, really. Why don’t you just go on and have it? You love the man, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I love him. But it’s more complicated than that, Claudette. We’re not in any position to get married right now.”

  “What exactly do you mean by ‘not in any position’?” Marie asked. “This guy isn’t married, is he?”

  All three of them turned their eyes toward me. They wouldn’t understand if I told them that Franklin’s been separated for over six years. They wouldn’t understand that the reason he hasn’t gotten his divorce yet is because he hasn’t been able to afford it. They just wouldn’t understand.

  “No. He’s not married,” I said. “But he’s laid off work right now. We’ve got bills coming out of our asses, and my voice lessons aren’t exactly free. I don’t know what I would do with a baby right now.”

  “Zora, it’s nine whole months away,” Claudette said.

  “I wouldn’t have nobody’s baby without a diamond on my finger,” Portia said.

  “Would you marry him if he asked you?” Claudette asked.

  “I don’t know, to tell you the truth. I love him, but we’ve got our share of problems.”

  “Who doesn’t?” she said.

  “We’re constantly broke. Franklin wants to go back to school this winter. He wants to learn how to start his own business.”

  “What’s his B.A. in?” Marie asked.

  Damn. Why do they have to ask so many questions? “He doesn’t have a B.A.,” I said.

  “Well, where’d he go to college?” Claudette asked.

  “He didn’t finish,” was all I said. I had to defend him. They wouldn’t understand if I told him he never finished high school. They wouldn’t understand that Franklin’s brilliant on his own terms, that college doesn’t automatically make you smart. They just wouldn’t understand. “By trade, he’s a carpenter. You see that cabinet my stereo’s on?”

  They all turned to look at it.

  “Franklin made that,” I said.

  Marie and Claudette looked impressed, but Portia said, “Right now the question is, Is the man really trying to find work, or is he just laying up on his black ass, daydreaming?”

  “He’s trying, believe me, and the saddest thing in the world is to see your man out of work.”

  “Well,” Claudette said, “if he can build furniture like this and he’s trying to get back into school, I’d hang in there. It’d be different if he wasn’t trying.”

  “I’m not thinking about giving up—yet. But how do you know when you’ve hung too long?”

  “When you get tired,” she said, eating her third croissant. “Or when you feel you’re running in place.”

  “Personally, I wouldn’t wait that long,” Portia said.

  “Hell, when Allen and I got married, I was in law school and he was only in his third year of medical school. Talk about hard times. Sometimes I was ready to fly out the door. After I passed the bar, I was making all the money, paying all the bills—while he studied. But he had asked me if I really thought I could handle it, and I said yes. It’s called commitment, honey.

  “And don’t be so naive as to think that Allen and I are always lovey-dovey. Honey, we argue, scream, slam doors. Once in a while I break a dish. I even pulled the phone out of the wall once. But this is all par for the course. You’ve got to take the bitter with the sweet. Just as long as you’re not the only one doing all the struggling, I’d stick with the man.”

  “I plan to, Claudette,” I said, “unless I run out of gas.”

  “All this Ann Landers shit sounds good,” Portia said, “but we supposed to be trying to help the girl decide what’s best for her right now—not him.”

  “I say get rid of it,” Marie said.

  “How late are you?” Claudette asked.

  “Two weeks.”

  “Well, that’s good,” Portia said. “There’s lots of places in Manhattan where you can get it done early. Have you ever had one before, Zora?”

  At first I thought about lying, but then I realized we were all women, so why should I? “I’ve had two.”

  “Shit, I’ve had three or four of ’em myself. It ain’t no picnic, is it? I swear, if men only knew what we had to go through just to get a damn nut—this kind of bullshit,” she said.

  “Well,” Marie said, “when they finally come up with birth control for their asses, I bet they won’t be so quick to unzip their pants. The burden of responsibility’s been on us for too damn long, if you ask me.”

  “What kind of birth control do you use?” Portia asked her.

  Marie got the strangest look on her face, then blurted out, “Foam.” Something, I don’t know why, told me she was lying. I’ve never heard her mention any particular man before, but I’ve never had the impression that she was gay either.

  “Well, the last one I had was a bitch,” Portia said. “They gave me a damn Valium, and that shit didn’t do nothing, girl. It felt like somebody was pulling dry, brittle branches out my pussy.”

  “All right, Portia, spare us the details,” Claudette said.

  “I was knocked out both times,” I said. “How much does it cost now?”

  “Your insurance should cover it, won’t it?” Marie asked.

  “I can’t let the school find out about this.”

  “Well, fuck it,” Marie said. “You got any money?”

  “Not really,” I said, embarrassed.

  “Well, all you gotta do is look in the Voice—there’s a whole page of ads for ’em,” Portia said. “They compete with each other, girl. You wanna get knocked out again, don’t you?”

  “I have to. I couldn’t take being awake, watching it, knowing what they’re doing. I swear I couldn’t.”

  “Then it’s probably gonna cost you about three hundred.”

  “Three hundred?”

  “Look, I can lend you about a hundred,” Marie said.

  “Where are you getting money from?” I asked.

  “I got a gig.”

  “Well, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Shit, since you’ve been in love, you’ve been so busy. Who can catch up with you? Whenever I call, you’re either playing the piano and singing, or wrapped up in Franklin’s arms, or some shit like that.”

  “I can lend you a hundred too,” Claudette said. “More if you need it.”

  “I’m good for fifty,” Portia said.

  “Thanks, you guys. I don’t know what I’d do without you—really I don’t.”

  “Well, I’ll go with you, ’cause you’re gon’ need somebody,” Portia said. “It don’t matter if you’re wide awake or knocked out. When it’s over, you damn sure ain’t gon’ wanna be alone.”

  I heard the key in the door, and saw Franklin and Derek.

  “Hi,” I said. “What are you doing back so soon?”

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything,” he said.

  “You’re not interrupting anything,” I said. “I just didn’t expect you, that’s all.”

  “Hello, ladies,” he said.

  Everybody blushed, then said hello. Boy, did the room get quiet all of a sudden.

  “Hi, Derek,” I said. I introduced everybody, and then the silence grew even more obvious.

  “Where’s Miles?” I asked.

  “He’s got the chicken pox,” Derek said.

  “Oh,” was all I said. I knew Franklin could tell we’d been talking girl talk, and I prayed that he wouldn’t suspect anything other than that.

  “Well, I’d better be get
ting back to check on Chanelle,” Claudette said, getting up.

  “Can I get a ride to the train station?” Portia asked.

  “Look, ladies, you don’t have to leave on my account. I just came to get my racquetballs, that’s all.”

  “We were about to leave anyway,” Marie said. “Let me just get my coat.”

  Franklin looked at me apologetically, then went to get the balls. He gave me a kiss on the cheek, and everybody left at the same time.

  I sat down on the couch and felt so light-headed that the room started to spin. “No,” I said out loud, and got up. I walked up and down the hallway until I felt stationary. I forced the room to stop turning.

  * * *

  Portia met me in front of the place. I’d been throwing up all morning, until I’d gotten the dry heaves. Now there was nothing left in my belly but the baby. I kept getting hot and cold chills, and felt so weak that I had to take a cab. Franklin had left at his usual time and wouldn’t be back until after three. I’d been told that I’d be home in less than three hours and feeling pretty much back to normal by afternoon.

  “How you feeling?” Portia asked. She didn’t give me a chance to answer. “You don’t look so hot. But don’t worry, girlfriend. It’ll be over before you know it.”

  When we got inside, the large white room was full of women. Some of them looked miserable, some just looked scared. I knew I felt both. I signed in and walked back over to Portia.

  “Just try to relax a minute, Zora. Now sit down,” she said.

  “Portia, God is going to punish me one day for doing this, I know it. Just watch: When and if I ever decide to have a baby, it’ll probably come out retarded or deformed or an epileptic. I can’t keep doing this, I just can’t.”

  “Don’t even talk no stupid shit like that around me. This is damn near nineteen-fuckin’-eighty-three, girl. Women got a right to decide whether or not they wanna have a goddamn baby. Shit, just because the fucking birth control didn’t work, why should we have to suffer? You know how many of our lives are fucked up ’cause we got kids we can’t afford, didn’t plan, or didn’t want? And with no help? You don’t wanna be one of those statistics, honey, so sit your ass down and be quiet.”

  I waited for them to call my name, and when I finally heard it, I was scared to move. The room suddenly felt like it was full of women who weren’t moving.

  “It’ll be okay,” Portia said, and ushered me to the door. I couldn’t even turn back to look at her.

  * * *

  My head is falling off my shoulders as they wheel me into a light-blue room. They stick a plastic needle into my vein. I feel the walls of my mouth expanding. It tastes like gasoline. But I don’t have a car. Someone in a white mask tells me to start counting backward from a hundred. Why one hundred? One hundred. Baby number three. Gone. Down the drain. Make it quick, would you? I’ve got a voice class. What voice? You’ve taken my voice? It’s gone? I can’t sing, anything, ever again? Is this how much a baby cost? Ninety-nine. I promised Dillon or Percy or Franklin—one of them—something. What was it? Dinner. Oh, shit. All we’ve got in the house is baby food. Ninety-eight. No. There’s steak in the freezer. But it’s frozen. Stiff as a stick. Ninety-seven. Steak. Stick. Who, me? No, I didn’t. Go ahead, stick me. I dare you to stick me. Ninety-six. Go ahead, step across that line. I’ll hit you back, I swear it. I warned your ass! Ninety-five. Cheater.

  * * *

  When I woke up, I was lying on a table in a different room. There was a beautiful dark-skinned girl in a burgundy recliner. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen. She looked African—Senegalese, maybe? What was she doing here? Another woman, who looked about my age, was in a black recliner. Both of their legs were propped up.

  “How do you feel?” the doctor asked me.

  “Okay, I guess.” I didn’t feel any pain, anywhere.

  “Then why don’t you sit up and come over and rest like these young ladies over here,” he said. I got up with relative ease and sat down beside the dark-skinned girl. There was a square white pad on the empty seat. I eased into the chair, and the doctor pushed on the back of it. My feet went up into the air. They were on the same level as the girl’s. The doctor left the room.

  I couldn’t think of anything to say to her, so I just stared at my feet. I put my hands on my belly. It was empty now. Tears started rolling down my cheeks, but I didn’t feel like wiping them. The girl handed me a Kleenex, and I nodded thank you. Why couldn’t Franklin and I have just fallen in love and gotten married? Why couldn’t he have a regular job? Why couldn’t I have a recording contract? Why…“Where are you from?” I asked her.

  “Senegal,” she said.

  Why I felt relieved, I don’t know.

  “What were you using?” I asked her.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “Oh.”

  The doctor came back into the room, and without even realizing it, I heard myself ask him, “What was it?”

  He just looked at me. “I’m not at liberty to say. Don’t you worry yourself about that now,” he said, and walked over to another woman, who was now on the recovery table. She was lying on her stomach. Her hair was thick, black, and matted. She looked around the room until she spotted the three of us.

  “Where am I?” she asked.

  None of us said a word.

  “This is so silly,” she said. Then she turned her head sideways and closed her eyes.

  Portia was reading Cosmopolitan when I came out. She threw it on an empty chair and rushed over to me.

  “So you feeling okay?”

  “Yeah. Just a little tired is all.”

  “I told you it was nothin’ to it, didn’t I?”

  * * *

  After convincing Portia that I’d be fine, I took a cab home. Franklin wasn’t there yet—thank God—so I lay down. When I heard the door slam, I sprang up in bed. He came into the bedroom and stood in the doorway.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he asked.

  “I’ve got a yeast infection, that’s all.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’d you get it?”

  “Women just get ’em every now and then. It’s a buildup of bacteria, and I have to use these suppositories to get rid of the infection.”

  “But I need some pussy, baby.”

  “You’ll just have to wait, Franklin.”

  “You mean you can’t make love?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I could give this to you, and you’d be itching and everything, and then you’d have to take antibiotics. You wouldn’t want to go through that, would you?”

  “I can use a rubber.”

  “No, you can’t. I’m not supposed to have anything inside me until the infection’s gone.”

  “Well, just how long will that be?”

  “Two weeks.”

  “Women,” he said. “I’m glad I ain’t one. Y’all get more shit wrong with your bodies than any other species on earth.”

  “Yeah, but what would you do without us?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just what I said: what would you do without us?”

  “Action speaks louder than words,” he said, and walked back out the front door.

  What did I say?

  * * *

  Three days went by, and I still hadn’t seen or heard from him. I didn’t know who to call or where he might be. But more than anything, I couldn’t understand what I’d said or done to cause him to leave. I was going crazy. I mean, really crazy. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, and I even stayed home from school for two days. I couldn’t face those kids. I wanted to call my Daddy, but what could I say to him? Claudette, Marie, and Portia had already given me so many pep talks to help me get over the guilt that I didn’t have the nerve to call them and tell ’em about this. So I kept it all tucked neatly inside me. I stared at the walls, at my plants, then back at the walls again. Maybe this was for t
he best, him leaving. It would mean I could get my life back to normal. But what was normal now? The phone rang and scared the shit out of me. I ran over and answered it on the first ring.

  “Baby, I’m sorry. I just want you to know that,” he said. He was breathing awfully hard. “But why couldn’t you tell me?”

  “Tell you what?” I asked.

  “Come on, baby, I ain’t that stupid. I know when your period is due. Who rubs your stomach and back every month when you get it, huh? But you didn’t get it this month, and all of a sudden you got a yeast infection? Why couldn’t you just tell me?”

  “I was too scared.”

  “Scared of what, baby? Scared of what?”

  “That you might want me to keep it.”

  “Oh, so you wouldn’t want my baby?”

  “Of course I would, Franklin, but look at us. Are we in any position to think about having a baby?”

  “That ain’t the point. We supposed to talk about this kinda shit, ain’t we?”

  “Yeah.”

  There was a long silence, but it sounded like somebody was speaking over a loudspeaker in the background. “Franklin, where are you?”

  “I’m at Brooklyn Hospital. I had a accident on the job today and cut my chin open. I’m getting stitches, if these motherfuckers would hurry up. I could bleed to death standing here waiting for them. If I was white, I’d be fixed up and home by now. I love you, baby.”

  “Are you okay? I love you too, and I swear I didn’t do this to hurt you. I didn’t really want to do it, but it didn’t feel like I had a choice. I’m sorry, Franklin. Don’t move. Please. Stay right there. I’m on my way.”

  I couldn’t find my purse fast enough. But I locked the front door in slow motion and walked down the dark street, putting one foot in front of the other as if I were walking inside someone else’s dream. When I got to the emergency room, I saw Franklin sitting with his head back against the wall. He looked like he hadn’t slept in ages. There was a growth of beard on his face. Blood was all over the front of his shirt, and he held a stained handkerchief up to his chin. I could smell the liquor before I even got close to him.