The Calculus of Change

by Jessie Hilb

  She doesn’t know about the other night with Tate. In turn there’s something she’s not telling me. And yet there’s a comfortable understanding between us.

  After I tell her about Tate, she reaches a hand across the table and places it on top of mine. She doesn’t say anything, just squeezes a little. She knows about this love and this pain.

  We’re still holding hands when she tells me she’s pregnant.

  “What about the morning-after pill?”

  “Yeah,” she says. “I got lucky. I took it too late, or too early, or something. You know what they say, Ade. Nothing but abstinence is a hundred percent.”

  We’re both completely numb. There’s a chance this baby is Danson’s. If it’s not Danson’s, it’s Josh’s. So it’s Lance Danson or Josh Melling who’ll be connected to Marissa for the rest of her life. Starting now.

  It’s my turn for silence. I stay holding her hand, but I don’t squeeze. She’s not ready. She’s in the place where if I make a wrong move, she’ll burst into tears or get mad, and she doesn’t want to feel any of that right now. She shifts out of my grip and wraps both hands around her mocha.

  I’m biting my tongue because it’s not obvious to me what she’ll do. If she’ll keep it.

  “I’m keeping it, Ade. I feel different. Everything is changing.” And she’s right. Everything is changing.

  She’s making a decision that will change her life in ways she doesn’t even realize. She can’t go back on this. I guess if she chose to abort, she couldn’t go back on that either. But she wouldn’t be a mother.

  “Can you do something for me?” she says.

  “Yes.”

  “Come with me when I tell my mom?”

  Moms

  She was beautiful once. I think having been beautiful once is Cassandra’s big claim to fame. Which is shallow and sad at best. At worst it’s pathetic. Cassandra’s dated rich men, and she says Marissa’s dad was some hotshot in a band. The truth is probably closer to Marissa’s dad could be any one of the several guys she was sleeping with when she got pregnant. I don’t think Cassandra has ever been as beautiful as Marissa. But Marissa’s beauty is better than skin-deep. Cassandra? Now the alcohol and cigarettes have taken their toll, and she looks ten years older than she is. She’s only thirty-seven. Her smile lines are deep wrinkles next to her mouth. She has puffy shadows underneath her eyes. She’s a walking ashtray, and I’m not sure she sees herself as valuable at all.

  She’s never been to a parent-teacher conference. She brings men home from bars. I’ve been Marissa’s best friend for ten years, and she acts like I’m a stranger. There should be a law against women like her having babies.

  I think of Marissa. She’ll be the exact same age as her mom when Cassandra had Alex. Maybe Marissa was screwed from the start. I wonder if a teenager could ever make a good mother.

  Cassandra stands in her kitchen drinking a brown smoothie.

  “The perfect cure for a mild hangover,” she says. If the circles of mascara under her eyes and the stench of stale alcohol indicate a mild hangover, I’d hate to see a major one.

  Marissa and I sit next to each other on the worn navy pinstriped couch. The curtains are drawn, but the “garden level” apartment doesn’t pull much light anyway. Garden is another word for basement. It’s no wonder Marissa is hardly ever here. I move to find some semblance of bodily comfort, and dust wafts up from the couch cushions. The cigarette smell is as stifling as the clutter and lack of light.

  “Mom,” Marissa says. Cassandra ignores her in favor of her brown smoothie and a cigarette.

  “Mom,” she says again, louder. “We need to talk.”

  “No, we don’t.” Cassandra’s bitchy is fresh as ever. She’s not making eye contact. She’s staring wistfully out the window, smoking her cigarette like she’s Ginger fucking Rogers. She’s waiting for something better. She’ll always be waiting.

  “Mom, please.” Suddenly I see the little girl in Marissa, and my heart breaks because Cassandra will never show up.

  “I’ll save you the trouble. I know you’re knocked up. I’m not an idiot.”

  She’s still standing in the kitchen smoking a cigarette and choking down that brown crap.

  I want to get up and shake her, but I don’t because this is not my battle. It’s Marissa’s. Your daughter is going to have a baby. You are going to be a grandmother. Shape the fuck up. I guess some people just can’t. Or won’t. Marissa’s mom must be afraid to really be alive. Because what would it mean for her to feel alive? I’m guessing it would mean feeling a lot of pain and regret.

  I take hold of Marissa’s hand and squeeze hard. This is what I will do. I’ll love Marissa and hold her in this space that isn’t toxic.

  Cassandra is still standing there, unaffected, smoking and drinking. Staring out the window.

  “So?” Marissa says. It’s the most desperate question I’ve ever heard. And it’s met unanswered.

  We start to gather our stuff. Marissa will hang out at my house for the rest of the day. At least I love her. I can’t say the same for Cassandra. This can’t be love.

  “Whose is it?” she says.

  “That’s what you want to know? Whose it is?”

  “I have seventy bucks in my handbag,” Cassandra says. “You can have it for the abortion.”

  But Cassandra knows Marissa isn’t having an abortion. She’ll make Marissa say it.

  “I’m keeping it.”

  “I may’ve raised you to be a slut,” Cassandra says. “But I didn’t raise you to be an idiot. What the fuck happened to the condoms?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “No,” Cassandra says. “What you don’t know. What you really don’t know, is what it means to be a mother. You have no goddamned clue.”

  “Neither do you.”

  Each knife cuts sharper than the last. They match each other in low, stabbing tones. It’s worse than screaming.

  “You can cut me down all you want, Missy, but I’ll be damned if I let you blame me for this.”

  Who wouldn’t blame the whole of Cassandra’s parenting for this?

  Marissa cries the ten minutes it takes to get to my house.

  When we pull into the driveway, she’s wiping at her eyes with a tissue and reapplying mascara.

  “Should we tell my dad?” I ask, because I’m out of ideas, and I don’t know who else could possibly help her.

  “Yeah,” she says.

  Dad

  We traverse the basement stairs together. When our eyes meet, I give Marissa a soft smile. Though I’m not certain how my dad will receive this information, it can’t be any worse than Cassandra’s reaction.

  “Dad, can we talk?”

  He’s wearing safety goggles. Doing something with a power tool and wood. He stops with the tool and pulls his goggles atop his head.

  “What’s up?” He’s way too chipper for the shit about to hit the fan.

  “Upstairs?”

  He casts a glance at me and then at Marissa. He knows this is weird.

  “Yeah. Give me five minutes. I’ll meet you on the porch.”

  We walk back up the stairs, both of us in shock. Moving around the kitchen together wordlessly, we brew some coffee. She finds the filters—I get the coffee and the creamer. We move to turn the brewer on at the same time, giggling a little as our hands clash. Side by side, we lean into the kitchen counter, listening to the soothing steam and drip of the coffeemaker.

  My dad joins us on the porch with a cup of his own, none of the three of us eager to start the discussion.

  Finally, I turn to Marissa, a question on my face, asking if I can say it. She nods, and I say it out loud for the first time. To my father. My best friend is pregnant. When he comes to, after the shock of it, my dad asks the obvious, “Are you keeping it?”

  “Yes.”

  Her resolution is still jolting. Yes. She is having a baby.

  I don’t know how it happened, but I look up and the two of them are st
anding, and my dad is holding Marissa, and she’s crying again. It’s a side-hug, her face buried in his shirt. He is the dad she needs right now, and my heart breaks double because I’m not sure what, if anything, he can do for Marissa. And because I’ve never been sure when I can count on my dad’s warm dadness. I’m grateful it’s now, for Marissa. But I also know he’s doing this for me, too.

  I look at the two of them in their side-embrace, and I think we all know that this moment is not a promise. She could use a promise. I wish so much that Cassandra could’ve shown up for even one minute.

  Jon

  When he finds out Marissa’s pregnant, he sits down clutching his stomach like the wind has been knocked out of him. Like he’s me and he’s just seen Tate and Maggie making out.

  I forgot that he’d have a reaction to this.

  “Whose is it?”

  “Marissa’s.”

  It’s the best answer I can find.

  “I guess it doesn’t matter,” he says. “I knew she had issues, but this?”

  “I know.”

  I agree with him, and silently thank the powers that be that it isn’t his. And then I feel guilty because it’s hers.

  “She’s keeping it?”

  “I wouldn’t be telling you if she wasn’t. She wanted me to tell you. She has enough on her plate.”

  “Wow.”

  Jon looks up at me through his little-boy self.

  I sit down next to him.

  “I feel so bad for her,” he says. “How did the three of us end up such messes?”

  “Speak for yourself.” But he’s right. We’re all carrying something.

  I put my arm around my brother’s shoulder and lean my head into his.

  Me

  I love the word joy because it sounds exactly as it feels. It starts with a consonant and ends in a rich deep vowel. Joy couldn’t mean anything other than what it means.

  I felt joy as a child, when my mom was alive. And I’ve felt it with Tate. And with Marissa, when we’re laughing or crazy, when we just don’t care what other people think. And with Jon.

  The drive doesn’t start with anything resembling joy. It starts heavy, thick with self-pity. It starts with a head full of Marissa, and Tate, and Jon, and my dad. It starts with Seth Bernum and the residue of burning shame. It starts motherless and unloved.

  Tate’s not here. I can’t be with him after we did whatever we did with our souls and bodies that night. Because now, after everything, being with Tate isn’t freeing. It’s oppressive. I think of the way he brushes past my desk in calculus. The way he takes up so much space in a room, in me. I need to get away.

  And so I do. With one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the stick shift, I shove the car into first and then second and then third gear, each rev of the engine, each turn of the wheel, in my control.

  I choose my music and roll down the windows in spite of the piercingly cold air and speed out of town on a dirt road—not the one Tate and I usually drive. This road is different: it’s mine.

  Flashes of Tate—his glow, his kiss, his essence—haunt me until I imagine the wind pushing him out and away; it’s like letting go of the string attached to a balloon. It’s an epiphany that he can’t love me in the way I need.

  Even my mom, my dad, my brother, they come to mind, but I can’t hold them all here with me. It’s just too crowded and heavy. So I let the wind take them away, too. And Danson, and Marissa.

  Until I’m alone with myself and the music and the wind. I’m just . . . present. Breathing the wind. Sunshine on my skin. Road beneath me.

  And so if only momentarily, I free myself, and I feel . . . joy.

  Me

  I lie on my bed alone, forcing myself to go two minutes, then five, then back to two without looking at my phone. Without checking social media for Tate or Maggie or both. I’m forcing myself not to text him. Because loving him and letting him touch me, hold my hand, stroke my hair, but knowing I’m not supposed to interpret it like that, even though we light the air on fire—it’s too painful.

  I need to leave my room. And my phone. So I grab my car keys and my wallet, no phone. I drive to the grocery store but sit in my car staring at the gym next door. I thought I saw something in the paper a few months ago that they have a pool, but the place looks way too small for that. The sign on the door reads COME IN!

  I walk by the door twice without going inside. I want to enter. This could be the start of something. It’s just a gym nestled in a strip mall next to a grocery store. But it’s a gym. I haven’t done anything gymlike in forever. I’m not sure my body remembers how to do anything gymlike.

  I extend my hand and place it on the door handle, pulling the door open. It’s now or never.

  Inside, it’s a little cramped and there’s so much equipment. I wouldn’t know the first thing about any of this. I sigh and consider leaving. But I’m here. And so I will explore what there is.

  A hand on my shoulder. I turn around, and I look into translucent blue eyes the color of the ocean when you can see all the way to the bottom. The eyes turn up in a smile, and I see a boy a little older than me attached to the eyes. I think about leaving again, but there’s something warm about him, about this place. So I don’t leave.

  “You’re not a regular.” It’s a statement. His voice is soft, warm, and wow, I can see all the way to the sand at the bottom of his eyes.

  “This is my first time.”

  He extends a hand. A big hand. “Dustin. Can I show you around?”

  “Please.”

  Dustin shows me the equipment, and it’s all I can do to pay attention to what he’s saying. I’m disappointed because I don’t see the pool.

  “Obviously you don’t have a pool?”

  “Oh, but we do. Only the awesomest pool in town. It’s on the roof.”

  “The roof?”

  “It’s four lanes. Kept around seventy-eight degrees and open all year round unless the weather is extreme—then we have to keep the cover on.”

  “Wow,” I say. “That is pretty awesome.”

  “The stairs are in the women’s locker room. I’d show you that, too, but I’m not sure the other ladies would appreciate it. I’ll meet you on the pool deck. Steam and sauna in the locker room, too. It’s nice after a swim.”

  He’s right about that.

  We meet on the deck, and there’s an open lane. I feel like tearing my clothes off and jumping in now. Ripples of aquamarine, steam rising from the surface, and it’s quiet save two lap swimmers who don’t look much faster than me. The chlorine burns my nose a little, reminding me of hours spent playing in the pool with my brother when we were kids. My mom loved swimming, too.

  A woman in a swishy neon warm-up suit right out of 1989 walks over to us.

  “Hi,” she says. Her voice is gruff, but she seems nice enough. “Is Dustin here giving you the tour of the gym?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “It’s nice.”

  “Built it from the ground up.”

  “You’re the owner?”

  “Nancy Dillon. Nice to meet you.”

  Nancy must be in her late fifties, but she clearly takes care of her body. I suppose that’s no surprise, given she owns a gym.

  “You a swimmer?”

  “Kinda.”

  “Kinda?” she says. “You either are or you aren’t.”

  “I love swimming. I know my strokes. But I haven’t been in the water for a few years.”

  “Well, you’ve come to the right place. Swimming is my passion. When I was young I was assistant coach for Team USA. Spent seven good years coaching Olympians. Used to coach it over at the high school, too, but after I opened this joint, just didn’t have the time for it anymore. You should try our masters swim.”

  I’m out of my league here. I can’t swim for a former Olympic coach. I can’t even swim for a high school coach. I’m not varsity material. I’m not workout material. This was a mistake.

  “You got plans the next hour?” Nancy sa
ys.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “My class starts in ten. You can join us.”

  “Oh,” I say. “I don’t have my suit. And I might need to swim a few laps before I join the masters.”

  “Nonsense,” she says. “Dustin, get her outfitted in one of the lost and found suits and find a pair of goggles. Don’t worry, we launder everything. And we split up by pace and ability. We’ll start you in the slow lane. We’ve got a pregnant mom and an eighty-eight-year-old in that lane. You’ll be just fine. Now, you have seven minutes. Go.”

  Nancy is brusque and bossy, but there’s something kind about the way she immediately decides to push me. Like she’s taking me under her wing.

  Mercifully, Dustin finds a suit that fits me, and I’m relieved that I can head upstairs without having to parade through the main part of the gym in the borrowed suit. It’s a bit old-ladyish, but modest, and I like the way it looks on my body. I don’t have time to inspect my image in the mirror for too long.

  I also don’t have time to lower gently into the pool, because Nancy’s got everyone warming up, and she’s motioning me to my lane with arms waving wildly. Wow, she’s really into this.

  The water is frigid, and I’m glad to start moving right away. The shock of cold as body joins water in movement wakes me.

  Nancy takes no prisoners. The workout kicks my butt, and I can barely finish the modified version of the drills. By the last set, everyone, including the old man and pregnant lady, is done with their workouts, but they are all crowded at the end of my lane to cheer me on.

  “How many more laps?” Nancy yells as I pull water, getting ready to flip-turn and start another lap. I stick my hand out of the water and sign two. I can hear the dull roar of the class and Nancy cheering as I flip-turn and make my way back to them. I’m high. High and exhausted and, I think, proud.

  I’m halfway through the last lap, leaving my classmates at the other end of the pool cheering me on. It’s just me now. The water slicks down my body as I move through it. Water rushes off my face as I turn my head and gasp for air. I’m lost in the rhythm of body, mind, soul, pushing and pulling, kicking, struggling to finish. But I will. I will finish this lap.