Emergency Contact

by Mary H. K. Choi

  “No,” he said. As if that would make the moment less real. Sam shook his head, mind stalled out at the denial stage of grief. “No. We love each other. We’ll always love each other. You’re a part of me.” He searched her face, uncomprehending. It felt crazy to him that she was even another person. Her arm may as well have been his arm. That his arm had the power to turn against the rest of his body and walk away made no sense. Sam felt something in his chest crack.

  “We’re addicted to each other,” she said. “It’s not healthy. Paul’s boring—don’t get me wrong—but he has stability.”

  Stability. Sam knew what that meant. Stability meant rich. Paul must have been rich. Rich in the same way she was. Rich like he’d never been and never would be. Sam reached for her just as she stood up, hesitated, and then walked out.

  After that morning, he’d moved into House and they’d gone months without speaking or running into each other. Sam had made sure of it. He avoided their old haunts, telling no one where he lived, and he worked as many hours as Al had for him. It was while on a toothpaste run at Walgreens that she called his name from down the aisle. Sam couldn’t believe how companionable they still felt as they hung back in the parking lot. They made small talk, and no one brought up Paul. When she suggested they run to Polvo’s for a margarita, it seemed like a great idea. A pitcher of House Ritas later, it seemed an even better idea to take their trip down memory lane all the way back to her apartment. He hadn’t drunk a drop since. Twenty-seven days. Each one a feat.

  When she disappeared again she became “LIAR” in his phone, and he tried to forget.

  But with a text, a single directive, he felt the pinprick of the tiniest portal open in his heart. She had such beautiful skin. Especially her clavicles. Christ, and her elbows. He loved tracing his fingertips across the crest of bone on any part of her body.

  No, he told himself.

  He wanted to reconfigure his brain. Why couldn’t he control when he thought about her? Why couldn’t he control when she thought about him?

  When they first broke up he’d watched Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind and High Fidelity on a loop. He stopped sleeping. One morning Fin, sensing a need, reached out and hugged him. The two of them stood there for well over ten minutes while Sam cried so hard he got the hiccups.

  Nope. Never. Again.

  He deleted the text.

  • • •

  For the next two hours, he tidied obsessively. Jude texted again, and Sam nearly had a heart attack thinking it was Lorraine. It was another invitation to dinner, but again he begged off, citing work. He felt equal parts guilty and annoyed. He considered telling Jude he would be busy for the foreseeable future but decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. His lower back hurt and Sam wondered if the customers could detect the crazy in his eyes.

  When his shift ended, he was spent. Sam settled the register and yawned. He could hear Fin in the back, hauling trash. Fin unfailingly let the screen door slam, which drove Sam nuts, but this time he was too tired to bitch. The only good thing about getting up at the absolute asscrack of dawn was that he was closed by eight and in bed sometimes by eight fifteen. Even if all he did under the covers was blink and not drink.

  Earlier that year, Al had installed an impenetrable security system that amounted to a fake video camera affixed above the door and an automated gate that was already no longer automated. Sam walked outside to pull it closed. It took both hands and his full body weight.

  “Put your back into it, flaco!” Fin yelled over his shoulder.

  Sam laughed. “Your mom,” he said. Fin cackled and cracked open a beer.

  Your mom? God, he was tired.

  Sam’s nickname in high school had been AIDS because kids are jerks and because he was so emaciated. He hated his concave body with his visible veins and the individual, stringy muscles that you could watch move under his skin when he worked. Yet somewhere along the line, girls started seeing something in him other than the skinniness, and by then he stopped caring.

  Still, there were times when he wished he were a big, hulking, ham-fisted dude who could slam the stupid gate shut in one go.

  “Sam,” called a voice from the shadows.

  Sam jumped and made a high-pitched “wooot” that he immediately regretted.

  He knew who it was instantly. And she’d for sure heard his sapless, startled woooot.

  “I texted you,” Lorraine said. He could detect flint in her tone.

  Sam was surprised that it had taken only one afternoon for Lorraine, a.k.a. LIAR, to materialize. Patience wasn’t her thing, though dropping by after a disappearance was bold even for her.

  “What do you want, Lorraine?” Sam shot back.

  “We have to talk,” she said.

  Original, he thought.

  “What could there possibly be left to discuss?” He finished locking up. “I mean, if anything, your silence for the past month suggests there’s nothing on the docket.”

  He wished he could subtly sniff his pits to see how he smelled. Why was he only ever running into her when he was completely unprepared? Of course, she was buttoned up for work and wearing a blazer. Liar was the worst.

  “Seriously, Lorraine,” he continued. “You made it clear. We’re ancient history. The Paleozoic era. Older even. Whatever comes before the Paleozoic era. The Anthropocene . . . No, wait, that’s now. . . .” He shoved his sweaty hands into his pockets.

  “Stop talking,” she said.

  He scowled at her.

  “Please.”

  Lorraine stepped into the light. She was pale. Paler than usual, which was already poet blouses and Oh-My-Goth levels of pallor.

  Sam walked toward the porch steps and sat down. She followed. The sunset smeared pink across the sky as they stared out to the street.

  “What is it?” His hand twitched for the cigarettes he didn’t want to smoke in front of her.

  “Sam,” she said. “I’m late.”

  No joke, he thought for the split second before the full weight of her words hit him.

  He took a deep breath and ran his hands through his hair. They felt numb.

  Of course she was late. It made sense. In fact, it was the only news it could have been. It’s not as if anything ever went the way he thought it would. Lorraine, for that matter, was not returning to his life after a spell of soul-searching to tell him she still loved him.

  Christ.

  Late.

  They’d done it this time.

  The dreadful rush of adrenaline was so immediate that he clapped his hands. Just once. Some lizard-brain Texas hardwiring kicked in to where all he knew was to act out the caricature of a high school football coach in times of crisis.

  “Okay,” he said in a purposeful tone. “How late?”

  Clear eyes, full heart.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “What?” Sam squawked. “Aren’t girls supposed to, you know, keep track?” Sam understood that the female reproductive system was a mysterious universe, but this seemed far-fetched. Then he thought about the teen moms on TV who accidentally had their babies on the toilet.

  “Did you take a pregnancy test?”

  Lorraine rolled her eyes. “Yeah, Sam.”

  “And?”

  “Positive.”

  Shitshitshit.

  “How many?”

  “Four,” she said. “No, three.”

  Now, Sam wasn’t an ob-gyn or anything, but this seemed an irrationally small number of sticks to pee on before any thinking human could declare themselves in or out of the unwanted-pregnancy woods. In fact, Sam couldn’t believe she hadn’t taken at least twenty, and even still Lorraine should go to the doctor for a blood test to be completely positive. Positively positive.

  Shitshitshit.

  “Okay,” he said, placing his hands on her shoulders. “You have to take a bunch more. I’ll take you. We’ll go right now.”

  He almost pounded her back in high-strung jocular cheer.

&n
bsp; “Sam, you’re freaking me out.”

  “No, don’t freak,” he shrieked. Sam smiled with all his teeth displayed. “It’ll be fine. You should go to a doctor, a specialist, eliminate any doubt. For peace of mind.”

  “A specialist?” she said. “You sound insane.”

  Sam wiped his palms on the tops of his thighs.

  “What about your regular doctor? Don’t you go to some fancy guy?”

  “I can’t go to Dr. Wisham,” she said, rolling her eyes. “He’s my pediatrician.”

  Why was she still going to a pediatrician?

  “Why are you still going to a pediatrician? It doesn’t matter,” he recovered. “I’ll pay for it.” Sam wondered about the going rate for plasma donation and how much a slightly underweight human male could spare before he keeled over and died. Maybe he could donate a toe to science.

  Sam cleared his throat. He rubbed his chin. Most of the time they’d been good about condoms. Most of the time.

  “I have an appointment with Planned Parenthood on Thursday,” she said.

  It was Friday. Thursday was way too many nights away.

  “I can’t miss work,” she explained.

  “I’m sure they’d understand if—”

  “I can’t,” she interrupted. “It’s a big deal. I’m the only entry-level team member, and I’m running production on three tent-pole activations for a client. Some random can’t cover for me because I’m . . . ‘worried.’ ” Lorraine rolled her eyes. Sam found the rest of the word salad more offensive than “worried,” though he bit his tongue. “It’s not as if I work in fast food or anything.” She peered at him guiltily. “No offense.”

  First of all, managing an artisanal coffee purveyor was not working in fast food. Second of all . . .

  “You’re in advertising,” he said. “You’re not exactly saving lives. No offense.”

  Shit. Tact. He needed to chill. Sam took another deep breath.

  She glared at him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m still processing. So next week, do you need me to come with you?”

  Sam considered the logistics. Maybe he could borrow Fin’s car.

  “No,” she said.

  Paul was probably driving her. Every time Sam thought about faceless, rich-ass Paul, he felt rage collect in the pit of his stomach in blistering pea-size sores.

  “How late are you?”

  “Three weeks?”

  Jesus.

  Three weeks was an eternity in the life cycle of late periods. Or so it seemed from everything he knew about periods. Which wasn’t much.

  They stood in silence. Sam pulled out his cigarettes. Then he imagined pink, teeny-tiny, microscopic baby lungs coughing. He put them away.

  “I wanted to take a morning-after pill,” she said. “But then I didn’t, and . . .”

  Sam thought about how careless they’d both been.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were worried?”

  Sam’s stomach lurched guiltily at the prospect of Liar dealing with this herself.

  “I thought about it.”

  “You waited three weeks to text me.”

  “I figured it was only a little late.”

  “Well, now it’s kinda very incredibly late,” finished Sam.

  “I’m worried,” Lorraine said, not meeting his eyes.

  Wow. Was she going to cry? As screwed up as the circumstance was, was this when Sam would get to see Lorraine cry?

  “Well.” Sam held her and she let him. It made him feel strong and capable. “We’ll figure it out.”

  “How?”

  “Just that I’m here for you. I support you. I mean, it is mine, right?”

  She pushed him away. Hard.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Well, Jesus, Lorr, it could be Paul’s!” His anger swelled red-hot and righteous.

  “I haven’t been with Paul since before you!” she yelled.

  Sam smiled before he caught himself.

  Ha. Suck it, Paul.

  Sam studied Lorraine then. Shit. He was in way over his head. Still, he couldn’t help focusing on how she was mad at him and how he was stupidly elated that he was capable of making her this mad. It was all quite possibly the most idiotic circumstance to bring a baby into. A blameless, chubby nugget of person caught in the middle of two selfish screw-ups. Sam could feel his anxiety thrum in the back of his chest.

  “If you are pregnant,” he said slowly, “what do you want to do?”

  He thought about the A word.

  A-B-O-R-T-I-O-N

  AH BORSH SHUNN

  BORSCHT

  As in the beet-red soup with soft bits in it.

  Borscht. Borscht. Borscht.

  “I don’t know if I could terminate,” she said.

  TERMINATE.

  Sam’s mind glommed on to the glimmering red light in the Terminator’s eye at the end of the movie, when the cyborg refused to die.

  “I’m not a child, Sam,” she said. “I’m not some knocked-up fifteen-year-old. I’m twenty-three. That’s old enough to know better. My mom had me at twenty-four. . . . I can’t.”

  He stared at her. Just drank her in. Blond hair. Small hands. Blue blouse. Black slacks.

  It was a fair response.

  It seemed exactly the sort of thing you’d know about yourself. Except Sam didn’t know anything anymore.

  PENNY.

  When Penny was in ninth grade, two events of great portent occurred. One, she read Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus. Two, she figured out that she wouldn’t be popular until she was a grown-up and that was fine because life was a long con.

  Penny had Amber Friedman’s birthday party to thank for this wisdom. Amber Friedman was a girl from French class who famously woke up at five forty-five every morning to straighten her curly hair only to set it in differently shaped curls. Everybody figured she was well off since her dad was a music journalist for Rolling Stone. And while life was tough for Penny as the daughter of a MILF, having a dad with more Instagram followers than God was also a monumental suck. Amber’s dad cast a long shadow. It didn’t help that his daughter wasn’t cute. Not that she was ugly. She simply had one of those faces where the features were crowded into the middle like a too-big room with tiny furniture.

  Then there was her personality. Amber loved butting in to finish other people’s sentences—even with teachers—and sneezed with a high-pitched “tssst” at least a half-dozen times. To Penny it seemed a bid for the wrong kind of attention. Anyway, Penny hadn’t been properly invited to the get-together. Amber’s mom and Penny’s mom were friendly from an Ethiopian cooking class they’d taken years ago and happened to run into each other at the market.

  “But, Pen, Amber’s going to be so disappointed,” said Celeste, adding, “I got you both the new nail gel kits from Sephora.” Celeste dangled two shiny black bags.

  Penny was more susceptible to bribery then. She rode her bike over and figured there’d at least be snacks and cake and enough people that she could bail inconspicuously.

  When she arrived, six pairs of eyes bored into her from the living room of the pokey ranch house. It smelled as if cat pee had been doused liberally with Pine-Sol, and Penny couldn’t help thinking about how if you could smell anything it was because you were breathing particles of it into your body. Penny encouraged her face not to betray her thoughts as she said hi to Melissa and Christy from school and two girls Amber knew from temple. Huge silver Mylar balloons that spelled out AMBER clung to the ceiling except for the B that hung about midroom and kept sticking to the back of Amber’s hair.

  Over the next two hours, they made personalized pizzas that Amber’s mom baked in the oven and sundaes for dessert. When clear plastic boxes of beads were presented so they could make earrings with fishing wire, Penny discovered her limit for boredom. She excused herself to go to the bathroom, listened carefully for anyone else in the house, and quietly began canvassing the area. Amber’s room featured no less than five black
-and-white posters of Audrey Hepburn, and atop her canopied bed lay an orange cat grooming itself. It stopped to glare at Penny before deciding the intruder wasn’t worth the attention. When Penny poked her head into what she figured was Amber’s dad’s office, she hit pay dirt. Mike Friedman, music critic, had every graphic novel ever. Ever. EVER. Stacks. From Spider-Man to Superman to huge volumes of collected editions with shiny hard covers, organized by subject.

  Penny couldn’t believe it. Mere feet from the inane small talk (“isn’t it, like, so awk how some people say caramel and other people say carm-el?”) and bullshit pizza toppings like (gag) cubed pineapple were thousands of hours of genuine entertainment. He had everything. From Swamp Thing to V for Vendetta and Persepolis, from We3 to Runaways.

  Mr. Friedman’s room smelled of new books—pulp and varnish. After a whole shelf filled with a cute, pudgy character called Bone, Penny found Maus.

  Penny had wanted to read Maus ever since she learned that it was the first comic to win the Pulitzer Prize, and upon realizing that Mr. Friedman had two copies—a hardcover and a soft—Penny did what any kid would. She stuck the soft down the back of her jeans, slid her sweatshirt over it, pretended she had a stomachache, and hightailed it home.

  It was among the most shameful moments of her life. Never mind the karma of a total non-Jew stealing a book about the Jewish Holocaust from a Jewish person.

  Except that the book changed her life.

  Penny knew Maus was going to be formative. Not that she was going to become a career criminal, more that she felt destined to make something that made someone else feel how she did when she read it.

  Penny believed with her whole heart that there were moments—crucial instances—that defined who someone was going to be. There were clues or signs, and you didn’t want to miss them.

  It astounded her that a comic book featuring cartoon mice and cats could trick her into learning so much about World War II. Not only learn about it but care about it. She’d known about Auschwitz and how they told all the prisoners that they were going to take showers and instead, cutting off their hair, throwing it in a pile, and sending them to the gas chamber. Even kids. In history last year they’d had a quiz on the dates and significant events of the war, and she’d gotten a near-perfect score. Yet it wasn’t until she read Maus and lived it through the eyes of a father and son mouse, that she saw past the cold facts. That night Penny read Maus twice and cried. She knew then that she had to become a writer.