by Selena
“Mine, too,” I said. “Give us five minutes.”
“Have you been to see a doctor?” Laney asked Uma. “After the test, I mean?”
“Yeah,” Uma said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Actually, I did. He said everything was fine.”
“And when was that?”
Uma suddenly seemed to find the ceiling very interesting.
“Well?” Laney asked, one hand on her hip.
“You wouldn’t understand,” Uma said. “You’re rich.”
“Just come with us to Salt Lake,” I said. “We can figure shit out, and you’ll be taken care of.”
“And then what?” Uma asked. “You’re going to leave me there?”
“Of course not,” I said. “I’ll fly you home.”
Although since she didn’t have a home, I wasn’t sure why she really cared. It didn’t sound like her friends were going to be there for her, anyway.
“Fine,” she said, flopping down on the plush leather couch that ran along one side of the bus.
“She’s coming on tour with us?” Laney asked, giving me an incredulous look. “It’s not bad enough that I find out you knocked up some groupie, now you’re taking her on the road with us? I’m not going to be the wife while she gets to be the mistress. That is not what I signed up for.” She whirled and stomped back to the bedroom, rattling the accordion folding door closed.
The driver fired up the bus, and as we pulled out, I finally answered my phone. “What the hell are you doing?” Nash asked. “Trying to give me an aneurism? Why aren’t you answering your phone?”
“I told you, I wanted to take care of the personal side of this.”
“Yeah? Laney sticking around?”
“For now.”
“Tell me you got rid of the crack head.”
“She’s right here on the bus,” I said. “She’s coming with us.”
To my surprise, Nash didn’t throw another tantrum. “Alright, we got your lawyers on it. We’ll need DNA tests, and we’ll need her to sign some NDAs. And we can get her to a doctor first thing, see if they can still get rid of it.”
The way he said it, so off-handedly, like he was talking about a smelly take-out bag that had to be tossed off the bus at the next stop, made my hands curl into fists. That was a baby he was talking about—my baby.
“I don’t know if that’s what we want to do.”
“Oh, so now it’s ‘we’?” Nash let out that bark of a laugh. “You do realize if she has that baby, you’re going to be paying child support for the rest of your goddamn life?”
“I think I can afford it.”
“How much is she asking not to spill it to the tabloid circuit? A million? She’s probably shooting low, right? People like that never know how much to ask for.”
I glanced over at Uma, who was chewing on a hangnail again, staring out the window with glazed, unseeing eyes. “She asked for five hundred.”
“See, even less,” Nash said, laughing. “Half a mil is even better.”
“No,” I said, smiling. “Five hundred dollars.”
Nash was still cackling when I hung up.
Outside, the Space Needle thrust into the sky above the skyline of Seattle. Laney had wanted to go see it, to walk around and shop the day before, but we’d ended up wasting the day in the hotel room, not knowing it would be the last day we could enjoy each other without this uncrossable distance between us. It was like Uma had said—this thing was an alien invader. Except it hadn’t just invaded her body. Now it had invaded Laney and my relationship, too.
thirty
Laney
When I heard the accordion door fold open, I didn’t turn from where I was lying on the bed, my back to the door. Even curled in the fetal position, I couldn’t make the sick feeling leave my stomach. I didn’t know if I could be held responsible for what I said to Brody right now, after he brought his pregnant ex-mistress on tour with him. With each new development, I could feel the wedge between us being driven deeper, pushing us further and further apart.
“Hey.”
At the sound of the unfamiliar voice, I scrambled up from the bed. Uma was standing in the doorway, her thumbs hooked into her front pockets in that defensive stance, as if she were trying to look tough and cool.
I tossed my hair and squared my shoulders, trying to look put-together myself. If Brody came in and saw me lying there, broken, it would kill him. I wanted him to see how hurt I was. I wanted it to hurt him.
But I didn’t want this girl seeing how much power she had.
“What do you want?” I asked, my tone light, not angry.
“I wanted to talk to you,” Uma said. “I told Brody I had special girl insight, and it would be better if I came back here instead of him.” She grinned like she was quite pleased with herself.
I waited, wary of what she’d say next.
Uma pushed the door shut and sat down on the edge of the bed, pulling one knee up and facing me, while I still stood on the far side of the bed.
“Listen, I know this is weird. It’s got to be, right? I mean, you don’t know me from Adam, and here I come on tour with you. What if I rob you? What if I’m some crazy stalker fangirl getting the dream of a lifetime, right?”
“Okay,” I said slowly.
“I’m not after your man.”
“Okay.”
“He’s not even my type. I mean, yeah, we hooked up, but it just happened. I don’t even like his stupid boyband crap. And he was kind of an asshole when I told him that, and so… Well, that’s my type, I guess,” she said with a shrug and a little laugh. “But now? Like, less than zero attraction. Zilch. Almost repellent.”
“Why were you backstage if you didn’t even like them?”
“I was there with my cousin. Anyway, I just wanted to get that straight between us. Because really. You made him all nice and decent, which is great, I’m not saying it’s not good. It just doesn’t do it for me.”
“You admit you like assholes?”
“Um, yeah. Who doesn’t?”
I perched on the very edge of the bed, ready to jump up if things got weird. “Most girls don’t actually know they like assholes, and if they do, they won’t admit it.”
“Why not admit it?” Uma said. “I’m still a freaking teenager. Wow, that sounds weird to say. But yeah. I’m not looking to get married. I want to travel, and play music, and do crazy shit like sleep with some random asshole once in a while. What can I say, bad boys with good dick are my kryptonite.”
“Can you not call him that?”
Uma grinned. “Sorry. Point is, one day, when I’m ready to get married, I’m sure I’ll want a sweet guy like you made Brody into. But right now, I couldn’t want anything less.”
“But here’s the thing,” I said, smoothing the comforter on the bed where Brody and I had been sleeping for the past month, had made love countless times. Where maybe he’d impregnated this very girl. “Brody is a good guy. And when you have a baby… Well, everyone knows it changes you. What if you change your mind then? And you have this great guy right there, being a great dad. Because he will be a great dad. And he’s the baby’s dad. You’re going to want him.”
“You’re talking like I’m having this thing.”
“I know Brody’s trying to let you make this decision,” I said. “But he’s the dad. Doesn’t he get a say?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it,” Uma said, frowning at a spot on the floor beside the bed. “Do you think he wants a say?”
“He’ll never tell you not to do what you need to do,” I said. “But aren’t you at least curious what he’d say?”
“No,” Uma said. “I wasn’t. It’s my body. You’re curious what he’d say because you love him. But I have no feelings one way or another. He doesn’t mean anything to me, and neither does his opinion.”
“So you wouldn’t be at all interested in what he’d have to say about it? You wouldn’t care if he said he wanted to make things right?”
; “Like get married? Hell no. Are you kidding? I don’t even know him.”
I wasn’t convinced. I didn’t think Uma was lying, but I didn’t think anyone could resist Brody. If he wanted her, he could get her to fall for him. And that’s how those things always seemed to work out. Once he saw Uma with the baby—his baby—and he loved the baby, and she loved the baby… Fast forward a few months and they’d be sending out wedding invitations.
“You should probably get to know him, if you’re going to have a baby together,” I said. “Even if you’re not getting married.”
“Why do you keep saying we’re having a baby?” Uma asked, her hand curling around her little belly. “You think… You really think it’s too late?” Her voice went high and trembly, and I actually felt sorry for her.
“Honestly? Yeah, I do. And I don’t think you’d be able to go through with it even if it wasn’t.”
“I can’t be a mom,” Uma said, her striking eyes suddenly filled with liquid. “I don’t know the first thing about babies.”
I scooted across the bed and sat beside her. “You don’t have to be a mom,” I assured her. “You have to have a baby, though. There’s no way around that. It’s in there, and it has to come out. But no one is going to force you to keep it, to be a mother to a kid you don’t want. There are a lot of people out there who would want this baby.”
Uma sniffed. “You think so?”
“I know so. You’re going to be fine.”
“Thanks,” Uma said with a shaky smile. She wiped her eyes again. “God, you don’t even know how much this has sucked. I didn’t tell anyone for like, five months. I mean, who was I going to tell? My band? Because that worked out so well.”
“Don’t you have, like, a family or anything?”
Uma shook her head. “My cousin and her parents, but they’re traveling.”
“Where’s all your stuff?” I asked, realizing that Uma hadn’t stopped to get anything before agreeing to go with us.
“I don’t have stuff.”
“Nothing? Not even a keepsake from your mom, or…clothes?”
“I left my clothes at my drummer’s place,” she said. “After her boyfriend… I mean, I wasn’t afraid to go back and get them, but…”
“What about your guitar or whatever? That’s got to be worth some money.”
Uma snorted. “I got my guitar at a pawn shop. I mean, yeah, I loved it. But it’s not worth shit. Nothing I have is worth shit.”
Except that baby.
Brody Villines’s baby was worth a lot. If she kept it, she’d be set for life from child support alone. But then we’d never get rid of her. I could see it now. If I married Brody, but this girl had his baby, she’d be a part of our lives forever.
The irresponsible baby-mama, showing up at holidays to cause drama, awkwardly inserting the kid into family pictures after Brody and I had a family of our own. I could see Uma in ten years, dumping the kid on us while she ran off to be her wild-child self, chasing after some asshole, never thinking of how it affected the kid. And my own kids growing up thinking Uma was the cool mom, telling me they wished Uma was their mom. And Brody, forever caught between us, pulled in two directions, trying to explain to our kids why one of their sisters had a different mom.
thirty-one
Brody
You’re making a big mistake.
Nash’s words ran through my head on a replay loop as I sat sprawled in a chair in the clinic’s waiting room, chin tucked to chest, hat pulled low over my face. Uma sat on my left, the click of her teeth knocking together every time she bit at the nonexistent end of her fingernail audible in the silence. Only one other couple occupied the waiting room, a pair of actors, and they looked too busy worrying to notice me.
“I can’t just let her go alone,” I had told Nash the night before, when I’d told him about the appointment.
“Someone’s going to recognize you,” Nash had warned. “It’s going to be all over the gossip columns by evening.”
“Then find a way to spin it,” I had said. It became a little harder when Laney had opted out of the appointment. Now it was obvious to anyone that Uma and I were there together. It would get out eventually anyway, despite going to the pricey, private clinic in L.A. where confidentiality paid everyone’s salary.
“Would you like some cucumber water?” a candy-striper asked Uma, holding out a tray. Everyone spoke in subdued voices here, smiled with soothing, solicitous faces, and pretended stars did nothing so ugly and common as have medical problems.
Uma took a glass and waited for the girl to leave before leaning over to me. “This place creeps me out,” she whispered. “Everyone’s so plastic.”
“It’s L.A.,” I said. “Get used to it.”
“No, thanks.”
Just then, a nurse in seafoam scrubs with a sweet, demure smile approached and murmured Uma’s name. “Whenever you’re ready,” she said.
You’re making a big mistake.
Uma looked at me, and I looked at her. “I guess this is it,” she said, her face even paler than usual.
“I guess so.” I found myself biting back a smile. “Ready to go meet her?”
“How do you know it’s a her?”
I faltered, my fingers closing around the sleek wooden arms of the chair I sat in. “I—I don’t.”
You’re making a big mistake.
“Right this way,” the nurse said when we stood. We followed her down a carpeted corridor and into a room that, no matter how posh, could not look like anything other than what it was. Uma sat on the edge of the exam table, her hands squeezed between her knees, while the nurse asked her an endless stream of questions about everything from her diet, sleep habits, antacid consumption, family history, sexual activity, and urine output, most of which Uma had already answered on the forms she filled out in the waiting room.
Finally, the nurse told Uma to undress while she stepped out. I turned my back while Uma stripped off the black jeans and Stones t-shirt she’d bought in Salt Lake.
“Want me to wait outside while you get, uh, checked?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “You have to endure the awkward with me. I didn’t get here on my own.”
You’re making a big mistake.
“If you’re sure it won’t make you uncomfortable.”
“Dude, you’ve probably seen like a thousand pussies,” she said. “I don’t think mine’s all that special.”
I didn’t know how to tell her that I didn’t want to be there. That I didn’t want to see her naked. Suddenly, I was relieved that Laney wasn’t there. She would have taken it the wrong way that Uma wanted me there.
You’re making a big mistake.
“You’re kind of a prude,” Uma said behind me. The paper on the table crackled, and I turned back to find her sitting there in the luxurious white cotton gown. “Look at this thing,” she said. “You think they’d notice if I took off with it? I’d sleep in this thing. It’s fucking amazing. Feel it.”
“I’m okay.”
“Seriously, you’re going to have to get over this weirdness,” she said. “Some dude’s about to come in here and stick his whole hand up inside me.”
“Uh huh.”
“Why are you being such a dude? We fucked, Brody. You’ve seen my vag. You came inside it. How are you squeamish about it now?”
“I’m not.”
“Vaginas are not put on earth solely for your pleasure,” she said. “They’re also for birthing humans. And if that thing’s going to rip the bottom off me, you’re going to be there to see it come tearing out. So enough with the pretense that this is something sweet and precious. Just because you take me to the most expensive clinic the country doesn’t make it any less gory.”
The doctor arrived then, a thirtyish woman with her dark hair pulled back in a tight bun. Uma lay back and set her feet in the stirrups, smirking at me. I stood at her shoulder and took her hand as the doctor did the exam. “I understand you want a DNA test,” she said.
“Yep,” Uma said.
“Has someone gone over the risks with you?”
“Yep.”
“Everything looks good with you,” the doctor said after a few minutes of poking and prodding. “We’ll get you down for an ultrasound in just a few minutes.”
When she left us alone again, Uma sat up.
“I don’t think we should do the DNA test,” I said, holding her hand in both of mine. The thought of a needle that long made me a little woozy. “Not if there’s a chance you could lose it.”
“Don’t tell me you’re worried about the little alien,” Uma said, rolling her eyes.
But I had thought about it, not just because Nash had reminded me how it would look if I gave up my baby for adoption. “Are you sure…you don’t want her?”
“Um, yeah,” Uma said. “Aren’t you?”
“I don’t know,” I said, running a hand through my hair.
“What, Brody Villines is going to be a single dad?” she asked. “Give me a break. You’re not going to give up the next eighteen years of your life any more than I am.”
“It just seems like there’s gotta be a way we could make it work.”
“What about Laney? Have you asked how she feels about this?”
I hadn’t. We’d barely spoken since Uma showed up. But somehow, it didn’t feel right. She was the most important thing in my life, but this was important now, too.
December
thirty-two
Laney
More and more tour dates kept being added, until we finally ended the twelve-show tour after thirty shows. Nash was always hounding me before, but he barely acknowledged me anymore. Brody was always busy with his choreographer, or his vocal coach, or Nash, or his agent, reporters, magazines, interviews with YCE and MTV and VH1. Almost every night, he had a show somewhere. I kept to myself, or sometimes hung out with Uma. She wasn’t Piper, but she was a familiar face. And I didn’t hate her—I couldn’t, really.
Finally, the tour ended, and we had off a few weeks, so we went home for Christmas. Though I had told my mother about the recent developments, I hadn’t seen her since summer. The moment I saw the tender, pitying look on Blair’s face as she pulled me in for a hug, I knew my worst fears weren’t all in my head.