“Abortion stops a beating heart! Abortion stops a beating heart!”
My own heart was beating fast as I stood in the line with everyone, behind a tall chain-link fence that kept us from getting any nearer the clinic. By law, that was as close as we could get. On the other side of us, traffic passed on the road, and very often there would be honking horns—I was never sure whether those honks were expressions of affirmation or disapproval.
I had tried, unsuccessfully, to stay hidden in the back of the crowd. I had hoped just to stand there with my sign, like a statue, an inanimate object blending in with the others. But Jon and Jared had us spread out almost single file, so that we spanned the length of the fence. This way, I was in full view for all to see, completely exposed, and had to watch the people who came in and out of the clinic.
They kept their heads down and didn’t look at us. I wondered what they must be thinking. I thought up crass jokes: Of all the days to get an abortion, I had to pick today!
Some of these women had people with them, but I was struck by how many I saw alone. Where were their boyfriends, their husbands, their friends, their parents? If I had to get an abortion, my mom would come with me. But, of course, I wouldn’t get an abortion if I got pregnant, would I? That was the whole idea of me standing out here with this sign in my hands. I thought of that day with Ian, in his bedroom. What if we had gone all the way? What if he had impregnated me? What if part of Ian—a boy I hardly knew and, at this point, didn’t want to know—what if a part of him had broken off and found its way inside me, shooting into my body and merging with a part of me, and then this new thing had grown and grown inside my body without my permission or control, and I, in turn, was supposed to feel love and protection for this thing? Suddenly, the whole idea of being pregnant seemed weird and frightening in a way I had never thought about before. And though I had no idea what I thought about abortion, I was secretly glad that none of the women who walked by us toward the clinic turned around.
We had been out here for about an hour, long enough that I’d begun to grow numb to the whole thing and now began to think about my aching feet and the beginnings of a headache. I kept looking up at the sky and hoping the clouds would open up and rain, forcing us to pack it in.
“Hey.” Liz came up and offered me a water bottle. “How ya doing?”
I nodded, took the bottle, and began to open it. “Do you know how long we’re going to stay out here?” I asked.
But before Liz could answer, we heard a screeching noise behind us. We turned to see a green Subaru pull out of the sluggish traffic and make a quick, sloppy job of parking on the curb right in front of us. A stocky woman with short, gel-spiked hair, wearing jeans and a brown sweater, got out of the car. Before I even had time to register my surprise that she was glaring at me as she approached, she was already on top of us, shouting. “You kids should be ashamed of yourselves! It’s bad enough that you’re doing this at all, but doing it here—that’s just … Don’t you have any decency? The last thing these women need right now are people like you waving a bunch of signs and shouting this nonsensical bullshit.”
I opened my mouth, but it was dry. In that moment, I couldn’t understand why this woman was so mad at me. What had I done? This had nothing to do with me. I was just standing here with my antiabortion sign, minding my own business. I glanced at Liz, but she also seemed to be paralyzed. A few feet away, Haley was watching the scene with interest. It was with relief that I watched Jared rush over to our aid. “Ma’am, do you have a minute to talk?” he said to the woman.
She turned her eyes from us to Jared, and you could almost see her rage transferring over to him, like a missile changing targets. “Did you bring these kids out here? You are just horrible, you know that? Brainwashing kids and then leading them here to do something like this.”
“These kids have chosen to come here on their own,” Jared said calmly, “speaking for those who do not have a voice. We’re here because we believe life is a gift from God, and the unborn are part of—”
“What the hell would you know about the unborn?” she snapped. “Have you ever been pregnant, Birkenstocks? You know nothing about this, you understand me? Nothing.”
“I know that abortion is wrong. I know that God has a plan for each and every life he creates. I know that …”
The woman ignored Jared and turned back to us. This time, she seemed to be almost pleading with us. “You don’t have to listen to this crap, you know that, girls? Those are your bodies, your brains. Use them.” And for a second, she looked as if she was about to cry. “I shouldn’t have gotten out. This was a mistake,” she said. Then she turned and ran back to her car.
Liz laughed nervously as her car disappeared back into the traffic. “Well, that was weird.”
“She was probably a lesbian,” said Haley, and glanced at me.
I tried not to look at her. My head was pounding almost as bad as my heart. I suddenly felt weak and stick to my stomach, the way I had the year before, almost as if I were about to faint, but I made myself stay on my feet. I couldn’t faint. I couldn’t attract any attention. This is all for you, Martin, I thought as I took a large gulp of water. I’m doing all this for you.
Later that evening, I sat in a chair in the corner of the United Believers sanctuary, holding a cup of tea and watching everyone else carry on as if nothing had happened, as if we hadn’t spent all afternoon screaming out for innocent lives and against the unseen genocide going on in our country. Half the chairs in the sanctuary had been put away, leaving the front end clear. There was a table set up with hot water for tea and hot chocolate. There were cookies and crackers, and later we’d be ordering pizza. Switchfoot was playing softly from the overhead speakers. Near the stage, I watched Haley flirt with a few of the boys of UBA, giving little jerks of her head so that her long blond hair made waves, placing her hand on one of the guys’ shoulder.
Liz came over holding a handful of Oreos in a napkin. “Hey,” she said, “want some?”
I shook my head. “No thanks, I’m good.”
“Jared says after the pizza comes, he’ll put Lord of the Rings on the projector. So excited.”
I tried to smile. For a moment, I wished I could be like Liz, still content with the little things. I wished my heart weren’t a gaping hole, wanting something I couldn’t seem to find. I was fifteen, and why couldn’t I be satisfied with hot chocolate and pizza and a movie?
One of the other girls from UBA called from across the room. “Liz, we’re gonna play Twister. Come on!” A group of them were setting up the game.
Liz looked at me. “Wanna play?”
“Actually,” I said, checking my phone, “I have to get ready to see my grandma. I’m meeting her in an hour.” I stood up. “I’ll see you later.”
It was only when I was alone, in an empty bathroom with the door locked, that I began to grow truly nervous about meeting him. Yes, a cloud of unease had been overshadowing me all day, keeping my stomach in knots and making it hard to eat, but now that unease had intensified and sharpened. I felt the way I did before I had to give a line in the school play or before taking a really difficult test I hadn’t studied for—only much, much worse.
I opened up the duffel bag that I’d packed my clothes in and pulled out the brand-new pair of jeans and top I had bought and painstakingly folded so they wouldn’t be creased or wrinkled. Because of where we were meeting, I had decided to dress casually, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t still look good.
The bathroom had a full-length mirror on the wall, and when I had finished getting dressed, I examined myself. They were the tightest-fitting jeans I’d ever worn. The fabric clung to my skin as if it wanted to fuse permanently with my body. The top I had brought was black and low-cut. I had chosen it because I thought it accentuated my breasts but also made me look thinner. Still, I was dissatisfied with the results. I didn’t seem to look as g
ood as I had when I tried it on in my room a few weeks ago.
I let my hair out of its ponytail and began to comb it. I hated my hair—its color, its frizz. It never did what I wanted it to do. It was always out to thwart my plans. Over the sink, I began putting on my makeup, trying not to overdo it. I had known I wouldn’t have access to a shower or enough time to get ready properly, so the plan had been to look as if I hadn’t put much time or thought into my appearance, like I had just crawled out of bed and thrown something on and still managed to look amazing. The only problem with this plan, when I examined myself again in the mirror, was that I didn’t look amazing. My face was still too round, there was nothing the makeup could do about my freckles, and my hair was being a pain as usual. I turned around and looked over my shoulder into the mirror. I thought, with a mixture of pleasure and frustration, that I looked much better from this angle. Maybe it was just the jeans, but I couldn’t deny that my ass looked good—almost a woman’s ass, almost the kind of ass guys would turn and admire if you passed them on the street. But I wasn’t sure how to feel about the idea that my butt was my best feature, that I didn’t look as good from the front as I did from behind.
When I came back into the sanctuary, I prayed nobody would comment on my outfit or the fact that I was wearing makeup. But when nobody did, I felt a little worried. Did I look so ordinary that no one had even noticed? I spotted Jon over by the tables, opening the pizza boxes that had just arrived.
I made sure I was standing well in earshot of Jon when I pretended to get the phone call.
“Hello?” I spoke loudly into my phone. “Grandma? Grandma, I can’t hear you.” I plugged my other ear with my finger. “You’re outside the church? Now? Okay, I’ll be right there.”
I put my phone in my pocket and turned to Jon. “That was my grandma. She’s waiting out front.”
Jon kept his eyes on the pizza. “Okay, Laura, have a nice time.”
“Thanks.” I turned and started away.
“Oh, Laura?”
I stopped; my heart stopped; I turned around.
Jon looked at me directly for the first time today. “How long will you be gone?” he asked.
“We’re just getting dinner,” I said. “No more than two hours.”
He nodded. “All right. You’ve got my number, right?”
“Of course.” I smiled and turned back around.
When I got outside, I saw that the clouds had cleared and the sky was a brilliant, beautiful yellow, though it was still drizzling slightly. What did they call that? A sun shower? I walked quickly down the sidewalk away from the church, and when I rounded the corner I saw the cab I had called for idling at the curb. I got in and gave the driver the address to the restaurant. As the car pulled out into traffic, I took out my phone and texted Martin to tell him I was almost there. Then I pulled my pocket mirror out of my bag and began applying a dark-red shade of lipstick.
BEN
In August my parents bought DeShawn a brand-new ten-speed bike for his birthday. I knew this wasn’t what they originally had in mind. They’d been planning for weeks to get him a guitar. My dad had been doing research online—browsing user reviews and professional websites—and he’d even gone to a music store in Saratoga, to ask the owner there his opinion on what kind of guitar to buy. But when we came back from camp in July, DeShawn had changed his mind about guitar lessons.
“Why’s that, DeShawn?” my dad asked him over dinner.
He shrugged. “Just don’t feel like it anymore.”
I watched my parents exchange looks, but they didn’t press him. After two weeks went by, DeShawn still hadn’t changed his mind, though he continued to blare my dad’s old records in his room. My dad—though disappointed, I think—had thought of the bicycle instead. And maybe to make up for his disappointment, he got the nicest, most expensive bike in the store.
The first night DeShawn took it out, I followed on my old bike, which had stayed in the garage basically all summer. When I got on and started pedaling, it squealed in protest.
I could tell right away that DeShawn used to ride a bike a lot, and I wondered who had taught him. His mom? His dad? Riding on the sidewalk, he maneuvered quickly and easily around people or any other obstacle, never halting or changing his speed. He could ride on the grass and dart around trees and fire hydrants like it was second nature. And it was really only watching him on that bike that, for the first time, I could actually picture DeShawn back in Brooklyn, riding around his street on a New York summer night.
I didn’t like taking walks, and I hated running, but there was something about a bike I enjoyed. Once you got some speed, you could just coast and not have to work too hard, and I liked feeling the breeze across my face, and the sense of freedom it gave us. On a bike, Grover Falls suddenly changed. I noticed things I hadn’t when riding in a car, and we could go places we couldn’t on foot. One Saturday in late August, DeShawn and I had ridden far outside town—over a mile, at least—down a back-country road. I’d been following his lead and was starting to get tired. I was just about to call to him that we should turn back, when he skidded to a sudden halt over a small bridge that passed over a creek running through the woods.
When I reached him, he was off his bike and peering over the edge, to the creek below.
“Yo!” he called.
I joined him and looked down. My cousin Becca was sitting on the bank of the creek, her feet in the water, a stick in her hand. When she looked up and saw us, her face blossomed in a smile. “Hey, guys!” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Looking for crayfish,” Becca said matter-of-factly. Then, sensing from our expression that this wasn’t enough, she pointed left with the stick. “I live just up the road.”
“What’s a crayfish?” DeShawn asked.
“Come on down and hopefully, I can show you,” said Becca.
We did. And when eventually Becca was able to show DeShawn, catching one under a stone and offering it to him clinging on the end of her stick, he shrieked so loud I almost didn’t believe it was him. Then we all collapsed into giggles. He got her back later, though, when he found a frog and stuck it in her face.
“Wanna come back to my house?” Becca asked us later while we were putting our shoes back on.
DeShawn and I looked at each other.
“Come on,” Becca said. “I’ll make us grilled cheese sandwiches. My parents aren’t home. It’ll be fun.”
Although nobody admitted it, I think it was her parents being gone that convinced us to come over. Why else would she have thought to mention it? Even though they were relatives, something about her parents, especially her dad, made me nervous.
“Where are your parents?” I asked as we followed Becca on the side of the road, pushing our bikes in front of us.
“They’re both working,” she answered. I hadn’t planned on asking more, but she continued. “We’re tight on money, so my mom had to take a weekend job, and my dad’s putting in extra time at the plant. They’ve done this before. It costs money to travel, and we don’t really have a good source of income while we’re abroad.”
I nodded, feeling a little embarrassed.
Their house was old and slightly run-down, set back a little way in a clearing in the woods. Although the inside wasn’t dirty or anything, it was different from our house and most of my friends’ houses, and I couldn’t put my finger on how. It was only after we left that I realized the reason: their house focused on need, not comfort or looks. There wasn’t too much in the way of decoration, and the things that were there seemed all mismatched, as if they’d hung that picture on the wall, or put that vase of flowers over there, not because they liked the way it looked, but because they knew that was what other people did in their homes. It was almost like they were just passing through, so they didn’t see the point in
really settling in.
Becca made us grilled cheese sandwiches and canned tomato soup, and when her older sister, Rachel, came down and saw all three of us sitting around the kitchen table eating, she looked surprised but didn’t say anything—just told Becca to make sure she cleaned up after. I was surprised when DeShawn cleared the plates and helped Becca do the dishes, since he never lifted a finger at our house.
Next, Becca showed us her room. It was small, with not much more than a bed, a dresser, and a chest, though she did have a picture on her wall: a map of the world that was almost as big as I was. I had her show me where Haiti is. Sitting on her chest were a few books: a New King James Bible, a world atlas, and a book by that missionary Michael Keegan.
When we left, Becca told us we should come back again soon. And I would have liked to, but later that week Dylan came back from his family vacation, and when he and Jason started joining DeShawn and me on our evening bike rides, we never got the chance. I knew I couldn’t bring Jason and Dylan.
So as the summer droned on, it was us four boys, riding around town almost every night, not really doing anything besides trying half-assed tricks on our bikes and sometimes stopping by the river in the park to skip stones. It was as if, now that the end of vacation was in sight, we wanted to be as aimless and lazy as we possibly could.
But the last weekend of vacation was gray and rainy, so on Saturday evening, DeShawn stayed in his room blaring his music, and I stayed in mine, watching TV.
I had gotten into this reality show called Discernment. It followed these real-life young guys around who were trying to decide whether they wanted to become Catholic priests. To be a priest, you had to be humble and selfless and devote your life to serving God. But the part the show focused on most of all was sex—Catholic priests had to give that up, too. And for much of the show, these young guys were put into situations where they were around superhot women who, for some reason, were always attracted to them. And then the camera would zero in on the guys’ faces, as if asking, Do you really want to give this up? It was interesting, I thought.
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