Not Looking for Love: Episode 3 (3 page)

I fall asleep leaning against the headboard of my bed, and wake up at dawn, my neck stiff and all the lights still on. I stuff the pregnancy test in the drawer. I can't be pregnant and I'm not.
 

I call my gynecologist as soon as her office opens at eight, and she assures me it's probably just the stress and exercise stopping my period. It's not very likely that I got pregnant after forgetting to take just a few pills. But she wants to see me before I start taking the pills again, just in case. I make an appointment for next week and hang up.

CHAPTER FOUR

On Thursday, Phillipa chases me down after my second period class.
 

"Gail, you won't believe this. My cousin is in New York City this weekend," she says, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet. "You know the one I told you about?"

"The one who married into the royal family?" I ask.

She nods and a few strands of hair come loose from her bun. "Anyway, she wants to get together for some shopping and drinking. What do you think?"

"Sounds like fun," I venture.

"Great! Then we're leaving tomorrow after class!"

"Wait, no!" I yell after her, but she's already jogging down the hall, and can't hear me over the crowd spilling to and from the classroom I just left. The last thing I want to do is go party in the city. I'd planned to spend the weekend in bed deciding what to do about Sarah.
 

I've been throwing up every morning and every evening now, and my stomach is growing daily. I can't drink because of Sarah, and I can't raise her, because I can't even cry over my mom dying. I should call Scott, I really should. But how would that help? He hasn't called me since that night I had dinner with Dad and he's probably forgotten all about me by now.
 

I lean against the wall, holding my bag across my stomach so no one jostles me. Suddenly, I can't face the rest of the day. But if I went home now, I'd just lie in bed, my mind racing into a million different directions, and that would be even worse.

I made a few attempts to get out of going to the city, but Phillipa breezed right over them all, and wouldn't take no for an answer. She's driving, and I lean back in my seat, staring at the bare autumn scenery flashing by. As we enter New York, my chest cramps up, and the pain doesn't let up even after we're across the bridge and in the city.

I'm only a half hour train ride away from Scott here, and all I want to do is get to Grand Central. And maybe all would be well then. Maybe everything would just go away, and it'd be only the two of us, safe inside a void in time and space, on a beach where it is forever sunset.
 

But there's Sarah to consider now, and over a month of silence, along with the lies I told when I left. And I'll have even less of a heart to offer him after I let Sarah go. I can't be a mom, not now when there's only a black-scabbed wound where my heart used to be. Never, because I can't risk the wound tearing open ever again.

My eyes burn and it takes me a moment to realize I'm on the verge of tears. I haven't cried since the morning my mom died.

"You should park in a garage," I tell Phillipa, trying to chase away all other thoughts.
 

"I was just going to park in the street," Phillipa muses.

I shake my head. "Not a good idea. It'll be dark soon, and your car could get stolen. My friend's was, just a few days ago, and right around here somewhere."

Kate was frantic when she called me on Wednesday night. She'd just popped into Macy's for a new pair of shoes and maybe a dress, and her car was gone when she returned.
 

"That's awful," Phillipa says, and circles back to the nearest garage.
 

"Yeah, a new Lexus, with finger print security, and the cops aren't doing very much to find it," I say, echoing Kate's words. "Apparently, it's straight to the harbor and onto a ship to who knows where, within an hour for any car stolen around here."

"No chance of getting it back?" Phillipa says.

"Very little."

I'm sorry now for not being more compassionate with Kate when she called me about it. But all I kept thinking of was whether I should tell her about baby Sarah. Only I couldn't, because the fewer people that know the better. I can't be branded a murderer for life in everyone's eyes.

Phillipa's cousin is already waiting for us in front of Macy's. Her long hair is perfectly straight and so blonde it's almost white. She smells like the perfume section on the other side of the revolving doors, and her fingers are gleaming with rings.

"Nice to meet you, Gail. I'm Greta," she says, and squeezes my hand hard, her rings digging into my fingers.
 

"So, you want to go in?" I ask, pointing back at the store.
 

The city is whooshing past me, sirens blaring and people yelling. Only today it's not filling me with hopeful excitement. It's only making my anxiety grow deeper and darker.

Greta points to the Victoria's Secret store across the street. "How about we start there then see if we feel like any more shopping after that. I have my driver waiting to take us to dinner at a moment's notice."

The last thing I want to do is try on bras, but I also don't much want to shop for clothes either. Grand Central is less than ten blocks away, and a part of me is already sitting on the train. But I do nothing to make the vision a reality. Instead I follow Phillipa and Greta around the store, picking up a bra here and there, and listen to their hurried, heavily accented conversation. I don't even understand all they're saying; they're talking so fast.
 

I settle in the lounge and sleepwear section, while they take an armload of bras each into the fitting rooms.

"I don't believe it. Gail?" a woman screeches, and suddenly Janine is towering over me, her hands on her hips, her eyes shooting flames.
 

"Oh, hi," I say, taking a step back. She's wearing a black tag with her name printed on it in white. "I didn't know you worked here."

"How would you know a thing like that?" Her words are clipped and cutting, but she's not speaking loud enough for anyone else to hear. I want to run from the store.

"I wouldn't," I say, because she seems to be waiting for an answer.

"Of course not, the way you just disappeared," she continues, pointing her index finger at my face. She's wearing shimmery colored nail polish, and her nails are sharp enough to scar, if she scratched me. Which I think she might be planning. "And let me just tell you that Scott was very upset. Especially since you lied. And I hate you for it."

"You can't talk to me like that," I say loudly enough for a few people to turn. "It's none of your business."

"Of course it's my business. Scott's my friend, and he really doesn't deserve to be treated like that."

"Well, he can tell me that himself, he doesn't need you for that." This conversation is making me nauseous. All I want to do is go home and hide under the covers. I don't even know why I'm arguing with her. I should just walk away.

She flips her hair back. "You won't answer his calls, and I'm here now. It was really low of you to lie like that."

"Like what?" I ask, swallowing back a burning jet of bile that almost reached my mouth.

"Saying you're in California. Scott was even talking about going out there." The words hit me hard, right in the heart and tears are just behind my eyes now. I can't hear any more of this, or I'll just disappear where I stand, sink right through the floor and be gone.

"I'm just home for the weekend," I mutter anyway, because I'm deranged and I love the idea of Scott wanting to come visit me in California, even though I'm not even taking his calls.
 

"No you're not," Janine shrieks. "A certain Edna, who was nursing your mom is also my mom's cousin, and she was quite certain you go to school in Connecticut. Or was she the one lying?"
 

I look down at my shoes. "Did you tell Scott?"

"Of course I told him!" The way she says it makes me sound like a murderer. Which I will be, very soon.
 

"Is everything alright here?" Phillipa asks glaring at Janine, then looking at me.

I nod, my voice stuck somewhere in my throat.

"Everything is just fine," Janine says with a forced smile, flashing us both with a row of perfectly white teeth glimmering in the soft yellow light. "She just looked like she needed some advice. But she's not very receptive to it."

And then she turns and disappears into the fitting room.

"That was rude," Phillipa says. "Do you know her?"

I lace my fingers together in front of me, squeezing hard, watching the blood drain from my knuckles. "Sort of." I release my hands and look up past Phillipa into the dark fitting room. "I think I'm just going to go back home. This is all too much for me right now."

"Go?" Phillipa asks. "But we have the whole weekend planned out."

"I can't—" I start but my voice cracks, because I think maybe I'll burst into tears right here, in the middle of the store.

Phillipa places her hand around my shoulders. "I understand. Don't feel bad. Would you like to take my car?"

She reaches into her purse to give me the keys, but I stop her by grabbing her wrist. "No, I'll just take the train. There's one at eight, I think, or a little after."

She's looking at me like I'm about to fall down or something, and I force a smile. "I'll be fine. I'm sorry to do this, but I just—"

"Don't worry about it, Gail," Phillipa interrupts. "There's no need to apologize. I'll see you on Sunday?"

"Yes." I find her hand and squeeze. "Say goodbye to Greta for me?"

She nods and I rush towards the escalator, because Janine is coming back out of the fitting room, and I absolutely can't face her a second time.

The noise on the street hits me with a physical force. I could just turn left and be at Grand Central within minutes.

But I head up toward Penn station anyway, because it's the right thing to do. If Scott hasn't called me for a month then he's over me, and that's how it should be, and how it should stay. For good this time.

CHAPTER FIVE

"You're pregnant," my gynecologist says on Wednesday.

Tears well up from my eyes, fall in thick rivers across my cheeks. I'm perfectly still, I don't whimper and I don't sob. I don't know why I'm surprised, I already knew Sarah is growing in my belly.
 

She looks up from my chart and sighs. "Come now, Miss Henderson."

I wipe the tears away with my sleeve, but more flow out almost immediately.
 

"I could schedule you for an ultra sound later this week," she says, consulting the calendar. "Or maybe next week would be better."

"What's the point?" I ask, my voice firm like tears aren't spilling from my eyes.

"Well, it would be to see that the fetus is developing as it—," she says.
 

"I don't want to see her," I interrupt, shaking my head.

"Oh, I see," she leans back and folds her hands in her lap. "Have you thought it through?"

No, I want to say, because I never wanted to make this decision.
 

"Yes," I lie instead. I can't be a mom, ever.

"And the father?"
 

"I'm on my own," I say, and the pain that rips through my heart makes me want to scream.
 

"You're still very young, I suppose." She opens a drawer and rummages through it.

After a few moments that pass like hours, she finally hands me a card. "This is a good place. I will call them and let them know you're coming. When are you planning on going?"

"Soon," I choke out.
 

"Make sure you can take a few days of rest afterwards. A Friday would be best," she says, and makes a note on a pad.
 

"To abort a baby is a difficult choice to make. Talk it over with someone you trust first," she continues, peering at me over her glasses. "If you have any questions, you can always call me."

"Does it hurt?" I blurt out, because she's the only one who will ever know, apart from the people at the clinic. It's a dumb question. Of course it hurts, it will hurt forever, because Sarah will never be now.
 

"It is an unpleasant procedure, and you can expect some bleeding and cramping afterwards," she says.
 

I rise and drape my purse over my shoulder, still clutching the card. The logo of the clinic is a box, with a sun bursting through it and I can't figure out why they chose that. Maybe it symbolizes all the blood that will gush out of me when they kill Sarah.

"Make an appointment for a check up afterwards," the doctor says.
 

I nod not trusting my voice to come, if I try to speak.

I call the clinic in the parking lot, shaking so hard I have to repeat myself three times before the lady finally understands what I'm saying. They have an opening tomorrow afternoon and I take it, because if it has to happen, it's better sooner. I drive by the clinic to collect the instructions, and some pills they say will make it go easier, but it's not really me doing it. It's another Gail, the one that's so insubstantial she's nearly transparent. And she feels nothing.
 

For the rest of the night, my mind is racing at a million miles per second, thoughts rushing past so fast I can't hold on to a single one. I doze off a few times, but jerk awake almost immediately, my heart racing each time from a different horror. Sometimes it's a smiling, golden haired girl, laughing, swallowed up by the raging black sea. Other times it's my mom, her skin blue in death, staring at me with unseeing eyes. Then it's Janine, her face contorted, her nails clawing at my eyes. And Scott, but he's just sitting on a dark beach, facing away from me.

By the time the cab arrives to take me to the clinic at two the next afternoon, I'm so exhausted I'm seeing double.

The woman who admits me is no older than me, and she smiles widely, as she hands me the gown, and leads me to a white-lit, cramped room. She tells me to change and lie on the table. There's a scary looking machine with arms like a vacuum cleaner next to it.