Someone Like You (15 page)

I knelt down next to her. “We can do this,” I said firmly. “I know we can.”

She sniffled. “What about childbirth classes? What about when I have to give birth and it hurts, and all that? What about money? How am I going to support a whole other person scanning groceries at Milton's?”

“We've already talked about that,” I said. “You have that trust your grandparents put aside, you'll use that.”

“That's for college,” she moaned. “Specifically.”

“Oh, fine,” I said, “you're right. College is much more important right now. This is your baby, Scarlett. You have to hold it together because it needs you.”

“My baby,” she repeated, her voice hollow in the cool deep blue of the stall. “My baby.”

Then I heard it: the creak of a door opening, not the outside door either but closer, just behind me. I turned, already dreading what I'd see. A set of feet I'd somehow missed, belonging to somebody who now had heard everything. But it was worse than that. Much worse.

“Oh, my God,” Ginny Tabor said as I turned to face her, standing there in a white sweater, her mouth a perfect O. “Oh, my God.”

Scarlett closed her eyes, lifting her hands to her face. I could hear the lights buzzing. No one said anything.

“I won't tell anyone,” Ginny said quickly, already backing up to the door, her eyes twitchy and weird. “I swear. I won't.”

“Ginny—” I started. “It's not—”

“I won't tell,” she said in a louder voice, backing up too far and banging against the door, her hand feeling wildly for the knob. “I swear,” she said again, slipping out as it fell closed between us, a flash of white all I saw before she was gone.

 

By lunch we were getting strange looks as we walked to Macon's car. Everyone seemed to be eyeing Scarlett's stomach, as if since second period she'd suddenly be showing, the baby ready to pop out at any minute. We ate lunch in the Toyota, parked in the Zip Mart lot around back by the Dumpsters.

“It's weird,” Scarlett said, finishing off her second hot dog, “but since I know everybody knows now, I'm starving.”

“Slow down on those hot dogs,” I said nervously. “Don't get overconfident.”

“I feel fine,” she said, and Macon reached over and squeezed my leg. All through P.E. I'd agonized about how it was all my fault, Ginny Tabor faking me out, then spreading Scarlett's secret like wildfire across the campus. “And I'm not mad at you, so stop looking at me like you're expecting me to fly into a rage at any second.”

“I'm so sorry,” I said for at least the twentieth time. “I really am.”

“About what?” she said. “This isn't about you, it's about Ginny and her huge mouth. Period. Forget about it. At least it's over now.”

“God,” I said, and Macon rolled his eyes. I'd already planned several ways I could kill Ginny with my bare hands. “I really am
sorry.”

“Shut up and pass those chips back here,” Scarlett said, tapping my shoulder.

“Better pass them,” Macon told me, grabbing them out of my lap. “Before she starts eating the upholstery.”

“I'm hungry,” Scarlett said, her mouth full. “I'm eating for two now.”

“You shouldn't be eating hot dogs, then,” Macon said, turning to face her. “At least not all the time. You need to eat fruit and vegetables, lots of protein, and yogurt. Oh, and vitamin C is important, too. Cantaloupe, oranges, that kind of thing. Green peppers. Loaded with C.”

We just looked at him.

“What?” he said.

“Since when are you Mr. Pregnancy?” I asked him.

“I don't know,” he said, embarrassed now. “I mean, I'm not. It's just common knowledge.”

“Cantaloupe, huh?” Scarlett said, finishing off the bag of chips.

“Vitamin C,” Macon said, starting up the car again. “It's important.”

By the time we got back from lunch, everyone was definitely staring, entire conversations dissolving as we passed. Macon just kept walking, hardly noticing, but Scarlett's face was pinched. I wondered if we'd see those hot dogs coming up again.

“Oh, please,” Macon said as we passed the Mouth herself, Ginny Tabor, standing with Elizabeth Gunderson, both of them staring, thinking, I knew, of Michael. “Like they've never seen a pregnant woman before.”

“Macon,” I said. “You're not helping.”

Scarlett kept walking, facing straight ahead, as if by only concentrating she could make it all go away. I wondered what was more shocking, in the end; that Scarlett was pregnant, or that the baby was Michael's. Of course girls got pregnant at our school, but they usually dropped out for a few months and then returned with baby pictures in their wallets. Some carried their babies proudly to the school day care, where little kids climbed on the jungle gym on the right side of the courtyard, running to the fence to watch their mothers go by on their way to class. But for girls like us, like Scarlett, these things didn't happen. And if they did it was taken care of in secret, discreetly, and only rumored, never proven.

This was different. If we'd started to forget Michael Sherwood, any of us, it would be a very long time before we would again.

Then, in the middle of everything, we began losing my Grandma Halley.

It had actually started months earlier, in the late spring. She became forgetful; she would call me Julie, confusing me with my mother, forgetting even her own name. She kept locking herself out of her house, misplacing her key. My mother even convinced her to wear one on a string around her neck, but nothing worked. The keys just slipped away into cracks and crevices, sidewalks and street corners, thin air.

It got worse. She walked out of the Hallmark store with a greeting card she forgot to pay for, setting off all the alarms, which scared her. She started calling in the middle of the night, all anxious and upset, sure we'd said we were coming to visit the next day, or the previous one, when no plans had actually been made. For those calls her voice was unbalanced and high, scaring me as I handed the phone over to my mother, who would pace the kitchen floor, reassuring her own mother that everything was fine, we were all okay; there was nothing to be afraid of. By the end of October, we weren't so sure.

I'd always been close to my Grandma Halley. I was her namesake and that made her special, and I'd spent several summers with her when I was younger and my parents went on trips. She lived alone in a tiny Victorian house outside of Buffalo with a stained-glass window and a big, fat cat named Jasper. Halfway up her winding staircase was a window, and from the top sill she hung a bell from a wire. I always touched it with my fingers as I passed, the chiming bouncing off the glass and the walls around me. It was that bell that always came to mind before her face, or her voice, when I heard her name.

My mother had Grandma Halley's sparkling eyes, her tiny chin, and sometimes, if you knew when to listen for it, her singsong laugh. But my Grandma Halley was kind of wild, a little eccentric, more so in the ten years since my grandfather had died. She gardened in men's overalls and a floppy sun hat, and made up her scarecrows to resemble neighbors she didn't like, especially Mr. Farrow, who lived two doors down and had buck teeth and carrot-red hair, which fit a scarecrow nicely. She ate only organic food, adopted twenty kids through Save the Children, and taught me the box step when I was in fifth grade, the two of us dancing around the living room while her record player crackled and sang.

She was born in May of 1910, as Halley's Comet lit up the sky of her small town in Virginia. Her father, watching with a crowd from the hospital lawn, considered it a sign and named her Halley. It was the comet that always made her seem that much more mystical, different. Magic. And when I was named after her, it had made me a little magical too, or so I hoped.

The winter I was six, we made a special trip to visit her for the comet's passing. I remember sitting outside in her lap, wrapped in a blanket. There'd been so much hype, so much excitement, but I couldn't see much, just a bit of light as we strained to make it out in the sky. Grandma Halley was quiet, holding me tight against her, and she seemed to see it perfectly, grabbing my hand and whispering,
Look at that, Halley. There it is.
My mother kept saying no one could see it, it was too hazy, but Grandma Halley always told her she was wrong. That was Grandma Halley's magic. She could create anything, even a comet, and make it dance before your eyes.

Now my mother was suddenly distracted, making calls to Buffalo and having long talks with my father after I went to bed. I busied myself with school, work, and Macon; with my grounding over, I slipped off to see him for a few hours whenever I could. I went with Scarlett to the doctor, read to her from the pregnancy Bible, reminding her to get more vitamin C, to eat more oranges and green peppers. We were adjusting to the pregnancy; we had no choice. And after our being the scandal for a couple of weeks, Elizabeth Gunderson's tongue-pierced boyfriend fooled around with her best friend Maggie, and Scarlett and the baby were old news.

But each time Grandma Halley called again, scared, I'd watch my mother's face fold into the now-familiar frown of concern. And each time I'd think only of that comet overhead, as she held me in close to her, all those years ago.
Look at that. There it is.
And I'd close my eyes, trying to remember, but seeing nothing, nothing at all.

 

By the middle of November, Marion had been dating Steve the accountant for just about as long as I'd been seeing Macon. And slowly, he was beginning to show his alter ego.

It started around the third or fourth date. Scarlett noticed it first, nudging me as we sat on the stairs, talking to him and waiting for Marion to come down. He always showed up in ties and oxford shirts, nice sports jackets with dress pants or chinos, and loafers with tassels. But this night, suddenly, there was something different. Around his neck, just barely visible over his tie, was a length of brown leather cord. And dangling off the cord was a circular,
silver thing.

“It is not a medallion,” I hissed at Scarlett after he excused himself to go to the bathroom. “It's just jewelry.”

“It's a medallion,” she said again. “Did you see the symbols on it? It's some kind of weird warrior coin.”

“Oh, stop.”

“It is. I'm telling you, Halley, it's like his other side can't be held down any longer. It's starting to push out of him, bit by bit.”

“Scarlett,” I said again, “he's an accountant.”

“He's a freak.” She pulled her knees up to her chest. “Just you wait.”

Marion was coming down the stairs now, her dress half-zipped, reaching to put in one earring. She stopped in front of us, back to Scarlett, who stood up without being asked and zipped her.

“Marion,” she said in a low voice as we heard the toilet flush and the bathroom door open, “look at his neck.”

“At his what?” Marion said loudly as he came around the corner, neat in his sports jacket with the leather cord still visible, just barely, over his collar.

“Nothing,” Scarlett muttered. “Have a good night.”

“Thank you.” Marion leaned over and kissed Steve on the cheek. “Have you seen my purse?”

“Kitchen table,” Scarlett said easily. “Your keys are on the counter.”

“Perfect.” Marion disappeared and came back with the purse tucked under her arm. “Well, you girls have a good night. Stay out of trouble and get to bed at a decent hour.” Marion had been acting a little more motherly, more matronly, since she'd taken up with conservative warrior Steve. Maybe she was preparing to be a grandmother. We weren't sure.

“We will,” I said.

“Gosh, give us some credit,” Scarlett said casually. “It's not like we're gonna go and get pregnant or anything.”

Marion shot her a look, eyes narrowed; Steve still didn't know about the baby. After only a month and a half, Marion figured it was still a bit early to spring it on him. She still wasn't dealing with it that well herself, anyway. She hardly ever talked about the baby, and when she did, “adoption” was always the first or last word of the sentence. Steve just stood there by the door, grinning blandly, distinctly unwarriorlike. It was my hope that he
would
metamorphose into Vlad, right before our eyes.

“Have a good night,” I called out as they left, Marion still mad and not looking back, Steve waving jauntily out the door.

“Sheesh,” Scarlett said. “What a weirdo.”

“He's not that bad.”

She leaned back against the step, smoothing her hands over her stomach. Though she wasn't showing yet, just in the last week she'd started to look different. It wasn't something I could describe easily. It was like those stop-action films of flowers blooming that we watched in Biology. Every frame something is happening, something little that would be missed in real time—the sprout pushing, bit by bit, from the ground, the petals slowly moving outward. To the naked eye, it's just suddenly blooming, color today where there was none before. But in real time, it's always building, working to show itself, to become.

 

Cameron Newton was probably the only person in school who was getting weirder looks than Scarlett that fall. He'd transferred in September, which was hard enough, but he was also one of those short, skinny kids with pasty white skin; he always wore black, which made him look half dead, or half alive, depending on how optimistic you were. Either way, he was having a tough time. So it didn't seem unusual that he was drawn across Mrs. Pate's Commercial Design class to Scarlett.