A Girl Called Fearless (6 page)

I didn't want to be Breaking News. Didn't want to think about my future. Didn't want to deal with the tsunami coming down on me.

I was stressing so bad I let fly when I stepped out on the track for the Daily Five. Today I pushed until the voices in my head dropped out, and for five sweet miles, all I heard was the thump of my heartbeat and the pull of my breath.

When my classmates quit, I took off up the bleachers, doing the first round two steps at a time and then down. Then the second round one step at a time and then down. Then three steps at a time and then down.

Ms. A waited at the bottom while everyone else went to the showers. “Talk to me,” she said, when I'd finally run out of breath.

“I can't stand this. I feel so trapped and I wish there was some way to put an end to this torture.”

Ms. A scanned the bleachers as if she was trying out what she should say. “You're not—thinking of hurting yourself?”

“No. No, I would never.”

“Good. Walk with me. You need to stall your Signing. You're in a state of shock, and you need time to explore your options.” She looked at me for a long moment, holding my gaze with something significant in her own.

She was right. If I didn't slow down my Signing, in a few days, my life would be over.

We did a mile cooldown as she helped me plot how to persuade my father to stall the Signing. We broke it out—what to say, how to act, what not to mention at any cost.

Plot in hand, I waited until dinner, until after Dad had finished his pork roast and glass of wine.
Wait until he's eaten and appears relaxed,
Ms. A had told me.

“I want to have a big Signing,” I said.

Dad looked up. “I'm surprised to hear you say that.”

Even though I'd rehearsed, I fumbled to get into character. “I know I gave you a hard time the other day.”

“Well,” Dad said, “looking back on it, I shouldn't have sprung the Signing on you that way. It must have come as a shock, and I apologize for that.”

He didn't regret
what
he did, just
how
he did it. “Yeah, it was a shock.”

“So now you want a big party? You told me when you turned sixteen you don't like big parties.”

“Yeah, I know I said that, but this is different.” I tried to look
expectant.
“All my friends are talking about their Signings. I guess it hit me this is the most important day in my life besides my wedding day.”

Dad searched my face and his eyes relaxed, and then I knew it was just like Ms. A predicted. He really
wanted
to think I was happy.

“All right,” he said. “How big are we talking?”

“Well, Ms. A says…” Dad's mouth got tight, which I'd expected. She'd lectured the dads every year at Open House about not Signing us until we'd finished college. “Ms. Alexandra says a Signing is the modern-day equivalent of a debutante's coming-out. She told me we need to invite not just friends and family, but people you want to impress. Like business contacts, people in government who can help you get contracts.”

“Ms. Alexandra said this?”

“Yes, and Letitia Hawkins, Jessop's mother, was connected everywhere. She was a huge philanthropist. She gave money to the Museum of Modern Art, the zoo. She practically owned the Santa Barbara symphony.”

Dad looked puzzled. “How do you know all that about the late Mrs. Hawkins? I don't recall telling you any of it.”

I swallowed, trying to remember exactly how Ms. A said to explain it. “Ms. A did a search. She said Jes would be pleased if I knew about his mother's accomplishments.”

Dad shook his head. “I'm having a hard time believing Ms. Alexandra supports Contracts.”

“She's changed her thinking.” I bowed my head so I'd look
penitent.
“She's realized that our fathers love us deeply and only want the best for us, and she told me I should respect your decision.”

Dad couldn't look at me, and I watched him run his thumb over the cuts on his crystal wine glass. When he finally said, “All right, then,” his voice was quiet and strained.

I reached for the silver folder in my lap. “So the school counselor gave me this Signing Planner. It's got sample invitations, menus, band recordings. He said if we want to use the City Club, they've got openings in January and March.”

“Your Signing's scheduled for November twenty-third.”

“Daddy, we can't get anything in two weeks. Everything's booked. We can't even get tents before January.”

“November twenty-third, Avie.”

“Please.”

“No.”

“You don't understand,” I said. “When I told everyone I was getting Signed in two weeks, they looked at my stomach.”

Dad didn't say anything.

“They think I'm pregnant, Dad, and you're rushing to Sign me off.”

He stared at his plate, clenching and unclenching his hand. “I wish to God your mother was here.”

“Me, too.”

He looked lost, like Mom was his map and now he didn't know where anything was anymore. “I need the money, Avie. Without an infusion of cash I won't be able to make payroll. People could lose their jobs. We could lose the business.”

“Oh.” I hadn't realized things were that bad, but I still couldn't let the Signing go ahead.

Ms. A had told me not to get angry, but to recall a hurt I'd never get over. So I went back to the afternoon I found Mom whimpering on the lounge chair in the yard, because the painkillers had worn off and she was too weak to call for help. Silent tears rolled down my cheeks, remembering.

Dad tore off his tie. “Damn it. Don't do this to me.”

“It's okay. I understand.” I closed my eyes and just like Ms. A told me started counting silently to two hundred. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

I got to seventeen, before Dad let out a sigh. “Maybe I can ask Hawkins for a loan against the Signing.”

“You can do that?”

“Not sure.”

“Really, Daddy, you'd do that for me?”

“I don't want anyone to question—to think you'd—”

I flung my arms around his neck. “Thank you. Thank you. I can't wait to tell everyone. Can I call Sparrow?”

“Is that a girl in your class?”

“Yeah, she and I've gotten close now that—”

Dad reached for his wineglass. “Sure, go on.”

I tapped my phone as I ran up the stairs. “Sparrow?” I flung my bedroom door shut and threw my cell across the room. I'd bought myself three months, maybe four before Hawkins got his hands on me.

15

Dad didn't have the guts to tell me what Hawkins said, so he had Gerard do it.

The next morning, Gerard called me into his little office off the kitchen. On his desk was a picture of his husband, Alfonse, and their son, Lavonne, in his soccer uniform.

“How's soccer going?” I said, taking a seat.

“Better than last year. This year they know where the goal is.” Gerard silenced his phone. “Hawkins' office called and they've scheduled an official portrait of the two of you.”

“The candidate and his bride. Looking forward to it.”

Gerard set his elbows on the desk, his fingertips pressed together. “Hawkins has agreed to delay the signing until January, but you are to meet him on the twenty-second.”

“Great.” I'd bought myself a little time at least. I went to leave, but Gerard pointed for me to sit.

He didn't look happy. I wondered if Alfonse would lose his job at Biocure, because of me. “Is the company going to be okay?” I said.

“Looks like it. Hawkins gave your father the money.” Gerard let my fifty-million-dollar debt sink in, and then said, “In return, Hawkins asked for two things.”

“What?” Suddenly, my mouth tasted like sour milk.

“He insists that you be at his side when he launches his campaign for governor.”

That didn't sound so bad. I stand next to him onstage. He announces. I'm done. Not a bad deal for six more weeks of freedom. “Okay?”

Gerard frowned. He didn't want to tell me thing number two.

“You're afraid to tell me. You know I'll be pissed,” I said.

He drew a tiny invisible circle on the desk. “Hawkins wants medical verification of your status.”

I glared at Gerard.
Isn't it obvious I'm a virgin?

“Your father asked me to schedule an appointment as soon as possible.”

“Dad's afraid I'm not pure? That I'm going to screw up his precious business deal?”

Gerard didn't answer, and I slapped my hands on his desk. “Tell him not to worry. He won't have to return a penny of Hawkins' money.”

I charged for the door, but Gerard said, “Wait. You left this in my car.”

I turned. He held up a yellow tee, and I knew without asking that it had appeared on the seat of his Mini Cooper while he was out buying groceries.

I took the shirt from him. Gerard could have given it to Roik, but he didn't. “Thanks.”

“You're welcome. That's a beautiful quote.”

A turquoise bird sailed up from the swirly script. “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.” Emily Dickinson.

I felt hope brush my heart like a swallow flying past.
Of course Yates would pick the perfect quote.
My lip started to quiver, as I folded the shirt into a pale yellow square.

“What am I supposed to hope for, Gerard?”

Gerard got up. I sensed that he wanted to give me a hug, but touching me was expressly forbidden under the terms of his employment contract.

“I think you hope for the answer, Princess.”

16

From “Scarpanol: Ten Years After”

New York Times,
September 10, 2011

On September 10, 2001, Dr. Tamika Watson of Biloxi, Mississippi, put in a call to the National Institutes of Health, requesting an investigation. Dr. Watson had diagnosed four patients with advanced ovarian cancer in recent weeks, and feared that a toxin had contaminated local groundwater.

The NIH took two years to locate the source of the outbreak: beef cattle that had received doses of a synthetic hormone, Scarpanol. By then over 80 percent of African-American and Hispanic women had been diagnosed with the Silent Killer.

The Food and Drug Administration implemented a ban on Scarpanol and required warning labels on all beef and beef by-products indicating “Not for Female Consumption.” Cattle treated with Scarpanol were destroyed, and major beef retailers like McDonald's and Walmart recalled seventy million tons of meat.

But despite these actions, the disease was then discovered in Caucasian and Asian populations. By 2005, the mortality rate among females between puberty and menopause was 97 percent as chemotherapy drugs, already in limited supply, ran out.

Two segments of the adult female population survived unscathed: long-term vegetarians, and women whose ovaries had been surgically removed years before Scarpanol was introduced to the U.S.

The outbreak, while catastrophic, was limited to countries which imported American beef. Europe and Canada had banned American beef prior to 2001, fearing that use of hormones would cause breast cancer …

Friday, November 14.

I hated Remembrance Day. There wasn't anything I wanted to remember, but the media and Masterson wouldn't let me forget. And today, only three days after learning about my Signing, I was so raw and battered, I wondered how I'd survive it.

It used to be a national holiday to honor veterans, but then Scarpanol killed more women in the U.S. than all the wars we'd fought in modern history.

For four years, Mom hid the newspapers and turned the TV off so I wouldn't hear the daily death count or see the men in coveralls load women's bodies into refrigerator trucks in high school parking lots.

But Mom couldn't keep ashes from the open-air cremations from fluttering down on our lawn like dirty grey snow.

And she couldn't keep Scarpanol from turning her ovaries into time bombs that blew our lives apart.

Masterson Academy made Remembrance Day mandatory for all students and their families, otherwise Dad and I would never have come. Dad gave Roik the day off so he could attend services at the Million Mother Wall. The state shut down the 210 Freeway all along the wall so families could light candles and lay flowers.

Masterson arranged its ceremony on the rose garden lawn. I sat with my class in our white dresses while Dad sat with the remains of our families: fathers, brothers, grandparents, a few sisters barely older than we were, and a handful of babies and toddlers.

Ms. A stood at the end of our row, her purse fat with tissues and water bottles. I looked over my shoulder and, just as I thought, half the crowd was eyeing her.

She was the only woman her age, and she wouldn't be here except for a freak cancer in her thirties and an operation that ended up saving her life twice when it protected her from Scarpanol a decade later.

At ten on the dot, the Headmaster walked up to the podium. Behind him, the faculty were lined up in their black suits, and bells began to toll a hundred times.

The Headmaster greeted our assembled families. “We are gathered here today on this solemn occasion—”

I tried to shut out his voice as he launched into the history of the holiday I wanted to forget.

“Twelve years ago, our country took up arms against the greatest foe we have ever fought—a silent killer hiding within our beloved wives and daughters, mothers and sisters.”

I could feel myself spiral down.

“Doctors struggled to find the cause, unaware that it was lurking in our refrigerators, our restaurants, and our grocery stores.”

I put my head down and stuck my fingers in my ears, but that couldn't keep out the memories. No one realized the connection between beef cattle, Scarpanol, and estrogen until it swept away little girls who'd matured early and left vegetarians alone. By the time oncologists grasped how many women were dying, it was way too late. White, black, yellow, tan, it didn't matter what your skin color was, the country needed an ocean of chemo drugs, but it only had a lake.