One Pink Line (2 page)

Easy enough.

Second: Hold the test stick by the Thumb-Grip with the Result Window facing away from you.

Done.

Third: Place the Absorbent Tip in your urine stream for exactly 5 seconds.

Damn.

I sat the test stick down on the edge of my pedestal sink and went to grab a Diet Coke and a No Doz. I drank half the can as fast as I could without inflicting brain freeze, and then waited. I wasn’t sure which waiting episode would be more stressful, waiting to pee or waiting for the results. My phone rang again, and again, but I continued to let the machine answer it. The third time it was Jenna, but I couldn’t take her call either. Instead, I threw a scrunchie in my hair, took the small white stick in my hand, and sat on the toilet with my sweat pants balled up around my ankles. The box said five seconds exactly, so I began to count as soon as I felt my bladder relax and release.

One-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand, four-one thousand, five-one thousand.

Fourth: Replace the Overcap, and lay the stick on a flat suface with the Result Window facing up.

Mission complete.

Fifth: Wait three minutes before reading results.

Wait on the toilet? Wait in the kitchen? Where was step six explaining how to maintain composure and process said results?

Five seconds passed.

I stood, pulled my sweat pants up, rolled the top to keep them from slipping, and checked the stick. Nothing.

Common sense whispered to me, “Move away from the stick.”

Fifteen seconds passed.

A flash of warm nausea came and went, so I walked to the kitchen for some cold water. Two ice cubes that were fused together slipped out of my hands onto the floor, and I just stood and watched them begin their transformation into a small puddle. I had only one concern.

One minute down.

I walked back to the bathroom and sat on the floor opposite the sink with my toes pushed up against the white porcelain base. The air felt heavy and absent of oxygen. I closed my eyes and breathed slowly through my nose.

Two minutes passed.

By that point I’d convinced myself that looking at the stick prematurely would no doubt be misleading and uninformative. I pictured it like a slot machine, with various pink lines spinning around the tiny results window.

Two and a half minutes passed.

My lungs were contracting so I walked back to the kitchen, but sadly the air in there wasn’t any better, and my socks were wet. I glanced at the clock on the microwave. Three minutes had passed.

I don’t recall ever walking back into the bathroom…only sitting on the toilet staring at the stick on the edge of my sink. My shoulders slumped and heavy, keeping me from lifting my neck and properly viewing the window. I leaned forward, grabbed the stick tentatively like a shard of glass, and just as I brought it toward me, two bright pink lines appeared in the results window.

“Holy shit,” I said aloud.

I held the little test stick, which now seemed so technologically un-advanced, that I could hardly believe something so disposable was capable of delivering such life-altering information. But there they were, two gleaming, fuchsia lines, and neither one were remotely pale in color or incomplete. I placed it back on the sink and buried my head in my hands, because as if seeing those neon stripes staring back at me wasn’t bad enough, next came the realization of who the father was.

The slowest three minutes of my life were then followed by the passing of two hours in the blink of an eye. I sat on the floor, catatonic in front of my books until after midnight when I took my phone off the hook and went to bed.

Two Tylenol PM’s and a Bud Light were all it took to get me to sleep.

CHAPTER TWO

A
lmost exactly four years prior to that evening it was June 1987 and I was celebrating my high school graduation at Taylor’s house. Taylor was my best friend, and her parents threw her an elaborate backyard pool party for two hundred of her closest classmates. An event she and I had looked forward to for months. In fact, I would’ve rather been stranded with my mother on a deserted island, where I certainly couldn’t do anything right there either, than miss one minute of Taylor’s graduation party.

“Sydney!” my mother shouted around four o’clock that afternoon.

I scurried into the kitchen where she was calling me from, because she hated when my sister or I would answer her scream with a reply scream of our own. “What, Mom?” I said as I pushed my way through the swinging saloon style doors. I hated those doors. As the shortest member of my immediate family, I was the only one who couldn’t see what activity was going on prior to entering the room. Unless said activity required the use of one’s feet.

Her head was buried in the fridge. “What time is the party tonight?”

“It starts at nine,” I said, and sat down on one of the two wooden stools that flanked our Bakers Table.

“Are Taylor’s parents going to be home?” she asked and emerged with a small tray of lamb chops.

“Yes, the Golds are throwing the graduation party for her, you know that,” I said and immediately regretted it.

She placed the tray on the counter and looked at me. “If I’d known that, Sydney, then why on earth would I have just asked it of you?”

Her question did not require an answer.

My mother was almost never wrong. Hard to believe, yet painfully true. And if perchance the stars failed to align, causing the earth to shift, and worldwide natural disasters to occur…such as, say…her being wrong, for example. It was always best not to point it out to her. She did; however, spend most of her time telling me where I’d gone wrong, and a litany of ways to redeem myself.

“Alright, well, I don’t want you driving anyone else. Just yourself, and be home by midnight, okay?”

“Midnight?!” I asked loudly and tensed up.

“Lower your voice, Sydney, and sit up straight for once.”

I wasn’t yelling, but I was also not going to agree to be home by midnight. A debate I feared would not end well. “Mom,” I began as calmly as I could, and spun to face the sink where she was standing. “I’m not coming home at midnight,” I said to the back of her, gently shaking my head in defiance. “Some kids are even allowed to sleep over in Taylor’s backyard, which I may decide to do, so I will definitely not be home by midnight.”

Mom had this move where she’d pivot slowly, face me, and then lower her chin before speaking with utter composure. I assumed she procured it from one of the many child development books that gathered dust under her nightstand over the years. My sister, Kendra, and I used to sneak the books into our room and laugh about the sound advice she regularly failed to follow.

“I’m not going to have this argument with you,” she said, matter-of-factly. “You can stay out past midnight, but you may not sleep over there. That is out of the question, and I want you home by one o’clock at the latest,” she lifted her chin back to center. “It’s your high school graduation tomorrow also, Sydney, and we have lots of family coming over.”

“Graduation is at two o’clock in the afternoon.”

“Precisely. And I don’t need to be banging on your door at noon trying to wake the dead when I should be cutting fruit.”

I lowered my head in defeat.

“You’re welcome,” she said in a victorious tone and wiped her hands on a pink and green plaid dishtowel. “So, is Andrew going to be there?”
Chapter three of child development book #4 clearly states: be a companion to your child when the opportunity presents itself. Act interested in their friends and hobbies, even when it pains you to do so.

Andrew Harrington was a guy I’d lusted over for most of my youth, and one my mother would’ve loved for me to date. He was a year ahead of me in school, and lived three blocks from us in a gorgeous Tudor style mansion, but we were never more than neighborly friends. He was on the football team, and pretty much only dated amongst his own kind. Cheerleaders and Pom girls mostly. I tried out for the cheerleading squad, at my mother’s insistence, my freshman year of high school, but never made it past the first round where you basically stand there and state your name. Mom had made me bring a jean skirt and tank top to wear for tryouts, but I never bothered to change out of my Doc Martens and flannel shirt. Nor did I bother checking the bulletin board the next day to see if I’d been called back for round two. Because regardless of whether my name was on that list or not, I had no plans to be on the cheerleading team. I was friendly with many of those girls anyway, and perfectly content to reap their social benefits by association. I didn’t always dress like a complete stoner, but my appearance was much more of a low-rent, rebellious cheerleader. Dirty-blond hair, blue eyes, petite figure, but each feature more average than the next. My short stature never helped me stand out in a crowd much either, but all characteristics combined were a nice, non-threatening compliment to my sarcastic personality.

My hair was my biggest nemesis. Temperamental waves around my face, straight random wispy hairs in the back, and tiny little baby hairs that shingled the top of my forehead. It was a constant battle of mine. After my mother took my sister Kendra for a perm one day, I begged her to do the same for me, but she insisted it wouldn’t help. So instead, I woke up an extra thirty minutes early every morning to dry my hair, laboriously pull it up on both sides of my head, and secure it into a metal barrette in the back. Only it took me at least twelve tries, and every last second of that extra half hour before I was remotely satisfied with the results…results that were never quite worthy of Andrew Harrington’s attention. He’d come home from college prior to our graduation, so Taylor invited him and some of the older class to her party. Regardless, it was none of my mother’s business.

“I really don’t know, or care, if he’ll be there,” I lied.

“Do you want me to find out? I could call Mrs. Harrington…,” she offered up. Mom was always desperate for a reason to be in Mrs. Harrington’s graces, good or bad.

I glared at the back of her neck and interrupted. “Ab-so-lute-ly not.”

She waved her hands in mock fear. “Okay, okay,” she giggled, trying to be playful. “Just be smart,” she warned, before leaving me alone in the kitchen.

Of course I was always eager to see Andrew, whether it was a party or a premeditated chance encounter in front of his house. But I certainly wasn’t going to let my mom know that. I came to terms with the fact that he wasn’t interested in me early on, yet that never made the anticipation of seeing him any less exciting. He had one of those magnetic personalities. Tall, dark and handsome, yes, but he was a true mover and shaker, even in high school. He could make people feel good about themselves even while poking fun at them, and he could command a room without saying a word. He’d just saunter through a doorway, give a nod, and have everyone’s attention.

Growing up in Winnetka, Illinois, there was no shortage of wealthy friends and neighbors, and New Trier High School was notorious for educating the overindulged.

My family, however, was a rare exception. We lived in one of the few remaining teardowns that was still fit to be inhabited, nicely tucked away between two sprawling estates on either side. My mother never failed to remind people that our renovation would take place ‘any day now.’

“This is the year!” she’d say, adding one of her signature excuses. “The plans are finally drawn up, we’re just waiting on those pesky village permits.”

And the money.

My parents bought our home when I was in the fourth grade, with every intention of building their dream house on the lot, then Dad lost his job, and ended up taking another one with a much lower salary. After that, the dream house was put on hold, along with fancy cars, summer camp, Caribbean spring breaks and my mother’s pride.

But despite my lack of designer clothes and indoor swimming pools, I never felt deprived of material things. My father was kind and generous, and did everything possible to give Kendra and I the most he could.

After my mom left the kitchen, I checked the clock and then ran upstairs to get changed for Taylor’s party. Her father, Jeremy Gold, managed one of the largest mutual funds in the country, and the party was being held at their enormous home on Fox Lane. Taylor’s house was a popular hangout during our high school years because it had an Olympic size pool in the backyard with a hot tub at each end, and four air-conditioned cabanas on either side. Not to mention the bowling alley and projection TV in her basement. There was even a fully equipped outdoor fridge that her mom kept stocked with a variety of soft drinks and Good Humor bars.