Out of Order (4 page)

I winced for the other girl’s sake. It really
wasn’t
her fault, but Ricky was upset. The wince was replaced by a smirk when I saw the horrified looks on both Mike and his girlfriend’s faces.

“You’re pregnant?” he asked, stunned.

“Hell yes I am! That’s what I was trying to
tell
you when you
dumped
me,” Ricky fumed. “And I am having this baby with or without you. I’ll see you in family court, asshole.”

“Court?” Mike looked like he was about to either faint or puke.

“How else am I going to get guaranteed child support from you for the next twenty years?”

Ricky turned on her heel and flounced away. Jessa, Kate, and I followed her, holding in laughter.

“She’s pregnant?” I heard the girlfriend hiss before I was out of earshot. Then the distinctive sound of a slap. “You said you hadn’t slept with her! You said I was your
first
!”

We went home after that. By the time we reached Kate’s house, the closest to walk to from the school, Ricky was getting a flurry of angry texts from Mike, most of which involved him giving her money for an abortion.

“Should I let him pay me off?” Ricky asked mildly. “Or should I go through with my theoretical pregnancy and miscarry instead?”

“Let him pay you,” Jessa said automatically. “That way you get cash to help pay for your prom dress,
and
he’ll still think he’s indebted to you.”

“Wow, I thought you’d go all pro-life on us for even suggesting it,” Kate said. I nodded my agreement.

“It’s not a real life she’s talking about,” Jessa pointed out. “It’s just a lie—which is still a sin, though I believe it’s justified, considering how much worse he’s done to you.”

“So if I can have a fake pregnancy, I can have a fake abortion without being smited?”

“Smote,” Jessa corrected. “And in my opinion, yes.”

“Sweet.”

“J
UST
PEE
on the stick,” I said, leaning my head against the wall.

“What if I miss? What if I pee on my
hand
?”

“Then you wash your hand, nimrod!” Kate yelled. “Just pee!”

“I can’t! You’re all listening, and there’s too much pressure! My dad’s going to kill me!”

“There you go,” I said, glaring at Kate. “You made her cry. Good going.”

“
I
made her cry?” Kate said incredulously.

“Shut up!” Ricky yelled. “Shut up, shut up, shut up! I’m trying to
pee
.”

“Just relax,” I said, glancing at my watch. The three of us had been cooped up in the tiny drugstore bathroom for almost twenty minutes. The sunny yellow tiles and bright fluorescent lights were starting to give me a migraine.

“I can’t relax. What if it’s positive? My dad’s going to
kill
me. He’s literally going to murder me, and no one will ever find my body!”

I tried to picture’s Ricky’s dad’s reaction if he found out she was pregnant. The image of the huge, one-armed war veteran slowly going red in the face until steam blew out his ears was not one I’d share with his terrified daughter.

“Calm down, we don’t even know if you’re pregnant or not,” Kate said, trying to sound soothing but honestly just failing.

I’m the supportive one, always have been, always will be. We all have our thing. Ricky is asthmatic, good at math, a loyal follower. Kate is our beautiful rebel, always turning expectations on their heads. Jessa is heir to the kingdom of heaven and a chain of drugstores. And me? I’m the moral support who’s also really good at Trivial Pursuit. Well, sometimes.

“I’m pregnant, I know I am.”

When she’d first told us she thought she was pregnant, we’d thought it was a joke. When she started crying, we thought it was an elaborate joke. It had stopped being funny half an hour ago when we stood in front of the pregnancy tests at Fuentes Drugs reading customer reviews and trying to decide which one was best for Ricky to pee on.

“You don’t know. You might’ve just eaten bad fish or something. There are a billion reasons why someone might throw up, okay?” I pointed out, trying hard not to feel foolish. The Fuentes family ran a clean store, but public bathrooms always gave me the heebie-jeebies.

“We had unprotected sex, and I’m three days late. I could be a
month
pregnant by now! Oh God!”

“Just freaking pee already,” Kate groaned, leaning against the counter. “Please? You can’t know if you are or are not if you don’t freaking
pee on the stick
.”

“I can’t pee! I’m too worked up!”

“For God’s sake!” Kate yelled.

“Hold on, I have an idea!” I said, pushing Kate aside. I waved my hand under the tap of one of the sinks, turning on the water. I let my hand get soaked while Kate began laughing and did the same thing to the other motion-sensor tap.

“Is that helping?” I yelled over the sound of the running water.

“Yeah!” Ricky yelled back. She came out a minute later brandishing the pregnancy test. “We have to wait two minutes now.”

“Get that thing away from me, you peed on it,” Kate complained, backing away. Ricky washed her hands three times while we waited.

“I’m so scared it’s positive. What am I going to do if it’s positive, Corey?”

“You have options,” I said, slinging an arm around her shoulder. I looked to Kate. “Right?
Options.
”

“That’s code for an abortion,” Kate said rather unhelpfully, pulling out a stick of gum and popping it in her mouth. “You want one?”

I wasn’t sure whether she meant a piece of gum or an abortion, but she slid a second stick out of her pack and put it in Ricky’s hand when she stretched out her palm. Ricky ripped off the wrapper and began to chew on it frantically.

“Jessa would never let me have an abortion.”

“It wouldn’t be her decision, now would it? It’s certainly not
her
uterus.” I touched Ricky’s shoulder encouragingly.

“Or her vagina,” Kate added, popping a loud bubble against her lips. “You were like a ten-pound baby. That shit runs in families. Imagine pushing a baby out your cooch? Jesus.”

Ricky crossed her legs. “Jessa would disown me. She wouldn’t want to be my friend anymore.”

“That’s not true,” I said soothingly, rubbing her back in little circles. “You know that’s not true. She might not be happy about it, but she’d pray for your soul and let you make your choice. She’s not some Bible-thumper. She’s our friend.”

“I guess you’re right.” Ricky closed her eyes. “How long has it been? Has it been two minutes yet?”

I gingerly picked up the pregnancy test by the plastic end and squinted at it. “Two bars means pregnant, right?”

“Oh God!” Ricky shrieked. “I’m pregnant?”

“No, it only has one bar. Half a bar, really. Look.” I held it up for her. Kate took a look and agreed with me.

“There is no bun in your oven, you lucky girl,” she said, smacking Ricky on the back, but the damage had been done. I felt bad about having accidentally scared her when I realized she was wheezing. She took a puff of her Albuterol while I rubbed her back comfortingly, the panic-induced asthma attack subsiding as she calmed down. I should have been more careful. Even the littlest thing could set her off when she was upset.

When Jessa got out of figure skating lessons, the four of us had an emergency “thank God none of us are pregnant” party where we watched chick flicks and ate chocolate, which was nothing at all like my last sleepover.

“C
OME
ON
,
just do it,” Kate whispered, leaning her head against my shoulder. Her head was heavy and warm, lolling just a little bit. “It feels
so
good.” She licked her lips obscenely and smiled, meeting her own eyes in the mirror. Her pupils were blown wide, almost obscuring the blue of her irises.

“But it’s—you know—
cocaine
,” I stuttered, whispering the last word and feeling my cheeks flush. As if it weren’t enough that Kate had shown up at my house high as a kite, she had taken me to my own bathroom and offered me some of the stuff she was high on.

“Stole it from my brother’s room,” she’d slurred, just on the cusp of being incoherent. “So I
know
it’s the good stuff. Guys like him always get the good stuff.”

“What’s he going to do when he finds out it’s missing?” I had asked, distressed. I didn’t know her brother well, but I’d watched
CSI
. The people who do hard drugs like cocaine are the people who kill people for stealing it from them.

“Nothing. What can he do? He can’t prove I took it, and what’s he going to do? Report it to the police?
‘My sister stole my fuckin’ coke, man.’
I didn’t even take all of it, just a little taste.”

“But…
why
?” I asked, pushing her beautiful blonde hair out of her face. She was rosy-cheeked and bright eyed, almost unnaturally so, but it looked good on her.

“I just wanted to know what it
felt
like. Just once, you know? I wanted to know what it
felt
like, don’t
you
want to know what it
feels
like?”

She rolled her head up into the curve of my neck and pawed at my hair like a baffled kitten. Her breath was hot against my throat, and moist. My heart fluttered in my chest and my cheeks flushed a little darker. I licked my lips.

“Well,” I said, trying to meet Kate’s eyes in the mirror. She was staring at herself almost vacantly. “Maybe a little. Just once?”

Kate grinned lazily and held up her hand again. The little dab of white powder on the knuckle of her bent thumb was stark against her tanned skin, sprayed on just the month before during a mother-daughter spa trip.

“So I just…?”

Kate nodded against my neck. “Just like the movies,” she said as I leaned down, plugging one nostril with my thumb and met her hand with my nose. I inhaled sharply, then snorted it back. It burned a little, but pleasantly. I rubbed my nose and then sneezed. “Is it supposed to happen right away, or what?”

“Give it a minute.”

We sat down on the bathroom floor. I felt kind of like an idiot, sitting there wringing my hands. We started talking about boys—well, Kate did, loudly and insistently.

“Josh Dunn is cute,” she said, her voice rapid and high-pitched. “But I totally wouldn’t do him. Would you do Josh Dunn? I wouldn’t. He’s too
nice
, you know? He probably wouldn’t be good in the sack.”

“Sure,” I said, feeling light-headed. Kate was talking really fast, and I was hanging on her every word. “But he’d want to do you. You’re so hot.”

“I am totally hot, aren’t I?” Kate laughed, tugging me farther under her arm. My face got shoved into the junction of her armpit and breast; it was soft and warm and smelled vaguely of deodorant.

“You are totally hot. Way hotter than Josh Dunn. I’d rather do you than Josh Dunn.”

Kate nodded enthusiastically. “I’d rather do you than Josh Dunn too. He’s too
cute
, you know? Soft and nice-boy. He wouldn’t know how to give it hard and fast. I bet Luke Turnbull gives it hard and fast. Have you seen him run? He’s practically an Olympian.”

“He does hurdles so well, Luke Turnbull,” I agreed, remembering the track meet. I do high jump, which tends to surprise people because I’m compact. But I’m not bad. I’m not an Olympian, but I’m not
bad
. “I’m good at high jump. I bet I could jump really high right now, get it? Because we’re high, right?”

Kate burst out laughing, and I felt elated. This was the best thing I’d ever done. Why had I been worried? I twisted my hands in Kate’s skirt; it was so soft, it felt like every nerve in my body had been set on fire, every feeling was so vivid.

“Is everything supposed to feel this—fast?” I asked, wide-eyed. I focused on the clock above the towel rack, squinting at it.
Tick, tick, tick
. Time was going so fast, but I felt like I was vibrating outside of it, free-floating through time, anchored only by my hands in Kate’s skirt and her fingers carding through my hair.

“Fast?” she asked vaguely, still petting me. Her hands in my hair was the best feeling in the whole world. She was quiet a moment, as if she had lost her train of thought. “If I were to do Josh Dunn, I bet it’d be
over
fast!”

We laughed at Josh Dunn’s supposed lack of stamina, gossiped about the boys at our school, sang a couple of pop songs loudly and off-key. No one was home. My parents were at a baby shower or a bridal shower or a Tupperware party or something; I couldn’t remember.

“I don’t feel so great anymore,” I said after what felt like hours but what could have been only a few minutes. “What if someone finds out we did this? What if my mom finds out?”

“No one will find out,” Kate sighed. “Unless they’re spying on us. Could someone be spying on us?”

We got up, still wrapped up in each other, and went to the window. We squinted outside through the frosted glass, but there wasn’t a nose squished to the other side. We were on the second floor.

“What if they’re hiding in the bathtub?” Kate asked in a stage whisper, her breath hot against my ear. I shivered, and then eyed the bathtub skeptically. Rationally, I knew there wasn’t anything behind the shower curtain, but I felt a chill creep up my spine and a paranoid voice in my brain began to whisper, “But what if there
is
? What if they hurt Kate?”

I wrenched myself out of Kate’s frightened grip and flung open the shower curtain, ripping it from its loops by accident. (One of us had to be the brave one.)

We sighed with relief; there was no one in the bathtub.

“Let’s do some more, I think it’s wearing off,” Kate said, opening her purse. She dabbed some more out of a little plastic baggie onto the back of her hand and snorted it loudly. She put more on and held it up to my face. I followed her lead, took another hit.