Surviving Valencia (18 page)

I’m pregnant.

Pregnant!

I can’t say it enough.

I. Am. Pregnant.

With so much on my mind, I was two weeks late before I even realized it.

I briefly considered not telling Adrian that I was late, letting the news be mine alone for a little while, but I couldn’t do it.

I had slept until almost eleven o’clock after many, many weeks of waking up at five or six in the morning. When I finally awoke, stretching out on our new bamboo sheets (what a luxury!) and looking out the window at the tall, black fence, I felt great. Like the old me from before all the trouble had begun. I was lying there, feeling lazy and content, when it occurred to me how much time had passed since I’d last been bothered by my period. And then I just
knew.

Adrian was cleaning up his studio. I walked in announcing, “I’m late. Really late. Let’s get a pregnancy test!”

“Do you
feel
pregnant?” he asked as we drove to the store.

“I don’t know. I dreamed like crazy last night. Does that sound like I’m pregnant?”

“What did you dream about?”

“I can’t remember. Ice cream? Cheese?”

“Sounds like you’re pregnant to me.” He squeezed my knee, beaming.

“Honestly, I’m sure I am. I’m never late.”

“How late are you?”

“Adrian,” I pouted, “don’t you keep track of my period?”

We both started laughing, and then we looked at each other and laughed some more, almost causing a car accident. Right then and there, for the first time in a very long time, nothing mattered but us.

I went in to the drugstore alone, since no matter how famous Adrian gets, I seem to be staying under the radar. Ever since what we were now calling the Bob Chance Encounter, Adrian was convinced that he was even more famous than he’d previously thought. He now assumed the paparazzi and his fans were everywhere. He also thought that the day when I was photographed had been an overflow of the energy normally directed at him. In fact, everything that was happening to us, he attributed to his crazed fans. He truly believed he was Savannah’s Picasso. Or Brad Pitt.

“If I go in there someone might leak the information that we’re expecting a baby,” he explained, turning on the radio and reclining his seat.

“Fine,” I said, too excited to argue. I could not wait to do it at home, so I ran into the drugstore’s bathroom and peed on the little stick. Immediately, two faint lines appeared.

No way
. Despite my confidence in the car, I could not believe it.

It was a two-pack of tests, so I ripped the spare open and forced a few more drops of pee on that one’s stick, and set it beside the other test. I watched as the first test’s pink lines progressed to magenta, and the second test’s pair of lines faintly came into focus.

I felt an almost physical reaction, as if I were being pressed to the ground by a wave of hot, hot air from above. Becoming pregnant seemed like something that only happened to other people. Could both tests be wrong? I sat down on the edge of the toilet seat and reread the back of the box. It showed one line for not pregnant and two for pregnant.
A fainter second line may still indicate that you are pregnant
said the writing on the box. Both tests I had taken each had clear, bold lines. So there really wasn’t any doubt about it.

I stood back up and pressed my forehead against the smooth, cool partition wall. Normally I would have been way too concerned about germs to get so cozy with a public restroom, but in that moment I didn’t even think about the germs.

There’s nothing like finding out you’re pregnant to make you take an honest look at your life. Standing there in a bathroom stall, realizing you have another life growing inside you, knowing that someone killed your sister and might intend to kill you… It makes you think you can and should run away.

Didn’t I owe this baby, if not myself, the truth? Adrian’s and my world did not resemble the charmed, sophisticated existence that local magazines portrayed. There was a little more going on than a new fence and puppy, despite what the neighbors thought. Who was I living this charade for? It’s not as if I had many friends. They were Adrian’s friends, not mine.

“Who
are
you doing this for?” I whispered. The bathroom was silent, save for the slow, steady drip of the faucet.

For a moment I entertained the thought of selling oranges from a van, from an Airstream. Just the baby and me. We’d wear clothes I sewed from old feed sacks and live an honest life. I’d change our names then change them again, just to be safe.

That’s what I would like to do. That’s what would feel like the truth.

But then again, I reasoned, if there was ever a time I needed Adrian, it was now.

I stood there, frozen, knowing he was waiting to hear my answer. If I took off, slipped through a side door of the drugstore and ran away, how long would it take for him to come inside looking for me? What would I do? I had a debit card in my wallet. I could withdraw a bunch of money, and then what?

Stop it.

You’re being ridiculous.

I let myself out of the stall, holding both tests in my hand. I set them on the edge of the sink, washed my hands, splashed water on my face. I looked at myself in the mirror, trying to see if I looked different now. But I looked the same as always. I smiled and cleared my throat. Touched up my lip-gloss for good measure.

Seriously, you could do it. You could disappear. Sometimes you forget that it is all up to you.
The reflection of me nodded solemnly, the eyes wavering between inspiration and defeat. I looked away, preferring the sturdy absoluteness of sinks, soap dispensers, white tile walls, over that wavering woman in the mirror.

I wrapped the tests neatly in a paper towel and put them in my purse. I drew in a deep breath, held it, exhaled.

Okay. Let’s do this.

Then I ran back to the car and thrust the pregnancy tests at Adrian, exuding confidence and joy. And the funny part is, it wasn’t really a lie.

It was summer vacation, 1989. Since I no longer had a bicycle, I needed to find a job I could walk to, and a way to afford some new clothes for high school. When she wasn’t lying on her bed, suffering from migraines and watching talk shows, my mother was still working at the dentist office. But I hated to be at home, even if I was the only one there. I hated the twins’ transformed, empty rooms. I hated the loud ticking clock, my out-of-date wardrobe, the way nothing was ever fresh or new. We were using watered down discount shampoo and were frequently out of groceries. And I could never relax; I knew that at any moment either of my parents could unexpectedly come home from work and there we would be, stuck together. Then I would inevitably get grounded. Everything set them off. A dish in the sink, a blemish on my face, or a dropped piece of mail that wasn’t even ours blowing across the yard. Just being there practically gave me an ulcer.

Having had the brief experience of caring for Kennedy the previous summer, I decided to become a high class babysitter extraordinaire. I was inspired by
The Baby-sitters Club
books, as well as Valencia’s old three ring binder I’d found on a shelf in the TV room downstairs. The cover of the binder was a rich coral pink, which was Valencia’s favorite color, favorite organic substance, favorite girl’s name, favorite
everything
, and it said
1982 Babysitter’s Guidebook
. It had a gold badge sticker proclaiming
I passed my childcare test with flying colors!
On the back cover she had written
I love Rob McCray forever
and
Remember: In case of swallowing poison, make babies drink some milk.
Inside were tabs dividing the binder into all sorts of informative sections. I quickly learned how to perform CPR, heat up a bottle, and seek cover from an earthquake. This fabulous guide, somehow missed by my mother in her eradicating sweeps, elevated babysitting from lowly after-school job to respectable career. I flipped through it, excited. If Valencia could do it, with flying colors no less, so could I.

The entrance of the local supermarket usually housed plenty of handwritten advertisements from people needing babysitters, so I walked the two mile journey to it and took a look. As I stood there, perusing the picked over offerings which displayed a few expired garage sales and some kittens for sale, two Jennis and a Kaci came in with their clans of summer kids. They were all decked out in swimsuits and biker shorts, stopping in for a snack on their way to the pool. It was obvious as I stood there, binder in hand, gazing forlornly at the wall in front of me, what I was looking for. My dad’s favorite saying ‘You’re a day late and a dollar short’ truly summarized my existence.

For a moment it looked as if they would pass on by me and leave me alone. But I was such easy prey that one of the Jennis could not resist. She paused on the mat that made the door automatically open and turned back to me. “Ohhh. Were you trying to be a nanny too?”

“A nanny?”

“Oh, pardon
moi
,” she said, taking a step closer to me and pointing her sparkly purple tipped fingernail at the binder. “I see you’re trying to be a
babysitter
. Well, you’re a little late.”

“I see that.”

“Come on, Jenni,” said Kaci.

“Your little
binder
is from
1982
?” Jenni continued, annoyed. I wasn’t sure why this was irritating her. I never could understand why the popular girls got so mad about everything. “Let me see it.”

I handed it to her. Of course.

“Oh,
I
get it,” she said, flipping through it, reading Valencia’s handwritten notes. “This was your
sister’s
book. Hmm. Here’s a good tip:
Wait an hour after eating before going swimming
. Ha ha. We’re about to load these brats up on Hostess Twinkies. I hope they all cramp up and sink. Well, here’s your stupid book back. Not that you will ever be needing it.” She shoved it back at me and somehow I fumbled and dropped it on the floor. She kicked it and laughed, and then she frowned and rubbed her toe.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

“Ouch,” she said, glaring at me. “You know, your sister was
so
much prettier than you. What the
hell
?”

“I know. I don’t know why that happened,” I said, picking up the binder and wiping it off on my shorts.

“Well, tootaloo,” she said, skipping inside to join her friends.

“Bye,” I said. I went back outside into the unseasonably sweltering June day, crying. Weeping. Snot pouring out my nose as the sobs escaped me in hiccups. And I promptly walked another half mile to the drugstore, and spent the meager amount of money I had in my purse on a bottle of purple nail polish.

I did end up finding a job shortly after the binder incident. And even as a
nanny
, of sorts. I had been out for a walk and had stopped in to a diner to buy some gum from their gumball machine. There in the vestibule, thumbtacked to a small bulletin board, was an index card covered with bluebird stickers. Written in shaky, delicate old lady handwriting, it said
Grandma Betty Needs a Friend
, followed by a telephone number. I tore down the card and ran home to call.

“You’re hired, Sweetie,” she told me.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Thanks what?”

“Thanks a lot?”

“Thanks, Grandma Betty,” she corrected me, giggling a crackly little giggle.

The job was to help her with her chores and keep her company. Thankfully, she had a nurse who helped her bathe in the evenings after I went home, so I just had to do things like dust her knickknacks and buy groceries for her. She let me drive her car, insisted actually (how else could I bring groceries back from the store?). I was terrified.

“I don’t know how to drive. It’s illegal. I am only fourteen!” I told her, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. She just put the keys to her Buick in my palm and said, “I’ll watch
Days of Our Lives
until you get back.”

The Buick’s wide, cushy front bench seat seemed more like a sofa than part of an automobile. I could barely see over the huge steering wheel or reach the pedal. As people often do, I became attached to the car and wanted to add my mark to it, so I stuck a ladybug sticker on the rearview mirror and stored my Carmex in the ashtray. I think the only reason I never got pulled over was because no one actually saw me driving it.

Grandma Betty loved Kraft singles, white bread, and liverwurst. We fell into a pleasant routine: Each day at lunch I would grill myself a cheese sandwich and then grill a liverwurst and cheese sandwich for her. We would take them down the wheelchair ramp, to the picnic table in the breezeway, which was a little screened-in porch attaching her house to her garage. She told me stories about her life as a girl and about the job she’d had as a telephone operator, but mainly she wanted to talk about her husband Lloyd, who had passed away five years earlier.

“Would you believe,” she’d tell me, “that Lloyd thought he wanted to marry my sister Martha? Oh no! I wasn’t having it. I told him that
I
was the girl for him.” She laughed. “Martha didn’t mind. She always liked Herbie Stanford, the principal’s son. We had a double wedding! That was kind of the fashion back then. Nowadays I don’t think they do that. Oh, that Lloyd... He was trouble… I miss him every day.”

As she spoke, I munched on potato chips or crackers, anything I had been inclined to add to the grocery cart, thankful for unstale food to eat. Then she and I would share a Mounds bar for dessert.

Taking care of her was easy. She paid me $10 an hour, which was more than my mother made. Ten dollars to watch soap operas and drink Kool-aid, water plants, help her with her Search-A-Word Puzzles. In comparison, baby-sitting the previous summer had paid $2.00 an hour and I had thought I was raking it in.

“Who do you think is cuter?” she would ask me, while we watched
Days
together, “Shane Donovan or Mike Horton?”

“They’re about a tie,” I would say, munching on Pringles.

“Should Jennifer be with Emilio or Jack?” she would ask me.

Well, they were
both
cute. But I still wanted her to end up with Frankie. I said as much.

“So do I. Me too,” she’d say nodding.

“Is he ever coming back to Salem?”

She flipped through her
Soap Opera Digest
. “Not a word about him in here.”

At night after I left, she watched
Wheel of Fortune
and knitted sweaters, scarves, mittens, and blankets for me. She’d present them to me along with my daily eighty dollars. I often told my mother that these gifts were in lieu of a paycheck, to hide how much money I was making. I feared if she knew, she would hunt down Grandma Betty and convince her that fifty cents an hour and the occasional potholder were plenty of compensation for me.

For the first few weeks, my mother was oblivious to where I was going and the growing pile of winter accessories on my dresser. Then one day as I sneaked past her to my bedroom she noticed.

“What are you doing with that Afghan? Is that from Valencia’s hope chest?” I never knew Valencia had had a hope chest. My mother got up from the kitchen table where she had been reading a fitness magazine, and she came over to me.

I told her the story I’d practiced on my walks home: “It’s from Betty. You know, that old lady I work for. ‘Cause she is poor and couldn’t pay me today.”

“Oh. She’s paying you in blankets?”

“Yes.”

“Well that’s new. How do you think I’d like it if the dentist paid me in fillings?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well think about it. You need to stand up for yourself.”

“She pays me in money, too,” I said, fearing I had taken it too far.

“If you’re happy with the situation, I guess there’s nothing to talk about. But I wouldn’t like it and I would say so,” she said smugly. Ironically, I had recently overheard my dad questioning her about her dwindling paychecks, to which she’d responded that she’d gotten some dental work done in place of several days’ pay. I had believed her side of the story, but now I wondered if she might be missing work because she was having another affair.

“I’m fine with it,” I said. Then I changed the subject. “How have you been feeling lately? Have you had any headaches?”

“Nope. I’ve been much better.”

“That’s nice.”

“Well, you know, I am trying to be healthier. I think eating better and exercising more helps with my overall health.”

“So, no migraines. That’s really great, Mom.”

“It sure is. Not to mention, I lost ten pounds.”

“Oh. Good for you.”

“Did you notice?”

“Yes, I thought you looked pretty good,” I lied.

“It takes work, losing weight,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I’ve been doing leglifts every morning and jumping jacks at night. I just have to stick with it.” I was surprised she was talking to me about this. I was unsure whether I liked that we were having a conversation, or if it was too late to even try.

“Well, I’m going to put this on my bed,” I said, nodding at the blanket in my arms.

“She shouldn’t make you walk home carrying that in this heat. You’ll get sick.”

“It doesn’t bother me.”

“You probably look a little silly walking down the street with a blanket wrapped around you in the middle of summer.”

“I didn’t wrap it around me.”

“Well, good.”

“Anyway, it’s not that hot. See,” I said, wiggling my fingers through it, “there are holes everywhere.”

“Ughhh,” she sighed and shook her head, as if the banality of the conversation had just deflated her. Then she turned back to her magazine and perked back up. “Do you know you can use your coffee table as an aerobics step?”

“Really?” I said, not interested but coming over to take a look out of politeness. She closed the magazine and called out to my father who was watching television in the living room, “Roger, do you want corn or peas with your meatloaf?”

I realized I had been flattering myself to worry about her intervening. Once I left her property, it was out of sight, out of mind, unless something rare and unfortunate like that newspaper photo happened.

By the end of the summer, I had almost $4000 hoarded away in a duffle bag in my closet.

The time came for high school to start and I had to break it to Betty that I wouldn’t be coming to see her anymore. She didn’t take it very well. I gave her only two days’ notice because I hadn’t had the nerve to tell her sooner. The first day she tried to bribe me to stay, offering to double my salary and make me whatever kind of sweater I wanted; I could pick out the yarn! The last day she became a different person entirely. She parked her wheelchair in front of the dining room window, refusing to talk to me. When it was time to leave, I tried to give her a hug. She turned away, handing me my money without even saying goodbye.