21
21
B-DAY
A few days before my twentieth birthday, I woke up disoriented, with a slithery feeling in my stomach. I pried open an eye to see it was still dark outside. I tried to go back to sleep, but my mouth started watering like it does when I have to throw up.
Oh gah. I slid from beneath Pete’s warm arm and tiptoed to the bathroom, nearly tripping over our packed bags. Oh yeah. We were going on a road trip in the morning to Malibu. Pete was going to teach me how to surf. Yay.
I felt movement in my stomach and moved it to the toilet. Picked up the seat, pulled back my hair, and leaned over. Sweat popping out on my face and some retching noises were the only things that happened.
Dang it! I knew I shouldn’t have accepted that babysitting job for Mrs. Henson. Jett and Skyler had both been on the Popsicle and Jell-O diet. “So not worth the money,” Pete had counseled. But she begged because it was their anniversary, so I relented, trying to earn some extra money for our trip. My stash of cash was reserved for Sleeping Beauty in there.
“I never get sick,” I’d declared. Famous last words.
Pete would kill me now if I cancelled on him. His surfboard was already waxed and tethered to the top of the Jeep. Dang it! Why didn’t I just listen to him for once? I heaved out some aggravation, but not the contents of my stomach.
I gave up on my mission to hurl after about five minutes of trying to force it out. Some eye moisture was about all I had to show for my trouble. I sipped some tap water from the faucet and slipped back into bed. Pete was right about something else too. I did need to slow down; I was flat out exhausted. The kind of exhausted I hadn’t experienced in a long time.
Maybe I was going soft?
I was going soft. I’d noticed I’d gained a couple of lbs, and I had trouble zipping my jeans the other day. Or else they shrunk in the wash? Nope. Could not use that excuse. I was definitely a little fluffier than usual. I think I read somewhere that couples in the throes of a love affair gain weight. So that backfat I had growing was really just love handles then. Right?
So maybe this stomach virus came at a good time. I’d have to get into a bikini tomorrow, I tried Mama’s recipe for making lemonade out of lemons. And then the dam broke, and my watery eyes flooded with tears. I hadn’t thought of her for a while. Right now, she seemed really close, in this darkest hour before the dawn.
And then that slithery feeling creep-crawled up my spine. What now? I was just chilled, I convinced myself. It was cold. So I scooched over and snuggled into the warm, solid body of the man of my dreams. I slowly breathed his blissful scent in and out until all niggles of negativity and wiggles of worry wormed their way out of my system, and I fell back to sleep.
When I awoke again, it was from sweet kisses running along the inside of my arm and ending at the corner of my mouth. “Wake up, sleepy head. It’s road trip time!” Pete turned the volume way up on that last part.
“Yay,” I said, trying to fake it till I made it to the same happy place he was in.
“Come on!” He yanked the covers off. “Last one in is a rotten egg!”
Oh gah. Don’t say rotten egg. My stomach felt sour. I was just about to tell him that when he stampeded to the shower, like I was nipping at his heels. Obviously, I was the tortoise in this race. So I crawled back inside my shell and fell back to sleep.
Yank. Oh yay. More sunlight . I peeled my eyes open to my favorite sight: a freshly showered Pete, with a lop-sided grin.
“Hey.” Smile droop. “Did you fall back asleep?”
“No.” Lie.
“Are you sick ?”
“No.” Another lie.
“Aren’t you excited for Malibu and the beach? Surfing !” Animated excitement, like a schoolboy’s.
“Of course.” If I would’ve been strapped to one of those GAP biofeedback gadgets, the needles would’ve been jumping around like crazy.
The sparkle left his eyes and his forehead creased, but his smile remained intact. He sighed and sank down. He ran a leisurely hand from the top of my head to the bottom of my back.
“Do you want to stay home and sleep in while I fetch you noodle soup and crackers?”
Yes. “No.” I tried to make my smile stick. “I’m just really tired. I think you’re right—I’ve been kinda overdoin’ it a bit.”
He pursed his lips. “You think?”
I huffed out a weak chuckle. “I can make it. I’ll sleep on the way.”
“And when we get there, if you’re still not feeling well, I can run you a bath and you can stay at the hotel and rent movies and stay in bed.
“Sounds good.” The first thing I’d said that was the truth.
He hoisted me up. “Come on, girlfriend . . . let’s do this thing.”
“Let’s.” The only thing I could say.
So I got up. For Pete—the best boyfriend in the world. We stopped off at a convenience store to fill up, and I went in and bought a ginger ale and some of those aforementioned crackers. And I slept the whole way there. Forget about our big plan to break at Big Sur. Pete didn’t make a peep until we hit sunny Santa Monica.
“Hey, babe.” He finally broke into my sleep, reaching over to dig some hair off my face, “we’re at the beach.”
I sat up, smiling. “Yay!”
This produced a shit-eating grin from him. “How you feeling?”
“Happy we’re here.” I yawned and stretched out the kinks. “And hungry.”
“I’m telling you—there’s nothing a little sun, sand, and surf can’t fix,” Pete proclaimed, swishing a strand of my hair over my shoulder.
I smiled warmly at my sun. “Maybe you should put that on a T-shirt. Sell it on the Internet. Make lots of moolah.”
He laughed at me. “Haven’t you turned into the little money-hungry entrepreneur?”
I laughed. “Just hungry entrepreneur. Maybe we should draw up a business plan on a napkin . . . at lunch. Hint-hint.”
Pete gave a throaty laugh. “Well, since we’re at the beach, wanna find a beach shack and eat our lunch on top of the sand under an umbrella?”
I nodded my head. Then used my words: “Sounds great!”
“Well, let’s do it, girlfriend.”
He pulled into a parking lot off the Pacific Coast Highway. Sure enough, there was sand, hazy surf in the distance, and happy beach peeps strolling along an endless strip of sidewalk in various forms of motion: walking, jogging, skating, biking. But swimsuit attire was the one thing they all seemed to have in common.
I dug into my bag for a brush and some tinted lip balm. I threw on my shades, pulled off the uniform sweatshirt, and got out of the Jeep to go greet my boyfriend, who was stretching his kinks out while looking glorious under the golden sun.
Pete was in his element, wearing some loose shorts and a sky-blue T-shirt with some kind of surf logo on it. Completing his surfer-boy outfit were some brown flip-flops and that leather cord around his neck with the arrow medallion— Go your own way. Words to live by. I went my own way to him and wrapped my arms around his stomach and pulled him into my chest. My heart felt like it would burst with happiness.
“Thanks for takin’ me on a vacation,” I chirped.
He turned around with his mirrored aviators and blinding smile. “Thanks for comin’ with.” He gave me a brief peck. “Why don’t you go grab an umbrella table, and I’ll order up some food. What are you in the mood for?”
I inhaled the greasy food smell wafting in the air, and my stomach rumbled. “Some fries, a burger, and a Coke,” I replied truthfully.
Pete threw his head back and laughed. “Me too.” He followed that up with a slap on my too-tight jean shorts, while I considered reconsidering my order.
Instead I flip-flopped forward to nab a table from a couple who was just leaving. It felt like my lucky day. I sat at the semi-clean, semi-shaded picnic table, alternately enjoying the beach view and the view of my boyfriend’s butt as he stood in line to order our food. I hummed along to some reggae music, wondering what the heck I’d been worrying about.
Life was good, mon.
And just when I didn’t think it could get any better, my boyfriend began heading my way with a crooked grin and a balanced tray loaded with food. Happiness and hotness emanated off him. I swear every person at every table along his path swiveled to stare as he sauntered by. And he was mine. All mine! I laughed out loud, and so did he, before dropping the tray onto our table for two. I immediately nabbed a fry.
“ Mmmmm ,” I hummed with approval. “Is there any ketchup?”
“I think there’s a condiment stand over there,” he chin-nodded towards a stand propping up a white-picket fence.
“I’ll get it,” I volunteered, standing up.
“I got it.” He handed me a burger with a “V” magic-markered on the wrapper. “I gotta go take a whiz anyway.”
I smiled and sat back down. “Me too. But I’ll hold it to hold down the fort.”
He gave a short laugh, like he always did at my little clevers, and bent over to give me a peck.
“ Mmmmm,” I murmured approval.
He flashed his teeth at me, and I swear the sunbeams beating down on us couldn’t have been any brighter. I hummed along while chewing on another French fry. Mmmmm. I swear the food smelled so good. It was like an animal was inside me. And it was a carnivore.
The next thing I knew, I was knuckle-deep in Pete’s cheeseburger. Mmmmmm. Oh Gah! Food never tasted so good. Maybe I was getting anemic again? Anyhow, Pete wouldn’t mind me chomping on his burger a bit. So I bit in again, sinking my teeth into greasy fried meat and cheese smooshed between two buttery buns. Hmmmmmm. I was practically making snarling sounds while I chewed. Meat usually grossed me out, but this satisfied me on some basic biological way that couldn’t be explained. Like Pete.
I was nose deep and mouth full of his burger when Pete emerged with some little packets in one hand and napkins—I sorely needed—in the other. He glanced at my untouched “V” burger, then stared at me while I chewed and swallowed. I gave him a sheepish smile and reached for a napkin.
“Did you just snarf half my burger while I was in the John?”
“I’m sorry, Pete I’m—” I wiped my mouth with the napkin he just handed me while something weird started to happen around me. The cottony clouds darkened before slowly drifting across the sun. The wind suddenly gusted, blowing our newly acquired napkins off the table. The molecules in the air seemed to compress around us and press down on me so that I felt their weight. That cold slithery feeling worked its way up my spine. I shivered despite the heat. Sick dread clenched my stomach. My mouth started watering. The lump of chewed up meat I just swallowed started to come back up. “—gonna throw up!”
I bolted from the table only to make it to the end of the line, where a weary, floppy-hatted mom and her sunburned, towheaded offspring were tapping toes for the bathroom. Ugh! I clamped a hand over my mouth and whirled around frantically searching for a good place to—hurled into some scraggly weeds bravely pushing up pavement next to the steamy dumpster.
“Uggh!” I swiped at the yuck on my mouth with the back of my hand.
I felt someone pull my hair back from my sweaty neck while I hurled some more half-masticated chunks onto the sandy pavement. “Oh God.”
Pete quietly rubbed at my back, while shielding me from the disgusted onlookers. After a couple of more times of that throat-stinging operation he asked: “Are you finished?” I nodded, groaning. “Here.” He handed me my Coke. I took a grateful sip. “I’m sorry, Kate. We shouldn’t have come when you were sick.”
I had nothing to say to that. Could barely hear him through the ringing in my ears. And then I realized—it wasn’t my ears that were ringing. It was that dadgum clock over our heads. It had stopped ticking. And started ringing.
My stomach dropped, and my head began to spin. I bent over, deep breathing. Oh. My. God.
“You ready to get outta here?” Pete inquired gently. I could do nothing more than nod. “Come on.” He put his arm around me and helped me to the Jeep, then went around and got in and started it, blasting the AC. He pointed all the vents at my face, which couldn’t face him.
I was deep breathing in and out through my nostrils.
Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.
“That’s right. Slow, steady breathing,” Pete encouraged.
Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.
He lifted my hair and pressed the Coke on the back of my neck. “I’m so sorry you’re so sick, Kate.”
Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.
My stomach rolled around. I clutched it, swallowing back acidy stuff in my esophagus that kept wanting to come up. I started hyperventilating.
“Slow down your breathing, Kate.”
I snatched the Coke from his hand and took a shaky sip.
Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.
He removed the cup from my hands. “Do you think you can make it to the hotel?”
How could he be thinking about a hotel at a time like this? Then I realized: he still didn’t know. I turned my face to face my clueless boyfriend.
He sucked in a breath, eyes shooting wide. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Tears sprang to my eyes. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out.
“Kate?”
“I-I’m—”
He grasped my trembling hands in my lap. “Tell me.”
“Pregnant.”