Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ALLIE
Leah Flynn isn’t in school today, which concerns me. Whatever is going on with her friend must be a bigger deal than I thought. At the start of basketball practice, I catch Noah’s eye which results in him running across the gym toward me.
“I’m a couple guys down today,” he says.
Looking around for more missing girls, I tell him, “Leah Flynn is out.”
“She missed yesterday, too, right?” Before I have a chance to answer, he says, “Her brother is out. Maybe the whole family caught a bug.”
“Maybe.” And while that’s certainly possible, I have a feeling something else is going on. Something to do with the excuse Leah gave me yesterday.
While Noah gets everyone started stretching, I approach a senior girl on my team named Nora. Pulling her aside, I ask, “Do you know Margie Flynn?”
She nods. “She’s in my history class.”
“Was she in school today?” Maybe Noah is right and the whole family has caught something.
Nora shakes her head. “She’s been out all week.”
“Do you know why?” I ask.
She glances from side to side before telling me, “She’s been throwing up a lot. But I don’t think it’s the flu or anything like that?”
“Food poisoning?”
Leaning closer to me, she says, “Word on the street is she’s pregnant. I don’t know for sure, but isn’t throwing up one of the signs?”
“It is,” I confirm, feeling a pang of panic for the girl. Teenagers aren’t generally excited to find out they’re pregnant. “Is there anything else that makes you think pregnancy might be the reason?”
With a shrug, she answers, “She broke up with her boyfriend. My boyfriend said that Jordan told a couple of guys that Margie got knocked up and he’s pissed she won’t get an abortion.”
Exhaling loudly, I thank Nora for the information and send her back out onto the court. It looks like Leah’s friend might have been her sister, and the problem is much bigger than I speculated.
I let Noah lead practice today so I can mentally dissect what, if anything, I can do to help Margie and her family. While she’s not my student, I have both of her siblings in class. And being that all of them are gone today, it’s clear the whole family is in some degree of crisis.
Practice ends before I realize it, and Noah approaches me. “You feeling okay today? You’re not getting sick too, are you?”
“Nope. Not sick.” Certainly not in the way Margie is, anyway.
“Are you ready to go to dinner?” he wants to know. “How about you go and get us a table, and I’ll lock up after the kids and join you?”
“Yeah, okay.” I’m actually glad to be leaving on my own. I try to imagine what it would be like to get pregnant in high school, and I can’t. Especially with a boyfriend who expected me to get an abortion. It’s such a grown-up situation for kids so young that I feel for both of them.
On my way to my car, I reminisce about my own pregnancies.
I was never nauseated, which actually disappointed me.
I wanted to have a stereotypical experience, and according to every TV show or movie I’d ever seen, that included a lot of vomiting.
Without it, I always felt like I was somehow missing out.
Other than a positive pregnancy test, I never had any symptoms that I had a baby on board.
I only heard the heartbeat once with my first two pregnancies.
I heard it multiple times with the third.
I even managed to hit my second trimester before losing the last baby.
In retrospect, I realize that must have played a large part in how hard it was to recover.
All the experts tell you the chance of miscarriage diminishes greatly once you make it past your first trimester. After losing two early, I just assumed if I made it to sixteen weeks I would be in the clear.
As I drive over to the diner I feel a weird sensation of disembodiment. My brain has left the building and is traversing all kinds of alternate realities. After parking in front of the diner, I make my way inside.
The restaurant is surprisingly empty, but I suppose now that school is back in session most people will be eating at home during the week. Also, the summer tourist crowd is gone, which cuts our off-season population down by a third.
I sit at a table in the front window, so Noah won’t be able to miss me. Then I order a diet soda and wait.
Noah is only a few minutes behind me. He walks into the diner with a whoosh of crisp air trailing behind him. My heartbeat immediately picks up speed and my breath hitches in my throat. It turns out my favorite time of year, mixed with my teenage crush, is quite a heady combination.
Crossing the room toward me, Noah stops and declares, “I’m so hungry I could eat five burgers. You’d think I was the one out there working my tail off on the court.”
“I’m hungry, too,” I tell him. “But I always eat more once sweater weather arrives.”
He laughs. “My mom used to say that if no one could see her gaining weight then there was no reason not to do it.”
“I’ve always loved your mom,” I tell him with a smile of camaraderie. “She was so much more laid back than mine.”
“My parents were pretty great to grow up with.” He sits across from me and picks up his menu.
After we order our meals, a double cheeseburger for Noah and fish and chips for me, I tell him, “I heard some gossip at school today.”
“Is old Mr. Pinkerton finally going to retire?” he wants to know. “That guy has been at Elk Lake High since my dad went to school there.”
I take the paper wrapper off my straw and put it into my drink. After taking a long slow sip, I tell him, “I heard that Leah and Decan’s sister is pregnant.”
His eyes pop wide open. “That’s too bad.”
“It really is. I also heard that her boyfriend broke up with her because she wouldn’t have an abortion.” I hesitate before adding, “Not that I know if any of this is true.”
Noah cringes visibly. “I’m guessing it is. I’ve worked in high schools for a decade and in all that time whenever the news of pregnancy got out, there was usually something to it.”
“People can be awful when something like this happens.”
“Remember when Ellie Scott and Tony DeMarco got pregnant? You know Alfonse on my team? That’s their son.”
“I didn’t know that. But, yeah, I remember the scandal. Especially when they not only decided to keep the baby but to get married, too. I don’t think anyone was in support of that decision.”
“Probably because most young marriages don’t last,” he says. He looks up quickly and clarifies, “High school marriages, not, you know, post college ones.”
“Relax, Noah,” I tell him. “I know you’re not talking about me.”
“I’m sorry how things turned out for you.” He sounds sad for me, too, which makes me like him even more.
“I’m glad I discovered who Brett was before getting in too deep.”
“You mean before having kids?”
“Yeah,” I say hesitantly. “I guess that’s what I meant.” Now would be the time to tell Noah why Brett really left me, but for some reason I don’t want him to think of me as defective. Even though I know that’s the truth.
Noah unrolls his silverware and puts his napkin into his lap. “Do you think that’s why Leah and Decan missed practice today?”
“Probably,” I tell him. “When Leah missed yesterday, she claimed she had a friend who needed her help. I’m guessing that friend was Margie.”
“What would your parents have done if you’d gotten pregnant in high school?”
I snort loudly before telling him, “They probably would have called that show Unsolved Mysteries.”
With a laugh, he asks, “Why’s that?”
“Aside from my senior prom, I didn’t so much as have one date in high school.” I don’t mention that’s because no boy could compare to him.
“That’s surprising,” Noah says before adding, “but girls get pregnant all the time on prom night.”
“Not when they go with Ken Jacobs, they don’t.”
He thinks about this for a moment before asking, “Ken Jacobs from Brigadoon fame?”
“And every other musical that followed after you graduated,” I tell him.
“Why did you go with Ken?” He’s clearly questioning my decision to go with an unsuccessfully closeted gay guy.
Unsuccessful, because Ken had a bigger hitch in his giddyap than any girl I knew, and he wore more eye makeup.
His desire to play the part of a ladies’ man aside, his secret was out in the open.
“If a straight guy had asked me,” I tell him, “I would have certainly considered it. But you might remember that high school boys usually go for the short, cute cheerleader types. Tall girls on the basketball team didn’t get the same kind of attention. At least they didn’t back then.”
The waitress brings our food and puts it down in front of us. When she leaves, he asks, “Why is that? I mean, models are tall and they’re consider ideal women.”
“I’m guessing it’s because high school boys feel more manly with some tiny adoring girl by their side.” I hurry to remind him, “From what I recall, your girlfriends were on the petite side.” Put that in your pipe, Noah.
He considers this for a minute before declaring, “I didn’t go out with them because they were short. I went out with them because they were nice girls.”
Squeezing some ketchup next to my fries, I grunt, “If you say so.”
“I do say so. Why would I lie about something like that?”
“I didn’t say you were lying,” I tell him. “I’m simply suggesting that maybe you liked how it felt to be stared up at. It takes a strong guy to look a woman in the eye.”
“I dated a girl in college who was six one,” he says cockily. “So that shoots down your theory.”
“It’s nice to know you grew up then.” I try to keep my tone neutral, but even I can hear the snark.
“Someone’s got a chip on her shoulder,” he says rather unkindly.
“Not at all,” I tell him. “I’ve grown up, too.” Then I ask, “What happened to the tall girl?”
He laughs good-naturedly before telling me, “She left me for someone even taller.”
“Really?”
“I’m not sure his height had anything to do with it, but he was six seven.”
“It feels horrible to be cheated on, doesn’t it?” I commiserate before taking a bit of my fish. It’s so flaky and good!
“Helena didn’t cheat on me.” He explains, “She told me that another guy had asked her out and that she wanted to go.”
“So, she broke up with you?”
“To be honest, I was pretty hurt she was interested in someone else while she was dating me, so I told her that if she wanted to date around that it would be best for us to take a break.”
I finish the food in my mouth before telling him, “My grandmother dated three guys at the same time before choosing my grandfather.”
“I suppose marriage probably stands a better chance of making it if you’ve dated a lot before settling down. I certainly feel that way now, but as a kid, it was a blow to my ego.”
“I can see that. And most couples who start dating so young don’t make it in the long run.”
“Tony and Ellie did,” he says.
“They sure did, but I think they tried harder because they had a baby.” We both eat in silence for a few minutes before I get up the nerve to ask, “What would you have done if one of your high school girlfriends got pregnant?”
Putting his burger down, he answers, “I suppose I would have broken up with her.”
“Noah!” I can’t hide my shock. “I thought you were better than that.”
“I’m a good guy, but I’m not going to take the fall for someone else.”
“Does that mean …” I don’t quite know how to finish that question so it’s a good thing I don’t have to.
“I didn’t fool around in high school,” he says.
“You certainly had the opportunity.” And boy, did he. Girls practically threw themselves at him every time he walked by. Me included.
“Maybe so, but I knew I was going to go to college, and I didn’t envision staying with a high school girlfriend when that happened.”
“Most guys take what they can get while they can get it.”
He visibly cringes. “That’s kind of gross though, don’t you think? I was always taught that sex came after you’d fallen in love with someone.”
I stare at Noah in complete and total shock. “What century are you from?”
“I know it sounds old fashioned,” he says, “but it’s how I feel.” Forcing eye contact, he adds, “I’m guessing that’s how you were raised, too.”
“It was,” I agree. “But there’s always been a double standard between boys and girls.”
“Which doesn’t make it right.”
If I didn’t already know what a prize Noah is, I certainly do now.
Morality isn’t something young people pay a lot of attention to, at least they don’t readily confess to it.
“You’re a good guy, Noah,” I tell him. A wave of sadness hits me hard.
“You’re going to make someone a great husband someday. ”
“That’s my plan,” he declares with a smile on his face. “Now all I have to do is meet that lucky gal.” With a smirk, he asks, “Wouldn’t it be funny if I already knew her?”
I know he’s being flirty and sweet, but there is no way Noah will want to date me, let alone marry me once he finds out I can’t have children.
For that reason, I tell him, “I’m guessing you don’t.
” More’s the pity, too, because the more I find out about Noah Riley, the more I’m convinced my younger self sensed we were destined to be together.