Chapter Ten
TEN
I made an appointment with an abortion clinic IN Midtown East that had many negative reviews—but none of them were about complications with the procedure itself, and it was the only one with appointments for times that wouldn’t interfere with my class schedule.
There was no question about the father, although I hated using the word “father,” as this was not an actual baby.
I’ve always thought people dole out the term “father” too generously.
Men who have no involvement in their biological child’s life still manage to hold the title “father.” I prefer “sperm donor.” Anyway, the sperm donor was David, who I really would’ve preferred to leave out of this whole situation, but unfortunately, I did not have enough money in my bank account to pay for the abortion.
I considered going to the Columbia Medical Center, which offered abortions for free if you had the student health insurance, but I was on my mom’s employer-sponsored health insurance.
Our plan probably did cover the procedure at the Columbia Medical Center, but then it would show up on her explanation of benefits and she’d find out about the abortion, and that was absolutely not a conversation that I wanted to have.
So after weighing all the options, I decided my best shot was to ask David for money.
I told him to meet me at a coffee shop on a Saturday afternoon.
Before our meeting I practiced what I was going to say.
I would’ve preferred to open with “I’m going to get an abortion,” but that sentence wouldn’t make sense without “I’m pregnant” coming out of my mouth first. Still, I didn’t want David to be worried for even a second, so I practiced saying the two sentences as one.
During that millisecond between him finding out I was pregnant and him finding out I wanted an abortion, would he think I was trying to baby-trap him?
I admit, it probably was my fault that we were in this situation, but it wasn’t intentional.
I had told him I was on birth control, and I actually was, but I sometimes forgot to take it.
Besides, did people still get baby-trapped?
Was baby-trapping ever a real phenomenon?
It seemed awfully like something men would have invented to further demonize women for an action that takes two to complete.
I meant to make some small talk first. Maybe I’d first ask about his day. But I was too anxious to get the words out, so this is how it went: David arrived, sat down, and said, “Hey, how are you?” and I said, “I’m getting an abortion also I am pregnant.”
David’s eyes widened. I searched in his expression for fear, anxiety, or annoyance, but there was none—just a wandering look that seemed like a combination of concentration and curiosity, as though he were reading a plaque about dinosaurs at the Museum of Natural History. Finally, his eyes met mine.
“Are you sure?”
“Yep.” I took out a ziplock bag with all of the pregnancy tests that I had taken. There were six in total.
“Okay. And you said you’re going to get an abortion?”
“Correct.”
“Cool. I mean, totally your choice, your decision.” He looked around as if someone would tell him what he was supposed to say. “As a feminist, I respect women’s right to choose.”
His awkwardness unnerved me. I had expected some drama, worry, maybe even anger, but certainly not awkwardness.
It wasn’t like the movies, where the couple panics and discusses whether or not they should keep the baby, the woman saying, “It’s been my dream to be a mom,” and the man saying, “No, I’m not ready yet.
” Or a TV show, where the producers can stretch a pregnancy scare into a narrative arc about the woman’s complicated relationship with motherhood and the father of her unborn child.
Or a different kind of TV show, in which the woman miscarries and the pregnancy is never mentioned again, mostly because a baby in the show would kind of ruin the plot.
“That’s great,” I said.
“Great.”
“Um…well…I hate to ask you this. It’s just, I’m a student, and two thousand dollars is a lot of money for me.
I mean, that’s how much the abortion costs.
So I’m wondering if you wouldn’t mind chipping in?
” I was pretty sure that the abortion would cost less than that, but I didn’t want to risk having to have this conversation with him again if there were extra fees I hadn’t accounted for.
I was also prepared to explain my insurance situation and why I’d have to pay out of pocket, but neither the real cost of the abortion nor my insurance coverage seemed to cross David’s mind.
“Oh. Right. Yeah, totally fine. Um…”
He took out his phone and I put in my payment information.
“Cool, sent.”
“Thanks.”
“I added an extra five hundred for um…well, I guess your inconvenience.”
“Thanks. That is very sweet of you.” I felt like the mistress of a politician getting paid off to keep the affair a secret. I tried to stop myself from laughing. And to not look too pleased about the extra money. “Anyway, I’m going to leave now. I’ll let you know how the appointment goes.”
“Yes, please do. Let me know, I mean, not leave. I mean, you can stay however long you want.” He looked down at his lap and shook his head. “I’m going to shut up now. Thank you. Uh…good luck.”
I was sure that I would never see him again.
—
I looked up the options: I could take a pill or undergo a minor procedure.
Most people chose the latter. They would need to sedate me and put something into my vagina.
There would be cramping and I would need someone to pick me up.
I felt a pain in my inner thighs; my legs were crossed and I realized I had been inadvertently squeezing them together—so hard that I nearly lost feeling—and I released them, feeling the blood flow return.
Then, I lay in bed and wept. I couldn’t quite pinpoint why I was weeping.
I guessed it was a combination of things.
Weeping because I was looking up abortion clinics instead of researching student housing in Cambridge.
Weeping because someone else—someone who was supposed to be inferior to me—had gotten the one thing that I wanted.
The one thing that I wanted so I could prove I was better than people like her.
Weeping because I didn’t want to get an abortion.
I mean, I also didn’t want to be pregnant.
I definitely didn’t want to be pregnant more than I didn’t want to get an abortion.
But still, it sucked that I even had to make the choice.
Weeping because I wondered if the pregnancy was my fault.
I didn’t know what had happened; I was on birth control and we used a condom.
But just like everything else in my life, this thing didn’t go according to plan.
It didn’t matter that I had done what I was supposed to do. It didn’t matter that I had prepared.
The next day, my eyes were swollen, my double eyelids having turned into puffy monolids.
I threw on sweatpants and a sweatshirt, with a baseball cap tilted forward on my head to obscure my face.
I took the 1 train, then the E, and walked to a shabby building in Midtown East. The doorman was giggling at some video on his phone and didn’t look up when I entered.
I double-checked the directory: Central Med, Suite 1102.
I checked in with the receptionist, who directed me to one of the chairs across from her desk.
The lobby was small, with a round Oriental rug that looked like it had a few coffee stains; at least, I hoped they were coffee stains.
There was a water cooler in the corner that emitted a bubbling sound every few minutes.
Most of the negative reviews for the clinic were for the long wait; some women were only able to see the doctor one or two hours after their appointment time.
Still, no one said they needed to come back on a different day.
I brought a book with me but the words turned to gibberish, so instead, I scrolled through my phone, resenting the people who shared pictures of themselves in clubs or at frat parties while I was waiting in this stale clinic.
By now, I had looked at Laura’s profile so many times that I could describe most of her pictures by memory, so I decided to scroll down until I reached the posts from four years ago, from the summer before freshman year.
She had spent the August before orientation in Mallorca.
Turquoise beaches, Gothic castles, breezy marinas with pastel-accented sailboats.
Maybe someday I would go to Mallorca; maybe someday I would own one of those grandiose homes nestled in the mountains with a swimming pool surrounded by palm trees, learn about a new culture, experience the rest of the world.
I couldn’t lie—that did seem quite interesting.
More interesting than my experiences in South Dakota, at least. Maybe that was the key after all.
Maybe my perspective had been wrong: being rich didn’t make you boring, being rich actually made you more interesting.
Or maybe being rich was a prerequisite to being interesting.
After all, wealth could buy life experiences, like summer holidays in Mallorca.
Wealth could buy anecdotes to pass around at parties—parties with other lawyers.
Maybe that’s why Laura was the Interesting Asian Female, while I was just the Boring Asian Female. I just wasn’t rich enough.