Immaculate, page 5
“Oh, right,” Hannah said, grinning as she kicked at Izzy’s leg to urge her up off the blanket. “That does ring a bell. About time we go back up then, isn’t it?”
Izzy sighed, but I could tell from the smirk on her lips that it was just for show. If Izzy had it her way, we’d all have stayed ragamuffin, hillbilly tomboys, digging in the creek and hanging around in the tree for the rest of our lives.
I thought back to the last time I had been in the tree house, and it wasn’t my birthday four years ago. More like four months. Nate and I had climbed up one time at the beginning of spring, the first real warm night of the season, long after Gracie and my parents had gone to bed, and long after Nate had called his parents to say he was staying over at his friend Peter’s house. I’m not sure why or how it happened, really, given that neither of us was particularly good at breaking rules, but I chalked it up to an overwhelming curiosity—what it would be like, what we would do if we were actually alone, no chance of my parents checking in to see if we wanted more soda or popcorn, no chance that they’d be able to overhear us through the gaps in the floors and the cracks in the walls of our early eighteenth-century farmhouse. Houses as old as mine typically felt like one big, open space—no walls, no closed doors. No matter what room I was in, I knew where everyone else was, what they were doing, what they were saying. Any sort of private life was impossible.
Anyway, nothing really happened that night, much to Nate’s disappointment, probably, though he was too much of a gentleman to have ever said so. But it didn’t seem like the right time to tell Izzy and Hannah any of that. I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t told them to begin with, actually—embarrassed by my own prudishness, maybe, or wanting some kind of secret that belonged just to me and Nate for once. Either way, I wasn’t telling them today. It seemed too suspicious now.
Izzy was the first to start up the rickety old ladder, masterfully avoiding the rungs that had rotted and splintered over the years of neglect. “Let me test it out first, make sure it’s all sturdy,” she said, looking back over her shoulder at us as her arms and legs continued to climb, pushing and pulling, the familiar movements so etched into her memory. “I’ll tell you when it’s safe to come up.” She pushed back the limp strings of colored beads still hanging in the doorway, the wooden strands bouncing against one another and tinkling like rain, and disappeared into the house. Hannah and I kept looking up, hands shielding our eyes from the sun peeking through the leaves, waiting for the all clear.
After a few long seconds, the house’s faded blue shudders burst open in a flurry of paint flakes and leaf bits, and Izzy’s grinning face popped out over the edge of the window. “Just like I remembered it, ladies, almost as if the last few years didn’t happen.” She sighed, her eyes glazed with contentment. “Anyway,” she said, yanking her head back as she vanished into the house, “I think it’s safe. The floors still seem solid enough.”
Hannah motioned for me to go first, and we both started the climb up, more slowly and hesitantly than Izzy. I crawled inside and made room for Hannah to come in next to me, pausing then to soak in the makeshift all-in-one living room, kitchen, and bedroom that had been our home away from home for such a massive piece of our lives.
There wasn’t much in the way of furniture, given the complexity of transporting it up twenty feet off the ground, and what we did have was a raggedy collection of well-worn, well-loved hand-me-downs that had been discovered stashed away in our parents’ basements and attics. We had three assorted wooden chairs that my dad had somehow managed to carry up all by himself without toppling backward off the ladder—I can still remember that day, watching from the ground with my mom, petrified, hiding my face in her skirt while she assured me that he’d be okay. There was a “table” made out of planks of wood and balanced on two bright green plastic buckets, a few shelves that displayed the treasures we’d dug up along the creek, and a barrel of old cups and dishes that were probably still caked with strawberry Pop-Tart crumbs and hardened scraps of pizza bagels.
The walls, however, were our pride and joy, covered inch to inch in boy band posters and pages torn from glossy magazines that we’d slipped from our moms, our intricately hand-drawn maps of the woods, and other colorful drawings and photos that memorialized some of our greatest adventures together. I could have stayed up there for hours, poring over each page, each picture, remembering every detail of our past. But we weren’t just in the woods for a pleasant stroll down memory lane.
I sighed. “I think it’s time I head down and get this over with.”
The girls nodded, and we each gave one final glance around the house before making our way back down to the ground. Who knew how long until we’d all be up there again together? Years?
Maybe never.
We walked back over to the blanket, and I skimmed through the instructions again to be absolutely sure I had the steps down. It all seemed simple enough: remove the cap and put the tip in my stream of pee for at least five seconds, lay the test down flat to develop, and wait three minutes for the results. The three minutes of waiting would no doubt be the trickiest part of the process.
“All right, then,” I said, grabbing all four sticks from the boxes, two of each kind, and started toward the bank of the creek. “I guess you can just close your eyes or something? Or don’t. I don’t really care, to be honest. I’m just so glad you’re both here, because there’s no way I could be doing this by myself.” I was shaking as I said it, the plastic sticks tapping against one another in my hands.
“I’ll help you,” Hannah said, jumping up from the blanket. “I’ll grab the used sticks and hand you the new ones, make sure they’re set up flat afterward.”
“Count me out,” Izzy said, her lips puckered in disgust. “I love you, Meen, don’t get me wrong, but I do have my limits.”
“Hannah, are you sure you’re okay with that?” I asked, ignoring Izzy.
“I want to do it. Don’t worry about it.” Her voice was so calm and sympathetic, the way my mother would have sounded if this had been a moment I could have shared with her.
I hoped that the next time I’d be taking a pregnancy test—some day in the very ridiculously distant future—I’d be ecstatic and overcome with happy, excited tears. I hoped that the next time, I’d be able to call my mom afterward and scream the good news to her over the phone.
But I had Hannah and Izzy by my side, and in the moment they were more than enough. More than any girl in my predicament could have hoped for.
Hannah looked away and I squatted, willing it to happen despite the highly unusual circumstances. I held the first stick out as soon as I felt a trickle. Hannah grabbed it when I was done and handed me stick two, and between both of our efforts, there were four pink-tipped tests lying flat on top of their boxes before I even realized it had all happened.
“Thanks, Hannah.” I grabbed her hand as we made our way back to the blanket. “You made that much easier.”
“Of course, Meen. Now we just have to think about something else for a few minutes.”
The three of us sat in silence, at a loss for what in the world we could possibly talk about for the next one hundred and eighty seconds besides those four sticks.
“So . . .” Hannah started, an unfamiliar grin spreading over her face. “I’ve decided I’m definitely going to apply to Ole Miss this fall. I’m sure I probably won’t get in, and even if I do, I can’t honestly imagine being that far away from you guys . . . wherever you guys will be, that is . . . But don’t you think it would be fabulous to be surrounded by so many dashing Southern gentlemen? That’d be a nice change of scenery. And I’m pretty sure I could pass for a sweet little blonde Southern belle.”
“Seriously?” Izzy choked out, her voice sputtering. “What happened to our pact to not be more than three hundred miles away from one another? What about our weekend road trips? I can’t exactly hop in my Jeep and drive to Mississippi for a night if I end up at Penn State, can I?”
I looked up at Hannah, her cheeks blazing deep pink. I was just as surprised as Izzy. Hannah was supposed to be the predictable one, the stable one, the anchor of the trio. She wasn’t supposed to drop bombshells, not ever, and especially not in the middle of my own massive personal crisis.
“I . . . I know we’ve always said that, guys, but I thought that was just us being scared. And naive. I would never discourage either of you from trying to go where you really wanted to go. You’re my best friends, no matter where we live for those four years. Nothing’s going to change that.”
“Yeah. Okay. Thanks so much for the heads-up,” Izzy said, refusing to look at her. “Has it been three minutes yet, Meen?”
I hadn’t let myself peek at the sticks once since I’d handed them to Hannah. No easy feat, though Hannah’s shocking news had, at the very least, distracted me better than I could have imagined possible. A cold, clammy sweat prickled down my neck as I nodded and pushed myself up off the ground, turning back toward the bank where we’d laid the sticks.
“So just a reminder: it’s a blue minus sign if you’re not pregnant, and a pink plus if you are. And the other test is pretty self-explanatory: pregnant, not pregnant,” Hannah explained, her mothering instinct back in full force, as if the previous conversation hadn’t ever happened.
I walked slowly, each footstep torn somewhere between running and freezing. I wanted the answer as much as I didn’t want the answer. I could see the tests right below me, waiting to be read, but I didn’t let my eyes focus at first, keeping the indicators a blurry haze. I closed my eyes and squatted down, taking a deep breath.
I opened my eyes.
Plus, plus, pregnant, pregnant.
chapter four
I was pregnant.
I, Mina Dietrich, an absolute and utter virgin, was pregnant.
Four tests couldn’t be wrong, could they? Not with all the other symptoms I’d had during the past few months, and not with my fears about Iris’s warning. But how could they not be wrong? How could any of this actually be happening to me?
“What should we do now?” Hannah whispered. She and Izzy were hovering over me, staring down at the evidence in front of us.
“I need to let Frankie know that I can’t come in tonight,” I said without even pausing to reconsider. For some reason that was the first and only immediate reaction that came to mind. The only answer, the only step forward that made any sense. Even in the face of the most fantastical crisis imaginable, I could still be relied on not to forget to call out of work.
Under normal circumstances, Izzy would have made endless fun of me for being so dedicated to Frankie’s, but now she was ominously silent. I was afraid to look up at her face, to see whatever was lurking behind her eyes. Izzy couldn’t hide anything, not from me and Hannah, no matter how hard she sometimes tried. Her eyes always insisted on telling us everything we needed to know.
“Let’s get you back to the blanket,” Hannah said, reaching for my hand. “Your cell phone is there in your purse, and then you can lie down while we . . . while we process everything.”
I gave a weak nod and let them pull me up and steer me. My stomach pinched at the sight of the leftover food, the basket that my mom had packed less than two hours ago for our special tree house picnic. My mom. My adoring, gracious, astoundingly perfect mom. How could I ever possibly tell her about this? How could she believe me? How could she keep trusting me and loving me and being proud of me?
Too much. The idea of telling my mom was more than my mind could begin to comprehend, not when I’d only known the truth myself for a few entirely surreal minutes.
I pushed those thoughts to the furthest, blackest corner of my mind, and reached for my phone. I brushed past a few missed calls and messages from Nate, clearing my throat as I dialed Frankie’s. The phone rang five, six, seven times, and I exhaled in relief. A voice mail would be much easier and faster: no questions, no elaborating. Just as I expected the beep of the automated message, I heard a sharp click and a breathless gasp on the other end.
“Frankie and Friends’ Pizzeria. This is Jesse. How can I help you?”
“Oh, hey. Hi, Jesse,” I said, flustered. I had barely talked to him since the night we first met. A few necessary words here and there about when to clean, what to clean, but nothing that didn’t relate to dishes and mops and window spray. He was too intertwined with Iris in my mind. He was a witness—living, breathing, irrefutable proof that she had been at Frankie’s, that I had talked with her. That she existed at all and wasn’t a complete figment of my overactive imagination. Besides, I could only imagine what he thought of me afterward, running away from a harmless old lady, barely acknowledging his presence ever since. Though frankly, there seemed to be something a little off about him, too. He was friendly enough to the waitresses and to the other guys in the back, but he still seemed remote to me, distant, as if his body might be there, scraping pizza pans, but his mind was somewhere else entirely. I sometimes had to repeat his name a few times before he’d hear me, before he’d snap out of whatever cloudy daydreams kept him floating through his life.
“Mina?”
I almost dropped the phone, startled that he’d recognized my voice so easily. “Yeah. Yes. It’s uh . . . me, Mina. I . . . I’m sick, Jesse. Really sick. Stomach bug or something. I was up all night puking, and I still am, actually, and really there’s no end in sight, I don’t think—” Hannah coughed, and I cut myself off. “So, yeah, please tell Frankie that I’m really, really sorry, but I just don’t think I can make it in for my shift tonight.”
“Sure, no problem, Mina. I’ll help hold down the fort without you here. Feel better, okay?”
“Thanks, Jesse.” I hung up and fiddled with the phone, pecking at random keys to avoid the awful, frightening silence that hung in the air between us.
“Say something, Mina,” Hannah said. “Please, please say anything that makes all this more reasonable. You have to know how confusing this situation is for me and Izzy. I want to believe you. We want to believe you. Don’t we, Iz?” She looked over at Izzy for encouragement, but it was obvious that Izzy was avoiding both of us, staring off toward the creek instead. Hannah gave up on her and refocused her attention back to me. “Help us to do that, Mina. Please. Help us.” I barely recognized her voice, which was usually so warm and alive, like sunshine and bells. It was all hollow now, sad and desperate, begging for explanations I couldn’t give.
“I don’t know what else I can tell you,” I said, lifting my head up to face them. I refused to cry again. I refused to look away. “Iris . . . What Iris said to me is the only answer I can think of, and trust me, I know how absolutely crazy that sounds, I do. I really do. But I didn’t have sex, not with Nate, not with anyone. I didn’t have anything even remotely close to sex. That’s all that I know. That’s all the explanation I have.” I paused, grabbing, clawing at my mind for anything more I could give. “Maybe there’s another reason besides pregnancy that I’d get those results? Some sort of sickness or condition that would cause a false positive?” I said it, but I didn’t believe it. The words felt wrong, in my heart and on my tongue, but it was one small offering I could give them, however temporary.
Hannah looked almost satisfied, the corners of her tight, pursed lips relaxing as she considered this new and improved option. Izzy still said nothing. The silence had seemed best, preferable to confrontation at first, but it was starting to enrage me, scrape at my last bits of patience. Who was she to judge me? I had done nothing wrong, not to her, not to anyone. I didn’t deserve her anger, especially not now, not on top of all the other emotions threatening to tear apart my entire world at the seams.
“Say it, Isabelle,” I said out loud, surprising even myself with the sharpness of my voice. “Say whatever you’re thinking. Let’s just get it over with. In case you didn’t fully realize, I have a lot to deal with at the moment, so let’s get this conversation out of the way. Okay?”
She breathed in and out, balled her hands into fists, and turned her gaze toward me. For the first time in my life, I didn’t recognize the look I saw in her eyes. I didn’t see my Izzy. Her dark chestnut eyes were so cold and accusing, so hostile.
“Fine. You want to know what I’m thinking, Mina? You want to know what I’m really thinking?” She was yelling so loud that I worried my parents would hear all the way up at the house. “I think you’re a liar. I think for the first time in your perfect existence, you made a mistake. Mina Dietrich made a massive, ugly, undeniable mistake. And instead of just accepting it and admitting it and handling it like any sane, normal person would do, you’ve decided to make up the most outrageous story I’ve ever heard in my life to cover yourself. I can understand you not wanting other people to know the truth. I get that. But I can’t understand you looking your two best friends in the eye and telling them such a huge fucking lie. I can’t understand, and I won’t understand. You’re so obsessed with being this perfect Mina who everyone expects you to be, but you don’t have to act perfect for us. I don’t care about any of that Menius bullshit. I just care about you being real.”
She paused then, her eyes still drilling into mine, willing me to say something for myself. But there was nothing. She was wrong, but I had no way of making her believe that.
“Fine then,” she said, pushing herself up off of the blanket. “If you don’t want to make this our problem, you want to keep this to yourself, then great. You handle it. Best of luck, Mina. I’m out of this. Are you staying or leaving with me, Hannah?”
Izzy had wasted no time in establishing the line, making it clear that there were two very separate, very distinct sides. There was her and there was me. There were the nonbelievers and the believers. There was no middle ground, no space to be found in between.
