72: The World on Edge

My entire world tilted edgewise and I slid off into an abyss. With two words my world-view shifted. "I'm pregnant." Don't bother with the "I think." If a girl tells you she thinks she's pregnant or might be pregnant, she's pregnant. Everything but Rhonda and my unborn child fled from my mind. Other girls? Who needs them? College? I can make it without. Wedding? How soon can we get married?

Sadly, my first thought was "How could that happen?" Oh shit! I did not intend to say that out loud. Tears were spilling from Rhonda's eyes. I knew how it happened. One time. One fucking time we're together and even without penetration I pumped a gallon of sperm straight up her vagina. As turned on as she was, if she was fertile my sperm would have been sucked straight into her womb. Maybe it was both of our subconscious hope.

"I'm sorry, Rhonda. I know how it happened. I'm so sorry, baby."

"It was my fault. I know how babies are made. I just didn't know it felt so incredible."

"We have to share the blame if that's the way you think of it. I hear it feels even better when you do it right." She snuffed a short laugh.

"What am I going to do? I've ruined everything."

"Sweetheart, it's not ruined. It's just different. You know my rule. We'll do whatever we need to do."

"Whatever we need to do."

We talked all morning as we sat in her room. Her mom looked in on us a couple of times, but we were just sitting there talking. This parsonage was nowhere near as nice as the one they'd moved from. It was dinky and run-down and smelled a little musty, like there had been a leak recently repaired.

Rhonda said she didn't get her period in July but didn't think anything about it because of the stress of moving and being isolated from her friends. She'd spent the entire month crying until her parents took her to a doctor and he gave her a strong anti-depressant. She'd taken them regularly, but it wasn't like they were uppers that made her feel good. Instead, she just didn't feel anything until she'd skipped her pills yesterday and felt like she saw me there for the first time. When her period hadn't appeared two weeks ago, she got frightened, didn't tell anyone.

"We need to tell our parents and start setting things in motion," I said.

"No! Not until I'm certain. They've got these stick things now that you pee on and it tells you if you're pregnant. I'll go to the drugstore tomorrow and buy one. I'm scared, Brian. I'm so scared."

"I'll be with you every step of the way, honey. I've done really well at the restaurant. I can go straight into being a chef and I'll be able to support you and our baby."

"What about college?"

"Why would I need college if I have you?"

We stood at the car with me holding her for a long time until I finally had to leave. I was going to get home later than I promised as it was.

"Don't lose heart, honey," I said. "Get the test tomorrow and let me know the results. We'll do whatever is necessary. Got that?"

"Whatever is necessary."

"I'll talk to you Thursday morning at our usual time. I love you, Rhonda. I love you more than anything else in the world."

"I love you, Brian. Please remember that I love you."

How could I ever forget?

It was the first time since I started driving that I experienced loss of awareness. It was hours home and sometime in the middle of the afternoon I looked around me and had no idea where I was or how I got there. Tears were streaming down my cheeks and I had to pull over because I couldn't see well enough to drive. As brave a face as I'd put on for Rhonda, I was terrified.

I was a smart guy with a bright future. Stupid things weren't supposed to happen to me. I was supposed to graduate in the top one percent of my class, go to college, and become a research chemist earning big bucks before I ever thought about having a family. I was so smart I even wrote an agreement that would protect us all from just this kind of thing ever happening. No penetration. It was easy. Who's going to get pregnant if there's no penetration? It was all over. No college. Probably a high school GED. I needed to get a job right away. I needed to talk to my parents and convince them, somehow, that Rhonda and I should live in the attic after we were married and our baby was born. I'd need to convince the Gordons, too. God! They'll hate me! I was too stupid to live. I should just find a tree and drive the car into it at a hundred miles an hour.

No. I'd never take the easy way out. I wouldn't leave Rhonda alone with a baby to care for and no father—no husband. We were sixteen. We could get married if our parents consented. Or just live together and take care of our child until we're old enough. I needed a lawyer. How old do I have to be to take care of a family?

It would all be based on how well I could sell the idea to my parents. They were going to be disappointed. There was no doubt about that. But they would listen to reason, and they'd already started talking about how long it was taking Betts to get started on her first baby. We all expected she'd pop the first brat out within nine months of the wedding. It had been over a year now. They'd love having a grandbaby around the house. I needed to put together an explanation and an effective argument.

The thing was, I couldn't talk to anyone about it. If I told one person, all our dating group and our parents would know. How was I going to keep from saying anything Tuesday morning in school? "How's Rhonda?" "Oh just fine. She's pregnant." Fuck! This was too much to handle.

I cleared my eyes and my head and looked for road signs. I was on U.S. 31. I must be north of Indianapolis. I know this road. It will take me straight home. I pulled back onto the highway.

"Well?" Sam said at lunch. "Spill it. How's our girlfriend?"

"Sorry. It was a long drive and I'm still exhausted. Rhonda is depressed." I'd practiced what I was going to tell people today, but had been avoiding it until I had to tell them. To lie to them. "Her doctor put her on some really strong anti-depressants and they leave her feeling blah all the time. She can't get enthused about anything. She sends her love to everyone, but don't expect much from her."

"Did you ask her parents to let her come live with us?"

"Yeah. That didn't go over too well. Sunshine ... Reverend Gordon doesn't want his family split up—especially now. I have to tell you, I think he's a little depressed, too. He doesn't want any of us to contact her until they have her moods stabilized."

"What are we going to do?" Whitney asked. "We can't just leave her there miserable."

"I'm working on it. I don't know how yet, but somehow I'll make it work out. Maybe I'll move down there. Whatever is necessary."

"Brian, you know we're not going to stop loving you—even if you do move down there," Liz said. "I wish we were all older. We could just go off to college together and take care of each other."

"You're just thinking about an orgy every night," Rose laughed. She was trying to lighten the mood a little but I could tell by the way she looked at me that she was in no better shape than me.

"I am not!" Liz rose to the bait. "Not every night." I let them carry on, relieved that the focus was off what to do about Rhonda. Whitney paused and squeezed my shoulder before she left. I didn't look up.

I grabbed the phone and had half the number dialed before I realized it was only Wednesday morning and not Thursday. I dropped the handset into its cradle and made coffee. This waiting was killing me. Surely she'd call me as soon as she had results. Maybe she'd had difficulty buying a test kit.

I went out the back door and ran.

I'd been running every day since the morning she left back in June. I hadn't run this hard, though since that day. I ran through the woods on my way back home crying as I ran, unable to catch my breath and running anyway. Whitney was in the drive waiting for me when I burst out of the woods and into the pasture. I saw her. I thought at first it was Heaven, but even my blurry eyes couldn't mistake the height of my friend as she ran toward me. I didn't make it to her. I collapsed in the pasture. Thank God we have horses and not cows.

I was sobbing ... gasping for breath ... moaning out my misery when Whitney got to me. She collapsed on the ground beside me and gathered me in her arms and rocked me as I wept. Petted my head as I sobbed against her. She was a rock and I was rain.

"It's that bad?" she asked softly. I nodded.

Whitney was also rain.

"What does it mean to speak extemporaneously?" Ms. Streeter asked our speech class. How could I make two ridiculous mistakes in classes in a row? Last year I thought Debate would be an easy class. I got an 'A' first semester and a 'C' second semester. I stupidly thought that speech and drama would be an easy class that I didn't have to do too much for. It looked like it could easily monopolize my time for the next year. "Mr. Frost? Extemporaneous?"

"Uh ... like off the cuff. Something you just deliver without preparation?"

"No." Shit! "That would more properly describe impromptu speaking. Now please keep in mind, class, that we are dealing with established rules of speech for competition. In an extemporaneous speech, the presenter has as much as half an hour to prepare remarks and is expected to cite six to fifteen resources. That means that extemporaneous speakers are extremely well-prepared. Our debaters are primarily extemporaneous speakers at competition. They are given half an hour to prepare their opening argument. The Secondary argument can build on that and on what the opposition has said. The rebuttal is largely impromptu as she has very little time to prepare. The final conclusion is a hybrid between extemporaneous and impromptu speaking. There is time to prepare the official position of the team, but most of the conclusion is based on summarizing what the team has said in its arguments and rebuttals and in making it convincing."

I scribbled notes as I listened to her drone on. I was going to hate speech.

"Now, Mr. Frost participated in an unusual debate last fall and that is probably where his confusion has arisen. He and Ms. Clinton were given a month to prepare their material for the debate. As a result, we would consider their opening statements as Oratory. This is a speech that is prepared well in advance and is delivered with the intent of persuading the audience to the speaker's point of view. Judges can be harsh in counting down opinion as opposed to factual content. So you will each be given an opportunity to present differing types of speeches during this term. Mr. Johnson," she said, pointing at one of my classmates that I didn't know more than by sight. "I would like you to deliver to the class a two-minute impromptu speech on why you like your little finger. Please approach the podium. You have thirty seconds to prepare. I will point to you when it is time to start speaking."

"Now?"

"Now, Mr. Johnson."

Holy shit. I needed to get on my game for this class. Poor Johnson got his thirty seconds of prep and then started talking aimlessly about the joints in his little finger. He got some good points across about the use of the pinky in society for drinking tea and the whole class broke up when he showed how the little finger could be as effective as the middle finger in flipping the bird—which he gave directly at Ms. Streeter. The class broke up and he shut up. Probably the best thing he did during the speech.

"Impromptu speaking calls for quick wit, humor, and a glib tongue. Notice how Mr. Johnson's gestures enhanced his speech. The act of impromptu speaking often builds on what has gone before and is fresh in the audience's mind. This can bleed over into the extemporaneous genre as well. I want to play a tape of two of my students engaged in an impromptu banter on a live television show."

I was horrified. There was Elaine doing her thing on The Homemaker's Hour two years ago, showing the Eiffel Tower confection that she'd cobbled together the night before. Ms. Streeter paused the tape before my presentation and asked how much I'd prepped the night before the TV show. I had to explain about the demo competition and the way I'd played off what Elaine did when I did my demo. Then she played the tape of my on-air demonstration when I teased Elaine about not wanting to kiss me when I ate garlic. Ms. Streeter asked me about when I decided to throw that bit in and I confessed that it had been a quick inspiration after Elaine—then Candace—had tossed her barb out about me stealing her thunder.

"So, there we have the mix of a prepared oratory in a practiced demonstration, with an impromptu aside worked into the context. It's too bad there isn't a category for that in our speech competitions."

I didn't sleep Wednesday night. I mean all night long. I was in the kitchen with a cup of coffee at four o'clock waiting for the clock to reach four-thirty so I could call Rhonda. I'd been crappy company at my table this week. I didn't talk to anyone at the table on Wednesday. Only Whitney had an inkling of what I was going through and she could only squeeze my shoulder as she left. I'd gone through my Tuesday night class at IU extension hardly hearing anything that was said in the lecture, except that I had to write a personal essay before class on Thursday. I wrote it Wednesday night, but even I knew it was a piece of garbage. It was about all I'd learned as a summer intern. Whoopee ding. At four-twenty-nine-and-a-half I dialed the phone.

"Brian?"

"Honey, I'm so glad to hear your voice. I've been so worried about you."

"I lost the baby." What? Lost? Did she leave it on the bus?

"What do you mean?"

"I miscarried. It's over. I'm sorry. We all do what we have to do."

"Rhonda, honey, are you okay?"

"Sure. I'm fine." She didn't sound fine. "I love you, Brian. I just wanted you to know that. Daddy wants to talk to you."

"I love you, Rhonda," I said quickly, though I wasn't sure she was still on the phone.

"Brian?"

"Hi, Sunshine."

"I'm sorry, there isn't much sunshine in this house at the moment."

"Oh. I'm really sorry, Reverend Gordon."

"Brian, Rhonda has told me what happened. I'm not holding you at fault. But you need to not call here for a while. Rhonda needs to adapt to her new life here in Evansville and we believe she is being held back by her relationships with your group. It was wonderful while it lasted, but it's over."

"Reverend Gordon..."

"Brian, it is only fair that I tell you what happened, but I'm asking you on your honor not to spread this word. Rhonda took an overdose of her medication washed down by a glass of whiskey that we haven't found the source of yet. For a while we were afraid that she would not survive. It was only then that we found out about the baby. We simply can't take that risk again."

"No! Reverend Gordon, please let Rhonda come and live with me. I'll take care of her and she won't be depressed anymore."

"Brian, you have an inflated opinion of yourself. I will take care of my daughter. Please don't call again."

I didn't go to school.

When Mom woke up, she found me curled over the toilet vomiting. She sent me to bed. I stayed there for three days, which meant that I missed the weekend ball game and Rob passing for over a hundred yards Friday night.

I didn't care. Mom turned Whitney away when she came by and told her she didn't want anyone to catch anything from me.

Saturday and Sunday I spent all my time in the barn with the horses, just brushing them. All three of them had coats so shiny you could see your reflection in them.

I cried a lot.

"We all do what we have to do." My own words came back to haunt me. Rhonda thought she had to kill herself in order to keep from having a baby. Kill herself! I wanted to kill something and it scared the shit out of me.

I've always—hell, I'm sixteen—always been in favor of a woman's right to choose. No one can get inside the head of a sixteen-year-old who finds out she's pregnant and whose world has collapsed. But my baby? She tried to kill herself and she killed my little boy or girl? God. Fucking. Damn! She tried to kill herself instead of burdening me with a wife and baby. And I couldn't even tell anyone. I couldn't tell her how much I loved her and wanted her. I couldn't bring her home with me. I couldn't hold her in my arms. God damn that fucking Bishop!

I threw up again in the horse stall and hauled out the soiled straw. I let the horses out into the corral and all three of them stayed clustered around me with their heads against my chest and arms. I buried my face in Gypsy's mane and cried some more.

"We all do what we have to do."

What did I have to do? I had to keep trying. I had to find a way to out-wait her father, to get messages to her, to tell her I love her. I had to get her back somehow.

Tuesday night I went to my class at IU extension and didn't hear anything that was said.

No. That's not true. Nicki got up to read a passage from her personal essay. I remembered that.

"Don't ever think that the ghosts people imagine are less real than the people they meet every day. I can see them, even as I look at you in this class. I see specters of all the mistakes in my life and all the people who hate me. I know those ghosts are real. They haunt me day and night."

It seemed like she looked straight at me.

Somehow we got through September. There was so much work. Brenda and I studied Trig together on Saturdays. Sora and I studied German. She seemed to like spending time with me and often hung around after we studied while I was working on other classes. I felt bad that I never asked her how things were with her and Geoff.

But none of us seemed to be going anywhere. Every time I went out with one of my girls, I ended up clamming up and not talking to her. I couldn't trust what I'd say. Even Jen and Court recognized that I wasn't as talkative as I used to be and our calls were a little shorter than they used to be.

And I missed school at least once a week, it seemed. I'd be just fine in the morning and then start throwing up. Mom took me to a doctor, but he said he thought it might be stress-related. No shit, Sherlock. I lost about five pounds and continued to run and work out with Whitney in the mornings.

Several people said they were coming over for a while after school on Wednesday to celebrate my birthday with me. I was determined that I was going to break out of this overwhelming lethargy and have some serious loving. I was going to be seventeen. None of my potential partners were, but we hadn't done anything since school started.