Butterflies in May Read online

  “Have you told Ms. Connor?”

  She polishes off her Coke and burps. “Yep. She knows.”

  “So what are you going to do after the baby comes?” Her baby is due in April, just two months away.

  “God,” she says, “you sound just like Ms. Connor. Maybe you should be a shrink. Jared thinks I should quit school, but Ms. Con-nor is really pushing me to graduate, and I don’t want to let her down. And. . . I’m getting married.” She smiles and flashes an engagement ring with a diamond so tiny it’s practically nonexistent.

  “That’s great,” I say, though I don’t mean it. I met Jared when he picked Kelly up from school one day. I can’t say exactly what it is about him that bothers me, but I just don’t like him.

  “After the baby comes, though, I’m going to get a job. I have to. Jared makes good money and everything, but the rent where we live is steep and we’re going to have a lot of extra expenses once the baby’s born.”

  Before I leave for my next class, Kelly says, “You want to come over and help me on Saturday? I bought a border that I want to put up. And I thought I’d paint some balloons or something on the walls.”

  We’ve never hung out together outside of Ms. Connor’s office, so I’m a little surprised she wants to get together. “Sure,” I say. “I’m working the early shift on Saturday, but I can come by in the afternoon.” I like hanging out with her. Right now, Kelly is the only person on the planet who really knows how I’m feeling.

  The next day, between classes, I show Monica my navel in the girls’ restroom. No one else is around.

  “Look at this,” I say, turning to the side and pulling my shirt up so she can get a clear view. “It looks like a timer on a turkey.”

  “Oh, yeah,” she says, “a protruding navel. You’re lucky. That was supposed to happen last month.”

  “What am I going to do?”

  “Oh, Ali, it hardly shows at all,” she says, which is, of course, the correct answer, though we both know it’s not true.

  Kelly and Jared live in an apartment on the edge of town. I’ve been wanting to see it all week. Kelly says it’s a small garden apartment, and I keep thinking it’s probably the sort of place Matt and I should get. But it’s not like anything I pictured. It’s tiny and dark and stinks from stale cigarettes and pot. The so-called “garden” consists of one rose bush and a patch of weeds outside the back door.

  “This is it,” Kelly says. You’d think it was a mansion, the way she shows me around.

  There’s a living room, a tiny kitchen, a bathroom, and two bedrooms.

  “It’s great,” I say, nodding and smiling like an idiot. But the truth is, I can’t imagine living here. It’s depressing. There isn’t much furniture—just an ugly green couch with a huge brown stain on it and an old rocker. But there are some posters of dolphins on the walls that make the place look a little cheerier.

  “And this. . . is the nursery,” says Kelly, leading me to the smaller of the two bedrooms. It’s the best room in the place. It looks clean, for one thing, and there’s a crib already set up in the corner.

  “It smells like you just painted the room.”

  “Jared did it yesterday. He wasn’t real thrilled about doing it, but I can’t—you know, the fumes and all. And I want the baby’s room to be nice.”

  “Where did you get the crib?”

  “At a garage sale. It was $30. New ones cost as much as $400, and that doesn’t even include the mattress!”

  “Wow. I had no idea.”

  By late afternoon, Kelly and I have hung the border, and Kelly is painting a huge apple tree in one corner, along with some clouds and a red kite. The bedroom window is open to let in fresh air.

  “I didn’t know you could paint like that,” I say, admiring Kelly’s handiwork.

  “Thanks.”

  “You should go to art school.”

  “Four more years? No thanks. I hate school.”

  Just then the door slams. “Jar, is that you?” Kelly calls.

  “Yeah.”

  “Come here. I want to show you the nursery.”

  He ambles in and looks around. Right away, I can tell he’s stoned. He smells like weed, and his eyes are red. “Looks great,” he says, but it sounds like he couldn’t care less.

  “Remember Ali?” Kelly asks.

  “Uh. . .” he says, laughing. “Not really.” He sounds goofy.

  Jared walks back into the living room, and Kelly asks if I want something to drink. “Sure,” I say. Jared sits down on the sofa, pulls a baggy from his pocket, and starts rolling a joint. “Want some?” he offers.

  “No thanks,” I say, and he looks up and smiles, as if he’s relieved. I tried pot a few times freshman year, but it just made me depressed. And once I was so hungry afterward that I ate an entire can of ravioli without even bothering to heat it up. Who needs help getting depressed and hungry? To be honest, I don’t see the point.

  Kelly pours both of us orange juice in two plastic cups. We talk for a while and then head back to the baby’s room to admire the walls.

  “Why don’t we do something next week?” I say just before I leave.

  “Sure,” Kelly says.

  I hate to admit it, but the truth is, I probably would never have anything to do with someone like Kelly if she wasn’t pregnant. But now, we have a lot in common.

  That night, Matt and I go out for pizza. In between bites, he says, “I called Al, the guy who helped me get the construction job last summer. He said it shouldn’t be a problem getting me a full-time job after graduation. The pay is great, and that way we can save a lot of money.” Matt reaches for another slice. “So, I figure maybe we can both sit out a year or so. Maybe you can get a job, too, and we can both start college the following year. You think your parents will still pay for school?”

  His plan sounds good, but I don’t know if it’ll work. Lately, I’ve become more aware of the cost of things. Last week, Ms. Con-nor had me check out the costs of diapers, formula, and clothes, and then look at how much Matt and I would be earning every month. Kelly told me that Jared has a good job with the city, but now that I’ve seen their apartment, the last thing I want is to be in the same situation as Kelly and Jared.

  It turns out that AP English has a sequel—AP English II. The class roster is identical to last semester’s, minus a few people who couldn’t take another semester of Carrot Top. “We can hardly consider the human experience without first thinking of Hamlet,” says Carrot Top, waving her sacred book like a TV evangelist.

  Monica sits next to me, just like last semester, and we’re still slogging through Hamlet, which Monica and I complain about daily. Any normal teacher would be able to get through one play in a semester, but Carrot Top is about as far from normal as you can get. Monica tries out new nicknames for Carrot Top in class: Red-Headed Freak. . . Shakespeare Nazi. . . Hamlet Harpy.

  Niles is still there, in the back row, but he’s not the same as he was last semester. He doesn’t bring in outrageous words like “concupiscence” or find ingenious ways to push Carrot Top’s buttons. He just sits there in class, staring straight ahead, eyes glazed over, as if he sees nothing.

  At the start of March, I’m seven months pregnant and as big as a whale. As it turns out, I don’t actually have to tell anyone I’m pregnant because it’s obvious. Everyone at school is talking about me. Monica says I’m paranoid, but she’s just being nice. I see the way people look at me—the way everyone stares. I was walking down the hall one day with Matt when a group of girls passed by us, whispering and looking my way.

  Then, the other afternoon, I walked into the bathroom. Everyone was talking, there was a fog of cigarette smoke and perfume, and the hiss of hairspray. As soon as I walked in, everyone stopped talking and stared at me, just for a split second, but I know I didn’t imagine it.

  The only person I actually tell about my pregnancy is Andy. We were working on an article one day about how to ace the SAT, and he kept staring at my waist. So I
just told him. Andy’s cheeks turned bright pink, and his ears turned even pinker, if that’s possible. He acted strange for a while, but then he seemed to forget about it, and now we’re okay. We insult each other and joke around, and everything’s back to normal, except that occasionally he’ll ask me how it’s going or what it’s like. And when we work on articles together, he brings me granola bars from the snack machine instead of candy. As for everyone else, I don’t care any more. After graduation, I won’t be seeing everyone at school.

  At the end of the month, I get a rejection letter from Columbia and acceptance letters from Northwestern and NYU.

  “That’s great, Ali,” Monica says when I show her the acceptance letters. We’re at Monica’s house. Monica is sitting on the floor of her room carefully painting her toenails Miami Beach Blue. She has a cotton ball between each toe. Monica was accepted at the University of Illinois but is still waiting to hear from Northwestern.

  “Oh, sure,” I say. “I can take the baby with me to classes.”

  “You’re so. . . irritable,” she says. It’s a word I know she picked up from the prenatal book.

  “I am not.”

  “Okay, if you say so. . .” she says, raising her eyebrows, and turning her attention back to her toes. “I thought your mom and dad offered to help.”

  “Yeah, well. . .” I shake my head. “They have, but I’m not exactly sure how that’s going to play out. My mom works nine to five, and my dad’s schedule is even worse. There’s no way I can go to school full time.”

  “Ali, you’re not really going to get married, are you?” Monica thinks I’m crazy to even consider it.

  “I thought you liked Matt.”

  “I do, but you have too much going for you to get married and play mommy.”

  “What’s wrong with being a mother?” I pick up my camera and start clicking. Monica’s toes might make an interesting shot. The nail polish still looks wet.

  “Nothing, but you can’t be Ali-Parker-The-Teenager-Who-Got-Pregnant for the rest of your life. You know what I mean?”

  I know she’s right, but I just say, “You’re a pain in the ass. You know that, right?”

  She turns to me and sticks out her tongue. Click. Got it. “Yeah, well, that’s what best friends are for.”

  Then I ask her about Kyle.

  “I think we’ll do something drastic soon.”

  I give her a look.

  “Mom and Steve are going on a cruise during spring break, so we’ll have the house to ourselves for a week. We’re going to wait until then.”

  I put the camera down. “Mon, are you ready? I mean, do you feel really ready?”

  She looks at me and gets quiet, the way she does when she’s irritated, but I don’t care. “Why are you doing this?” she asks.

  “I just want you to be really sure.” My hand drops to my stomach. I feel a familiar ripple and kick, as if the baby’s underscoring my point. “Look, I thought I was ready. I mean, I knew I loved Matt, and I felt so ready, but now, it’s really hard. We never imagined that something like this could happen. But I loved him and it seemed right at the time. . .”

  “That’s just it, Ali. I love him, he loves me, and you know what? He’s older. It’s not like we can sit around holding hands and kissing forever.”

  “Don’t sleep with him just to hold onto him.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  I know I should let it go, but I can’t. “Once you sleep with him, it’ll change everything,” I say. “And if you break up or if you get pregnant. . . you need to think about that.”

  On Thursday, which is Matt’s birthday, he shows Monica and me two letters at lunch. One is from SAIC, and the other is from Pratt. He’s been accepted at both places.

  “Matt, that’s great,” I say, but really I just want to fall apart.

  “Hey, you’re on your way!” Monica says, which is the worst thing she could say.

  “Yeah. On my way to nowhere,” he says.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.

  “Nothing. Forget it.” He picks up his lunch tray. “I have a trig test to study for. Catch you later.”

  On his way out, a girl with shiny dark hair, who is irritatingly pretty, touches his arm. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but he smiles at her and says something that makes her toss her hair to one side and laugh. Then he falls into step beside her, and they leave the cafeteria together.

  “Who’s that?” I ask Monica.

  “Lauren Thompson. She just moved here from Texas.”

  I don’t say a word. I’m not the jealous type, but there’s something about the way Matt looked at Lauren. I know that look.

  I have a dream that night about the baby. Matt and I are living in Kelly and Jared’s apartment and taking care of the baby. I’m in college, but I can’t make it to my classes on time, no matter how hard I try. The baby is constantly crying, and won’t stop. Matt is yelling that it’s all my fault, and then Lauren Thompson is holding the baby until it stops. Then I wake up.

  A week before spring break, Matt calls me. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but my parents are going to Florida for spring break, and they want me to go. They’re renting an RV and want to camp along the coast. They think I need to get away.”

  “So go.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “No.”

  “What about the baby?”

  “The baby’s not due till the end of May.”

  “I can tell you’re pissed.”

  The truth is, I am. Why shouldn’t I be? My parents always plan a trip over spring break, but we can’t go anywhere this year because of the baby. Plus, everyone’s planning for prom. It doesn’t matter that I’ve never really been into the prom thing or that I don’t want to go because I’ll be nine months pregnant. I always thought I would boycott it actually. The prom itself is pretty much like being in the cafeteria at lunchtime. Still, Matt could at least ask if I want to go. He hasn’t even asked!

  “I’m not,” I say, pretending that it doesn’t matter. “Look, just go and have a good time. Okay?”

  “All right. You’ll call me, though, right? If anything, uh, comes up?”

  “Sure.”

  “Great,” he says. “Well, see ya.”

  “Oh, Matt, what about—”

  Click. It’s too late. He’s gone. I was about to tell him about the childbirth classes I signed up for on Wednesday nights at the hospital. Classes start next week, and I was hoping he’d go with me when he doesn’t have to work.

  Chapter 18

  Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment, but I watch The Weather Channel every day during spring break. It’s sunny and hot in Florida and wet and cold in Chicago. Matt calls twice to see how I am, but our conversations are short and to the point. His last call went like this.

  “Hi, it’s me,” he said. “How are you?”

  “Fine.” He doesn’t even ask about the baby. There was a long and uncomfortable pause.

  “How’s the weather?” I asked.

  “Great.”

  I heard voices and laughter in the background. “Are you having fun?” I asked.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. I can tell he’s laughing at something someone said, and I swear I heard a girl say his name. “What?”

  “Forget it.”

  “Want me to call again in a day or so?” he asked.

  Not if you have to ask, I wanted to say. But instead I said, “No, I’m fine.”

  St. Mary’s Hospital conducts free health screenings every spring for senior citizens at the mall. The hospital’s Community Relations Department coordinates the event, and Mom insists I help out because she thinks it’ll be good for me to do something “constructive.” I don’t want to at first. I don’t want the people Mom works with to see me pregnant. “Look, it’ll be fine,” Mom assures me on the drive over. “They already know. . . And besides, we really need your help for the next two days. We’re short on volunteers.”

 
It isn’t too bad. On the first day, Mom’s boss, Abby, hugs me and says she thinks of me a lot. And JC, who’s the editor of their publications, tells me her neighbor’s daughter got pregnant at sixteen. “I’m not saying it’s easy,” JC says, “but it’s not the end of the world.”

  The second day, I pass out gift bags from the hospital and direct people to the screening booths. About halfway through the day, I notice a bluish mark above my left knee but don’t think much of it. It’s probably from the marker I used to make a poster for one of the booths.

  But later that night, when it doesn’t wash off in the shower, I worry and show it to my mom. “What is it?”

  Mom, stooping down to get a closer look, rubs a finger over it. “I think it’s a varicose vein.”

  A varicose vein! I’m too young to have a varicose vein! “I thought that just happened to old people.”

  “Sometimes it happens during pregnancy,” Mom says matter-of-factly, as if it’s no big deal.

  “Will it go away after the baby comes?”

  “Mmm. . . probably not. But when you get some sun this summer, it won’t show as much.”

  I spend the rest of spring break working at Java House and taking photographs of people. In photography class, we’re done with landscapes and objects, and now we’re working on people for our final project. I like shooting pictures of people the best, but not formal portraits, which always look stiff. I like to catch people off guard. I found my dad the other afternoon on the back porch, talking to the neighbor’s golden retriever. My dad was crouched down, talking with the dog, their noses touching. Then this morning, I saw my mom standing in the kitchen, looking out the window at nothing. I picked up the camera, popped off the cap, and said “Mom. . .” She turned toward me, looking startled. Click. She wasn’t smiling.

  On Wednesday, I go to my first childbirth class. Mom goes with me because Matt is in Florida. The nurse shows the class a life-size model of a pelvis and points to the opening where the baby will come out. When I see it, all I can think is that she must be joking. How can a baby make it through an opening that small?