A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That Read online

  “Oh,” the girl said, sneering now, “you’re one of those.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And you even admit it.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You’re not embarrassed about being a snob?”

  “No.”

  “Well.” The girl took her leg in her hand, the one that she’d been attempting to cross over, and set it down, next to the other leg, which now had a bright red splotch and was maybe asleep because she was rubbing it. “I never … You should be ashamed of yourself,” she told me, still rubbing.

  “For other things in my life, yes. For wanting you to shut up, no.”

  “Look at you,” the girl said. “What a freak. And what a snob, too. A freak and a snob.”

  “I’m fine with it, the snob part, the freak part might be inaccurate, but say what you want.”

  “Freak, freak.”

  “Look,” I said, turning toward the girl again, noticing for the first time that the other eggs, even the one next to her, were staring at the two of us, excited, enjoying our fight. “I’ve got problems worse than you not liking me. You understand?”

  “Well,” she said again, breathless.

  “I’m not here to make friends.”

  “Maybe the rest of us are.”

  “Come on,” I said. “The rest of us have friends at home. I bet a friend or two of ours is outside in the waiting room right now. You see what I’m saying?”

  “I see that you’re crazy,” she said.

  “That’s right.”

  “I see that you’re whacked.”

  “You should be afraid of me, then.”

  “I see that you’re a little old for an abortion, don’t you think? You may be early, but you’re old.”

  “Thank you, that’s lovely.”

  “What are you, twenty-seven, twenty-eight?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Fuck you too, old lady.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “Fuck you, fuck you,” she said, and then, thank God, a door opened and a woman called her name. “Pamela?” the nurse said.

  “Pammy,” the big egg corrected her, almost yelling.

  The nurse frowned. She gave Pammy, who was focused on me and hadn’t given any indication of getting up off the couch any time soon, a puzzled look. “It’s your turn,” the nurse said.

  “Call me by my right name,” Pammy demanded.

  “Please,” the woman said, exasperated. She let the clipboard fall against her thigh. She sighed. She stared at Pammy.

  “Say who I am or I’m not moving.”

  “Good God,” the nurse said. “I should have stayed in bed.”

  Pammy shrugged. She fiddled with one barrette, then the other, unsnapping and snapping.

  “Pammy, it’s your turn,” the nurse finally said, giving in. “You coming or you just going to sit there?”

  Pammy ignored her.

  “Fine,” the nurse said. “I’ll call on someone else.” She lifted the clipboard in the air and stared at it. “Let’s see here,” she said, picking the next girl from her list. “Georgia, we’re ready for you now. You ready, honey?” she said sweetly.

  The girl who’d been protecting herself from Pammy with the magazine stood up then. She was a tall girl, pretty, with strange little bangs that framed her face.

  “Sit down, Georgia,” Pammy said, jumping up. “It’s my damn turn,” she said. “I didn’t go three days with seaweed in my cooch to lose my damn turn.”

  Georgia sat back down. There was one less egg on the couch now, a noticeably blank space, some forty inches of beige couch where Pammy’s ass had been. Georgia turned to me with a sympathetic smile. “You’re not old,” she said. We both looked at Pammy, who was moving her fat ass away from us, clutching that paper gown, hiding the ass. She was huffing and puffing, taking heavy steps in her blue booties. Before stepping inside, Pammy turned to me. “You better not be here when I get back, old lady,” she said.

  2.

  I was at that dingy clinic, in that sort of trouble, because I lied, like I said. Four days early and the embryo was too tiny to reach. Last Saturday at Ella’s clinic I woke up from what I thought would be my first and only abortion, and the doctor, a gray-haired man with a long white beard that actually touched my pillow as he spoke to me, said, “The procedure was unsuccessful.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Dr. Wheeler.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “It was empty—you’re empty,” he said.

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” I said.

  “Seriously, uh, uh—” he began, looking at my chart, searching for my name. “You’re Rachel, right?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I couldn’t find anything. In your uterus, I mean.”

  “You’re joking. Is this a joke?” I was drugged, slurring my words, trying hard not to.

  “No, not at all, I’m terribly serious,” he was speaking loudly now, enunciating each word.

  “I have cramps, though. Here, here.” I touched myself under the sheet, pointed out the places that hurt most.

  “How about some codeine, Rachel? Want some codeine?”

  “I want an abortion,” I said, my voice cracking.

  He patted my arm, that beard getting closer and closer to my cheek. He motioned to my student, Ella, who was standing across the room, half of her face obscured by the open metal cabinet. “Get her something for the pain, would you?” he said.

  “Right away,” Ella said.

  “I want an abortion,” I said again, starting to cry.

  “I tried,” the doctor said. “I worked and worked at it. There was nothing inside. Like I said before, I couldn’t find a thing.”

  Ella walked up to my bedside, holding a Dixie cup of water, two white pills in her open palm.

  “Give me those,” I said.

  Dr. Wheeler thought that the embryo was in a fallopian tube, stuck there in between, which I figured was fitting—my embryo lost, inches from potential nourishment, indecisive, unable to commit. He mentioned the threat of rupture, bleeding, death, and was sending me to a clinic on Third Street, a fertility specialist. From my grimace and sigh, Dr. Wheeler and Ella could probably tell that I didn’t appreciate the irony. “It’s the only place in town with an ultrasound machine available on a Saturday morning,” Ella explained.

  “Wonderful,” I said.

  “Dr. Baker is waiting for you. I’ve already called her.”

  “Lovely.”

  “She’s opening the office just for you. It’s a Saturday,” Dr. Wheeler said, stating the obvious.

  “I know what day it is,” I said.

  “It’ll all work out,” Ella said, sweetly.

  “I wanted it to work out today,” I said. “What’s wrong with this place?” I wanted to know.

  Ella shook her head. “You’ll be okay,” she said.

  A half hour later, I was sitting with Angela at the fertility clinic on yet another couch. I was bent over in pain, on codeine, and trying hard not to throw up again. Angela held the plastic bag Ella had given her at the clinic in her lap. “If you want to throw up again, just do it,” she said. “I’ve got this bag, and it’s just waiting.”

  “I see the damn bag,” I snapped.

  “Okay.”

  “I saw my student give it to you. I was standing right there,” I continued. “I’m drugged, medicated—not stupid,” I said.

  “I know, Rachel,” she said, rubbing my back. “You’re going to be fine,” she said.

  Against my wishes, Angela had called my mother, and now my mom was bursting through the door, her face scrunched up with worry. She limped toward me, a hand on her sore hip. “Oh, dear,” she said.

  “Why did you call her?” I asked Angela. “Do you think she needs this right now?”

  Angela picked up a magazine from the coffee table and tried to ignore me.

  “You’ve got enough going on,” I said to my mother.
/>   “Look at you,” she said. It wasn’t just that I was past thirty, unmarried, but where was my boyfriend? What about precaution? Didn’t I know better at my age? All the things she wanted to say to me earlier, but didn’t. She motioned for Angela to make room for her and then sat down right next to me. “What about condoms?” my mother said.

  I said nothing.

  Angela looked at me. “You used a condom, didn’t you?” she said.

  “Please, I’m in pain,” I said.

  “A condom can break anyway,” Angela said. “I knew a girl who used a condom and the guy was so big—which isn’t always a bad thing, of course—but he broke right through it and—”

  “Never mind,” my mother said, interrupting her. “None of this matters. Where does it hurt?” she asked, and for a moment we were mother and daughter, just that, and she was going to make it better.

  “Everywhere,” I said.

  “We should have talked more about this,” my mother said.

  “I’m an adult,” I said, starting to cry again.

  “That’s fine, that’s fine …” She patted my knee. “You’re a grown-up, that’s right. I forget sometimes.”

  “You do,” I said.

  “You’ve got to stop worrying about me, though, acting out.”

  “What?”

  “You know, it’s always on television. The talk shows are always talking about acting out.”

  “They’re talking about teenagers,” I said.

  “It’s about behavior, as I see it,” she said. “It’s not limited to one age group.”

  “Is that so?” I said, sarcastically.

  “As a matter of fact, yes,” she said. “You can’t worry about me all the time, that’s what I’m saying.”

  “Fine.”

  “A little bit of cancer is nothing. A couple zaps of radiation and I’ll be okay. You know me,” she said, looking at Angela to back her up.

  “Absolutely,” Angela said, looking up from the magazine. She was nodding, trying to look hopeful.

  “Where’s Dr. Baker?” I said.

  Dr. Baker, a short, stocky woman with red hair and freckles, helped me onto a table—the same table, I imagined, that other women wanted nothing more than to hop onto pregnant. I thought of those women, their loving men crouched beside them, holding their hands, waiting for heartbeats, dying to count fingers and toes, looking for little penises or tiny vaginas. Dr. Baker moved the sonogram thing, which was cold and metallic, across my stomach, the way someone else might have ironed a shirt. “Let’s see,” she said. “Let’s take a look.”

  “I live with my mom in her apartment and she’s sick …” I began.

  “Eureka,” Dr. Baker said. “Right here. In your uterus, where it’s supposed to be.”

  “How’d Dr. Wheeler miss it?”

  “Who?”

  “The doctor from the Family Center.”

  “That’s right—he sent you here.” She was staring at the screen. “He or she is in the corner,” she continued, “clinging to your uterine wall.”

  “Clinging, huh?”

  “Do you want to see?”

  “No,” I said.

  “I’m sorry,” the doctor said. “I shouldn’t have asked you that.”

  “I’m not like the rest of your patients, I guess. I’ve got different problems.”

  “Yes, well, I should be sensitive. My husband is always telling me that I’m not sensitive enough.”

  I nodded.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “It’s okay” I said.

  “What was that you said about your mother?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  Last week, driving down Atherton, a familiar one-way street I used all the time, several times a week, I found myself going the wrong way. My first clue was going through an intersection and realizing that the cars opposite me were stopped. My traffic light was turned around, backwards, which I thought strange, but still it didn’t register. Within seconds I saw the cars coming toward me, screeching to a halt. Smoking, the cars, with their drivers hanging out windows, cussing at me. “What the fuck’s your problem?” one man hollered. “Stupid fucking bitch,” a woman shouted. I was turning my car around, trying not to see or hear them. Later, just before sleep, I kept seeing the image, all those cars, an SUV, a Caddy, a Jeep, that cursing man, his shoulder, one arm hanging out the window, and that cursing woman too, coming toward me. I listened to my mother breathing in the next room. I played and replayed my drive down Atherton, thinking, Cancer is just like that.

  3.

  I was turning between stiff sheets, coming to, with a terribly sweet taste in my dry mouth, when I saw Pammy’s ass. They had us lined up on cots, and her ass could have been any ass at all, but it was hers, I knew it. The ass was white, wide, and flat, with dimples, and there was something very sad about an ass like that, and a girl, an obnoxious girl, but a girl nonetheless, alone, leaning over, vomiting into a plastic bowl. The barrettes were still there, but they had moved considerably toward the back of her head. She was holding the white bow in her hand, using it to wipe her mouth. She moaned, threw those big legs out of the sheet, and crawled from the cot. “I have to pee,” she said. “Someone, help me,” she said, and she was crying now.

  I looked around the room for a nurse, someone, anyone, but it was only us, the egg girls from waiting room number 4. Georgia was to the right of me, eyes closed, snoring lightly. “Hey,” I said, turning to the left, not wanting to wake her. “Someone here needs help,” I called, but my voice was small, tiny in the room.

  Pammy fell to the floor then, weeping, on her big knees. I sat up, pulled the sheets down, and stepped off the cot. I lost a bootie in the process, and the tile was cold on my one bare foot. I made my way to Pammy and stuck my hand under her arm. I tried to lift her, but she was heavy and wouldn’t or couldn’t budge. “Someone help us,” I said. “Please” But no one was there; no one was coming. “Come on, try to stand,” I said.

  “I can’t,” she said.

  “I’ll get you to the bathroom if you stand up.”

  Pammy took a deep breath. She sighed, then made an effort. Halfway up, knees bent, Pammy’s eyes were level with my own. She looked into my face, squinting. “Which one are you?” she said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said.

  “I can’t see without my contacts. Which one are you?” she repeated.

  “It’s me, the old lady,” I said.

  “Oh, you,” she said, straightening up, holding her arm across her lower stomach, which I imagined, like mine, was pretty sore. My right arm reached around her thick waist, while my left hand cupped her elbow. She was a tower, a building, and I was helping her to the bathroom.

  Halfway there, we stopped in the hall a moment to breathe, rest. “You lost a bootie,” Pammy said.

  “I know.”

  “Isn’t your foot cold?”

  “Yeah”

  “Want to turn around and get it?”

  I shook my head no. “It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t need it,” I told her.

  Pammy took a deep breath. She exhaled. “I’m ready now,” she said. And we continued down the hall, one foot in front of the other, taking little steps, baby steps.

  Georgia Carter

  2000

  Geography of the Mall

  Georgia Carter was sixteen that summer and working at the frozen yogurt shop in the mall. Frozen yogurt had made a comeback, was big again, and the cones she made for the boy who worked at the shoe store across the way were big, too, and he was big as well when finally his zipper was down and her hand was around him.

  It was noon, too early for the act itself and the boy’s spicy cologne, too early for the leather and canvas and suede she smelled on the boy’s fingers moments earlier when he tried to touch her face with them.

  She didn’t know the make of his car, but noticed before climbing into it that it was wide and old, rusting in spots. On the passenger’s side back door she sa
w a dent as round and perfect as her mother’s favorite salad bowl. It was probably a bitch to park. She was with him in the front seat of that car for the first of many lunch breaks, where she’d skip food and juice, her own nourishment, and think only of the boy’s satiation.

  She pulled her long hair to one side and it hung down in a pale rope across her chest. She was balanced on one elbow, palm to cheek, staring at her own moving hand, and at him too, the girth and length of him. With the window open she felt the sun’s heat on one shoulder, her right cheek, where in just seconds the boy would try to land a kiss, and she would bend backwards, away from him.

  The other boys were bossy, with aggressive hands and mouths, and she acquiesced, leaned back on a couch or football field, passive and inactive, hardly even there. There had been abortions and a recent bout with condyloma, so for this one, it was she who would make the rules.

  Funny, she didn’t say it out loud, rule number 1, but her body twisted away from him, went rigid at his touch, and the boy caught on quickly.

  Perhaps he was smarter than the rest, she was thinking. She knew he was older, a boy who was really a man—the faint lines on his forehead, the lines framing his mouth like a set of parentheses, and the way he didn’t flinch or cower when she used multisyllabic words. She’d said clandestine. She’d said surreptitious. She’d said, “I don’t want you to reciprocate.”

  “You read books?” he said once.

  “I read books,” she said.

  “Georgia, let me do you now.”

  “NO.”

  “Come on,” he persisted, his hand reaching for the buttons on her blouse.

  She pushed his hand away. “Don’t,” she said.

  “Your tits then. Let me kiss your tits, at least. What would happen if I just kissed your tits?”

  She shook her head.

  “It’s your turn,” he said, almost pleading.

  “We’re not playing Scrabble,” she said.

  Georgia’s bout with condyloma had been persistent, too, treated once and a month later returned. It made her itch and squirm, and when she sat on the floor with her back against the side of her bed, her legs open and a make-up magnifying mirror between them, and looked inside, the warts were heads of cauliflower. Ella, her counselor at the clinic, called the condyloma insidious and threatened Georgia with cervical cancer. It didn’t seem possible to get cancer from a wart, and she wasn’t sure she believed Ella, thought she was exaggerating to slow Georgia down. And what was that dramatic smack of her medical folder? And that look on Ella’s face, like Georgia had cancer already?