Immaculate (4 page)

I'd buy the test, pee on the stick—maybe two or three or four sticks just to be sure, just to quiet those ridiculous crazy voices in my head. I'd know without a doubt that I wasn't pregnant, and then I'd never have to think about Iris, not ever again.

chapter two

“I really wish
we'd thought to bring ski masks or paper bags or something,” I said, looking out across the parking lot at the all-too-familiar Reed's Pharmacy sign hanging above the faded brick storefront. This was where I'd gone with my mom when I was little to pick out bubble bath and candy bars, the store where Hannah and Izzy and I had bought our first glittery lip gloss and our first bottles of nail polish. The image of me buying a pregnancy test in those same aisles felt so wrong and so out of place, as ridiculous as the idea of my dad stopping for a quick post-work Budweiser at the dirty local strip club just outside of town. It shouldn't and couldn't happen, not ever, not in our predictable little Green Hill world.

Green Hill was like the flannel down comforter that had been on my bed for as long as I could remember—on some nights it was just what I wanted, a warm nest to burrow away in, so familiar and cozy and secure. But on others it was too heavy, suffocating me and trapping me in the middle of the night. I'd wake up sweaty and panicked with my legs captive under the weight of the feathers, my hands clawing at the folds to pull myself free. On those nights it was never easy to fall back asleep. I'd prop myself up with pillows on the ledge of my windowsill, staring out across the starlit fields that sprawled in every direction from my house.

Green Hill was my home, but even with all the wide, open spaces, I somehow still felt trapped sometimes.

And this—this was certainly one of those times.

“Izzy,
please
.” I could hear myself whining, but I was desperate—close to unhinged, really, after everything that had already happened that morning. “There's no way we're not going to run into someone we know in there. I guarantee that the whole town will hear before noon that Mina Dietrich was spotted buying a pregnancy test from sweet old Mr. Reed. I can't. I can't do it, guys. Can't we drive to another pharmacy? Please? Somewhere outside of town?”

“Meen, no offense, but you're totally not in any position to be making demands of me right now,” Izzy said, turning around to give me a pointed look from the driver's seat. Her brow crinkled, though, and she sighed. “But, as much as I hate to admit it, you do have a point. And it's not just your reputation at stake. People could think you're doing it for me or Hannah to cover for us.” She put the key back in the ignition and started the car. “You win. We'll go to the Walmart in Kauffmanville.” She turned the radio on, loud enough that any conversation was out of the question.

I rested my head against the cool leather interior of the door and tried to relax, closing my eyes against the blur of Main Street outside my window. I didn't want to see Frankie's and that front door that Iris had used to walk into my life. We'd be passing Nate's house in a few minutes, too, another sight I wanted to avoid.
Our anniversary
, I realized, my stomach instantly churning over the cruel irony of the date. I hadn't checked my phone yet that morning, and I couldn't bring myself to look now. How would he react if he knew what I was doing? If he knew that I was crazy enough to think that there was even the smallest fraction of a fraction of a chance that I could be pregnant because of what some random old lady had said to me at Frankie's a few months ago?

He would break up with me
.

The words flashed in my mind, big and bright, before I'd even had the chance to realize I was thinking them. No. He wouldn't dump me. Not after two years. And regardless, the test would without a doubt—or at least only a very tiny, practically almost negligible, barely worth mentioning doubt—be negative, so I'd never have to tell him that any of this had ever happened. Hannah and Izzy would never tell anyone, even if they did have their doubts about my sanity. And if it came down to it, if I was pregnant—and I wasn't—but if I was . . .

I refused to finish that sentence.

Instead I forced myself to sing along with the radio for the rest of the car ride, forbidding my brain from saying anything but the lyrics. Someone else's words felt much safer than my own.

After what seemed like too much time and somehow still not nearly enough, we pulled up to the bright blue Walmart fortress that my dutifully ethical mom had raised me to always avoid. She'd search high and low in every last local, family-owned store in Green Hill or any of the nearby towns before taking a penny of her money anywhere else. She'd certainly never go to Walmart for something she could buy in Reed's, even if it cost half the price. But, given the circumstances, I'm pretty certain that even she would approve of this exception. At that moment Walmart was my only hope for any kind of salvation, at least in terms of my reputation. And reputation was everything in a place like Green Hill.

I grabbed at the door handle and leaped out onto the pavement before I could be paralyzed by any second-guessing. Izzy walked around to my side of the car, glancing at me for a second before she looked down at the ground and jammed her hands tight into the pockets of her green and gold school basketball sweatshirt. She had lived in that hoodie all of junior year, and had spontaneously cut off the arms a few months ago to make it short-sleeved and summer-proof, a crime of fashion that Hannah and I could never let go of, especially when we were out in public. I wanted to joke about the ridiculous frayed strings dangling around her arms, make her laugh like always, pretend that it was just another typical Saturday morning with the girls. But I couldn't make my lips push out the words, and I doubted she would have appreciated them much even if I had.

Hannah opened her door and stepped out between us, a few beats behind like always. The three of us stood there for a minute, still and silent, awkwardly unsure of one another. I closed my eyes to take in the moment—the moment of uncertainty that came before. Before whatever it was that would come after. Because in that moment, I could still have all my doubts. And in doubts, there was hope.

I heard Izzy start moving next to me, shuffling toward the entrance, and the moment faded away. The before was disappearing, the after fast approaching.

We walked in silence until we spotted the end of an aisle with a bright pink tampon display, which seemed like a reasonable place to start. I pushed past the basic monthly supplies into more unfamiliar territory—creams and suppositories for yeast infections, douches, deodorizing wipes, anti-itch powders and rinses. I cringed and moved farther along the aisle, deeper into the heart of the feminine mystique, and felt my cheeks turn pink as soon as I saw the rows upon rows of condoms in every shape, size, color, and texture imaginable. I felt nervous just standing there, that close to bottles of lube and warming gels, so entirely out of my element. I turned my head left and right to check both ends of the aisle, just in case someone had followed the three of us in. But no, it was just Izzy and Hannah. There was no one—well, no one but my two best friends—to judge me, and nothing to be nervous about.

But what about security cameras? Was this being filmed? My heart skipped, and I looked up to the ceiling and along the walls and tops of the shelves, but I couldn't see anything.
You're being ridiculous, Mina.
People buy condoms all the time. I'm
seventeen
, after all. It's not that crazy of a concept to think I might have sex someday.

Though I seriously doubted I'd even consider sex for years after all this.

I walked a few more steps and stopped when I saw a purple box with the words
OVULATION PREDICTOR
. I scanned the nearby shelf space. First Response, e.p.t., Clearblue. All words I'd heard in the background on TV commercials or seen in magazine ads, but nothing that had ever been remotely relevant to my life before.

I turned to Hannah and Izzy, both still staring, fascinated, at the rainbow of sex in front of them. I wasn't the only slightly behind-the-times seventeen-year-old in our little group—Hannah was still a virgin, of course, like me, and though Izzy had given it up last summer to her kind-of boyfriend at the time, a few rapid-fire hookups on the basement couch did not a seasoned expert make.

I coughed to get their attention, and they both snapped out of their dazes.

“So I'm assuming you're both as clueless about this as I am, but any suggestions?”

Hannah looked up at the boxes, squinting her eyes. “I know my sister was rambling about pink plus signs when she called to tell me the news. So I guess we could start with that? The test worked for her, at least.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” I said, picking up the box that showed a magnified image of two sticks and a clear, irrefutable plus and a minus. It was a two-pack, which was good. The more evidence to prove that everything was normal, the better.

“But maybe you should get another brand, too, just in case?” Hannah suggested. “So you can be one-hundred-percent sure that they show the same result.”

I nodded and grabbed another box that also showed two sticks on the front, but one had the word
pregnant
, the other
not pregnant
. Cut-and-dry, I liked that. No reading and rereading the explanation just to make sure I had the signs and meanings right. I glanced at the price stickers on each package. Almost forty dollars. Damn. That was a good chunk of tip money, but it was a small price to pay for my sanity.

Tip money
. The thought reminded me of something awful—I was supposed to work the closing shift that night. But I'd have to worry about that later. After. One problem at a time.

“Okay then, I think I'm set,” I said, trying to sound infinitely cooler and braver than I felt. “Let's get out of this place, please.” I could do this. Pay for the tests, drive back to Hannah's, pee on the sticks.

Then this would all be behind me.

I wedged the boxes between my crossed arms and started toward the front registers, hoping that other shoppers passing by wouldn't notice what I was holding.
I'm a virgin
, I wanted to scream.
A virgin! Stop judging me!

The whole confidence act crumbled as soon as I got in line to pay. The cashier looked sweet, plump and middle-aged—she was definitely someone's mom. What would she think of me? Would she say something? Ask me anything?

Izzy reached out and grabbed both boxes. “I'll do it,” she said, avoiding my eyes. “Just give me the cash.”

I was so stunned and relieved, I couldn't find the words to thank her. I just nodded and fumbled through my purse for the wad of bills I had stuffed into an envelope after my last shift. Izzy took the money from my hands and stepped closer to the customer being rung up in front of her, casually putting both boxes down on the conveyor belt. She looked completely nonchalant and at ease, as if she were buying a box of Kleenex or a new toothbrush, not a test that would determine if another human being was growing inside of my body.
Yeah, lady
, her calm demeanor said,
I'm buying a pregnancy test. So what? Making babies is a natural part of life. Give me my change, and let's both move on with our days.

God, I loved Izzy. I hoped that I would be half as composed and courageous as she was being if this was happening to her or Hannah.

The cashier didn't so much as blink when she scanned and bagged the tests. I guess pregnant high school girls weren't such a shock to her after all. Teens in small, backwoods places like Green Hill and Kauffmanville and most other towns within an hour or so radius of here didn't have many options when it came to entertainment. A few girls in my grade had actually already had babies, though I couldn't say that any of the pregnancies so far had been particularly surprising or newsworthy. They were the girls you'd expect it from, I guess, the ones who'd carried their
reputations
long before any babies came along—the girls who had worn eyeliner and pushup bras since fifth grade, bumming cigarettes from older boys and cutting as many classes as they wanted, because their parents either didn't notice or didn't care one way or the other what their kids did. They were the girls who no one expected to ever go to college, to ever leave our town at all. There were no shockwaves rippling around the halls when their bellies started to show. But Mina Dietrich—or better yet,
Menius
, as some of the kids still called me, short for Mina the Genius, a nickname from middle school that I could never seem to shake—with the highest grade point average in the class and who was the girlfriend of Nate Landis? It was safe to say that there would be a reaction.

“Where do you want to take the tests?” Hannah asked, her arm linked in mine as the three of us walked through the exit and into the brilliantly blue-skied and sunny late-August day.

The air was dense and sticky and infused with the smell of sweet, powdery doughnuts being boxed by the thousands at the factory on the next lot over. It felt too hot and summery to believe that senior year, our last year at Green Hill High, my last year with Izzy and Hannah by my side, could possibly start next week. I'd never been good with lasts, and the next year would be bursting at the seams with them. I shook the thought off, though—worries for another time. I had nine months of school to get through first.