Screwed (9 page)

Turning to a cooling rack on one of the white marble counters in a kitchen straight out of a nineteenth-century English novel, Vera picked up two muffins and handed them to Grace and Charlie. “Fresh out of the oven. Banana nut. You’re not allergic to walnuts, are you?”

“No, no allergies. These smell wonderful.” Grace gratefully took a bite, savoring the sweetness. If this was a sample of Vera’s cooking, Grace feared she would eat everything in sight as long as she was staying in this house. She had no idea how much weight you were allowed to gain during pregnancy.

Outside, Grace and Charlie wandered across the grass and sat down on a glider swing under an arbor covered with grape vines. Suddenly Grace didn’t know what to say to this handsome boy, with whom, under any other circumstances, she would have flirted madly.

“So, when are you due?” Charlie asked.

From her hairline down to her toes, Grace felt a surge of heat. “The beginning of April.”

“I’m sorry. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. But you shouldn’t be embarrassed. Not in front of me. I mean, shit happens. I don’t judge.” Charlie’s face turned pink as well. The last thing he wanted to do was make this girl uncomfortable. Her parents were already acting like she’d serviced the entire football team on the fifty-yard line during halftime.

“No, it’s fine. I’d better get over it. It’s only going to get worse.” Grace placed her hand on her stomach, which still gave no clue as to what was going on inside. “I got myself into trouble messing around in some guy’s car, and now I have to live with the consequences. I’m stupid and slutty, and everybody’s going to know it.”

As trite and old-fashioned as that sounded, that was the truth, even in a supposedly liberal, modern society. What made it even worse was that Nick wouldn’t suffer for a moment because of this — if anyone did find out he was the father, it would probably only enhance his reputation as a stud. Grace covered her face with her hands. Because of this perennial double standard, it felt odd talking to a guy about stuff like this. But perhaps because Charlie was a stranger, it was slightly less humiliating. Like talking to a therapist.

“Don’t talk like that. You think you’re the only girl in high school who ever did it in the back of a car with your boyfriend? I don’t think so.” Charlie shuddered internally.

Not that he was an expert. When he was living in Paris, he had been with exactly one girl exactly twelve times, and every time they’d done it he’d felt like he was doing something dishonest, because he knew he didn’t love her, and as hurting as he knew it was, he had no idea how to separate sex from love, even though he had tried his best, all twelve times. If the girl had gotten pregnant, Charlie couldn’t begin to imagine how he would have dealt with it.

“He wasn’t my boyfriend. It was only our third date. That’s pretty slimy, by anybody’s standards,” Grace whispered, certain that this admission would forever tarnish her image with Charlie. Not that he probably thought much of her anyway. But this would definitely be the nail in the coffin.

Getting naked on the third date
was
a little soon, although for a guy such a pace would earn high-fives, not scarlet letters. Determined not to pass judgment, Charlie tried not to show his surprise. Even if she’d done it on the first date, there was something about this girl that was so
un
slutty. “You did something you regret doing, and you got really unlucky. Are you going to punish yourself for the rest of your life?”

“I think maybe I am. I deserve it for being a moron, if nothing else.”

For the most part, she had liked who she was before, except for the geeky aspects. And in the rearview mirror, she really wasn’t that much of a nerd — she only owned one calculator, had only seen
Star Wars
twice, and she’d never even been to a sci-fi convention. In retrospect, she wondered why she had felt so lost during junior year. Jennifer was right — if only she had talked it out with someone.

“You shouldn’t do that to yourself. It’s not healthy, and it’s not true,” Charlie said.

“But I deserve to feel bad for losing my virginity to a guy I hardly knew. In my heart I knew he didn’t really even like me. That’s beyond pitiful, isn’t it?”

“You really only did it once?”
What were the odds of that?
Charlie wondered.

Grace nodded miserably.

“He didn’t use a … ?”

“He did, but it’s not a hundred percent effective, which is a statistic that I, the math whiz, should have been aware of.” Grace couldn’t believe she was having a conversation about condoms and sex with a boy she’d just met, and she wasn’t stuttering or sweating.

“By definition, one time means you can’t be a slut, but I will say you have the worst luck of anyone I’ve ever met. First time, using a condom, and you still got pregnant.”

Charlie shook his head in disbelief. Having lived abroad where people seemed less uptight than in the United States, there was a lot of sleeping around, but he hadn’t known anyone who had gotten pregnant, or gotten someone else pregnant. Or maybe they just took care of the problem, and nobody ever found out about it. More likely the case.

“That’s it in a nutshell, a really shitty nutshell.”

Squeezing her eyes shut, she successfully held back the waterworks. Having already cried buckets, Grace knew they didn’t help — it wasn’t like she could weep away the bean. Crying just made her face all ugly and scrunched up, and she didn’t need to feel any more unattractive.

“If you feel that way about it, and you’re not even in a relationship with this guy, then why don’t you just have an abortion? Then no one would ever have to know.” Aunt Helen had told him that was what Grace’s parents wanted her to do, and her refusal to go through with it was why they had kicked her out.

On one level Grace agreed with Charlie. Sixty or seventy years of self-flagellation were impossible to imagine. “You’re right, but if I get an abortion, I feel like the ghost of that baby that never got to be will haunt me for the rest of my life.”

“A ghost? You believe in that stuff?”

Did Aunt Helen realize what she was getting herself into when she dragged home this stray? This was one messed-up girl. Charlie could understand why his aunt had scooped her up — her eyes glistened with unshed tears like a little girl who had just realized she was lost in a crowded department store, and as she spoke he was fighting the urge to cradle her in his arms and tell her he would never let anyone hurt her again. But she promised to be a handful. Maybe Aunt Helen should stick to the occasional dog or cat.

“Not chain-rattling, white-sheet haunting. Someday, I
hope
I get married and have a family, you know, do it in the right order with the right person. If I have an abortion, when I eventually have a baby because I want to, I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop thinking about this one. There’s no way to undo that. If I have it and give it up for adoption, I’ll have plenty of issues, especially in the short term, but in the long term I know I’ll feel better about it. I may end up regretting a lot of things, but at least I won’t be asking
what if
for my whole life. Does that make
any sense?”

This was heavy stuff to talk about with a complete stranger, who was her age and really kind of hot in a prep school sort of way. But he’d asked, and each time she explained herself, Grace felt marginally more confident that her decision to go through with the pregnancy was the right one for her, in spite of the domestic conflagration she had created by defying her parents.

“Actually, that makes a lot of sense. It would be so easy to get trapped in this moment, only thinking about how you feel today, but you’re right, you’ve got a lot of years ahead of you. I’m sure you’ll meet the right guy and have the family you deserve someday, with no regrets.”

“It’s hard to imagine that happening to me, falling in love, having someone fall in love with me. But I have to make myself think that way, or else I’ll lose my mind.” She shook her head. “Let’s not talk about my mess anymore. You know pretty much everything about me. I want to know about you. Do you visit your aunt often? I’ve never seen you here.”

Grace would have remembered such a good-looking boy wandering around the neighborhood. Tall, with dark wavy hair and startlingly blue eyes, Charlie reminded Grace of a character from a Jane Austen novel, and like his aunt he spoke with the slightest accent, as if he had lived abroad for most of his life. It was a dazzling combination.

“I’ve only been here a couple of times since Aunt Helen moved out from the City. My father works for Macro Financial. They have offices all over the world, so we’ve had to move around a lot. Until June we were living in Paris, but then my dad got sent to Moscow to work on some special project for a year.”

“You’ve been to Russia?” Grace’s most exotic destination up to this point had been Toronto.

“I spent the summer there, but I didn’t want to spend my last year of high school in Moscow, so Aunt Helen offered to look after me.”

“Don’t they have an American School there?” It felt good to think about somebody else for a change. For a few minutes Grace could almost forget what had happened, how she came to be sitting on this swing with this guy in the first place.

“They do. I’ve been to the American Schools in Paris, Florence, and Berlin. They’re fine, but I was missing home — we haven’t lived in the States since I was twelve. It seemed like a perfect opportunity, with Aunt Helen being on her own. And she isn’t getting any younger. It’ll be good for both of us.”

Charlie looked back at the house and smiled. He thought but didn’t say that Grace’s presence was proving to be a pleasant diversion. If only she weren’t pregnant with some guy’s baby — but if she weren’t, then she wouldn’t be here, so maybe it was meant to be.
Beshert
, as Aunt Helen would say — fate, but with a twist.

“Your life sounds incredible. I, on the other hand, am a total hick.” Unsophisticated, provincial, and pregnant — quite the prize package. All that was missing were bare feet, a couple of tattoos, and a trailer park, Grace imagined Charlie must be thinking.

“Well I think you’re very nice … for a hick.”

“That’s the sweetest thing I’ve heard from a boy in a long time. It really is.” Grateful that Charlie was making the effort to flirt with her a little bit, to make her feel like a girl rather than a science experiment, Grace started to relax.

The sound of a bell interrupted them. “That means dinner’s ready. Shall we?” Charlie held out his arm and Grace tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. This guy was an old-fashioned gentleman, easy on the eyes and genuinely kind.
Where were you a few months ago?
Grace thought sadly. If he had appeared on the scene a little earlier, maybe her life would be completely different right now. But perhaps this was some weird destiny thing, and she just needed to wait for her future to play out in whatever strange way it needed to. For a second, Grace could imagine a decent life after the bean.

Candles provided the only light in a dining room that could easily seat twenty. Two huge silver candelabra sat on the mahogany table, flanking a large blue and white porcelain bowl overflowing with fresh fruit. Sterling flatware and crystal goblets sparkled in the flickering candlelight. It was an oil painting come to life, thought Grace as she and Charlie sat down opposite each other near the end of the table. Helen was already sitting at the head, sipping a glass of wine.

“First, let me apologize for this whole state dinner setup. Vera wanted to make it special tonight to welcome you to our home,” Helen said. “But perhaps it’s a bit much.”

“It’s the most beautiful room I’ve ever seen. She shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble for me.” Grace was already worried about becoming a burden. She had no idea how she would ever be able to repay Mrs. Teitelbaum for all her kindness.

“Don’t worry — Vera loves to do this. She gets bored doing supper in the kitchen every night. But I probably should have brought you dinner in your room — you’ve had a long day.” Helen squeezed Grace’s hand.

“No, this is wonderful. Please don’t apologize. I don’t know how to thank you for everything. I’m sure my parents will get over this pretty soon, and then I can get out of your hair,” said Grace, needing to believe that her parents were just having the forty-something equivalent of a temper tantrum. In a day or two they would come to their senses, would realize they had overreacted, would realize how much they missed her … she hoped.

Charlie spoke up. “Until they recover, you should enjoy it here. Staying with Aunt Helen is like taking a vacation at a five-star resort — incredible food, heated swimming pool, there’s even a putting green behind the apple orchard.”

“Exactly,” said Helen. “Think of this as a mini holiday, except for the fact that the two of you have to go back to school on Tuesday.”

“Thanks for the buzzkill, Aunt Helen. Are you trying to ruin the weekend?” Charlie laughed, as he poured more wine for Helen and some for himself.

“Sorry, children. You’re right. Let’s talk about something more festive. Charlie, why don’t you tell us about things in Moscow? Did you go to the Hermitage?”

It was so wonderful having young people in the house. Vera, George, and Ada were good company, but there was nothing like listening to children chattering away about their lives. On the cusp of adulthood, they found everything exciting and new; the world was rife with possibility. It made her feel lighthearted and free, although she hadn’t felt that way herself when she was seventeen. When Helen had been their age, she was still trying to find her way in America, still trying to master the language and lose her thick accent, which had made her feel gauche and ugly. She had been living with a distant cousin, trying not to look like an immigrant, and starting her freshman year at Barnard. It was in September of 1950 that she had met Abraham for the very first time. Two weeks later he had proposed, and by Thanksgiving they had been married. Life was funny that way. You never knew what was going to happen next. Something wonderful could be just around the corner. The day before she met Abraham, she was wishing she had died with her family in Poland — she had been that miserable. She must remember to tell that story, except for the death wish part, to Grace, who could certainly use a little dose of optimism, considering all that had happened to her.