the shiny vending machine. The outline doesn’t look like Lila, so I turn quickly around.
I see only the back of the person, who is now near the other end of the long hall. His head is down and he is moving fast, but there is no mistaking who it is. I recognize Joel’s tight kicklike walk, and his shaggy brown hair. He is wearing a blue blazer and khakis instead of his usual uniform of jeans and a T-shirt. I wonder if I should call after him and tell him that he can look at my stomach openly if he wants to. He doesn’t have to sneak up on me from behind and then run away. But I realize that it’s Margaret he’s scared of, not me. Joel wouldn’t want Margaret to find out from one of her many gossip connections that he was seen talking to his ex-girlfriend, who is pregnant with his child. That wouldn’t bode well for me, either. God only knows the kind of Dear Abby letter I would get from Margaret after that. The letter would probably arrive, à la The Godfather, with the bleeding head of a horse.
Joel disappears through a set of swinging doors. Stranded in the center of the hallway looking at a place where the father of my child used to be, holding a pack of Oreos, feeling the weight of every one of the thirty-eight pounds I have gained, I suddenly feel very alone.
Lila is late, sneaking into the hospital in a baggy sweatshirt and baseball hat. We grab the first elevator and then run down the hallway, me holding my stomach, but we’re still late for class. We take seats on the floor because that’s where everyone else is. The teacher comes over and fusses with us until we are in the correct position. I sit between Lila’s legs. The teacher tips me backward until I am lying against Lila, my head beneath her chin. My legs are bent at the knees. The teacher’s adjustments are so quick that when she walks away it is a shock to find ourselves in this state. I can feel my sister’s breasts push into my back. Her thighs wrap around me. Her breath is hot against my ear. It occurs to me that this is physically the closest I have been to another human being since the last time I had sex.
“I can’t believe I am fucking doing this,” Lila says.
Lila’s warm breath on my ear and her saying “fucking” and the fact that my legs are spread and that I haven’t had sex or even touched anyone in six months makes me start to giggle. The noise is a bit hysterical and high-pitched and sounds like my mother’s laugh when she is with her brothers and sisters. The giggling tickles me from the inside out, and the tickling keeps me going.
“Gracie,” Lila says.
I look up and see the teacher, a plump woman well past childbearing years, glaring at me, and all of the couples in the class, collapsed on the floor in similar positions to Lila and me, watching. There are seven other couples, and each one is made up of a pregnant woman and a male coach. They are looking at me, wedged between my sister’s thighs, as if they are considering calling a family services agency and having my baby removed from my immoral, negligent care before he or she is even born.
“Sorry,” I mutter to the room at large.
“Now, class,” the teacher says. “Let’s get to work on that breathing. The breath is the key to a beautiful childbirth experience. I want both mommies and coaches to follow along. This is the breath that I want you to practice at home, and whenever you feel stressed and achy. This will be the foundation of your labor; this is what will save you from the pain. Come on now, here we go, it’s two short breaths in and one long release breath out. Hee-hee-hoo. Hee-hee-hoo.”
“Hee-hee-hoo,” the class says.
“Hee-hee-hoo,” Lila says into my ear.
The baby gives me a mighty kick in the stomach then, which seems like a clear message that I am in trouble. This strikes me as rather obnoxious, because I didn’t need the air knocked out of me to learn that. I have no time to recover because the teacher is still looking doubtfully in my direction as if she has the number for the Department of Youth and Family Services on speed dial. I struggle through