She knew that she would be grounded for life if her parents caught her leaving, but she had no other choice. She wasn’t allowed to use the car anymore. She couldn’t think of a good excuse to go to the pharmacy. But she couldn’t scrub Mrs. Keizer’s words out of her mind.
“You smell wrong. You’re dirty. This girl is dirty!”
Mary Katherine pulled up her jeans under her nightgown. When she buttoned them, she noticed the button was a little tight. She hoped she was just putting on weight. Please, God, I’m just putting on weight, right? She took off the nightgown and threw on her letter jacket. The one she got for playing the flute in the marching band.
She went to her bed and stuffed the pillow under the sheets to make it look like she was still there. Then, she went to her piggy bank. The one that Grandma Margaret gave her before she died. Mary Katherine wanted to stop using it. She wasn’t a child, after all. But it was the last thing her grandmother ever gave her, so she felt too guilty to let it go.
She took out all of the cash, including the change.
She combined it with her babysitting money.
She had around forty-three dollars.
It would be enough.
Mary Katherine left her bedroom. She walked down the hallway and stopped outside her parents’ door. She listened to the silence on the other side until she heard her father snoring. Then, she went downstairs, grabbed the car keys from the ring underneath the portrait of Jesus, and went outside to the driveway. She turned on the station wagon. Quietly. She didn’t wait for it to warm up. She got in and her hands nearly froze to the steering wheel until her fever warmed up the leather.
She didn’t know where to go. She couldn’t drive to the Rite Aid near South Hills Village because people might know her there. Debbie Dunham worked at the Giant Eagle where the other late-night pharmacy was. Mary Katherine couldn’t afford to let anyone she knew see her.
She decided to get onto Route 19.
Far away from Mill Grove.
Mary Katherine drove through the Liberty Tunnels and saw the lights of downtown to her left and the prison on the right. She had driven on this bridge on her way to Mercy Hospital when her grandmother died. Her grandmother left her a lot of money that she never got to see or touch. That money was for Notre Dame, her dad said. All she had left was that piggy bank. She didn’t even know what her grandmother’s maiden name was. Why was she thinking about her so much? She hardly ever thought about her anymore. She felt so guilty about that.
Mary Katherine drove on Highway 376 and took the Forbes Avenue exit to Oakland, where the colleges were. Pitt University and CMU. No one would know her there. She drove until she saw a 24-hour pharmacy. She parked the car and sat in the parking lot, looking at the building for a good five minutes to see if anyone she knew was inside. She saw nothing but the security cameras. So, she put on a thick wool hat and some sunglasses, which still smelled like the family’s trip to Virginia Beach. It was such a simple time then. So warm and sunny. And her parents weren’t mad at her. And she had never done anything wrong.
The automatic doors saw her coming and opened like a whale’s mouth.
Mary Katherine walked into the pharmacy. Her heart pounded. She didn’t know what section it would be in. She had never been in this situation.
“Can I help you find something, hun?” the saleswoman asked her.
“No, thank you. I’m fine,” Mary Katherine said.
Her heart pounded. She knows. She knows.
Mary Katherine did her best to walk casually down the aisles. She stopped and looked at a bag of Christmas candy. Then, she browsed some Christmas cards. Then, she stopped at the bookshelf and browsed the titles. When she passed the cold medicine, she noticed that it had been picked clean. She figured this flu must be everywhere, but she didn’t give the matter much thought. She finally found what she was looking for right next to the tampons.
The pregnancy test.
She had no idea what the good brands were, and she didn’t dare ask. So, she grabbed the three most expensive ones. She wanted to shoplift them, so that the lady behind the counter wouldn’t