was some story about gangsters or a fighter or something. It was mindless. She watched it without talking, just nodding whenever Fran said something.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
Fran picked up her foot in his hand and held it on his lap. He started running his fingers over her toes, pausing to hold each one for a second, before moving on to the next one.
“What are you doing?” Claire asked.
“I’m looking for the one that ate roast beef,” he said. He held on to her middle toe and squeezed it. “He’s my favorite.”
Claire leaned her head back and laughed, a big loud laugh that surprised her. She held her stomach and laughed until it hurt. Her whole body shook, and she laughed harder than she had in as long as she could remember.
“There we go,” Fran said. He patted her leg. “There we go.”
CHAPTER 10
Cleo never even went to the bathroom when Max was in the apartment. That was her first thought when the nurse told her. Of course, if she just had to pee that was one thing. But to really “do her business,” as her mother would say, she waited until he left and then she’d run in there. A couple of times, when she really couldn’t hold it, she’d pretend to take a shower, letting the hot water run (which she knew was wasteful), and just pray that he couldn’t hear or smell anything on the other side of the door.
She wanted to say this to the nurse, but she couldn’t quite get the words together. Instead, she said, “I’m sorry, that can’t be right.”
The nurse nodded and said, “I’m afraid it is.”
“I don’t understand,” Cleo kept saying. “I don’t understand.”
The nurse was sympathetic, but firm and removed, which was annoying as all hell. Cleo wanted her to be just as shocked as she was. She wanted her to say, “I can’t believe it either!” But she just stood there calmly. She probably thought Cleo didn’t understand how the body worked, that it was possible she was one of those girls who would give birth in a bathroom, leave her baby in a garbage can, and then head back to the prom. This could not be happening.
“This is a mistake,” Cleo said.
“There is no mistake,” the nurse said. “You’re pregnant.”
“But I’m on the pill.” It sounded like she was making excuses, even to herself, but it was the truth. She was on the pill. This wasn’t right.
“It can happen.” The nurse shrugged her shoulders, like, What can you do about it? Isn’t life a bitch sometimes? Cleo wanted to punch her in the jaw, give her a side hook, like a boxer.
“Yes, it can happen. But it doesn’t happen often, does it? There is a very minimal margin of error in these things.” Cleo thought to herself that she sounded just like Elizabeth. And then she thought, Elizabeth. Oh, fuck.
The nurse was giving her pamphlets, asking her when the date of her last period was, looking unsurprised when Cleo said, “Ummm, let’s see.”
“It looks like you’re about five weeks,” the nurse finally said.
“Five weeks?”
She wanted to ask the nurse how many pregnant students she’d seen in her time here. Cleo would feel better if there were lots of them. She always felt better when she was part of a group.
Cleo could have stayed there all day, going round and round with the nurse about how this really wasn’t possible, but the nurse told her she had another patient and told Cleo she should make an appointment with an ob-gyn to get more information. Then she’d herded Cleo out the door, nudging and guiding her like she was some sort of sheepdog.
When she went to health services, she really hadn’t thought she was pregnant. Maybe it crossed her mind, the same way that cancer does—it’s a possibility, sure, but really, not very likely. Cleo had been feeling nauseous and tired, but she thought it was the flu or maybe a parasite or something.
It had never occurred to her to take a pregnancy test at home. She’d never ever taken one. Cleo had slept with her high school boyfriend senior year, mostly because she thought she should before she went to college. He was a lacrosse player with nice hair. She’d never really had any sort of pregnancy scare—she was careful!—but there were a few times she was a day late, and she’d panic.
Her friend Violet took pregnancy tests like they were going out of style, sometimes just to