Anything You Want (4 page)

Maggie and I are going to have a kid! I bet she even planned for this and that's why we never discussed protection and why she wanted to have sex all the time.

Sure, I knew. The timing sucked in some ways. Teenage parenting limits your ability to…rent a limo for the prom or whatnot. Okay, there's more to it than that, but me and Maggie? We were a team, weren't we? We could be a real family. I wanted a real family. I still want a real family. I love families! And Maggie? There is nobody in the world I'd rather be up shit creek with than her. We could make lemonade out of this lemon, right?

Yes!

Family.

I don't drive. Mom was diagnosed the day after I got my permit, and I decided I wanted to spend time with her rather than learn how. I don't bike because bike seats make my business end sore even when I'm in top condition. Due to my coccyx situation, which had by mid-October gotten a little bit better, biking was a total no go. And so on that epic Saturday morning, I set out by foot.

When I have full range of motion, it takes me about twenty-five minutes to get from my house to the Corrigans' home. But I hadn't run or really even walked any distance in seven weeks, so I made slow progress up and down the hills of Bluffton. It took me nearly an hour to get to Maggie's. Of course, if I hadn't run into Brad Schwartz and Akilesh Sharma on Main Street, it would've been more like forty minutes.

Sharma is one of my good buddies, but he'd been visiting relatives with his parents all summer and was mostly taking college classes (instead of wasting his giant Sharma brain in high school), so we hadn't spent any time together for a while. He was pretty concerned about the state of my butt. He was all, “How could such a weird injury even take place?” So to show I valued his place in my life, I took the time to explain how it happened, even though I was monkey-jacked to discuss our baby with Maggie.

No, dingus! I did not tell Sharma and Brad the good news. I'm a gentleman. I sort of believed Maggie planned for this baby. (She had to be smarter than me, right?) But I wasn't positive, and I didn't know for sure if Maggie even knew she was pregnant. Certainly I wouldn't be the one to let the mouse out of the sack with the general public.

After I left my good buds behind, I walked the last couple of autumn tree-lined blocks to the giant home inhabited by that blessed Corrigan family filled with blond girls. I figured that Mom and Dad Corrigan would be less than thrilled by the developments at hand (pregnant Maggie), so I calmed myself and thought,
Don't just blurt it out! Don't just shout it out to the whole Corrigan world!
I was excited, so it was going to be hard.

I found Mrs. Corrigan, Misha, and Molly raking leaves into a giant pile near the raised tomato bed where my butt had nearly met its death.

“Top of the morning to you, Corrigan ladies!” I called.

All three turned to me and stared. It was the first time I'd been to the house since the accident. I wasn't surprised by the reception. How would you feel if you saw the person who nearly fell to his death standing in the very yard in which you were now playing with leaves? I didn't blame any of them for my trouble, so I put on my most gracious face.

“How are you all doing this fine fall day?” I asked.

Misha smiled. “Want to jump in my leaf pile, Taco?”

“It's my pile too!” Molly squealed.

“No—no jumping,” Mrs. Corrigan said. “I imagine Taco's here for Maggie.”

“Right you are, Mrs. C. Maybe I can play with you girls another time? Anyway, I'm still a little sore from falling off your house.”

“That was forever ago,” Misha said.

“Maggie! Come out here!” Mrs. Corrigan hollered at the house. “Maggie!” The whole time she shouted, she kept her eyes on me like I might disappear if she blinked.

Finally Maggie showed up on the front porch. Even though it was almost noon, Maggie was still wearing her nightgown, and her hair was all twisted up into a rat's nest, like she just pulled herself off her pillow.

“Hey there, Mags!” I waved to her.

“Hey,” she said. “What do you want?”

“Can I come in? I have some big news.”

“No,” Mrs. Corrigan said. “You can't. I…Maggie's father is in the middle of an important project. Why don't you and Taco take a walk around the block? We'll be having lunch soon. Then we're going…we're going to Dubuque to the mall. To see a movie, so don't be long.”

“We're going to Dubuque?” Molly asked.

“Yay!” Misha said.

“You have ten minutes,” Mrs. Corrigan said to Maggie.

“Okay,” Maggie said. She padded down the steps in her bare feet and began walking down the sidewalk, away from the house.

“Hey, wait up!” I said, but she kept walking.

“Ten minutes,” Mrs. Corrigan called after us.

When I caught up to Maggie, she said, “What are you doing here? Can't you take a hint ever, Taco? You know my parents don't want you around.”

“Sure. There's some bad blood, but here's what I figure: The more you know me, the more you love me. Am I right?”

Maggie looked up as she walked. She smiled a little. “That's been my experience, yeah.”

“So maybe I should come around more so they get to know me too.”

The smile slid off Maggie's perfect face. “No, that's not a good idea. I'm grounded by the way. I've actually been grounded for a while, but my parents don't know what time cheerleading practice ends, so I can come over.”

“Wait. What? Why are you grounded?” I asked.

“Duh, I stayed at your house until one in the morning, and Dad had to come to get me. And he had to wait while I put on clothes.”

“Aha,” I said. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“I don't want to add to your burden.”

“You're my girlfriend. You should be able to share your stuff with me.”

“No, but—”

“And come on, my butt is healing! I'm just about fully operational at this juncture.”

“Listen, I just want you to be blissfully unaware, okay?” Maggie said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you have a dead mom and your dad's gone and your brother drinks too much.”

“Oh,” I said. “Darius passed out with nachos last night.”

“And your mom, Taco,” Maggie said. “Your mom.”

This surprised me a little bit. Nobody—and I mean nobody—ever mentioned my mom. I thought everyone had forgotten about her other than me, Dad, and my drunk brother.

“My mom and dad would've killed you by now, you know?” Maggie said. “If they didn't feel sorry for you, you'd be in jail.”

Leaves were falling all around us. Orange and yellow and red. The sun was out. It was so beautiful there in Maggie's neighborhood.
Today is the best day ever.
I didn't want to dwell on the past or on who wanted to kill me or put me in jail. I wanted to talk about the future. Our future!

“Not to change the subject,” I said, “but did you know you're pregnant?”

Maggie stopped cold in her tracks. She glared up at me. “What the hell, Taco?”

“I…I'm just saying,” I said.

“Yeah, no shit, I know,” Maggie snapped.

“Were you trying to get pregnant?” I asked.

“Jesus. No!”

That surprised me a little, dingus. “Okay. Do your parents—”

“I know, but nobody else does. I drove all the way to Dubuque for that test. How do
you
know?”

“Darius told me.”

“What? Darius?”

“Yeah! I listed your symptoms because I thought you were possessed by a ghost, but he said you were pregnant. I did some independent research, which concurred with his assessment.”

Maggie's face fell. “I have to do something,” she said. “I'd better do something.”

“Well, I was thinking,” I said.

Maggie's eyes opened wide like she was totally ready for any wisdom or solution I might have to offer her. “You were?”

“Yes. And I have a plan.”

Maggie exhaled hard. “Okay, good. Because I can't handle this by myself.”

I grabbed her hands in my hands. “Listen. We've got this. We'll get married. You can move into the suite, and we'll raise our baby. This is great, right? Married! I want to make a family with you for sure.”

Maggie yanked her hands away from me. “Shit, Taco!”

“What?”

“Just shut up! You shut up!” Maggie's head looked like it might totally explode.

“Shut up?” I asked. “Why?”

“Because! I don't want to be…I want to be on the dance team in college!” she shouted.

“That's cool. That's great,” I said.

“Shit, man!” And then she took off running. I've already mentioned how amazingly fast she is, and with my unholy coccyx, there was no point in giving chase, so I just stood there and watched her tear down the street with that perfect running form that comes so naturally to her.

This probably shouldn't be a great memory. She was trying to get away from me after all. But wow. She looked so determined and powerful, you know? Plus Maggie Corrigan is killer hot. So sweet-assed hot when she starts taking off like a gazelle like that.

The memory hurts too.

I do totally love her. It hurts when you're a junkie.

I didn't want Maggie to feel so bad. Sure, for a sixteen-year-old, getting pregnant isn't exactly living the dream when you don't want to be pregnant.

Or maybe it is, being filled with life?

Life is a gift, my mom said. Today is the best day ever, right? Today is what we've got, so what are you going to do about it? I decided I'd start learning what it was going to take to be a good dad and husband because Maggie was pregnant even if she wanted to be on a college dance team.

I brewed myself a fine hot Lipton tea, which is what my mom did when she had to concentrate on something for long hours. I sat down at the computer and began to research.

First things first. I had to figure out when our baby would enter the world.

I did some searching, some thinking. I wrote out some notes. I put a pencil behind my ear. I felt like a real adult.

I'll tell you one thing, dingus, trying to figure out a due date is no easy task. You don't just say, “Okay, September sexy plus nine months equals May, so…baby's coming in May.” The pregnancy people on the Internet use some kind of higher-powered algebra to get this thing calculated. It goes something like this:

Approximate date of inception minus two weeks equals date of lady's last
little friend
plus forty weeks equals the blessed due date.

Or to put it in the mathematical shorthand, I scribbled out on my notepad:

DOI – 2W = DOLLLF + 40W = DD.

The math itself isn't so hard (other than the fact that as the guy in the relationship, I wasn't exactly sure of the lady's last little friend, so I wasn't totally sure I was getting it right). Why do I say it's higher-powered algebra then? Because check this out: From accessing my memory, I believed me and the Mags conceived our little baby right around the seventh of September, although it could've been a couple days before or a couple days after. We were doing it like monkeys around that time. I drew a monkey swinging from the vines on the calendar. Maggie was unstoppable for those few days, which I figured must be evidence that her body was craving my seed in a biological sense (ovulating), even though we were doing it for recreational purposes.

Using the seventh, I applied this formula and came up with this: Sept. 7 – 2W = Aug. 24 + 40W = May 30.

The due date! May 30 is when I would be a dad and start a new Taco family.

Then I squinted at the calculation. Something seemed nonsensical. Or maybe magical! See, according to this calculation from the expert pregnancy people on the Internet, Maggie had been pregnant since August 24. I stood up from my chair. On August 24, we were both snow-white virgins. How could she already have been pregnant? Holy, holy, holy!

The world is filled with magic. I went over to the couch, and I fell on my face because it was so crazy. Our love made Maggie pregnant when we were both still virgins. That's a miracle. That's destiny. Our child would be destiny's child.

I pictured our baby traveling to poor countries and sharing cash and vaccines and comic books with all the needy children.

I was pretty dang psyched. After I took in the immensity of it all—I did a little praying and talking to my mom via meditation—I leaped back to the computer and wrote this all in an email and sent it to Maggie.

She didn't respond right away. When she did respond, she didn't get all psyched about the miracle of the virgin pregnancy, but instead she suggested I calm down a little.

She wrote:

Yeah, that's weird, but it's only a calculation meant to figure out the due date, so I don't think there's really anything miraculous about it. Listen. Please don't be excited, Taco. I don't know what to do about anything, okay? I'm not ready to be a mom, so you know…

Well, balls! I knew what to do. Life is a miracle! Like I am and Maggie is and my mom was. It was our job to take care of it.

At school all the following week, I handed Maggie folded-up sketches I made of different master suite configurations that would allow for a king-size bed, a crib, and a giant-screen TV. One sketch had all the junk removed, and there was straw on the floor and a manger. And I drew me and Maggie as Joseph and Mary. I drew some donkeys, camels, goats, and wise men too. She thought it was a joke, which made her laugh a little, which was nice. I missed that.

Later I redrew the master suite and added a changing table to the diagram. I also drew a sketch of the giant, wise lion (spirit animal) I wanted to paint on the suite's wall. These drawings didn't make Maggie smile. In fact, I saw her throw out my sketch of the lion like two minutes after I gave it to her. When she walked away, I ran over to the garbage and saved it. I had worked for an hour on that sucker!

For the following two weeks, Maggie barely wanted to talk. She didn't come over to visit or call the house, and even though I wanted to, I didn't go to her house. I didn't want to make her more upset.

Oh no, I didn't blame my girl. She wasn't feeling very well. I could see it in her face. Her stomach was upset. I only wished I was there in the morning to hold her hair back when she barfed.

At the end of that second week, Maggie actually missed the final football game of the season, a play-off game. We lost, which meant football cheerleading was done too. One of the other cheerleaders, Carrie Cramer, told me Maggie had the stomach flu.

I didn't say,
Oh no! Wicked morning sickness lasting all day long
, but I sure thought it.

It would've been easier if I had a cell phone so I could text. As soon as Carrie told me about Maggie, I wanted to tell Maggie how much I loved her and how it would all be okay. But I had to wait until I got home to use the computer. Then I had to wait even longer because Darius was playing
Minecraft
(even though our Internet lagged and he got killed all the time by richer fellows with computers that actually worked fast, and that shit drove him to swear and break pencils and things).

After Darius finally got too frustrated to play anymore and went to bed, I sent her a message.

Maggie, I've read up on this, and your illness will probably not last too much longer. We will be in the second trimester soon. Most ladies don't have a ton of vomiting during the second trimester. So hang tough, lady pal!

Maggie wrote back on Saturday morning.

Taco, I have been online, and supposedly the thing inside me looks like a shrimp from someone's shrimp cocktail. I'm not ready for it to turn into a baby. I have to tell my parents I'm pregnant. I think maybe I want an abortion. Probably need one. I'm sorry.

Abortion. Abortion. Abortion.

Oh no, dingus. Abortion had never occurred to me, which is crazy because my mom was politically active about that. She was on the pro-choice team because of what she saw as a nurse. And my mom was a good person, but this didn't feel good.

I fell into my bed and cried, which I never really did before Maggie got pregnant. I didn't cry when Mom died. Not when Dad moved up north. Not when Darius got arrested. Instead of crying, I'd lie as still as a dead man in my bed, in the yard, or on the floor of the basement when it was too hot. But I never cried—not until I thought about the miracle baby being dead. I tried to lie still, but instead I wailed and soaked my sheets (just like Maggie had not too long before).

In some ways it was like all the hard things—Mom, Dad, and Darius—got wrapped up in my crying about the baby. I pictured my little miracle baby and Mom. I pictured Mom getting married to Dad. I pictured the birth of Darius and how happy Mom and Dad must've been, not knowing that he would have anger issues from a past life. I pictured Mom hugging me as a baby.

I cried so hard for so long, I threw up. Like I was the one with morning sickness. I sort of had morning sickness in a way. I was filled up with so much sadness. I felt really sad for Maggie too. She had to tell her parents that she was pregnant, which would be so tough. They had to know I was the father, a boy named Taco. So sad for everyone involved.

But today is the best day I've ever had, so…

In the afternoon I crawled out of bed and crawled to the computer and wrote:

Maggie, I support you. When you speak to your parents, please refer to me by my given name, William, and not by Taco, which is just a nickname I got because I ate so many tacos while I was in second grade.

Thank you,

William Keller

Maggie didn't write me back the rest of the day. I tried to read
The Dark Tower
, but I couldn't. I tried to do calc, but I couldn't. I tried to look at the Internet, but I couldn't. I tried to watch TV, but I couldn't. In the end, I looked at my parents' wedding album for like six hours. I stared at every single picture. Everybody was dead. Two grandparents, one mom. All their smiles, gone.

I drew a couple pictures of the baby and me kicking a soccer ball in the backyard. I couldn't make the backyard look right. It looked totally stupid. Like a little kid drew it.

I kept repeating to myself,
This is the best day ever.

I didn't feel so great though. Not at all.