Hooked (12 page)

“C’mon,” I said. “What else did they say, really?”

“That they’d talk to my aunt Florence, try and work something out with us living in her apartment while she’s teaching in Africa. Florence doesn’t want to sublet to anyone she doesn’t know, so we may have a leg up in that sense. They actually wondered why they hadn’t thought of it earlier, since it would be cheaper for me to live there than to board at Columbia, because of the rent control. They want me to stay in school. They said they’ll do
anything
they can to help as long as I stay in school.”

“Do you think they hate me?” I asked, realizing how juvenile the question was.

“They didn’t say.” He rolled his eyes.

Some Italian ballad bellowed out of the jukebox speakers. The whole normal world went on around us.

“Mom asked about your parents,” he said, his eyes scanning the bar nervously up and down.

“What about them?” I asked, tugging on the arm of his coat to pull it off.

“Like whether they approve and whether they’ll contribute.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Then my father got to how much.” He stood up and got his coat off, looking around for a place to hang it up.

“How much what?” I asked.

“How much ‘everyone,’ by which he meant your dad, was going to contribute. I’m not sure if they think he’s going to foot the whole thing, but they might.”
Foot the whole thing
. It
came out casually and awkwardly at the same time. I wondered if Will thought that too.

“We’ll work it out,” I said quickly.

“Well, they should meet.” He glanced up at the muted news on the TV. “Does your father have any conception of time?” Will asked, incredulous, pulling his phone out to look at its digital clock. “It’s quarter of. How is he not here yet?”

“Sorry, he’s completely anal about everything else.” I looked at Will’s profile against the blue lights from the window. He looked jittery and scared. I was just grateful that he cared about any of it, that he was in the restaurant with me and that he wasn’t making me get an abortion or dodging me.

“What the hell is he going to do?” He shook his head.

“What do you think?”

“It’ll be okay. Just follow my lead. Let me talk.”

Dad appeared at the front of the bar, a navy-blue cashmere scarf neatly crossed around his neck.

“Waiting long?” he said, moving toward us. This was how he apologized. Fleshy splats of spring rain disappeared into his trench coat.

“Not too long,” I said.

“Good.” He kissed me and flagged the host. “I didn’t know you’d be joining us, Will,” he said, his chin rooting around in the air, which meant his feelings were hurt that I didn’t ask him first if Will could come. He kissed me and his cheek was cold, and he smelled like his office. Like black glass and paper.

We sat and Dad hid behind his menu, pulling at his eyebrows, changing lanes in his head. Will and I dove into the bread basket, keeping busy.

“So Dad, we actually have something pretty big that we
want to talk with you about,” I said. I poured olive oil onto a plate and put it in the middle of the table for us all to dip the bread into, a loving cup.

Dad took off his coat and hung it around his chair. “What?” he asked, looking at me quizzically. “Did I do something wrong the other night?”

“What? At the benefit?” I asked. “No, why would you think that?”

“You two left sort of abruptly,” he said.

“Oh, sorry about that,” I said, looking at Will, who was studying the menu. “No, you were in the middle and everything.”

“What, then?” he asked, lifting his water glass and sipping. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” Will leaned forward, jamming his hands under his bum.

“Don’t freak out, okay?” I said, smiling as though I had a terrific surprise.

“Why would I freak out?” Dad asked.

“Because,” I said. The waitress drifted over in her black sneakers with red laces, then retreated when I said, “I’m pregnant.”

“Wh-who,” he stuttered.

“I am,” I said, looking at Will. “We are.”

He stared at me, glass in hand, frozen.

“We’re going to have a baby,” I said. “In July.”

“Thea, I don’t understand.” He sat back in a way that made me feel contagious.

“It wasn’t intentional,” said Will. “But I guess you could say it is now.”

I expected anger or disgust, but not death. Dad looked like someone had just died.

“How pregnant are you?” he whispered.

“About four months. Dad, I know it’s a lot, but we’re figuring it out. We’re making plans.”

“Please God,” he whispered.

“It’s not a please-God situation.” I laughed. “I know it wasn’t exactly in anyone’s plan, and I know it’s going to be tricky, but it feels like the right thing.” I felt like I was talking to an old man. Will and I stared at each other, wide-eyed. I looked over the top of Dad’s head, toward the lights above the bar, letting them pin in and blur out.

“I’m sorry, no. That’s quite enough.” He stood up, pulled some bills out of his wallet, even though we hadn’t yet ordered, and grabbed his coat off his chair, then stalked toward the door. We sat there paralyzed, our empty white plates shining at us.

“Quite enough,” I said. “Jesus.”

“He’s clearly not a fan of mine,” Will said.

“It’s not you,” I snapped.

“He couldn’t even look at me.”

“I was not expecting that,” I said. “It was like he didn’t even see us.”

“Only his broken dreams.” Will downed his beer, shaking his head. “What now?”

Outside the window, people were walking home from work with briefcases and bags from the Food Emporium. I thought about a cab ride I had taken with Dad once. An old Jennifer Lopez song had been on the radio, and at the end of the song Dad had said, “There’s a place in this world for Jennifer Lopez.” He’d said it matter-of-factly, with no derision. That’s how I’d imagined him being about the baby. That he’d figure out a place for it. That or better. I’d fantasized that Dad would see it as something unique to me, like parents see
certain gifts or talents in their children. That he’d see it as something I was somehow destined for. But that was how
I
saw it, I realized. Not him.

“He’s going to call Mom,” I said. “I should go home.”

I raced home, unlocked the door and went straight to the bathroom, turning the tub water on. I got in and when I turned off the water, I could hear the defensive quality in Mom’s voice as she talked to him on the phone. Except now it was more like a schtick. Like Alice and Ralph Cramden, black-and-white and gritty and muted. Firecrackers shooting onto garbage cans and sputtering off.

“She told me last night,” Mom said, not caring if I heard. “She said she wants to have it, the same thing she told you. It’s a crusade, Ted, she’s clearly on a crusade.… For Christ’s sake, of course I have … unequivocally.… My daughter’s fallen pregnant … you think I’m swinging from the rafters? … You’d think if she’d learned one thing from me, it’s independence.… Most of the time she’s going to the bloody opposite … so this is perfect.… Stop it … if you act for one second like this is my fault … one second, Ted … I mean it … She’s got it all
mapped out
, Ted, for God’s sake.…”

I heard a pause and then she said, “Fine, so come and talk to her about it.… No, tonight … tomorrow’s no good.” She hung up and called from her bed.

“Daddy’s coming over.”

“Now?” I yelled. “It’s almost ten.”

“Now. Get out of the tub.”

I put on sweats instead of a nightgown and opened the door to my tall father and his runny nose. He glared at me and headed for the living room, pausing by the dining room table. It had been years since he’d been to our apartment. The table
was littered with change and receipts and shopping bags with tissue paper hanging out. A chair had a stack with my folded laundry on it from when Rula had been there. I hadn’t yet brought it to my room.

“Do you have some water?” he asked. He looked as though his thoughts had hardened into slabs of granite.

I went to get him water as Mom came out of her room in her bathrobe and sat on the ottoman, the Nivea on her calves smelling up the room. Dad sat on the couch, still in his coat. I sat in the white armchair, dragging it a little to face them as a wave of thick, intractable loneliness crawled over me.

“I’m disappointed you didn’t feel like you could come to us before this point,” he began. “What prevented you from having a conversation with one, or both of us, at the very least?”

“I found her a doctor, Ted,” Mom said, throwing her arms up. “As far as I knew, it was taken care of weeks ago!”

“Is that true?” he asked me.

I nodded, feeling guilty for not including him in that chapter.

“I want to just clarify something.” He leaned forward on his elbows, his fingertips touching. “And it’s delicate, so I’ll just ask it.… An abortion is … no longer an option. Is that correct?”

“I could probably find someone if I tried, but I don’t want one.”

“Then, Thea, we have to seriously consider adoption.”

“No,” I said, picking at the seam of the chair.

“You’re bringing a human being into the world,” Dad said. “That alone is enough for an eighteen-year-old. That would be an accomplishment.”

“Not happening,” I said, probably too quickly. I looked down and saw that I’d ripped the seam and put my hand over it. Mom didn’t notice because she wasn’t looking at me. She stared straight ahead, her face expressionless. She’d already given up on me. Dad looked at her for help, and for a minute I thought it had switched to Dad and me against her.

“What is it about adoption you’re opposed to?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I know I couldn’t do it.”

“You have to do better than that,” Dad said.

“I just … This baby is already mine, I can’t explain it,” I said. “I can’t imagine giving it to someone else.”

“Well, I’ve clearly lost the plot, Thea,” Mom sniffed, pressing her crossed arms to her rib cage. “Exactly how do you plan to keep it? To support it?”

I stared at the glass bowl on the coffee table. Dad had used it as an ashtray when I was younger. It had little bubbles on the bottom, and I remembered I used to picture the bubbles rising to the top of the ashtray and popping.

“I guess I’m hoping you can help us,” I said, the room humming with silence as I realized, for the first time, what I was asking. What I was asking of everyone. How I was crowding up their lives with this mysterious, massive thing.

“I know it’s a lot to ask,” I said. “I know.”

Mom turned her head toward the window, her face a tight ball of disgust.

“Maybe whatever we do, we could treat it as some kind of five-year loan or something,” I said. “Or ten years. We think we’ve got a place to live. Will’s aunt Florence is teaching in Africa for two years and may sublet her apartment to us.”

“Where?” Dad asked sharply.

“It’s in the Village, it’s a big studio, I haven’t seen it, but it’s
a rent-controlled apartment, so it’s like nine hundred dollars a month or something like that.”

“So when you say you’ve got a place to live, you mean you’ve got a place to live that we have to pay for,” Mom practically spat.

“I’ll get a job if you want,” I said, pulling my knees up to my chest.

“Good luck with that,” she said. “No one will hire you if they know you’re pregnant.”

“You want to keep it.” Dad sighed. It was like he’d fallen behind and had to review the basic facts. It was like I was with Mr. Binder, my tutor.

“I want to keep it,” I repeated.

“Thea, forgive me if I’m having trouble envisioning you as ready to take on the burden of raising another human being,” Dad said. He stood up and paced between the couch and Mom’s pink birdcage-as-artwork in the corner. “It was just a couple of summers ago that you were not even capable of handling
yourself
in a responsible manner.”

“Not that again,” I said. “Look, I know, I was a bad, bad girl. I get it. But this is not the same thing at all.”

“Tell me this, then,” Mom said, the dark roots on top of her head coming into full view as she looked down at her cuticles. “What, exactly, has changed? You’ve gone and screwed us over again, have you not?”

Dad sat down and cleared his throat. “Thea, I’m going to say this once. Ever since you were born, I’ve dreamed of you going to college. You can roll your eyes all you want, but I’ve dreamed of it.”

“Why?” I said. “Why is it so important?”

“Because when it’s the right fit, it affords you the rare
opportunity to learn things about yourself. On your own, without anyone … interfering.”

“It’s not like I’ll never go.”

“You’d have a child,” he said, pulling off the scarf around his neck. “You’d be distracted, not to mention burdened. It wouldn’t be the same.”

“He dragged me to his reunion before you were born,” Mom said, suddenly changing the tone of the conversation. “They kept calling him Tinny—why, I’ll never know. They went out into the cornfields and tipped cows and left them there like that.”

“You start to carve out your life,” he said, ignoring her. “It’s an exciting time. It’s wonderful.” His voice cracked.

“And it can all be yours,” Mom said, imitating a game show host.

“I can go later,” I said, trying to reassure him.

“Thea, this is beyond comprehension to me,” he said, thrusting back on the couch, gripping his knees. “How are you going to live? Will’s going to take care of you? Will’s going to have your health and the health of the baby as his first priorities? Fiona?”

“That’s the plan,” said Mom.

“Well, I don’t think moving in with Will is the solution.”

Mom shook her head. “She’s going to do what she wants, Ted. You’re being a bit thick. If you’d been tuning in for the last year, you’d have realized that she’s obsessed with him.”

“I’m not obsessed with him, Mom,” I said. “Will wants it this way too.”

She looked at me for the first time since we sat down. “He wants it because
you
want it and you’ve managed to convince him it’s the right thing to do. Don’t think for a second he’d have come to it on his own.”

“Okay, calm down, everyone,” Dad said. “Fiona, we need to help her.”