In Trouble

It’s always the gIrl’s fault,

no matter what the boy dId.

Jamie and Elaine have been best friends forever, and now they’re finally juniors in high school. Elaine has a steady

boyfriend, and Jamie could have one—if she’d just open her eyes and see Paul.

But Jamie has a bigger problem to worry about. Then Elaine gets “in trouble”—

something they thought only happened to

“other” girls. Are there any good choices for a girl in trouble?

In Trouble
is a novel born of author Ellen Levine’s interviews with women who came of age in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including those who knew what it was like to be a teen facing a horrible choice. In the decades before
Roe v. Wade,
a young woman “in trouble” had very few options—and all of them meant shame, isolation, and maybe much worse. Jamie and Elaine’s stories are just two among the thousands of stories of teenagers facing unplanned pregnancies.

INTROUBLE

M i n n e a p o l i s

Text copyright © 2011 by Ellen Levine Carolrhoda Lab™ is a trademark of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means— electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—

without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

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Website address: www.lernerbooks.com The images in this book are used with the permission of: © SuperStock.

Main body text set in Janson Text 11/15.

Typeface provided by Linotype AG.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Levine, Ellen.

In trouble / by Ellen Levine.

p. cm.

Summary: In 1950s New York, sixteen-year-old Jamie’s life is unsettled since her father returned from serving time in prison for refusing to name people as Communists, when her best friend turns to Jamie for help with an unplanned pregnancy.

ISBN: 978–0–7613–6558–7 (trade hard cover : alk. paper)

[1. Pregnancy—Fiction. 2. Family life—New York (State)—Fiction.

3. Rape—Fiction. 4. Abortion—Fiction. 5. New York (State)—

History—20th century—Fiction. 6. United States—Politics and government—1953–1961—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.L57833In 2011

[Fic]—dc22

2010051448

Manufactured in the United States of America 1 – SB – 7/15/11

eISBN: 978-0-7613-7946-1

FOR ANNE

MARCH1956

THIS PAGE

INTENTIONALLY

LEFT BLANK

1.

Run, RUN!

Behind me. A lengthening shadow. I see the shadow’s edge.

I duck in a doorway and look back.

HIM!

Smirking.

I try to close my eyes but they will not shut.

Run, RUN!

I have no shadow, only His.

I turn the corner and I run.

Down the alley.

Cross the street.

RUN!

I see my block, I see my building, I’m at my stoop.

But the shadow is there. Waiting.

HIM!

I turn and run!

1

I sat bolt up. My pajamas were drenched. My eyes ached as if I’d rubbed them all night. It’s Saturday. Can hardly get out of bed. Couldn’t have made it to school. Head dense with nightmare thickness, the same nightmare I’ve had before.

This has to stop.

“Hey, Miss Meany,” Stevie yelled from the kitchen.

“Letter for you on the table. Girlie writing.”

“Just leave it there!” The smell of toast was oddly nauseating.

I dressed slowly and walked even more slowly into the living room. Stevie was standing by the table. He reached for the letter and grinned stupidly. “I’m gonna open it at the count of three.”

“Don’t you dare touch that!”

He grabbed the envelope and waved it in the air.

Are all twelve-year-old brothers a pain in the neck?

“Hey, it’s only dumb girlie stuff! Nothing interesting.” He pretended to tear it in half, then tossed it back on the table and ran out of the apartment.

It has to be from Elaine. She never puts a return address, but she’s the only one who writes me. On envelopes, she dots her
i
’s with round circles and sometimes makes balloon letters. Definitely girlie.

It was a short letter:

Dear Jamie,

PLEASE BURN THIS!!!!!! URGENT!!!!!!!!!!

2

I can’t call from the house because my father watches me and if he sees me on the phone he listens. I HAVE

to talk to you. I need a HUGE favor. There’s a phone outside the public library here. CE 9-0279. Call me at 11 a.m. Saturday morning if you can!!!!!!!!! I’ll wait on Sunday also.

THANKS!!!!!!!!!!

xoxoxo Elaine

A year ago, when Elaine moved, we talked once a week on the weekend. But you get involved with other things, suddenly it’s Monday, and Mom doesn’t like me to stay on the phone during what she calls “homework days.”

Now, when something happens—
I will not think about
It. I will not remember It. I will NOT
—I cannot tell anybody, not Elaine, not Georgina, who’s my closest friend now that Elaine’s gone.

Not anybody.

Not ever.

10:59. I’m glad Stevie’s gone out. I don’t have to whisper on the phone. I’ve got the whole place to myself.

I dialed and the phone rang once. A breathless Elaine answered, “Jamie?”

“No, Kilroy. What’s up?”

“I have to come into the city Friday.”

“Great!”

“Jamie, listen. I . . . I’ve been seeing Neil—” 3

“Neil! Didn’t your father drag you all to Long Island to keep you from seeing him?”

“Jamie, please.” Elaine speed-talked, and it was confusing. “He’s come out a couple of times starting last fall and he’s got a ’51 Dodge and I’ve met him and we’ve driven around and . . . anyway, I’ve been seeing him.”

Her voice cracked. Neil was pressing very hard, she said, even threatening to break up. “He says it’s a sign I don’t love him if I won’t . . .” she hesitated.

“That’s disgusting!” The minute I said it I could feel Elaine freezing at the other end of the phone.

“You don’t understand,” she said in a tight voice. “I
do
love him. Besides, maybe he’s right. Next year he’ll be a college sophomore and I’ll graduate from high school.

We’ll get married.”

I took a deep breath. “He’ll only be halfway through college. Why would he want to get married?”

“Because he loves me,” she shot back.

“He’s taking advantage of you,” I said quietly, though I didn’t feel the least bit quiet. And that’s not even half of what I think about Neil and all the guys in the whole world like him.
Who do they think they are? And who does
Neil think he is, messing with my friend!

I breathed in hard and I listened.

Elaine’s voice softened. “Anyway, he’s coming home next weekend. Well,” she paused, “not exactly home.

He has a friend whose parents will be away, and they’ve 4

got an apartment on the Upper West Side, and I said I’d come in.” She stopped for a second. “Jamie, you’ve got to help me. I need to tell my parents I’m staying with you.”

Elaine had never been good at making up stories. It was me who used to be the big liar, but not
to
my parents, just about them. That was about politics. This is Elaine thinking it’s Valentine’s Day, with a card that has three layers of lace around the heart.

Elaine kept talking. “You’ve got to call tonight when my parents are home and invite me. You just have to.” She was pleading.

I hesitated. “My dad’s coming home soon, and of course my mom’s been anxious about it. So it’s not a good time for you to sleep over.”

“Oh no, I won’t really be there. Friday night and Saturday night I’ll be at—”

“You mean it’s a
total
lie? But what happens if your mom calls here?”

“She won’t,” Elaine said quickly, as if to convince herself.

I ended up agreeing, and we said we’d meet a week from tomorrow for lunch at the Automat. Neil, the creep, is meeting friends that afternoon.

Elaine, sneaking off to be with Neil and lying to her folks. The lying-to-parents part I get, but Neil?

The thought of dating—oh god, nauseating. Scruffy, my black cat with a splash of white on his chest, rubbed 5

against my leg. “You’re lucky, kid,” I said as I scratched behind his ears. “You have no idea what’s going on out there.”

And right now I wish I didn’t.

6

2.

Two days since Elaine’s letter and now one from Dad.

This one had a return address, his prison number. Nothing girlie about that.

Ten months, twenty-two days, thirteen hours since the prison gates closed behind Dad. And now just “See you all next Thursday. Dad.” That was the whole thing.

Four days.

Important letters get left on the dining room table to be pored over. Everybody’s read this one a gazillion times, not that there’s much to read. One lousy sentence everybody’s thrilled about. Didn’t even say, “Looking forward to seeing you,” or maybe even “Hey, Jamie, a hug,” or even “
love
, Dad.” Hardly worth the three-cent stamp.

One lousy sentence.

“Stevie, get the damn phone!” Every time it rings my stomach turns over. When Dad started his prison 7

sentence, I was numb. Let Stevie or Mom answer the phone. Not
moi
. Each ring sounded like an ammo belt going through a machine gun in a World War II movie.

When someone answers, I watch their face—good news, bad news, what? Is it some anonymous voice on the other end of the phone saying, “Peter Morse in a fight with another prisoner, sentenced to ten more years”? Or,