The Girl's Guide to Homelessness (23 page)

“Hey, at least we know now that you're not the infertile one!”

I wasn't laughing at the moment, though. This was absolutely surreal.

Clearly, Matt has the most fertile sperm in the entire world.

 

The first thing I thought to do was to call Planned Parent hood. I wanted
somebody
to give me an explanation, dammit!

It seemed to take forever to get a nurse on the line. She immediately asked me a bunch of questions about my cycle to determine just
how
far along I was.

Well, let's see. That was kind of hard for me to figure out. I'd still been having a period, but it had transitioned from a monthly, hard-core, bloody tidal wave lasting ten days at a time, into light, pink, irregular spotting. I'd been under the impression that this was normal; they'd told me this was a possibility when I'd had the IUD inserted. Most women started out with a few months of longer, crampier, heavier periods, and then it often tapered off into normal or even lighter periods, only lasting for a few days. This had sounded all right to me at the time; I figured I could deal with a little extra pain for a few months. I just took more aspirin until my uterus felt so dead you could probably kick me in the gut and I wouldn't have noticed.

I tried to think back to the last time I'd had one of the heavy periods. I thought it might have been twelve or fourteen weeks earlier…maybe sixteen? I'd never kept particularly close track of such things. I didn't need to. I had safe sex, right?

I vaguely thought I might have had some light spotting the week before Matt flew back to the States, the week I was on CNN with Nicole Lapin. My head hurt. I couldn't remember.

“OK, so you think you might be somewhere between twelve and sixteen weeks? Then you're just finishing up your first trimester.”

“Screw that. More importantly,
why am I pregnant?!
” Clearly, this woman didn't grasp the gravity of the situation, or the real issue here. “I have an IUD in! That's supposed to be absolutely the most effective form of birth control to date!
It sits there in your uterus, there's nothing to forget, and you don't get pregnant! The end!
”

“Well, this happens occasionally. It's more common than you might think. Many nulliparous women find that their IUD can be dislodged or expelled within the first year.”

It sounded like she'd said
leprous.
I was a leper now? I sure felt like one.

“Nulliparous. Women who've never had children before. About 10 percent of them, within the first year, lose their IUDs. Either their body expels it or it is placed incorrectly and can move up into your uterus. Once it's dislodged from your cervix, all bets are off. So while you may have been operating under the assumption that you were 99.9 percent covered, for your first year you're really only 90 percent likely to avoid pregnancy. And if it was somehow dislodged, then you're just as likely to get pregnant as if you were using nothing at all.”

“So what do I
do?!
”

“You should probably see a doctor for an ultrasound.”

And how was I supposed to do that?
I live in a trailer.
I have no health insurance. I just spent most of my money on Christmas presents. “The IUD may still be inside you, up in the uterus with the fetus. Unless it's been expelled. There's no danger of miscarriage if it's in your uterus, though. IUDs don't pose any harm to embryos or fetuses; that's a common myth. In fact, they probably won't try to remove it until you're much further along in your pregnancy, or even until after the baby is born, if you decide to carry it full term. Trying to remove a migrated IUD during pregnancy can actually
cause
a spontaneous miscarriage, so it's generally safer to just leave it there. But, yeah, you should get an ultrasound.”

“Right,” I muttered dully. “OK. I guess that's it.”

“Have a nice day, good luck and congratulaaations!”

She sounded very singsong-y and perky. I wanted to
punch her.
Congratulations?
This couldn't possibly have come at a worse time.

Instead, I heard myself replying, “Thank you very much.” Even stranger, I kind of realized I meant it. I should have been angrier, but through the complete shock, I was feeling a bit of elation? Excitement? Anticipation? Whatever it was, it came with a hefty side helping of terror. But still. Not entirely unhappy.

I
had to tell Matt, somehow. He'd had some problem the previous week: His internet connection had stopped working, and the company was telling him they'd have to deliver a new SIM card, or something. He'd taken my laptop back to Scotland with him, since his was ancient and on its last legs, and I'd managed to pick up a cheap, tiny Netbook. The 92 percent–sized keyboard took some getting used to, as did reading on a tinier screen, but I actually found it adorable and much lighter to carry around, so I didn't mind the downgrade.

Matt couldn't get online now from his home, though, and had to visit the town library if he wanted to contact me, or text me from the corner of his street, since he couldn't get cell reception in his f lat. The library would be closing down very soon for Christmas, and he hated to bring Kelsey outside the f lat if it was snowing, which it often was now. Huntly was having the worst winter in thirty years. Normally, it frosted over a bit, maybe snowed in February for a week or two, and then it was over. But here it was mid-December, and flurries of snow were
burying the town, and more was predicted. Matt worried about Kelsey getting too cold. So, for a week, there had been very little contact, though he sent me loving texts and emails every couple of days. His birthday was in a few days, also, a week before Christmas, and I wouldn't even be able to reach him on that day, except via email.

It didn't seem right to tell him something so important online or in a text. I knew that he wouldn't want to hear it that way, though I also knew that he'd probably be thrilled to hear it at all. He was, after all, the one who had been pushing for me to have kids ASAP. His desire for children with me hadn't seemed to lessen with Kelsey's arrival. I'd sort of hoped that it would, that all the screaming and diaper-changing and spitting up would make him think twice about having another baby so soon, but I'd been wrong. He still brought it up far too often. I was still batting around all the pragmatic considerations, but I imagined in response to this news, he would only get as far as hearing “I'm pregnant,” and probably hit the ceiling with joy, the way he went on about having babies with me. He was always waxing poetic about it.

“You'll be adorable! And we can have pregnancy sex! You with your little humpable pregnant belly. You'll be glowing and just as sexy as you are now, don't worry.”

I didn't feel sexy, or glowy. I felt greasy and exhausted and queasy and as if I had giant cratering acne scars popping up all over my face. As excited as I was allowing myself to become, I hated the actual feeling of being pregnant.

In any event, I had to tell him in person, somehow. It's what he'd want, and it would be one of those moments you remember forever, right? Like that
I Love Lucy
episode where Lucy wants to settle heftily on Ricky's lap, wrap her
arms around his neck, and whisper softly, “Ricky, darling, we're going to have a baby!”

That's how he'd want it to be, and how I wanted it to be. But I had no idea how to make it happen.

OK, that's a lie. I totally did know how to make it happen. I'd go to the person I always went to in dire straits. Brandon.

 

“You need to borrow how much this time?”

“Enough to get me on a plane to Scotland. Maybe for about three weeks. I've got a few hundred to last me for food and stuff while I'm there, but I don't have enough for plane fare.”

Brandon always lent me money when I was in an extra tight spot, because I always paid him back. And I'd also take him out to dinner a few times to make up for it, and maybe to a couple of movies.

He didn't bat an eyelid.

“No problem.”

“Thank you sooooo much. I really appreciate it. I'm sorry to ask right before Christmas, and I'll totally understand if you can't swing it, but this way I can surprise him, and he can still be with Kelsey for the holiday the way he wants!”

“It's totally no problem. Come over tomorrow and I'll give you the money.”

“Thank you again. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You know I'll pay you back as soon as I can.”

“Shut up.”

“OK. I love ya.”

 

I had ten days to prepare for my flight. I'd arrive on Christmas Eve, I decided. Matt would
love
the surprise.
When he proposed to his first wife, he'd secretly made arrangements with her boss to have her take time off, and then he'd “kidnapped” her and spirited her away to Prague, where he proposed at the top of some elaborate architectural tower. He loved grand, romantic, spontaneous gestures, and often lamented that he'd always wished a woman would do something like that for him. Well, this was my chance.

 

I spent a stressful eight hours in the Los Angeles passport office to pick up my first passport. I'd only ever been to Canada and Mexico in my life, before passports were required. This would be my first time off the continent. My first stamp in my passport. Despite all the stress and exhaustion, I allowed myself to get more and more excited. I would fly from LAX to Dallas to Paris to Manchester to Aberdeen. Only the longest flight and the furthest trip away from California I'd ever been on. Nothing to it.

Meanwhile, things were pretty silent on the Matt front. His birthday came and went, and it took him a couple of days to respond to my “Happy Birthday” email. He was thirty-seven. Later that day, he bundled Kelsey up in a coat and walked down to the corner for a surprise phone call.

He loved and missed me so much, and he was
so
sorry about all this technical trouble. Soon the internet company would replace his SIM card, and things could get back to normal. In the meantime, he was worried. What if they didn't fix it by Christmas?

I giggled to myself.

“It's OK, baby. You can send me a text or something. I've shipped your Christmas presents, so expect them any day now!”

“I can't wait! I'm so excited! I'm going to wait to give you yours in person, though. I know what I want to get you, but I haven't been able to buy it yet. Things have been tight, with Kelsey. Do you think you can wait until I come out to California?”

“Of course, I understand. Enjoy your Christmas. Talk soon. I love you.”

“I love you more.”

After I hung up, I emailed a couple of his Homeless Tales writers.
Shhh, don't tell Matt, but I'm surprising him for Christmas!

They all thought it was a fabulous idea, as did Sage.
Have a safe flight; enjoy yourself!

I'd already finished my internship with E. Jean, but we chatted occasionally on gtalk. I let her know where I'd be.

“Wonderful, have lots of fun in Europe, darling! Enjoy your man, and for heaven's sake, don't get pregnant,” she added cheekily.

Oops. Well. Um.

 

My friends, Ben and Aubrey, picked me up and drove me to the airport. I had packed lightly as far as clothing went. It was mainly stretchy, warm flannel pajama bottoms, cotton robes and sweatshirts. I figured I wouldn't be wearing all that much clothing in Matt's flat anyway, and all I really needed were a few things for outside in the snow. All my clothes fit in a tiny rolling suitcase. My Netbook and cell phone I shoved into my purse, which I slung over my shoulder.

The only heavy item, which would need to be checked, was a large metal trunk I'd bought at a thrift store for $5.
Most of the Christmas presents went into it, and all the clothes that I'd bought for Kelsey

I wore an empire-waist top and tied the arms of a hoodie around my waist. Nobody would suspect anything. I just looked like I'd eaten a couple too many burritos lately.

Ben had been slightly miffed at me when the media storm broke, and he found out that I'd been homeless all this time. A couple of years before, when I was in between places to live for a couple of weeks, he and Aubrey had let me crash on a mattress on their dining room floor until I was ready to move into my new place.

“We could have done that again, you know! You're always welcome to stay with us!”

I supposed I believed it, too. Following the publication of my story, people I hadn't seen or heard from since junior high school had contacted me.

Remember me? From Mr. Dotson's seventh-grade science class? You were, like, my best friend in that class.

I vaguely remembered most of them, although many of them I couldn't recall ever actually speaking to. I was just amazed that anybody had noticed me or remembered my name, much less made the connection so many years later.

But things weren't like that with me and Ben. I had always considered him one of my best friends, and I adore Aubrey. It was just that things were somewhat strained in the recession; they, too, had both been laid off and were busy with their own lives, it had been a couple of months since we'd really spoken, and it never occurred to me to put even more strain on them now, with both of them out of work themselves. I'd simply, I explained to Ben, made use of what I had.

“I guess,” he said quietly. “But if this ever happens again, you need to call us first. We would have taken care of you.”

 

I'd nearly made it. I was on the flight from Manchester to Aberdeen, and two women in front of me were chatting.

“Yes, I'm going home to Huntly for Christmas!” exclaimed one in her thick Scottish brogue. What sheer luck! This lady could tell me how to get to Huntly. I tapped her on the shoulder.

“Excuse me, but I couldn't help overhearing. You're going to Huntly? So am I. I've never been there before. Is there a bus or train from the airport that I can take to get there?” I hadn't thought that far ahead. I figured I'd just ask the help desk once we landed.

“There's a bus, though there probably won't be a train this late at night. But you know what, my brothers are picking me up at the airport. You can just hitch a ride with us!”

“Oh, you mean it? Wow, that's so kind of you! Thanks!” My luck was running high.

We landed in Aberdeen and I made my way to the baggage claim. My trunk with the Christmas presents didn't come out on the conveyor belt. The kind lady and I went to the help desk. I'd been delayed in Manchester and put on a later flight, and apparently the trunk had been lost. They'd find it and deliver it to Matt's address, but probably not until Boxing Day. I had the Jules Verne book and the ring, but Kelsey's clothes and the photo album would miss Christmas. Oh, well! It wasn't that big a deal. I was in too optimistic a mood to worry much about it. I gave the clerk
Matt's address, I was bundled in the woman's car with her brothers, and we were on our way, making the one-hour drive to Huntly.