Undiscovered Gyrl: The novel that inspired the movie ASK ME ANYTHING (Vintage Contemporaries) (23 page)

“I knew you’d changed.”

“I have. But it’s still one day at a time. If I picked up a drink, who knows what I’d turn into? Actually I do. I do know.”

He gave me a sad smile. We just sat there and listened to the rain for a while. Then he reached over. I thought he was going to hold my hand. Which scared the shit out of me. But he just took another cigarette.

“Now tell me what’s wrong. You look terrible. You’re wasting away.”

I lit a cigarette and told him everything that’s happened since I quit working for him. As usual he was an awesome listener. Every now and then he’d ask a question. He didn’t
seem to care very much about my break-up with Rory although he did make a worried face when I told him how Rory gets violently jealous sometimes. When I started telling him about Dan, he stopped me and suggested that we continue this at a restaurant a few blocks away. We walked together under a dorky red umbrella. We ate pasta and salads while I continued my story. He didn’t have that big a reaction to Dan but when I got to Paul he started chewing slower. When I got to the part where Paul and I made love for the first time, his eyes sort of bulged.

“What? You think he’s a dirtbag? That’s what Dan called him.”

He said he didn’t want to comment yet. He told me to finish. When I got to the pregnancy, he stopped chewing.

“And you’re smoking?” he said.

I told him since I was going to have an abortion it didn’t really matter.

“Oh, I see. I thought you were going to ask for my advice but you’ve made up your mind.”

“Pretty much. I’m too young and crazy to have a baby. But I keep canceling my appointments. I’m scared to go alone.”

“You want me to go with you?”

“Would you?”

“Sure. On certain conditions.”

I felt this weird vibration run up my arm and I got a flash that he was going to ask me to blow him or something. I
know that’s totally insane but it’s how my mind works. Is it because of what Mr. Silaggi did to me? I will definitely discuss this with Dr. Sherman.

Glenn’s conditions for helping me:

1) I must promise never to speak to Dan again.

2) I must quit my job and never speak to Paul again.

3) I must go on the birth control pill.

4) I must attend three AA meetings in the next three weeks.

Numbers 1, 3, and 4 are easy. Number 2 is the biggie, of course. I was afraid to admit this to Glenn so I said “But if I quit my job, what will I do for money? Paul says we’re headed for a big recession.”

“You can come work for me again.”

“My mom would kill me.”

“You’re eighteen now. You don’t need her permission.”

“She’ll kick me out of the house.”

“That’s fine. I have a room above my garage. It’s not much. Pretty crummy, actually. The previous owner used it as a ceramics studio. But I bet you could make it pretty. Take it. I won’t even charge you rent. You can mow the lawn or something. Feed my cats.”

I couldn’t believe it. It’s so much better than sleeping on a blow-up mattress in Mark Aubichon’s den. This way I can save up money and if I decide not to start college in the fall,
I’ll have a place to live. My mom will be pissed but so what? There’s nothing she can do about it. But am I strong enough to break up with Paul? I really do love him.

On the TV they are ragging on Barack. He said people in the Midwest are bitter at being unemployed and poor and that’s why they love their guns and god. Before, I was afraid someone was going to assassinate him but now I think why should they bother when they can just destroy him with words? If he doesn’t win the nomination, there’s no way I’m voting. Ever.

Glenn scheduled my abortion for tomorrow morning at a clinic out of town so there won’t be any gossip. I called Margaret to quit, but I chickened out. Instead I told her that I had sprained my ankle really badly and that I couldn’t come into work tomorrow. Since she is still unemployed she didn’t mind at all.

Many girls think having a baby will make all their dreams come true. They think a baby will give them unconditional love 24/7. As a nanny I understand that this is just a fantasy.
In reality it’s the exact opposite. You give and give and give to a baby all day every day. They don’t start loving you back for a long time.

Glenn closed up his shop and we drove to my abortion in his big old yellow Caddy with a red leather interior. I was so nervous we hardly talked. We just listened to oldies. Real oldies. Sinatra and Nat King Cole. The songs went perfect with his car.

The clinic was glassy and modern and looked more like an office building than a hospital. There were metal detectors at the door. While one guard wanded me, another one dug inside my purse for a bomb. Inside everything was white. If I ran an abortion clinic I would make it the exact opposite. Cozy and comfortable. A lot of wood and nice rugs.

The people in the waiting room were a lot browner than the people you normally see around here. Not just black and Mexican but also people that looked like they were from completely different countries. The white people were everything from a freaky chick with tats all upside her neck and hair like a parrot to a really rich-looking blonde lady in Prada. I was shocked that so many people of such diversity get abortions on a weekday.

They gave me a clipboard and a ton of forms to fill out. I did not fill in the credit card info because I was paying in cash. People were definitely staring at us. Either because they thought Glenn was the father of the baby and they judged him for it or because they thought he was my dad and that it was kind of weird/cool he was taking me.

About an hour later the nurse called out my name. They took me in and drew some blood. Then I went back out and sat with Glenn some more. He was reading an article about colic which is a disease that makes babies cry nonstop. He said that sometimes, because of colic, nannies and parents lose their shit and shake their babies to death. Cole never had it, thank god.

A little while later a cold-faced blonde nurse with huge tits came in and took me away. I stripped and put on a robe. There was a big photo of the Grand Canyon on the wall. (Or was it a woman’s vagina after having a baby? Hahahaha!) I sat down on a table covered in paper. She stayed and watched while this older lady with glasses came in to do the ultrasound.

“Anything you want to know about your fetus?” the lady asked while she was lowering me down on the table.

I could not believe she asked me this. I looked at the first nurse like “Is this bitch for real?” and she made a sorry face and whispered “Some patients want to know if it’s twins.”

“Well, not me.”

The older lady stuck this greasy long instrument up
me. Unfortunately it did not vibrate. Ha! When she was finished she gave me a pain pill and took me into a small operating room. This older lady turned out to be the coolest person ever. She told me she had two abortions when she was still in high school and that the place where she had them treated her like shit so when she became a nurse she wanted to work in a woman’s clinic that treated girls better than the way she was treated. It felt so good to have someone to talk to who understood how scary it all was. We both agreed we would kill for a smoke right about now.

When the doctor finally came in, she was younger and prettier than I pictured. Maybe 35, brown hair, fancy glasses, slightly buck teeth. She was kind and friendly but I was too nervous to chat. I just wanted it over with. She asked if I wanted to be put to sleep or get a local. I picked the local because I didn’t want Glenn to have to wait too long.

The whole thing took, I swear, about nine minutes. At least that’s how it seemed. And it hurt a little for maybe half a minute. I’ve heard girls say it’s like pulling a tooth. Trust me, it’s not. A pulled tooth hurts way worse. The worst part was the creepy noise the machine made.

Afterwards I wanted to leave immediately but the rules state that the patient has to lie down for 30 minutes. I guess in case of bleeding. There were magazines but I just laid there and stared at the ceiling. I couldn’t believe how not sad I felt. I was going to have a new life now. When time was up they gave me this big sort of maxi-pad and some birth control
pills. They said I could not have sex for two to four weeks. I had no idea! If I break my word and see Paul again, how am I going to explain it?

When I got out of the clinic I turned my phone back on and there was a text from Paul. He said he hoped my ankle wasn’t too bad and that he missed me.

“Something important?” Glenn asked.

“No, just my mom. She’s all excited. She found the perfect place to have her wedding.”

Driving back, Glenn and I stopped for waffles and he told me stories about the Japanese in World War Two and how cruel they were to our captured troops. They marched and marched them for hundreds of miles and if a troop got sleepy, they killed them on the spot, either shooting or beheading them. At the end of the war when they knew the American army was approaching, the Japanese needed to cover up their war crimes. So they put all the prisoners into air raid shelters then poured in gasoline and burned them alive. He said if we learned anything from it, it should have been not to lower ourselves to their barbaric standards.

Tonight I recuperated in bed watching the Democratic debate but it was not relaxing at all. The whole time I
wanted to crawl into the TV set and choke Hillary to death. Anything to stop her from being so mean. I love Barack with all my heart. I doubt I would ever commit suicide if he was president, no matter how depressed I was, because I would always be able to picture a better life.

Afterwards, I stared at the ceiling thinking about Joel. I felt so bad that I got up and typed this letter:

I printed it out then folded it up and slipped it inside one of my mom’s Christmas cards, which are navy blue with a big white snowflake (the same card that killed my dad). Even though Joel is Jewish I decided it was okay to give it to him because snow is universal and Christmas is a happy time of the year no matter what religion you are. Even though the
doctor said to take it easy, I walked to the corner and mailed the card so that Joel will get it soon. Now I can go to sleep knowing I did at least one good thing in my life.

Oh, I emailed Margaret and told her I was still not allowed to put weight on my ankle yet, and that I would not be back to work until Monday. This gives me a few days to build up my courage.

Thank you for all the kind letters saying I did the correct thing getting an abortion and that it would have been selfish of me to bring a baby into the world when I am so clearly not ready. And fuck you to everyone who wrote to tell me I’m a cold-blooded killer. Especially the little girl in Florida who says she can hardly sleep she is so worried about my eternal soul. You know what, honey? Grow some pubes then worry about others.

When I woke up, there was a very intense, weird message from Joel Seidler. He got home from the hospital this morning and he is enraged at me for not writing to him after his mom told me what happened. He obviously didn’t get my letter. I will wait a few days until the hospital forwards it to
him. Once he reads it I am sure he will feel terrible and apologize for being such a dick.

Paj2453 sent me a poem to cheer me up. I don’t know if he wrote it himself or he got it from a book but I like it very much.

It reminds me that almost all love is crazy and painful so I shouldn’t beat myself up for loving Paul so deeply. Will I be strong enough to bid him farewell forever?

This morning I called Glenn and told him how scared I was to call the Spooners and quit. I said Paul was going to be crushed. Glenn insisted that I was wrong, that when a man in his forties is cheating on his wife with a teenage girl, no matter how much he cares about her, a part of him will always be relieved when it’s over, because he knows he has played a dangerous game and that he is lucky to have gotten out alive. It was hard for me to picture Paul being relieved that he will never make love to me again.

Tomorrow is Monday. Even though it would be breaking my promise to Glenn, I could go into work tomorrow and then, when we are alone together, tell Paul in person. No, bad idea. If I see him, I will melt and everything will be out of control again. I will do it tonight. On the phone.

The other scary conversation is going to be telling my mom that I am moving into the garage of an ex-rapist. She will have a fit. But once she meets Glenn, I think she will see what a wonderful man he is. He is not at all the same person who committed that heinous crime. He said I can come over to his house any time I want to see my new garage apartment. Maybe tomorrow.