Darcey Steinke - Up Through the Water

“I've seen a lot of girls go over on this early ferry and I'm not so stupid to think all of them are going to the malls in Norfolk,” John Berry said. “Is that girl pregnant?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said.

John Berry looked over and Eddie averted his eyes to the sea charts on the wall. “Come here and drive this boat a minute,” he said. “I got a cramp in my hand.”

Eddie walked over and took the wheel.

“Turn a little to the left,” John Berry said, pointing over the ocean to the day markers. “Now to the right.”

She pulled the flap to enter the tent and lay down in the cool patch of grass inside.

“Well?” Eddie said.

“I have to go over at four. They need to take another test.”

“How long does it take?”

“How should I know?” Lila said as she spread canvas flat on the grass and arranged the sleeping bags in one corner. “Can you believe we're stuck between two Winnebagoes? We look like a refugee camp compared to those things.” She stared at her stomach. “It's nuts,” she continued, placing both hands on her lower belly, “that something could be alive in there.”

“It looks like a fish now,” Eddie said, flat on his back next to her. Outside, a kid started screaming about dropping his freezer pop.

“What did John Berry say?”

“He wanted me to apologize for him.”

Lila turned to him. “Are you going to?”

“That's all her mess,” Eddie said. “I've had enough to do with it.”

“Your mother sure is something,” Lila said. “My mother says people like her because she doesn't care who she's with or what she's doing. Anyway, that's what I overheard her say on the phone.”

“Gossips,” Eddie snapped.

“Think she'll stay with Birdflower?”

“Maybe. But who knows?” he said. “I've learned there's no telling with her.” Eddie heard a slice of cartoons as the door banged on one of the Winnebagoes.

“You don't like her sleeping around, do you?” Lila said. “And I wouldn't either. But I've heard she's slowed—”

“Hey, come on, she's my mother,” Eddie said, hands held high in the air.

“Fine,” Lila said. “We better get ready.” She grabbed her brown bag and left the tent. Eddie followed. Lila was always trying to imply that he was in love with his mother, but there was nothing he could say to convince her that he wasn't.

She stared at him.

“I'll stand outside and wait for you,” he said. “And hand you quarters for hot water.”

“Okay,” she huffed and turned. They walked along the path to the showers. WOMEN in white letters on a green shack, a silver nozzle hanging above. She got in and quickly threw her clothes item by item over the door to him. “Give me one,” she said. He held a quarter over the side. She pressed it in and turned the knob. Water beat down and began to puddle on the cement floor and drip down the drain. Eddie saw the pink pads of her feet.

“Do you know what the most beautiful word is?” she asked over the push of water.

Eddie lifted the clothes to his face to smell her.

“Negative,” Lila said from behind the door. “Negative.”

Of those scattered throughout the clinic waiting room, Eddie suspected three women were there for abortions. One near Lila's age sat with a big storybook Bible on her lap and a boyfriend pointing to a page. The other two were older. Near the front door a black woman read a magazine while her little boy ran a fire truck up and down the walls in a crazy path. And near him, a woman his mother's age sat with a concerned-looking man watching a late afternoon nature show on the waiting room TV. There were others who Eddie presumed were waiting for friends or were here for checkups. Their bodies did not send off that desperate energy that seemed to billow in the air around Lila and the women he suspected.

When the nurse stepped out, shuffling files, Eddie squeezed Lila's hand. The nurse called her name.

“I have to pee in a cup,” she said quietly to Eddie.

Eddie watched the door close.

When would they ask him to step forward and lay down the money?

Things were not going well at all. There were just two things he'd wanted from this summer and now both had gone bad. He had not talked to his mother, and sometimes he thought that because he had not done so his mother had had a bottle thrown in her face. And as for getting laid, Eddie thought, looking around the room, just look where it had gotten him.

This summer had flipped him and pinned his shoulders. He was reminded that his mother had told him she'd gotten pregnant the first time she'd had sex. She told him this on his sixteenth birthday, to imply his specialness, but also to show him that his life might be ruled by circumstance and passion. His plans for this summer, he thought moodily, were all fucked up.

The door opened and Lila came out. She sat down next to him and whispered, “I had shy bladder at first, but then it was okay. I looked at the other samples when I sat mine on the testing table. It was the color of the rest. No darker or lighter. I even smelled a few.”

“Yuck,” Eddie said.

“I'd drink them all if it would do any good,” Lila said.

Eddie held her hand. “So we'll know for sure in a few minutes?”

“Yep,” she said. “I keep wondering if one of these suckers might have a bomb.” She deliberately eyed each face in the waiting room. “Do you think any look like born-again Christians?”

Eddie said, “We can leave if you want.”

“No, we can't,” Lila said. “Don't be stupid.”

“You can change your mind,” he said.

“Please,” Lila said.

A different nurse came out and called Lila's name. She got up and followed the nurse, who closed the door behind them.

His mother had described to him her light-headed dreams of an oval with a creature rolling and changing like a kaleidoscope inside. But, Eddie thought, there was also something desperate and horrible about a red mucousy thing attaching itself to your innards. Lila hadn't said this exactly, but she had mentioned the weirdness of a creature stealing your food and lounging on your organs as if they were throw pillows. But then he himself had been one of these big-headed little gargoyles. Eddie didn't know what to think. For a moment he thought of himself caught in Lila's body, struggling to grow an arm, then a palm, and finally each thin finger flicking out strong as switchblades.

Eddie tightened his calf muscles and squeezed his fingers around the arms of the chair as if he were on a roller coaster. It bothered him that he couldn't remember how may wins he had had by pin. He saw each match: the gym, the lights, and himself, inching an opponent's shoulders every second closer to the mat. He stood as he heard a hand rest on the door. Somehow he suddenly knew that it would not happen, that for once luck was on his side.

In the motel, Lila fed quarters into the little box on the night-stand. As the mattress shook, she lay back near the trembling bucket of chicken between them. Eddie ate a thigh and watched television. The bones hit his teeth.

In the room, all dark except for the jump and glow of the screen, Lila said, “So this is the fabulous MTV.”

“Admit you like it,” Eddie said. “It's impossible not to.”

“Tonight,” Lila said, picking white meat off the bone with her fingers, “I could tell you I liked anything.”

Eddie searched the bucket for another thigh. “Should I try to get beer again?”

“No,” Lila yelled above the hum of the mattress. She sat up, then stood on the bed and started jumping. Eddie, distracted from his guitar hero on the screen, watched her slap her palms on the ceiling.

He stood and jumped slowly, more carefully than Lila. The chicken spilled onto the bed and bounced. He flicked it off with his toes. “Watch this one,” he said, jumping and dancing to a new-wave song on the TV.