Jodie Picoult - Nineteen Minutes

Peter walked slowly into his corner bank of lockers. Several guys were already headed to the showers, towels wrapped around their waists. Drew, for one, and his friend Matt Royston. They were laughing as they walked, punching each other in the arms to see who could land the harder hit.

Peter turned his back to the other locker sections and skimmed off his uniform, then covered himself quickly with a towel. His heart was pounding. He could already imagine what everyone else saw when they looked at him, because he saw it, too, in the mirror: skin white as the belly of a fish; knobs sticking out of his spine and collarbones. Arms without a single rope of muscle.

The last thing Peter did was take off his glasses and put them on the shelf of his open locker. It made everything blissfully fuzzy.

He ducked his head and walked into the shower, pulling off his towel at the last possible minute. Matt and Drew were already soaping themselves up. Peter let the spray hit him in the forehead. He imagined being an adventurer on some wild white river, being pummeled by a waterfall as he was sucked into a vortex.

When he wiped his eyes and turned around, he could see the blurred edges of the bodies that were Matt and Drew. And the dark patch between their legs-pubic hair.

Peter didn’t have any yet.

Matt suddenly twisted sideways. “Jesus Christ. Stop looking at my dick.”

“Fucking fag,” Drew said.

Peter immediately turned away. What if it turned out they were right? What if that was the reason his gaze had fallen right there at that moment? Worse, what if he got hard right now, which was happening more and more lately?

That would mean he was gay, wouldn’t it?

“I wasn’t looking at you,” Peter blurted. “I can’t see anything.”

Drew’s laughter bounced against the tile walls of the shower. “Maybe your dick’s too small, Mattie.”

Suddenly Matt had Peter by the throat. “I don’t have my glasses on,” Peter choked out. “That’s why.”

Matt let go, shoving Peter against the wall, then stalked out of the shower. He reached over and plucked Peter’s towel from a hook, tossing it into the spray. It fell, soaked, to cover the central drain.

Peter picked it up and wrapped it around his waist. The cotton was sopping wet, and he was crying, but he thought maybe people couldn’t tell because the rest of him was dripping, too. Everyone was staring.

When he was around Josie, he didn’t feel anything-didn’t want to kiss her or hold her hand or anything like that. He didn’t think he felt those things about guys, either; but surely you had to be gay or straight. You couldn’t be neither.

He hurried to the corner bank of lockers and found Matt standing in front of his. Peter squinted, trying to see what Matt was holding, and then he heard it: Matt took his glasses, slammed the locker door on them, and let the mangled frames drop to the floor. “Now you can’t look at me,” he said, and he walked away.

Peter knelt down on the floor, trying to pick up the broken pieces of glass. Because he couldn’t see, he cut his hand. He sat, cross-legged, with the towel puddled in his lap. He brought his palm closer to his face, until everything was clear.

In her dream, Alex was walking down Main Street stark naked. She went into the bank and deposited a check. “Your Honor,” the teller said, smiling. “Isn’t it beautiful out today?”

Five minutes later, she went into the coffee shop and ordered a latte with skim milk. The barista was a girl with improbable purple hair and a straight piercing that went across the bridge of her nose at the level of her eyebrows; when Josie was little and they’d come here, Alex would have to tell her not to stare. “Would you like biscotti with that, Judge?” the barista asked.

She went into the bookstore, the pharmacy, and the gas station, and in each place, she could feel people staring at her. She knew she was naked. They knew she was naked. But no one said anything until she got to the post office. The postal clerk in Sterling was an old man who had been working there, probably, since the changeover from the Pony Express. He handed Alex a roll of stamps, and then furtively covered her hand with his own. “Ma’am, it might not be my place to say so…”

Alex lifted her gaze, waited.

The worry lines on the clerk’s forehead smoothed. “But that’s a beautiful dress you’ve got on, Your Honor,” he said.

Her patient was screaming. Lacy could hear the girl sobbing all the way down the hall. She ran as fast as she could, turning the corner and entering the hospital room.

Kelly Gamboni was twenty-one years old, orphaned, and had an IQ of 79. She had been gang-raped by three high school boys who were now awaiting trial at a juvy facility in Concord. Kelly lived at a group home for Catholics, so abortion was never an option. But now, an ER doctor had deemed it medically necessary to induce Kelly, at thirty-six weeks. She lay in the hospital bed with a nurse trying ineffectually to comfort her, as Kelly clutched a teddy bear. “Daddy,” she cried, to a parent who had died years ago. “Take me home. Daddy, it hurts!”

The doctor walked into the room, and Lacy rounded on him.

“How dare you,” she said. “This is my patient.”

“Well, she was brought into the ER and became mine,” the doctor countered.

Lacy looked at Kelly and then walked into the hall; it would do Kelly no good to have them fighting in front of her. “She came in complaining of wetting her underwear for two days. The exam was consistent with premature rupture of membranes,” the doctor said. “She’s afebrile and the fetal monitor tracing is reactive. It’s completely reasonable to induce. And she signed off on the consent form.”

“It may be reasonable, but it’s not advisable. She’s mentally retarded. She doesn’t know what’s happening to her right now; she’s terrified. And she certainly doesn’t have the ability to consent.” Lacy turned on her heel. “I’m calling psych.”

“Like hell you are,” the doctor said, grabbing her arm.

“Let go of me!”

They were still screaming at each other five minutes later when the psych consult arrived. The boy who stood in front of Lacy looked to be about Joey’s age. “You’ve got to be kidding,” the doctor said, the first comment he’d made that she agreed with.

They both followed the shrink into Kelly’s room. By now, the girl was curled into a ball around her belly, whimpering. “She needs an epidural,” Lacy muttered.

“It’s not safe to give one at two centimeters,” the doctor argued.

“I don’t care. She needs one.”

“Kelly?” the psychiatrist said, squatting down in front of her. “Do you know what a C-section is?”

“Uh-huh,” Kelly groaned.

The psychiatrist stood up. “She’s capable of consent, unless a court’s ruled otherwise.”

Lacy’s jaw dropped. “That’s it?”

“I have six other consults waiting for me,” the psychiatrist snapped. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

Lacy yelled after him. “I’m not the one you’re disappointing!” She sank down beside Kelly and squeezed her hand. “It’s okay. I’m going to take care of you.” She winged a prayer to whoever might move the mountains that could be men’s hearts. Then she lifted her face to the doctor’s. “First do no harm,” she said softly.

The doctor pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ll get her an epidural,” he sighed; and only then did Lacy realize she had been holding her breath.

The last place Josie wanted to go was out to dinner with her mother, so that she could spend three hours watching maître d’s and chefs and other guests suck up to her. This was Josie’s birthday celebration, so she didn’t really understand why she couldn’t just demand take-out Chinese and a video. But her mother was insisting that it wouldn’t be a celebration if they just stayed at home, and so here she was, trailing after her mother like a lady-in-waiting.