Belly Up Page 15

  I was living my best life. Even if that much Nutella translated to never pooping again.

  Hey, got permission from Mom btws, she sent.

  I didn’t know what she was talking about.

  For?

  To go with you tomorrow. She’s dismissing me at one.

  My brain immediately went to, On my date? but then I remembered the other momentous occasion on my plate, which was finding out the flavor of the belly sprout. I didn’t recall ever inviting Devi along, but I wouldn’t mind having her there, either. I just had to make sure Mom was okay with it.

  And I had to see if Mormor planned to go. Devi deserved fair warning. She could wear some Kevlar or maybe a magical medallion to keep the evil away.

  I tromped downstairs. Mom and Mormor were in the living room, both knitting. Mom hadn’t been a knitter before we’d moved in, but she’d picked it up as an activity she could do with her mother that usually wouldn’t devolve into arguing or shoe throwing. Mormor was big into crafts and kept her stash of craft stuff in the spare bedroom upstairs. It was thirty years of accumulation, from pastels to paints to stencils to yarn to woodcrafts. She had wall-to-wall craft cabinets that made Michaels look pretty amateur hour.

  I’d been given glimpses of the place before Mormor had quite literally locked me and everyone else out of her she-cave. She hoarded acrylic craft paints like Smaug with his gold.

  Mom’s knitting needles clicked furiously. She glanced my way, tossing her head to get her too-long blond bangs out of her face.

  “Hey there, peaches.”

  “Hey. Can Devi come with us to the ultrasound tomorrow? Her mom gave permission.”

  “I don’t see why n—”

  “Am I invited?” Mormor interrupted. I flinched. I’d figured Mom would have already brought it up to her, but apparently I’d figured wrong.

  “Of course you are,” I said.

  “Why didn’t anyone tell me sooner? I’m very busy you know,” she said.

  “Because reading Better Homes and Gardens can wait an hour while you come see your great-grandkid,” Mom replied. “I was supposed to invite you and I forgot, but I also planned on you going, so...”

  Mormor sniffed. “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.”

  “Can you not, Ma? Don’t punish Sara because I screwed up.” Mom’s eye twitched. That was the precursor to loud noises and verbal bombardment. Maybe instead of aerial shoes, there’d be aerial knitting needles, which sounded a lot more dangerous.

  Like tiny javelins.

  “We’ll go tomorrow, it’ll be cool,” I said, trying to keep the peace before someone got murdered. “I’d like you there, Mormor.”

  It was a lie. It was such a lie, but what else could I do?

  Fortunately, it appeased the beast. Mormor relaxed, her knitting returned to a craft and not a potential blood sport. “Well, I have to go then, if you’d like me there. No need to get testy, Astrid. All you had to tell me was Sara wanted me there. Why wouldn’t she want her Mormor there?”

  If looks could kill, Mormor would have ceased to be on the spot. Mom had her laser stare going. I reached out to squeeze her shoulder. She tapped the backs of my knuckles with her knitting needle. “Don’t leave me here. When have I ever forsaken you?” she whispered.

  “Sorry, gotta sleep, yo. I do as the kid demands.”

  “Damn you, grandchild of mine. Damn you. Tell Devi we’ll pick her up at half past one.” Mom swooped in to brush a kiss to my temple.

  I trundled upstairs, tired, but my brain was on fire, too. I kept thinking about Leaf. Even as I texted instructions to Devi about pickup times, I thought about Leaf. When I turned off the light, I thought about Leaf. I kept mentally replaying that moment when his soft lips met my fingertips. I’d get no rest until I sated the horny brain beast, so I relieved myself of some pent-up tension. It was never glamorous to wank oneself to sleep, but I never claimed to be glamorous in the first place. I passed out with my head in the pillow, my hand still stuffed down the front of my pajama pants.

  You know you’re tired when you don’t even bother to hide the evidence of your most private deeds.

  I slogged through the next school day, my head feeling like a bowling ball. Leaf sat next to me in Weller’s class as the old lady holler-lectured for an hour straight.

  Leaf brushed my hand with his before he parted for his next class. Again, I was reminded of the fingertip kisses from the day before. Again, I had a reaction in the pants parts because that shit was intense. I’d overcome it by the time lunch came and shifted my focus to deciding between eating in the library or the cafeteria. In the end, the cafeteria won; I couldn’t be the Periodical Troll forever. Besides, everyone had left me alone all day. What happened with that butthead kid, Michaels, and his Mamacita comment must have gotten around.

  “I was thinking of cooking tonight,” Leaf said, sitting next to me. Erin and Morgan sat across from us. “Then maybe we could go to the movies?” He glanced at Morgan. “I’m missing hangouts tonight, by the way. Sara and I are going out.”

  Morgan grinned at me from behind her Capri Sun. “Fiiiiine.”

  “Sure. What time should I come over?” I asked.

  “I can pick you up if you need, or—do you have a car?”

  I shrugged. “Access to, most of the time, but Mom’ll probably dump me off at your place so she can escape my grandmother. She goes out for drinks with her work friends on Fridays. She says she drinks to keep Mormor pretty.”

  Leaf chuckled. “I can see where you get your fire from. And that’d be perfect. I can drive you home after the movie.”

  “Awesome.”

  I smiled at him. He smiled back.

  Morgan gagged.

  “You guys are so gross,” she said.

  Leaf snorted and waved his fork in her direction. “Says the girl who spends half her time diving for Erin’s lungs with her tongue.”

  “Those are exceptionally sexy lungs, thankyouverymuch.” Morgan winked at Erin. “I love your lungs, beautiful.”

  Erin poked herself in the side of the boob. “Yeah, you do. You love them a lot.”

  “I didn’t even mean those!”

  “Maybe not this time you didn’t.” Erin blew Morgan a kiss. Morgan pretended to catch it midair and devour it. It was pretty weird, but Erin giggled, so I guessed that’s all that mattered.

  “You two excited for tonight?” Erin asked.

  My cheeks went hot. Leaf shrugged.

  “I’d say so, yes,” he said. “But, even if it’s just a friend date, we’ll have fun. We get along. I think it’ll be a good time.”

  I nodded, swallowing past a lump in my throat that was not Leaf’s shared lamb and rice. “Yeah. I—yeah,” I said, because that’s all I could manage.

  Morgan’s smile was slow and wide.

  “You’re grosssss,” Morgan replied. “Soooooo. Verrrrry. Grosssss.”

  * * *

  What was also gross was cold goopy jelly smeared over a belly sporting new dark hairs that weren’t there the week before. Body hair in itself wasn’t a problem—razors existed. I was comfortable with the de-furring that went along with being a pale-ass Swede with thick black Hispanic hair. However, hair you didn’t notice until your pants were rolled down, when you had a doctor, your mother, your grandmother and your best friend gathered around you all staring at it? That was an issue.

  I wanted to reach down and pluck them out one at a time. Alas, the pushy wand was there, cold and insistent as it skimmed over my firm, slightly rounded midsection. I was doomed to remain yeti-like until I got home.

  “You know, this would be easier if you weren’t looking like you,” I said to Devi. “Like, here I am all lumpy and furry with my pants rolled down and you’re standing there being perfect. Be uglier, please?”

  She smirked, but she really did look like a sup
ermodel, with her cashmere sweater and designer jeans and who-knew-what-designer brown leather shoes. Her hair was covered by a beautiful purple scarf with gold medallions. Her ears rocked diamond studs she’d gotten for Hanukkah from her grandparents the year before.

  Devi rolled her eyes.

  “You look fine! You’re at the doctor’s office. No one’s pretty here.”

  “You are, I bet,” I said. “And do you have weird belly fur? No, no, you do not.”

  “Hair growth is normal during pregnancy.” Dr. Cardiff rotated the wand around and dug it in halfway between my belly button and pelvis. I winced, but she just kept right on pressing.

  “My nipples got hairy,” my mom offered. “During breast feeding, so that’s something to look forward to. Chest hair like a gorilla.”

  What.

  No.

  “You’re lying.” I swung my gaze to Dr. Cardiff’s profile. “Tell me she’s lying?”

  Dr. Cardiff shrugged. “Sorry to say, I can’t help you. It happens.”

  “Oh, God, that’s balls.” My hands went to my boobs and gave them a preemptive sorry-little-buddies squeeze.

  “Don’t swear,” Mormor said, flicking my ear. “It’s unladylike.”

  My would-be brilliant retort about social expectations thrust on young women in the guise of words like ladylike fizzled when, up on the screen, appeared not a legume-slash-alien like my last ultrasound, but a real tiny human. With arms and legs. With eyes and a chin.

  Oh, my God, the baby looks like a baby.

  I stared.

  “There they are,” Dr. Cardiff said, adjusting her teal glasses on her nose. She pointed at the screen, tracing the outline of my kid’s face with its bump of a nose and giant fivehead. Yeah, the kid got a big forehead, just like their mother, but no worries, I’d teach them an appropriate comb-over technique as soon as they had hair.

  Hair like my sad stomach, and my soon-to-be sadder nipples.

  “That is a Larssen,” Mormor said, nodding. “Look, the profile is just like yours, Astrid.”

  “The poor kid,” Mom replied.

  “Did we want to know the gender?” Dr. Cardiff asked, probably hoping to ward off another Larssen-fest.

  “Uh, yeah.” Devi looked down at me with a huge grin. “This is so cool. You want to know, right? I mean, that’s why we’re here?” She squeezed my hand. I squeezed hers right back.

  I nodded, breathless, and Dr. Cardiff grinned. “Looks like you’re a superfecta, ladies. It’s a girl.”

  ...a girl.

  Wow, it’s a girl.

  I hadn’t considered the gender thing too much, not beyond telling Mormor she couldn’t make colored cakes or give out cigars, but hearing that the kid was a girl was a relief. I knew how to girl. Sort of. And what I didn’t know, Aunt Devi did know. Or my mom knew. Or, God forbid, Mormor knew. And if it turned out none of the girl stuff was for my kid, when they had the wherewithal to determine their own gender, okay, cool. That gave me extra time to figure out how to bring up a boy or a nonbinary kid.

  “Rad,” Devi said, stealing my word for her own. “That’s totally rad.”

  “Yeah it is. Now Sara doesn’t have to worry about training a kid to not firehose the bathroom wall with urine.” Mom ruffled my hair before pressing a kiss to my forehead. “Grats, kiddo. Let’s hope our periods don’t all sync up.”

  Mormor, in typical, stoic Mormor fashion, waved at the monitor. “I knew it was a girl. Larssens have girls. Do you have a name figured out yet, Sara?”

  “Cass,” I said, without hesitation, surprising me as much as everyone else in the room. “Cassiopeia.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “What about Cathy?” Mormor suggested. “Catherine, Cathleen. It’s a lovely, traditional name. You could pick—C or K.”

  I sat in the back seat with Devi while Mom guided the car into the fast-food line at McDonald’s. Mom answered the call of the wild—aka my needy kid growling inside of my stomach—with the golden arches. Mormor sat beside her in the front seat clutching her handbag.

  “I like Cass,” I said.

  “Agnes is a traditional Swedish name. I had an aunt named Agnes. My mother’s name was Iris. That’s pretty, too.”

  “I like Cass,” I repeated.

  “Two double bacon—two, Sara?” Mom asked from the front seat.

  I nodded. “Yes, please.”

  “Make it three. I’m going to solidarity-eat bacon,” Devi said. “You can nail me to this cross. Soz, Christians. Too soon?”

  Mom and I weren’t practicing anything so we didn’t care. The only one who went to church was Mormor, but she was too caught up in the baby-name debate to defend her Lutheran savior.

  “What about Brita?” Mormor pressed.

  “That’s a water filter, Mormor. No. I like Cassiopeia, like the constellation.”

  Mormor looked appalled. “That poor child is going to have to spell that in kindergarten.”

  “Leave it alone, Ma. Sara figured out how to spell her name eventually. She was sixteen, but I’m still really proud of her. Do you want anything?” Mom asked.

  “I want her to name my great-granddaughter something normal.”

  “Okay, that’s not really your call. A cheeseburger, however...”

  “No. I don’t eat this garbage. I could make you a perfectly good cheeseburger at home.”

  “I’m sure you could. Sara’s hungry now.” Mom rolled up to the intercom. Fortunately, after Devi and I acquired our newest round of hot grilled garbage, Mormor was sullen and stopped talking. I was okay with that. The cheeseburger was far more pleasant, anyway.

  Back to the house we went, Devi in tow so she could do my makeup pre-date. Mom didn’t ask many questions about my plans with Leaf beyond what time I’d be back—which was midnight, I promised, and no later. She accepted it without another word, which was weird. Normally, she was all up in my business, giving me warnings to protect myself from all sorts of awful stuff, but not this time. Maybe she figured there was less to lose with me already knocked up? Except that wasn’t true at all. I could get diseases or abused by weird dudes on the bus or mauled by bears if I wandered too close to the zoo.

  Had things changed so much? Did she think I had the wisdom of ages because I was going to birth a baby with a fivehead?

  I chewed on my lip thinking about it all the way home. I thought, maybe, I was just worrying too much and it’d die down, but as we climbed from the car, Mormor going first to unlock her front door and disable the security system because she was convinced our mailman was going to steal the flat-screen, I called for Mom.

  “This is going to sound crazy,” I said.

  “Oh, I like the crazy. It’s where I’m most comfortable.” Mom leaned on the hood of the car, peering at me, her arms folded before her, keys clasped in hand.

  “You’re not giving me fifty billion warnings before my date like you usually do. You didn’t say anything. And it’s weirding me out.”

  Mom’s eyes jerked away from me and she stared off at...a wheelbarrow? Maybe? I followed her gaze and she was fixed on the shed and the garden and the wheelbarrow Mormor had left outside, which was odd because Mormor thought the mailman was going to steal that, too. Devi clued in that my question was more than just a little innocuous, so she hustled to go inside and help Mormor, giving us some privacy with a reassuring waggle of her fingers.

  The front door closed, Mormor chattering Devi’s ear off about my name choice, Devi looking like she only wanted to die a little.

  “It’s a fair question. I hadn’t thought about it, really.” Mom sighed, her chin dropping to rest on her forearms. “The lectures—I gave them. Give them. It’s not like you’re gonna get off the hook all together, right? I’m serious about being home by curfew, and if you blow it, you’re grounded. But I also warned you about safe sex and it
didn’t do a whole lotta good. I’m not saying that to hurt you, but... I guess I figure you’re old enough that you’re going to do what you’re going to do. You’ve heard it all by now, and you’ll either hop to or ignore it.”

  It was exactly the answer I had been afraid of.

  “You’re giving up on me,” I said, my voice thick. “Because I got pregnant.”

  “Nope. I didn’t say that at all.” Mom turned her gaze back my way. “Should you drive drunk?”

  “Well, no.”

  “When do you carry your cell phone with you?”

  “All the time. And bring an extra battery. Okay, I get it, b—”

  “Do you do heroin? Touch people in inappropriate ways? Ignore people who need help?”

  “...no.”

  I shuffled my weight from foot to foot.

  Mom smiled. “Exactly. You know this stuff. And you’ll take my advice or you won’t. It’s not that I don’t care, Sara, or that I gave up on you or whatever maudlin horse crap you invented. It’s that you know all of it. You’re old enough to choose to follow it or not. What you did with Jack was a choice. Not stopping to get a condom was a choice, too. Funny enough, inaction has bigger consequences than taking action a lot of the time.”

  She came around the side of the car and slung an arm over my shoulder. I settled in against her, appreciating the kiss she pressed to my temple. “I’m going forward with the understanding that you’ll follow the rules. If you want to live for free in my house—or Mormor’s house—with your kid, you’ll do all the stuff you’re supposed to do, which includes being home on time, being honest with me, and not putting yourself and your kid in harm’s way. If you screw a guy, you wear a condom. Fastest way to put your pregnancy at risk is to get an STD. I won’t stand for you being irresponsible and hurting my grandkid, Cass-pee-yuh.”

  “Cassiopeia,” I said. “Like the constellation.”

  Mom smirked and threw open the front door of the house. “Oh, I know. I’m just being a turd.”

  “Thanks, turd.”