The Lit Report (10 page)

“Okay,” I muttered from my fleece cocoon. “Thanks. Later.” I sat at the kitchen table for a long time. My heart
finally slowed down, and I eventually stopped shaking. The house was quiet after Maria left. My brother was upstairs and everyone was fine. I wished I felt better. I couldn't stop thinking about what Maria had said about first births and surprises. Ruth was always surprising me—why would she stop now?

When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning or in rain?

—William Shakespeare,
Macbeth

Macbeth
is my all-time favorite Shakespeare play. I still don't understand why my classmates don't love it too. Especially the guys, who can't seem to get past what Stewart calls “the fruity language” to the sheer goriness of it all. Guys who will shell out ten bucks to see Uma Thurman decapitate her enemies are completely baffled by
Macbeth
. Lady Macbeth alone is worth slogging through any number of soliloquies about Scottish politics. I love it that the most ruthlessly ambitious, bloodthirsty, cruel and manipulative person in the play is a woman. Not that I approve of her behavior, but, let's face it, she's kind of Donald Trump in drag, with better hair and none of the opportunities. Like The Donald's wives, the only way Lady M can get any power is through her husband, which is pretty sad in any century.

I wrote a paper about Lady Macbeth called “McMommie Dearest,” which my English teacher didn't think was funny. She also didn't appreciate my views on women and ambition, even though I went to great lengths to point out that killing people is an extremely ill-advised and risky method of personal advancement, as Lady M discovered. Having a career and being financially independent is a much better approach and involves far less sleepwalking and hand-washing. For this, I got a C, which for me is almost a failing grade. The whole “not of woman born” thing is all about a brutal caesarean section, by the way, just in case you were thinking that “untimely ripp'd” meant having a six-pack at the age of seven. So it's no wonder that after I fell asleep at the kitchen table after Boone's birth, I dreamt that Lady Macbeth (who looked like Cruella de Vil) was delivering Ruth's baby by caesarean, assisted by three life-size Barbie dolls. Very scary. So much for sleep knitting up the “ravelled sleeve of care.”

When I woke up I had grooves on my cheek from the ridges on the place mat, a headache the size of Montana and—wouldn't you know it—cramps. Which only confirmed that there really is no God, not a loving one anyway. A loving God wouldn't allow a teenage girl to get pregnant the first time she has sex. A loving God would make sure my mom, who prays to Him at least ten times a day, was as happy as my dad, who doesn't even believe He exists.
A loving God would not smite me with cramps five days early or make me solely responsible for the safe delivery of my best friend's baby.

SCHOOL WAS ALMOST
over for the year, and I was beginning to wonder if my plan was going to work. So far, no one had paid much attention to Ruth's size—all they saw was a big girl getting a bit bigger—but that was part of the problem.

“I'm sick of hiding out at the library,” Ruth complained soon after Boone was born. “I never thought I'd say this, but I miss going to school. I'm tired of making up lame excuses for being absent. I'm bored with signing my own notes. I'm missing all the cool end-of-year stuff. All the parties.”

“It'll be over soon,” I said as soothingly as possible. That was my mantra when she started to whine. We were in my room, and I was making lists of things I had to get to prepare for the birth—things like diapers and blankets and rubber sheets. My babysitting money was dwindling by the second. Ruth, as usual, was lying on my bed reading a magazine—a magazine, I might add, bought and paid for by me. “And here's a thought,” I muttered. “Maybe you could help out a bit with the preparations.”

“What did you say?” Ruth glared at me as if I had announced that I was going to sell tickets to the delivery. “You must be joking,” she said. “In case you haven't
noticed, I'm the one who's doing the important work— the gestating. Isn't that what you like to call it? I'm the one who's fat. I'm the one who can't go out in public. I'm the one who has to eat lean protein and celery sticks. I'm the one who has to wear ugly clothes. I'm the one who's going to have the contractions. And the leaky boobs and the post-baby fat.”

By this time Ruth was screaming and, even worse, clutching my Minnie Mouse alarm clock. I ducked just as it flew over my head and slammed into the wall behind me. I'd had that clock since I was six and my mom and I went to Disneyland. I picked it up and put it on my desk. Amazingly, it was still ticking. Like a bomb. Very appropriate, since Ruth seemed to have exploded, and I was about to.

“And you,” Ruth roared, “what are
you
doing? Getting skinnier by the second, talking to hot guys, oh, and yeah, I forgot—making your stupid lists. In the meantime, I can't sleep, my ass hurts, I've got heartburn and I have to pee all the time.”

Suddenly all the lying, the dieting, the labor coaching just seemed pointless and meaningless and stupid. There wasn't any point in getting angry with her. We weren't going to get away with it. It was that simple. Hiding Ruth's pregnancy had become as difficult as concealing a giraffe in a swimming pool. On the rare occasions she was at school,
I diverted attention from her ever-expanding girth by wearing really skanky outfits. Who's going to look at the fat chick in the yoga pants and baggy sweatshirt when her friend is wearing stilettos and a denim micro-mini with a pink satin camisole from Victoria's Secret (via Miki's closet). I figured Miki wouldn't be needing it anytime soon—her boobs were about a forty-four triple D. And they leaked. All Boone had to do was sniffle and Miki turned into a fountain. Anyway, I was the decoy, and my outfits were strictly camouflage, but I could understand why it pissed Ruth off. I was getting a lot of attention from guys (most of it unwanted) and she was getting none. Five different guys had asked me out to five different end-of-the-year parties. Ruth loves being the center of attention; I don't. Well, not much, anyway. Yes, I high-lighted my hair. Yes, I bought new clothes, but I thought she understood that I was still the same girl—kind, studious, thoughtful—just hotter. Obviously I was wrong. Maybe I was wrong about everything.

“You want to stop?” I asked.

“Stop?”

“Yeah—stop hiding it. Tell your folks. Have the baby in the hospital. Just—you know—stop.”

“Are you nuts?” Ruth said, looking at me as if I had sprouted horns. “Why would I stop now?”

I took a deep breath and tried to remember everything I had read about the emotional state of women in
late pregnancy. The words “irrational” and “fearful” came to mind, as did the word “hemorrhoids.” You didn't have to be pregnant to be irrational and afraid. I knew because I was feeling a bit of both myself. But I was pretty sure I didn't have hemorrhoids, and that alone made my life better than Ruth's.

“I make lists because I'm nervous,” I explained. “They help me calm down.”

“You? Nervous?” Ruth said. “Why?”

I laughed and walked over to my bed and lay down beside her. “Oh, let me count the ways,” I said.

“No, seriously,” she said, “it's gonna be fine. I mean, you helped out when Boone was born, so you know what to do. And I've done everything you told me to do, and you've been reading books about childbirth for months now. It has to be okay. It just has to.”

Ruth was lying on her back, and her belly looked like a small smooth continent rising from a blue duvet sea. How could we hope to hide it for five more weeks?

“The Karate Kid's at it again,” Ruth said, grabbing my hand and placing it near her belly button. “She's getting in shape for her big entrance.”

We lay there for a few minutes, giggling and watching Ruth's belly ripple and surge.

“It's weird, isn't it?” Ruth said.

“What?”

“That she's so close to us and so far away at the same time. We can almost see her and yet she's in her own little world.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It's weird, all right.”

IN EARLY JULY
I got a part-time job downtown at a chain bookstore. I needed the money and Ruth needed an excuse to be away from home. She told her parents she had a job at the bookstore too, and we'd go downtown together on the bus; Ruth would head to the library while I went to work. I made her a book list, but I'm pretty sure all she read were magazines. When my shift was over, we walked home. I'd fill Ruth in on what had happened at work and she'd report on the latest Hollywood scandal. She had to pee about every five minutes, but she seemed almost happy. She didn't even get mad when guys hit on me, mostly because I blew them off. Jonah was due home any day, and that cheered her up. It terrified me, but in a sort of great way, like when you're on the Ferris wheel and it stops at the top.

“You packed all that stuff I put on your list?” I asked one day when we were in the park having a picnic and watching all the moms with their little kids.

“Yup,” she said. “Although I don't know why I need my bathing suit. It's not like I'm going to wear it.”

I explained for the hundredth time that it had to look as if we were going on a vacation, bathing suits and all. The cabin we were going to was beside a lake. And who knew? Maybe Ruth would decide to have one of those underwater births. Or maybe she'd just want to go for a swim. Knowing her, she wouldn't bother with a suit.

“Your mom's driving us, right?” Ruth asked.

“Next Saturday—bright and early.”

Ruth groaned. “What if the baby's late?”

“Then we call and say we've just had some sort of vision of Jesus in a bowl of Cheerios and we need to stay away longer. Talk to God some more. The cabin's free until Labor Day. No pun intended.”

“Ha bloody ha,” Ruth said. She ate another piece of chicken and gazed at a girl about our age pushing a baby in a stroller. “Do you think that's her kid?”

“I dunno,” I said. “Could be, I guess. Why?”

“No reason.”

THE NIGHT BEFORE
we were supposed to go to the cabin, my mother came down with a wicked stomach flu. In the morning she was too weak to stand up, let alone drive for two hours.

“I'm sorry, honey,” she said. “You'll have to ask Ruth's parents for a ride.”

“They're leading a workshop this weekend. Something about mission statements for marriages.”

My mom winced and clamped her hand over her mouth. I slid a plastic ice-cream bucket toward her, but she shook her head and motioned it away. “How about your dad?”

“Away,” I said, sparing her the details of Dad and Miki's weekend trip with Boone to Tofino. Baby's first room service. I was starting to feel sick myself, and I prayed I hadn't caught whatever she had.

“Oh.” She groaned. “Pass me the bucket.”

I went to the kitchen and called Ruth. “My mom's really sick. We're going to have to wait a couple of days.”

“No way.” Ruth sounded adamant.

“Don't freak out. It'll be fine.”

“Contractions,” Ruth hissed.

“What?”

“Contractions,” she hissed again. “I've been having contractions. And my mom's in the next room.”

“They're probably just Braxton Hicks,” I whispered. “You know—false labor. I told you about that.”

“They're not Braxton Hicks. We have to go—now.”

“There's no one to drive us.”

“I'll ask Jonah. He came home last night. He was only here five minutes and he looked like he wanted to split. He'll drive us.”

“You can't tell him, Ruth. Not a word.”

“I'm not an idiot,” said Ruth before she hung up. “We'll be there before lunch.”

WHEN THEY CAME
to pick me up a few hours later, the first thing Jonah said was, “Where's the thunder, lightning and rain?”

“It's July, asshole,” said Ruth. “Not January.”

“Julia knows what I mean, don't you, Julia?” Jonah said, giving me a quick hug and a kiss on the top of my head. He was wearing baggy red board shorts and a tight T-shirt that said
Miles, Monk, Trane
. I bet his parents loved that. It was all I could do not to grab his ass. I settled for landing a light kiss on his neck.

“‘When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning or in rain?'” I recited.

“‘When the hurlyburly's done, when the battle's lost and won,'” Jonah replied.

“Jesus Christ, you guys,” said Ruth. “Get a room.”

It was a whole new interpretation of
Macbeth
, which, trust me, isn't usually thought of as one of Shakespeare's more romantic plays. After Jonah and I stopped laughing, we crammed all my stuff into Pastor Pete's old Dodge Caravan and took off for the lake. I rode shotgun, since Ruth said she wanted to sleep in the back of the van. We listened to one of Jonah's Thelonious Monk
CDS
for a while
and stopped at a Dairy Queen after we'd been on the road for about an hour.

“So, Mom says you guys are going on a retreat,” Jonah said as we got back in the car with our hot fudge sundaes.

“Yup,” I said, trying not to look at him. I couldn't help smelling him though, the familiar combination of sweat and deodorant and something sweet—cinnamon buns, maybe, or some kind of pie. I'd never figured out what it was. Just that it made me feel like a kitten with a catnip mouse.

“Or maybe you're just going to be partying at the lake,” he continued. “Have a few friends over. Fire up the barbie. You sure brought enough stuff.”

I snuck a look at him. Was he serious? His profile gave nothing away, although I noticed that he had a zit on his chin and looked as if he had cut himself shaving. I was happy about the zit; perfection is so hard to deal with.