Page 18 of Expecting an Argument
Five figures. I was going to throw up. “I-I don’t have a warranty. I bought the car from a guy off the internet.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose and took in a deep breath. “Mon dieu.”
“Wh-what?” I asked. “Was that French?”
He looked up at me. “Do you know French?”
I hated the snobbish undertone of his question. “No. Not all of us got to go to Paris for the summer.”
“I summered at an island resort, not Paris.” He flashed me a cocky grin. “But now I know what language to use when I don’t want you to understand me.”
I flipped him off, but he ignored me. He pressed a button on his key fob and unlocked his truck. “Get in. We’re going to be late.”
Beau walked around to the driver’s side of his truck, but I stayed frozen as I stared at the front of my car. I pulled up a spreadsheet in my mind, calculating the cost to repair the car versus buying another one and weighing the need for a car against my monthly rent, and groceries, and bills, and…and…
The heavy slam of Beau’s truck door jolted me back into the moment. I couldn’t panic, not when I was about to go to my first prenatal appointment anddefinitely notwhen Beau was relishing in my despair. I took a breath and mentally gathered all my worries and put it in an imaginary sack, tying it shut with a pretty satin bow of denial.
With that imaginary bow double-knotted and secure, I silently climbed into the passenger seat of Beau’s truck. As I settled into the leather seat, I stared out the window anda strange sort of numbness settled over me. I was suddenly reminded of when I stared down at the city from the window of my mom’s hospital room, submerged in that paradoxical state of being both empty and too heavy all at once.
The darkness of the parking garage turned into daylight as Beau drove, but my eyes stayed fixed on the same nondescript location as we passed by revolving doors and the darkened voids of storefront windows. Two voices from some podcast played over the truck’s speakers, but I couldn’t really listen.
At the doctor’s office, I sat silently on the pink couch in the lobby as Beau checked me in. I wrung my hands on top of the swell of my belly, using all my strength to hold my feelings behind that imaginary satin bow.
Someone handed me a plastic cup to pee in. I followed instructions.
I stepped on a scale and didn’t bother to read the measurement. I felt the squeeze of a blood pressure cuff on my arm.
A woman in purple scrubs asked me the date of my last period. I mumbled that I couldn’t remember.
When she left, I finally realized that I sat in a small examination room on a strange table beneath a circular golden lamp. The table was positioned diagonally in the corner of the room, making me look like a specimen about to be studied and the star of a miniature stage show all at once. My one spectator, Beau Fontaine III, sat in a nearby chair and scrolled through his phone.
I balled my hands into loose fists on top of my lap and heard the soft crinkle of paper. Oh, I supposed I had taken off my sweatpants and underwear at some point. Maybe I should have felt embarrassed since Beau would have been in the room, but what dignity did I have left to preserve?
The door opened and the same nurse from before wheeledin a tall machine with a big screen and a wand attachment. A woman in black scrubs followed her and sat down on a small circular stool. She introduced herself as Dr. Ornelas and asked me some questions that I vaguely remembered already hearing from the nurse.
Dr. Ornelas glanced at the laptop she balanced on a counter near a small sink. “You’re not sure of your last menstrual period, but you’re confident the date of conception was September 26th, right?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Allegedly,” Beau added as he lounged in his chair.
I slowly turned from Dr. Ornelas and gave Beau a look, silently begging him to not be a dick for once in his life.
Dr. Ornelas glanced up from her laptop at Beau. “Are you the father?”
“Allegedly,” Beau answered with a smirk.
Dr. Ornelas waved a hand vaguely in the direction of my left side. “Well, Mr.Allegedly,go stand over there if you want to see.”
Beau slowly rose from his chair as the nurse flicked off the lights. I reclined back on the cushioned table and Dr. Ornelas warned me of an incoming uncomfortable pressure.
My brows pinched together as she inserted the ultrasound wand, but my eyes were too glued to the flickering gray lines on the screen to care.
There was the head, the body, the tiny hands and feet—my baby.My baby.The baby fluttered its itty bitty limbs as it swam around its little bubble inside me.
Dr. Ornelas shifted the wand ever-so slightly and the screen shifted, revealing a bright white “T” shape above my baby’s bubble.
Dr. Ornelas pointed a gloved finger at the white shape. “There’s your IUD.”
