Page 80 of Our Crooked Hearts
In May I felt off, perforated, the world coming at me in incorrect ways. Food smelled oddlysweet,like a bad banana. I was waiting tables at a Greek restaurant in Lincoln Square, walking distance from Rob’s place. On a Thursday night in June, too hot, the gamey fug of saganaki sent me flying into the bathroom to vomit.
When I came out my least favorite waitress was waiting forme. Phoebe of the rat-black eyes, the coke-carved frame, the only girl on staff who spoke Greek so the owner let her get away with red murder.
“It’s Gabriel’s, isn’t it?” she said. Gabriel was a fifty-something line cook who liked to follow girls into the walk-in cooler. “If you’re nice I’ll give you a ride to Planned Parenthood.”
“Don’t fucking talk to me,” I said, shouldering past her.
“Excuseme?” Her lip went up. “Hey.Bitch.”
There was a ringing in my head, icy-thin and high as planets. It was star song. A memory from the night I first opened my hands to magic.
A book of matches was tucked into the pocket of my apron. I pinched one free, snapped it, spoke two star-bright syllables. Phoebe screamed as the sconce beside her head burst, raining glass pieces over her hair.
I ran the block to Walgreens, and peed on the stick in a bar bathroom. The light was so murky I had to turn and turn it before I could see the results. Then I wrapped the stick in toilet paper and shoved it deep into the trash.
Leaning my forehead against the damp wood of the doorframe, I listened to the jukebox whirring on the other side of the wall.Give me something,I thought,some clue.Through the door came the opening strains of “Stratford-on-Guy.”
I took a cab I couldn’t afford so I could get home quicker. From the street I saw Fee moving in the window. I took the stairs at a run and slipped halfway up the second flight, coming down hard on one knee. The jolt made me clutch at my stomach, thinking for the first time of what I carried. Not the idea of it, but the actual fiddlehead curl.
Fee was already crossing to the door when I opened it. She’d heard me fall.
“What happened?”
I held on to her like a failing swimmer. “Remember when we were kids and we knew one of us would die young? Like your mom did, when you were born, and she left my mom all alone?”
Her eyes were already wet. “I remember.”
“I’m pregnant.”
My best friend breathed in, not quite a gasp. She wrapped her arms around me tightly and held me in the green light.
