No, he told himself.
He wanted to reconfigure his brain. Why couldn’t he control when he thought about her? Why couldn’t he control when she thought about him?
When they first broke up he’d watched Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind and High Fidelity on a loop. He stopped sleeping. One morning Fin, sensing a need, reached out and hugged him. The two of them stood there for well over ten minutes while Sam cried so hard he got the hiccups.
Nope. Never. Again.
He deleted the text.
• • •
For the next two hours, he tidied obsessively. Jude texted again, and Sam nearly had a heart attack thinking it was Lorraine. It was another invitation to dinner, but again he begged off, citing work. He felt equal parts guilty and annoyed. He considered telling Jude he would be busy for the foreseeable future but decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. His lower back hurt and Sam wondered if the customers could detect the crazy in his eyes.
When his shift ended, he was spent. Sam settled the register and yawned. He could hear Fin in the back, hauling trash. Fin unfailingly let the screen door slam, which drove Sam nuts, but this time he was too tired to bitch. The only good thing about getting up at the absolute asscrack of dawn was that he was closed by eight and in bed sometimes by eight fifteen. Even if all he did under the covers was blink and not drink.
Earlier that year, Al had installed an impenetrable security system that amounted to a fake video camera affixed above the door and an automated gate that was already no longer automated. Sam walked outside to pull it closed. It took both hands and his full body weight.
“Put your back into it, flaco!” Fin yelled over his shoulder.
Sam laughed. “Your mom,” he said. Fin cackled and cracked open a beer.
Your mom? God, he was tired.
Sam’s nickname in high school had been AIDS because kids are jerks and because he was so emaciated. He hated his concave body with his visible veins and the individual, stringy muscles that you could watch move under his skin when he worked. Yet somewhere along the line, girls started seeing something in him other than the skinniness, and by then he stopped caring.
Still, there were times when he wished he were a big, hulking, ham-fisted dude who could slam the stupid gate shut in one go.
“Sam,” called a voice from the shadows.
Sam jumped and made a high-pitched “wooot” that he immediately regretted.
He knew who it was instantly. And she’d for sure heard his sapless, startled woooot.
“I texted you,” Lorraine said. He could detect flint in her tone.
Sam was surprised that it had taken only one afternoon for Lorraine, a.k.a. LIAR, to materialize. Patience wasn’t her thing, though dropping by after a disappearance was bold even for her.
“What do you want, Lorraine?” Sam shot back.
“We have to talk,” she said.
Original, he thought.
“What could there possibly be left to discuss?” He finished locking up. “I mean, if anything, your silence for the past month suggests there’s nothing on the docket.”
He wished he could subtly sniff his pits to see how he smelled. Why was he only ever running into her when he was completely unprepared? Of course, she was buttoned up for work and wearing a blazer. Liar was the worst.
“Seriously, Lorraine,” he continued. “You made it clear. We’re ancient history. The Paleozoic era. Older even. Whatever comes before the Paleozoic era. The Anthropocene . . . No, wait, that’s now. . . .” He shoved his sweaty hands into his pockets.
“Stop talking,” she said.
He scowled at her.
“Please.”
Lorraine stepped into the light. She was pale. Paler than usual, which was already poet blouses and Oh-My-Goth levels of pallor.
Sam walked toward the porch steps and sat down. She followed. The sunset smeared pink across the sky as they stared out to the street.
“What is it?” His hand twitched for the cigarettes he didn’t want to smoke in front of her.
“Sam,” she said. “I’m late.”
No joke, he thought for the split second before the full weight of her words hit him.
He took a deep breath and ran his hands through his hair. They felt numb.
Of course she was late. It made sense. In fact, it was the only news it could have been. It’s not as if anything ever went the way he thought it would. Lorraine, for that matter, was not returning to his life after a spell of soul-searching to tell him she still loved him.
Christ.
Late.
They’d done it this time.
The dreadful rush of adrenaline was so immediate that he clapped his hands. Just once. Some lizard-brain Texas hardwiring kicked in to where all he knew was to act out the caricature of a high school football coach in times of crisis.
“Okay,” he said in a purposeful tone. “How late?”
Clear eyes, full heart.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“What?” Sam squawked. “Aren’t girls supposed to, you know, keep track?” Sam understood that the female reproductive system was a mysterious universe, but this seemed far-fetched. Then he thought about the teen moms on TV who accidentally had their babies on the toilet.
“Did you take a pregnancy test?”
Lorraine rolled her eyes. “Yeah, Sam.”
“And?”
“Positive.”
Shitshitshit.
“How many?”
“Four,” she said. “No, three.”
Now, Sam wasn’t an ob-gyn or anything, but this seemed an irrationally small number of sticks to pee on before any thinking human could declare themselves in or out of the unwanted-pregnancy woods. In fact, Sam couldn’t believe she hadn’t taken at least twenty, and even still Lorraine should go to the doctor for a blood test to be completely positive. Positively positive.
Shitshitshit.
“Okay,” he said, placing his hands on her shoulders. “You have to take a bunch more. I’ll take you. We’ll go right now.”
He almost pounded her back in high-strung jocular cheer.
“Sam, you’re freaking me out.”
“No, don’t freak,” he shrieked. Sam smiled with all his teeth displayed. “It’ll be fine. You should go to a doctor, a specialist, eliminate any doubt. For peace of mind.”
“A specialist?” she said. “You sound insane.”
Sam wiped his palms on the tops of his thighs.
“What about your regular doctor? Don’t you go to some fancy guy?”
“I can’t go to Dr. Wisham,” she said, rolling her eyes. “He’s my pediatrician.”
Why was she still going to a pediatrician?
“Why are you still going to a pediatrician? It doesn’t matter,” he recovered. “I’ll pay for it.” Sam wondered about the going rate for plasma donation and how much a slightly underweight human male could spare before he keeled over and died. Maybe he could donate a toe to science.
Sam cleared his throat. He rubbed his chin. Most of the time they’d been good about condoms. Most of the time.
“I have an appointment with Planned Parenthood on Thursday,” she said.
It was Friday. Thursday was way too many nights away.
“I can’t miss work,” she explained.
“I’m sure they’d understand if—”
“I can’t,” she interrupted. “It’s a big deal. I’m the only entry-level team member, and I’m running production on three tent-pole activations for a client. Some random can’t cover for me because I’m . . . ‘worried.’ ” Lorraine rolled her eyes. Sam found the rest of the word salad more offensive than “worried,” though he bit his tongue. “It’s not as if I work in fast food or anything.” She peered at him guiltily. “No offense.”
First of all, managing an artisanal coffee purveyor was not working in fast food. Second of all . . .
“You’re in advertising,” he said. “You’re not exactly saving lives. No offense.”
Shit. Tact. He needed to chill. Sam took another deep breath.
She glared at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m still processing. So next week, do you need me to come with you?”
Sam considered the logistics. Maybe he could borrow Fin’s car.
“No,” she said.
Paul was probably driving her. Every time Sam thought about faceless, rich-ass Paul, he felt rage collect in the pit of his stomach in blistering pea-size sores.
“How late are you?”
“Three weeks?”
Jesus.
Three weeks was an eternity in the life cycle of late periods. Or so it seemed from everything he knew about periods. Which wasn’t much.
They stood in silence. Sam pulled out his cigarettes. Then he imagined pink, teeny-tiny, microscopic baby lungs coughing. He put them away.
“I wanted to take a morning-after pill,” she said. “But then I didn’t, and . . .”
Sam thought about how careless they’d both been.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were worried?”
Sam’s stomach lurched guiltily at the prospect of Liar dealing with this herself.
“I thought about it.”
“You waited three weeks to text me.”
“I figured it was only a little late.”
“Well, now it’s kinda very incredibly late,” finished Sam.
“I’m worried,” Lorraine said, not meeting his eyes.
Wow. Was she going to cry? As screwed up as the circumstance was, was this when Sam would get to see Lorraine cry?
“Well.” Sam held her and she let him. It made him feel strong and capable. “We’ll figure it out.”
“How?”
“Just that I’m here for you. I support you. I mean, it is mine, right?”
She pushed him away. Hard.
“Are you serious?”
“Well, Jesus, Lorr, it could be Paul’s!” His anger swelled red-hot and righteous.