Pregnant Pause (15 page)

"We're sorry if we hurt you," Ashley Wilson says. She gives me a hug. Then all the other girls hug me, too.

I love kids. I love this camp.

OKAY, THEIR LOVE and pity was nice for about five seconds, but I totally feel like a fool when I get to the crafts hut the next morning and find that some of the campers, feeling sorry for me, sanded the pieces of my dulcimer. They must all feel I'm the dumbest, stupidest person in the world. Everyone was so nice to me at breakfast, too, especially the ILs. Yep, the ILs—nice to me. The MIL actually called me dear! It's enough to make you sick. I had wanted to skip breakfast to talk to Lam and get feelings straightened out between us and figure out what we're going to do, but the new rule, Lam informed me this morning, is that he and I have to eat in the dining hall
with
the ILs.

Lam sat across from me with his head down the whole time and said nothing to anybody. He barely ate, and when breakfast was over, he scraped back his chair and bolted before I could catch him and plan when we could meet.

I'm disappointed in the new eating rule because it means I can't sit in the kitchen with Leo and Ziggy, and I know I'm going to miss that. Both of them are good friends to me. Also, I was looking forward to telling them about what happened in the ILs' cabin last night and asking Ziggy if he had known about Lam and Gren. I figure he had to. Then I remember the nervous way he was twisting his class ring and not looking at me the last time we talked about Lam and the baby. Yeah, he knew. I'm kind of pissed that he didn't tell me, but I know I wouldn't have told me, either, and I probably would have been snickering behind my back, too.

When break comes, I go down to the counselors' break hut, and Ziggy is already there playing his guitar.

I step inside the hut. "Bastard," I say.

He nods. "Not my business to tell you. You might have thought I was trying to make a move for you or something. You would have accused me of making up lies about Lam as a way to have you to myself."

"Why would I think that? That's crazy."

I pick up the change that I know Ziggy set out for me so that I can buy a snack. I choose a granola bar. I face the machine and drop the coins in.

"Because I actually thought about doing that—telling on him, so that you'd maybe ditch him and, I don't know..."

I press the tab, and the bar drops into the mouth of the machine. I dig it out and pause before turning around. I'm trying to decide if he meant what I think he meant.

"You mean you like me? You
like
me, like me?"

Ziggy keeps strumming the guitar, but he's staring right at me—right through me. "Is that so strange?"

"Uh, yeah. You're in college. You're going to be this big Hollywood musician-writer person. You're probably going to be famous someday. And I'm, I'm..." I shrug.

I don't know what I am, but as much as I fantasized about Ziggy and me, it wasn't for real, was it? It couldn't be for real, because we come from two different places—two different soul places. I would ruin his life. I know that. I'm a walking time bomb. It's okay with Lam, because so is he. We're trouble times two. When I think of this, I feel a little better about Lam. I feel like maybe it's okay he cheated on me, because he probably only cheated first, and given enough time, I probably would have cheated on him with Ziggy, or with somebody else. That's what I like about Lam. He's comfortable. He's trouble, but that's comforting somehow. Does that make sense? I'm used to trouble. I wouldn't know what to do with someone who has his shit together the way Ziggy does. Maybe I'd be bored. Yeah, bored, and I'd always be afraid of messing up. I'd be afraid of messing
him
up. I would hate to do that. He's like the perfect person. Lam and me, we fit. We're two messed-up people.

"Don't you know how wonderful you are?" Ziggy says. "You're different from all the girls I know. You're funny, and nicer than you ever let on, and you're smart in this different sort of way. You're so natural and confident."

"Me? Confident?"

"You're strong. You're a fighter. You come from the school of hard knocks, and I feel like such a weenie next to you sometimes." He stops playing and rests his arm in the curve of the guitar. "I'm older than you are, but sometimes I feel like you're older. You're, you're a powerful person, Elly. You make things happen."

"Me? Powerful? Look, Ziggy, I don't come from the school of hard knocks. My parents are well-educated teachers, and they're missionaries. I come from the planet of disaster, a disaster of my own making. I'm always making the wrong decisions. I'm always acting before I think. For once, I'm trying to think first, and what I think is if we ever got together, I'd ruin you in five seconds flat. Not on purpose. I think you're
really
hot and all, and it would be fun to kind of—you know, but that's all, and that's not good enough for either of us. I'm married now. I've got a baby on the way."

"Hey, would you sit down? I'm getting a crick in my neck," Ziggy says, so I sit, even though my back has been bugging me and it kind of feels better to just lean against the snack machine.

"I think I could handle your kind of trouble. Anyway, I think you underestimate us." He sets his guitar on the floor by the coffee table and inches closer.

I've unwrapped my bar and I take a bite. Half the bar comes off in my mouth. I bite into the half in my mouth and half again falls into my lap. I lift my arms. "See what I mean? Disaster." I scoop up the piece of bar and the crumbs and look at Ziggy. "What do you mean I underestimate us? I don't get that."

"I think we'd make a cool couple. I think you're going to go far, Elly. You just need to be challenged, that's all. And don't you know opposites attract? We'd be good for each other."

"Well, whatever. I'm married, so unless Lam divorces me, wherever I go, I'll be going with him."

"So you really love him, then?"

Ziggy's face kind of just droops, and his gray eyes get dark and smoky-looking—sad.

The baby kicks, and my heart skips a beat. "I don't know. I'm too mad at him to know how I feel right now. Maybe I just always loved the idea of us. I love who we used to be before we got married. It felt like we could conquer the world together and that there was a world to be conquered. We were fun. Life was fun. I guess I feel with you, that maybe the world has already been conquered, and that there would be nothing left for me to do—know what I mean?"

"That I'm boring?" He inches even closer, and because I take up the other half of the couch, I've got nowhere to go, so I kind of lean away from him, which is wicked uncomfortable.

"No. No, Ziggy, just—I don't know. Really, I don't. I don't know what I'm saying. I'm just blurting out whatever pops into my head, and that's never a good thing."

As I finish saying this, and before I even get all of it out of my mouth, Ziggy is on me. He kisses me on the lips, and there it is, that zing feeling that makes my toes curl and the baby do somersaults. It scares me. I don't want to like him more than Lam. I love Lam. I'm married to Lam. I want to keep on kissing Ziggy, and yet at the same time I want to push him away. I see out of the corner of my eye Ziggy's hand heading for my boobs and I push him off of me. "No, Ziggy. I can't. I'm married." I say this because it's the only defense I can think of. I don't really know how I feel, but getting groped in the counselors' break hut I know is wrong. I don't do it in the back of cars, and I don't do it in the middle of a kids' camp, either. I don't have time to say any of this, though, because while we're staring at each other, trying to figure out what really just happened, Lam shows up at the door.

"Knock, knock," he says.

I have my back to the door, so Ziggy sees him first, and he looks alarmed.

I turn around, and I see that Lam has a pot of geraniums in his hands—my favorite flowers.

I struggle to my feet. "Lam! What are you doing here? Do your parents know? Aren't you supposed to be teaching swimming?"

Lam enters the hut and hands me the pot of flowers while at the same time he kisses my cheek. "Yes, and yes," he says, in answer to my questions. "I just wanted to give you these and maybe talk to you. I've only got about fifteen minutes, so if you don't mind, Zig, I'd—"

Ziggy jumps up and bangs his head on the overhead lantern. He grabs at his guitar, fumbles, and almost drops it. "Sure, sure," he says, clutching the instrument to his chest. "I'll get out of your way. Later, Elly." Then he scoots out the door so fast you'd think Lam were threatening to beat him up, which he would have done if he knew what had just happened in here.

"What the hell is that all about?"

I shrug. "So, Lam, what was it you wanted to say to me? We only have a few minutes, you said."

He twists around and stares at me a second, then, coming to, he takes the plant from my hand and helps me to sit on the couch. He sits beside me and takes my hand and gazes into my eyes.

"I'm really, really sorry, Elly. I've just—I've been acting like a crud. I know it."

"Yeah, Lam. You totally made a fool of me. Everybody knew, except me. Now everybody's going around feeling sorry for me. It's terrible. And Gren, of all people. And you cheater! You cheated on me! We've only been married a little over a month, and you cheated on me. What does that say about our marriage?" I withdraw my hand from his, and Lam sits back on the couch.

"That it's a sham. Let's face it, El, we never would have married if you hadn't—if we hadn't had to."

"So, so, that's it? So it's over? Are we supposed to get a divorce now because you cheated and our marriage is a sham?" I feel dizzy all of a sudden, and it feels like the baby is using my belly as a punching bag. "We're about to have a baby, Lam!"

Lam stares down at his thumb a moment, then sticks the edge of it between his teeth and chews at a loose piece of skin. His nails are bitten down to the quick. Something about his hands, those nails, makes me feel sorry for him. I don't know why. I don't want to feel sorry for him. I want to hate him, and fight with him, but I feel tired, and I just want to get past the fight and make up. I want us to either agree to a divorce or agree to stay together.

"Well?" I say, still waiting for some kind of answer. "Do you love Gren?"

Lam sneers. "You know I don't. She was just—available, if you know what I mean. Come on, Elly, give me some credit."

"Why?"

Lam frowns. "Yeah, why. So, I guess you want a divorce. I guess we're going to give the baby to my parents—or your sister."

"I guess," I say, and my heart stops. "That would make everybody happy—your parents, my parents, my sister."

Lam gets this glint in his eye. "Well, screw them. I'm not trying to make them happy. Screw them. We should just stay married and show 'em."

My heart starts up again. "Yeah, screw them. We could show 'em good. We could act like a real married couple, all lovey-dovey and responsible, and really show 'em. What do they know, anyway?"

"Yeah," Lam says. He starts working at the skin on his other thumb. "You know, I think I really love you, Elly. I haven't wanted to be married. I don't feel ready, but..."

"I love you, too, Lam. I love you, anyway, you crud. You're such a crud." I stand up, and he stands up, and he takes me in his arms and his skin's all cool from being in the lake. It feels so good. He feels so good. My first love. My only love. My husband. "I love you, Lam," I say.

"I love you, too, Elly."

LAM AND I plan to start all over again. I decide to push what happened with Ziggy in the break hut to the back of my mind and really concentrate on being a loving wife.

Lam and I agree to make an effort to be together whenever we can, so now during my break, I head down to the lake, teetering on the rocks and roots along the way, and watch Lam teach the campers swimming. He has the older kids, the ones who already know how to swim, and to tell the truth, he's not the best teacher, but they all love him 'cause he's cool. He struts around like some big important dude, swinging his whistle on a lanyard so it wraps and unwraps around his index finger. He's tall, and tan, and blond, and he's still kind of got a young boy's face instead of a man's, and the girls all seem to like that. Okay, and so do I. All the older girls flirt with him, and they don't care that I'm sitting right there watching them, but then again, they flirt with all the male counselors. Lam takes it all in stride like he knows he's good-1ooking and like the whole point of being down at the lake is to just strut back and forth for all the girls. He's always been like this, but now it kind of bothers me, after what happened with Gren.

On Tuesdays Lam has a bunch of boys to teach during my break time, and he's so totally different with them. He's gruff and makes them do laps endlessly, and he slouches in a deck chair the whole time, twirling his lanyard around his finger. I watch Jen and Gren teach their groups while I'm down there, and I have to admit Jen's a pretty good teacher. She's good because she's very serious, and I think she cares about the kids. It makes all the difference. It makes me wonder, do I care about my kids, the ones I work with, and the ones in my cabin? Or am I just here because I have to be? If I was told I didn't have to be here anymore, would I leave, even though the kids need someone to be in the cabin with them? The answer is, I don't know. I want to care. Maybe I do care, but I think that maybe I care even more about them liking me, and that gets in the way of me really seeing them. I make a note to myself to try to really see them, to pay attention more to who they are.

The ILs have changed everybody's schedule around for the second four weeks of camp, even though most of the kids here sign on for eight weeks, instead of two, or four, like at most camps. I figure their parents want to make sure they can see a difference in their kids' weight by the time they get them back. Already, most kids have lost at least eight pounds, with Josh Billingsgate losing the most at sixteen point four pounds, but he was pretty hefty to begin with, and in the camp rule book it says the more weight you have to lose, the faster it will come off.