Random Acts of Hope (27 page)

“This isn’t just about you, you know,” Joe announced. “This is about the band. What’s good for the band, and all four of us. What’s good for our girlfriends and our futures. And how nobody gets a chance like this. It’s a long series of long shots a
l
l lining up for—”

“—a one-in-a-million to happen,” I said.

“That’s right. In or out?”
Joe
challenged Trevor. Then he looked at me and Sam. “I assume you’re both in?”

Sam nodded eagerly. I was just about to give my answer when my phone rang, informing me I had a voicemail.

Two
of
them, actually.
And both from Charlotte. My internal system lit up like a Christmas tree, brain overcome by the voicemails. Why no text message? No email? Why not call? She was the hangups, I knew, so why voicemail?
 

I couldn’t speak, just held up one finger in a gesture of waiting. With shaking fingers, I dialed my voicemails and entered the code. Was something wrong? Had she gotten hurt? Or did she want to try again?
The first message was dead air. The second one, though...
 

Her voice crackled over the phone while Joe complained in the distance about how sick he was of being interrupted.

“Liam,”
her voice said.
“I couldn’t do this in a regular call, so here goes. I can’t believe I have to say this at all, but I do. I do and I give up! I give up trying to understand how the world works. I know you think that you know the truth but there are a lot of truths in this world. More than anyone can see. And sometimes truths clash. And that’s where we learn the most about ourselves.”
 

She paused. And then she said:

“I’m pregnant.”

Click.

Charlotte

“That was the hardest thing I’ve ever said to anyone,” I groaned as Maggie slid the phone from my hand. “A
n
d the wimpiest.”

“Nope. Brave. Last time you told him live over the phone, he dumped you. I get it.”

“
He’s never going to call me.” An inverted tornado formed in my abs, like the tip was spinning so hard, bands of wind scraping my ribcage and pelvis, making it hard to breathe. Or think.
 

“He’ll call. I think he’ll just show up.”

“He’s
not
sterile.”
That came out fiercer than I’d expected, and for a second the growling sound in my throat put the nausea and horror on hold.
 

“No kidding. In fact, I think he has super sperm. Made it through your being on the pill.”
She looked me over from toe to eyebrows. “And you are a fertile myrtle. You must be related to Michelle Duggar. Some distant cousin thrice removed.”
 

My snicker turned to a roiling, barfy feeling as a quick sweat made my skin clammy.

“He’d better be there for this baby, this time,” she said with a flash of unexpected anger.

“It’s not—he’s not like that, Maggie.”

“Not like what? The kind of guy who dumps you and—”

“I know you’re outraged for me. I get that you think I’m being a pushover. I do. And we see tons of women who rea
l
ly are. In this job we see it all the time. And if you think I’m not constantly reflecting on myself and my own behavior, think again.”

She looked chasti
s
ed. Good. Back off.

“I am fumbling through a dark tunnel with no light source on this one. Not even a weak candle. I need support.
Not a lecture on how he’s an asshole. Which he was. But I’m not sure he
is
. Only time will tell.
”

A wave of sympathy crashed through me at the same time my body manufactured enough hormones to make me puke until my stomach poured out onto the floor. Being told you can’t make babies—ever—at sixteen would be one hell of a blow to anyone. An ego blow for sure to Liam, who had always been a little too macho-cocky for me. Reining him in had been a subtext in our relationship.

T
elling me he wasn’t fertile was the evolutionary equivalent of walking up to the a
l
pha male in a group and showing his belly.

“I have the right to my own feelings and reactions, though,”
Maggie
said gently. I reached for her hand and squeezed, and then a wave of cold flashed ov
e
r my skin, followed by impending d
oom
.

“
O
h, God.”

“Nausea?”

I answered her by sprinting for the bathroom. By my estimate, I was at six weeks exactly, and this was just like my earlier pregnancy. A slow build and then
wham
!
Puke-o-rama.

“It’s a sign of a healthy baby!” she called out.

Blargh
was a
l
l I could say.

“
I’ll make you some ginger tea,” she called out.
 

Blargh.

I barfed my stomach clean empty, then wandered out to my living room, where Maggie was trying to help but was generally ineffective.

My phone rang. We both froze.

“I can’t look!” I confessed.

Maggie grabbed the phone, squinted, then held it out to me. “It’s your mom.”

I took the call. “Hi, Mom!”

“Charlotte? Is that you?” she said in a goofy, fake voice. “This can’t really be Charlotte, can it? Because the Charlotte I know dropped off the face of the earth a few weeks ago and hasn’t talked to her poor, sainted mother in so long she’s forgotten the twenty-hour labor and six weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit she spent with her Charlotte.”

“Guilt does not suit you, Mom. It sounds weird with the British accent.”

“I have a British accent!” Mom gasped. “Oh,
l
ordy! That’s the first I’ve heard of it.” She poured it on nice and thick, making her sound like
Hyacinth Bucket from the British comedy “Keeping Up With Appearances”
.

I couldn’t not laugh.

“Ah, now that’s better! You sounded so down when you answered.” She paused. “Everything good?”

Every pore on my body decided to do the wave, standing tall like a soccer stadium filled with undulating fans. “Yeah,” I said through a new sweat that popped up in seconds. “Fine.”

“I’m calling to invite you home for Thanksgiving.”

“You mean for Ethiopian food and a movie.”

“That’s tradition, isn’t it?”

“That’s your British tradition.” I laughed.

“Do you have British exchange students again this year?” Last year there had been one British study abroad junior named James Leeds who was horrified by the Office for Student Diversity’s “Bring a Student Home for Thanksgiving” campaign.

He said it was near treason. Mom had read an article in the local news and insisted I invite him for our British version of Turkey Day.

She and James
we
re still Facebook friends.

“Bloody Yanks and their traitorous—”

“Now you’re just being silly.”

“Yes, I am.”
S
he laughed. “But I did want to make it clear that I hope you’re coming home.” The smile in her voice was so welcome right now.

You’re going to be a grandma.

The words slammed through me so hard I gasped.

“Charlotte? What’s wrong?”

“I’m actually getting sick, Mom. Might be food poisoning.” Maggie looked at me from across the room and made throat-cutting gestures.
I’m trying
, I mouthed.

“Then get off the phone, for goodness’ sake! I’m so sorry, and I hope you feel better.”

Click.

Pragmatic mothers are great in moments like this.

Moments when you vomit all over your own living room floor.

Liam

Darla watched my face closely. I froze. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t breath
e
.

Couldn’t.

“We making decisions here?” Joe demanded, oblivious to what I was going through.

“
Joe,” Darla whispered. “Hang on.”
 

“Why?”

Slowly, every set of eyes fell on me. Normally I want
ed
to be the center of attention, but right now I wanted to be one of those guys who go into the wilds
of
Siberia and live alone for five years by choice, coming back as a guru and selling shit on NaturalNews.com.

“Bad news?”

“
Impossible
news.”

Sam frowned. “Impossible?”

“Yeah.”

“Liam, hon, you need to sit,” Darla coaxed, guiding me with her hands. My ass plopped down on the springy sofa with a finality that made the room spin.

“She did it again.”

“Did what?” Darla asked.

“Cheated
on me
.”

“Huh?”
Sam made a strange raspy noise.
 

Amy’s hand flew to her mouth. “Charlotte’s pregnant
again
?”

I
just blinked. My stupid eyes. In the rush of my life imploding I’d forgotten to clean my contacts. My eyes were drier than Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents’ dinner.
 

I expected Sam to start blustering
a
bout it all, like he usually did, but everyone just looked like they’d rather be getting colonoscopies than
be
in the r
o
om wit
h
me.

“I think you need to get tested,” Amy and Darla said in unison. Like they planned it. But they didn’t.

“
For what? I’m clean. I don’t have any STDs.”
 

“Not
that
kind of test.” Darla shook her wrist up and down. “
The kind that involves a cup, and I don’t mean Two Girls, One Cup.”
 

“
Sperm test? No way.
I can’t be the father.”

“You used birth control, right?”

“
We…well, the…sort of.”
 

“There is no ‘sort of’ when it comes to birth control. Do or do not. There is no try.”
Darla’s eyes were wide with skepticism and authority.
 

“You’re quoting Yoda at me after Charlotte tells me she’s preg
n
ant with a baby that can’t be mine. For the second time in five years.”

“The fact that it’s weird doesn’t make it any less true.”

“I can’t be fertile. I can’t. My swimmers are dead,”
I insisted. And yet already something in me was unraveling, because lightning doesn’t strike in the same place twice.
 

Does it?

Long shots aren’t supposed to be repeatable. That’s w
h
y they’re long shots.

“
Y
ou keep saying that.
G
o jerk off in a cup. Get the damn test,”
Darla said.
 

“What if…”

“What if?”

“What if the test comes back and just confirms what I already know? That’s a lot of money that I don’t have right now.”

“What happened to your Eden money?”
Sam asked.
 

“Gone.”

“What?” W
e
’d each earned $10,000 for a performance last year.

“Dude, it was, like, $6000 after taxes and I need to eat. And drive. And pay rent and shit.”

“Go to your dad and get the cash. Or your mom.”
Sam’s advice was nice and all, but he didn’t understand. None of them did.
 

“And explain what? ‘Hi, Mom, I need to go to the same doctor who confirmed I’m shooting blanks because I
didn’t
get Charlotte pregnant again’?
That would—
”

“When you say ‘sorta used b
i
rth control,’ what do you mean?”
Darla interrupted.
 

“Condom broke.”

Every man in the room jumped a little and flinched. “That
can
really
happen
?
I thought it was an urban legend,
”
Sam choked.
 

“When you’ve got a big cock, it stretches, and—”

A pillow smacked me across the face. “Cut it out,” Sam said. “Seriously? Condoms break? I thought that was a myth.”

“Nope. It broke and Charlotte freaked and—holy fucking shit,” I groaned, holding my head in my hands. “This is all my fault. No, it’s not! It’s can’t be!”

“He’s losing it,”
Darla shouted to no one in particular.
 

“What is it, Liam?” Amy asked.

“When the condom broke, Charlotte panicked and insisted I take her to a
drug store
or whatever or to go home and get her Plan B. Some sort of pill you take—”

“In case the condom breaks,” Darla and Amy said in unison.

“I swear you two were separated at birth,” I muttered.

“So you did!” Darla said with relief.

“Uh, no.”

“Why not?”
She and Amy were in stereo. Bose should snap them up for their research labs.
 

“Because that’s when I told her I was sterile.”

Again, all the eyes lasered on me. “You told Charlotte for the first time ever about your sterility when you were in bed, finished having sex and you slid the broken condom out of her?”
Amy asked in a high, disapproving voice.
 

S
he sounded like my mother.

“When you put it that way it sound
s
so…”

“Vulgar!”

“Stupid!”

“Badass!”

“Day-um!”

All of them surrounded me with so many interjections and judgments about me that I shot to m
y
feet, ready to bolt.

“Ok
ay
, okay, I don’t need to hear this shit. I get it. I fucked up, bad.”

“She didn’t take Plan B because you told her she didn’t have to,” Amy said. The simplicity of her words made my teeth ache.

“Yes.”

“
A
nd now she’s pregnant,”
Darla added.
 

“But it can’t be mine!”

“Liam,” Amy said softly, crouching down and looking up at me, forcing eye contact. “You’re in some sort of crazy denial. You can be really arrogant and cocky and think your way is always the best, but on this one you’re wrong.”

“I can’t be, I just…”

“Why not?”

“Because then what have I done?” I shouted,
the sound growing into a low moan of pain
. “If it turns out the doctors were wrong, my Mom and Dad were wrong, and somehow I defied science and my swimmers came back, then I spent more than seven years living a lie!”