Read Online Girls in Trouble by Caroline Leavitt - Free Book Online

sure what she was doing and then Sara dug in her wallet and brought out a crumpled photo and handed it to Eva. It was Sara, in an Indian-print summer dress, standing next to a boy with brown hair, the two of them laughing.
    “It this Danny?” Eva asked and Sara nodded. Eva tried to study the boy’s eyes, to see what he might be capable of, but no matter where she placed the picture, he wasn’t looking at her, but always at Sara, like one of those pictures with the eyes cut out that they always had in horror films. Eva handed the photo back and Sara waved her hand.
    “You keep it,” Sara said. “For the blue box.”
    “The box?”
    “So the baby will know who its father was.”
    “Sara?” Eva said. The air about her seemed to grow lighter.
    “I think you should be my baby’s parents,” Sara said, and wept harder.
    And that had been that. Sara began coming over every day. She helped Eva cook dinner, she played checkers with George. They all talked on the phone every night, they took so many pictures that the blue box began to bulge with them, and although Eva meant to get a scrapbook, she waited, superstitious, she kept filling up the blue box with more and more photos and letters. “After the baby is born, I’ll figure it out,” she told George.
    Although Eva was dying to come, Abby wouldn’t allow Eva to go with them to the doctor’s appointments. Sara gave Eva copies of all her sonograms, pictures Eva pasted into an album and couldn’t help peeking at. Eva learned to read Sara like a barometer, tracking her progress by the glow in her cheeks, the swell and ripple of her belly, even by the new way she was walking. “Tell me what it feels like,” Eva kept asking her.
    One day, Eva was lying on the couch, foot to foot with Sara. George was making dinner that night and Eva could hear him chopping vegetablesand meat for stew, the thwack of the cleaver against the cutting board. “Ugh, 1 feel so bloated,” Sara complained, and Eva rested her hand on her own flat belly. Absently, she stroked it.
    “My parents won’t touch my belly,” Sara said.
    “Can I?” Eva asked, and when Sara nodded, Eva put one hand over Sara’s belly. She felt a sudden snap under her fingers, making her draw back her hand in amazement. “Baby kicked,” Sara said. She took Eva’s hand and put it back on her belly. “You can listen if you want. The baby makes noises.”
    Tentatively, Eva rested her head along Sara’s belly. There it was, that whooshing sound, and she bolted upright. “George!” she called. “George! Come now! Quick!”
    “What’s wrong?” George rushed in.
    Eva grabbed for his hand. “Listen,” she urged.
    Gingerly, he crouched down. He rested his head. “Oh, my God,” he said, delighted.
    Eva put her hand back on Sara’s belly and suddenly Sara’s belly seemed to roll toward her fingers. “Oh!” she said, astonished, lifting her hand, and the roll stopped. “The baby’s communicating with me!”
    “What’s the baby saying?” Sara asked.
    Eva grinned and looked at George. “That it’s never been so happy in its entire life.”
    Oh, but she was the one who was so happy. Every time Sara walked into the room, Eva’s baby was walking into the room, too. But it wasn’t just that. Sometimes it seemed to Eva that Sara was the only one besides herself who was so bonded to the idea of open adoption. The only other one who was really in it together with her. Everyone else got so cautious it made her crazy. As if they couldn’t celebrate with her until it was a done deal! She couldn’t stop talking to George about feeling the baby kick, but she knew her George, she knew he was happy mostly because she was happy, that his big love was her. Even Christine—her best friend!—was hesitant when Eva told her, when she tried to explain how sometimes, eerie as it was, she felt as if she and Sara were connected on a deeper level than anyone could imagine. How amazing it was that they could talk for