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Authors: Leslie A. Gordon
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what scared him or even why he liked me. Yet we slept together.
Losing my virginity to Arlen was not at all an act of love. Rather, it was a hormone-driven impulse and, if I was honest, a check-mark on the pre-collegiate to-do list. I imagined the same was true for Arlen, though we never discussed it because we didn’t discuss anything of substance. Our relationship changed little after we started having sex. Everything about us was mechanical, devoid of true connection.
Right after Halloween, I realized that my period was nine days late. I took a pregnancy test in the Walgreens bathroom moments after purchasing it, my knees bobbing up and down as I sat on the toilet, shaking. I wasn’t even sure how it could have happened. A tiny tear in a condom? That one night when he promised he’d pull out in time?
I called Arlen from the pay phone outside Walgreens. First, he cursed and then declared that we’d have to decide whether to get married or give the baby up for adoption. One of the few things I knew about Arlen was that his family was Catholic. Exceedingly Catholic. I hurriedly hung up the phone, terrified.
I stood outside the store for twenty minutes, trembling from nerves and the New England autumn wind. At once terrified and dumbfounded about what to do next, I picked up the phone and dialed Jean.
The ironies of my having an abortion were not lost on me, given my mother’s own history with me. But there was no way I was having that baby. Looking back, I terminated not just that singular pregnancy, but also any reasonable notion that I could ever become a mother.
Two days later, Jean took a day off of work to meet me at a Planned Parenthood two towns over from Egan Academy. Neither one of us told Margot about what was going on. I’d just turned eighteen so I wasn’t required to consult my own parents. At the registration desk, when I started to unroll my wad of emergency twenties that I’d saved from my summer job hostessing at Denny’s, the woman behind the desk waved at me dismissively.
“Don’t worry about it, hon,” she said, glancing knowingly at Jean. “It’s been taken care of.”
Jean held my hand during the procedure, squeezing it in small I’m-with-you pulses. Afterwards, she rubbed my lower back as we ambled out of the clinic, me doubled over with cramps. She drove me back to campus and once we arrived, pulled from the glove compartment a white, oil-soaked bag containing three crumb donuts from Hunter’s, my favorite. She phoned me multiple times over the next few days, always timing the calls when she knew Margot would be in class so that I could speak freely with her. I didn’t say much, though. I mostly just cried quietly — for my poor choices, for my confusion, for my loneliness. She never judged or pitied me.
I never spoke to Arlen again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Moments after the baby had drained the last drops out of the bottle, right about the time the taxi exited the freeway, she fell asleep. The cab driver seemed to calm down too. When we reached my flat in Cole Valley, he not only carried all the baby’s luggage to the top of our front stairs, but he also unclipped the car seat without being asked and accepted my payment in silence so as not to wake her.
When he drove away, I hesitated outside the front door for several moments, taking in my home and the foreign object I was about to introduce into it. I usually saw Sarah’s kids at her house but the few times she’d brought Henry and Lily over to mine, I felt on edge. They weren’t rough or misbehaved kids. (Sarah was too mindful a parent for that.) But they still had that bull-in-a-China-shop quality inherent to young children that made me nervous. Once, when she was about three, Lily yanked on the cord to my iPhone charger, sending my phone to the tile kitchen floor, shattering the screen. At her age, Gretchen wouldn’t — couldn’t — be destructive, I told myself.
At the front door, I hunched down to pick up The
Losing my virginity to Arlen was not at all an act of love. Rather, it was a hormone-driven impulse and, if I was honest, a check-mark on the pre-collegiate to-do list. I imagined the same was true for Arlen, though we never discussed it because we didn’t discuss anything of substance. Our relationship changed little after we started having sex. Everything about us was mechanical, devoid of true connection.
Right after Halloween, I realized that my period was nine days late. I took a pregnancy test in the Walgreens bathroom moments after purchasing it, my knees bobbing up and down as I sat on the toilet, shaking. I wasn’t even sure how it could have happened. A tiny tear in a condom? That one night when he promised he’d pull out in time?
I called Arlen from the pay phone outside Walgreens. First, he cursed and then declared that we’d have to decide whether to get married or give the baby up for adoption. One of the few things I knew about Arlen was that his family was Catholic. Exceedingly Catholic. I hurriedly hung up the phone, terrified.
I stood outside the store for twenty minutes, trembling from nerves and the New England autumn wind. At once terrified and dumbfounded about what to do next, I picked up the phone and dialed Jean.
The ironies of my having an abortion were not lost on me, given my mother’s own history with me. But there was no way I was having that baby. Looking back, I terminated not just that singular pregnancy, but also any reasonable notion that I could ever become a mother.
Two days later, Jean took a day off of work to meet me at a Planned Parenthood two towns over from Egan Academy. Neither one of us told Margot about what was going on. I’d just turned eighteen so I wasn’t required to consult my own parents. At the registration desk, when I started to unroll my wad of emergency twenties that I’d saved from my summer job hostessing at Denny’s, the woman behind the desk waved at me dismissively.
“Don’t worry about it, hon,” she said, glancing knowingly at Jean. “It’s been taken care of.”
Jean held my hand during the procedure, squeezing it in small I’m-with-you pulses. Afterwards, she rubbed my lower back as we ambled out of the clinic, me doubled over with cramps. She drove me back to campus and once we arrived, pulled from the glove compartment a white, oil-soaked bag containing three crumb donuts from Hunter’s, my favorite. She phoned me multiple times over the next few days, always timing the calls when she knew Margot would be in class so that I could speak freely with her. I didn’t say much, though. I mostly just cried quietly — for my poor choices, for my confusion, for my loneliness. She never judged or pitied me.
I never spoke to Arlen again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Moments after the baby had drained the last drops out of the bottle, right about the time the taxi exited the freeway, she fell asleep. The cab driver seemed to calm down too. When we reached my flat in Cole Valley, he not only carried all the baby’s luggage to the top of our front stairs, but he also unclipped the car seat without being asked and accepted my payment in silence so as not to wake her.
When he drove away, I hesitated outside the front door for several moments, taking in my home and the foreign object I was about to introduce into it. I usually saw Sarah’s kids at her house but the few times she’d brought Henry and Lily over to mine, I felt on edge. They weren’t rough or misbehaved kids. (Sarah was too mindful a parent for that.) But they still had that bull-in-a-China-shop quality inherent to young children that made me nervous. Once, when she was about three, Lily yanked on the cord to my iPhone charger, sending my phone to the tile kitchen floor, shattering the screen. At her age, Gretchen wouldn’t — couldn’t — be destructive, I told myself.
At the front door, I hunched down to pick up The
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