Open House(21)
“Well, what was she like?” Haley pressed.
“You knew what she was like better than anyone,” Dean said, and Haley could tell he was trying not to sound exasperated.
“But how did she come off to other people?” she asked, unable to stop herself from trying. Just a morsel about Emma—that’s all she needed.
Dean was quiet again for a moment. Then he said, “She just seemed artistic, I guess, something about her. The way she dressed, and how she carried herself.”
He was right. Haley pressed her body closer to Dean, wanting to feel her skin and drown out her mind. Dean didn’t say anything; he just squeezed with the exact amount of bear hug she craved. It was in moments like these that she understood how much she wanted him and all that entailed: a life lived together instead of an existence spent in limbo; a future instead of a past; and a quiet, peaceful respite from the ever-present thoughts of her gone sister.
TWELVE
Emma
Ten years ago
I’m in the bathroom stall—which smells like sugar cookies because I shoved Haley’s care package in my bag—and my hands are shaking around the pregnancy stick. These are the kind of juxtapositions of college that make me so crazy. I’ll do something like sleep with Noah, who isn’t even technically my boyfriend, and then call my parents and have a totally normal conversation about something mundane, like the art project I have due. Or I’ll drink too much and write an email to my grandpa, remembering some long-ago way he showed Haley and me kindness. Or like in this case, when I’m inhaling the homey smell of my sister’s cookies while I take a pregnancy test. How messed up am I?
I already peed on the thing, and now I’m waiting for the words to pop up in the little window. It’s taking forever. If I’m pregnant, the baby’s definitely Noah’s, because like I said, I know my cycle. I slept with someone else on the sixth day of my cycle, right after my period ended. I remember that, because I remember being worried that my period wasn’t totally over, and I didn’t want it to get on his sheets, because he was weird about stuff like that, which made no sense given his profession. Anyway, I didn’t get my period on his sheets. And I almost broke things off that night, because stuff had been getting strained between us, but I didn’t. Obviously I will now, even if this test says I’m not pregnant. Noah’s the one I want—he’s the one I’ve always wanted.
Obviously I wish Josie wasn’t so annoyed by Noah and me getting serious, but she’ll get over it. Plus she’s seeing this other guy who’s literally tall, dark, and handsome. He seems like more of a Goody Two-shoes than most guys she’s attracted to, but I think in the end that would be good for her.
God. Why is this thing taking so long? I adjust my butt on the toilet seat. I guess I could pull up my pajama pants, but I’m not sure I can do that without jostling the pregnancy test around, and I think you’re supposed to keep it level.
Creak goes the door to the girls’ room, and I jump. Can someone see through the cracks in the stall doors? Is it Josie?
Footsteps pad across the tile, and my heart races. The sound of water whooshes in the shower stall. It can’t be Josie—she would have said something; she would have tried to figure out if I was in here. Steam billows over the top of the shower toward my stall. Our shared bathroom areas are so small, and they get way too steamy if someone blasts the water on full heat. Now I’m sweating as I use my fingertip to wipe the window of the test, praying it won’t steam over. But there isn’t time for that to matter, not anymore, because the single word stares up at me, declaring my fate.
Pregnant.
My heart thuds like crazy against my chest. I knew it—or at least, I sort of did. I pull my pants up with shaking hands. I go to throw away the test in the tiny garbage can, but there’s no trash in it yet, and everyone will see it. Ugh. I shove it in my pocket—I just need to get out of here. I push through the door to the bathroom and go looking for Josie.
THIRTEEN
Priya
Priya crossed the kitchen to unearth her phone from where she’d hidden it inside her handbag. There weren’t any other messages from Josie, and as Priya locked the phone she thought of how funny it was that her husband, of all people, didn’t have a password-protected phone, other than the one he used for work. Brad was careful in many ways, particularly with Priya, mostly treating her like a glass figurine that could go off kilter and shatter. But as careful as he was with Priya’s moods, he wasn’t particularly careful with his personal phone. It was where she’d seen the text from the woman he’d had an affair with three years ago. The woman had included a smiley-faced emoticon below her naked body, and it had taken Priya a while to realize who the woman actually was. She felt shocked all over again when she realized she knew her. The woman looked so different naked, and plus, Priya had felt so icky staring at the sexy photo that she kept having to look away. She’d finally poured herself a glass of wine to calm her nerves, as though she were settling in to watch a TV show instead of study photos of her husband’s lover, but Elliot was in bed, and she had at least an hour alone to go through Brad’s texts before he returned from the hospital. So, armed with a glass of rosé—which felt far too cheery for the circumstances, but it was all she had—she inspected the evidence. The woman had taken a photo of herself kneeling on bedsheets in that cliché pose of legs spread slightly apart, with a hand between them, and breasts caught in what seemed like midbounce. (Or maybe that was just what breasts that hadn’t spent two years breastfeeding looked like. Were Priya’s once that high?) The thing about the woman’s pose was that it was the kind of thing you could only do early on in a relationship. Priya was pretty sure Brad would think she was insane if she did something like that.