The Paper Palace(49)

“There’s no such thing as bad at geography. There’s only lazy.”

“That’s not true,” Conrad says, his voice cracking.

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“No, I—”

Leo spies me as I’m sneaking past. “Ask Eleanor to tutor you. She got straight As this semester. Eleanor, come in here.”

I stop, but don’t come in.

“I don’t need her help,” Conrad says. “I can do better, I promise.”

“Your sister does well because she has gumption. She works hard and respects our expectations.”

“I’m just good at memorizing things.”

“She’s not my sister,” Conrad says. When he looks at me, there is venom in his eyes.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I say.

“Leo?” My mother calls out to him from somewhere in the bowels of the apartment. “Can I make you a drink?”



* * *



—

My eyes are closed, but I can feel Conrad’s damp breath. He leans his face close to mine, looking for signs of life. I keep my breathing even, slow. He leans in closer now and strokes my hair. I stir; pretend to be on the verge of waking. He pulls his hand away and steps back into the shadows, waits to see if I will move again. I turn over onto my side and re-settle. It’s enough to unnerve him. As he is about to go, he says something, so softly I can barely hear him. But I do. “One of these days I’m gonna put it in you for real,” he whispers. “I’m gonna get you pregnant. And then who will they think is the perfect child?”

Vomit rises in my throat, but I keep it down. Don’t move a muscle.





April


The clinic is packed with women. Older women, young pregnant women. Three Puerto Rican girls sit opposite me. “Yo, mamacita,” one of them taunts. “You got a man friend?” and the others laugh. I stare at the orange plastic seat of my chair.

Outside, snow is falling, killing off the first of the cherry blossoms. My hiking boots are soaked through. On the walk from the subway to the free clinic, through the blooming snowdrifts, I almost lost my nerve. But I’m here now, waiting for my pink ticket number to be called, as if I’m at a Baskin-Robbins.

The nurse calls us in five at a time. I hand her the signed letter I’ve forged on my mother’s stationery, giving me permission to get birth control, since I am only fifteen. She barely glances at it before tossing it on top of a pile of what are probably similar letters. I am taken to a curtained-off area with the Puerto Rican girls and a pregnant woman. A counselor talks to us about the risks of birth control, the option of adoption, and then gives each of us a pregnancy test to take. The pregnant woman protests that this is a waste of a test, but the nurse explains that it’s part of the protocol. The three girls eye-fuck me the entire time. “What’s the matter, blondie? Daddy won’t pay for a real doctor?” I take my test into the bathroom and pee on the strip.

My mother thinks I am spending the day with Becky, going to see Victor/Victoria. She even gave me money for popcorn and a soda. I want to tell her the truth, beg her to save me, but I can’t do that to her. It would break her heart, destroy her marriage. She’s so happy with Leo, and I am stronger than she is—strong enough to carry this. It is my responsibility. I was nice to Conrad, I let him in the door. “It’s your funeral,” Anna had said that poison ivy night. And she was right. Now everywhere I go, I’m trapped by the weight of his body, his moist breath, his smelly hands, his hideous fleshy parts.



* * *



—

We are ushered from the information session to a changing room and given paper dresses. “Take everything off, leave on your shoes,” the nurse tells us. There is a line of women in thin paper dresses and heavy snow boots sitting on a long bench waiting their turn. It is two hours before my name is called, and the nurse brings me into an exam room.

The doctor has a mask over his mouth. I never see his face, just his distracted eyes.

“Please ask the patient to get on the table and put her feet in the stirrups,” he says to the nurse.

“I just need a prescription for birth control pills,” I say.

He turns to the nurse. “Did you explain that she cannot get medicine prescribed until we examine her?”

The nurse nods and gives me an impatient glare. “Of course, Doctor. She signed the forms.”

When I climb up onto the table, I feel my dress tear. How will I get back to the changing room without exposing myself? I lie back and let the nurse place my wet boots into the metal stirrups. It is hot in the room, but I can’t stop shivering.

There’s a knock on the door.

“Come,” the doctor calls out.

A young Asian man in a white coat enters the room.

“We have a medical student here from Kyoto studying our birth control methods. You don’t mind if he observes?” the doctor says. He beckons the man over to the end of the table, ignoring the look of horror in my eyes. Hands him a mask.

The man gives me a formal bow, arms tight by his side, before putting his head between my legs and looking at my vagina.

“Interesting,” he says. “The hymen is still intact.”

“Yes,” the doctor says. “This will feel cold.”