Pregnant Without a Cause

Chapter Nine, Episode 27

1170 words

Callie couldn't believe how it all came together that night. At nine o'clock, the baby shower was dead. Then it was suddenly rebooted, and Callie banged out the word on the PC in the kitchen.

Callie/shower list 9:35 pm: I just found out my mom is working sat. morning!!! The show called her. So it's official. We go go.

FionaCl 9:38 pm: you sure we can trust these guys?

Callie 9:40 pm: They're cool. Here's how it went. Ronette dared me, and I went across the street where these single guys are roommates. The place is chill enuf. John and Aaron are very cool about us coming over Saturday with friends. We told them twelve of us. I just hope she'll be gone long enough.

Callie would have preferred almost anywhere else than the home of these beer-swilling bullet heads. That's how she thought of them, but maybe it was only a prejudice because they dressed like slobs and shaved their heads and worked as bouncers or limo drivers. After all, they had been in the house more than a year, and hardly a peep out ofthem.

Ronette 9:40 pm: Yeah they are nice guys. They said we just have to ignore the other roommate Charlie or something. No booze and clean up when you go.

Misss Krissstal 9:44 pm: We can be out of there in two hrs.

Ronette 9:51 pm: boys coming?

FionaCl 9:55 pm: You couldn't drag them to a baby shower.

Callie 10:01 pm: Bimboys are banned.

FionaCl 10:01 pm: I'll bring cake. We need other food.

Callie 10:02 pm: I've lost 15 pounds and I'm ready for a fluffy cake and some nachos.

***

As soon as David and Julie walked into her house, Julie's mom insisted that any other hopes and dreams had to wait until Julie made her bed and cleaned her room.

So David leaned against the door frame, keeping company. He hadn't been in this room before, and quickly checked it out. Obviously the Cabbage Patch Kids bedspread was supposed to be ironic. And the exotic mixture of scents—incense, perfume, cinnamon oil—was intended to be sensual. Or sensuous, whichever it was. And that the unmade bed and clothes on the floor were acts of rebellion.

"Yes, let the bed be made for four hours," Julie grumbled. "That's very important. Bourgeoise suburban values."

David was neutral on the values issue. "So this Fiona comes out of nowhere and asks me to come to this thing for Callie. Shower thing."

"Why you?" Having finished the bed, Julie bent and plucked up the clothes that grew like pastel mushrooms on the bedroom floor, swooping like a ballerina, her blonde hair swishing prettily.

David ran his fingers along the doorjamb. "Because she wants a couple of boys there for security."

"Okay, that's a first." Julie's blue eyes darted to him as she tossed handfuls into the hamper. "But why you?"

David really didn't know. He did have a life and friends away from Julie. At least he used to. "I don't know. I said okay. I said we'd pick her up."

Julie frowned. "I'm not going." 

"Why not?"

"Cuz no one asked me, I don't know where it is, and I don't really know Callie that well. So why should I? And buy a present, too? Plus, there's going to be alcohol there." Julie sat cross-legged in the middle of the twin bed, rumpling the covers again. "If I'm going to get busted, it's going to be for something more fun than that."

"Really?" David had his doubts about the alky, at ten in the morning or whatever. Julie nodded. "Yeah." She shot him an impatient face. "You're doing it again."

David dropped the hand that had been twirling his black diamond ear stud. For some reason that ear thing really bothered her. "I don't want to go alone. I mean, what happens at these things?"

"Oh, they are soaked in feminine fun." She laughed, but not in a charming way. "Don't worry, you'll have a great time."

"I kind of doubt that. I look at it like going to a StuGo meeting. Or a charity car wash." David quickly measured his feelings for this girl versus how good it felt to tell the truth to someone who did not necessarily want to hear it. It came out about a draw. "Maybe you don't want to go because you don't like her."

Julie raised her hands, and the pitch of her voice. "I haven't said a word against her. I do like her. I've read her blog, and she seems very open and honest. You can't ask more than that. I've talked to her more in the last two months than ever."

"Bu-u-u-u-ut..." David coaxed.

"Yeah, okay! It's wrong to have sex at our age and wronger to let yourself get pregnant."

"Hey, I'm with you. When the father is a rumor and not a father, that's pretty bad. It'd be better if there was no father."

"Who, Art in heaven?" She smiled coolly. 

"But I already told her I'd go."

"So go."

"But it's just going to be girls there. You know, I don't want to be the bull in the china cabinet."

"Bull in a china shop. So don't go." Julie crooked her hands for him to come closer, and David somewhat reluctantly left the door frame and sat on the bed. Her arms snaked from behind around his shoulders. "Come spend the time with me."

"Maybe Mike will go with me." David couldn't say it to Julie, of course, but Callie Scharf was interesting. He remembered noticing her the first week of freshman year, a cute chick who didn't go to his junior high. She had given him a big, friendly smile the first time he saw her, and ever since. She had gained some weight, but never lost that smile. And then this whole thing, having a baby, out of nowhere it seemed. How did that happen? Yeah, she was interesting. Not irresistibly attractive or anything, but worth investigating.

"David." Julie laid her hand on his. He had been cracking his knuckles again. That really bugged her. He gave his left ring and little finger one more pop, to balance things.

"Fiona Whatsername said Zam is not the father." He spoke over his shoulder at Julie. He hoped her mom didn't walk by the bedroom and see her daughter draped over him like this.

"I heard he was." Her fingernail flicked his shirt button. "I think Callie blogged something that was supposed to be in code or something. Or a hint."

"That seems weird. I think what she's saying, Fiona is, is that at this thing Callie's going to say who the father is, and it's not Zam. Maybe Kilpatrick will go with me. But there's only one thing."

"What?"

"Will you buy the present for me? I'll give you twenty bucks." 

She jabbed him in the kidney."Kiss my ass."

"Sure." He twisted around and grabbed her. "Roll over."