Pregnant Without a Cause

Part IV, Chapter Twelve, Episode 37

(1120 words)

 ONE AFTERNOON

Michelle sat in the murky quiet of the editing room and stared at the image of herself, her lips inches from amicrophone.

"Once more." The sound editor raised a finger. "Ready?"

It was only the soundman, his assistant, and Michelle, late in the afternoon in the production suite at Sixteenth Street. She was looping her dialogue for scenes that Jock wanted for the keeper reel, whatever that was. Watching herself on a screen, and then saying what she said in the scene, to make sure the dialogue came through clearly. It didn't have to be perfect, because all the sounds went into a digital library. Or so she understood. More or less.

The sound editor was a new member of the crew, a painfully sincere and empathetic young man with a thin beard and thick eyebrows. Jock had gone off somewhere in a rush. The longer the show went on, the more he seemed to begoing everywhere in a rush.

Michelle nodded at the sound guy. On the cue, she said, "Do we have to go tonight?" in a whiny voice. The scene on the film was from two days before Halloween, when Edouard's PETA chapter held their Hallowegan party, whichMichelle wasn't crazy about, but ended up going to anyway. As she spoke the line, her image on the screen said the same thing. She had done the same line six times or so, as exactly the same as she could make them.

"Good job." The sound editor twinkled with mellow humor. "Now you can take a break. But hurry back."

She turned and walked outside, leaving her frozen face on the screen of the monitor, a perfect statement of her divided self. All weekend Michelle had told herself she would quit the show. Because it was wrong, because it was leading Callie astray, because the stress of leading a double life just led to bad decisions and inappropriate outbursts. Because every time she turned on a television, there was some middle-aged moron making an irredeemable fool of herself on a reality show.

Yet here she was, on Monday afternoon, having to call her daughter and tell her she would be late for dinner, again, instead of where she wanted to be, at home with Callie and Booms. She was just afraid to decide. So Callie could heat up the eggplant parmesan from the fridge. At three hundred and fifty degrees—or maybe four hundred—it was pretty massive.

The tree-shaded patio of the office park was probably once a haven for smokers. Now you came here to make personal phone calls. Before she could dial, the phone chimed in Michelle's hand. Seeing CARING ADOPTION on the caller ID frightened and angered her. This could only be a complication in her already twisted life.

She sat on the rough, pebbly concrete edge of a planter full of bushes. Taking a breath of strength, she punched the call up and said hello.

"Hi there, this is Marie Montt from—"

"Yes. You're probably wondering what happened to me?"

"I last spoke to you, what, six weeks ago? You said your due date was around October first? Did everything go all right?"

"Yes, everything was great. But I've made a definite decision not to go with adoption."

"So you'll be keeping the child?"

Michelle made an effort to cool her annoyance. "Yes."

"Boy, I wish I'd known that." The lady's tone carried hints of enticement mixed with disapproval. "We've got a wonderful couple interested. Do you have adequate means of support now? I remember, before, income and health insurance were issues for you."

Those words struck a deep chord within Michelle, roiling up intense sorrow and fear. Suddenly she was reliving her dilemma about giving up the baby for adoption. Back when he was the baby but not yet Boomer. "My decision is final." A sharp thorn from a bush behind her poked Michelle in the back and she jumped. "I have a job, and everything necessary."

"What does Gerald's father say about all this?" The woman's voice was sweet poison. "Nothing." Michelle rubbedher back but couldn't reach the sting. "He's not involved and I make no claim."

"But does he make a claim? Has he been informed?"

"Of course!" But of course that wasn't true. Michelle remained confident no one would find the man. Unless he knocked on her door some cold, dark night.

But he wouldn't do that. He couldn't.

"Good," said Marie. "Are you willing to provide his name?" 

"He couldn't. I mean I couldn't."

"Sure," said the adoption lady. "I don't want you to do anything you're not comfortable doing. Is the baby in daycare already? Cuz you said you were working."

Michelle remembered the woman's sweetie pie expression, and cute name, Marie Montt. But she hadn't seen the bulldozer single-mindedness. "His care is excellent. I have to go..."

"Working late again?"

Michelle snapped off her phone. If there were six ways to make her feel like an inadequate, neglectful parent, and even a criminal, Marie the adoption lady had touched them all.

And they all touched on why she was here today working. After the fiasco at the baby shower, Michelle had told Callie, and Edouard, and even Boomer Sr. that she would quit the show. But last night, playing pickup sticks in her head instead of sleeping, she had realized that even though she had saved a lot of her Fat Chance per diems, it would be difficult to last through the end of the year, even throwing in Callie's child support. So she had come in today, uncertain of what would come after that.

This call only confirmed that she was in trouble either way. If someone—be it an adoption agency, the state, county, Fat Chance, or whoever—found out about them calling Callie the mother, it seemed like Michelle's unfitness would be an open and shut case. But if she lost her income, it was shut and lock. Where would she find a job in the middle of a depression? She had searched newspapers and websites for months, and it was sickening how little she was qualified to do. Her only work experience since college—apart from a few weeks work on the census this summer— was the two years in customer service at Parcel Express which had begun when Craig moved out, and ended in the post-Christmas layoff last December. That fateful December.

Or she could keep the job she had—job in quotes—as a trained chimp on reality television—reality in quotes. But she knew that now that Jock had zeroed in on Callie the teen mother, he was going to want to show that part of their lives, exposing her and her daughter to ridicule and shame for a lie that would probably be found out, leading to even more ridicule and shame. Michelle did not think she could take that. And she was sure Callie couldn't.