Pizza Girl

Dr. Oldman must’ve noticed the sweat. “Hey, now, there’s no reason to be scared.” He patted my shoulder warmly. “This is a happy day. Let’s go take a closer view of this baby.”

He pressed the transducer against my belly and rubbed the gel around. I couldn’t look at the screen, so I closed my eyes and imagined more of what Billy would be saying if he were there—“Doc, are there ways we can make the baby left-handed? Lefties are harder to pitch to”—I didn’t know when I started being able to predict what Billy would say or why, even in my imagination, he annoyed me.

My thoughts were turning poisonous. I wished I had my iPod, something to help keep me steady, my mind a little fuzzy and unfocused. I was so stupid not to bring my iPod. I was about to ask Dr. Oldman if he had a CD player, a boom box—anything that could play music, any kind of music, preferably something heavy on beat, light on lyrics—when his voice cut through the air: “There! Open your eyes, see for yourself.”

The image on the screen was grainy and the baby didn’t look much like a baby, didn’t look like a plum either. I could tell that it had a head and a body and feet, but if I squinted a little, it became nothing, a smudge on a screen.

“Everything looks great. Your baby is healthy, has toes and everything,” Dr. Oldman continued. “Would you like to know the sex?”

“No.” I said it too quickly.

I tried not to squint, kept my eyes wide open, struggled not to blink, stared at this thing—no, this Fully Formed Human Being—growing inside me.

“It’s breathtaking, isn’t it? The creation of life.” Dr. Oldman looked close to tears. “These are the moments that make my job worth it.”

I felt bad for all my bad thoughts about Dr. Oldman, about Billy, about everyone. I wanted to be the type of person that walked with their back straight, the dirt under their fingernails pure. I didn’t want to be a chain saw, I wanted to be a plastic baggie. No shredding, just holding. I wondered what animals lived under the shadows of my bones. I hoped they were animals of nobility—lions and eagles and horses with long manes—and not what I feared—vultures and wolves and drooling hyenas. I spit in a customer’s pizza last week because he called me a bitch over the phone, but maybe he was having a bad day, maybe he spilled coffee on his favorite shirt, stubbed his toe, missed the bus to work, someone close to him died, maybe I really was just being a bitch.

Dr. Oldman rubbed his eyes, cleared his throat. “Sorry, you just remind me a lot of my youngest.”

I thought, This is your chance, this is where you can start, ask him about his daughter, how we’re alike, is her name Appalachian? I knew he wanted me to ask, I could see it in his clear brown eyes. I just smiled weakly. “It’s okay. Really.”

I LEFT THE CLINIC with an armful of pamphlets and a list of prenatal vitamin brands. It was only 10:00 a.m., it felt like it was 2:00 p.m., my sweating was only going to get worse. I threw the pamphlets, the list, and the ultrasound photo into the nearest trash can. I was halfway to my car when I stopped, sighed, ran back, fished out the ultrasound photo, and stuffed it into the front left pocket of my jeans.

The inside of the Festiva was boiling hot, the steering wheel hurt to touch. This was my nineteenth summer in Los Angeles. I should’ve known to park somewhere shaded.

I opened all the car’s doors and paced in circles around it. My shift at Eddie’s wasn’t for over two hours and I had no idea what I was going to do with that time. Everyone I knew was always bitching about how they wanted more free time and I wanted to shove them in their chests, hard, tell them how lucky they were that each of their days contained boring, beautiful structure.

I kept replaying the last thing Dr. Oldman had said to me before I left the office. He’d hugged me tight. “Congratulations on the end of your first trimester. It’s only just beginning.”

He’d said it with both rows of his crooked, yellow teeth showing, said it to excite me. But the words just banged around the inside of my head and made me feel lopsided, like I was dehydrated, even though I had just finished a whole bottle of water.

I blinked hard and then opened the car’s trunk, searched every corner of it. Nothing. I checked the glove box. Nothing. The overhead compartment. Nothing. I was about to give up when I reached under the driver’s seat and felt my fingers brush against glass. I curled them around the body and pulled out a half-full bottle of Evan Williams.

That fucking fuck, I thought. I knew it, I fucking knew he would have a bottle stashed somewhere in here, that fucking asshole.

I took a deep swig and got into the car, turned on the radio, pulled out of the parking lot, and fiddled with the volume, started driving west. West seemed right.

I GOT TIRED OF DRIVING EVENTUALLY, pulled over about a mile from Eddie’s. I still had an hour to kill and I didn’t want to drink any more of Dad’s bottle.

The sidewalks were busy. Unlike me, people were dressed appropriately for summer in tank tops and shorts, their flip-flops smacked pleasantly against the pavement. I reached down and untied the laces on my sneakers, started pacing back and forth along the block.

I stared hard at every person I walked past. If they didn’t tell me my shoes were untied, I cursed them in my head—Fuck you, how dare you not warn a pregnant woman that she could fall—and if they did tell me my shoes were untied, I cursed them in my head—Fuck you, leave me alone, I can do whatever I want.

I SHOWED UP FOR MY SHIFT at Eddie’s soaked in sweat. My uniform polo was a dark green, and loose strands of my hair were plastered to my neck and forehead.

Darryl lowered his magazine and eyed me up and down. “You better clean up before Peter sees you. You know he’s been extra bitch-ass ever since we dropped to a ‘B’ rating.”

I shrugged. Darryl shrugged back. “Whatever,” he said.

He looked back down at his magazine and added, like he’d only just remembered, “Oh, by the way, someone called asking for you. Some woman.”

“A woman?” My head snapped up. “What woman?”

He raised his eyebrows, picked up a scrap of paper, and handed it to me.

I held the paper delicately in my hands, ran my fingers over the words, and repeated them softly under my breath. “Adam loved the pizza. You’re amazing. Come today at 4:30 p.m. Same order. Jenny Hauser.”

“So? What’s all that about?” Darryl asked. “Customers don’t like you, much less use any word close to ‘amazing’ to describe you.”

“I’m likable and amazing, thank you.” I flicked Darryl off as I stuffed the note into my jeans pocket, the same pocket as the ultrasound photo. “Excuse me, I have to pee.”

I went to the bathroom, didn’t pee. I squirted pink, watered-down soap into my hands and scrubbed my face, neck, arms, any sweaty exposed body parts. I combed my hair with my fingers and tucked in my polo, untucked it, tried to look presentable.

4

UNFORTUNATELY, it was a while before 4:30 p.m. and there were other people hungry for pizza.

A nursing home having a bingo birthday party. Two roommates, both accountants at the same firm, who were ditching work and playing Xbox in their underwear. A couple at a bar already drunk and arguing over a bag of Doritos. The lady so large that it was hard for her to get off her couch, who always hollered at me to come in—the door was unlocked, leave the pizza on the couch next to her, money was on top of the TV set. A dude who smiled and tipped well, but was certainly an asshole—no non-asshole has a lime-green Camaro. The guy who worked at the crematorium who once told me, “I like to get high and burn bodies”; he also liked pepperoni, sausage, and onions.

Fortunately, one of my favorite regulars also called in.

Rita Booker and her husband, Louie, gave me hope that it was possible to make it into your thirties with the same person and still be in love.

They’d always answer the door together, wrapped around each other, usually minimally clothed. They barely looked at me as they paid. Rita would ask me how I was doing, how was that man of mine, wasn’t life wonderful?—all while staring directly into Louie’s eyes. Sometimes she would stroke my face and smile at Louie. “Look at this caramel. I hope our future babies are as pretty as she is.”

When they answered the door that day, he was shirtless and in basketball shorts. She was naked underneath one of his button-downs and I could see her nipples through the soft pink material. I handed her their large Buff Bleu Chick and made sure to keep my eyes on hers.

“How’s it going, girl?” Rita smiled at me, was immediately distracted by Louie nibbling on her ear. He gave me a quick grin, a wink. I knew she didn’t need an answer, so I just smiled back. “That’ll be $19.99.”

Louie pulled a wad of bills out of his shorts and handed me a twenty plus a solid tip as Rita fixed her attention on his neck. They laughed and ran their hands over each other’s bodies, searching, mapping, squeezing spots that spoke to them. I normally didn’t break through their haze, just took the money and walked back to my car, but that day I had to know—“How do you guys stay so happy?”

They turned to me and their cheeks had a lovely rosy flush, and if I’d had a camera I would’ve snapped a picture of them right there. Once I got home, I would’ve stared at the photo and pulled out a set of paints, mixed until I got the exact color of their cheeks.

Louie shook the box in his one hand and played with the collar of Rita’s shirt with the other. “Pizza and sex seems to help.”

“Seriously, though,” I said.

“I mean, we’re being pretty serious.” Rita looked at Louie, a stone-melting look. “Like, yeah, pizza and sex is not all it is, but when you’re with someone that you love—like, really love—you work through whatever shit that’s managed to stick to you over the years, and when you want to punch walls, or rip out your hair, or if you feel like if you opened your mouth only screams would come out, you remember those pizza-and-sex days.”

They started kissing with tongue, so I thanked them and wished them all the best.

I CIRCLED AROUND THE BLOCK three times and still got to Jenny’s house early. It was 4:23 and I didn’t want to look overeager. I parked my car a few houses down and put the radio’s volume at 10, 11, 12, back to 11, stared at the clock.

4:24

The song that was on the radio said the word “release,” over and over. The drumbeat was too aggressive and I felt it weirdly in my elbows and knees. I changed the station and focused on making my thoughts unfocused.

4:25

A Christian Rock station. The song wasn’t annoying, wasn’t saying anything like “I love you, God. You are everything, God. God likes his steak rare.” The song was slow and soft, not many lyrics, just a few “Hallelujahs” exhaled here and there.

4:26

Would I ever carry a briefcase? How many times in a row did you have to listen to a song you loved before it became a song you liked hearing every now and then? Is it only called a nervous breakdown if there’s someone there to point at you and be, like, “Yo, get your shit straight, you are nervous and you are breaking down”? The heart of a shrimp is located in its head.

4:28

Dad used to carry a briefcase, even when he was working jobs like graveyard-shift mall security, office janitor, mover—and there was an odd stint when he had a paper route—he’d put his briefcase into the bike’s front basket as he cruised around the neighborhood tossing the L.A. Times into people’s front yards.

The briefcase never had much in it: a sci-fi paperback, a few sheets of paper, pens stolen from dentists’ offices and car dealerships, jelly beans. Dad would put a couple green ones in my hand, my favorite, and say, “You need the briefcase. People don’t take you seriously without the briefcase. How would it look if I was walking around with just a pack of jelly beans in my hand?”

4:30

I got out of the car and hit the lock button twice, started walking toward Jenny’s house.

I ONLY HAD TO KNOCK ONCE before the door swung open and a little boy in dirt-stained clothes answered.

We stared at each other and I tried to think of something to say, but I found quiet children to be strange, unnatural. I would’ve been less alarmed if he’d answered the door hopping up and down, screaming. He just stood there, staring, mouth closed and tight; even his blinks seemed solemn.

We were saved by Jenny sliding into view, nearly falling over. “I forgot how slippery these floors get when you’re wearing socks.” She hugged me, and I was rigid for a moment, shocked by the easy intimacy, and then I leaned into it and breathed deep. “I see you’ve met the most beautiful boy in the world. I swear, he’s not usually this dirty. He just got home from baseball practice.” She ruffled his hair. “This is Adam.”

Adam remained staring. His eyes were the same shade of brown as Jenny’s. “Adam,” Jenny said, “can you thank this nice lady for the pizza? Remember how good it was last week?”

“It was okay,” he said. “Thank you, though.”

My chest twisted at this muted, muttered thank-you. A part of me wanted to shake the kid, change his face, and the other felt achy, bruised, a flash of recognition and fear. I remembered being a quiet little kid, constantly aware and uncomfortable with the ways grown-ups talked to me, how much they seemed to want from me.

Jenny took the pizza and handed me another too-much tip. “So—how’re you doing? You look a little more worn out than the last time I saw you.”

“I’m doing okay,” I said, wondering if my equally bland response would catch Adam’s attention, warm him to me.

“Well,” Jenny said, “if you’re not, there’s a support group that meets every Thursday at eight-thirty p.m. at that little church between the hardware store and the doughnut shop. It’s for expecting moms and current struggling moms. They used to be two separate groups, but they joined them together after funding was cut. The group isn’t bad, and there’s always hot, fresh cookies.”

I almost told her that the church was Catholic and called Holy Name of Jesus, and that the cookies weren’t fresh, just microwaved before the group started. I didn’t want to talk about how I knew that, though, the many afternoons I’d spent there listening to strangers grieve.

She put the pizza down and took my hand in one of hers, Adam’s in the other. We formed a chain. “Please come. I go every week, and some of these women are just nasty. I need a friend.”

I looked at Adam and, I can’t be sure, I thought I saw him nod. Just once, not even a nod, a slight tilt of the head. I knew what it meant—“Go, watch, protect her.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be there.”

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