Monday morning came too soon for Midge Ferguson. It had been a weekend of heaviness during which she hadn’t heard from Nick at all. She’d never cried so much in her life, or spent so much intense time with her parents—mostly at their initiative. She felt exhausted as she rolled out of bed. But tired as she was, and apprehensive as she was at the prospect of the unsavory truth doubtlessly soon to be spread around campus (if it wasn’t being spread already), Midge was resolute.
“I’m not going to run from the truth. And I’m going to be responsible,” she said to herself. She took a couple of deep breaths and gulped down some water, remembering aspects of the weekend’s conversation between herself and her dad and mom. She whispered, almost defiantly, “It’s OK. All is well.” She said it again in the shower and, amazingly, her spirits rose and for just an instant she felt very mature, enjoying the fleeting moment. On the heels of this buoyancy came another thought—a dismal one. “You have no right to feel good about being pregnant. You’ve altered your future, probably irreparably, and you’ve hurt your parents and altered their lives as well. It’s not fair for you to enjoy something at someone else’s expense.”
Midge put on her makeup and thought of her wardrobe, ruefully. Rueful thoughts were in order, anyway, she decided. “How long will these fit? Until school’s out? I wonder if I can still get a job this summer.” She grabbed a blue sweater and jeans and whisked them on.
Now her thoughts wandered to Nick. “What’s he doing right now? I know what’s on his mind.” She grimaced. “He’s worried. His whole family’s worried. They don’t know what I’m going to do. Well, they’ll find out soon enough. I just hope I can stay cool when I talk to him today.” She bent over her jewelry box and pulled out a pair of blue hoops she’d bought with the sweater. “Hi, Nick,” she imagined herself saying. “How’s it going?”
After breakfast, as she headed for school, Midge kept saying, “It’s OK!” in a low whisper. Finally, about two blocks from campus, she smiled, pleased with herself. She nodded to some casual friends and headed toward the main entrance, half hoping to see Nick and half not wanting to. There he was, hanging out on the top step.
“Hey.” His greeting was cool. Midge hadn’t counted on this, despite the anger she’d harbored toward him in the last couple of days.
“Hey. How’s it going?” Midge didn’t try to hide the icy edge to her response.
“Not bad.” Nick fell into step with her. “Did you talk to your parents?”
“Yes, I did, Nick. And I’m not going to abort the baby. I don’t know much more than that.”
Nick, to his credit, bit his tongue and was silent for a moment. “Were they mad?” he finally asked.
“No, they really weren’t.”
“Really!” Nick exclaimed.
“Yep,” Midge avoided looking at him. “They were sad, but they weren’t angry.” Midge stopped at her locker, put down her backpack, and looked at Nick finally. “I’ll see you later.”
“Uh…sure. Later.” He backed away, giving her a carefree hand raise, but not looking at her. Then he turned around and disappeared into the crowded hall.
Midge turned back to her locker and blinked back the tears in her eyes. “Loser,” she muttered. Then she sighed and grabbed a tissue from the locker shelf. “I don’t want to cry. I can’t cry! Everything’s going to be all right. All is well! All is well. All is well.” She kept saying the words over and over, and the rhythm of them had a sedating effect on her emotion—so much so, that no one was aware there was anything troubling Midge Ferguson as she entered class and walked to the third seat next to the window.
“At least we’re not reading The Scarlet Letter,” she thought to herself as she sat down. A wry smile started to spread across her face, but a pensive resignation held it in check as she closed off the subject of her personal nightmare. She’d experienced a hurricane of emotions this weekend, and it was time to let her mind slow down and relax. Mr. Connell was her favorite teacher, and she set her gaze on him, ready to concentrate on today’s lecture. It would be a welcome change for a fifteen-year-old prospective author.
……….
Carla Chadwell’s life was satisfying enough. She was indeed the efficient secretary she had diligently tried to be, and her utilitarian worth had not gone unnoticed. With her promotion to executive assistant came a substantial salary increase. The Christmas shopping incident proved to be an aberration in the employer/employee relationship. While Mr. Garman continued to open the door for Carla without exception, even when it was out of his way to do so, he was properly aloof, albeit polite. When her mother asked Carla whether her boss was a good man to work for, Carla responded without hesitation. “He’s very reserved, but he’s a kind person.”
The real warmth of the new year, for Carla, was generated by Sig Thursten. She had agreed to attend TNC with him on Thursdays. In addition, they were seeing each other two or three other times a week, and their time together was the focus of each of their lives. Sig’s work was going well, and it was fun for Carla to spend time with this man. His confidence wrapped around Carla in a way that made her feel viably adult. Whereas she had subconsciously thought of her life as a product of all her childhood experience and of herself as part of the Chadwell family from Plainview, she now began to view her life from a new perspective. She was truly becoming her own person and, despite the short time she’d known him, she found herself moving closer in her mind to the role of wife and away from the role of daughter and sister. She found herself fantasizing about being married to Sig, with all the little joys of domestic bliss, fairy-tale as they might be: working at a sunny kitchen window, serving a candle-lit dinner to Sig, nestling a sleeping baby, driving as a family to visit relatives. Always there in her daydreams was Sig’s face, clearly expressing pride and love for his wife and children. Carla knew she wouldn’t let him down, this man she was so attracted to.
One night late in January, Sig told Carla he had a surprise evening planned for Valentine’s Friday. He had learned of a new restaurant where the food was supposedly wonderful and the atmosphere especially romantic. He told Carla it was “upscale” and some distance from Rock Pier, so he wanted to pick her up around 3:30. That way they wouldn’t have to rush through dinner.
Carla went shopping the following Saturday and found a chic-looking dress, mostly black with an impressionistic design that captured the green of Carla’s eyes. It had tiny straps, and Carla at first thought she couldn’t wear it because she’d probably freeze in the restaurant with Sig. Then she remembered a shrug she’d seen in another store and bought the dress on the chance that she could still find the sweater and that it would match the dress.
She found the shrug. She tried it on with the dress and was checking how it looked in front of the full-length mirror at the end of the dressing room corridor, when the sales clerk walked in on her and involuntarily gasped.
“That’s beautiful!” she exclaimed in obvious sincerity. “Where’d you get that dress?”
Carla smiled and told her, and at that point decided she had a winner. She promptly bought the sweater. As she walked out the door, she turned right, to head for her car, her eyes on her purse as she tucked away her receipt.
“Carla?” It was the unmistakable voice of Marc Garman. She threw up her head, startled, and looked into the face of her employer. Patrice was beside him, wearing a short sweater jacket. She looked as classy as she had at the party.
“Oh, hello, sir. Hello, Miss…” Carla fumbled for Patrice’s last name, but Mr. Garman came to her rescue affably.
“Hamlin.”
The young woman smiled. Carla felt she was the recipient of just a hint of asperity, which she chose to overlook, recognizing that Patrice was forced into this greeting because Carla was Mr. Garman’s secretary. Mr. Garman, however, added in a tone that could have been perceived as almost chiding towards Patrice, “Patrice Hamlin.” Then, smiling broadly in a manner not often seen at work, he said, “It must be the day for Transton people to shop. We just ran into Rita Helgessen by Smythe’s, and Nancy and her friend are at Corner’s.”
“Oh, really? I’ll have to go say hi to them.”
“We just came from the jewelry store to pick up Patrice’s new ring. We had to have it resized.” Mr. Garman kept the conversation alive as he lifted Patrice’s left hand. “It’s pretty, isn’t it?” There was the emerald, looking beautiful on a well-manicured, shapely hand.
“Wow! That’s a gorgeous ring.” Carla’s admiration was sincere.
“Isn’t it?” Patrice glanced at Mr. Garman as she spoke. “He surprised me with it.”
Carla smiled enigmatically. “That’s the best way.” She wondered if Patrice knew her role in helping select it. At the same time she felt a tinge of sympathy for her boss, certain that he would have liked to have called it an engagement ring. Feeling shy and uncomfortable, she looked at her watch. “Well, I think I’ll go check up on Nancy. Hope you have a nice day.”
“Oh, we will,” Patrice answered, tucking her arm inside Mr. Garman’s and taking a step forward.
“Nice to see you,” Mr. Garman said, ending the conversation.
As Carla walked down to Corner’s, her thoughts were on her boss. She could tell from his manner that he genuinely appreciated her, and it gave her a heady feeling that put a spring in her step. But there was a cloudy feeling, too. Somehow she felt Patrice was not committed to Mr. Garman in the same way he was to her. Carla had nothing to substantiate this idea, but she couldn’t seem to shake it, and she felt a heaviness that was a bit disconcerting.
……….
The following Monday, Marc was already in his office when Carla arrived. She hung up her jacket and took out her to-do list from Friday. At the top was a note to ask Mr. Garman’s permission to leave work early on Valentine’s Friday. She decided she’d ask him when she brought his letters in for him to sign. She looked at the clock and determined to try to have them all typed and ready by mid-morning just before break.
Halfway through the first letter, Nancy stuck her head in the doorway. “Hi, Carla! How was your weekend—I mean, after we saw you at Corner’s?”
Carla smiled. “It was great. Sig and I went to see “Charleston.” It wasn’t as good as we’d heard it would be, but we had a good time anyway. Sig was in such a good mood we laughed our way through dinner before we went. How about you guys?”
“Ah, it’s always wonderful being with your brother. We didn’t do much—just had a lazy day with Bud and Pearl, playing Mexican Train and Monopoly. Bud loves playing Monopoly. Pearl says he always wins—and he won, so maybe it’s true.” She laughed. “It sounds boring, but we actually had a really good time.”
“Who are Bud and Pearl?”
“They’re an older couple. When I first started going to Rock Church, they invited me over for lunch several Sundays.”
“Do they have kids?”
“They have a daughter and some grandkids, but they’re out of state, so they don’t see them a whole lot. They really like Michael, so it’s kind of fun being with them.” She glanced at her watch. “Oh! I’ve gotta get going. See you at break?”
“Yeah. But I might be just a little late. Don’t wait for me.”
“OK.”
Carla resumed typing. At 9:45 she still had one more letter. The phone had been ringing nonstop, and she wasn’t sure she’d beat the clock; but at 9:58 she smiled smugly to herself and tucked the last letter under the flap of its envelope.
She knocked lightly on Mr. Garman’s door and gingerly opened it.
“Hello, Mr.Garman. I have some letters ready for you to sign.” She started to lay them on the corner of the desk, but drew them back and held them as Mr. Garman cleared the space directly in front of him.
“I’ll sign them right now.” Carla couldn’t conceal her surprise. Mr. Garman glanced up at her. “Oh, that’s right; I should read them first.” He smiled approvingly, gesturing for her to sit down as he began glancing through the letters. “Ah, John McCormack. Mmhmmm. I like the way you reworded the last paragraph. I wasn’t really satisfied with the way I had it, but I was too impatient to get out of here early on Friday to work it through.” He looked up at her and smiled. “I appreciate it.” After signing the last letter, he put his pen down and indulged in a lazy stretch, elbows first and then arms full length out and then up. Carla felt a switch in the air from business to personal. Her feeling was confirmed by her boss’s next words.
“Did you get all your shopping done Saturday?”
“Yes, sir,” Carla replied, a happy smile on her face. “I needed a dress, and I found just the right one.” Her smile broadened as she visited the memory of how the sales clerk had spontaneously gasped when she’d first seen the dress on Carla.
“Is there a special occasion?”
Carla subconsciously acknowledged a fork in the road. She could cut off this personal exchange with a polite but reserved, “Yes, there is, sir.” Or she could let her hair down, so to speak, and let her boss into a bit of her own personal life, as he had done for her that crisp day before Christmas. At present, Carla’s life was so happy and fulfilling that she decided it wouldn’t hurt to share it with her boss. Besides, she rationalized, she needed to ask permission from him, anyway, to leave early on Friday.
“Well, actually, there is. A very special friend is taking me out to dinner for Valentine’s Day—on Friday. As a matter of fact, he wants to pick me up at 3:30, because the restaurant’s in another town. I don’t know where; he’s surprising me.”
“Well then, you’ll have to take the afternoon off.”
“Actually, I was going to ask you if I could leave work at two o’clock. I think that would be enough time.”
“Why don’t you just leave at noon? We’ll manage.”
“Are you sure?” Carla’s face was aflood with open appreciation.
Mr. Garman smiled beneficently. “Don’t have too good a time. He won’t steal you off to Cancun, will he?”
“No, sir,” Carla laughed. She rose and walked over to the desk to pick up the letters.
Mr. Garman rose also, picking up his brief case, and headed for the door to open it for Carla.
“Thank you, Mr. Garman.” It was a double thanks—for the door and for the upcoming afternoon off. She sat down at her desk as Mr. Garman headed briskly down the hall.
……….
Midge buttoned her jacket and pulled the collar up as she walked to school on a crisp morning in February. She was trying to keep from worrying what people were thinking about her, and she had no idea who all knew she was pregnant. “Probably everybody who knows me,” Her thoughts were pessimistic. “I wonder what Mr. Connell thinks of me now.” Although there were temporary distractions, Midge’s thoughts kept going right back to her peers, and she pinched her hand purposefully. “Now stay off that subject!” she reprimanded herself. “It’s a beautiful day. I have wonderful parents, and I feel closer than ever to them. And I have a great doctor.”
Her elation in this last thought was highly justified, given the experience of two weeks earlier. Her mother had taken her to a Dr. Winkler, the obstetrician recommended by Midge’s pediatrician. After the exam, the doctor sat down in her office with the two of them and asked, “What are your plans?”
“What are our plans?” Lou had echoed.
“Yes; Midge is quite young.” Dr. Winkler waited for a response from either Lou or Midge. “Are you intending to go through with the pregnancy?”
“What do you recommend?” Lou asked.
“Well, frankly, I feel you should consider all your options. An early termination might be best in the long run.” She spoke with authority.
Lou looked at her daughter and swallowed the lump that had sprung up in her throat. She knew she had to be strong for Midge. If only John were here to talk to the doctor. She bit her lip and remembered her husband’s instruction this morning as they were getting ready for the day. John had put down his shaver, deliberately turned to her, and said, “Now remember. Midge is our daughter, and we care about what happens to her right now and in the future. If the doctor recommends a quick fix and puts pressure on you, even in the least, just tell him thanks for his time.”
Lou glanced again at Midge and caught her eye. She was strengthened all the more when she saw a pronounced glint of indignation there. She then fixed her gaze on Dr. Winkler, rose, and said, “Thank you for your time,” ever so sweetly, but ever so firmly as well.
The doctor was obviously a little taken aback—as much by Lou’s confident finality as by the actual answer, no doubt. The imperative tone vanished, and there was almost a hint of defensiveness in her voice as she saw Lou rise. “Have you really thought this through, Mrs. Ferguson?”
The insecurity in the doctor’s tone gave Midge the boldness to reply for her mother, and she said quietly and determinedly, as she, too, rose from her chair, “We both have, Doctor. I know I’m young, and I wish I weren’t pregnant. But I’m going to do all I can to help this baby.” She smiled in an unconscious effort to soften her rejection of the doctor’s advice. “After all, it wasn’t the baby’s fault.”
They walked out of the office, leaving the doctor still sitting on the exam stool. Midge smiled at her mom on the way to the car. “Thanks, Mom. I’m glad we left. Where to now?”
“I think I’ll call Bonnie Chadwell. I bet she’ll know a doctor who will be more supportive. I hope so, anyway. But if she doesn’t, we’ll find one somehow.”
As it turned out, Bonnie knew of two doctors to suggest. Midge decided to try the one closest to them first and they were able to get an appointment the following Thursday.
Dr. Feinstein’s very first words had a calming reassurance in them: “So you’re pregnant, young lady. Feeling OK?” Midge nodded. “We received Dr. Winkler’s report just this morning, and I think I’ll wait and examine you in two weeks, unless you’d rather have me check the baby’s progress today.”
That was obviously an easy one for Midge, so he went on. “First of all, anytime you suspect something amiss, I want you to call. You appear to be a very healthy young woman, and despite what you might hear, your age is not a problem. Physically, you can handle this pregnancy just fine. It’s the potential emotional trauma that usually convinces young women to terminate a pregnancy.” He smiled confidently. “It’s ironic. An abortion can create just as much emotional scarring as going through an unplanned pregnancy and childbirth. You’ll get through the next few months just fine, Midge.” He paused before adding, “You’re lucky to have parents who are so supportive.”
Midge looked at Lou and smiled. She didn’t need the doctor to point out this fact; she knew it already. Still, it was good to have a doctor confirm their decision as being good for her emotionally.
There was Central High School in full view now, and Midge had succeeded in arriving in good spirits and thankful enough, despite being pregnant. She put a smile on her face and headed for her locker. Marlene Mendez and Gerri Hinslow, her two best friends, were talking in a furtive whisper.
“Great.” Midge’s heart sank. She had yet to confide in them, because she hadn’t mustered up the nerve. Besides, much as she liked Marlene, she knew her friend loved being a source of information, to put the matter charitably. But now both Marlene and Gerri had probably found out and felt distanced from her not only because of her pregnancy and all its implications, but also because she’d not told them herself. She opened her locker, not wanting to face her friends. But almost immediately, she found herself thinking those words she’d heard in her spirit so often these days: “You can; you must.” Almost in the same instant she could hear her mother’s words clear across town to her: “All is well!” She grabbed her geometry book and caught up with the two girls hurrying away.
“Hey, you guys. Wait a minute. I have something to tell you.” She knew they had to know already, and when they stopped to wait for her, they couldn’t hide this and didn’t try. Midge looked at her feet and up at them sheepishly. “You know already, huh?”
“I can’t believe it, Midge!” Gerri whispered. “What are you going to do?”
“Are you guys going to get married?” Marlene’s voice had that tone in it that panted for a scoop she could take to all their friends.
“No, Marlene. I’m not even seeing Nick right now. And I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do.” It was true that she didn’t know exactly what she was going to do. Her dad had told her they would not rush into any decision, whether to raise this baby as part of their family—which they wanted to do—or work with a childless couple on an adoption plan.
“What did Nick say?” Marlene persisted.
“Well, we both feel a little brain dead, but we’ll get through it.” And so will the baby, she added to herself.
“Are you thinking about having an abortion?” Gerri was still whispering.
Midge just raised one shoulder and both eyebrows in reply. “See you later, Gerri.” She blew out a big sigh and turned with Marlene into the geometry classroom on the left side of the corridor, while Gerri headed down the hall to the computer lab.
“Have you told anybody else?”
“No, except for Susie Chadwell” she answered, “and I know she hasn’t told a soul except for her mom. I trust her.”
“Well, good.”
“Of course, I don’t know who all Nick’s told, since we haven’t really talked for over a week now.”
“Are you guys mad at each other?” Marlene’s question irritated Midge. In fact, she found that Marlene herself was an aggravation right now, though she tried to get past the feeling. She knew she didn’t need to entertain negative feelings towards anyone at this particular time: being positive was difficult enough already.
“No. We’re just taking a break.” Midge mouthed these words, because Mr. Elgin had entered the room and the class was starting.