"Jackson will be the baby's last name?" I asked.
"Why the sudden interest?"
"Just curious."
"I'm having it. Why not name it Jackson?"
"Sounds reasonable."
Anything but Panther, I thought. What's Luke's last name? How about using his?
Chapter Twelve
The season's first bad storm blasted the Midwest that Thursday afternoon, burying Grandview under six inches of wet snow. By the time school was out for the day, temperatures had plunged to zero.
Friday morning I woke early, heard on the radio that we had a snow day—no school—and plopped back in bed, my fingers laced behind my head on the pillow. I don't know why, but for the first time I wondered if Jodi's baby would be a boy or a girl.
If it were my baby, I hoped it would be a boy.
Block, tackle, punt, placekick, pass, and run—I'd teach him everything. This kid could be an all-American. All-pro. Not just all-state. But how could I teach him anything if Jodi and he lived in Wisconsin? Would I have visitation rights? Would I get to keep him myself sometimes? But how could I keep him? I'd be off to college somewhere.
I sat up.
Why the hell was I thinking about this stuff?
I wasn't ready to be a father. The baby couldn't be mine. I didn't want to be involved. I had other responsibilities. Longer punts to boot. Longer field goals to kick.
Mom knocked on my door and said I had a phone call. She came in and handed me the cordless.
It was Jodi, sounding worried. "I've got a problem. Have you looked out this morning?"
"Just woke up."
"We got another six inches of snow last night. There's a foot on the ground. Grandpa's car won't start. I have a doctor's appointment at nine."
I glanced at the clock on my night table. Eight A.M. "You want a ride?"
"I hate calling..."
"I'll be right over."
During the night, the mercury had dropped to ten below, and this morning the sky was ice blue with a pale red sun. Snowplows chugged along main streets, hurling snow over the curbs. City trucks dumped salt on busy intersections.
Jodi waited for me on the porch steps of her grandparents' house. Bundled in a blue jacket, white scarf around her head, hands jammed into her pockets, she looked too young to have a baby. I felt guilty again.
But if the baby wasn't mine, why was I feeling guilty? And if the baby wasn't mine, why was I hauling Jodi to the doctor?
But maybe the baby was mine.
I gritted my teeth.
The confusion I continued to feel was almost a physical pain, an ache churning in my belly.
An old Ford minivan sat in the driveway buried in snow except for the hood, which was up. An elderly man bundled in coveralls, a thick coat, and a red stocking cap struggled to hook up a battery charger to the Ford. Probably her grandpa.
I stopped at the curb.
"I really appreciate this," Jodi said, when she opened the car door, letting in a blast of freezing air.
"Glad to help."
Those words just popped out of my mouth into the cold air without my thinking about them. The thing is I meant them: I was glad to help.
Jodi pulled herself into the Mustang and closed the door. I could see her breath. She looked peaked again, like she had in the cafeteria the other day. Being pregnant must be worse than having a separated shoulder or a broken collarbone, my two personal experiences with a doctor. Because of football.
The old man waved good-bye. It was so cold his glasses looked frosted over. "Is he your grandfather?"
"Uh-huh. He remembers you when you were in elementary school at Kennedy and played flag football. He was principal."
"Principal at Kennedy?"
"For fifteen years, until he retired."
The Mustang's tires spun as I pulled away from the curb.
"Wow," I said. "Small world, isn't it?"
"Isn't it, though?"
"Who's your doctor?"
"I go to Maternal Health. The office is across from St. Luke's Hospital. Dr. Blanchard."
"Maternal Health?"
"They provide counseling and medical services for unmarried pregnant girls who can't afford doctors. I'm having the baby at University Hospital in Iowa City. It's where lots of unwed mothers go."
I hadn't thought of Jodi as an "unwed" mother unable to afford a doctor. The idea seemed harsh.
The Maternal Health parking lot was half plowed. I picked a spot clear of snow and stopped. Before getting out, Jodi said, "You can come in. Sit in the waiting room. Or join me and hear what the doctor has to say."
I didn't mind taking her to visit the doctor, but I wasn't going to get that involved. "I'll wait here."
Jodi jumped out of the car, slammed the door, and plodded up the shoveled walk to the clinic's entrance.
I let the Mustang run, heater cranked, and turned on the radio.
A Jeep with a blade attached in front finished plowing the lot, piling snow six feet high in some places. I kept wondering how I could settle the question of whether Jodi's baby was really mine or not without having her explode like a cannon. Like she did the other day in the park. Like she did that last night at Ghost Bay when we said what I thought was our last good-bye.
I lowered my head to the steering wheel.
That last night at Ghost Bay, a night that ended in disaster, I met with Jodi in an empty resort cabin. Even with moonlight shining through the cabin windows, I could barely see. I felt my way into a chair at the kitchen table as Jodi pulled the curtains across the windows, enveloping us in darkness.
I heard the rasp of a match and smelled oily fumes as she lit a kerosene lamp. She adjusted the wick low, replaced the chimney, and set the flickering light on the cupboard. All the Ghost Bay cabins were like this one—small but neat and clean with a kitchen area, two bedrooms, and a shower.
This is the first time Jodi and I'd met secretly in one of them.
She stood beside my chair and circled my neck with her arms. She kissed me on the cheek and tousled my hair with her fingers. Her scent was flowery and wonderful, a lilac scent.
"Tomorrow night we'll take your dad walleye fishing," she said. "I can find them early, I know I can." She settled down on the small sofa by the door. She patted the seat. "Come sit by me, Michael."
"I have something to tell you."
"Guess what else."
"Jodi, listen..."
"The Vilas County Fair starts this weekend. Maybe I can show you some real excitement."
"You've already done that. Believe me."
"They have rides, dancing, a bungee jump."
"Jodi, listen. I really do have something to tell you."
She rose from the sofa, pulled out a chair at the table, and sat across from me. In the dim lantern light her blonde hair shone like platinum. "What is it?"
"I'm going home tomorrow." I said it calmly and as straight out as I could. I hadn't thought it would be this difficult.
Jodi blinked in disbelief. "You said yesterday you had a few days left. Maybe you could talk your dad into a week."
"We're heading home in the morning."
Jodi reached across the table and gripped my hands. "Oh, Michael, your dad...?"
I nodded and explained Dad was having problems again.
Jodi stood, went to the window by the door, and pushed back the curtain, looking out.
"Is someone coming?" I asked.
"No." She squared her shoulders and turned. "What happens to us, Michael?"
"You'll be here," I said, shrugging. "I'll be in Grandview. We'll always be friends..." My words trailed off into silence.
"There are telephones," she said. "We can write. I'm getting my own computer for Christmas. We can e-mail each other. Chat. Text."
"Sure. Maybe."
"I could visit my grandparents at Christmas and Easter. Maybe next summer you can come back."
I reached for Jodi's hands and held them. They felt chilled. "When I first got to Ghost Bay, I expected to have the worst summer of my life watching my dad die."
"But we've had fun, haven't we?"
"I expected him to die right here, maybe." I squeezed her hands. "But you turned what I thought would be a horrible summer into a memorable time. An awesome time."
"So you have had fun?"
"Yes! Absolutely. And I'll never forget any of it. I won't forget you..."
She slipped her hands from mine. She pushed her chair back, its legs scraping across the plank floor. "But you're saying this is it, aren't you?"
"Yes." Barely a whisper.
"Good-bye. Farewell. See you never."
"Jodi, I do care for you. But when I get back to Grandview, I need to bust my ass at football and study like crazy."
She narrowed her eyes at me. Nodded slowly several times. "So it's over? Just like that?"
"I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry, too. And I'm having a hard time believing this."
"I wish things were different...our timing was better..."
"You know what I think, Michael?" She didn't give me time to answer. "I think this afternoon you finally scored—that's what you've wanted all summer—so now you can brag to your football buddies that you nailed a summer girl." Tears pooled in her eyes and glistened in the lamplight.
"That's not true."
"I'll bet you tell them I'm five-eleven. Boobs like grapefruits. You'll make yourself look like a super stud."
"Listen to me, Jodi: You're a girl I really like—"
"You don't have to play me anymore, Michael."
"I'm not."
Her chin turned wobbly. "I don't want you to think I was going to get serious about you, anyway." She stood up, eased her chair to up the table. "Sex in the afternoon. No strings attached. I can handle that. You could at least be honest."
I staggered up. "Jodi, I have been honest..."
"No more crap, Michael." She stuck her hand out, her bottom lip quivering. "I guess this is good-bye. Not quite what I expected."
I shook her trembling hand.
"You want to do it again?" she asked. "Just for fun? Like this afternoon? That'll be three times in the same day."
"Jody, please..."
"I didn't think so—I don't want to either. To hell with you, Michael." She stomped her foot. "To hell with you!"
"Jodi, I'm sorry."
Her tears streaked down her cheeks. "Get the door."
At the cupboard she blew out the kerosene lamp, casting the cabin into darkness, and I smelled the lamp's oily after-fumes as I held the door open.
The moon was down, and the darkness outside, despite a scattering of stars, seemed as black as the darkness inside the cabin.
I wanted to stop her at the door, grip her by the shoulders a moment, kiss her on the forehead, and tell her again I'd never forget her. But she raced by me out the door and disappeared into the night. I closed the cabin door and slithered away in the darkness back to my folks' cabin, my heart full of regret.
My head jerked up from the steering wheel as Jodi climbed back into my Mustang and closed the door. She looked a little better after her visit to Maternal Health. "Everything all right?" I asked.
"Fine. I could hear the baby's heartbeat."
"Do you have names picked out?" I pulled out of the parking lot.
"Not really."
"Jackson will be the baby's last name?" I asked.
"Why the sudden interest?"
"Just curious."
"I'm having it. Why not name it Jackson?"
"Sounds reasonable."
Anything but Panther, I thought. What's Luke's last name? How about using his?
I slid to a stop behind a snowplow at the intersection of Locust and Lincoln streets.
"Have you had anything to eat?" I asked. "Would you like breakfast?"
"No thanks."
When we parked in front of her grandparents' house, her grandfather's minivan sat idling in the drive, its exhaust hiccupping blue-black smoke.
I racked my brain trying to think of something to say that would end this freezing morning on a friendly note. By now I realized I should at least try to stay friends with Jodi, if possible, on the outside chance that the baby was mine. I mean, just in case. All I could think of was, "I'll take you to the doctor again next time if you want."
"I'll manage by myself."
"You're sure?"
"Positive."
"All right."
I felt relieved.
She reached for the door handle, but at the last moment she turned and looked at me. "I'd like to ask a different favor."
Be careful, Michael. "Sure."
"This is really stupid. I need help with Advanced Algebra. Do you know anything about algebra?"
"I'm an algebra genius," I confessed, smiling.
Jodi eyed me. "I'm serious. I wouldn't bother you, but I'm desperate."
"Algebra's not all that hard."
"But I have it first period in the morning, and I've been sick every morning."
"That would be a problem."
"Last week I spent every first period in the nurse's office."
"You get sick that often?"
"Sometimes two or three times a day."
"Wow." I mean, I felt for Jodi. I hated being sick maybe even once a year. Two or three times a day would kill me.
"We have a test Monday," Jodi said, "and I'm lost."
"You want to work on it now?"
"I promised to go shopping with my grandmother this afternoon." The door handle clicked, and Jodi pushed the door open an inch or two. "Is tonight okay? I mean, if you have a date or something..."
"I'm not busy."
"No. Really, if you have a date—"
"I don't"
"Seven?"
"I'll be here."
Coming Monday—Chapter Thirteen: Michael is wary of Jodi's motives
