Friday, November 26, 2010

Chapter Eighteen

"Did you guys hook up?"
How many times was I going to ask?
"Yes, Michael. We did." A whisper. But spoken clearly.
I blinked and staggered back.
"But Luke used a condom!" Jodi said fiercely. "We always used condoms."

Chapter Eighteen

When I marched out of the bathroom, Jodi was standing rigidly by the front door, her coat, hat, scarf, and boots on. "What the hell is this?" I said.
Her jaw was set. "You don't have to take me home. I called my grandfather. He's coming to pick me up."
I threw my palms out in front of me, a signal for time out. "I didn't mean to touch you."
"That's not what I'm pissed about." Her lips thinned. "I don't think we need to see each other anymore."
"What's unreasonable about my question?" I threw it at her again: "Did you do him?"
"Don't you think I'd tell you if I wasn't sure the baby's yours?" Her nostrils flared. "You think I'm desperate, I'm a liar?"
"I never said anything like that."
"You've been thinking it all this time, that's even worse." Her face crumbling, she started to cry.
I stared at her and then closed my eyes for a second. Seeing her cry wrenched my heart. How the hell did we get on this track? "I've been thinking the baby might be Luke's—I admit that. I've wondered a lot about Luke."
"Luke was a senior," she said, and wiped her eyes with her knuckles, her chin trembling. "I was a sophomore. He was my boyfriend...an older guy. I was thrilled."
"What does he mean to you now?"
"He's the first boy I was...ever serious with..."
"You were in love with him?"
Jodi shrugged in slow motion. "He was fun. He drove a motorcycle everywhere, I rode on the back. He was nice to me, said he cared for me, and I trusted him."
"Sounds like love."
"But he didn't tell me he'd joined the Navy during the winter and was leaving for boot camp right after graduation and said he was never coming home—he hated his home life. I knew that, but he didn't tell me about the Navy." Jodi's hands balled into fists. "It didn't take me long to figure out he'd simply used me to enjoy his senior year..."
"Like I'd used you last summer? Is that what you're thinking?"
"That's exactly what you did."
"I never intended that."
"But you did. And then Luke came home on leave. His mom was sick..."
"Did you guys hook up?"
How many times was I going to ask?
"Yes, Michael. We did." A whisper. But spoken clearly.
I blinked and staggered back.
"But Luke used a condom!" Jodi said fiercely. "We always used condoms."
I felt like I'd been shot. I touched my fingertips to my shirt to see if I was bleeding from my heart. But that's what I'd wanted to know, wasn't it, the truth? I can handle it.
"I think I did it," Jodi said, "to somehow get even with you. I don't know, I hurt so bad when you left...we'd had so much fun together...my feelings for you were so intense...and then you blew me off. Totally. Like you never really cared for me at all."
"But I did."
"I didn't believe it then, I don't believe it now."
"It's over between you and Luke?"
"What do you think? We parted just like you and me—with a major fight. This time he swore he was never coming home again. Ever. No matter what. I told him good, I never wanted to see his ugly face. He'd used me a second time, but this time was all my fault."
A horn honked in the drive. Jodi and I jumped and looked at the door. "That's my grandfather." Jodi knuckled her tears away once more. "Are you going to call my folks? Tell them about Luke? Say he baby is his?"
"No."
"Let them know how slutty I am?" Phlegm rattled in her throat.
"Jodi, you're not a slut."
"We can do DNA testing after the baby's born. How's that?"
"All right."
She started toward the door.
"When are you due?" I was trying to stay calm, but I could feel myself breathing hard, my chest pumping in and out. "Tell me again."
At the door she turned, and in a quaking voice she said, "I hooked up with him, I admit that, it was a terrible thing to do—stupid!—I regret it, but I'm not trying to trap you, Michael."
"I don't know what to think, I'm so mixed up."
"I really liked you. I thought maybe you could love us, the baby and me. That we might fit somewhere in your life. That's what I came here to find out."
My head bowed. The truth. All of it. At last. Are you satisfied now, Michael? "All right..." I said. "I'm glad you came here." Did I mean that? I flipped on the porch light and touched her elbow. "Watch out for the snow and ice. When are you due...? Let me help you."
She jerked her elbow away. 
"Call me," I said. "We've got to talk again. We've got to settle this."
"It's settled, Michael. Luke and I used a condom. Every single time." She flung the front door open, then the storm door. "It's settled."
Brutally cold air blasted me, and new snow whirled in the night. Jodi dashed down the walk and driveway in the sullen yellow glow of the porch light. She shot through the headlight glare of her grandfather's minivan, her feet crunching in the snow, and climbed into the front seat.
The snow would soon cover her footprints. Like she'd never been in this house. Like she'd never trampled on my heart. I slammed the door and heard the station wagon drive off.
I shivered. I felt cold and empty.
I switched off the porch light.
Once again, I had no idea what to make of all this or what to do. I trudged upstairs to my bedroom, slammed the door closed, and sat on my bed in the dark.
Questions leapfrogged into my mind. Does Luke know about the baby? Or has Jodi kept it a secret from him? Should I tell my mom about Jodi's hooking up with Luke? Obviously, Jodi hadn't told her parents about the possibility that Luke could be the father.
I kicked my shoes off.
What did they tell us in sex ed class?
Condoms, if used correctly, are, like, ninety-eight per cent effective in preventing pregnancies. Christie and I used them all the time, except the first time and a couple of other times when we got carried away. Like Jodi and I did last August. But Christie didn't get pregnant. I guess I didn't think Jodi would get pregnant, either. Maybe that's why I allowed myself to be so careless last summer. You were more than careless, Michael. You were stupid!
I flopped back on my bed and buried the heels of my hands in my closed eyes. Jodi and Luke's using a condom meant there was a ninety-eight percent chance I had made Jodi pregnant. Only a two percent chance for Luke. If Jodi had told me the truth about condomu use. If it hadn't broken. It could have broken; Jodi and Luke didn't realize it. Accidents like that happen. All the time.
I threw my arms out on the bed.
How could I be pissed at Jodi for hooking up with Luke? That last night at Ghost Bay, I'd made it clear we had no future together. That implied that what she did after I left was her own business. None of mine.
And hadn't I told her tonight I didn't care if the baby wasn't mine? Had I meant that? Or was it just talk? Too much wine. Too much togetherness with Jodi: Our lips locking. Tongues getting friendly again and playing games with each other.
Rolling my head back and forth, I tried to snap the kinks out of my neck. I couldn't imagine what Jodi was going through right now. How bad she must feel. What ugly thoughts she might be thinking about Luke and me. Two guys who could have made her pregnant. But neither one of us wanted to claim responsibility. How did that make her feel? Like dirt? Slutty-is what's she'd said.
But hadn't I said I would take responsibility?
I felt as if my brain was going explode into tiny pieces.
After getting up, undressing, and climbing into bed under a stack of blankets but between cold sheets, I fell asleep dreaming of Luke and Jodi hooking up on the lower half of bunk beds in a deer hunter's cabin. I saw myself sitting inside the cabin on a chair, watching them and listening to them laugh at me as they made out.

Coming Monday—Chapter Nineteen: Oz and Michael celebrate New Year's Eve and vow to give up on the girls they failed with so miserably.