Girls in Trouble Read Free Page B

grew.
    “Push!” the doctor ordered. She wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t look at the students peering down at her. “Good girl,” the doctor said, “now push again. A better one this time.” Where was her doctor? Why was she the one to get stuck with this stranger?
    “Get mad at the baby!” he shouted at her. “Push that baby out! Get mad! Get even!”
    Eva leaned down so close to Sara she could whisper in her ear. “You can do it.”
    “Sara, you’re not getting mad enough,” the doctor said, “I need you to
push
.”
    She pushed, dissolving.
    “Push, goddammit!” the doctor said. Something was being torn from her body, and then Sara was suddenly flying away, leaving her body, floating up. She was moving deeper and deeper into a white-hot core.
So this is how you do this
, she thought,
this is how you die
. And then she felt something boring out of her, she felt herself spinning back down into her body, and what was pushing out of her was as big as the scream she couldn’t contain, and then she pushed and wept and screamed and the baby was born.
    Dr. Chasen held the baby up, white and cheesy, dotted with blood. He whisked it away and brought it back, placing it on her belly. “Just for a minute,” he said. It didn’t look or feel or seem like any of the babies she had ever carried. She was about to stroke the baby’s face, to touch its nose, and then Eva bent over her and took the baby from her, bursting into happy tears. “My little one,” she breathed.
    “Baby’s name?” someone said.
    “Roseann,” Sara said, the name popping into her mind. Little Roseann. Sara remembered sitting on Eva’s couch, making up lists with her and George. Each of them would take a turn. Alice. Clarisse. Names so beautiful they hurt you just to hear them. “Here we are,” Eva whispered, “Anne Cheryl Rivers,” and for a moment Sara thought,
Whose name is that?
Where had those names come from and when had that been decided? Wait, she tried to say, but her lips were too heavy to move even into a sigh.
    “Thank you,” Eva breathed. “Thank you, Sara.” And then Sara closed her eyes.
    Sara woke:
Something is wrong
. For a moment, she thought she was with her boyfriend Danny, in his basement, lying on the red plaid pullout couch, tense and awkward and naked, dizzy with need and desire, waiting for Danny to come downstairs to her. He liked finding her naked. “Surprise me,” he used to say. She used to kiss the tip of his nose because she didn’t know what else to kiss, because she was so shy.
    “Danny,” she said. Her voice sounded strange and hoarse in the room. She blinked and the room turned white. Danny was gone. She heardcoughing and laughter and she twisted her head and there was another woman in a fussy white nightgown in the bed next to her, surrounded by flowers and wrapped gifts and two other women, whose faces were bright with excitement. “We saw your Tom. He’s so thrilled!”
    “He wants five more,” Sara’s roommate said, and everyone laughed.
    “Everyone at work misses you like crazy,” one of the women said.
    Sara felt herself growing smaller and smaller. She used to have friends, too. And then the bigger she had become, the more she had withdrawn and the less often her friends had called her, the less they had to say to her, too. And now, they didn’t call at all. “Come on, Mom. Let’s take a walk so you can show us off to your daughter,” one of the women said.
    “Mom!” the other woman said, tickled. The women all stood up. One of them looked over at Sara, and then quickly looked away. She knew that look. She had seen it on the faces of the nurses. They glanced and then looked briskly away. Only a candy striper had dared to ask, “What are you doing here?” as if it were a mistake. “How old are you?”
    “Sixteen,” Sara said and the girl looked shocked.
    “Quit your kidding,” she said. “Get out of here.”
    Sara lay in bed, her hands on her belly. It was big and