“I, well, the thing is …” Margie finally says, “I can’t go.
Teddy nods knowingly. “It’s expensive, for sure.” Then he shares, “I didn’t pay off my student loans until I played Alpha Dog in the firstWondermovie.”
Margie blurts out, “I can’t go to college because I’m pregnant.”
Teddy doesn’t respond right away, but when he finally speaks, he says, “Breakfast is on the house!”
“I’m not exactly celebrating,” Margie tells him.
He offers a short shrug. “Nevertheless, your baby needs breakfast. What can I get you?”
Even though Margie’s smile looks pained, she says, “I’d like a pumpkin-spice hot chocolate and a blueberry muffin, please.”
Teddy turns his attention to me. “How about you, Allie? What would you like?”
Lifting my coffee cup into the air to show him I made my own, I say, “I’d like a blueberry muffin, too. And I’m paying for both of us.”
He hurries to retrieve our muffins out of the case before steaming Margie’s drink. When he hands everything across the counter, he says, “On the house means on the house.”
“You’ll never make any money if you don’t charge me,” I tell him. Seriously, I’m starting to feel like a charity case.
Teddy puts his hands behind his back indicating that he won’t take my money. “Good thing I’m a movie star then, huh?”
“Thank you,” Margie says while taking her order. “I really appreciate this.”
He turns his full attention toward her. “When my wife, Faith, was pregnant with our twins, she ate more gingersnaps than an entire kindergarten class could in a year. You’re going to get cravings, and I firmly believe it’s the baby’s way of telling you what she wants. When that happens, you come on in, and we’ll take care of you.”
Margie looks like she’s going to cry but she somehow holds it together. As we walk out of the bakery she tells me, “I don’t know why I told him I was pregnant.”
“Maybe because you’re ready to accept it.”
After getting into the passenger side of my car, she says, “I just kind of freaked when you told him I wanted to go to Northwestern. I can never do that now.”
“Don’t put limits on your dreams, Margie. Maybe it won’t be next fall, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen someday.”
She takes a bite of her muffin and chews it slowly. After swallowing, she says, “I’m afraid to have dreams.”
Even though I can probably guess what her answer will be, I ask her, “Why is that?”
“My parents keep telling me my life will be over if I have this baby. They’re probably right.”
Starting the car, I pull out onto the street and tell her, “Did you know that Sofia Vergara had her son when she was still a teenager?”
“Who’s that?”
I nearly pull over to the side of the road so I can fully express my shock. Instead, I say, “She’s the Latina actress from that television show,Modern Family.”
“Oh, I know her! My mom and I watched that show over thesummer together.” She asks, “How in the world do you think she became famous after having a baby so young?”
“I don’t know her full story. I just want you to realize that going down a different path than you thought doesn’t mean you can’t get where you want to go.”
Margie snorts. “I can’t imagine how I can be a single mother and make enough money to take care of my kid while still following a dream like stardom. It seems a little out there, you know?”
I turn into the high school parking lot and park in the faculty area. “My dad used to always tell me to reach for the stars. He said you can’t have something if you can’t imagine having it. You need to figure out what your dream is and then you need to start visualizing the result you want.”
As we get out of the car, Leah comes running across the pavement. She throws herself into her sister’s arms and cries, “I miss you! I want you to come home!”
Ruffling her sister’s hair, Margie tells her, “I can’t, twerp. Mom and Dad are really mad and I need some space to figure things out.”
