“So you’re not a virgin, right?” he asks.
“Right.”
With Freddie, it’s not a matter of if we will have sex. It’s a matter of when. It terrifies me and it excites me and it’snot because he’s a guy and I’m a girl. It’s because he’s Freddie and I’m Ramona. The way my body reacts to his... it’s something I have no shame in saying I want.
Freddie wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me back to him. I press my hand against his chest, and he runs a finger over the evil-eye bracelet. “I’ve only been with Viv,” he says. “But you know that.”
“Do you... are you ready to be with someone else?” I ask.
“Are you?” he asks.
“I think I’ve found the right person.”
His fingers begin to roam again, and it’s not long before my skirt is rucked up around my waist and his hand is discovering places it’s never been.
Later, we talk for a little longer about tiny things, like how we both want to see the Olympic Games in person one day, and mysteries, like how there are tons of undiscovered species in the ocean. The gaps between his responses grow further and further apart as he sinks into the first sleep of the New Year.
In the window, behind him, the sky glows with the smoky haze of fireworks.
THIRTY
“You’re not swaddling tight enough,” I tell Hattie.
Nurse Pearce, a round black woman with ringlet curls, pops her head over Hattie’s shoulder. The deep circles beneath her eyes scream overworked, but her chipper voice sings, “She’s right!”
Hattie growls and narrows her eyes at me.
“You’re the one who asked me to be here,” I remind her.
She shakes the baby doll free of the blanket and it makes aclunksound when it lands on the changing table.
“Tyler is the one who should have come,” I say. We’re only a few days into the new year and he’s already proved that he’s the same shitty baby daddy he was last year. “I mean, if we suck at this, imagine how bad he’ll be.” But it’s not just that. This creeping anxiety spreads through my veins, reminding me of my impending fate. If Tyler can’t be here for Hattie now, what else won’t he be here for? It’s like being at school and doing a fire drill and seeing how horribly unorganized the teachers actually are and howlittle your peers are paying attention. Sure, it’s only a drill, but someday the real thing will happen. For Hattie, that day is coming sooner rather than later.
“At least he’s working.” Her voice is tired, which makes me think maybe she’s not as clueless about all this as she’s been letting on. Part of me wants to see her get it over with and call it off with Tyler. But then I’m holding out hope that he isn’t the person my heart and head say he is.
I take the blanket from her and smooth it on the counter in front of us. “Okay, let’s do this shit.”
The pregnant woman behind Hattie glares at me as her husband in his slacks, dress shirt, and tie checks the time on his chunky silver watch.
“The baby can’t actually hear you,” I say under my breath.
Before we can finish reswaddling the doll, Nurse Pearce says, “Let’s talk labor relief positions, people. Take a seat on the mat with your partner.”
Hattie tosses the half-swaddled baby doll on the table. “My feet are killing me.”
She sits down slowly on the blue gym mats at the center of the room, balancing on one knee at a time. A few months ago, I would have described my sister’s body as a spring. You could press her down for a moment, but the minute she felt the pressure ease, she would bounce back to life.
I sit down behind her like Nurse Pearce instructs the class to do.
“Ladies,” she says, “relax. Ease into your partner. Trustthem to support you.”
I remember sitting like this with Grace in her bedroom, behind closed doors. She would never quite rest the full weight of her body against mine, like she was scared I couldn’t hold the two of us up at once. But Hattie’s body sinks against me and she doesn’t hold back. I brace my hands on the ground on either side of my hips so that I can more easily support us both.
Hattie drops her head against my chest. “Oh God,” she says. “You wanna know what would feel good right now? A bath.”
The stopper on our bathtub drain has been broken since we were too old to take baths together anymore. Or maybe we stopped taking baths together because the stopper was broken. Either way, it wasn’t anything I ever really missed.
“Baths are kind of gross if you think about it,” I say. “You’re just sitting in water full of dirt and dead skin.”
