Positive (2 page)

* * * * *

David splashed
more cold water onto his face, then dried off with a paper towel.
He still wore the latex glove on his hand. He glanced at the
clock.
Grey's Anatomy
would be on soon. He made himself a sandwich,
even though his stomach continued to clench and cramp, and went
into the living room.

He sat in the dark, the TV flashing its blue
light against his face, his sandwich untouched on the coffee table
his grandmother gave him. When the episode finished, he blinked
himself out of his trance and glanced up at the clock again. He
carried the stale sandwich into the kitchen, dumped it in the
garbage, and went to his room.

He lay awake in bed long after he heard
Josalee's key in the front door, nauseous from more than the virus
inside of him.

Chapter 3

Ingrid flew down the street, the wind from her
broken window blowing her blond hair back. Tears streamed down her
face, blurring her vision. The red in her eyes made her irises
stand out like a bluebell in a bed of roses. She screamed and
slammed the steering wheel with the palm of her hand. The
speedometer hit sixty; the speed limit sign she blew past read
25mph.

The light ahead changed and her foot stomped on
the brakes. "Dammit, dammit, dammit!" Her tires screeched as the
car came to a halt just inches from the bumper of a freshly waxed
sports car. "Fuck!" She pounded the steering wheel
again.

She glared at the red light. Cars skated
through the intersection. She closed her eyes and took a deep
breath. Beneath her lids she saw herself five months earlier,
sitting in the big blue office chair across from her old school's
principal.

"So Desiree will take your students," he said.
"We really appreciate everything you've done... Wait, where are you
going?" She walked out of the office without another
word.

"I knew they were both only temporary," she
said in her empty car, eyes still closed. "I just really thought
they'd keep me this time."

Someone behind her pressed down on their horn.
It blared through her sinuses. She opened her eyes and pressed the
gas pedal to the floor. The car lurched forward and she turned left
just as the yellow arrow turned red again. The inside of her mouth
tasted bitter, like vanilla extract.

A few minutes later, she yanked off her
sneakers and left them in a trail behind her as she stumbled into
the kitchen. The clock read 12:15 in the afternoon as she jerked
open one of the lower cabinets and pulled out a bottle of Grey
Goose. She took a shot straight from the bottle, grimacing a little
as the vodka burned her throat. She put the bottle on the counter
and went to the fridge for something to take out the bite. She
found Victor's orange juice, made herself a screwdriver in a tall
and chipped beer glass, and sat down at the kitchen table. She
opened up the planner she'd left there that morning, and flicked
ahead a couple of weeks. She let out a deep breath, circled the
date with a red pen, and sat back in her chair.

"I can find
another job in two weeks," she said. "I've got this." She took
another sip from her screwdriver
—
more vodka than orange
juice
—
and tears dripped into
the glass. She pulled out her cell phone. "Jo," she sobbed when the
other woman answered. A radio and the
whoosh
of the highway played
in the background.

"Hey, can you hear me?" Josalee called. "I've
got you on speaker. I'm driving. What's up?"

Ingrid inhaled and glanced down at her planner
again. "Never mind. I'll let you go."

"I'll give you a call later?" Josalee
asked.

"Nah, it's all right," Ingrid said, and hung
up.

* * * * *

Four screwdrivers
later, Ingrid lay in bed. She slipped out of her socks and pulled
the comforter up over her head. She tensed as the
click
of Victor's key
in the lock echoed up the stairs.

"Hey babe," he called out in his deep voice.
She heard his footsteps as he moved through the first floor. When
he didn't find her, she heard the stairs creak as he climbed them.
He turned on their bedroom light. She imagined him standing in the
doorway, his jacket in his hand. A moment later, she felt him sit
down on the edge of the bed. "You not feeling good?"

She lay there, her face hidden from his view by
the thick comforter, tears rolling down her high, round cheeks. Her
chest ached from holding in her sobs.

"You're
sleeping," he whispered. He stood and she heard the
click
as he flicked the
light off. The stairs groaned as he went down to the living
room.

* * * * *

She pretended to sleep in the next morning. She
listened to Victor move around as he got ready for work, her closed
against the pale rosy light that filtered in through the blinds as
the sun rose. At quarter to eight, he shook her gently.

"Come on, babe. Gotta get up," he
said.

She let her eyelids flutter open. His face
loomed above her, his dark skin smooth from his morning
shave.

He brushed back a strand of her blond hair with
his hand. She thought of how they contrasted: black and white skin,
light and dark heart. He kissed her forehead. "You feelin'
okay?"

She nodded. "Migraine."

He kissed her again, just below her ear.
"Better?" When she nodded, he sat down next to her. "I know you're
runnin' late, but," he leaned over and kissed her lips, "we got a
little time." He ran a large hand over her stomach, then put his
hand inside her shirt. The cool scent of his cologne enveloped her.
As his fingers grazed her nipple, she rolled over and away from
him.

"I need a shower," she said, and sat up. She
shoved her feet into her slippers, and before he could say anything
else, she slipped into the bathroom and locked the door behind her.
She turned on the shower, stripped off her clothes, and sat on the
floor of the tub with her knees drawn up to her chest.

At what she guessed was 8:30, he called through
the door to her. "I'm gonna head out, 'kay? I'll see you
tonight?"

She pretended not to hear.

A few minutes later, she shut off the water,
wrapped herself in a rough towel that dried on the line instead of
in the dryer, and stared at her blurry reflection in the steamy
mirror until she heard his car pull out of the driveway. She
dressed quickly in sweats and one of his tee shirts, and climbed
back into bed.

Chapter 4

Victor saw the note the second he walked in the
door. He crumpled it in his fist without reading it. He sighed and
sat down on the couch, then put the bag of Lindt truffles he'd
brought home for Ingrid down on the coffee table. A row of framed
photos sat just behind the chocolates: one of them at the beach,
her blond hair streaming across both their faces in the breeze;
another of them at a friend's wedding, his tie the same powder blue
as her dress; a third taken at a bar with her friends Josalee and
David. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her awake for
more than a few minutes. Every time he tried to see her naked or
even just kiss her, she needed a shower, or couldn't stay awake, or
something else.

He sighed again and adjusted his jeans. He felt
like a teenager again, except he no longer had acne and his mother
didn't drive him to the office. He stared up at the framed
psychology degree that was supposed to get him into medical school,
and his pants grew tighter. He snatched the remote from beside the
chocolates and photos, turned on the TV, and scrolled through the
guide to the porn channels. There were dozens of sexual parodies,
like "Pulp Friction" and "Wonka's Willy and the Fudge Factory,"
each no cheaper than $3.99. He chose "Bar Whores: Return of the
One-Eye," a $7.99 title.

* * * * *

Fifteen minutes
later, he made a sandwich and half-watched a rerun of
Everybody Loves
Raymond
. When, an hour later, Ingrid
still hadn't come home, he called his mother.

"Hi baby," she
said. He could hear jazz playing in the background and the TV
going, probably showing a rerun of
The Golden Girls
, his mother's
favorite show.

"Hey Mama." He turned the volume on his own TV
down. "How are you?"

"Fine, baby.
How're
you
?"

He could just see her, standing in the kitchen,
mixing a batch of brownies for her book club in the morning. "I'm
all right," he said.

"No you're not," she said. He bet anything she
stopped mixing completely. "Otherwise you wouldn't be
callin'."

He almost smiled. "Sorry, Mama. How's the book
club going?"

"It's doin' fine. Now why you callin'
me?"

He took a deep breath. "It's Ingrid, Mama.
She's busy."

"And?" He saw her as if he were there with her:
the chocolate covered wooden spoon in one hand, the other hand on
her hip, the phone cradled between her face and shoulder. "Just
'cause she busy don't mean nothin'. Maybe it's time you gave that
girl a ring."

"I know, Mama," he said, and closed his eyes.
He rubbed his temples with his free hand. "I don't wanna talk about
that, though. It's just... She won't have sex with me."

His mother
snorted. "Take that girl out to dinner, give her a ring, and
then
she'll have sex with you. She probably wonderin' why you
waitin' so long."

He moved his neck from side to side.
"Mama..."

"I want me some grandbabies," his mother said,
the way she used to tell him to clean his room.

He smiled. "I know you do. And I can't wait to
give 'em to you."

"Don't you worry 'bout that girl," his mother
said gently. "She loves you. You just gotta show her that her seven
years of time is 'bout to pay off. Get her a nice ring, take her
out for seafood and steak. You stressin' too much. Now lemme go.
Gotta get these brownies in the oven."

He grinned as he hung up. He saw his mother a
few years in the future, more grey in her hair but mixing brownies
for his and Ingrid's kids, their bronze hands sticky with
chocolate. Their daughter, he imagined, would have Ingrid's blue
eyes. He smiled and leaned back into the couch.

* * * * *

"Hey babe," he said as Ingrid walked into the
living room. She clutched her keys in one hand and smiled with one
side of her mouth, her eyes wide. "You okay?" He glanced at the
clock. The library had closed hours earlier. He rose and crossed
the room, holding his arms out to her, then paused. She reeked of
vodka. "Whoa," he said as she hiccupped. He guided her to the
couch. "You want a bowl?"

She nodded. He ran into the kitchen and grabbed
one of the Food Network bowls his mother had given them, and
returned to the living room in time to see her vomit all over their
carpet. He kneeled beside her, put the bowl in front of her, and
held back her hair. He rubbed her back with his free
hand.

When she finished, he helped her to the
bathroom and gently sat her on the toilet. He grabbed a face cloth
and wet it. "I didn't know you were goin' out," he said as he
mopped up her face. "I would've picked you up."

"Sorry," she mumbled, and pressed the cool
cloth to her forehead.

He shook his head. "I'm just glad you got home
okay, that's all." He kissed the top of her head. "You need me to
help you get changed?"

She shook her head and stood slowly. He watched
her pad into their bedroom. She shed articles of clothing as she
walked to their bed, then slid, naked, between the sheets. He
followed her and kissed the tip of her nose. "Want me to get you
some ginger ale?" She shook her head and pulled the comforter up to
her chin. He kissed her forehead. "All right, babe. Lemme know if
you need anything. I'm'a go downstairs and... clean up."

After he scrubbed vomit out of the living room
carpet with her favorite carpet cleaner, he watched ten minutes of
another $7.99 sexual parody. After he cleaned up, he grabbed the
previous weekend's newspaper and began flipping through the flyers
for jewelers.

Chapter 5

David banged on the bathroom door, each beat
sending pulses of pain through Josalee's head. She lifted her head
from the toilet and wiped a string of spit from her mouth with the
back of her hand. "Just a minute," she called.

"Jo, I'm really sick," he called from the other
side of the door. He bent over and vomited a rainbow of mostly
digested food into a bowl.

So am
I
, she thought, but said nothing. She
rose, flushed the toilet, and splashed cold water on her face. She
stared at her reflection in the mirror. Pinpricks of red dotted her
cheeks
—
tiny broken blood
vessels, according to Google. She didn't remember anyone ever
saying that pregnancy involved so much vomiting. She glanced at the
clock. Her first OB appointment was in twenty minutes. She pulled
her hair up into a loose ponytail, then opened the
door.