“Roland,” she says, her red hair whipping around her head, “if I let go, will you catch me?”
“Sure, baby.”
He isn’t in love with her. Nobody’s talking about love. But if she fell, yes, he would catch her, because she believes he could. She has known him forever and trusts him anyway, and for that he would give her everything. His groceries, his coke if he had any, his roof, his big warm California sky, his ocean.
The picnic does not turn out as he’s planned.
Addie sits stiff as a queen on the orange blanket, nibbling at her sandwich, now and then flapping her hand in the air to shoo a swooping gull. If she’d just finish eating, the bird would leave her alone. He doesn’t know why she’s taking such tiny bites, why she chews and chews and chews, unless it’s to avoid talking. She’s too quiet, not her usual chatterbox self.
He tries pouring wine into her cup and she stops him.
“What are those mountains?” she asks.
“The Santa Monicas.”
“They look like elephants.”
“Elephants?”
“It’s a Hemingway story,” she says. She sounds impatient, irritated with him. “‘Hills Like White Elephants.’ Except those hills aren’t white, they’re sort of brownish-gray. Taupe.”
“I read a book,” he says. “I saw a show on public TV about John Steinbeck and the next day I went out and got Of Mice and Men. Fucking blew me away. I loved that guy Lenny.” What he doesn’t say, what he’s afraid to say, is that he watched the show and read the book for her.
“The one you ought to read,” she says, “is The Grapes of Wrath. The greatest road book ever written.”
“Isn’t it like ten thousand pages long?”
She squints at the horizon. “Those hills don’t really look like elephants.”
He opens the peaches and they eat them out of the can. “Last one’s yours,” he offers, but she pushes the spoon away.
“The Hemingway story,” she says, “is about a girl who gets pregnant. She and her boyfriend are trying to decide what she should do.”
“What do they decide?” He’s being polite. Why the hell is she still talking about this story?
“Nothing, Roland,” she says. “Nothing. I’m pregnant.”
“Oh,” he says. “Oh.” Fuck. Of course. A girl who gets pregnant. That explains everything — her nervousness, her moodiness. Her not-drinking. He can’t believe he didn’t figure it out himself. Even her coming back so soon. Of course she would think she had to tell him in person; that’s Addie. Dutiful, pale, pregnant Addie.
He imagines her packing for her trip. Choosing what to wear. Picking out the story she would use.
If only he were a reader.
She’s starting to cry now, but not hard. He puts his arm around her. “It’s okay, baby,” he says. “Don’t worry, it’ll be okay. Addie, look at me.” He hands her one of the paper towels they’re using as napkins. “That story,” he says, “how does it come out?”
“It’s Hemingway. It doesn’t come out.”
He pulls her closer and presses her head into his shoulder. Her face soaks his shirt. He doesn’t care. He isn’t thinking about himself, not yet. It’s too soon; he doesn’t need to think that far ahead. “It’s okay,” he says, keeping his voice deep and even. “Just tell me what you want me to do. Tell me, and I’ll do it.” He has no idea what this means, for himself or for her, but he likes the sound of it. Solid, convincing, strong. Stronger than he has ever been.
Tell Me and I’ll Do It
Addie’s phone wakes her up.
“How you feeling, baby?”
“Tired, Roland. I’ve never been so tired.”
The next night he forgets again and calls at midnight, her time. “How you feeling?”
“Please, Roland, you have to stop calling so late. I’m so tired I could die.”
“I’m sorry.”
He calls at ten. “Did you get the money I sent?”
“You didn’t send it,” she says. “Golita did. You told her?”
“Golita is family,” he says. “She’s like my sister.”
“Your sister never liked me.”
“Golita’s okay.”
“I sent it back,” she says. A check from Golita for a hundred dollars, less than half the cost of the procedure, and a sticky note in Golita’s handwriting, “Good luck.” Roland hadn’t even addressed the envelope himself.
He calls at seven. She’s in the middle of supper. “Please stop calling,” she says. She isn’t even sleepy this time. “Please just stop.”
Someone has to drive her to and from the clinic. It’s a requirement. She considers calling Shelia, though they’ve talked only once or twice since Shelia’s twins were born. But this is one secret she doesn’t want Shelia to know. It isn’t the abortion; it’s Roland. She doesn’t want Shelia to know she’s been with him again. She especially doesn’t want Shelia to know that being with him was her idea.
She calls the professor. “It’s the least you can do,” she tells him.
He comes for her in his Toyota. He’s wearing a black cap and sunglasses, like a character in a movie. Sometimes he’s such a joke she can’t help but love him.
“Do you know how to get there?” she asks.
He nods.
It’s a cold, blustery March morning. White pear blossoms whip through the air like snow, a spring blizzard. On the sidewalk outside the clinic, half a dozen men are holding signs. They aren’t walking up and down the way you’re supposed to on a picket line. They seem frozen in place. Their signs are big white posters with red magic marker letters, the exact same red on every poster, like they all got together in somebody’s basement.
“Don’t they have jobs?” the professor says.
Addie knows she’s supposed to hate them. But they’re nothing to her. Standing out in the weather in their wool jackets, too cold to move, they’re not even an inconvenience.
Someone should take them coffee, she thinks.
Kerouac’s Girlfriend
Roland stands at his bathroom mirror shaving off his mustache. The mirror keeps fogging over. He wipes it with the side of his hand.
The bathroom feels smaller when he’s alone. The whole apartment does. Crowded and stale. Nothing nice, just him and his stuff. Dirty clothes, dirty towels, dirty magazines.
When he was on the road he used to daydream about places he might end up. None of them looked like this. This place could be anybody’s. He could be anybody.
Who can blame Addie for not wanting his kid.
She wouldn’t even take money from him, even after he talked it out of Golita. Golita insisted on writing the check herself. “I give you cash, you’ll just put it up your nose,” she said.
Today is the day. It’s happening now, while he shaves. No, fuck, it happened hours ago — he keeps forgetting the time difference. By now it’s done.
Kerouac’s girlfriend had an abortion. Kerouac wrote about her in Desolation Angels. Kerouac’s girlfriend’s name was Joyce, but Kerouac changed it to Alyce in the book. Back then, abortions were illegal. Nineteen fifty-six — the year Roland was born, and Addie.