This Girl is Something

I am telling you what he does on Tuesdays: he shelves books about planned pregnancies between ten and twelve, then moves on to general parenting guidebooks in the afternoon. You have to get him between ten and twelve on Tuesdays; he has other shelving responsibilities other days (dictionary-reference Wednesdays, murder-mystery Thursdays, cookbook-biography Fridays, weekends off, odd jobs Mondays). But, I am telling you, on Tuesdays, from ten ‘til twelve, he shelves books about planned pregnancies for 8 dollars and 94 cents an hour.

Wear your purple sundress, the one that shows the angularity of your shoulder blades, your protruding spinal cord, and your little stomach bulge all at the one time. With your little stomach bulge, that purple sundress makes most people scared for you, because it makes it seem as though you are about to just snap in half. That will get him, that aspect will appeal to him, looking as though you are so fragile that you are liable to simply keel over without some kind of lattice.

Stand nearby while he shelves Smoking and Pregnancy: The politics of fetal protection. Try to look normal: pick up and skim through Drugs in Pregnancy and Lactation: A Reference Guide to Fetal and Neonatal Risk. Hop from one foot to the other and tug at your hair while you are skimming. Actually, don’t tug at your hair, per say, just sort of flick it around. The point is to give off the impression of looking anxious but not depressed, the way you looked coming straight out of art school, when you spent two whole months thinking non-stop, “Either something is going to happen or it isn’t, right now, and I have been waiting a long time to become something and now I am not sure whether I can become something.” Anxious but not depressed, fearful but hopeful. Look fearful but hopeful, like you did coming straight out of art school.

Brush past him as you search out Keri Bowers’ Single Pregnancy Single Parenting: Creating a positive, fulfilling experience. He will not have noticed you yet, probably. Probably he will still be engrossed in his shelving, mentally ordering halfway difficult surnames alphabetically – Saunders before Sanders?; Morrison before Morissette?

Do not talk to him. Do not ask him any stupid questions like, “Where are the board books?” or, “Any plans tonight?” Just stand there and graze on single-parent pregnancy guidebooks. Do not even look up from what you are reading.

Eventually he will go back to his crate to pick up more books to shelve. He will see you on the way back. He will see you in your purple sundress, and he will stop. He will vaguely think, “I am twenty-four, I want something,” and will stand there and look at you for a long time. He will not know that you know that he is staring at your shoulder blades and spinal cord. He will turn the other way and try to stop seeing you in his head. He will think, “This girl is something.”

 “Did you need any help there?” he will say to you.

Say, “We both need some help, actually,” and point to your stomach and laugh a little bit.

He will laugh, but nervously, and ask, “How far along are you?”

Say, “I am twenty-three years along, but my little bump is four months.”

He will feel confused. In his head he will think, “I want to construct a life with this girl, her spinal cord and her shoulder blades, in rural Vermont, in a house backing onto a forest, with snow in the wintertime.” But then he will also think, “This girl is pregnant, what is wrong with me?”

Say, “My ex-boyfriend left me and I am alone and I am scared and my best friend told me to come in here today because she has seen you and believes that you could look after me and construct a life around me and my ex-boyfriend left me I am alone and I am scared and–”