Carrie Diaries

CHAPTER THIRTEEN Creatures of Love

I lay low for the next couple of days, steering clear of Donna LaDonna by skipping assembly and avoiding the cafeteria during lunch. On the third day, Walt tracks me down in the library, where I’m hiding in the self-help section of the stacks, secretly reading Linda Goodman’s Love Signs in a futile attempt to discern if Sebastian and I have a future. Problem is, I don’t know his birthday. I can only hope he’s an Aries and not a Scorpio.

“Astrology? Oh no. Not you, Carrie,” Walt says.

I shut the book and put it back on the shelf. “What’s wrong with astrology?”

“It’s dumb,” Walt says snidely. “Thinking you can predict your life from your birth sign. Do you know how many people are born each day? Two million five hundred and ninety-nine. How can two million five hundred and ninety-nine people have anything in common?”

“Has anyone mentioned that you’ve been in a really bad mood lately?”

“What are you talking about? I’m always like this.”

“It’s the breakup, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not.”

“Then what is it?”

“Maggie’s in tears,” he says suddenly.

I sigh. “Is it about me?”

“Not everything’s about you, Bradley. Apparently she had some kind of fight with Peter. She sent me to find you. She’s in the girls’ room by the chemistry lab.”

“You don’t have to run errands for her.”

“I don’t care,” Walt says, as if the whole situation is pointless. “It’s easier than not doing it.”

Something is definitely wrong with Walt, I think, as I hurry away to meet Maggie. He’s always been slightly sarcastic and cynical, which is what I love about him. But he’s never been this world weary, as if everyday life has drained him of the strength to continue.

I open the door to the small lav in the old part of the school that hardly anyone uses because the mirror is mangy and all the fixtures are from about sixty years ago. The writing scratched into the stalls appears to be about sixty years old as well. My favorite is, For a good time, call Myrtle. I mean, when was the last time someone named their kid Myrtle?

“Who’s there?” Maggie calls out.

“It’s me.”

“Is anyone with you?”

“No.”

“Okay,” she says, and comes out of the stall, her face swollen and blotchy from crying.

“Jesus, Maggie,” I say as I hand her a paper towel.

She blows her nose and looks at me over the tissue. “I know you’re all caught up in Sebastian now, but I need your help.”

“Okay,” I say cautiously.

“Because I have to go to this doctor. And I can’t go alone.”

“Of course.” I smile, grateful that we seem to have made up. “When?”

“Now.”

“Now?”

“Unless you have something better to do.”

“I don’t. But why now, Maggie?” I ask with growing suspicion. “What kind of doctor?”

“You know,” she says, lowering her voice. “A doctor for…women’s stuff.”

“Like abortion?” I can’t help it. The word comes out in a loud gasp.

Maggie looks panicked. “Don’t even say it.”

“Are you — ?”

“No,” she says, in a heated whisper. “But I thought I might be. But then I got my period on Monday.”

“So you did it…without protection?”

“You don’t exactly plan these things, you know,” Maggie says defensively. “And he’s always pulled out.”

“Oh, Maggie.” Even if I haven’t had actual sex, I know quite a bit about the theories behind it, the number one fact being that the pull-out method is known not to work. And Maggie should know this too. “Aren’t you on the pill?”

“Well, I’m trying to be.” She grimaces. “That’s why I have to go to this doctor in East Milton.”

East Milton is right next to our town, but it’s supposedly filled with crime, and nobody goes there. They don’t even go through it, under any circumstances. Honestly, I can’t believe there’s even a doctor’s office there. “How did you find this doctor anyway?”

“The Yellow Pages.” I can tell by the way she says it that she’s lying. “I called up and I got an appointment for twelve thirty today. And you have to go with me. You’re the only person I can trust. I mean, I can’t exactly go with Walt, can I?”

“Why can’t you go with Peter? He’s the person who’s responsible for all this, right?”

“He’s kind of pissed at me,” Maggie says. “When he found out I might be pregnant he freaked out and didn’t talk to me for twenty-four hours.”

There is something about this whole scenario that just isn’t making sense. “But, Maggie,” I counter, “when I saw you on Sunday afternoon, you said you’d had sex with Peter for the first time...”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.”

“I don’t remember.” She grabs a handful of toilet paper and puts it over her face.

“It wasn’t the first time, was it?” I say. She shakes her head. “You’d slept with him before.”

“That night after The Emerald,” she admits.

I nod slowly. I walk to the tiny window and look out. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Oh, Carrie, I couldn’t,” she cries. “I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you, but I was scared. I mean, what if people found out? What if Walt found out? Everyone would think I was a slut.”

“I would never think you were a slut. I wouldn’t think you were a slut if you slept with a hundred men.”

This makes her giggle. “Do you think a woman can sleep with a hundred men?”

“I think she could, if she worked really, really hard at it. I mean, you’d have to sleep with a different guy every week. For two years. You practically wouldn’t have time for anything but sex.”

Maggie throws away the tissue and looks at herself in the mirror as she pats cold water on her face. “That sounds just like Peter. All he thinks about is sex.”

No kidding. Hell. Who knew nerdly old Peter was such a stud?

The doctor’s office should be fifteen minutes away, but thirty minutes have passed and we still can’t find it. So far we’ve nearly backed into two cars, driven over four curbs, and run over a handful of french fries. Maggie insisted we stop at McDonald’s on the way, and when we got our food into the car, she lurched out of the parking lot with so much force all my french fries flew out the window.

Enough! I want to scream. But I can’t do that — not when I’m trying to get one of my best friends to a crackpot doctor’s office to get a prescription for birth control pills. So when I look at my watch and see that it’s past twelve thirty, I gently suggest we stop at a gas station.

“Why?” Maggie asks.

“They have maps.”

“We don’t need a map.”

“What are you, a guy?” I open the glove compartment and look inside in despair. It’s empty. “Besides, we need cigarettes.”

“My goddamn mother,” Maggie says. “She’s trying to quit. I hate when she does that.”

Luckily, the cigarette issue distracts us from the fact that we are lost, we are in the most dangerous town in Connecticut, and we are losers. Enough to get us to a gas station anyway, where I am forced to flirt with a pimply faced attendant while Maggie takes a nervous leak in the dirty bathroom.

I show the attendant the piece of paper with the address on it. “Oh, sure,” he says. “That street is right around the corner.” Then he starts making shadow figures on the side of the building.

“You’re really good at doing a bunny,” I say.

“I know,” he says. “I’m going to quit this job soon. Going to do shadow figures at kids’ parties.”

“I’m sure you’ll have a huge clientele.” All of a sudden, I’m feeling kind of sentimental toward this sweet, pimply faced guy who wants to do shadow figures at children’s parties. He’s so different from anyone at Castlebury High. Then Maggie comes out and I hustle her into the car, making my hand into a barking dog shape as we peel out of there.

“What was that about?” Maggie asks. “The hand. Since when do you do shadow puppets?”

Ever since you decided to have sex and didn’t tell me, I want to say, but don’t. Instead I say, “I’ve always done them. You just never noticed.”

The address for the doctor’s office is on a residential street with tiny houses crammed right next to one another. When we get to number 46, Maggie and I look at each other like this can’t be right. It’s just another house — a small, blue ranch with a red door. Behind the house we discover another door with a sign next to it that reads, DOCTOR’S OFFICE. But now that we’ve finally found this doctor, Maggie is terrified. “I can’t do it,” she says, slumping onto the steering wheel. “I can’t go in.”

I know I should be peeved at her for making me come all the way to East Milton for nothing, but instead, I know exactly how she’s feeling. Wanting to cling to the past, wanting to be the way you always were, too scared to move forward into the future. I mean, who knows what’s in the future? On the other hand, it’s probably too late to go back.

“Look,” I say. “I’ll go inside and check it out. If it’s okay, I’ll come back and get you. If I’m not back in five minutes, call the police.”

Taped to the door is a piece of paper that says, KNOCK LOUDLY. I knock loudly. I knock so loudly, I nearly bruise my knuckles.

The door opens a crack, and a middle-aged woman wearing a nurse’s uniform sticks her head out. “Yes?”

“My friend is here for an appointment.”

“For what?” she says.

“Birth control pills?” I whisper.

“Are you the friend?” she demands.

“No,” I say, taken aback. “My friend is in the car.”

“She’d better come in quickly. Doctor has his hands full today.”

“Okay,” I say, and nod. My head is like one of those bobble things truckers put on their dashboards.

“Either get your ‘friend’ or come in,” the nurse says.

I turn around and wave to Maggie. And for once in her life, she actually gets out of the car.

We go in. We’re in a tiny waiting room that was maybe the breakfast room in the original house. The wallpaper is printed with tea kettles. There are six metal chairs and a fake wooden coffee table with copies of Highlights magazine for kids. A girl about our age is sitting on one of the chairs.

“Doctor will be with you soon,” the nurse says to Maggie, and leaves the room.

We sit down.

I look over at the girl, who is staring at us with hostility. Her hair is cut in a mullet, short in the front and really long in the back, and she’s wearing black eyeliner that swoops up into little wings, like her eyes might fly away from her face. She looks tough and miserable and kind of mean. Actually, she looks like she’d like to beat us up. I try to smile at her, but she glares at me instead and pointedly picks up Highlights magazine. Then she puts it down and says, “What are you looking at?”

I can’t handle another girl fight, so I reply as sweetly as possible, “Nothing.”

“Yeah?” she says. “You’d better be looking at nothing.”

“I’m looking at nothing. I swear.”

And at last, before this can go any further, the door opens and the nurse comes out, escorting another teenage girl by the shoulders. The girl looks quite a bit like her friend, except that she’s crying quietly and wiping the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hands.

“You’re okay, dear,” the nurse says with surprising kindness. “Doctor says it all went fine. No aspirin for the next three days. And no sex for at least two weeks.” The girl nods, weeping. Her friend jumps up and puts her hands on the side of the crying girl’s face. “C’mon, Sal. It’s okay. You’re gonna be okay.” And with one final scowl in our direction, she leads the girl away.

The nurse shakes her head and looks at Maggie. “Doctor will see you now.”

“Maggie,” I whisper. “You don’t have to do this. We can go someplace else...”

But Maggie stands, her face resolute. “I have to do it.”

“That’s right, dear,” the nurse says. “Much better to take precautions. I wish all you girls would take precautions.”

And for some reason, she looks directly at me.

Whoa, lady. Take it easy. I’m still a virgin.

But I may not be for much longer. Maybe I should get some pills too. Just in case.

Ten minutes pass and Maggie comes back out, smiling and looking like a weight has been lifted from her shoulders. She thanks the nurse profusely. In fact, she thanks her so much I have to remind her that we ought to get back to school. Outside, she says, “It was so easy. I didn’t even have to take off my clothes. He just asked me about the last time I got my period.”

“That’s great,” I say, getting in the car. I can’t get the image of the crying girl out of my head. Was she crying because she was sad or relieved? Or just scared? Either way, it was pretty awful. I open the window a crack and light up a cigarette. “Mags,” I say. “How did you hear about that place? Really?”

“Peter told me about it.”

“How did he know?”

“Donna LaDonna told him,” she whispers.

I nod, blowing smoke into the cold air. I am so not ready for all this.