Page 6 of Margo's Got Money Troubles

When I first told Mark, we were at a restaurant, and I’d ordered a salad with fresh figs in it, prompting me to wonder why everyone was pretending to like fresh figs, this vast conspiracy to fake that figs were any good.

Anyway, I told Mark I was pregnant, and he said, “Holy shit.”

And I said, “I know.”

“You’re positive?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said.

“Have you been to the doctor?”

“Not yet.”

“So you could just be late.”

“Well, I took, like, four pregnancy tests, so I don’t think so, but yeah, I guess.”

He took a sip of his beer. “I’m involuntarily kind of thrilled. My seed is strong!” he cried in some kind of German or Viking accent.

I laughed. My hands were sweating profusely. It felt like the whole restaurant was moving, like we were on a boat, the heavy-handled silver faintly shifting on the white tablecloths.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know it’s serious. I want to be there to support you in any way possible. Financially, of course, but if you want me to take you to the appointment or any of that—this is my fuckup too, and I am fully responsible.”

“So how do I make an appointment?” I said.

“I mean, I would start by calling Planned Parenthood,” he said. “But, like, I don’t know if private doctors do it or if it’s nicer—like, I don’t want you to have some cheap abortion.”

I had not realized he’d already decided I would have an abortion. But of course he had. He would decide the same way he decided we would stop sleeping together (though evidently making out in his car was A-OK), the same way he decided we would have the affair in the first place. I’d never said no to him, not once. We went where he wanted when he wanted, ate what he wanted, touched or didn’t touch as much as he wanted. And honestly, I think I said it just to fuck with him: “Oh, I’m not having an abortion.”

He turned green almost instantaneously; it was extremely gratifying.

“What are you, Catholic?” he asked in a much nastier voice than he usually spoke to me in.

“No, but it’s my choice,” I said.

“Don’t you think I should get an opinion?” he asked.

“No,” I said. I stood and covered my gross fig salad with my napkin and left. When I got outside the restaurant, I could smell the ocean, and there was this weird moment when I felt like my mom, walking haughtily on the sidewalk, like my legs were in those sheer black pantyhose, like I could slip into being someone else entirely. Then I tripped on a curb, and the feeling was gone, and I was merely the idiot who had parked too far away.

And I really, really wish the next part hadn’t happened, but it is true that he ran after me and we wound up making out in his car, and I admitted I would probably have an abortion, I just didn’t want to be forced, and he said, “I couldn’t force you to do a damn thing, Margo. You are wilder than anyone I’ve ever known.”

And I liked that he called me that, even though the things Mark said about me never felt like they really had anything to do with me. They were more his fantasy of me. But I liked making out in his car, and we left on good terms. Then Mark didn’t contact me for three days, an unheard-of silence. I kept checking my phone, checking my email. I texted, Hey, you okay? (I always typed out you with him in deference to his Gen-X hang-ups and also because he was my English professor for goodness’ sakes.) He didn’t write back.

And I knew something bad had happened, that his feelings had shifted. Normally, there was a cord of attachment between us that I could tug and feel him there on the other end. I suddenly had the horrifying sensation that it had been snipped off, and now I had a cord that led nowhere, that was just dangling in space.

Then the email came, long and convoluted, explaining how he felt it was best for us to have no further contact, which was easy enough since the semester was over and I was no longer in his class. He was sorry for anything he put me through, but he felt I was throwing my life away and he couldn’t abide it. You could go anywhere, you could do anything, he wrote. Don’t throw it all away to have a baby. This one time, Margo, believe me. I am older than you. I have had babies. They are hard. You do not want babies.

It was confusing that he kept trying to frame the decision in terms of what I wanted. To me, want and should were two very separate things. In fact, wanting something was usually a sign that you did not deserve it and would not be getting it, for example: moving to New York City and going to a fancy college like NYU. Conversely, the less you wanted to do something, the more likely it was that you should, like going to the dentist or doing your taxes. More than anything, what I wanted was to make the right decision, and yet no one was willing to engage with me on those terms.

Margo’s best friend from high school had gotten into NYU and moved to New York, and the pain of this, that Becca was living the life they both had wanted and Margo was a waitress attending junior college—the unspoken understanding that this was because Becca’s parents had money and Margo’s mom did not—was too intense, and the girls had stopped talking. Except now Margo called her, and Becca picked up on the first ring.

Margo gave her a rough summary of what had happened. “So what do you think?”

“Fucking have an abortion!” Becca said.

“But like...” Margo could hear sirens and city noise in the background.

“There is no ‘but like.’ This isn’t a ‘but like’ situation! This is an emergency!”

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