Page 31 of Emerald Malice

The girl can’t be older than fifteen or sixteen. She’s wringing her hands together as she stares up at the morose nurse.

“No more painful than childbirth,” the nurse says. “You should have thought about that before you decided to rut around in the backseat of your boyfriend’s car.”

The girl pales and her eyes veer to me. I look away, trying—not for the first time—to concentrate on filling out the forms the same bitchy nurse dumped into my lap half an hour ago.

The screech of another ambulance siren drones past, and I sit up taller. Concentrate, Natalia! I don’t want to be in this dingy OBGYN clinic for a second longer than I have to.

I take another crack at the line item I’ve spent the last ten minutes staring at: FATHER’S DETAILS. Finally, in a fit of spite, I draw a long line through the whole section.

“‘Father,’” I mutter under my breath. “Un-fucking-likely. ‘Sperm donor’ barely covers it.”

“Done filling out those forms yet?” Nurse Satan barks at me.

I scribble in the last few answers and march the papers over to the counter. “Will I get to see the doctor soon?”

She doesn’t look up from behind her desk. “You’ll see him when you see him. Sit down until I call you.”

Alrighty then. She’s lucky the forms didn’t ask me to rate her customer service.

I give the young girl a reassuring smile as I walk back to my seat, but she’s too busy plucking at her split ends to notice.

I don’t blame her. This place doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence. But it’s the only one I can afford that doesn’t require health insurance, and by the looks of it, she’s as shit out of luck as I am.

Another siren whistles past. I’m extremely glad I decided to take the morning off work to come here. I definitely wouldn’t want to walk back home through this neighborhood in the dark.

The nurse jabs a finger in what I think is my direction. “You. You’re up.”

I get to my feet, but so does the young girl sitting opposite me. We clock each other and freeze. Nurse Sunshine over there scowls. “Not you,” she tells me, as though I’m an idiot. “The girl. The scrawny one.”

The girl swallows and follows the nurse around the corner, leaving me alone in the waiting area with nothing but the dull fluorescent lighting and four-year-old issues of Vogue for company.

My phone vibrates in the pocket of my dress. I pull it out, fully prepared to ignore the call if it happens to be Katya.

It’s not. But the person who is calling isn’t much better.

I accept the call reluctantly. “Hi, Byron.”

“Hey, sugar plum. Guess what?” My boss plows ahead without waiting for an answer. “I’m standing in front of your desk and you are nowhere in sight.”

“I asked for the morning off, remember? I filed the request last week.”

“You never handed it to me.” I can practically see his eyebrow cock playfully. Those wandering fingers of his twitching at his side, so ready to find my knee, my shoulder, my hip…

“I handed it to Mr. Ewes.”

Byron tuts. “I’m your immediate boss, beautiful. You should have come to me.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just that Human Resources told us last month that?—”

“Human Resources, poo-man resources!” he interrupts with a childish cackle. “Just come straight to me next time. I’ll clear your morning, no problem.”

“Okay. Thanks, Byron. Listen, I have to?—”

“Why did you need the morning off, anyway?”

I stare at the door where the nurse disappeared with the pregnant teenager. “Uh… just a medical check-up.”

“Lady business, huh?”

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