Page 94 of Absorbed

Stacey slipped into her Birkenstocks, grabbed her keys, and ran out the door behind Bob with just her towel around her waist. They turned out of the parking lot in tandem. As they waited at the first stop light on the boulevard, she peered through Bob’s passenger window. He was still beaming.

For a split second, she considered Jessie’s concerns, and what the person at Thrifty’s checkout counter would think about her buying pregnancy tests. Mesa Valley was a small town, and theonly people who would wear a solid red swimsuit were lifeguards at The Plunge. It wouldn’t take long to put two and two together and for the rumors to fly. But Stacey needed to know if her symptoms were what she feared, and she needed to know now.

Stacey turned her shoulders sideways to run between the pharmacy’s slow moving sliding glass doors, and headed straight for the school supplies. She grabbed three poster boards, a pack of star stickers, extra-large poster letters, and a box of Crayola markers. In the aisle with the pregnancy tests, she grabbed two different brands of double kits and hid them under her arm beneath the supplies.

She piled everything on the front counter and held Bob’s and Jessie’s cash in her hand.

The cashier was in her late twenties, chewing a huge wad of bubble gum. She scanned the items at a glacial pace, dropping them in a plastic bag while staring at Stacey. “You work at The Plunge? This stuff for that Olympics thing?”

“Um hmm.” Stacey bounced on her heels, avoiding eye contact.

“Want these in the bag, too?” the cashier asked, holding up the poster board.

“No. That’s okay.” Stacey grabbed them, shoving the boards back under her arm, and held the two twenties across the counter.

The last two items–both boxes of pregnancy tests–sat on the counter exposed, and the cashier paused as if intentionally dragging out the process. Stacey’s heart raced. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one she knew was coming up behind her.

“These yours, too?” the cashier asked.

Stacey gawked at her. “Just ring them up and tell me what I owe you.”

The cashier made a spectacle of rolling her eyes and dropping each kit in the bag. “$34.45,” she said, the gum smacking while she held out her palm.

Stacey handed her the twenties, then strummed her fingers impatiently on the counter as the cashier counted out her change. She gripped the money in her palm as she ran back out to her car. She turned the Silver Bullet onto the boulevard, grateful only ten minutes had passed since she’d left the pool.

In The Plunge parking lot, she wrapped the pregnancy kits in her towel and carried the bundle with her keys and wallet in her left hand, the plastic Thrifty bag and poster boards in her right.

She ran in the main pool entrance and pulled open the guard shack door, quickly dropping the bag and poster boards inside. “I’ve REALLY gotta pee,” she said, staring at Jessie and backing out toward the bathroom.

“Don’t need to know,” Mark groaned from the desk chair, rubbing his temples, his feet up and head leaned back.

Jessie nodded his understanding. “I’ll take over for Melissa. Come out whenever you’re ready.”

Stacey slammed the bathroom stall door shut and swung her towel over the narrow opening. She quickly peeled open the boxes and unwrapped all four sticks. She pulled her bathing suit aside and squatted over the toilet, careful to pee on each of the test strips.

She rested the sticks on squares of toilet paper on top of the toilet paper dispenser, then exited the stall. She shoved the boxes deep into the trash can, then washed her hands.

Stacey saw herself in the mirror, but barely recognized the person staring back. Her face was thin, her eyes tired. She ran her damp fingers along the sides of her head, pulling the loose hairs across her forehead and tucking them behind her ears.

“In a few minutes this will all be over,” she mumbled to herself, then froze. “Shit!”How did I not think to bring a watch?

She scrambled back into the stall to see if anything had happened. Biting the nail of her middle finger, she decided to just wait however long it took until something happened in all four indicator windows.Jessie will understand.

She locked the stall door and readjusted the towel over the gap in case anyone came in.If I count to nine hundred, that would be fifteen minutes. But, it’s already been like four minutes, right? So, like 650 would be good? One, two, three, four, five, six….

A whistle sounded out by the pool. There was a loud splash. A shiver ran up Stacey’s spine.

Before she was out of the stall, she heard Mark shouting. She pulled open the heavy exterior bathroom door and ran out. Melissa stood in the doorway of the lifeguard office, her hands over her mouth. Stacey followed Melissa’s gaze.

Jessie!

He was face down in the pool in the fifth lane. The water around him was turning red.

BLOOD!

Mark was running to the edge of the pool with the backboard. “Call 9-1-1, NOW!” he shouted.

“Melissa!” Stacey screamed. “Call for an ambulance, Melissa!”

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