Good Luck, Fatty

rhetorical. “Then close your legs and stay away from other people’s boyfriends.”
    “Yeah,” says Melissa.
    I shake my head, not to disagree with them (I wasn’t planning on screwing anyone other than Tom, if he even wants to), but because no matter what I utter next, it’ll be wrong. “Whatever you say.”
    Dana gives me another little shove. “That’s right.”
    And then the bell rings.
     

----
     
    The Pill is 99.9% effective, or so I’ve been telling myself every morning for the past eight days, since my period went MIA.
    At our mail-cluttered kitchen table, I gobble the same apple-cinnamon oatmeal I’ve eaten for breakfast every morning this week and rack my brain over birth control pills (did I miss any this month, as I’ve been known to do?) and sexual “partners” (who are the possible daddies, should this screw-up in my cycle turn out to be more than a fluke?).
    “Are you okay?” Denise asks with a note of serious concern. “You don’t look so good.” She dumps a couple of big scoops of coffee into the coffeemaker and starts it brewing, even though she’s just come off the night shift and is about to go to bed.
    Great. Even Denise can tell there’s something wrong with me. “It’s kind of hot in here, don’t you think?” I say instead of answering.
    “You got a fever?”
    Maybe it’s morning sickness. “Nah,” I say, shoving my chair away from the table. With Denise being only a few years older than me, you’d think I’d be able to talk to her about this sort of stuff. And sometimes I do, but only hypothetically.
    “Want me to stay up for a while?” she offers. “We could finish the last of our Christmas shopping at Derby’s.”
    Derby’s is a local discount chain that scoffs up expired, salvaged, and overstocked goods and peddles them to customers on less-than-no-frills budgets. It’s my—and Denise’s—favorite store. “Maybe,” I say, picturing racks of baby clothes that have been rescued from a flood and, consequently, look like they’ve already been spit up on.
    “Are you sure you’re okay?” Denise asks again, studying me as I wobble to the cast iron sink and lean against the faux marble counter.
    The reason I can’t tell Denise about missing my period is that it would upset her too much. Not because she’d necessarily be mad if I turned up pregnant, but because she can’t have children of her own. She has a medical condition (don’t ask me which one, because I can never remember the name), and a doctor told her she has less than a one percent chance of conceiving, even without birth control. “I’ve only got twenty-five bucks,” I say, steering the conversation back to the subject of shopping. “Think that’ll be enough?”
    Denise smiles. “Yesterday was payday,” she tells me unnecessarily. We all know each other’s business in this house. “I had five hours of overtime last week, so don’t you worry about it.”
    I wish I could trade Marie for Denise. “Cool,” I say. I give her the broadest smile I can muster. “Let’s go.”

 
    chapter 7
     
    TOM HAS invited me over for Christmas Eve dinner and a Secret Santa gift exchange. I’m playing Kris Kringle to the dog, Hush Puppy, a mouthy Pomeranian that makes my phone conversations with Tom as obnoxiously loud as a heavy metal concert.
    Denise drops me in front of the double-wide trailer and toots the horn of the Royale as she pulls away. Before I can get within striking distance of the door, though, Tom appears on the porch wearing an attractive charcoal-gray dress shirt, a pair of borderline trendy jeans, and an unmistakable excited-to-see-me smile. Now that I’m his girlfriend (and I’ve quit the extracurricular screwing cold turkey), he seems nothing short of enamored. “Hey,” he says, taking my hand and guiding me up the steps.
    This whole boyfriend/girlfriend thing has me feeling like I’ve plunged headfirst into a fairytale. “Hi,” I say, a sudden case of jitters wiggling around in my stomach.
    The first thing that hits me when we get inside is the smoke. Say what you will about Orv and Denise, but cigarettes are one evil they’ve kept soundly at bay. “I’ll take your coat,” Tom says, an arm outstretched for me to drape it over.
    I slip my windbreaker off and let him have it. “What about this?” I ask, holding up the chunk of rawhide I’ve brought for Hush Puppy, the shiny snowflake paper I’ve wrapped it in coming undone at the edges. I scan the living