Good Luck, Fatty

perfect face our way. My brother is a dead ringer for Marie.
    Denise forces a smile, conjures a few syllables of baby talk and a series of halfhearted cooing sounds before breaking out in a heaving sob. “I’m sorry!” she cries. She sucks a wad of snot down her throat (or at least that’s what it sounds like). “I…” (sob) “…just…” (sob) “…can’t…” (sob). She drags the arm of her jacket over her dripping nose and then turns and rushes down the hall.
    And I run after her.
     

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    There’s not a single chain drugstore in Industry, which makes shopping for a pregnancy test a pretty indiscreet affair when you’re a tubby teen who, one way or another, knows just about everyone in town.
    I hoist the front tire of the Schwinn into a bike rack beside a restaurant called Big Daddy’s and around the corner from Marlowe’s Drugs and Sundries, the only place I can think of that might stock a First Response or an EPT. (What I wouldn’t give for a Walgreens or a Rite Aid right now.)
    I never spent the twenty-five dollars I’ve had since before Christmas (Denise lumped my items in with hers at Derby’s) so I’m hoping that, if I’m lucky enough to nail down a pregnancy test, the crinkly wad of ones and fives stuffed in my jeans will cover it.
    As I slip in through the side door of Marlowe’s, which has a jingly bell over it, just like The Pit— da-ding! da-ding! —the pharmacist (Mr. Marlowe?), a crotchety-looking dude with an obvious toupee and wire-rimmed bifocals, glances up at me. Stupidly, I smile. Now there’s no way I’ll have the guts to plop an EPT down on the counter, even if this place has one.
    But I can’t leave yet (I just got here, for God’s sake), so I wander down the shampoo aisle, as if I’m searching for a new product to straighten, or volumize, or de-frizz my mane. Where in the world are the pregnancy tests anyway?
    I pluck a giant bottle of Pantene off the shelf and spin it around, pretending to check its label for pesticides or a cruelty-free logo. Meanwhile, two young mothers (former classmates of Denise) wrestle baby strollers through the aisle in tandem, one of the strollers rubbing my ankles as it goes by. I glance back and spot a cherubic little face smiling at me. Since when did infants get so gosh darn cute?
    I refocus my efforts, case the joint so that, next time I show up (today is not my day, obviously), I’ll know exactly where the pregnancy tests are and will be able to nab one and run.
    For the life of me, though, I can’t seem to find the damn things. After ten minutes of eyeballing shoe polish and denture cream and foot powder, I’m still at square one. “Can I help you?” Mr. Marlowe asks as I shuffle past his glassed-in pod.
    I whip my head around as if he must be speaking to someone other than me.
    Negative.
    “Uh…” Quick! Grab anything! my brain squeals. I reach for a giant pack of watermelon-flavored gum. “I’ll take this,” I say as I slide it across the counter.
    Mr. Marlowe floats down from his perch, rings up the gum and sends me on my way. A few steps past the cash register, I notice the condoms…and the pregnancy tests.
    At least now I know.
     

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    “Have you seen Buttercup lately?” I ask Harvey between customers at The Pit. Sometimes my little buddy takes off for a few days at a time, especially during what passes for winter around here, but this time it seems like he’s been gone a lot longer.
    “Geez…” Harvey says, sounding concerned. “Now that you mention it, I don’t think the bugger’s been around for the better part of a month.”
    I knew it. “Where do you think he went?” I ask absently as I thread a new seat onto a wrecked bike Harvey and I are restoring.
    Harvey clamps an air hose to the valve stem of the bike’s back tire and starts pumping the deflated thing up by hand. “He’s a stray, Bobbi,” he reminds me gently. “He could be anywhere.”
    Or nowhere. “I should look for him.”
    Harvey shakes his head. “How are you going to do that?”
    “I don’t know,” I say with a shrug. I give the bike seat a tap into its ultimate position. “I can check the places he hangs out, see if he’s off hurt somewhere, or if anybody’s got a lead on him.”
    “What about your training?” Harvey asks with an edge of disappointment. “The Yo-Yo’s only ten weeks away.”
    I’ve been waiting for him to bring this up. Frankly, I’m surprised he’s held out this long. I twist a new