Good Luck, Fatty

first-aid aisle. I mosey over to the shelf, select a box of the flexible fabric kind and slip it into my basket.
    Whew! I feel better already. One step closer to that pregnancy test, the cash register, and my Schwinn.
    I dodge a clot of tween girls in shiny sleeveless sports jerseys and matching short-shorts. (Gawd, why are they forced to squeeze into those obnoxious things? Those shorts alone kept me from trying out for softball every year since sixth grade.)
    I pass the shampoo and hairspray, circle back around to the pain relievers, which are in the same aisle as the bandages but on the opposite end.
    Muscle pain. Since I started training (however sporadically) for the Yo-Yo, my legs and back and even my shoulders have been aching nonstop. (But at least now I know I still have muscles under this suit of blubber.)
    I run a finger along the boxes of BENGAY and Aspercreme (I’d rather rub my pain away than choke down a bucketful of pills) but settle for a generic tube of the muscle rub instead, so I can save enough cash for the pregnancy test, which, at last check, cost fourteen ninety-nine.
    I’ve been here long enough, I think. Time to snatch a test and vamoose, before anyone catches on. I draw a breath and hold it, saunter up to the family planning section and reach for an EPT, but—egads!—it’s increased in price to nineteen ninety-nine, and Mr. Marlowe’s beady, bifocaled eyes are now drilling holes in my forehead.
    I dance my fingers hopefully through the air toward a First Response, until I notice that—double yikes!!—it’s even more expensive: twenty-one ninety-nine. If I weren’t about to vomit (or perhaps faint), I’d check for a generic version, I really would. Instead, I back away and tip my basket out onto the counter.
    “That it?” Mr. Marlowe inquires after tallying the muscle rub and the bandages.
    “Uh…” I don’t have enough money left for a pregnancy test anyway, so I pinch a pack of watermelon-flavored gum (what can I say? it was good last time) and a Milky Way from the shelf by my knees. “Yup,” I say as I shove the junk toward the pharmacist’s waiting hand. “That’ll do it.”
     

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    Tom and I haven’t officially broken up, but it’s hard to know if someone’s still your boyfriend when they refuse to speak to you.
    “Hello?” Tom says noncommittally when he picks up the phone.
    I listen to his breathing for a few seconds. “Hi.”
    Click.
    Why is he bothering to answer my calls if he’s just going to hang up? Doesn’t he have Caller ID?
    I poke the redial button with my thumb, and the phone plinks out Tom’s number all on its own. But it just rings and rings. I’ve got to come up with a stealthier way to contact him, catch him off guard, I think. The Internet would be perfect (I could bombard him with messages day and night, refusing to let up until we’ve reached satisfactory communication terms) but Orv, Denise, and I are too cash-strapped for a computer, let alone one of those fancy dialup connections.
    Ditto for cell phones and especially texting, which, I’m not ashamed to admit, I find quite exotic. (I mean, all those thoughts and feelings aching to be reduced to clever acronyms and cutesy emoticons? I want to French kiss whoever thought up that idea.)
    As usual, the Schwinn is the answer to my problem (that is, if this bout of drizzle would quit and I could sneak out of the house without disturbing Denise, who’s just off the night shift at Welcome Home, and Orv, who has Saturdays off from the toothpick factory and is currently hammering away at something—literally—in the garage).
    By the time I grab breakfast and a shower, the first two of my stumbling blocks have vanished: The sun is now aflame, almost to the point of bullying the sky, and Denise is sprawled across the couch, eyes closed, breaths shallow and rhythmic with sleep.
    I jangle my house key off the hook by the door and pocket it, ease the door shut behind me as I squint into the sunshine. Orv’s back is to me when I reach the garage, but I’m sure he can still see me out of the corner of his eye. I face the Schwinn toward the street and say, “I’m going for a ride.” As I wheel the bike into the driveway, I add, “Be back later.”
    Orv sets the hammer (we own a hammer?) on a shelf above his head. “Aunt Marie’s comin’ at two.”
    My parents seem to be taking this shared custody thing pretty seriously. I wrinkle my brow. “Really?”
    “Yep.”
    Sometimes