THE NEXT DAY IN CLASS LIZZIE dragged her chair closest to the door exiting the classroom that beckoned with potential escape. It also gave her a decent view of the hills outside. Not much to see but the giant, white cement Y on the hillside. The foliage around it, faded from green to gray with tufts of white snow, held her interest more than these vapid baby-makers.
Saj had to stay home from daycare, and unfortunately, Rachael volunteered to babysit, giving Lizzie no excuse to miss happy, hungry hippo class.
The class sat in a circle on hard plastic chairs that were killer on the tailbone. It was like being back in high school. Many of the giggling gaggle of girls opposite Lizzie looked and acted like they still belonged in high school. The class was divided into two facing semi-circles; one of girls hoping to become pregnant and another of expectant mothers in varying stages of pregnancy.
The mothers to be were a mix of ages. One of them, an older woman that Lizzie had caught staring at her a few times, dragged her chair over to sit beside Lizzie.
When they were all seated, Mrs. Margent spoke, "Who wants to share first today?"
A hand shot up from the excitable wanna-be mothers across the way. "My dad said Jimmy and I can have a pre-honeymoon."
Lizzie almost choked on a laugh, and covered it with a cough. It's like I'm starring in my very own reality web-show.
Another hand, this time from the hippo/pre-hippo side. "Nate likes that my boobs are getting big." Lizzie wished her boobs would somehow shrink-the last thing she needed was bigger boobs. But she was pregnant. She already had a stock of bulky sweatshirts stashed in her closet in anticipation of the inevitable.
Lizzie stared back out the window as more comments were added to the mix, some less ridiculous.
"I felt the baby move this weekend."
"I can't wait until my baby's in my arms."
Lizzie wrote lyrics on her notebook. Or were they just poetry until she could set them to music? If and when she ever did.
Sitting in a circle, spilling all our guts
Never really sharing, never really caring
I see all their faces, but they don't see me
Never really baring souls, always ever staring
Smiling happy faces, holding hands and glancing
Saving selves for marriage
Lizzie scratched a single red line through the phrase. Unless that was ironic.
"Next," the teacher asked. "Betsy?"
"Pass," said the woman next to her.
"Elizabeth?"
Betsy hissed a whispered, "Lizzie?"
"Huh?" Lizzie glanced up from writing down makes my mind start swearing in her notebook.
Mrs. Margent arched her eyebrows. "Anything you'd like to share, Elizabeth?"
Everyone was watching Lizzie now. Someone tittered. Should she just pass, too? She glanced at Betsy beside her and had an idea. "I stopped puking, I think. Now Saj has got a snot-cold, so he's cough until he pukes. Oh, and his shit is really stinky and dark blackish green."
The classroom fell silent, and Lizzie delighted in their sudden discomfort. Some of the girls' faces were green tinged. Betsy's mouth twitched.
"Well." Mrs. Margent recovered. "Before I forget, Mr. Ray, our future Mayor, will be visiting us this afternoon."
Ray was running for Mayor of Provo, looking for an official endorsement of his leadership. As far as Lizzie knew, no one was running against him. How perfectly democratic.
"Let's get back to our seats and prepare for our quiz on potential pregnancy side effects."
"Pregnancy is an effing side effect," Lizzie muttered as she stood and lifted her chair. Betsy snickered. Lizzie couldn't help but grin as they went back to their tables.
The first thing she did when settled into her seat was to pull out her sketchbook and set it beside her notebook. Her pen etched in the shading around the belly on the pregnant nude she was working on. It was totally on topic for the class.
Lizzie fumed at the clock on the wall, which was nowhere near calling an end to her misery. Like the world never ended and she was still trapped in high school, forever. She didn't need this stupid class-real life was the only class she needed. Saj and the new baby would teach her everything she needed to know.
"Lizzie?" Betsy whispered, leaning over her desk.
Betsy wiggled her head toward the door and spoke more loudly, "Excuse me, Mrs. Margent, could I go to the ladies' room?"
"Certainly, Mrs. Kreig."
Lizzie's hand shot up. "May I go, too?"
The teacher nodded, distracted by a non-cooperative projector. Lizzie jumped up and turned to go, as the projector clicked on and displayed a giant cervix on the screen.
Betsy held the door as Lizzie slid past. Lizzie noted a wedding ring with a big diamond on Betsy's hand. Her eyes sparkled with mischief. As soon as Lizzie was through the door they both sighed as if they'd timed it.
Lizzie giggled and then slapped a hand over her mouth. "Ugh. Sorry. I am starting to sound like those inane girls-thanks for getting me out of there."
"Why are you sorry? There is so much to giggle about!" Betsy pasted on an extra dopey grin.
"Like-I know!" Lizzie said in her best sing-songy airhead voice. "I'm Lizzie by the way."
"I know. What I don't know is how much of this are we supposed to be able to take."
"Yeah. I just keep staring at the Y on the hill and wondering what the hell it's for."
"It was supposed to say BYU, but they ran out of energy. A few years back, some enterprising folks took up seven big buckets of colored paint and poured it down in stripes. It was rainbow colored for most of a week."
Lizzie could see a fire in her eyes. "Was one of those enterprising folks named Betsy, Mrs.-?"
"Kreig, Betsy Kreig, the one and only. But not Mrs. No, definitely not!"
"Okay, Betsy, not Mrs., where to now?"
"Well, I really did have to pee, and I wanted to talk to you. You never stick around long enough to chat. Not many of the others have brains enough for conversation."
"Yeah, I feel pretty much like the only girl in there who isn't ecstatically pregnant."
"Well, I'm not a girl, but ecstasy had very little to do with my pregnancy."
"I'm sorry?"
"No. Don't be. It's just that it was planned. Right down to the smallest detail. My wife's egg, a mutual friend's sperm. All mixed together in a cute little petri dish." Her smile held more pain than Lizzie had noticed before. "A miracle," she said dryly, "or an abomination."
"Well, congratulations. You're giving birth to the new generation," she spouted the propaganda.
"Thanks," Betsy said.
"I kind of wish someone had made a conscious choice to have me. I was the happy accident that paved the highway to hell."
Betsy took Lizzie's arm and led her toward the bathroom. "Are congratulations in order for you?"
Lizzie puffed out her cheeks and told the story of her one night stand with Zach and the current level of aftermath.
Betsy placed her hands on Lizzie's shoulders. "And I thought I had problems."
Lizzie felt comfort and compassion flowing from Betsy. "I think we're all going to be okay. I mean we go back to middle school as friends."
"And you all survived?" Betsy's eyes pressed into Lizzie. "That is really strange."
Lizzie pushed open the door to the girl's restroom and held it for Betsy. "What's the deal with Mr. Ray? He seems too good to be real."
Betsy chuckled. "Yeah. That's about it. Not sure that anyone has googled him to find out what the skeletons are in his closet." Her look grew a bit far away.
"Where'd he come from?" Lizzie hopped up on the counter as Betsy found a stall. "Gawd. I could really use a smoke. Trips like this to the school bathroom usually ended with a smoke."
"Oh my god. Please don't talk about cigarettes. I think they execute pregnant women by firing squad for smoking in this town," Betsy said as she peed. "Mr. Ray was a school board member, former city councilman. Before that? I don't know."
"And he really did walk all around Provo spreading calm? The way people describe it, you'd think he was Jesus."
Betsy snorted, coming out and washing her hands. "He was always there. He helped nurse the sick, the dying, buried the dead. He is the real deal-the reason I put up with all this shit."
Lizzie saw pain flash across Betsy's knitted brows.
"Plus, when someone started making a fuss about my sexuality, he shut it down." Betsy turned away. "We better get back before Margent sends out a search party."
Back inside, the room had dimmed, Margent was showing a film on fertilization. Lizzie slid into her seat.
As the film mentioned menstruation, Lizzie pulled out her red pen. It scraped across the paper of her notebook.
Spewing red ink on to white paper. The blue lines like veins, running, an underground river of blood, waiting to be exposed to the air and make the parchment scarred red with slashes.
The words didn't satisfy her. How could any words do justice to how she felt? Hopeless. Trapped. Despair. All hollow. Why did her family want to stay in this place? Why were they making her stay?
As the video ended, Mrs. Margent flipped the lights back on and cleared her throat. "Please, take out a piece of paper for the quiz."
The door opened and a man with thinning gray hair walked in. Mr. Ray. She understood what Betsy was talking about. He carried himself with a good-natured confidence. It was a kind of confidence that crept in and infected anyone in the same room. Even Lizzie was having a hard time shaking off the feeling that as long as he was in charge everything would be okay. She gripped her red pen tightly. It was not okay-would not be okay. Just because her body was capable of producing another human being did not mean they could take away her choices, and her freedom.
Mr. Ray swept the room with his gaze, seeing each person. Lizzie lowered her eyes before he made eye contact, scratching a few more blood ink words to her page: Mr. Ray, I want a say, or I won't play.
"Well, class. Mr. Ray is here early."
"I try to be prompt," Mr. Ray said, his voice a kind baritone rumble.
"I'm sure they'll be happy to listen." Mrs. Margent squeezed his bicep. "You're saving them from a quiz. Class, please put everything away."
Dammit. She raised her hand.
"Yes, Elizabeth?"
Lizzie put all her charm into her smile. "Can we take notes, Mrs. Margent?"
"Mr. Ray," Mrs. Margent deferred, "Would you like them to take notes?"
Mr. Ray chuckled. "I wouldn't mind. Though I'm not certain I'll have anything worth taking notes about."
"Oh, I'm certain that's not true," Mrs. Margent said. "Please welcome, Mr. Ray to our classroom."
As the girls clapped; Betsy whispered, "Better than Margent?"
Lizzie nodded with a grin.
"Thank you all for welcoming me into your classroom. How many of you are 18 or older?"
Several hands shot up. After a moment, Lizzie inched her hand up halfway.
"How many of you have ever voted?"
The hands went down except Margent, Betsy, and a few of the other pregnant women. Lizzie wondered if school elections counted, though she'd never voted in any of those either. She'd campaigned against the Shell Oil Tankers, and promised she would vote against a lot of things. She smirked, but she kept her hand down.
"How many of you would vote if you had the chance?"
Half the girls raised their hands, the other half looked afraid. Afraid to have a say in how things ran, or afraid to admit they wanted it? Lizzie looked down at the red scribbles in her book. Voting was only way she would get any say in a group like this. She stuck her hand up high this time.
Margent's mouth dropped in surprise, but she snapped it shut and beamed a smile of approval at Lizzie. Lizzie pulled her hand back down and rolled her eyes. It wasn't that big a deal. How much effect could her one vote have anyway?
"I would like to invite you all to vote. Not for me. But for whoever or whatever you care about. We've decided to lower the voting age to 16."
Excited murmurs spread through the room.
"There will be a number of things to vote on. Our temporary charter for self-governing, officially starting up a militia and of course, government officials. Please, listen to all the people who run. Ask them questions. Vote with your hearts."
Lizzie held up her hand.
Mr. Ray nodded to her. Before she could speak, he said, "Stand up. Stand up. Don't be shy. What's your name?"
"Lizzie."
"Nice to meet you, Lizzie. What's your question?"
"So, Mr. Ray, who is running against you?"
The girls tittered.
"A great question! My assistant, Mr. Tony DiSilvio has agreed to run against me. It took a lot of convincing; he is loyal to a fault. But in the end he agreed that it's important to give people a choice. We were hoping more candidates would step forward, but it's looking like it will just be me and Tony. Any other questions?"
Most of the class just stared blankly at him. Betsy relaxed in her chair, like she already knew everything. Mrs. Margent held her breath, as if a single puff of air might scare off a question.
Crickets.
Lizzie decided to raise her hand again.
Mr. Ray made her stand up again, much to her annoyance.
"Why are there extra rules about pregnant women? Why do I have to stay in city limits? Why do you think I can't take care of myself?"
"Something tells me, Lizzie, that you could take care of yourself better than some of our front line Collectors. It's not that anybody doubts that. But we see you, and the little guy or girl you are bringing into this world, as a very precious thing. We want to keep all of you safe. It's important as well that you feel like you are still in control of your lives. That's why it's important to vote."
Thing? Did he just call them things? Possessions? Lizzie stiffened.
Mr. Ray swept the room again, making eye contact with everyone as if to drive home how much he wanted them to vote-or stay like little China dolls in a glass case. Then he brought his gaze back to Lizzie, still standing with her fists balled up at her sides. "Maybe you would like to discuss this further sometime, Lizzie? My door is always open. We could draft amendments to our charter that make sure our young women's rights and freedoms are protected. I could think of nobody better to do it than someone as intelligent and passionate about the issue as you."
Like he or the council would listen to her, a young pregnant female. Lizzie was about to tell him where he could shove his charter when her phone buzzed.
Mrs. Margent's eyes narrowed.
Lizzie shrunk slightly and pulled out the phone. The rule was no calls unless it was an emergency. She didn't recognize the number and there were a string of texts from Rachael.
"Sorry, I have to. My s-Saj has been sick."
Mrs. Margent relented and gestured to the door. "I am so sorry about that interruption, Mr. Ray. Class, any more questions?"
Lizzie hurried out into the hall and answered the call, "Hello?"
A scratchy voice replied. "Lizzie?"
"Yes. Who is this?"
"It's Rachael."
"Rachael? I barely recognize your voice. Are you sick now, too?"
"Dr. Wright wants to keep Saj and I overnight."
"What? Where are you?"
"In the hospital. I've got what Saj had. He's doing worse. His fever spiked and his little heart was racing so fast."
"I'll be right there."