Here Comes Trouble - Michael Moore [73]
Tucker had nothing to worry about with me, and Zoe appreciated having one guy in the school who wasn’t hitting on her. I didn’t want to let her down, and there was something noble about being different (better?) than the other boys in her eyes. Of course, there was nothing noble about denying your feelings, sexual or otherwise, but who was I going to share that with? Ann Landers? The cafeteria lady?
Having now admitted to possessing such desire, I will also admit that having a friend like Zoe was a blessing, a greater blessing than one could hope for in trying to survive the misery of adolescence. I could call her anytime, day or night, and if she wasn’t banging Tucker I was free to talk to her as long as I wanted. I lived in town, so I could easily walk over to her house anytime—and I was there far more than Tucker ever was, since he lived out in the country and did not have a driver’s license.
Zoe and I grew very close and shared everything the way you do with that special friend in high school as you lie around the rec room—or the bedroom—for all hours of the day or night, pouring through every subject imaginable: who was “bonin’” who, which classes sucked, ways to avoid the parents, how to help the kid down the street who was being punched by his dad every night, how to remove Nixon from office, playing the new Moody Blues album, sneaking into an X-rated movie (Midnight Cowboy), taking turns writing verses of poems that would become lyrics to songs that she would write the music for and sing to me. Here’s how close we were: one day, she informed me that the lips of her vulva were unlike most women’s because her labia minora was larger than her labia majora, thus causing her inner lips to fold out on top of her outer lips. She told me this as if she were reading me something from the TV Guide, and the look on my face conveyed nothing more than my desire to watch another rerun of Mayberry, RFD.
There were those times that she and Tucker “broke up” for days at a time—and I would momentarily contemplate the opening presented to me. And on one such tear-filled evening, for a second (or maybe the whole night), she “contemplated” it, too.
It was never spoken about again.
Tucker would return and their strange saga would continue, the couple that had nothing in common other than the perfection of their own bodies.
It was a Sunday night when Zoe called and said she needed to meet me somewhere private. I drove over and picked her up and we went for a drive out to the Hogbacks.
“I’m pregnant,” she said, as soon as the door slammed shut. I carefully backed out of the driveway, my heart racing, and she started to sob. “I can’t believe I was this stupid. I can’t have a baby.” She then fell onto my shoulder.
“I am so sorry,” I said, the way a best friend would say such a thing. And then I paused to catch my breath and do the math. It seemed OK.
“Don’t beat yourself up,” I said. “This happens. Even to smart people.”
Her sobbing continued. I tried to keep my eyes on the road. “Shhhh. Don’t cry. I’m here.”
She continued to cry and so I pulled over and held her tight, the way a best friend would hold her tight.
“I have to end it,” she said, sputtering out the words.
End what? I thought. Tucker? Her… life? Please, God.
“You mean the pregnancy,” I said in a tone that did not make it a question.
“Yes,” she said. “But how’m I gonna end it?” She looked up at me with those eyes. “How?”
She told me that when she got the pregnancy test at Planned Parenthood, they explained to her that abortion, at least in our state, was illegal.
“Maybe your parents know a doctor who could…”
“I can’t tell them! I can’t let them down like this.”
“Your parents, more than any others, would understand.”
“No. This would crush them. I have to take care of this myself.”
“You can’t try