Reviving Ophelia - Mary Bray Pipher [115]
“What about after the baby is born?”
Angela said, “I want to live with Todd, but if I can’t do that, I’ll move into subsidized housing. I’m already signed up.”
“Is Todd the baby’s father?” I asked.
She giggled like the young girl she was. “Todd’s great. He’s so cute.”
“How long have you gone with him?”
She held up her hand. “Five months. That’s the longest I’ve stayed with anyone.”
“Will he help you with the baby?”
“He wants to, but he’s got two kids already,” Angela answered. “He has to pay both of their mothers child support and he has a car payment. He promised to go to the hospital with me. He’s happy I’m pregnant.”
I asked Angela for more details about her life after her parents’ divorce and listened as she told me her story in a matter-of-fact, even chatty, way. I felt overwhelmed by so many problems facing someone who failed eighth-grade math. At the end of our session I asked her, “If you weren’t pregnant, what would your goals be?”
Angela grinned and said, “I’d want to be an MTV star.”
Our time was up. I handed Angela an appointment card. She chided me gently, “You didn’t ask about the names.”
I smiled at her.
“Alexandra or Alex, what do you think?” she asked.
“I think they are beautiful names.”
After Angela left, I thought about her. Her perkiness in the face of her enormous problems was both endearing and unnerving. I liked her naivete, optimism and energy. I hoped she had enough to pull her through the next few months.
The next session we talked about Angela’s social life. Since the divorce, she escaped to a video arcade that was a hangout for the lost and troubled kids in the north part of town. Nearby there were drug busts, shootings and several rapes. Angela couldn’t have picked a worse place. Her third night there, Noah offered to take her for a drive in his truck. They drove to the country and he encouraged her to have sex.
Angela described the experience to me. “I thought Noah was cute, but I wasn’t ready for sex. I hadn’t really thought about it, but Noah came on strong and it happened. I didn’t enjoy it much. I thought, What’s the big deal?”
After Noah, she had a new boyfriend every few weeks. She’d be attracted to someone, go out with him, not on a date really, but cruising or to his apartment. Sometimes she had sex with guys who didn’t even know her last name and vice versa. Angela always hoped this guy would become her boyfriend. Usually though, early into the relationship, they broke up. Angela would be heartbroken for a few days and then meet another “cool guy.” She had crushes just the way junior-high girls always do. The difference between her and girls twenty years ago is that she had sex with all her crushes.
Todd was a regular at the video arcade. He was tall and blond with a James Dean style. Girls fell for him. Angela noticed him her first week, but he often brought his little daughter with him and Angela assumed he had a regular girlfriend.
Five months ago, after she broke up with yet one more crush, Todd approached her in the concession area and offered to buy her a Coke. Angela said, “He was so sweet. I told him I’d been dumped and he was sympathetic. He wasn’t hustling me or anything, he just wanted to talk.”
The next night Angela wore her best outfit to the arcade. Todd came over to talk to her again. After an hour he suggested they go to his place where they could have more privacy. Angela agreed and that night they had sex. Two weeks later she missed her period.
We ended that appointment with Angela promising to see a doctor for a checkup. I said I’d be happy to meet Todd if he could come with Angela.
Angela came to her next appointment in black tights with a white sweatshirt, her first maternity outfit. She carried a copy of All About Babies and told me immediately that she was depressed. Todd wouldn’t come. He didn’t “believe in shrinks.”
She sighed and ran her hands through her hair. “I went to Birthright this week to try to get money. They made me watch their sucko film about