Sea Glass_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [109]
Honora shakes her head. “I hear the owners are bringing in scabs from Dracut.”
“That’ll go over well,” Vivian says, exhaling a long slither of smoke. Honora thinks of opening a window. A headache threatens at the front of her head, and she thinks it must be from the personal squalls she’s been subject to. Her eyes feel swollen and heavy.
“Did they give you any indication when they would all be back?”
Honora watches the mailman pass by on his bicycle. No letter from her mother today, then. “Not really,” Honora says. “McDermott isn’t coming back.”
Vivian tilts her head in considerable surprise.
“He says his work will keep him in the city.”
“That’s a pity,” Vivian says, examining Honora closely. “I like him very much.”
“Yes,” Honora says.
“I hope this doesn’t mean that Alphonse won’t be coming either. Wouldn’t be the same without Alphonse.”
“No,” Honora says.
“He’s mad for you, you know.”
“He’s a sweet boy.”
“I meant McDermott. He as much as said so on Saturday night. When we were talking on the porch.”
“He said that?” Honora asks.
“I think he was feeling quite hopeless.”
Honora peels the bread away from the sandwich. Maybe she could just eat the bread.
“It’s something that can’t happen,” Honora says.
“You have to do what your heart dictates,” Vivian says.
“Do you believe that?”
“Not sure, actually. It’s always annoyingly inconvenient, isn’t it, the thing about the heart?” Vivian stubs out her cigarette. “Frankly, I don’t think he’s at all well.”
“He has an ulcer.” Honora tears a small piece of bread off the slice and experimentally chews it.
“Well, I think he’s a doll,” Vivian says decisively. “I’d snap him up in a minute if he were interested in me.”
Honora manages to swallow a bite before a distinct feeling of nausea sweeps through her. She presses her fingers to her mouth.
“Excuse me,” she says, rising.
She moves slowly at first, then with more speed, through the hallway, up the stairs, and into the bathroom. She flips the lid up on the toilet, bends over, and vomits. She sits back on the tile floor and presses a towel to her face. She must have caught the grippe this weekend from one of the men, she thinks. She tries to remember if any of them wasn’t feeling well. That would explain why she has been so out of sorts, why she has not been herself.
“Bad tummy?” Vivian asks from the doorway.
Honora glances up at her. “I don’t know what it is,” she says, “but I feel as though I’ve had a mild grippe for a couple of days now. Just the sight of that sandwich . . .”
“Oh, my dear,” Vivian says. She reaches for a clean towel and hands it to Honora.
“What?” Honora asks.
“This might come as a terrible shock.”
Honora rises from the floor.
“I think you’re pregnant,” Vivian says.
Honora sits in the kitchen chair, trying to absorb the news.
“What can you eat?” Vivian asks. “What sounds appealing?”
“I don’t know,” Honora says. “Something cold, I guess. Maybe something salty?”
Vivian finds a box of crackers and a jar of peanut butter. She pours milk into a juice glass and then sets the plate of crackers and the glass of milk on the table in front of Honora.
“Of course I should have guessed,” Honora says. “I haven’t had the curse in two months. I just wasn’t paying attention.”
“I knew only because I had a friend once who got into trouble with a married man. She looked just like you do now.”
Honora drinks from the glass of milk. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she was.
“Well, in that case it wasn’t a very happy realization,” Vivian says, wiping her hands on a tea towel. “I remember she went quite hysterical, in fact.”
Which is not so odd, Honora thinks, because she feels like going quite hysterical herself.
“You’re as pale as a sheet,” Vivian says. “Actually, you’re worrying me. Shall I help you into the front room so you can lie on the settee?”
Honora shakes her head. The last thing she wants to see is ashtrays full of butts.
“Perhaps a cup of tea?” Vivian asks.
Honora thinks of the new life inside her. She should be thrilled. This is everything she has hoped for,