Then Came You - Jennifer Weiner [45]
“Excuse me,” I shouted in the direction of Dan’s face, then trotted up the stairs to the second-floor ladies’ room. You could feel the bass of the stereo thumping through the floor, but it was by far the quietest place in the building.
“Hello?”
“Julia?” It was my father ...and he sounded like he was drunk. Even in that single word I could hear the edge of his voice, the way the I of my name sounded mushy.
My heart sped up. “Where are you?” I asked as I imagined the possibilities. In a bar. In a bus station. In a car accident, on the side of the road, in a spill of twinkling glass, with an ambulance’s light washing his face in red.
He didn’t answer. “I wanted to tell you I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Dad.”
“No, it’s not.” He sounded stubborn; a little boy refusing to believe it was bedtime. “It is not okay. It’s not okay what I did to you guys ...what I did to you mom. I’m so ashamed of myself.” He was crying now, horrible choked-sounding sobs, and even though it wasn’t the first time he’d done this, called me up apologizing and crying, I could never keep from crying myself.
“Dad.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and I could hear the sound of something slamming. Was he pounding his fist against a table? Was he hitting himself? “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“Dad.” I leaned against the wooden wall. Somewhere not far away, normal college students were enjoying a normal college night. Soon someone would suggest a game of croquet, where you chugged a beer every time you whacked your ball through the wickets. Dan would be the game’s most enthusiastic participant.
“You deserve better than me.”
An icy blade slid into my heart. “Dad,” I said carefully. “Are you thinking about hurting yourself?”
He managed a chuckle. “More than I have already? Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”
“You’re going to be okay,” I told him. “Just hang on. You’ll go to Willow Crest. They can help you there.” But I was talking to a dial tone.
I squeezed my eyes shut. Tears were rolling down my cheeks. Where was he? Was he all right? And who could I call to ask? Not my mother. She wouldn’t go looking. Not the cops, because what would I say? He called me and he was crying? I sat on the toilet, cradling my face in my hands. How had it come to this?
“Jules?”
I peeked through the crack, and there was Kimmie Park, a girl I knew slightly. She’d been one of my first-year hallmates and, this year, a coworker in the admissions office.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said, still sitting on the toilet. Here I was, five weeks away from graduation and the bright future my degree was supposed to ensure, and I was huddled in a bathroom, crying. Maybe it was the hormones.
I’d called Jared Baker three days after I’d met him in the mall. The questionnaire, all twenty-five pages of it, had arrived in my mailbox the next day. I’d sent in the forms, and then, a week later, biked to the clinic for an interview and another lengthy survey. What was my favorite movie, my favorite food, my favorite song? I gave answers that were somewhere between the truth and what I thought would please the customers, saying Hitchcock and Jane Austen instead of Pretty Woman and the occasional trashy celebrity biography, writing that I loved listening to classical music, which was true only on nights I couldn’t sleep.
The next week I’d undergone the most thorough physical of my life, plus an interview with a psychologist, an earnest young woman with curly brown hair and small round glasses. A middle-aged nurse with an iron-gray bob and, I eventually learned, disturbingly cold hands showed me how to give myself hormone shots, right underneath my belly button. A doctor wrote me a prescription for the needles and the medications I’d inject, drugs to maximize the number of eggs I’d produce. “You may experience some mood swings, or feel like you’re having really intense PMS,” he told me, but what I’d noticed was feeling weepy all the time. Alone in my room, the sounds of people shouting and laughing outside, a half-dozen different songs blaring from