She pressed her lips together, debating. It wouldn’t hurt to grab a few minutes of her own, she thought. She’d been up half the night working on a new Web design project that had come in. When opportunity knocked, she couldn’t afford not to be home. “You’re not going to be satisfied until I go, are you?”
“Nope.”
“Okay, you win.” She sighed, surrendering. “Always like to keep the boss happy.”
Carson crossed his arms before his rock-solid chest. “Right, and I’m the bluebird of happiness.”
Her eyes swept over him. He was still every inch the football player who’d made the winning touch-down in the last game he ever played. “I wouldn’t perch on any branches if I were you.”
He grumbled something not entirely under his breath. Laughing, Lori walked away, heading for the lockers on the other end of the first floor. She was very conscious of his watching her and tried very hard not to move from side to side the way she felt inclined to these days. Or to place a hand to the small of her back in order to ease the ache there. Pregnant women did that and Carson seemed to equate pregnancy with weakness. The more she fit his stereotype, the more determined he would be to try to convince her to stay home.
She wasn’t the stay-at-home type.
Lori made her way to the shadowy row of lockers where the kids stashed their backpacks, books and various paraphernalia while they used the facilities. Once out of eye range, she pressed her hand to the small of her back and massaged for a moment. For a peanut, this baby was giving her some backache.
After stretching, she went to her locker. Wanting to seem more like one of the teens, Lori had taken a locker to store her own belongings there. Usually, she only had her purse.
She paused in front of the upper locker, trying to remember her combination. It was nestled in overcrowded memory banks that retained every number that had any bearing on her life. She seemed to retain all manner of numbers, not just her own social security number, but her late husband’s as well. It was in there with her license plate and the phone numbers and birthdays of several dozen people who currently figured prominently in her life.
She smiled as the combination came to her. Turning the dial on the old lock three revolutions to the left, a muffled sound caught her attention. Lori stopped and listened.
The sound came again.
It was a sob, she was sure of it. The kind that was muted by hands being pressed helplessly over a mouth too distressed to seal away the noise.
Concerned, curious, Lori set the lock back against the metal door and moved around to the other side of the bank of battered lockers.
Huddled in the corner, her long tanned legs pulled in tightly against her chest, was one of the girls she’d missed seeing today. The young girl sounded as if her heart was breaking. Boy trouble?
“Angela?”
The girl only pulled herself in tighter. Someone else might have felt as if they were intruding and left. Lori’s mind had never worked that way. Anyone in pain needed to be soothed.
She took a few steps toward the girl. “Angela, what’s wrong?”
“Nothin’.” The girl jerked her head up, wiping away the tears from her cheeks with the heel of her hand. She tossed her head defiantly, looking away. Her silence told Lori that this was none of her business.
Lori chose not to hear.
For her, working at the center was a complete departure from life as she had known it. Here the word “deprived” didn’t mean not having the latest video game as soon as it came out. “Doing without” had serious connotations here that involved ill-fitting hand-me-down clothing and hunger pangs that had nothing to do with dieting. Here, life was painted in bleaker colors.
But then, that was what the center was for, painting rainbows over the shades of gray.
“Sorry, but I think it’s something.” Angela kept her face averted. “The tears were a dead giveaway.” Still nothing. “You know, for a pregnant woman, I can be very patient.” Lori planted herself in front of the teenager. “I’m not going away until you level with me and tell me why you’re sitting here by yourself, watering your knees.”
Normally, her banter could evoke a smile out of the girl. But not today.
This was worse than she thought. With effort, Lori lowered herself to the girl’s level. Her voice lost its teasing banter. “C’mon, Angela. Talk to me. Maybe I can help.”
Angela shook her head. Fresh tears formed in the corners of her eyes. “Nobody can help me.” She sighed with a hopelessness that was far too old for her to be feeling. “Except maybe a doctor.”
In that moment, Lori understood. She knew what had reduced the fifteen-year-old to this kind of despair and tears.
Lori placed her hand on the girl’s shoulder. She was so thin, so small. And living a nightmare shared by so many.
“Are you in trouble, Angela?”
It was an old-fashioned term, Lori knew, but in its own way as appropriate today as it had been when it was first coined. Because a pregnant girl just barely in high school was most assuredly in trouble.
The sigh was bottomless. “Yeah, I’ll say.” She sniffled. Lori dug into her pocket and pulled out a tissue, offering it to her. Angela took it and dried the fresh tears. Her voice quavered as she spoke. “A hell of a lot of trouble.”
There were no indications that the girl was pregnant, but then, she hadn’t looked it herself until just recently, Lori thought. “How far along are you?”
“I don’t know.” Angela shrugged restlessly. She looked down at the tissue. It was shredding. “It’s been over two months, I think.”
“You need to see a doctor.”
Lori could see the beginning of a new thought entering the girl’s eyes. “Yeah, somebody who can make this go away.”
Lori shook her head. She didn’t want Angela thinking that she was cavalierly suggesting she have an abortion. Decisions like that couldn’t be made quickly.
“No. Somebody who can tell you what’s going on with your body.” She took the girl’s hands into her own, forming a bond. “You might not be pregnant, it might be something else.” Although, Lori thought, other possibilities could be equally as frightening to a fifteen-year-old as having a baby.
Thin, dark brown brows furrowed in confusion as Angela looked at her. “Like what?”
She didn’t know enough about medicine to hypothesize. “That’s what you need to find out. Do you have a doctor?”
Again the thin shoulders rose and fell, half vague, half defiant. “There’s this doctor on Figueroa Street. I hear she’s pretty decent.”
Lori thought of her own doctor, a woman she’d been going to and trusted since she’d gotten out of college. Dr. Sheila Pollack had become more like a friend than just a physician. Angela needed someone like that right now, a professional who could clear up the mysteries for her and keep her healthy. Someone who could make her feel at ease rather than afraid.
“All right, go to her.”
Angela frowned. “Word on the street is she don’t do no abortions.”
The girl’s mind was stuck in a groove that might not be the answer she needed, or would even want a few months down the line. “Don’t do anything hasty,” Lori counseled. “If you’re pregnant, talk to your mother.”
Angela looked at her as if she’d just suggested she cover herself with honey and walk into cave full of bears. “Yeah, right and have her kill