I’d called her at home, asking if I could take a pregnancy test. She’d said she’d open the office early on Friday as that was Dr. Rice’s late morning; he wouldn’t be there, in case I wanted privacy. Nurse Lansing said she needed to do a pelvic examination. When she finished, she told me I wasn’t pregnant, I didn’t have a yeast infection, and there were no warts. But my cervix was very red. I had a sexually transmitted disease.
As I cried, her voice gentled. She put her hand on my shoulder, and told me she knew privacy was important, so she was phoning in a prescription for the antibiotics to a pharmacy in Macon. And birth control pills, too. I didn’t have to take them, but the option would be nice, wouldn’t it?
“Don’t forget to call me back,” she said. “You have to get your HIV and syphilis test results. And when you finish the antibiotics, remember to start using condoms, okay? Carry your own, if you can, in case you go back to this boy. Don’t you be embarrassed, neither.”
I’d driven to Macon and picked up my antibiotics, but I hadn’t confronted Abdul. When I called after Nurse Lansing’s deadline, she told me, fortunately, I was negative for the rest of the diseases, but she repeated, don’t forget to use my condoms.
A month later, when she examined me again and gave me the all clear, she gave me the same warning. But I didn’t need it. I continued to ignore Abdul’s waves. I laughed uproariously at the table with my roommates, even when Roz asked, what the hell was wrong with me? Nobody had told a joke. I ripped up Abdul’s pink message slips in the front of the desk monitor, knowing the word would get around. I didn’t open my door when I heard my name in the hallway, telling me somebody was calling. It took a while to tell my roommates what the gossips already had surmised: I’d broken up with Abdul.
One day Abdul paged me. I came downstairs and walked past him as he shouted my name. He didn’t know that day was Lydia’s birthday, that I had awoken with her on my mind. How she would have made me feel better about the mess I’d made of my life. Growing up, my big sister had made me feel as if I was perfect. Nothing ever had harmed me in her eyes.
*
At Thanksgiving dinner, my granny told me my face was as long as her arm. She tried to get me to talk, and so did Uncle Root. I left early, even though I’d promised the old man that I’d spend the weekend and do some window-shopping in Atlanta. I didn’t lie when I told him I had a test on Monday but omitted that I’d been studying for three weeks.
In the student parking lot, I sat in my car, listening to the radio. Lydia’s favorite Christmas song came on, and I felt sorry for myself. I considered driving back to Chicasetta, but my people would be lingering over dinner. My granny would hover, then offer her only solution: more sweet potato pie.
When I walked across the yard, there was Pat, sitting on the bench smoking a joint. What a pleasant surprise, he told me. He patted the bench: come sit with him.
“I thought you’d be in Chicasetta. Did you come back to see Abdul?”
“Don’t nobody want to see that asshole. I have a test on Monday.”
“Aw, damn, girl. Shit. It’s like that?”
I plucked the joint from his hand, taking a draw. “Why aren’t you in Atlanta? And how you just sitting in the open, smoking weed?”
He put his arm behind me, on the back of the bench. “I got a test, too, and you know I share with the security guards. How they gone drop a dime when I’m getting them high?”
We passed the joint, smoking it down to the roach, and he lit another. There weren’t many words: we expressed thanks when the joint moved from one hand to the other.
“Ailey, can I ask something?”
The second joint made my throat raw. I had swallowed instead of exhaling, bringing on a coughing fit. I gave Pat a thumbs-up and a backward wave. Go ahead. Keep talking.
“What’s going on with you and Abdul?”
“How is this any of your business?”
“I’m concerned, Ailey, that’s all. You don’t seem very happy.”
“So, you some kind of premarital counselor now? What? You want to listen to me bad-mouth your sands?”
I knew I should be annoyed at Pat, but my high was kicking in. He took the joint when I gestured, smoothly inhaled, then handed it back.
“Yeah, all right, Abdul is my sands, and I guess I love him. You can’t pledge on the same line with somebody and not have love. Especially not for Gamma. We got our asses beat together.”
“Which is, like, a real stupid way to get friends, but I’m not gone criticize. We all have our needs for human companionship.”