It was around that time, I think, that my aunt began to worry about me, though she tried to downplay her concerns. As we were eating Thanksgiving leftovers, she casually mentioned that I hadn’t seemed particularly chipper lately. That was the word she used: chipper. She’d also eased up a little on the tidiness thing—or maybe I was doing a better job of cleaning, but for whatever reason, she hadn’t been complaining as much recently. I could tell she was making an effort to engage me in conversation.
“Are you taking your prenatal vitamin?”
“Yes,” I answered. “It’s yummy.”
“In a couple of weeks, you’ll see the OB-GYN in Morehead City. I set up the appointment this morning.”
“Swell,” I said. I moved the food around my plate, hoping she wouldn’t notice that I wasn’t really eating.
“The food has to actually go in your mouth,” she said. “And then you have to swallow it.”
I think she was trying to be funny, but I wasn’t in the mood, so I simply shrugged.
“Can I make you something else?”
“I’m not that hungry.”
She brought her lips together before scanning the room, as if searching for magic words that would make me chipper again. “Oh, I almost forgot to ask. Did you call your parents?”
“No. I was going to call them earlier, but you took the phone cord with you.”
“You could call them after dinner.”
“I guess.”
She used her fork to cut a bite of turkey. “How are your studies going?” she asked. “You’re behind in your homework and you haven’t been doing that well on your quizzes lately.”
“I’m trying,” I answered, even though I really wasn’t.
“How about math? Remember that you have some pretty big tests coming up before Christmas break.”
“I hate math and geometry is stupid. Why does it matter whether I know how to measure the area of a trapezoid? It’s not like I’m ever going to need to use that in my real life.”
I heard her sigh. Watched her cast about again. “Did you write your history paper? I think that’s also due next week.”
“It’s almost done,” I lied. I’d been assigned to do a report on Thurgood Marshall, but I hadn’t even started it.
I could feel her eyes on me, wondering whether to believe me.
*
Later that night, she tried again.
I was lying in bed with Maggie-bear. I’d retreated to my room after dinner, and she was standing in the doorway, dressed in her pajamas.
“Have you thought about getting some fresh air?” my aunt asked. “Like maybe going for a walk or bike ride before you start doing your homework tomorrow?”
“There isn’t anywhere to go. Almost everything is closed for the winter.”
“How about the beach? It’s peaceful this time of year.”
“It’s too cold to go to the beach.”
“How would you know? You haven’t been outside in days.”
“That’s because I have too much homework and too many chores.”
“Have you thought about trying to meet someone closer to your own age? Maybe make some friends?”
At first, I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right. “Make friends?”
“Why not?”
“Because no one my age lives here.”
“Of course they do,” she said. “I showed you the school.”
The village had a single school that served children from kindergarten through high school; we’d ridden past it during the tour of the island. It wasn’t quite the single-room schoolhouse I’d seen in reruns of Little House on the Prairie, but it wasn’t much more than that, either.
“I guess I could head to the boardwalk, or maybe hit the clubs. Oh wait, Ocracoke doesn’t have either of those things.”
“I’m just saying that it might be good for you to talk to someone besides me or Gwen. It’s not healthy to stay so isolated.”
No doubt about it. But the simple fact was that I hadn’t seen a single teenager in Ocracoke since I’d arrived, and—oh yeah—I was pregnant, which was supposed to be a secret, so what would be the point anyway?
“Being here isn’t good for me, either, but no one seems to care about that.”
She adjusted her pajamas, as though searching for words in the fabric, and decided to change the subject.
“I’ve been thinking that it might be a good idea to get you a tutor,” she said. “Definitely for geometry, but maybe for your other classes, too. To review your paper, for instance.”