A Song in the Daylight by Paullina Simons Page B

“Ooh, nice blue car without a top, Mommy, but how you gonna fit your whole family in there?”
    Che didn’t come to school, one day, two. She didn’t pick up the phone either. Larissa walked to her house after school. She was on half-days; soon she would graduate, summer, then college! But Larissa’s daydreams of impending adulthood had faded recently in the face of Che’s trauma .
    Che’s mother let her in, curt, impersonal. It wasn’t like her. Che’s mother loved Larissa. She’s upstairs, was all she said .
    Che was on her bed, face down .
    Why is your mother mad at me?
    She’s not mad .
    Why did she give me the evil eye? Larissa thought about it. Oh, no. Did you tell her I wanted you not to have it?
    Che nodded .
    Thanks a lot, girlfriend .
    She asked me. What is Larissa advising you to do? So I told her .
    But what’s happened? Larissa perched on the edge of the bed, touching Che’s heaving back. What else could’ve happened?
    I’m not pregnant anymore, said Che in a dead voice .
    Larissa’s heart jumped, flew up into the summer sky. Oh, Che! That’s the greatest thing I ever heard .
    Che didn’t seem to think so .
    How do you know?
    I’m bleeding .
    So you were never pregnant? I told you, you should’ve taken that test .
    Che rose from the bed, her face red, her eyes swollen. Don’t you see? she said. I know my body. I was ten weeks late. You think that’s normal? Now I’m bleeding out like my jugular’s been cut. She put her face in her hands .
    Larissa patted her friend, tried to soothe her. No, it’s good. It’s so much better this way. The impossible decision was taken out of your hands. It’s the greatest day .
    Almost like God intervening, said Che .
    I guess, said Larissa. You were lucky. You were given a reprieve, a second chance. Now you can live your life right, learn from this, do things differently in the future. I don’t understand why you’re so upset .
    What if God, like my mom, was disappointed in me? That’s what it feels like. He said, you’re not ready to be a mother. You’re not ready for this child .
    That’s absolutely true .
    In my free-falling blood I feel His disappointment .
    That’s silly. He helped you out. Took matters into his own hands. Oh, if only every time it were so easy! How sweet life would be .
    But Che was inconsolable. I did this to myself, she said. I should have had to live with the consequences .
    You narrowly escaped a harrowing future. How can you be upset?
    A baby is not harrowing .
    At sixteen? Come on, clean yourself up. Let’s go to town, hang out. I told some people I’d meet them at Jerry’s Ices .
    Larissa lay down on the twin bed, next to Che. Come on, girlfriend, she whispered, putting her arm around Che’s sobbing body. No worries now. We’re golden. Every little thing’s gonna be all right .
    Larissa wrote to Che, mentioning the Jag as a postscript omitting the real reason for her agonizing.
    Che wrote back.
Larissa, why so much commotion over a small matter? I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me. To bring up a car in an occasional letter? It’s a car. You didn’t finish telling me why Bo doesn’t throw Jonny out or move out herself. Since when do you care so much about what you drive? Buy or not buy. I’m forty next year too, you know. You’re worried about a car, and my mother couldn’t live long enough for me to have a baby. Soon I’m not going to live long enough for me to have a baby. I’msending you a recent picture of Lorenzo. Tell me if you think he’s worth it. Send me a recent picture of the Jag. I’ll tell you if the car is worth it.
    Larissa read newspapers, magazines, to keep ahead of the times, but being versed in current events made her more anxious, not less. The only news out there was that everything was going to hell, spinning out of control.
    She wrote to Che about this. There was mental illness, homelessness, robberies, random shootings, sometimes all related, Larissa wrote.