Judy doesn’t respond because she too was disgusted by her former behavior in the fifth and six months of her pregnancy when she couldn’t resist smelling trashcans wafting rotting smells, gasoline, nail polish remover, and some cleaning products. She even had cravings for eating small, white pieces of paper. She cried for most of those months and Michele, although she never missed a chance to criticize her, demanded that she stop crying and often ripped bottles of Lysol from her hands. But most importantly, she always came back. By the time Judy had an appointment with her doctor, who said it was normal for some to behave that way, it was all about over. But the record in her hand doesn’t ignite those cravings.

Michele assumes the widest stance she can manage facing the mirror. Her belly is on top of the dresser and she’s fixing her bangs around a roller brush. She prefers them to be flawlessly cylindrical so that when the hairspray dries, the shape picks up light in a line across the front of them. Her bangs are always like this and when Judy first saw her, she questioned they were hair.

Judy watched from a desk as Michele told Sister Maureen Michael, the assistant principal, who was trying to shuffle her into the room that Judy and the others were already in, that she didn’t belong with a bunch of losers and that she was being discriminated against. The nun was relentless, nudged her beyond the threshold, and shut the door.

All six girls in the room were pregnant and showing, and on that first day, Michele managed to insult every one of them while Mrs. Gruber, the guidance counselor, tried hard to make a case for all of them being removed for a period each day from the general population to ‘talk straight,’ as she put it, about their lives, fears, and goals.

All of the girls were quiet, gazes to the floor with occasional sideward and upward glances, except for Michele, who seemed the only one who didn’t want to disappear. Michele progressed emphatically every time she interrupted Mrs. Gruber during those sessions with things like, Aren’t we sinners? Aren’t you a sinner for even listening to us and all our sins? And once to Jenny, a girl who was infamous for burping whole sentences in the cafeteria, I don’t want to sit next to this earthquake. Miss Gruber. She’ll make me miscarry. And to Liz, a notorious temper, Don’t mistake that greasy hair for takeout Chinese noodles. Just trying to be helpful. Liz threw a pen at Michele’s face and the tip darted her cheek with blue. Mrs. Gruber walked down the aisle, stood between them, and continued her speech about how they were not being removed because she or anyone else wanted to exclude them from the school community, but rather because they all needed special help.

When the bell rang the first day, Michele turned around to Judy in the desk behind her and said, “I didn’t know vampires could get pregnant.”

Judy looked right into her eyes, something she hadn’t done for a while with anyone then, and Michele did the same, and waited. Judy got up and left without responding, and later that day, Michele found her walking home. Michele said to her, “You got to admit, you have the palest skin in the school like you have no blood in you or something. And your hair is black.”

Judy stopped walking, looked at her again and said, “I don’t care what you or any of the other idiots in that school think of me.”

Michele changed the subject and asked, “How far along are you?”

It turned out they were just about the same in that respect. Michele walked the rest of the way home with Judy who, although she feared it would be a mistake, invited her into her apartment. It had been a long while since anyone had entered the apartment other than her mother and herself, and a long time since she had someone her age with her outside of school. Judy’s mother wasn’t home that first day, so Judy gave her the grand tour of the three and a half rooms, saving her bedroom for last. When the two stood in front of the closed door where a significant crucifix was affixed, Judy thought it necessary to explain, “I hate Jesus. It’s my Mom’s.”

She felt she didn’t need to say much when she opened the door and there was nothing on the walls or on any surface. Her mother had stripped the room and taken all of the posters and bobbles away, or stuffed them in the closet. Michele stepped into that room, spun, and took it all in. Michele admitted, “When I told my Mom I was knocked up, she kicked me out for a few days. Had to crawl in at night through a basement window and sneak upstairs when everyone was already asleep.”

Michele spoke that day as if she’d memorized whole chapters of baby books, and Judy sat rapt, growing colder with each revelation, but also more eager to learn. Other than what the doctor had told her during her two visits, she knew only the basics. She would grow gradually as the fetus did; she shouldn’t abuse drugs. She knew her projected due date. But Michele told her that she shouldn’t eat shellfish during certain months of the pregnancy, and that everything was kept inside because a mucus plug had formed in their vaginas that would shoot out like a cork when the baby was ready to come out. Michele said that eventually their nipples would grow to almost three times the normal size and stick out like knobs and be just as hard, and that if they slept on their backs and aggravated some vein, that their babies could suffocate.

Michele’s rant came to an end and she asked Judy, “You didn’t know any of that stuff?”

Judy shook her head and then they spoke of their plans for their children on that day. Judy said that she was going to give the baby up for adoption because she had to go to college. Her mother was arranging it. They were in the process of locating a family and she told Michele that she hoped that they had a single home and at least two dogs. Michele warned that she’d better not ever see her baby then, because she had read that some hormonal thing happened that made mothers protective like wolves and unable to release their babies, especially right after birth. The book said that there was the potential for violence. Judy said she’d keep that in mind, but her mother believed it was important for her to say goodbye, so that she had closure. Michele was keeping her kid. She had lots of brothers and sisters who could babysit, and the new kid would just slip into the fold. Her parents were going to let her stay until she could leave, but they didn’t want to help out, and didn’t want the father of the baby in their house.