Page 41 of Second Chances

Melanie’s favorite Fleetwood Mac song played on the radio when the nurse announced, with a little too much satisfaction, “Well, you’re pregnant.”

Her jaw dropped. She couldn’t have heard that right. “Excuse me?” She’d been in the camp office for half an hour, which was about as boring as letting nail polish dry, expecting the nurse to tell her she had a bug or maybe food poisoning.

Waving a piece of paper in front of Melanie, the nurse said, “I keep telling them to keep you boys and girls separate over there at the love shack. You’re the fourth one this summer. Maybe they’ll listen to me next year.”

The nurse must be wrong…she couldn’t be pregnant, not when she was so close to realizing her dream. Since the day she met Henry, everything had been going right for her. After hearing about her car breaking down and her lack of money, the sweetest boy she’d ever met had not only given her a ride to the Grand Canyon but also helped her get a job there with him at the gift shop. After two months of work, she finally had enough money saved to make it the rest of the way to California. “No! You’re wrong! I just ate some bad chicken the other night, that’s all!” A group of employees had gotten together for one last party of the summer three nights ago. Juan always thought he knew everything, so he manned the grill, and against her better judgment, she ate two chicken legs.

“Sweetie, I don’t know about any chicken, but I do know how to read a pregnancy test, and you are positive. Just count yourself lucky that it’s the end of the summer and not the beginning. You’re going back home soon, and you’ll have your family to help you.” The nurse turned around to take some pamphlets out of a drawer. “Not so sure about your boyfriend, though.”

Her boyfriend. Henry. The night she had given him her virginity, they had hiked up to a small peak overlooking an area in a bend of the Colorado River, one of their favorite places to be alone, and she liked to be alone with Henry. A lot. On a Navajo blanket he had spread out on the ground, she had lain in his arms under the stars while he pointed out the constellations, explaining the mythology behind each one. Aside from being handsome, he was the most fascinating boy she’d ever known. He had kissed her tenderly until she wriggled beneath him, needing him in a way she hadn’t understood. He made her feel so good, and she wanted more, so she took his hand and put it under her shirt. With coyotes howling in the distance and the wind whistling through sagebrush, all she cared about was Henry, and when they were done, they talked about their future. After his first semester in college, in whatever Dakota, she suggested that he could transfer to a school in Los Angeles so they could be together. “You can send me money and I’ll find an apartment for us. Something real big, with space for all your medical books.” One of the things Melanie loved most about Henry was that he was gonna be a doctor. In her mind, Melanie painted a picture of what their life would look like in ten years: Henry a successful doctor in Beverly Hills, and Melanie an Academy Award-winning movie star, with her name above the title on movie posters.

Now what? Surely the nurse had to be wrong. Melanie implored her, “But I thought you never get pregnant your first time…”

The nurse sighed. “Wrong. It only takes one time to get pregnant.”

“So, Mama wasn’t exaggeratin’. I thought she was. Only, I figured if it couldn’t happen the first time, it didn’t make a difference if we did it a second time…” Oh, god, Mama…Melanie hadn’t spoken to her mama since she’d arrived at the Grand Canyon. Mama had been spittin’ nails, pissed off about the car breakin’ down, like it had been Melanie’s fault! When she’d told Mama she’d left the car in Alabama, her mama’s scream had echoed in the pay phone, nearly bustin’ Melanie’s eardrum.

“I swear to god, you hightail your little ass back to where you left that car until your Uncle Jake meets you there,” Mama had screamed.

“Mama, I can’t. I met this boy, and he helped me get a job for the summer at the Grand Canyon. Then I’m goin’ to California.”

“Mellie, do you know how many good things come after a girl says ‘I met this boy?’ Nothin’! I swear to god, if you get yourself knocked up, you are not comin’ back, cryin’ to me. I have enough to take care of with your little sister. And you better be fixin’ to send some of that money so I can get my car—” In the middle of being cussed out, Melanie had hung up. If only her mama had listened about her dreams, about Henry, she’d have understood.

How she was going to tell Henry that instead of going back to whatever Dakota, he’d have to come to California? She didn’t doubt, not even a little bit, that once he knew she was pregnant, he would support her. Still, a flutter of guilt rose in her chest at the idea that he would have to readjust his life, but California was the land of opportunity, more for him there than wherever he was from. He’d have to get a job, of course, but he could still go to college, eventually. He would still be a doctor. She was lucky, she told herself, imagining all the other boys who could’ve been sitting on that bench the day she’d arrived, instead of her sweet and handsome Henry. “It’ll be all right,” she whispered to herself.

Putting a spring in her step, determined to make Henry see things her way, Melanie left the nurse. When she got to the gift shop, he was just coming from his lunch break. “Mellie, Juan and Angela are going to the east side of the canyon tonight to meet up with some hikers they met in the restaurant.” He sighed. “They’re old enough to drink, so they have some beers and stuff Juan said.” A party was never Henry’s idea of fun, but Melanie loved them because it gave her a reason to be the center of attention, even if they sometimes caused an argument between her and Henry. But now she had a baby to consider and a future to plan.

“Actually, Henry, why don’t just the two of us do something?” Studying him, she thought about the kind of father he would be…the kind she never had, what sort of life he would provide for them. He would be totally different from the men her mama had hooked up with. Henry would never leer at a woman; hell, she’d never even caught him glancing at anyone else, and there were plenty of beautiful girls working in the canyon, including Angela, who she had definitely seen staring at Henry when Juan wasn’t looking. Before Henry, if you had asked Melanie what kind of boy she’d end up with, she’d have said maybe a biker, like the ones in Pensacola on their Harleys, or an actor, like Rob Lowe, or maybe someone in a rock band: she had always thought Lindsey Buckingham was hot. And someone once told her she looked like Stevie Nicks, but taller. She could pull off those scarves, Melanie thought.

Henry showed up after her shift was over, with sandwiches and Fritos in his backpack. Melanie brought two bottles of Diet Pepsi, and as they hiked up to their peak, she practiced in her head how she was going to tell him. Maybe she wouldn’t have to tell him he had to move with her to Los Angeles. He was always doing little things for her, so he’d probably suggest it first. Settling underneath a ponderosa pine, she looked into Henry’s sky-blue eyes. Melanie took a deep breath and blurted out, “I’m pregnant.” To her horror, she burst into tears.

“What?” Henry choked on his sandwich. “But…I thought…I just…I thought you were on the pill.” Their first night together, Henry had tried to stop, but Melanie wanted more. She told him it was okay, knowing he’d assume she meant birth control. Henry wiped the tears from her eyes, kissing her forehead. “It’s okay, Mellie. We’ll figure things out,” he reassured her. On top of that peak, in Henry’s arms, Melanie knew everything would be okay.

The next day, Henry left a note on her door, asking her to meet him at their peak again tonight. Thrumming with excitement, she guessed he was going to tell her he’d told his family, and his parents were going to make all the necessary arrangements for their move to California. Melanie had picked up that his family had money, or at least more money than her mama had, based on stories he had told her, like fancy vacations that they had taken and the house he had grown up in.

Ducking under a tree limb later that evening, Melanie was surprised to see Henry already there. “What is all this?” Melanie noted the bottle of sparkling cider in the open cooler filled with ice, plates that looked like the ones they used in the restaurant, and one of the fancy tablecloths from the banquet hall.

“Well, since I had the afternoon off, I wanted to make things special for you…for us,” he told her, kissing her cheek before pouring a glass of cider. “I asked Angie to hook me up with some of the food at the restaurant, and she made up this basket. We have fried chicken, potato salad, watermelon.”

Looking prouder than Melanie had ever seen him in the two months she had known him, Henry suddenly dropped to one knee in front of her. “Melanie, I think I loved you since I saw you get off that bus. This may not be the way we planned on things going, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want it.” Taking her hand in his, he gazed into her eyes. “Will you marry me?”

Squealing, she fell on top of Henry, knocking his ball cap off his head. “Yes, yes, yes,” she chanted, kissing him all over his face. This was more perfect than anything she could’ve imagined. Now all he had to do was tell her they were leaving for California at the end of the week, when their jobs were over.

Henry chuckled and then took something from his pocket: a turquoise ring she recognized from the gift shop. “This isn’t much, but it’s what I can afford now. It’ll do until we get back home.”

As he took her hand in his, Melanie pulled away, confused. “What do you mean ‘get back home’?” Henry caught her hand again and slipped the ring onto her finger, after giving it a good shove at the bottom joint.

“Oh, this is the really cool thing,” Henry said, putting his cap back on. “I talked to my dad, and he told me he would put me on the schedule full-time at the auto shop as soon as we’re back in South Dakota.”

Back in South Dakota? What could he mean? There was no “back in South Dakota “ for Melanie, since she had never stepped foot in the state before. There was only “in South Dakota”, and that was not happening. For crying out loud, she only now knew which Dakota he came from! And working at an auto shop? “Henry, what are you talking about?”

“You and me. My parents are going to renovate the loft above the garage at their house in Clover Lake. Make it into an apartment for us. I’ll work in the shop, and you can stay home with the baby until he’s older. Or she,” he shrugged with a smile. “Who knows, maybe one day we’ll have one of each. Eventually, though, you’ll have to get a job, too, so we can afford our own house one day⁠—”

Melanie yanked her hand back from Henry’s. “I’m going to California. I didn’t run from Florida only to end up in bumfuck nowhere. I have dreams,” she cried, oblivious to anything but her own pain. “I want to be something, not a wife and mommy in Dakota.”

“But,” Henry said quietly, “I thought you loved me.”

“I do!” How would she get him to understand? “But not like this! Not living above a garage, like white trash! I had that already, Henry. You made it sound like your family has money.”