“That’s not it,” Piper said.
“I’m not going to find another girlfriend,” Garrett reassured her. “I already told you, there isn’t a girl in New York City as pretty as you.”
“Garrett.”
“We’ll talk on Sundays when the rates are low, and we’ll e-mail every day. God,” he said. “I wonder what people did before they had e-mail?”
“I’m late for my period,” Piper said.
This took Garrett so by surprise that at first he couldn’t decipher what she meant. “What?”
“But I’m, like, super erratic. My cycle can be twenty-eight days for six months and then I’ll skip a cycle all together. It’s happened before. A bunch of times. At least twice.”
“Are you telling me you might be pregnant?” Garrett asked. He couldn’t believe this. They had used condoms every single time they had sex. He’d made sure of that. He’d been so, so careful-well, except for the time his mother caught them, when he hurried, when he fumbled while disengaging. But that was so long ago, the Fourth of July. He leaned his head back. Oh, please, God, no.
“Might,” Piper said.
“How late are you?”
“Pretty late.” She burst into a fresh round of tears.
“Okay, okay,” Garrett said. He had to keep her from getting hysterical. What was it his father had always said? It’s fruitless to speculate. There was no need to jump ahead and consider how neither of them was prepared to become a parent at seventeen. Not with a year of high school and four of college and three of law school for Garrett. No need to jump ahead to where Piper might get an abortion-it certainly couldn’t be done on Nantucket-or how to pay for it or what their parents would say.
“You need to take a test,” he said.
“Where am I going to get a test?”
Garrett wrinkled his brow. “At the store? I don’t know. The pharmacy?”
“I live here, Garrett,” Piper said. “I know at least three people who work at the Stop & Shop and my father is friends with the couple who own the pharmacy. He paints it every year. I can’t go buy a pregnancy test. Everyone knows me.”
Garrett felt like Piper had thrown a huge blanket over his head and he was having a hard time shaking it off. “So what are you going to do?” he asked.
“Me?” she said. “It’s not my problem, Garrett. It’s our problem. If I am pregnant, it’s half your fault.”
“I know,” Garrett said defensively.
“You should buy the pregnancy test,” Piper said. “Nobody knows you.”
She had a point; he knew practically no one on the island other than his family. Still, the idea of buying a pregnancy test was humiliating. Buying a box of condoms had been bad enough. The condoms-Garrett couldn’t even think about the condoms without shrinking inside.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll do it.”
Piper seemed to relax a little at this promise. She fell across the front seat and lay her head in his lap. A few seconds later, she fiddled with the zipper of his jeans, but Garrett took her hand and held it tightly. His body was filled with nervous tension that would be impossible to battle. He held Piper close and after several minutes he felt her body melt into his. She was falling asleep.
“Piper,” he said. “I’m taking you home.”
When they pulled into the Ronans’ driveway, Piper roused herself enough to undo her seatbelt. “So you’ll get it?” she asked. “Tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” he said. He pulled Piper toward him and kissed her. “Do you think you are?”
Her eyes were only half open. She was, as Garrett’s mother would say, falling asleep in her soup.
“No,” she said dreamily. “Probably not.”
Garrett felt a rush of relief. It was, after all, her body.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Garrett.”
The next morning, Garrett rose early and drove to the Stop & Shop. He bought a pint of raspberries for his mother, who loved them, a bag of Doritos, a package of bacon, a jar of olives, a six-pack of root beer, and the pregnancy test. He dashed for the checkout line. The cashier, an older Jamaican woman, rang up the groceries without even glancing at him. Garrett paid with cash, refused his receipt, and hurried from the store.
Once in the car, he transferred the pregnancy test from the shopping bag into the backpack that he normally used for school-he’d brought it to Nantucket filled with the books on his summer reading list, but now it was going to serve as the place where he would hide the pregnancy test until that evening when Piper would take it. They were going to meet early, while it was still light out, and head someplace private.
At home, his mother was the only one awake. Garrett sauntered into the kitchen holding the bag of groceries-the backpack was already tucked into the dark recesses of the front hall closet. Beth stared at him as he put the shopping bag on the table and began emptying its contents.
“I bought you some raspberries,” he said.
“You went to the store?” she asked. “What on earth for? Was there something special you wanted? You should have just told me, honey.”
“And olives,” Garrett said, holding up the jar. “You do like olives, don’t you?”
At six o’clock, Garrett and Piper picked up sandwiches from Henry’s and drove out to Smith’s Point to catch the sunset. This was one of the things Garrett wanted to do before he left the island for the summer. In previous years, Garrett’s father had arrived for the last two weeks of August and they did stuff as a family every night, including a sandwich picnic at Smith’s Point. As Garrett drove over the rickety wooden bridge at Madaket Harbor, he noted how vastly different this year was from last year. This year he was the one driving the car with his girlfriend in the seat beside him, his girlfriend who thought she might be pregnant. His father was dead; his mother had been married before. Garrett reeled at the enormity of it. He glanced at Piper. She looked pale, and nervous. He took her hand.
Garrett lowered the air in his tires at the gatehouse, and then he and Piper drove over the huge, bumpy dune to the beach. Piper groaned and clenched her abdomen. Garrett’s heart sank.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Just get there,” she said.
They drove out the beach to the westernmost tip of the island. Across the water, Garrett could see the next island over, Tuckernuck. Piping plovers scuttled along the shoreline; the air smelled of fish, and in fact, the only other people on the beach were a couple of surf casters in the distance. Garrett spread out a blanket and unloaded the bag of sandwiches and the shopping bag that contained the Doritos and the root beer. It was a clear night; the sun was a pinkish-orange ball dropping toward the blue horizon. Piper sat resolutely in the Rover.
“Aren’t you getting out?” he asked.
She moved in slow motion, like she was running out of batteries.
“Do you want to take the test before or after we eat?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Before, I guess. While it’s still light. I have to pee anyway.”
“Okay,” he said. He double-checked their surroundings; they were shielded from the fishermen’s view. He took the test out of his backpack and studied the instructions. “You pee in this cup, and then you put the stick in. If a second line shows up, it’s positive. If not, it’s negative.” He handed Piper the cup and with the lethargic movements of an amoeba, she disappeared into the nearby dunes.
Garrett tapped the plastic stick against his palm. Dad? he beckoned. But this moment was too monumental and too scary to share with his father. Garrett tried to clear his mind. He could smell his meatball sub and his stomach growled. He’d been too nervous to eat anything all day, and now he was starving.