Baby Merchant

Chapter One Waking up on the worst day of your life so far you won't know why you are uneasy, only that everything looks OK, but something is not right. Sun's up, coffee's good; Sasha Egan is in pretty good shape, considering. Nothing wrong, exactly, but she can't quite shake the feeling. "Go away," she says to no one. "Just go away." About the obvious: Sasha is nothing like the sweet little hicks murmuring in the solarium, but here she is, trapped with a gaggle of betrayed prom queens and unwitting cheerleaders, castoff girlfriends and beaming fundamentalist kids bobbing in the sunlight like so many giant chrysanthemums. The regulation pastel scrubs, the Lite Rock piped into every room, the resolutely cheery decor, even the potted trees in the hallways make her despair, but she made an informed decision. Now she is here. It's not that she's pro-life, exactly, although she is at some deep level still a Catholic. She's here because she's pro this life. Luellen Squiers tugs on her arm, wheedling. Nice kid, has the room next to hers. "Party in the solarium, Sashie, are you coming? Cookies from Mom." "Great," she says. "So come on. Come on, Sashie, aren't you coming?" "Soon, OK?" She'd rather die, but usually she manages. Why do these kids look up to her anyway? Maybe because she is older. She smiles until Luellen lets go. "Why not now?" At the end of the hall, pregnant teenagers lounge on flowered sofas striped with sunlight, giggling over their morning milk and disintegrating brownies packed in wax paper by mothers who don't have a clue. Whatever their anxieties before they moved into the sunny dormitory at Newlife, whatever their second thoughts, the moment is past. They're happy to sink back into the arms of Newlife, which is the trendy new name the agency has given the Agatha Pilcher Home for Unwed Mothers, which is what they are. It is face it what Sasha has become. The timing couldn't be worse. In real life she is an M.F.A. student, a printmaker whose soul blisters the surface of her work. She spends all her work time chasing a vision she hasn't quite caught. The year she and Danny Gray lived together in Santa Barbara, she almost broke through. It wasn't breakthrough work but it did get her into the Massachusetts College of Art. When she's working sometimes she forgets to eat; she'll pass a window on her way out of the print shop and suddenly discover that she forgot to comb her hair. The work means more to her than Danny or any other man, and this baby . . . God, what was she thinking? This just can't happen. Not now, not now! Until the test strip turned pink, her mentor at MassArt was grooming her for a fellowship in graphic arts in, oh God, Venice. A year in Italy, apprenticed to a printmaker she respects. Instead she's in the third-trimester wing at Newlife, stalking the halls like an outsider, which is also what she is. Too bummed to be nice right now, she tells Luellen, "I can't." The pregnant child's voice trails after her. "Oh-kaaaaay." She ought to go down there and mingle but right now she isn't feeling strong enough to look into their bright, hopeful faces or deal with their emotional demands. Poor kids, they're all here for the usual reasons: he hit like lightning first love or date rape, how do you draw the line or they never want to see him againReed, Kit is the author of 'Baby Merchant ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780765315571 and ISBN 0765315572.