Do the Right Thing

After I had absorbed what she said, I told her to put Gloria back on the phone. She got on the line & I asked her if she was ok, and she said she was. I asked her if she was sure, and she said that she was, but when I asked how she knew, she just said "I just know, ok". I asked her what she wanted to do, and she said there was only one thing she could do...which I took to mean she wanted to have an abortion (as a side note, thank god that with all the Catholic friends I've always had, she wasn't one). So, I told her I'd help her in whatever way she needed, and to come over the next day and we'd talk about it. Then I hung up the phone and went into full-on panic mode.

I called my friend Pete right away, who was also friends with Gloria & her little sewing circle, and told him what had happened. What he said next threw me even more off-balance than I already was; he asked me if she had confronted me about Roxanne (let me take just a moment to explain something about the social order in my life at the time; I basically had/have 3 groups of friends in my life - my old grade-school buddies that I had been basically estranged from ever since I dated Andi, the Joe & Eric group that Kara also came from, and my high-school friends Pete, Alan & Mark, whom I was starting to spend more & more time with after Eric's death & the splintering of that group. I had told Pete & Alan about Kara, but I still had not told Joe...for some reason). I asked him what the hell he was talking about...I hadn't seen Roxanne in months -she was now in high school & mixed up in plenty of her own drama. He said that he had been talking to Gloria's friend Dana, and she had told him that Gloria had come to my house late at night a few weeks ago, seen a strange car at my house and heard a female laughing inside, and deduced that it must be Roxanne, and that must be the reason I was breaking up with her. Talk about barking up the wrong tree.

Of course, he & I knew it was Kara's car she had seen, but he hadn't told Dana that (or anything), and somehow, Gloria was, as usual, seemingly completely unaware of the girl's existence. Nevertheless, I now knew she was suspicious of me...she had a motive...and the gears in my mind began to turn.

First of all, I knew that Dana & Gloria were capable of very devious acts; just a month or two earlier, they had stolen a box of condoms from Dana's ex-boyfriend (who was now seeing someone else) and poked holes in all the condoms before putting the box back....that's some devious, evil shit. Second of all, Dana already hated me for being so crappy to Gloria, and the timing of all this was just a little too fishy.

And speaking of timing, if she was a few weeks pregnant now, then we would have had to have done it sometime in the last month...which we hadn't done. We had been fighting constantly and there had only been one time in the previous month that we had even fooled around, and that time we didn't even go all the way...at least, not exactly; there was penetration, but it was brief as she was sore for some reason & it was way before the finish line. None of it made sense...except the part where somebody is yankin' my chain....but how could I be sure?

So, I decided to confront Gloria with it the next day when she came over. When she showed up, she wasn't wearing the necklace I gave her, but i didn't quite know what to expect from her. She started out by breaking down and crying, as she was wont to do. I sat down next to her, and...as calmly and honestly as I could, I asked her how she could be pregnant when we hadn't done anything recently to get her pregnant...at which point she just went completely apeshit.

She jumped up, and she screamed at me, asking me how I could dare to question her after I had put her in this position, and didn't I know that you didn't have to have an orgasm to get someone pregnant, and her mother was right about me all along (which she was), and yadda yadda yadda...I have to say this, even in retrospect: if it was an act, it was one hell of an act. I tried to calm her down, and eventually she stopped, but I could tell she was still mad, and it wasn't going away anytime soon. So, I asked her what she wanted me to do, and she said she wanted me to give her half the money for the procedure, about $250, and then leave her alone....I had apparently brought quite enough misery into her life. So, I agreed...what was I gonna do?

Still, I thought it all seemed fishy...and she never mentioned a word about Roxanne. I remember calling Pete up again after she left and asking him to try to do some digging for me to see if they were trying to scam me, but just like he said...if they were, they sure weren't going to tell him, knowing he's friends with me. Then I remember I tried to call Kara, but she wasn't home, so I called Joe (whom I was about to move into Eric's old house with in less than a week, remember?) and he wasn't home either, so I sat in my room and stewed for a while, until somebody knocked on the door a while later...someone who turned out to be Joe.

I was glad to see him, and I told him about what had just happened. He was convinced that she was lying to me...he never liked her anyway, but he also said he had something to ask me. He prefaced it by saying that he knew I had a lot of shit going on right now, but he had to ask...which made me more nervous than I was already. I told him to just go ahead and spill it, so he did.

He said he & some of the gang had been out to the park that day, and Kara had come along with them. He said that he & she had ended up walking & talking for a while, about life, and Eric, and other things, and they had gotten along really well, and he could have sworn that she had been giving him signals, and he had reached out and tried to kiss her, and he thought she was gonna go for it but they had been interrupted almost immidiately, and so basically he said that he knew I had always had a crush on her, but would I mind if he made a play for Kara? He said he had to ask first or he wouldn't feel right. He was just trying to be a friend. He didn't know.

My heart sunk about 2 feet down into my chest, and I couldn't even breathe for a second. Hearing about the pregnancy was nothing compared to this....I was completely, 100% unprepared. Visions of Andi & Lee raced through my mind. I don't know what shocked me more; hearing that he liked her (which, even I realized at the time, was perfectly understandable), or hearing that she might like him. Kara had not made me any promises or led me to believe that she & I were destined for an exclusive relationship in any way...in fact, she had gone out of her way to let me know that she wasn't promising me anything....but still, deep down I had just figured that she wanted this as much as I did...or at least that she would as soon as it was really available. I also never thought for a second that she would let anything happen with my best friend in the world, if out of tact & decorum if nothing else. Then again, I knew that Kara was nothing if not the most impulsive girl I had ever met, and tact & decorum could kiss her perfect ass. I didn't know what to think, but now I was completely overwhelmed by the possibility.

I just said: "Joe, please don't. For me?". I don't remember exactly what his response was as my mind was still reeling a mile a minute, but basically, he expressed his dissappointment, but he said ok; he understood, and he wouldn't do it...he just had to ask. We hugged each other, and I managed to calm down after a few moments. I don't think he knew how hard it hit me...in fact, I know he didn't, and we sat outside & smoked a couple of cigarettes and I told him what had been going on between me and Kara. He was shocked, and assured me that had he known he never would have entertained the thought, and he was surprised she did. Then we both laughed and said no...we're not surprised she did; as I've said, Kara was the free-est spirit I ever knew. Then we talked about Gloria and about the new house for a while, and then he took off...I trusted Joe completely, and I went back inside still completely in a state of shock from a dozen different things, but at least secure in the knowledge that Joe wouldn't betray me like Lee had. And I was right...he didn't. But that doesn't mean that was the end of it....

It's late again, tho....