“Sarah,” I snap, “Professor Lehman in my Psych 101 class says there’s no such thing as menstrual synchrony. Its existence was debunked long ago—all the studies alleging to prove it later were shown to have faulty data and poor statistical analyses. Since you’re a psychology major, I’m surprised you don’t know that. Furthermore, there aren’t only women working in the office, and you know it. There’s Brad—”
“Gay,” Sarah says. “Doesn’t count.”
“—and I’m on continuous-cycle birth control pills,” I go on, ignoring her, “so I don’t ovulate or have my period anymore.”
“Well,” Sarah says, sounding taken aback, “that can’t be good for you.”
“How would you know?” I ask, keeping my patience with an effort. “Are you my doctor? No. So you can’t really make a judgment like that, can you?”
“Okay,” Sarah says. “Sorry. I didn’t know, all right?”
I take a deep breath, trying to remain calm. Sarah’s right, she didn’t know. It’s not like we sit around the office discussing these things, like women do on those stupid commercials. “Well, I haven’t ovulated in months, thanks to having gone on Exotique, the pill where you get your period only four times a year.”
At my most recent checkup—the one last week—when my gynecologist asked how things were going in my romantic life and I mentioned I was secretly engaged (I guess it’s starting not to be such a secret anymore), my doctor said, “Good for you, Heather! Though when you think you might be ready to start having children—which I hope at your age will be sooner rather later—we’re probably going to have to have a talk. Evidence shows that for women like you it can sometimes be difficult to conceive.”
“What do you mean, ‘women like me’?” I asked, suspiciously. “Big girls?”
“No,” my doctor said, shaking her head. “Actually, it can be harder for thinner women to conceive. Your BMI is in the overweight range but your blood pressure and cholesterol are both perfectly healthy. I meant women like you who suffer from chronic endometriosis.”
“Endo-what-now?” I said.
“We discussed this last year, Heather,” she reminded me with a sigh. “That’s why I put you on the continuous-cycle contraceptive, and we agreed you’d start skipping your periods entirely. This reduces the tendency for your body to produce endometrial cysts. Remember those polyps I removed from your cervix?”
How could I forget? At least my dentist gives me nitrous oxide when I get a cleaning. My gynecologist had stuck a metal tube up my hoo-ha, and I didn’t get so much as an ibuprofen.
“You said the polyps were normal,” I pointed out to her.
“They were normal,” my doctor said, “in that they were benign. What’s abnormal is that they’re endometrial polyps. Honestly, there’s nothing to worry about yet, but after you go off the pill, if you have trouble conceiving, we’ll probably need to go in for a look laparoscopically. That’s all I’m saying.”
I left her office feeling as if Jack, Emily, and Charlotte—the names I’d picked out long ago for my future children with Cooper—were little ghost kids who’d slipped away before I ever got the chance to introduce them to their dad.
The doctor said if I have trouble conceiving, not when. That doesn’t mean I’m going to have trouble.
Still, I made the mistake of going online afterward to see how bad the odds are.
I should not have looked.
Now I suppose I’ve got to tell Cooper. Only how? When? Is there a right moment to tell your fiancé you have a strong chance of never being able to get pregnant, even with medical intervention?
It’s more fun to hang out in preppy stores, trying on wedding dresses that look completely terrible, than face that kind of reality.
Maybe that’s why I snapped when Sarah gave me her latest lame excuse for her bad mood.
“No,” I say, scraping my fingers through my hair, “I’m the one who’s sorry, Sarah. I know you didn’t know. Back to this woman you saw at the Housing Office. She can’t be that bad. Not worse than Simon. No one is worse than Simon—”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Sarah says. “Why else would Dr. Jessup say he has some news he can’t wait to tell us and he wants to be sure to deliver it in person? Where are you anyway? I know we’re closed, but that was the longest lunch break in the history of—”
“I’m coming,” I say. “I’m just over on Fifth.” I don’t mention the cross street since it’s so scandalously far. “I’ll be right there.” Then it hits me. “News? Besides the fact that he’s hired someone as hall director? What kind of news?”
It can’t be good news. When has Dr. Jessup ever stopped by anyone’s building to give them good news?
I can’t think of a single time. As a vice president—there is only one president at New York College, but there are several dozen vice presidents, all heads of nonacademic divisions of the college—Dr. Jessup is too busy to personally deliver good news. He has his assistant send it to us via e-mail.
Bad news, however, inevitably gets delivered by him via staff meeting—like the time we found out that, because of the hiring freeze and recession, there would be no merit raises. (Which didn’t affect me. As a new employee, I’m not eligible for a merit raise until next year. But Simon took it very hard.)
“I would imagine the news probably has something to do with what happened last week,” Sarah says. “Remember?” She’s being purposefully vague. Brad must be in the office with her. The two of us have managed to keep the fact that Jordan Cartwright and Tania Trace were ever in Fischer Hall a secret (one I shared with her only out of necessity, since she caught me destroying the page from the Protection Services log on which Christopher signed them in).
So far the only mentions of the shooting outside of Epiphany have been on entertainment news shows, like Jordan and Tania’s interview on Access Hollywood (“America’s Favorite Musical Couple Talks About Their Brush with Death”), and in gossip magazines. (In one photograph captioned “Tania Trace Visits Beloved Bodyguard in Hospital,” Tania is in a hospital room passing a large bouquet of “Get Well” balloons to an extremely large black man sitting up in bed. His gigantic hand makes hers look even tinier as he reaches out to accept the bouquet from her.)