Brave New Love by Paula Guran

Author:Paula Guran [Guran, Paula]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781849017688
Publisher: Constable & Robinson

Foundlings

DIANA PETERFREUND

The secret to accomplishing anything is to break down the process into a series of manageable steps. I’d tried explaining this to Emily before, but she always thinks with her heart, not her head. My attempts to be rational were always deemed boring, until she got the positive. Then the fact that I could make a plan of action was suddenly the most fascinating thing in the universe. More interesting even than Robbie, who promptly (and like the cowardly loser I always told her he was) vanished off the face of the earth.

The first step was tricking the P-sweepers, of course. This is where most girls get tripped up. The stalls at school notice if you don’t buzz in to go to the bathroom for nine months, and though everyone knows how to get clean urine for a drug screen, it’s ridiculously expensive if you want a long-term supply.

We were covered there, though, because of me. Once you get used to peeing in an old peanut butter jar and saving it-mine to give to Emily, Emily’s to hide in her purse and then empty out into the garden every night—it’s not as gross as you think.

We were lucky Emily didn’t get too sick, because my Step Two strategy for reading up on how bulimics handle vomit-concealment was not my finest moment.

Step Three was packing on the pounds. Emily’s weight gain would be far less noticeable if I matched hers with mine. It’s funny—we used to do whatever we could not to look identical. Now, we fought to look the same.

It was the subsequent steps where things started to get a bit hazy. Neither of us knew what else to expect when she was expecting, and it wasn’t easy to do a search without setting off WOMB alerts. We couldn’t even pretend it was school research. After all, they couldn’t argue that we were incapable of handling it if they taught us how to handle it, could they?

Emily got all hormonal and freaked out about the future from time to time, but whenever it happened I just reminded her to focus on the steps, not the future. The future would take care of itself if we followed all the steps. Don’t worry about what happens at the end of nine months. Think about tomorrow. Think about how to get enough folic acid in every meal (Step Four) and what to wear that will best hide your belly (Step Five). Let me sit and wonder if the people from the Foundlings (Step Six) were really WOMB agents in disguise, or if Robbie would rat her out. I could handle it. I was the sensible one. I believed in the steps. We just had to follow them.

Seven months into the program, it all went to hell.

• • •

WOMB believed in steps too. They didn’t get here overnight, with their maternity centers and their P-sweeps and their school monitors in their trim red-and-gray uniforms. Our mom once told us that when she was a girl it was just a bunch of concerned mothers.

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