Nakesha burst out of the back swing doors with her hands raised, dancing toward me like we weren’t somewhere halfway dignified.

“Did you have a man?” was the first thing she said.

“No, it was a woman,” I answered.

“Girl, I had a man!” she yelled. “An old White man with gray hair and these long funny eyebrows.”

“Ugh!” I shrieked.

We both laughed so loud everybody in the lobby looked at us. Then, we got quiet and read the baby magazines until it was time for us to go back for the “consultation,” as they said. They called Nakesha in first for her crinkly brown paper bag of condoms. But me, I didn’t get anything but a surprise. Once I was behind the shut door of a bare white office, the blond lady with a name tag reading Sue said: “Ms. Golding, I’m sorry but we won’t be dispensing any birth control to you today.”

I folded my arms and wrinkled my nose, prepared to hear about cutbacks and waiting lists.

“Hah? Why not?” I snorted.

“Well, Shivana, you’re already pregnant.”

“What?” My heart began to pound. I laughed, expecting Sue to tell me she was joking. But she wasn’t.

“I said, you’re already pregnant,” she continued.

“No I’m not.”

“Your urine test came back positive. See.”

She showed me a long white cotton stick. I knew I was supposed to be looking for colored lines, but all I could see was white. I shook my head, tried to shake away the tears burning the back of my throat, snaking up my cheeks, and pushing against my eyes. I was too late. I started.

“But I haven’t been throwing up … I haven’t missed my period.”

“You wrote here that you couldn’t remember when your last period was.”

“It wasn’t that damn long ago!”

“Please don’t curse or raise your voice in here, Ms. Golding. I’m here to help.”

Help? Help? What the hell could she do for me? Maybe if I had gotten my pills the first day I came in here, closer to when me and Leroy did it for the last time, this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe if every time I had called for an appointment before, and they wouldn’t have put me on hold until I hung up, this wouldn’t have happened. They couldn’t do shit for me now but give me bad news and prenatal care. Who gives a fuck about prenatal care? What about postnatal care—diapers, clothes, food, money, a roof over our heads? Who was gonna take care of this shit when it was all said and done?

“Would you like to come back with the father, and we can all discuss this?”

“Ain’t no father.” I shrugged my shoulders and looked away from her.