“What’s wrong?” I said.

She just shook her head.

“What?” I said. “What is it?”

She reached behind the paper towel dispenser and pulled out a small white stick-shaped object with a little circle on the end of it. As she held it out, I saw that in the little circle was a bright pink cross. Then, all at once, it hit me.

“No,” I said. “No way.”

She nodded, biting her lip. “I’m pregnant.”

“You can’t be.”

“I am.” She shook the stick in front of me, the plus sign blurring. “Look.”

“Those things are always wrong,” I said, like I knew.

“It’s the third one I’ve taken.”

“So?” I said.

“So what? So nothing is wrong three times, Halley. And I’ve been sick every morning for the last three weeks, I can’t stop peeing, it’s all there. I’m pregnant.”

“No,” I said. I could see my mother in my head, lips forming the word: denial. “No way.”

“What am I going to do?” she said, pacing nervously. “I only had sex one time.”

“You had sex?” I said.

She stopped. “Of course I had sex. God, Halley, try to stay with me here.”

“You never told me,” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She sighed, loudly. “Gosh, Halley, I don’t know. Maybe it was because he died the next day. Go figure.”

“Oh, my God,” I said. “Didn’t you use protection?”

“Of course we did. But something happened, I don’t know. It came off. I didn’t realize it until it was over. And then,” she said, her voice rising, “I thought there was no way it could happen the first time. It couldn’t.”

“It came off?” I didn’t understand, exactly; I wasn’t very clear on the logistics of sex. “Oh, my God.”

“This is nuts.” She pressed her fingers to her temples, hard, something I’d never seen her do before. “I can’t have a baby, Halley.”

“Of course you can’t,” I said.

“So, what, I have to get an abortion?” She shook her head. “I can’t do that. Maybe I should keep it.”

“Oh, my God,” I said again.

“Please.” She sat down against the wall, pulling her legs up against her chest. “Please stop saying that.”

I went over and sat beside her, putting my arm around her shoulders. We sat there together on the cold floor of Milton’s, hearing the muffled Muzak playing “Fernando” overhead.

“It’ll be okay,” I said in my most confident voice. “We can handle this.”

“Oh, Halley,” she said softly, leaning against me, the pregnancy stick lying in front of us, plus sign up. “I miss him. I miss him so much.”

“I know,” I said, and I knew now it was my job to hold us together, my turn to see us through. “It’ll be okay, Scarlett. Everything is going to be fine.”

But even as I said it, I was scared.

That evening, we had a meeting at Scarlett’s kitchen table. Me, Scarlett, and Marion, who didn’t know anything yet and ate her dinner incredibly slowly as we edged around her. She had a date with Steve/Vlad at eight, so we were working with a time frame.

“So,” I said, looking right at Scarlett, who was overstuffing the napkin holder with napkins, “it’s almost eight.”

“Is it?” Marion turned around and looked at the kitchen clock. She reached for her cigarettes, pushed her chair out from the table, and said, “I better start getting ready.”

She started to leave, and I shot Scarlett a look. She looked right back. We battled it out silently for a few seconds before she said, very quietly, in a voice flat enough to ensure anyone wouldn’t, “Wait.”

Marion didn’t hear her. Scarlett shrugged her shoulders, like she’d tried, and I stood up and got ready to call after her. I could hear Marion heading up the stairs, past the creaky third one, when Scarlett sighed and said, louder, “Marion. Wait.”

Marion came back down and stuck her head into the kitchen. She’d had to get two two -hundred-and- fifty-pound women glamorous that day at Fabulous You, one of whom wanted lingerie shots, so she was worn out. “What?”

“I have to talk to you.”

Marion stood in the doorway. “What’s going on?”

Scarlett looked at me, as if this was some kind of relay race and I could carry the baton from here. Marion was starting to look nervous.

“What?” she asked, looking from Scarlett to me, then back to Scarlett. “What is it?”

“It’s bad,” Scarlett said, and started crying. “It’s really bad.”

“Bad?” Now Marion looked scared. “Scarlett, tell me. Now.”

“I can’t,” Scarlett managed, still crying.

“Now. ” Marion put one hand on her hip. It was my mother’s classic stance but it looked out of place on Marion, as if she was wearing a funny hat. “I mean it.”

Then Scarlett just spit it out. “I’m pregnant.”

Everything was really quiet all of a sudden, and I suddenly noticed that the faucet was leaking, drip drip drip.

Then Marion spoke. “Since when?”

Scarlett fumbled for a minute, getting her bearings. She’d been expecting something else. “When?”