11. Natalia

11

NATALIA

"… is it gonna be painful?"

The girl can't be older than fifteen or sixteen. She's wringing her hands together as she stares up at the morose nurse.

"No more painful than childbirth," the nurse says. "You should have thought about that before you decided to rut around in the backseat of your boyfriend's car."

The girl pales and her eyes veer to me. I look away, trying—not for the first time—to concentrate on filling out the forms the same bitchy nurse dumped into my lap half an hour ago.

The screech of another ambulance siren drones past, and I sit up taller. Concentrate, Natalia! I don't want to be in this dingy OBGYN clinic for a second longer than I have to.

I take another crack at the line item I've spent the last ten minutes staring at: FATHER'S DETAILS. Finally, in a fit of spite, I draw a long line through the whole section.

"‘ Father ,'" I mutter under my breath. "Un-fucking-likely. ‘Sperm donor' barely covers it."

"Done filling out those forms yet?" Nurse Satan barks at me.

I scribble in the last few answers and march the papers over to the counter. "Will I get to see the doctor soon?"

She doesn't look up from behind her desk. "You'll see him when you see him. Sit down until I call you."

Alrighty then. She's lucky the forms didn't ask me to rate her customer service.

I give the young girl a reassuring smile as I walk back to my seat, but she's too busy plucking at her split ends to notice.

I don't blame her. This place doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. But it's the only one I can afford that doesn't require health insurance, and by the looks of it, she's as shit out of luck as I am.

Another siren whistles past. I'm extremely glad I decided to take the morning off work to come here. I definitely wouldn't want to walk back home through this neighborhood in the dark.

The nurse jabs a finger in what I think is my direction. "You. You're up."

I get to my feet, but so does the young girl sitting opposite me. We clock each other and freeze. Nurse Sunshine over there scowls. "Not you ," she tells me, as though I'm an idiot. "The girl. The scrawny one."

The girl swallows and follows the nurse around the corner, leaving me alone in the waiting area with nothing but the dull fluorescent lighting and four-year-old issues of Vogue for company.

My phone vibrates in the pocket of my dress. I pull it out, fully prepared to ignore the call if it happens to be Katya.

It's not. But the person who is calling isn't much better.

I accept the call reluctantly. "Hi, Byron."

"Hey, sugar plum. Guess what?" My boss plows ahead without waiting for an answer. "I'm standing in front of your desk and you are nowhere in sight."

"I asked for the morning off, remember? I filed the request last week."

"You never handed it to me." I can practically see his eyebrow cock playfully. Those wandering fingers of his twitching at his side, so ready to find my knee, my shoulder, my hip…

"I handed it to Mr. Ewes."

Byron tuts. " I'm your immediate boss, beautiful. You should have come to me."

"I'm sorry. It's just that Human Resources told us last month that?—"

"Human Resources, poo -man resources!" he interrupts with a childish cackle. "Just come straight to me next time. I'll clear your morning, no problem."

"Okay. Thanks, Byron. Listen, I have to?—"

"Why did you need the morning off, anyway?"

I stare at the door where the nurse disappeared with the pregnant teenager. "Uh… just a medical check-up."

"Lady business, huh?"

"Byron, I've gotta go; they're calling my name."

Relieved, I put my phone away. But it's another twenty anxious minutes before the nurse finally rounds the corner and calls me forward.

"Third floor. Room 12. There's a gown in there. Put it on."

I wait for her to escort me, but she just plops herself down at the front desk, leaving me to amble upstairs on my own.

It's a dark, twisted stairwell with a jagged chunk of metal for a railing that has almost certainly given more than one unlucky patient tetanus.

When I get to Room 12, things aren't much better. The floor is dirty and something that looks an awful lot like rodent droppings has been lazily swept into the corner.

I shuck my clothes and step into the papery gown waiting for me. I've never been more grateful for the sheet of plastic rolled out over the exam table. It's one thin barrier between my bare ass and whatever nightmarish superbugs are haunting this place, but it's better than nothing.

God, I can't wait to get out of here.

While I wait for the doctor to show up, I count two more sirens in the distance and a few short, sharp blasts that sound suspiciously like gunshots.

Then again, I can't really trust myself in that regard. I've spent most of my life since age seven hearing gunshots that aren't there.

The shrink that Aunt Annie took me to called it PTSD. Whatever it is, it gets worse when I have too much time on my hands and nothing to focus on.

Like, for example… right now.

Thankfully, the door opens a second later and a reedy doctor in a lab coat walks in. He's got about five hairs on his "mustache," which is bushy compared to his beard. He looks like he graduated medical school two days ago.

"Hi," I squeak.

Doogie Howser here doesn't return my cheery greeting. Instead, he consults his clipboard with a squint. "Natalia Boone, aged twenty-seven, three months pregnant."

He doesn't look up, so it takes me a second to realize it's a question. "Um… that's correct."

"Have you been examined before?"

"No. This is my first time. I was hoping?—"

"Lie flat."

Before I've fully reclined on the examination table, there's a loud boom and then a scramble of footsteps outside the door. People are hollering in the hallway, but their voices overlap and I can't make out what anyone is saying.

"Is something wrong, Doc?—"

"Wait here," Doogie blurts, dropping his clipboard onto the floor. "Just… fuck, just put your legs in the stirrups and wait for me."

He stumbles out the door and I gawk after him in disbelief. Something tells me that none of this is standard medical procedure.

I pry myself off the table and creep to the door, which I crack open just enough to allow me to peek out. I spy two burly men, their back muscles clenched as they support a third man who's slumped lifelessly between them.

There's no mistaking the blood staining his torn shirt.

I jerk away from the door.

I've had enough of guns and mob bullshit to last me a lifetime. Whatever is going on outside that door is none of my business.

Maybe, if I pretend not to have noticed, I can just get on with my appointment and then get the hell out of here when it's over. I'm not exactly flush with other options, so I resume my place on the examination table.

For luck, I even place my legs in the stirrups. Let no one say I'm not a good listener.

Minutes tick past. One, two, five. The sounds quiet down.

Then, finally, the door flips open.

I paste on a forced smile, but it wilts when I realize that the man standing on the threshold is no nervous, sweaty doctor.

This man is tall, broad-shouldered and decidedly not nervous.

In fact, he's never looked more in control.

"Fancy seeing you here, lastochka."