LITMIR.BIZ

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placed the other over her still-rolling stomach. “Oh, no, thank you,” she told the girl. “No one in my condition should be drinking coffee—trust me.”

      Susan fairly snapped to attention at Tess’s comment. She dropped her gaze to the saltines and soda water sitting on the table before her, then to the hand Tess had placed over her stomach, then to Tess’s face. Her mouth dropped open in shock, then an evil little smile uncurled on her lips.

      “Tess,” she said in a voice of utter discovery. “My gosh, you’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

      The eighth-grader who had been pouring coffee had started to move away from the table, but at Susan’s—loudly—offered assumption, the girl spun back around.

      “You’re gonna have a baby, Miss Monahan?” she cried—loudly. “That’s so cool! When are you due?”

      Before Tess had a chance to voice her objection, Susan replied in the voice of authority, “Well, if she’s this sick now, I imagine she’s only a month or two along. That would put delivery at…December or January. Oh, a Christmas baby!” she fairly shouted in delight. “How wonderful for you, Tess!”

      Tess’s eyes widened in complete shock. Try as she might to avert the charge, she was so stunned by it, that she had no idea what to say. Unfortunately, two women at the next table turned to gape at what they had just heard, and she realized she had better say something to avert the charge, before things went any further and got too far out of hand. For long moments, though, Tess could only shift her horrified gaze from Susan to the eighth-grader to the awestricken women at the next table, and back again. And for every moment that she didn’t respond, Susan’s smile grew more menacing.

      “You are pregnant, aren’t you?” she charged. “Tess Monahan, knocked up! And not married! Oh, I can’t believe it! I can’t believe you’re pregnant!” Then a new—and evidently equally delightful—thought must have occurred to her, because her menacing smile grew positively malignant. “My gosh, who’s the father? Your brothers are going to kill him!”

      Only Susan Gibbs would ask such a forward, invasive question, Tess thought, the gravity of the charges being leveled against her still not quite registering in her brain. Finally, however, as she saw the two women at the neighboring table begin to chat animatedly with two others that joined them, Tess lifted both hands before her, palms out, as if in doing so, she might somehow ward off Susan’s accusation.

      “I am not pregnant,” she assured both Susan and the eighth-grader who still stood gaping at her, coffeepot in hand. “It’s the flu. I’m sure of it.”

      “Oh, please,” Susan said indulgently, clearly not buying it. “It’s May, Tess. Nobody gets the flu in May. Admit it. You’re pregnant.”

      “Then it was something I ate yesterday,” Tess said quickly. “Because I couldn’t possibly be pregnant.”

      “You’ve never been sick a day in your life, Tess Monahan,” Susan countered. “I remember the Fourth of July picnic when we all ate a batch of bad potato salad, and you were the only one who didn’t get nauseated afterward. You have the constitution of a horse and a galvanized stomach to boot. Nothing has ever made you sick. Except, obviously, getting pregnant. Hey, I have three sisters with kids,” she added parenthetically, “and I’ve seen how arbitrarily morning sickness hits. I can see it downing even you.”

      “It’s not morning sickness,” Tess insisted. “Because I’m not pregnant.”

      She may not know exactly what it was, making her feel this way, but she knew it wasn’t…that. There was a specific activity in which one had to engage in order for…that…to happen, and Tess hadn’t engaged in it lately. Or…ever. If she was pregnant, then she was about to receive a million dollars from the National Enquirer for the story surrounding her impending virgin birth. And she’d also be getting an audience with His Holiness Himself.

      No worries there.

      Susan, however, was clearly reluctant to disbelieve what she considered the obvious, because she continued, “Oh, come on, Tess. You don’t have to be ashamed or embarrassed. It happens all the time these days. Even to good little Irish-Catholic girls like you.”

      “Susan, I’m not—”

      She turned, hoping to include the eighth-grader in her assurance, but to her dismay—nay, to her utter horror—the girl had wandered off to pour more coffee. Among other things. Even now Tess could see her chattering at Ellen Dumont, one of the math teachers, who immediately spun around in her chair to look at Tess with stark disbelief.

      Oh, no, Tess thought. The girl might as well be broadcasting the news of her alleged pregnancy on CNN. Ellen was connected to everybody in town.

      “Well, let me be the first to congratulate you,” Susan said. “Many, many, many congratulations on your upcoming blessed event.” Vaguely Tess noted that her rival was certainly capable of conjuring congratulations for a nonexistent pregnancy, if not for an actual award.

      “Susan, don’t. I’m not—”

      But Susan only waved a hand airily in front of herself. “Oh, your secret is safe with me,” she said. “I won’t tell a soul.”

      Yeah, right. Like Tess was going to believe that.

      “I just think it’s so amazing,” Susan continued with a slow shake of her head. “I mean, you’re just so…straitlaced. So upright. So forthright. So do-right. So boring,” she added adamantly, in case Tess didn’t fully grasp her meaning—as if. “I didn’t even think you were dating anyone special,” Susan added, “let alone having—”

      “Susan,” Tess quickly interjected. “I’m not. I’m not dating anyone special, nor am I…doing anything else with anyone special.”

      Susan gaped harder. “You mean it was a one-night stand?” she cried, even more loudly than before.

      Now the women at the tables on both sides of Tess were gawking at her. And they were all looking at the saltines and sparkling water sitting on the table before her. Tess closed her eyes in mortification. Rumors in Marigold, Indiana, traveled faster than the speed of light. What was worse, though, the things piped over the Marigold grapevine almost always ended up being true. A little more embellished than usual, maybe, but still essentially true. If you heard it over the backyard fence in Marigold, Indiana, then, by golly, you could pretty much count on its reality, in one form or another.

      By midafternoon, everyone in town was going to be certain Tess was pregnant. And they would be sure it had come about after some sordid one-night stand. She had to put a stop to this now.

      “It wasn’t a one-night stand,” she said through gritted teeth.

      “Then it was someone special,” Susan surmised.

      “No, it wasn’t,” Tess insisted. “It was nobody. I’m not pregnant.”

      But Susan was having none of it. When Tess opened her eyes, it was to see the other woman sitting back in her chair with a dreamy little speculative look in her eyes. “Let’s see now, who could it be…?” she murmured. “Last time I saw you out with a man, it was at the Christmas bazaar. Donnie Reesor brought you.”

      “Donnie’s just a friend,” Tess said. “And you know it. And as everybody in town knows, he’s about to ask Sandy Mackin to marry him.”

      Susan chuckled. “Well, this just might put a little crimp in those plans now, mightn’t it?”

      Tess closed her eyes again. “Susan, please…”

      “Fine,” the other woman relented. “Like I said, I won’t tell a soul. I’ll let you break the news to everyone when you’re ready. ’Course, you won’t be able to wait too long,” she added jovially. “These things have a way of…showing themselves.”

      “There’s no news to break and nothing to show,” Tess said. “I—”

      “Oh,

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