Page 17 of Coyotes Ever After

“That’s so surprising.” She furrows her brow. “I mean, when you get ahot dogfrom a place with plywood over the front window and the menu board above the ordering counter has changes made in marker, you expect it to be top notch.”

“Hey, I heard the place was good. You don’t hear me complaining about the place you picked last week where my chicken sandwich had no chicken on it.”

“Chinese carryout?” She gets her bag and jacket from the coat tree by our office door. “I can pick it up on my way home.”

“Yeah, that sounds good. I’ll take beef fried rice and egg rolls.”

“See you at home.”

She blows me a kiss and I pretend to catch it and put it on my dick. It’s our thing.

Then I put on my reading glasses and get to work. I have to get Friday sorted because we’re not missing the celebration for Colby staying cancer-free.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Tess

“Hello? Are you about done?”

“Nope,” I yell back at the person knocking on the door of the gas station bathroom I’m in. “It’s wrecked in here, I’d find another bathroom.”

I rip open a second pregnancy test and pull out the stick, tearing the wrapper off. This one will go faster because I already know how to do it after the first one.

That positive result has to be a fluke. There’s no way I went more than five years having lots of sex with my husband and never got pregnant, and now, all of a sudden, at age forty, I am.

It’s not possible. And while I’m waiting for the negative result on the second test, I’m going to compose a letter to the company that made the tests about the absolute bullshit that is false-positive results.

I pee on the stick and carefully set it on top of the box, making sure the test doesn’t touch any surface in this sketchy bathroom.

Someone wrote ‘I love fashism’ on one of the wall tiles in marker, and someone else crossed it out and wrote ‘*Fascism dumb shit.’ Instead of starting my email to the pharmaceutical company, I take a photo of it and text it to my sister.

Tess: Guess where I am?

Cam: A public bathroom where you just got herpes from a toilet seat?

Tess: Yes on the first part. Hopefully no on the second...

Cam: Everything ok?

Tess: Almost

Cam: ??

Tess: It’ll be okay in a few more minutes when I can read the results of the pregnancy test I just took

Cam: HOLY FUCK TESS WHAT

Tess: I got two tests to be sure. The first one was defective.

Cam: Defective like how?

Tess: It was positive, which has to be a mistake.

Cam: TESS OMG I JUST DIED

Tess: Relax. I’m 40. My womb is dry and shriveled. It had to be a mistake.

Cam: Um. Why are you taking a pregnancy test to begin with?

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