34 Weeks

"Jesse, got a sec to talk in the break room?"

"Sure, be right there, Nica." Wrist-deep in soapy dishwater, he withdrew and shook his hands off, then hastily wiped them on his SoCal Coffee House apron. He followed his supervisor out of earshot of the customers.

As far as bosses go, Dominica (or Nica, at her urging) was decent enough. A petite mixed-race woman in her mid-30's, she never yelled, judged or belittled—a novel experience in itself for Jesse—but she had no patience for slackers. On the day she hired him, she'd admitted the reason he'd been chosen over the dozen other applicants was precisely because he wasn't among the iPhone-toting, turtleneck-sporting crowd the shop catered to. "I can't tell you how many of our younger customers apply here, just to sit around texting about how 'cool before it was cool' their new job is," she'd complained. "As long as you pull your weight, you'll do fine."

Now, as he sat across from her in the break room, it dawned on him that he'd been distracted at work since…the incident at home last week. He shifted uneasily in his chair. Could that be what this was about?

He was even more unsettled as she opened with, "Jesse, you have been a great worker, but…"

"Lemme guess. I'm fired?" He slumped a little. She eyed him sternly, and he straightened up with an uttered apology.

"As I was saying," she resumed. "You've been a great worker. I'm really impressed with your latte art. Those jack-o-lanterns you did at Halloween were a smash; we've never sold so many pumpkin spice lattes in one day."

He grinned fleetingly, remembering Halloween and all the kids in costume who'd come in for candy and cocoa. He sobered immediately at the possibility of a future lacking fun times like that, with an unhappy Jane and the child she wished she didn't have.

"That's why I wanted to ask you…what the heck's been up with you this week?" Nica continued. "Anyone else, I'd chalk 'em up to 'lazy, entitled hipster' and show 'em the door. Tell 'em to try Starbucks, if that wasn't too mainstream for 'em." She smirked, trying to keep the conversational tone as light as possible. "But you, I can generally count on to be on time and on task. I figured there must be a reason you're suddenly spilling drinks, mixing up orders and sneaking off behind the dumpster for twenty minutes at a time." She leaned in, trying to be inviting and nonthreatening. "Is there something you want to share?"

Jesse wanted very much to share. He'd meant to bring it up to Lee at this week's support group meeting…but it had been impossible to get a moment alone with the counselor, and he didn't dare accuse Jane again of shooting up, especially not in front of the rest of the group. Without proof of his poor, pregnant girlfriend's relapse, he had a fair idea of whom they'd side with.

Boss or no, he felt he could confide in Nica. He didn't have many other options, anyway. He scratched the back of his head. "…Last week, Jane sorta threatened to jump down a staircase," he began.

Nica's eyes widened in concern. "I'm sorry to hear that. If she needs a suicide hotline, I have the number for—"

"No, not like that. She doesn't want to kill herself." He sighed deeply, staring down at his hands clasped on the table. "She's eight months pregnant. We're having a little girl in not even a month. We…I…couldn't wait. And now all of a sudden she basically tells me she doesn't want to be a mother at all."

Nica grit her teeth. "Ouch."

"Yeah," he agreed half-heartedly. "Ouch" barely covered it. "I know this is so not how we planned things would go. But I don't get how she isn't at least a little happy. You hear about, y'know, the 'miracle of life' on nature shows and stuff all the time. And at first you figure, how can something be a miracle when it literally happens every day all over the world?" He leaned in to drag his hands down his face. "But it is. You just never know it until you make it happen yourself. When I first saw that face—that life that's only there because of me—then it was real. It is a miracle…and she's acting like I cursed her with it."

"Did you ever tell Jane you feel this way?" she asked gently.

He shook his head. "We haven't exactly been talking much."

A murmur of understanding. "Once again, I'm sorry you're going through this. It can't be easy on you or her. And if there's anything I can do for you both, by all means, say the word." She reached across the table to give him a sincere pat on the arm. "But I need you to try and leave it at the door when you come to work."

"Yeah, no offense Nica, but when the mother of your kid tells you she doesn't want it, you don't just forget that and go grind coffee beans."

"I never said you did. But there's nothing you can do about it on the clock anyway, so why let it fester?" she posed. "Think of being here as taking a break from the stress at home. Carry that weight on your shoulders all the time, and it's bound to drag you down."

He eyed her quizzically. "So, you're not gonna fire me?" he asked.

"And wade through two dozen Liberal Arts majors' applications? Not on your life," the older woman laughed. "In fact, I wanted to give you a chance to get it together. If you want it, of course."

"Sure. But how's that?"

Nica pointed to a poster on the break room wall, advertising in bold edgy print the KISS: Alive/35 World Tour. "Were you two going to see KISS tomorrow?" she asked.

"That's already tomorrow?" He looked at the date on the poster. He had seen Gene Simmons' likeness yowling at him from that poster every day since he started this job, but the date had always been engraved in his mind as some distant future event. "No. Forgot all about it, with all that's been going on," he admitted.

"Well, my girlfriend and I got our tickets months ago," Nica explained. "I was just going to close up shop early, because it was probably going to be a ghost town in here anyway. But if you wanna hold down the fort for the evening—get a little break from home and give Jane her space—I'd be happy to give you the extra hours."

He looked at her, surprised. "You sure?" A supervisor…trusting him alone in the shop?

She shrugged. "Why not? You know how the register works, you're no slouch at mixing the right ingredients…"

Of course, he'd withheld his previous experience with mixing ingredients.

"…And if it doesn't look like anyone's coming in, text me and let me know, then you can just close up and go home," she finished. "In return, just promise me you'll stay focused from now on, and cut those smoke breaks down to ten minutes, when we're not busy." She pressed a spare key to the shop down on the table between them. "So, is it a deal?"

Jesse was suddenly elated he'd chosen to entrust his problems to Nica. Never could he recall being trusted with a responsibility like this. His parents and Mr. White had circled him like birds in the sky, waiting to claw apart his every mistake. He thought he'd left that perpetual judgment behind when he and Jane had moved here…but even they had begun to drift apart now. Being handed this spare key to SoCal Coffee House was like being handed the key to the city.

He picked it up. "Deal. I'll do my best, yo."

"Nobody asked for more than that." She winked. "Now, if I'm not mistaken, I believe there's some dishes in the sink, not washing themselves. Get outta here."

(***)

That night, Jesse told Jane he was working an extra day, and she nodded without looking up from her sketchbook. He spent the rest of the night playing Xbox, while she soaked in the bathtub and then went to bed.

(***)

The next day, as Nica had predicted, the shop saw little more than the odd straggler come through its doors. Jesse wiped the tables, made a pyramid of paper cups and was reduced to pivoting back and forth in a rotating wicker chair, bored, by the time it was barely dark. A bag of whole coffee beans on the table in front of him, he occasionally flicked one in the air to try and catch it in his mouth. After awhile, a spoon catapult was integrated into this procedure.

Then his cell rang, and he sprang to answer it. "So-Ca—I mean, hello?"

"Yes, is this Jesse Pinkman?" an unfamiliar voice female voice inquired.

"Yeah?"

"This is Nurse Dodson, calling from USC Medical Center. We've just admitted a patient named Jane Margolis. Is that your girlfriend?"

He froze. "Why, what's wrong?"

"The patient has asked us to call and inform you that she has gone into labor."

A shock jolted through him. "Now? But she's not supposed to be due for another three weeks!"

"I'm afraid you're looking at a premature birth. It's happening now."