Cameron drummed the beer can with his fingers in thought. "One time," he started, "I caught Heather and Geoff fucking in the bathroom."
Jules looked astonished. "You're kidding!"
"Swear to god. Not only that," he went on, "but later she had a 'miscarriage'." Cameron stuck his fingers out to do air quotations.
"Goddamn."
"Your turn."
"I had an aunt visit once," Jules began. "She wanted to take in the sights, so I took her around Chicago. As we were walking we passed by an anime convention, and who do I see outside of it but Joe."
Cameron's jaw dropped. "Joe?" he asked disbelievingly.
"Joe," she confirmed with a nod.
"Are you sure it wasn't a coincidence?"
Shaking her head, Jules said, "The guy was dressed from head to toe in this crazy ass costume, but I knew it was him."
"Cocksucker," Cameron breathed resentfully. The bastard gave so much shit to the hardcore nerds back at school, but it turned out he was one himself. Joe had been the guy every girl wanted, and who all the other guys wanted to be. The amount of pussy that guy got was unfathomable. "Why didn't you tell anybody?"
"He begged me not to, and I just felt pity for the guy." Jules finished and waved for him to say something.
He curled his lips while thinking, and then smiled. "Maggie and Carla."
"Ooh, what about them?" Jules asked eagerly.
"Maggie fucked Carla's boyfriend," he started. "So, Carla blamed all the shit that was being stolen around school on Maggie. So she puts a kitchen knife in Carla's backpack causing the metal detectors to go off. Then Carla goes to Maggie's parents claiming that they were lesbian lovers."
"Is that why they nearly killed each other in the hallway?"
"Pretty much, yeah." He had been good friends with Carla, so he knew the spiel behind it.
It was a couple of weeks after Cameron got back from that messed up cult compound, and for fun he and Jules were dishing out on all the school gossip that the other didn't know about. Cameron still claimed to have hated that high school drama crap, but that didn't mean information didn't reach him.
The chair next Cameron all of a sudden became occupied. "Your school had metal detectors?" Becky asked curiously.
"Oh yeah, that place was a total piece of shit," Cameron commented.
"Don't know how I survived going there, that's for sure," said Jules. "So, Becky," she said with a wicked smile, "how's Cam in the sack?"
Cameron groaned and rolled his eyes as he took a swing of his beer. In all honesty, though, he was surprised it took so long for Jules to ask that.
"He gets the job done efficiently," she answered. "But," Becky went on crossly, "I have to assume he learned quite a bit while knocking up Marge."
Jules nodded her head wisely. "That'd make sense. When Cam and I did it, his techni—"
Cameron did a spit take with his beer, and Becky yelled, "What!"
"You…didn't tell her yet, did you?" she asked him, looking sorry as hell.
"No," he answered wiping his chin, shaking his head in remorse. Why the fuck would he? It was now the second time that his hormones can back to bite him in the ass. Now if only his old girlfriend were to miraculously reappear then the set would be complete.
"I thought you were a lesbian!" Becky demanded, causing all the male ears in the vicinity to perk up.
"I am."
"So why?"
"It was back when she still wasn't sure about her sexuality," Cameron tried to explain as delicately as possible. "When she told me about it I offered her support for whatever the outcome was."
Jules snorted with laughter. "I believe what you said was more along the lines of, 'You might be lesbian? Hot!'" When she saw that Becky wasn't amused, she went on, "I know it sounds retarded, but honest to god I was confused. So I decided the only way to find out for sure was to get in bed with someone. I trusted Cam, so I asked him."
To some it may have sounded like a miracle (or something out of a bad porno) that he got lucky quite a few times, but at that point it was a nuisance to Cameron. Taking a quick look around, he saw the jealous looks of some of the guys around that had been eavesdropping. Fuck. Odds were that he might have to endure another period of being shunned.
"I was a weak teenage boy," Cameron explained shamefully to Becky. "Hell, I still am!" Then he grumbled with discontent. "And thanks, Jules, for bringing up one of the most humiliating moments of my life!"
Becky looked confused, until Jules said, "Immediately afterwards I figured out I was into women." Becky couldn't help but start laughing, causing Cameron slam his forehead on the table in disgrace. "C'mon, Cam, you weren't bad, really," she said sympathetically, for what had to be the millionth time. "I just wasn't into it, that's all."
"Yeah, yeah," was his reply, just like every other time Jules tried to comfort him. Cameron was unable to look her in the eye for months after that incident.
"Besides, it was both of our first time."
"Great," Becky huffed, looking sullen again and leaning back in her chair. "It was enough dealing with the fact that he did it with Marge. Now there's another woman living here that he slept with at one point."
"Becky, that was two years ago," he assured her, hoping she wouldn't hold anything against him again. "You know I love you, right?" Cameron reached out to take her hand.
She just exhaled, saying, "I know. I know that I can't complain, either, seeing as it was that long ago. And at least you didn't get her pregnant."
"Thanks," he said gratefully.
"Honestly, though, can you try seeing it from my point of view: What if one of the guys I had gotten it on with before suddenly showed up?" Becky asked.
Thinking about it, Cameron would give the guy a handshake and welcome, but on the inside he would not have been a happy camper. Seeing it all over his face, Becky declared, "See!"
Cameron's eyes traveled over to the clock and he actually sighed with relief. "I gotta go. Marge has a check up soon."
"Convenient," Becky muttered.
"See ya later," he said with a swift peck on the lips.
"So what else do you have on him?" Cameron heard her say to Jules as he grabbed his jacket and left the bar. He shook his head in amazement at how Becky's curiosity outweighed her discomfort.
Bracing himself against the cold, Cameron jogged over to the house, where he saw as Marge came out the front door. "Ready?" he asked. She nodded, so the two of them made their way to the clinic.
Once there the medic had Marge lie down and expose her very round belly. Cameron had no problem admitting that he was very impressed with the man. He had successfully dealt with the two previous pregnancies, and his workspace had three bookcases worth of medical textbooks.
"Okay, let's take a look," he said, applying the gel. Holding the wand, he began running it over her belly producing an image on the screen. "There we go. There we see the heartbeat…. Ready to find out if it's a boy or a girl?"
"Hell yeah," Cameron said enthusiastically.
Smiling, the medic began to move the wand around accordingly. All of a sudden, he moved it back to a certain spot and his smile dropped. "It can't be," he whispered in wonder.
"What?" Marge asked, concerned.
"No," the medic said softly, staring at the screen.
"What?" Cameron demanded.
"No," he repeated, abandoning the machine and heading to one of the bookshelves. The medic chose one book and began paging through it. "No, no, no, no, no—FUCK!" He threw the book clear across the room and stormed out while telling them, "Stay here!"
"What happened?" Marge asked sounding terrified.
"I don't know," he said, gripping her shoulder in fright.
After what had to be the longest ten minutes of Cameron's life, the medic came back with Henry Clayton (it turned out that the Christian crazies lost their only doctor). Without preamble, he quickly reapplied the gel and turned back on the ultrasound. Henry moved the wand around, and then he stopped abruptly. The man exhaled hard.
"You really do know your shit, Greg," Henry said heavily.
"What's going on?" Marge demanded.
The doctor laced his fingers together, saying, "Putting it simply, there's a problem with the placenta, and if it doesn't get fixed soon the fetus won't develop properly."
It felt as if someone dumped a bucket of ice in Cameron's stomach. Marge said desperately, "The baby won't make it?"
"No," Henry answered, shaking his head in remorse. "I give it two weeks, maybe less. I'm so sorry."
"How do we fix this?" Cameron asked breathlessly, as Marge broke out in tears.
"I can't perform the surgery—not without the proper equipment," he responded.
"Well, where's the proper equipment?" Cameron blurted out.
Henry sighed. "The only place that I can think of would be a hospital in the city. But from the stories that I've heard—the Madison Disaster, you guys call it—there's just no way."
"But if you did have that available to you, then you could perform that surgery, right?" he asked.
"Cameron, you know just as well as the rest of us that the cities are a death trap!" Greg interrupted hastily. "Sorry, but Henry's right: there's nothing we can do."
"This is my kid!" Cameron yelled angrily. "You can't just stand there and tell me to give up on my kid!"
"Even if you came back alive I'm not sure I'd be up to perform such a delicate operation," Henry added.
Marge was remaining silent as she continued to sob. Seeing this, Cameron said, "I'm going to get what you need, and you will try to save the baby!"
"Wait a sec!"
It was too late. Cameron stormed out the room, grabbed his jacket at the door, and walked outside. He went into autopilot for the first time since the outbreak. Even so, as he marched to what basically was Yuba's headquarters, Cameron knew that almost nobody would be willing to go back to Madison—and to a hospital, no less. No, this time Cameron was on his own, and in its own way that was right. His child's life was in danger, and it was his responsibility to do whatever he could to save it.
Walking through the front doors, Cameron headed right for the desk with the large key rack behind it. "Gimme the Hummer," he said to the person at the desk.
Celia looked up at him in a funny way, but stood up and did as she was asked. Before giving him the keys, though, she produced a clipboard. Without thinking, Cameron took the pencil and wrote down his name, the car, and the purpose for taking it out.
"Madison?" Celia read, as she had the keys snatched out of her hands.
"Is that some kind of joke?" The look on Cameron's face was all the answer she needed before he turned around and walked away. "Cam! Wait!"
A minute later Cameron was outside and entered the Hummer. He turned on the car, when Celia got in front of him and smacked her hands on the hood. "Get the fuck out, Cam! Why in the hell do wanna go to Madison for?"
Cameron revved the engine threateningly, and Celia jumped out of the way—only to pull out a pistol and shoot out the front tire! Pissed off, he got out of the car, pulled out his pistol from his belt, and pointed it right at Celia. "What did you do that for?" he shouted.
"Cam, you would've done the exact same thing if it was me or anybody else," she explained carefully, raising her hands. "Why Madison? Tell me what happened."
"My kid's in trouble—that's what happened! Now get me another car and let me go!"
"Put the gun down, and we'll talk to Isturez."
"There's no point!"
There was a resounding gunshot that wasn't from Cameron's pistol, and he immediately felt as if he was beaned in the back by a baseball going a hundred miles an hour, only sharper. Before toppling and blacking out, he wondered what the hell he did to piss off God, the fates, or whatever it was that endangered the life of his unborn child.