Free The Bookstore by Deborah Meyler Page A

tell my parents about the baby. When I was first offered the scholarship to Columbia they were perturbed—in part because of 9/11, in part because it is in New York City and I am their only child. What nameless dangers might await me? They could think of a few with names, but I don’t think pregnancy was one of them. I am too sensible for that to happen.
    As New York hasn’t been a target since 2001, I researched the statistics in order to convince them I could come here and not get into trouble. It’s more dangerous to cross the road in London, you’re more likely to choke on a mint than become a victim of al-Qaeda, and so on. My father makes mathematical instruments for a living; if you present the right data, it calms him down. My mother is still nervous, but not because of al-Qaeda. I know that despite their visit, she is still afraid of gangs loitering on the brownstonesteps from Sesame Street, who might surround me and take my money or my virtue.
    And so I don’t want to tell them yet about the baby, about how soon they are going to be grandparents and how there was, after all, trouble waiting. I need to get used to it myself first. The thought of my mother swooping in, imploring me to come home on the next flight, ready to enclose me in her ordered world—I will phone tomorrow. Or the next day.
    In the afternoon, I go to the student welfare center at Columbia. They are surprisingly helpful. They do not seem to judge me as an idiot who doesn’t know how to use birth control. They say that sure, I can stay in that apartment for now, because I won’t be having the baby until the next academic year. And I can put my name down for accommodation for families. A mother and a baby; we will count as a family. It will just cost more, is all. She pushes the accommodation list at me, with the prices.
    It will cost a lot more.
    I ask if there are any jobs going, provided by the university. No, there are none available right now. The teaching jobs are like stardust; they and all the little extra ones are snapped up by those in the know before the semester starts. I can sign up to be told when new ones come, but they are usually grabbed before they get to the e-mail stage.
    I sign up anyway.
    I am on a student visa, and I am not supposed to work—except in those little, well-regulated Columbia jobs. But I am going to need a lot of extra money for the baby. More in rent. Nappies, a pushchair, baby milk. Other things that cannot be dreamed of in my philosophy. I do some research online. Nappies—diapers—cost a thousand dollars a year. A pushchair is at least $200. A cot is another $100, minimum. Apparently I need a baby bath, a bouncy seat, a breast pump, a high chair, a changing station, a Diaper Genie, a sterilizer, breast pads, a sheepskin rug. I don’t know what half these things are. A sheepskin rug? Is that for the photographs?
    I call a few places about waitressing; it is all tips, no salary,and they want people with experience. And, presumably, people who don’t panic when they have to divide twenty-four by four. I don’t mention that I am pregnant, of course, but that too wouldn’t go down so well. I go over to my window, look out on my beloved Broadway. I have a few friends who might be able to help a little, here and there. But not old friends, and not family. When you need help, extended, selfless help, you need your family, the family I don’t want to call because I can’t bear to ask for my mother’s selfless extended help. I want to do it myself. It is going to be so difficult, financially and in terms of time. Am I being absurdly stubborn about having everything—New York, the PhD, the baby? If I am going to keep it, I might have to go home.
    In the next couple of weeks, I realize that that “if” is entirely rhetorical. There is no question at all, anymore, about whether I am going to keep it. Day by day, hour by hour, it becomes more precious to me. If it carries on at this rate, when it is born