Deadshifted by Cassie Alexander Read Free Book Online

inside. “Hello?”
    “We are not open yet,” the man said curtly, without turning around. There was a clock fastened to one wall; it was 7:45 A.M. ship time, which made it almost noon back home.
    I didn’t want to wait, and more important I wasn’t sure how much longer I could not pee. “I just need a pregnancy test.”
    He made an irritated noise, spinning around in his chair to look at me. He had brown skin, and an accent, and he made a pointed look at my ring finger. “Where is your husband?”
    “Does that matter?”
    He didn’t answer me.
    I knew from having worked with people of different ethnicities that certain cultures had ways of acting, talking, or gesturing that could be perceived as rude from the outside when compared with one’s own cultural norm without that being their intended gist at all. I’d learned to look past a lot of that, because I knew it wasn’t personal, and because I realized it was mostly in my head.
    However, as both a woman and a nurse, I could also identify a judgy doctor at twenty paces.
    “Is it an emergency?” he asked archly, looking me up and down, as if I were unclean.
    “No.”
    “Then can’t it wait?”
    “Look, I can pay you for it. I’d just like to know.”
    “So you can drink,” he said, and I had a feeling it wasn’t just me he hated, but possibly his job, and possibly all Americans. I bet he did see a ton of alcohol poisonings on these trips—were I in his likely Muslim and abstemious shoes, that might bias me, too.
    “Nope. Mormon,” I lied. Super-lied, come to think of it, seeing as I was asking for a pregnancy test, and I clearly wasn’t the Virgin Mary. “Look, I just want to know.”
    He started going through the drawers of his desk. When those didn’t produce what he was looking for—probably a card with a disappointed-looking face that said YOU SHOULD HAVE WASHED YOUR HANDS BETTER! in twenty languages—he started looking in the cabinets above his desk, where the contents of each shelf were held in with slide-stoppers and/or bungee cord.
    He produced a pregnancy test at long last from the back of one of these. If it was possible for one to expire, I’m sure this one would have. I’d seen less wrinkled packaging emerge on strips of gum that I’d lost in my purse.
    “Do you know how to use it?” he asked again.
    “Pretty sure I just pee on one end.”
    “That might be the last one I have. So don’t come back here looking for more.”
    “I won’t. I swear.”
    He snorted to let me know what he thought of that. And then swiveled back around on his chair.
    *   *   *
    I emerged in the hall to find Asher speaking something that sounded like German to a crew member with a crew cut. He wrapped up their conversation quickly when he saw me, and the crew member gave me a courteous nod before leaving.
    “Did they have one?” he asked once we were in the elevator, alone.
    “Yeah. Was that German?”
    “Nope. Afrikaans.” I hadn’t known that Asher spoke Afrikaans. That was my boyfriend, perpetually full of surprises. “How’d it go?”
    I made a face. “I wish I’d taken you in with me instead.”
    “Yeah—Marius was telling me the doctor was a prick. On the downlow, you know, countryman-to-countryman.”
    “Well, he’s right. I almost had to promise him our firstborn to get this.” I held the test up. The wrapper was illegible. “What language is this in, polylinguist?”
    Asher inspected it. “Cantonese?”
    “Great.”
    Asher grinned at me. “Even people in China want to know if they’re pregnant, Edie. I’m sure it’s fine.”
    I inhaled deeply, girding my loins in a metaphorical sense. “Let’s go back to our room and see.”
    *   *   *
    I went into the bathroom alone. For having had to pee all morning, my bladder was now suddenly shy.
    “It’s too late now,” I told myself. “Come on. Let’s just know already.” It was weird knowing that Asher was listening in outside. I leaned over and turned on the