Chapter 3 - THE FIRST LIE I COULD PROVE
StageForm FX was closed, but its website was not.
I typed the receipt number into the order-status page while Clara stood by the bathroom door with her arms wrapped around herself.
The page loaded.
Custom Silicone Maternity Form, Month Seven.
Skin tone: medium.
Express shipping.
Customer: C. Alvarez.
My mouth went dry.
“Tell me that isn’t you.”
Clara stared at the screen. “I can explain.”
“That is not the same as no.”
Camila leaned over my shoulder. “Order date was six weeks ago.”
Six weeks ago, Clara had cried in my arms after what she called a frightening prenatal appointment. She had told me the doctor warned her to avoid stress.
I remembered driving home at twenty miles an hour because every pothole scared me.
“Why?” I asked.
Clara sank onto the edge of the tub. “Because I lost weight. The dress for tonight didn’t fit right. I wanted the shape to look normal.”
“You ordered a seven-month fake pregnancy belly because your dress didn’t fit?”
“It wasn’t a whole belly. It was shaping support.”
Camila turned the laptop toward her. The product photo showed a full silicone torso strapped around a mannequin.
Clara’s explanation died.
She covered her face.
I wanted to feel anger. Instead I felt a cold, slow terror.
“Are you pregnant?”
She started sobbing.
I waited.
“Clara.”
“Please don’t do this with everyone downstairs.”
“Are you pregnant?”
She looked up. Mascara had begun to run.
“Yes.”
“Then we go to your doctor tonight.”
“The office is closed.”
“Emergency room.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re humiliating me.”
I laughed once, without humor. “Our four-year-old just found your fake stomach.”
She stood. “I said no.”
That was when my phone buzzed.
It was my mother.
Sofia had remembered something else.
A name.
Not the name of Clara’s doctor.
May you like
The name Clara had whispered on the phone every time she thought Sofia was asleep.
Marisol.
