What Came First Read Online Free PDF

can get another job when you get back. And you hate this apartment.”
    “I like my job. And I don’t hate this apartment.” Yes I do, but that’s beside the point.
    “We’d get jobs over there. I’ll teach English like I did in Jakarta. And you can wait tables at a café or something.”
    “I am not going to wait tables!” Oh, crap—I’m crying again. “And I am not moving to Europe. For God’s sake, Eric, I’m twenty-nine years old! I want children and a house. I want a driveway and a garage and a garbage disposal that works.”
    He sits there for a long time, and then he stands up and goes, “You want some tea?”
    I shake my head and stay there on the couch, snuffling and gagging on my snot while he goes to boil water.
    When he comes back, he sticks his tea on the table and exhales. Then he says it. “I don’t want children. I don’t want that kind of responsibility.”
    I swallow. My throat hurts. “You say that, but—”
    “I say it because I mean it.”
    It isn’t the first time he’s said it. But before he’s always been, like, “I can’t imagine a child in my life right now .” This time he sounds so certain. So final.
    “Not ever?” I ask.
    He shakes his head. “I’m so sorry.”

    At work the next morning, I’m hanging up my coat when Melva comes in wearing her pink Hello Kitty scrubs. When she sees me, she runs through the waiting room and around the corner to the reception desk, grabs my left hand, looks at my naked ring finger, and—
    “Shit.” She keeps holding on with her soft chubby hands. Her rings on her left hand are gold and swirly, the diamonds small and sparking against her light brown skin.
    “Tell me about it.” I try to laugh, but I can’t.
    “Asshole.” She lets go of me and rests her hand on her pregnant belly as if to protect her fetus from its mommy’s mouth.
    “He’s not.” Even now, I feel like I need to defend him.
    “Did you give him an ultimatum like me and Pammy told you to?”
    I shake my head. My nose tickles. My eyes fill with tears, and I probably would have burst out crying if Dr. Sanchez hadn’t walked in.
    “Good morning, Melva. Vanessa.”
    “Morning, Dr. Sanchez.” I try to smile, but I just can’t.
    He pauses at the front desk and glances at my left hand. His mouth tightens, and then he goes to his office and shuts the door. I wonder what his reaction would have been if I’d come in sporting a diamond. Probably not too different.
    I started working at Great Grins two years ago. Six months before that, Dr. Sanchez’s wife, Rosie, died from ovarian cancer. That’s why the job was open—because it used to be hers. The old patient files have her pretty, rounded handwriting all over them. She picked out all the paint colors, turquoise for the waiting room, peach for Dr. Sanchez’s office, sunshine yellow for examination rooms. No one dares suggest we change them, even though the walls are looking scuffed and sunshine yellow seems to put people on edge.
    Pammy, the other hygienist, was good friends with Rosie, but she doesn’t talk about her much because it makes her too sad. “So full of life,” she’ll say, shaking her head.
    Dr. Sanchez was different before Rosie got sick, Pammy says. Not a barrel of laughs, exactly, but just calm and quiet. Content. Now he looks haunted, with dark circles under deep-set brown eyes. His nose is straight and long, his cheekbones sharp. His bald head is shaved, flecks of gray mixing with the black in the stubble.
    Maybe he’s not haunted. Maybe he’s just tired. He’s got three kids at home. In any event, Pammy says he’ll never get over Rosie, which makes me sad but also jealous. Which I know is wrong. But I can’t help thinking that no man will ever love me like that.
    Which brings me back to Eric, of course.
    Melva puts her hands on her hips. “Shit or get off the pot. You tell him that from me.” Even the Hello Kitties on her scrubs look pissed.
    My nose stings and I think I’m going