Barbara the Slut and Other People by Lauren Holmes Page A

test. They made room for me and we all waited for the lines to come up. It worked like a pregnancy test: one line was good, two lines were bad.
    The control line came up and then the positive line came up. Two lines.
    I felt like air was rushing through my head. I sat down in the blood-drawing chair.
    “Dear God,” said Eunice.
    “I feel sick,” said Melissa. She left the lab.
    “I need a minute,” said Eunice. She went back out to the clinician’s station and put her head in her hands.
    •   •   •
    Soon I stopped feeling dizzy and felt empty, like this wasn’t real life, which was a relief. When Eunice was ready I followed her into the counseling room. Marla didn’t look up from her magazine.
    “Marla? Hi, I’m Eunice.”
    “Hi.”
    “Hi.” Eunice sat down. “Are you ready for your results?”
    “Yeah,” said Marla.
    “Your HIV test was positive,” said Eunice.
    “Yeah,” said Marla. She didn’t look up.
    “Okay,” said Eunice. “Did you already know that you might be HIV positive?”
    “Yeah,” said Marla.
    “Are you currently under a physician’s care?” said Eunice.
    “No,” said Marla. She looked up.
    I gave Marla a card for the hospital’s AIDS care program. Eunice asked her how she was going to deal with her results tonight and tomorrow, and asked her about her support network, but Marla kept saying she was fine. Eunice told her that we were going to report the result under our mandated reporting protocol. She wanted to do a confirmation test before Marla left, but Marla said it was already confirmed.
    “Okay,” said Eunice. “Will you call the program?”
    “Uh-huh,” said Marla. “I got to go.”
    “Okay,” said Eunice. “We’ll call you tomorrow to see how you’re doing.”
    I walked Marla to the checkout desk. Mike Anonymous was waiting for her on the other side of the door.
    “He’s paying,” she said. She opened the door to the waiting room and told Mike Anonymous that he needed to pay and that he owed her fifty bucks. He said he needed the results first.
    “Hell no,” she said.
    He said he was paying her so she had to give him the results.
    “No,” said Marla. She walked past him.
    He said that was the agreement.
    “Okay,” said Marla. “Give me the money first.”
    He handed her some cash and she started walking toward the door.
    “Hey!” he said. But instead of following her, Mike Anonymous stormed our window, yelling that he needed the results.
    “I think you should shut that,” I said to Melissa.
    She closed the window, and we watched Mike yelling on the other side. He was yelling that we had to give him the results because he paid for the test and it was his money, so they were his results.
    “We can’t give you the results,” I said through the glass. “It’s against the law.” I didn’t tell him that he hadn’t paid yet.
    He was sweating again and he was crying. He yelled that he knew it was positive. Then he really started screaming, not words but just screaming. He ran into a row of chairs, knocking them over and falling on top of them.
    I picked up the phone and pressed page. “I think we need help up here.”
    By the time Eunice got to the front, Mike Anonymous had taken a couple of pictures off the wall and pulled down a set of track lights.
    “Do you want me to call the police?” I said. We watched him through the window. He looked weaker. He knocked over the pamphlet display in slow motion and then sat down on a chair and put his head between his knees.
    “Call them if I wave at you,” said Eunice. “I’m going to take him outside.”
    She went out to the waiting room and took his elbow and helped him stand up. We watched her escort him outside. She looked older, like his red face set off her gray hair.
    They left the building and walked across the parking lot. The streetlights lit them up and made shadows under their eyes and noses and chins. We could see Mike Anonymous shaking and shouting and then calming down