For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a magnet for unwanted attention. At first it was just my crooked wandering eye, which seemed like a curse from God. Then a double curse — in grade school I sprouted like a weed, until I towered freakishly over my classmates, girls and boys. And finally a triple curse of utter booblessness and almost no hips and a flat boybutt, when all the other girls were blooming into women. So I’m used to the sidelong glances, even outright staring. I’m used to the fervent whispering and pointed fingers and muffled giggling. I’m used to the people who blurt out questions — “What’s wrong with your eye?” — and the teasing, the cruel jokes. I’m even getting used to the superstitious Mexicans who think I have el mal ojo — the Evil Eye — and hurriedly cross themselves.

But this is a different kind of attention. A kinder, gentler scrutiny. Now gazes don’t linger on my height or my lazy eye. Instead they focus on my tummy, swelling noticeably beneath my tight wardrobe of tanktops and t-shirts and sundresses. I’m pregnant and showing for all the world to see. And the world seems to like me better this way. People beam at me. Senoras with kids in tow approach to make smalltalk, asking me how far along I am and offering advice from their own pregnancies, blurs of Spanish that leave me nodding my head in uncomprehending gratitude. Gruff campesinos with calloused hands and stinking breath offer up their bus seats. Mexican yuppies armed with briefcases and cellphones give me their cabs and wait for the next one.

I didn’t expect to be self-conscious about the pregnancy attention, but I am. My swelling tummy might as well be a gigantic blinking neon sign — I HAVE SEX. The unmarried and unprotected kind, as you can tell by glancing at my ringless ring finger. Whoever dreamed up the Spanish word for pregnant — embarazada — knew exactly how I feel. It sounds just like “embarrassed” even though it’s a false cognate, I think.

Right now I’m trying to extricate myself from an awkward bout of belly-rubbing. An ancient mexicana dressed like a nun is running her gnarled hands all over my tummy. She doesn’t have a tooth left in her mouth and her Spanish, pronounced in a strange gummy lisp, is basically unintelligible. Maybe she’s blessing me in the name of her Catholic version of God. I hope so, anyway.

Impeccable timing — Nick screeches to a halt against the curb, tapping the Explorer’s horn lightly. Through the windshield he’s giving me a complicated look, part I’m-glad-to-see-you and part what-the-hell-is-that-hag-doing-to-you? Then he leans over and throws open the passenger door. I say “Muchas gracias!” to the nun and escape into the strains of Rage Against the Machine, pouring out of the cab in a thumping blast.

My welcome is an open-mouthed kiss, and I melt into it happily. Nick tastes like huevos rancheros and coffee. “Hey,” he says with a lopsided grin, breaking away. “I like your hair that way.”

“Really?” I raise my hands tentatively, feeling the pigtails tied up into loops. It’s a hairstyle I noticed on the cover of a bootleg Puffy Amiyumi disc the other day. “I couldn’t tell if it looks cool on me or not. I kind of feel like an anime character.”

“Trust me, it looks cool. Way cool.” Nick punches the gas and we snap back into our seats, hurtling down the broad sun-drenched avenue. I watch the speedometer jump from zero to terrifying in a couple eyeblinks. Oh well. At least the horrible clanking noise is gone.

“Sounds like they replaced the engine,” I say, as white-painted palm trunks fly past my window.

“What?”

I hold down a button on the stereo and make the music dwindle. “I said, it sounds like they replaced the engine.”

“Well, yeah. Of course they did. Hang on!” He yanks the steering wheel sharply, careening around a corner. “The dealership had a used engine with 60,000 miles on it sitting around. That’s almost 80,000 less miles than the old one, you know. Now this truck is going to last us another five years.”

The pronoun “us” is a surging happiness inside me, the kind I immediately disavow. I must’ve heard him wrong. He didn’t really say that. I don’t want to get my hopes up. But it’s still there when I replay his words in my mind. Now this truck is going to last us another five years. Us! He said US reflexively! Behind that rico suave facade he really is thinking of me and him as a we! As a family, even.

After a while I ask, “How much did it cost?”

“I think it’s better if only one of us has to cope with that number.”

Yikes. That wasn’t the answer I expected. My imagination is a calculator spinning out of control. “How much, Nick?” I ask, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.

His Kangol hat turns my direction. “You sure you want to know?”

“Yeah,” I say. Fearfully.

“1,000.”

“1,000…pesos?”

“Dollars.”

My heart stops beating. “That’s everything we have left!”

“Pretty much,” he nods.

“But…but…!” I sputter, my hands writhing like snakes in my lap.

He reaches over and quiets my hands. “We just need to make it to payday next month. Then everything’s going to be fine.” Typical Nick. His glass is always half-full, even when it’s empty.

The Rage Against the Machine disc finishes playing. Instead of another CD he switches to the radio, picking a bouncy mariachi station — on purpose. The bright rhythm is infectious. I find myself tap-tap-tapping my tummy to the beat. I wonder if the baby will grow up to like Mexican music as much as I do. Outside the windows traffic is lingering around us, giving me time to read license plates and bumper stickers. Nick is driving sedately now. That’s when I realize his crazy driving was just to test the Explorer’s replacement engine. It’s a strange inversion, the way his once-usual driving habits — frantic speed, tailgating, running red lights, suicidal passes — have now become unusual.

Suddenly the flat sunny blocks rise into a shaded hilltop enclave. The Explorer is still rattling over cobblestone streets, but lined with huge ginkgo trees instead of palms. We revolve lazily around a traffic circle with a statue of Marco Polo in the middle, mossy with age and wreathed in bird poop. The passing shop windows are full of pastries and exotic low-slung furniture and mannequins draped in expensive-looking clothes. In a local park I see kids — some tanned, some sunburned — racing through clay tennis courts on bikes and scooters. Further on is an Episcopalian church on low stilts and a gingerbread concert hall that belongs in Moulin Rouge.

“This is Las Palmas, the old foreign district,” Nick is saying. “When Mexico won its independence from Spain that was also the end of the Spanish trading monopoly. Other European nations poured in to get some of the action — England, France, Germany, you name it. Veracruz was swampland back then, so they built on this hill to get away from the mosquitoes.”

“Why do they call it Las Palmas when there are hardly any palm trees?” I ask, glancing up at the verdant canopy of ginkgo foliage. “They should call it Las Ginkgos instead.”

“Ha! I never thought of that before.”

He pulls over in front of a demure office duplex with smoked glass windows and etched-brass nameplates. Lizards scamper through the elephant-ear ivy that’s climbing the brick walls. The edges of the lot are marked with sections of wrought-iron fence, as if the neighboring mansions need to be held at bay.

I follow Nick onto the sidewalk, which is carpeted in rusting ginkgo leaves. He pauses for a moment, pointing at a Lexus sedan with a weird license plate, some numbers and a Finnish flag. “Still a lot of consular families living here, judging by all the diplomatic license plates.” Then he glances around at the mansions. “I bet foreign corporations also own some of these homes and give their senior managers free room and board. Like, a perk-type thing to get them to serve abroad.” He briefly encircles my shoulders with an arm, then lets it drop into a butt-squeeze. “Imagine trading Amsterdam or London or Rome for this place.”

Standing in the shaded glen of the duplex’s entrance, one nameplate says WILLIAM CARROLL, ESQ. and the other says CLINICA DUMITRESCU. We’re here for my four-month prenatal checkup, so we pick door #2. Inside the clinic is decorated in a restful blue water theme — cobalt walls, marine-patterned carpeting, almost-black teardrop couches. A young Mexican receptionist in a pinstriped dress waits behind a table instead of a desk, showing off well-toned legs as she stares into her computer screen. I don’t envy her, trying to keep legs crossed while seated patients wait for the doctor.

Within a couple minutes I’m filling out paperwork and Nick is paying the receptionist. In my peripheral vision I can see his reluctant fingers hover over his wallet, counting out the few bills that remain. We’re going broke just the way Hemingway said — slowly, then quickly. And our quickly is today. $1,000 to get the truck fixed, and now $35 for my prenatal visit. UCLA’s next payday is an eternity away.

Suddenly a royal blue door bangs open and a fashion plate struts out. Dr. Dumitrescu is wearing his hair stylishly mussed and zip-up dress boots and what’s obviously a tailored lab coat with his name embroidered above the heart. The dress shirt underneath is silk and open at the collar, revealing a thick platinum chain that complements his Rolex. He smiles in perfect bright welcome, showing off expensive dentistry. “You are the Americans, no?” he says in English thick as cookie dough.

“That’s us,” Nick sighs, jamming his wallet into his cargo pants. “I’m Nick Roberts, and this is my girlfriend Nooshin.”

“Nick, so good to meet you,” the doctor says, shaking his hand. Then he repeats the ritual with me. “Nooshin, so good to meet you.” The receptionist trots over with my paperwork and a look passes between them — they’ve paid. Then he leads the way into an examining room. “Nooshin…” he begins to say, and mangles my last name. “That is Iranian, no?”

“Yeah!” I say brightly. “How’d you know?”

“I get patients from all over world. This, one of things I love about Veracruz.” Dr. Dumitrescu waves me onto a digital scale and frowns. “You not weigh much yet.” He scribbles furiously on his clipboard in a language I can’t read.

Nick is leaning against the wall with arms folded, studying him with feigned disinterest. “How long have you been in Mexico, doctor?”

“10 years.”

“You came here from Romania, huh?”

“Yes.” A vague dreamy look sweeps over him. “I graduated from top school in Romania year early, I was…how do you say? Achiever? Good achiever? But…” The look shatters. “Life is hard there now. So hard, people not have so many babies any more. Maternity wards are old with old equipment, and pay…” He holds up his hand, the thumb and forefinger almost touching. “Pay was this small. I came here for good pay, for better life.”

“Why here? Because you knew somebody at the Romanian Consulate?”

Dr. Dumitrescu’s eyes twitch a little, narrowing. Somewhere in their hazel depths is a reason to change the topic. Turning back to me, he says, “Please sit on table, Nooshin.”

Obediently I perch on the edge of the examining table. The doctor hovers over me in a bustle of movements — taking my temperature and blood pressure, checking my glands and lymph nodes, listening to my lungs and heart, feeling my distended stomach. His touch is soft and warm, but sterile-smelling from antiseptic soap. Meanwhile he keeps up a running interrogation. Is this my first pregnancy? Does my family have any history of miscarriages or stillbirths? And so on.

As soon as I can get in a question of my own, I ask, “Do you think it’s bad that my breasts aren’t getting bigger?” A stricken note creeps into my voice. “I still can’t fill a training bra, let alone a maternity bra.”

Dr. Dumitrescu’s reassuring smile is just what I need. “Your breasts will be size they need to be. And they will get bigger.”

His gaze flickers over at Nick, as if expecting him to shout “Hot fucking damn!” or something. Instead Nick just gives me a lopsided grin. I blush tenderly at the man who loves my bumps just the way they are.

“Time to meet baby,” the doctor says, flattening me onto the table and hiking up the hem of my t-shirt. Then he pulls over an ultrasound machine from the corner. He squeezes a dollop of cool gel onto my belly and dips the receiver into it, smoothing it around. An image flickers on the ultrasound.

“That’s…the baby?” I gape in wonderment. Oh. My. God. I have a tiny little person inside me…

“Looks like an alien,” Nick says. And not in a joking tone of voice.

Dr. Dumitrescu is taking screenshots and measuring distances on them. “Let me get different angle.” He digs at me with the receiver. “There. See baby’s face? And there, hands. Feet there. And…” Suddenly he laughs, a warm rumble.

I’m almost too dazed to react. “What? What is it?”

“There, his penis. See? That, right there. Congratulations! You are having boy.”

Nick rises from his chair for a closer look. “Wow,” he mutters, contemplating the screen. After a while he straightens up, blinking rapidly into space. “We’re going to have a boy. A boy.” Then he whirls on me and I realize he’s blinking away tears, maintaining his composure but just barely. “Nooshin, we’re going to have a boy!”

I’m already blubbering. Big sobs of shock and joy and love are shuddering through me and spilling down my cheeks. Looking into my own heart I see the future from the wrong end of a telescope, blurry close-ups of a delivery room. My face is a sweaty mask of pain and concentration. A bloody head is crowning between my thighs. Nick’s hand is locked in mine. Then the vision dilates, encompassing the whole amazing wonderful terrifying scene, and dilates even more — a Tijuana nursery with no gifts or visitors, two homes in California where I no longer exist, an Iowa farmstead that compelled Nick to leave and never look back, farflung relatives and in-laws in a country I don’t even remember fleeing…

But none of that matters right now. The ultrasound is spitting out a picture of the screen. Our baby. Our baby boy.