C. Omololu - Dirty Little Secrets

“Hey, Elaina,” I yelled through the door. “I’ll be out in a sec. I’ll meet you down at the car.”

“Okay,” she yelled back.

I took a deep breath. Close calls always freaked me out. I stood on my side of the door for two whole minutes just to make sure, but when I opened it, Elaina was standing on the other side. Even worse, she slid into the doorway before I could pull it shut.

“You know what?” she said. “I really need to . . .” Her words tapered off as she took a look around the parts of the house that she could see. “I, um, really need to pee.” She looked directly at me with a funny smirk on her face. “Can I use your bathroom?”

“I, uh, it’s broken,” I said, knowing in the pit of my stomach that it was already too late. Our hallway bathroom was covered in mildew, and the shower was filled with papers and bags of clothes, but technically it still worked. She’d have to push her way through the rest of the house to get there, though, and there was no way I was going to make this worse.

“Broken?” Elaina asked, staring at the piles of newspapers that lined the hallway. “How does a bathroom get broken?”

“We’re remodeling.” I tried to block her way into the house, but just then Mom came around the corner and stopped in her tracks at the sight of Elaina on the wrong side of the door.

Her hands flew to her hair, as if having a few hairs out of place was the worst thing we had going. “Oh, hello, dear,” she said. Her voice was shaking and her eyes were darting around the room. “Are you girls going out?”

“I was just telling Elaina that she can’t use the bathroom. Because of the remodel.” I sent Mom messages with my eyes to please, please go along with me. She hated lying, but she hated having people in the house even more.

Mom couldn’t keep her hands still, and they flew around her body like they were possessed. She reached out to touch some of the newspapers and to smooth the cover of a National Geographic that had gotten bent, but until she opened her mouth, I wasn’t sure what she would do. “Right. The remodel.” I was afraid Elaina would see my relief. For once, Mom was on my side. She looked directly at Elaina for the first time. “Perhaps we can go next door and ask Mrs. Raj if you can use hers?”

Elaina took one last look around, memorizing the piles of junk that reached almost to the ceiling. “That’s okay,” she said. “I guess I can wait.”

I grabbed my bag, and all three of us slipped out of the house. I didn’t dare look at Elaina, but Mom cut her eyes at me like she’d never been so angry in her life. I knew she’d blame me for letting Elaina in on purpose, even though I spent all my time trying to keep people away. I was glad I was going out, because then maybe she’d cool off by the time I got home.

Mom followed us down the driveway and plastered on a normal-looking smile as she waved to Elaina’s mom in the driver’s seat. “Hi, Victoria,” she said as she reached the van. “Thanks so much for taking Lucy with you.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble at all,” Elaina’s mom said.

I pulled the back door open and strapped myself into the van. I tried to stare straight ahead and listen to their conversation, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what Elaina had seen. I started to breathe faster and had to will myself to calm down. Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as I thought. Maybe Elaina would just think the place was a little messy, is all.

After what seemed like an hour and a half, Mom stepped back from the van with a wave. “All set?” Elaina’s mom asked.

“Yup,” Elaina said as the van pulled away from the curb. She watched out the front window as her mother drove, but kept sneaking glances back at me as she talked. I swear I saw her nose wrinkle just a little. That whole afternoon, Elaina seemed normal but distant. There was no way I was going to bring it up, so we just acted like nothing had happened, and I’d hoped that was the end of it. I found out at school on Monday that it was nowhere near the end of it.

The balled-up piece of notebook paper hit me in the back of the head to the sound of giggling from the back of the room. It landed near my right foot, so I bent down to pick it up. As quietly as I could, I straightened it out in my lap so that I could see the cartoon of what was probably supposed to be me, with boogers dripping down my face and flies buzzing around me. I was sitting on top of a mountain of junk and underneath the whole thing were the words “Garbage Girl” written in big black marker.

I looked toward the back of the room, but everyone was staring at their desks, pretending to write in their journals. It could have been anyone, really—aside from Elaina, I didn’t have any real friends. Maybe now I didn’t have any friends at all.

“Lucy, do you have something to share?” The voice from the front of the room echoed in the stillness.

“No, Sister,” I said, and tucked the disgusting drawing away in my notebook.

To my left, Curtis Swanson coughed loudly, but I swear I heard the words “Garbage Girl” come out of his mouth. Over the next couple of weeks, I was going to hear it a lot. Elaina avoided me like I stunk, and I got notes and drawings stuffed in my locker almost every day. I finally told Phil about it after I’d said I had a stomachache and stayed home from school for three straight days. For once he wasn’t a jerk—he was the sympathetic brother I’d always wanted sticking up for me. Now that he was older, Mom treated him more like another adult. Maybe she knew he was on his way out.

I don’t know how he did it, but Phil got Mom to let me go to public school right after that. She said it was because Catholic school was too expensive, but communication wasn’t a strong point in our family. I was just glad the whole “Garbage Girl” episode hadn’t followed me this far. Yet.

I glanced back at the front counter where Josh was helping some more customers. He wasn’t even looking in my direction. I’d missed my chance and he’d already moved on. Probably relieved that I’d changed my mind.

Kaylie picked up her coffee and walked back to the table, squinting at the display on her phone, trying to read a text. “So it looks like I’m meeting Vanessa at nine—are you sure you can’t come?”

I nodded quickly and took another sip of coffee.

“I’m sorry I got all mad at you on the phone. Is it your mom’s head again?” she asked. She looked sympathetic, but that was probably because she had Vanessa as backup. Maybe Kaylie was moving on too.

“Yeah,” I managed, grateful that she’d remembered my lie. Over the past couple of years, I’d told people that Mom had a brain tumor, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, kidney failure, and irritable bowel syndrome as reasons for why I couldn’t do something or have them over. I always felt a little guilty saying it, like I was jinxing Mom somehow. Maybe I was.

“I thought the brain surgery was supposed to cure the seizures,” she said.

“It will,” I said. “But the doctors said it might take up to a year. She’s . . . she’s not doing so good right now.”

“That sucks,” she said. She glanced up at the counter where I didn’t dare look again. “I just think Josh would be so good for you, you know? You need to have a little more fun in your life. You’re always so serious.”

I couldn’t answer her. I just looked down and studied my fingernails.

“I mean, I know you don’t let guys rule your life and everything,” she said. “And you don’t care what people think about you. But still.”

All I could do was look at her and nod at this totally distorted image of me that she seemed to have. I’d love to let guys rule my life, if my life was normal. The fact that she thought my hiding from the world was some display of maturity was actually a little sad.