Keeping Secrets

by Alyson Noel

  “Hello?”

  “M, it’s me.”

  “Hey, where are you? What happened to you yesterday?”

  “I’m in LA,” I tell her.

  “Are you with Connor?” she asks.

  “Um, no. Listen, I’m kind of stuck and I need to get my car; it’s parked in Century City. Can you come get me?”

  “What? Are you kidding? First period starts in like three seconds,” she says.

  “I know, but I just thought,” I bite down on my lower lip. I shouldn’t have called her. God, I’m such a loser.

  “I’m sorry, but I already missed Monday, I can’t skip out today. But you know what you should do? You should call Connor, he’ll totally help you,” she says.

  “Um, yeah, okay,” I say, knowing there’s no way I’m doing that, but I’m just not ready to tell her yet.

  “See you in a few?”

  “Yeah, definitely,” I say, hanging up and wondering what to do next.

  I stand up and brush the wrinkles out of my dress and head for this coffee shop that’s just up the block. It looks pretty busy and I figure there’s gotta be someone in there that can give me a little direction, or at least tell me where I am.

  The place is packed with people who look like they spend most of their days sitting at a desk, in a cubicle, under bad fluorescent lighting. I mean, no one looks very friendly or helpful, so I just grab a place in line and hope that someone behind the counter can help me. When it’s my turn I go, “Can you tell me what city this is?”

  The girl behind the register just gives me this lousy look and says, “What? You don’t know where you are?” Then she starts looking around like she’s gonna call for backup or something.

  “No, no,” I say quickly. “No, of course I know where I am. What I meant was can you tell me how to get to Century City from here?”

  She drums her fingers on the register and goes, “Are you driving?”

  “No, um, my car’s there. I need to go get it.”

  “So why don’t you take a cab or something?”

  “Oh, okay,” I say. “Do you know how much that will cost?”

  “I don’t know,” she shrugs. “Ten, fifteen dollars?”

  “Oh, that much?” I clutch my purse tighter, knowing that my wallet’s close to empty.

  She just looks at me, and I can tell she’s quickly losing her patience.

  “Um, do you have the number for a cab company?” I ask.

  “Yeah, four-one-one. Listen, are you gonna get a coffee or what?” She shakes her head and rolls her eyes, and I can feel the people behind me getting impatient so I look at the board and search for the cheapest thing I can order, something that won’t cut into my budget. And I go, “Yeah, um, I’ll have a cup of the daily brew, oh, a small one please.”

  I hand over a dollar fifty and she gives me fifteen cents worth of coffee in return and I take it over to a crowded bar with a vacant seat. I put my purse on the counter in front of me and take a sip. It’s way too hot, so I blow on it before I take the next one.

  The guy on my right has a bad tie, razor burn, and a serious case of male pattern baldness. He’s reading the Wall Street Journal and I’m guessing he won’t want to help me. So I decide to ask the lady on my left, even though she looks only slightly friendlier.

  “Hi,” I say, interrupting her staring session with the wall. “Um, I was wondering if you could tell me how to get to Century City.”

  She looks at me and her eyes are etched with deep crow’s feet and her nose is covered in these tiny red veins that look like they’re exploding, and she doesn’t seem as kind as I hoped she might be. “I don’t know,” she says. “Why don’t you call a cab?”

  “It’s too expensive. I’m running out of money,” I tell her.

  She looks me over carefully then says, “Why don’t you take the bus then? There’s a stop on the next block. Why don’t you go read the sign?”

  I look at her and say, “Okay, thanks.” But she doesn’t hear me since she’s already back to looking at the wall.

  I look at my watch and it’s eight-fifteen and I can’t believe that my day already sucks this much. I mean, I have no idea how to take the bus. The only bus I’ve ever been on is the school bus. I consider walking back to Connor’s and asking him for a ride to my car, but I can’t do that. He’s just not an option anymore. So I grab my coffee and my purse and head for the bus stop.

  The driver is this old guy with a really stern face and I’m kind of afraid to talk to him so I let everyone go ahead and when there’s no one left but me he goes, “If you want a ride you better get on now.” I climb the two steps and reach for something to grab on to as he pulls away from the curb.

  “Um, I was wondering if you could help me?” I ask.

  He glances at me briefly and says, “Get behind the white line.”

  I look down at the floor and sure enough there’s a line and I’m apparently on the wrong side of it. So I take a step back and now that I’m standing in the right spot I wonder if I should continue. He seems kind of mean.

  He stops at the next light and turns and looks at me, and still stern but a little friendlier, he says, “What do you need?”

  “I need to get to Century City and I’m not even sure if this is the right bus.”

  “This is the right bus,” he says, changing gears with the changing light. “But it’s only one of them.”

  “What?” I ask. I feel like we’re speaking different languages. Like bus riding is a culture that I’m not a part of.

  He shakes his head and goes, “You need to stay on this bus to Santa Monica Boulevard. From there you need to catch the number four to Century Park East. And from there you need to take the twenty-eight to Olympic.”

  He turns and looks at me and I’m just staring at him. I’ll never remember all that. “But that’s three different buses!” I say. “How much is that going to cost me?”

  “A dollar twenty-five.”

  “Each?” I ask. Frantically doing the math in my head and hoping I’ll have enough.

  “Total. It’s seventy-five cents plus twenty-five cents for each transfer.”

  “Where do I get those?” I ask. Digging through my wallet for change.

  “You get one from me, and the other on the next bus,” he says, handing me a strip of paper. “Now take a seat.”

  He brakes at the next stop and the bus lurches forward and back and I grab the first available seat because I’m lousy at keeping my balance in a moving vehicle. Then I just sit there and stare out the window at a string of run-down minimalls and try to remember the exact moment when I decided to give up.

  By the time I’m at my third bus stop, I realize this is gonna take a lot longer than I thought and that the second-period bell rang a long time ago, and I never called my mom last night to tell her where I was. And even though all that stuff is true, I gotta tell you that part of me feels pretty damn good at having figured this out and getting this far on my own. I mean, most people would have just called a cab. But I didn’t have that option so I took a more difficult route and made it all the same.

  I dig my cell phone out of my purse and call my mom at work. She’s away from her desk so I leave a message and say that I spent the night at M’s, and I’m sorry I forgot to call, and that I’ll see her tonight. Then I pray that she doesn’t decide to follow up on any of that.

  When I finally get to my car after a two-and-a-half-hour mass transit tour of LA, I find a piece of pink paper stuck under my windshield wiper. I reach for it excitedly, knowing it’s from Connor, and I can’t wait to read his apology. But when I turn it over I see that it’s only a parking ticket, a love note from the LAPD. I fold it in half and toss it in my glove compartment and head to school.

  Chapter 19

  I’m walking through the quad looking at my watch trying to figure out what class I should be heading to when M runs up and goes, “Is that my dress?”

  I look down at the clothes I wore last night and just
shrug and say, “Yeah, I guess it is.”

  “Are you okay?” she asks. “ ’Cause you don’t look so great.”

  “Thanks,” I say and head for my locker.

  “So, what happened?”

  She’s walking alongside me, giving me a concerned look. I think about the Iguana Man, and Connor dumping me, and the bus ride, and the fact that I’m still a little pissed at her for ditching me, but I just say, “I cut.” Then I focus on spinning the lock, trying to remember my combination.

  She doesn’t say anything but I can hear the disapproval in her breath. Then she goes, “Remember when you told me how my mom was in my room Sunday night, you know, answering my phone and stuff?”

  “Yeah.” I close my locker and I start walking toward class. It’s eleven o’clock, time for Economics, which I think I already had a real-life lesson in this morning.

  “Well, shit, I think she found my stash.”

  “Your what?” I turn and look at her.

  “My stash. You know some blunts and stuff that I had hidden in there.”

  I don’t even know what to say to her. I can’t believe she’s doing drugs. I mean, sometimes I feel like I don’t even know her.

  “Hello? Did you hear me? Anyway, I’m kind of freakin’ here. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Are they your drugs?” I stop in the middle of the hall and stare at her.

  “Yeah, it’s all mine. And shit, I’m totally screwed.”

  “What kind of drugs did you have?” I ask.

  “Shhh!” She looks around nervously then whispers, “Just pot and some X that Trevor and I were gonna do this weekend.”

  “Jeez, M, what are you doing with that stuff?”

  “God, what is this? What are you, a cop?”

  I don’t say anything. I can’t believe she’s that far gone.

  “Hel-lo?”

  “Whatever.” I start walking toward class.

  “Okay, look. I told you, I’m freaking out.”

  “Well, what makes you think she found them?”

  “Well, this morning I went to wear those JP Todd driving mocs? You know the ones I wear with my jeans and stuff? Well anyway, they’re gone. I think my mom borrowed them. She booked herself in at some spa for the week and apparently she took those shoes with her, and unfortunately they’re the ones I had my stash in.”

  “You hide your stash in your shoes?”

  “I have immaculate feet.”

  “Why would you put it there? You know your mom’s always taking your stuff.”

  “Because I didn’t think she’d want to wear those. Shit!”

  “Well, don’t you think if she’d found it she’d cancel her plans and stay home to ask you about it?”

  “My mom? Let a little parental responsibility get in the way of a massage and a Botox injection? I don’t think so.” She shakes her head.

  “Well, when is she coming back?” I ask.

  “Not until Sunday.”

  “So, at least you’ve got the rest of the week to figure a way out of it.”

  “Yeah, I guess. Hey, so did you call Connor?”

  I open the classroom door. I’m not ready to talk about Connor. “M,” I say, “you’re gonna be late for your psych class. I’ll see you at lunch okay?” She gives me a strange look but I close the door on her anyway.

  So I buy a salad and a bottle of water and carry it over to our lunch tree, where M is waiting with M&Ms and a Diet Coke. She rips the bag open and starts separating them by color, then she hands me all of the brown ones and lies back on the grass. “Hey, do you have to work today after school?” she asks.

  “Yeah, but I’m thinking about calling in sick.” God, I’m just losing interest in everything these days.

  “Good. Let’s go to LA. But, by ourselves, let’s not call the guys. Let’s just do our own thing.”

  I’m just about to tell her that my day started in LA and that calling the guys is no longer an option for me, when Tiffany and Amber approach us. Tiffany’s wearing a sparkly sling in our school colors and they’re standing in front of us, and they look all happy to be hanging out together so I guess that whole Dylan/flirting/vomiting fiasco is over. They look at us and go, “Hey M, hey Alex.”

  We just look at them and go, “Hey”

  Then Tiffany looks me over and goes, “Nice dress.”

  I say, “Thanks,” but I wonder if that was actually sarcasm I heard in her voice.

  “So who are you guys going to THE PROM with?” That’s how she says it, in capital letters.

  I look at her and go, “When is it?”

  And now Amber looks at Tiffany and rolls her eyes and shakes her head and Tiffany says, “Hel-lo? It’s like totally coming up. There’s signs all over campus. You still go here right?”

  Wow. That was pretty bitchy for someone who recently vomited orange right in front of me. But I just sit there in front of them and shrug and say, “Well, I guess I’m not going then.”

  “What? Why?” They’re both scrutinizing me now, and I know they think I’m hiding something. That deep down inside I must be feeling really sad to not be taking part in this most sacred of high school rituals. They’ve spent the better half of senior year preparing for this, you know bagging the right date and buying the right dress. It’s like almost as important as their SATs. I mean, it’s sick how seriously they take all this stuff.

  So then Tiffany goes, “Well don’t you have a boyfriend or something? I thought I heard M say that you’re dating someone.”

  I look over at M wondering why she would be talking about me to Tiffany but she just shrugs. Then I look back at Tiffany and Amber, standing there, judging me. And I hate to admit it, but part of me cares about what they think. Part of me wants to have something important. So I tell them all about Connor, even though he doesn’t really exist for me anymore.

  “Well,” I say, “actually, I am dating someone. His name is Connor and he’s from London, England, but he lives in Los Angeles right now and he owns his own record company. So if the prom is on a Saturday night, then we’ll probably be at a club or something so we wont be able to make it.” Then I sit back and watch them chew on that.

  Amber looks at me and raises her eyebrows but doesn’t say anything. And Tiffany nods her head and goes, “Cool.” And I actually think I detect a little envy.

  Then they look at M and ask her if she’s going and M nods her head and goes, “Totally.”

  And I look at her waiting to hear more, but that’s all the information she’s giving.

  And then Tiffany goes, “Well, we’re working on the yearbook, as you know, and we’re going to have a sort of ‘Senior Inspiration’ page in it.”

  I look at them and say, “You guys have been watching way too much Oprah.”

  M cracks up but they don’t think it’s funny. So then they go, “What we’re doing is going around and asking certain seniors what their biggest achievement has been in their lives so far.”

  And I’m thinking “certain seniors” means just the popular people. Unpopular people are lucky just to get their class picture published. God, I totally hate this stuff.

  So they’re looking at M waiting for an answer and she’s really deep in thought, obviously taking this question very seriously. Then she goes, “My biggest achievement thus far is being named in the Who’s Who Among American High School Students.”

  I look at her in shock. I didn’t even know there was such a thing. They write it down and then look at me waiting for my answer. But I just look at them and shrug and go, “Um, I guess my biggest achievement so far is growing my bangs out.” They look at me to see if I’m joking, but I’m not. So they write it down and walk away and I’m thinking I can’t wait to see that in print.

  The bell rings; man I hate how lunch hour really isn’t an hour. I pick up my trash and head to the class I dread the most, AP History. I know it’s shallow, but I’m so stuck in the now that it’s hard for me to care about things that happened, like, a hundred
years ago.

  Chapter 20

  So I’m sitting at my desk in AP History, and I’m surrounded by the same people from most of my other classes. All us AP people stick together, we just change rooms that’s all. On my desk, lying face down is my test paper from last week. And I really don’t want to flip it over because I already know that I choked, and I don’t need to see it. I mean, I didn’t even read the questions, I just made a perfect zigzag by shading in the a, b, c, d, and e, circles accordingly, and then I turned it in.

  Everyone is eagerly flipping them over and shouting out their results, but I just sit there. I’ve got a major headache, I’m nauseous and I’m totally sweating. I mean, I’m a wreck. I feel like bolting out of class but I don’t want to attract that kind of attention. I know that my life is really getting out of control, that I’m just totally blowing it for myself, but I just can’t seem to stop it. I raise my hand and ask my teacher if I can get a hall pass for the rest-room. He gives me the pass and a disapproving look.

  I grab my test paper, and stash it in my purse and run out of the room. I barely make it to the stall when I start vomiting. The salad I just ate is history I drag myself over to the mirror and stare intently at my reflection. I look like a girl who didn’t go home last night. I look like a girl that normal girls back away from. I splash cold water on my face, swish it around in my mouth and spit it back into the sink. Then I brush my hair, and fix my makeup, and swallow a mint that I found unwrapped at the bottom of my purse.

  I look better now, but I still feel awful and I know that it’s not at all physical but completely emotional. I pull my test paper out of my purse, and rip it into tiny shreds. I drop the pieces slowly into the trash, watching them fall, but never once looking at my score. I’m not even curious.

  I’m tempted to stay in the bathroom until the bell rings. I’m tempted to stay in here until graduation. But then this girl walks in, leans against the wall, gives me a sullen look, and lights a cigarette. We just sort of look at each other then she says, “Hey, what class are you ditching?”