by Susan Oloier
“Sorry about back there,” I spoke loudly enough for Trina to hear. “Here’s my number.” I slipped it into his hand, paid him an overdue smile, and minced away. I wanted to witness Trina’s reaction, but decided to play it cool instead.
My heart raced and perspiration pooled at my armpits as I rushed to find Grace.
“You’ll never get him. He only danced with you out of pity.” Her voice was a haunting whisper. “I mean, look at you. You’re so vanilla.”
I started to speak, but Trina and her entourage sauntered away. For a brief moment, her threat frazzled me. But what more could she do? She already cast dispersions on me and treated me like a second-class citizen.
I am not a loser, I repeated over and over to myself like a mantra. If I said it enough, maybe I’d eventually believe it. The sad thing was I sure felt like a loser.
I gathered myself together. I hadn’t seen Grace in over twenty minutes, and she apparently failed to emerge from the girls’ bathroom. I headed back toward the restroom, but skidded to a halt when I saw her sitting alone on the hallway floor.
“Grace?”
She barely lifted her head.
“What are you doing out here?” I crawled to her side.
“Waiting for a ride.”
Tears poured from her reddened eyes. As I put my arm around her, I considered telling her about Chad and his date, but Grace looked so pathetic. Instead, I rubbed the smudged makeup from her face.
“Why don’t we go for a walk or something?”
She shook her head and tucked her knees under the embrace of her arms. To me, the whole episode seemed so trivial that I didn’t know what to say. The silence between us became awkward, and I forced myself to break it.
“Your mom coming?”
“No.”
“Then who?” I asked.
“Jake.”
Jake? A tidal wave of blood flooded my heart.
“I suppose you’ll want to stay,” she mumbled.
I looked toward the gym where Chad was. It was all a dream. What happened back there couldn’t have been real. Not for someone like me.
“No,” I lied.
“You’re such a good friend, Noelle.”
After dancing with Chad, I didn’t feel like one.
Grace and I huddled together on the cold, hallway floor until Jake crept up on us. In his T-shirt and faded denim, he looked better than any formally dressed guy at the dance did—except for one. My eyes slid to Chad, but then I yanked myself back, remembering he wasn’t mine to want or to have.
“Hey, little sis. What’s going on?” His voice boomed with concern. He reached out his hand and helped her up.
“Nothing.”
Wrinkles pressed into her dress, and her makeup was smeared.
“You sounded upset.” He did a good job of pretending everything was okay.
“I’m fine.” Her sniffles gave her away.
Jake looped an arm around her and walked her down the hallway like a drunken woman who needed sobering. Their tones became inaudible, so I trailed behind, feeling throbs of self-pity because he hadn’t even acknowledged me. But Chad did. Vanilla? Yeah, maybe. But he had my number, not Trina’s.
I arrived home well before curfew. My mom and dad lounged on the couch watching a rerun of House. My mother turned down the volume much to the chagrin of my father.
“You’re home early. Everything all right?”
“Yeah. It just wasn’t what we thought it would be.”
My mother watched me, waiting for more detailed information. “Whose dress is that?”
“Grace’s. She didn’t like the one I brought.”
“A little adult, don’t you think?”
I shrugged. “I’m going to bed now.”
“Goodnight.” My dad called out as he turned up the volume of the television set.
“Are you wearing makeup?” My mother stopped me abruptly with her question.
“I don’t know.”
“You know the rules about wearing makeup.”
“It won’t happen again. Is Becca home?”
“No. She’s spending the night at Gloria’s house.”
I remembered seeing her with Carl, pressed against him in a corner, folding herself into him. Mom thought she went to a pajama party at Gloria’s house. How naïve could she be? Becca had a pajama party all right, but not the kind my mother would ever approve of. However, I was the one who’d be forced into mass in the morning. While Becca reaped the benefits of her lies and stories, I repented for them.
I changed into shorts and a T-shirt and crawled between the covers of my bed. I closed my eyes and relived the dance with Chad, reveling in Trina’s reaction to it. I laughed out loud, thinking how she must have curdled when I handed him my phone number.
Then Jake walked through my thoughts. I imagined myself dancing with him instead of Chad, wondering how he smelled and what cologne he wore. I fantasized about his arms enveloping me, pulling me close. If Grace hadn’t been so pathetic and weepy, he surely would have noticed me, seen how grown-up I looked. Right? Maybe not. I hit the back button in my mind and played out the dance with Chad again as I drifted off to sleep.
“Let’s go, Noelle. I don’t want to be late. Five minutes. Do you hear me?”
“Yes.” I swallowed my toothpaste.
For the first time that school year, I couldn’t get out of Sunday mass. I dried off, ran a comb through my hair, and dressed.
As we stepped onto the walkway, we noticed it. A front yard decorated with toilet paper. It covered the orange and palm trees, as well as the mailbox. My mother appeared shocked that her precious landscaping was doused with such foul material.
“Who’s responsible for this?” She looked at me as if I carried a direct connection to the perpetrator.
“I don’t know.”
“We can’t go, leaving the house like this,” she hissed.
I worked hard not to smile at the reprieve this gave me from church.
“You think this is funny?”
“No.” But secretly I did. It almost seemed like a message from God that He didn’t need me to go to mass.
My dad pulled out of the garage, saw the litter, and stepped out of the car.
“Do you see this, Jack?” Of course he saw the whole thing. How could anyone miss it?
“We can’t go and leave the house looking like this,” she repeated like a looped recording. “Damnit!”
“I’ll stay home and clean it up,” I offered.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“I’m just offering. If I stay, then we won’t all have to miss church this morning.”
The wheels turned, and she reluctantly nodded her approval. “All right. But I want it all cleaned up by the time we get home.”
She crammed herself into the car. As the vehicle backed out of the driveway, my mother rolled down her window. “And you’re going to church next Sunday.”
My dad pulled away, not allowing her to continue with her threats.
“You’re welcome,” I yelled at the rear bumper as they drove down the street.
I changed my clothes and took my time rummaging for garbage bags. Though I didn’t relish the idea of cleaning up the front yard, it was certainly better than attending mass. If I worked quickly, I would have the house to myself for well over an hour.
I carried the entire box of ten-gallon bags outside. Picking up the monumental strips of paper proved more difficult than I’d initially imagined. It grew especially challenging to remove the sheets from the cacti. The tissue attached itself to the shards of cactus needles, tearing and eventually embedding itself within the recesses of the plants.
I decided to take a break from the cacti and turn my attention to the treetops. Dragging a full-sized ladder from the garage, I stationed it beside the orange tree. As I climbed the rungs, a car rolled down the street and slowed in front of our house.
“Toilet paper goes in the bathroom, not the front yard.” T
rina catcalled from the passenger’s seat of a shiny blue BMW.
Liana smirked from the back seat. Some guy I had never seen before drove. I was so caught off-guard by them that I lost my balance and spilled from the ladder, crashing hard on the front lawn. A sharp pain screamed from my right ankle, but it didn’t hurt as much as the humiliation of knowing Trina and Liana witnessed the whole thing.
“At least the toilet paper broke your fall.” Trina squealed with laughter as the tires of the car peeled away.
So they were the ones who so thoughtfully decorated our lawn. Revenge for the whole Chad episode. She set out to pay me back, and she did. Unfortunately, she received the added bonus of watching me plummet from the ladder.
I tried to stand, but my ankle was too weak. I fell back down amidst the strips of toilet paper and looked at the front yard. It seemed worse than before I started cleaning it.
They simply weren’t going to get the best of me. No matter what they did, I would show them how strong I was. But in that moment I didn’t feel strong at all, so I dropped my head in my hands and cried.
I limped into the house, leaving the mess for someone else. My ankle swelled, so I stuffed ice into a sandwich bag and placed it on my injury. I turned on the television in the living room and flipped through channels. I didn’t even notice the time until I heard the car pull into the garage. I knew I was in for it, but I really didn’t care. The back door slammed, and my mother’s heels clomped on the kitchen tile.
“Noelle, I thought I told you…”
She caught sight of my swollen and elevated foot.
“What happened to you?”
“I fell off the ladder trying to clean the toilet paper from the tree.”
My dad stood in the archway to the living room. I heard him snicker. My mom, on the other hand, rushed over to investigate, as though she didn’t believe me.
“Let me see it.”
It was red from the ice and obviously swollen.
“Does it hurt?” She moved it in a way I was sure it shouldn’t be moved.
“Ouch.”
“Jack, pull the car out again. We’re taking her to the emergency room.”
Sprained ankle. So Monday morning, I hobbled into school with crutches. I related the entire story to Grace, hoping it would make her see Trina for who she really was.
“How do you know it was her? Did you actually see her do it?”
“Well no, but…”
“Why would she do that anyway?”
I definitely couldn’t tell Grace my theory. It would set off another flood of tears at the Grace Hallaran Water Works.
“Come on, Grace. Don’t you think it was pretty convenient that she just happened to drive by?”
Grace shrugged. “Maybe it was a coincidence.”
Grace sped up on purpose. I limped along to keep up.
“Slow down, will you?”
“I can’t see Trina TPing a house.”
“How can you still defend her after what she said to us on Saturday night?”
“Maybe she was trying to be funny. I took it the wrong way and acted like a big baby.”
There was no question that Grace acted like a baby, but I held serious doubts about Trina’s sense of humor. The comment was a joke all right, and Grace and I were the punch line.
We headed in the direction of our World History class. As we turned the corner, the toilet paper queens, Trina and Liana, stood outside the doorway. They stared at my crippled foot and crutches as I made my way toward them. My nerves short-circuited. I didn’t want to pass, much less confront them. My immediate urge was to turn around and skip class altogether.
“Come on, Noelle. The bell’s about to ring.”
I tried to ignore the two of them as I slogged by, but they didn’t allow me to safely pass.
“Hey Liana, look at the gimp.”
“Yeah, I heard she had an accident in her front yard.”
“Oh, she had an accident all right. That’s why she needed all the toilet paper.” They laughed the whole time, following me into the room. I burned with hatred for them, but I knew there was nothing I could do.
“The Renaissance was a time of change.” Mrs. Muir launched into her lecture before the bell stopped.
Instead of listening, I imagined creating a voodoo doll of Trina from her hair, then hacking it to pieces. I dreamed of tearing off its limbs, feeding it to the dog I didn’t have, or tying cement shoes to it and drowning it in Canyon Lake.
“Has anyone heard the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’?” Mrs. Muir asked.
Not a single person raised a hand, including me.
“Miss Stark?”
I shook my head modestly. She still had it in for me and would for the rest of my high school career because of that unflattering picture.
“Only the strongest survived.” She looked at me when she spoke the words. “For example, if you have a lion with predatory skill and one without, which do you think will survive in the end?” She glared directly at me.
“The predatory one.” Obviously.
“Exactly. That’s what happened…”
I stopped listening. Survival of the fittest. The Renaissance, a time of change. Of course. In the battle against Trina and her cohorts, only the fittest member would make it in the end. I decided, then and there, to create my own Renaissance. It was time to remove the weak link in the chain.
I glanced over at Trina slumping in her chair, her perfectly painted face shrouded in boredom. She certainly didn’t get it. The concept fell deaf on her diamond-studded ears. From that moment on, she would be the prey and I would be the predator.
In my crippled state, Chad easily slid beside me outside of class.
“What happened?”
“Nothing. Just a sprain.”
“How?”
“Got into it with a ladder.”
“Here,” he said, “give me your backpack.” Chad took it off my shoulders and carried it for me. I stopped for a moment to soak myself in his smile. Looking at him, I couldn’t help but beam. I battled the interest that rose within me. I told myself that he wasn’t all that good-looking, that he had ulterior motives, and that his true affection lay with Trina. I simply couldn’t fall for him. I couldn’t hurt Grace that way. Sure, Chad could be a way to get back at Trina, but I didn’t want to use him. He was so nice. Besides, he had to be crazy to be interested in someone like me. No one else was.
“I wanted to call you,” he said.
“Really?”
As he grinned and nodded, those dimples showed up again, punctuating his cheeks like apostrophes. I pretended not to like the way they looked.
“Why didn’t you?” the skeptic in me asked.
“Didn’t know if you wanted me to.”
“It would be okay,” I heard myself say as I tried to hide a smile.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Chad gently looped my backpack over my shoulders. He paused for a moment and smiled into my eyes. “See ya.”
Without another breath, he disappeared around the corner. What was I doing? I was a horrible friend. Someone else must have uttered those words because I would never betray my best friend like that. Not after Jerry Searfus.
I limped off to the cafeteria. Grace moved next to me in line.
“Saw you talking to Chad.” She seemed jealous. “What were you talking about?”
“The play,” I lied.
“Did he say anything?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Did he mention me?”
I shook my head. “Um, no.”
“You like him, don’t you?”
“What?” I almost heard myself shout.
“You don’t have to pretend. If you like him, just tell me.”
The line dragged. Grace grabbed a tray and avoided looking me in the eye, afraid of my answer. I wanted to tell her; it would have been the right thing to do. But I knew how insecure she was. And, to be honest, I felt so
rry for her. So I chickened out.
“We were just talking.”
We waited our turn in the slow-moving line of students.
“Well, I think he has a crush on you.”
“No way.” I mustered an I-don’t-care tone. But I did. “Besides, I’m not interested in him,” I lied.
“Why not? He’s hot.”
I shrugged. The last thing I could be with Grace was honest. The guilt of betraying her would eat me alive.
Grace grabbed a carton of milk hastily from the cooler. “Doesn’t matter anyway,” she said, dejected. “Trina likes him.”
I seethed with jealousy.
“I heard her say she’d have him by the end of the school year,” Grace continued. “Imagine, if someone like her is interested in him, I don’t have a chance.”
No surprise Trina had the hots for Chad. However, I tucked Grace’s information into my arsenal. I knew it could prove to be a grenade in the future.
“I can hear you in there! Come on!”
I pounded on the bathroom door. No use. Becca refused to answer or open up. I battered the door again, making enough noise to draw my mother up the stairs from her comfortable position in front of Law and Order.
“What is going on up here?” she demanded, making it quite clear we interrupted an integral part of her evening.
“I have to get ready for bed, and Becca won’t come out of the bathroom.”
My mother knocked. “Becca, what’s…do I smell smoke in there?”
The bathroom door flew open. Becca’s eyes were swollen like cherry tomatoes; she mopped the tears violently from her face.
“I’m not smoking! I am not on drugs, Mother. Okay? Are you happy now?”
My mother moved to her side, hovering. The whole abrupt change in tone made me wonder if the whole drug thing was merely a ploy to lure Becca out of the bathroom.
“What happened?” Concern crossed my mother’s face.
Becca suckled as much sympathy as she could. Then she spotted me. “What’s she still doing here?” Her voice was rapt with condescension.
