“Thank you,” Mrs. Bobbie sniffed at Mr. Al. “You can go, hon. And don’t let them girls hang around outside the door. We need privacy.” She flicked her hand at him, then went back to arranging the fabric under the needle, folding and pushing and smoothing the material. Her thick French-manicured nails tapped on the machine. Mr. Al nodded at me and Omega. When the door clicked shut behind him, I attempted to catch Omega’s eye. She wouldn’t look at me.
Mrs. Bobbie turned to us, her blue eyes wide. They looked like doll’s eyes, flat, expressionless. Empty. “Ladies,” she declared. “Do you know why you’ve been invited back here, to my private rooms?”
She said it like her bedroom and bath comprised a whole wing of Versailles.
We shook our heads dumbly, and the woman heaved an enormous, pained sigh.
“Because what we have to discuss is very”—she glared at me, then Omega—“very private.” Then, reaching under the avalanche of neatly arranged fabric, she drew out a pair of rainbow-striped girls’ underwear. She held them aloft between two fingers, her face puckered in distaste. “What is this?”
“They’re underpants,” I piped up, eager to set things right, sooner rather than later. Mr. Al and Mrs. Bobbie’s bedroom smelled funny. And I couldn’t help looking at the bed and wondering what went on in it. I knew about sex, but I couldn’t imagine sweet, puppyish Al doing things like that to shellacked Mrs. Bobbie with her perfect hair-sprayed hair and enormous boobs. “They’re Omega’s underpa . . .”
My voice trailed off. Omega’s face was a stone, and Mrs. Bobbie was smirking. I glanced from one to the other, struggling for a foothold.
“Give them back,” Omega growled. Her ominous tone made me shrink inside.
“Not until you explain what they were doing in her”—at this point she waved the panties in my direction—“backpack. They were found in Daphne’s backpack with this message written on them.” Bobbie looked at the panties and read theatrically: “9-27 midnight.” She looked at Omega. “That’s the night of the camping trip, isn’t it? September twenty-seventh. Daphne, did you promise to deliver these underpants to someone? To a boy?”
Omega pivoted and leveled her destroying laser-beam stare at me. Like she’d flipped a switch, I began to shake. “I don’t know how they got in my backpack. I’ve never seen them.” I thought back to the last time I’d had laundry duty with Chantal. Her smile as she’d sent me on my way.
“Yes, you do,” snapped Mrs. Bobbie. “You know and you’re gonna tell me right now or I swear, I will snatch you up and march you down the drive and cut you loose.” She shook the panties some more and they danced like a puppet. Omega pressed her lips together—her beautiful, perfect bright-pink lips—and kept her narrowed eyes on me. They paralyzed me. I guessed she wanted to know how I’d ended up with a pair of her panties as much as Mrs. Bobbie did.
“You want me to cut you loose, little girl?” Mrs. Bobbie bellowed. “Is that what you want?”
I shook my head. I could feel warmth beginning to creep into my neck, the tears rising. I thought I might throw up as well. And now I had to pee really bad.
“Jesus wants you to tell the truth, Daphne. Don’t you know that?”
I didn’t, not on any kind of literal level, but I nodded my head anyway.
“Jesus don’t want me to turn you out on the road, because there’s all sorts of things—people—out there who don’t necessarily care about a little girl’s purity. They do awful things to little girls out there. Shoot them. Stab them. Choke them with ropes. Tie them up with duct tape and throw them in the back of the trunks of their cars and drive them to the woods—”
Omega cleared her throat, and Mrs. Bobbie shut her mouth abruptly.
“I didn’t . . .” I began. But I couldn’t finish. I honestly could not conjure up a lie that would satisfy Mrs. Bobbie and get both of us off the hook.
“Chantal told me,” Mrs. Bobbie spit out, growing impatient with her interrogation.
At that, even Omega looked dumbfounded.
“Told you what?” I asked.
“Don’t play games with me, missy!” Mrs. Bobbie screamed. Then she collected herself, dabbed at the liner smudge beneath her blue shadow–ringed eyes. “I know you’re protecting her.” She flapped the panties in Omega’s direction. “Daphne was supposed to deliver your panties to a boy. As a message”—now the underwear snapped in my direction—“and I caught you.”
Omega was silent. I was silent. Mrs. Bobbie looked overwrought.
“I’m only glad your sin was exposed before you had the chance to follow it through.” She drew in a tremulous breath. Stood. “Omega. I have had my fill of your whoring behavior. Your whoring and sneaking and laughing. Your attitudes.”
The room suddenly felt so warm, so filled with hate, I couldn’t breathe.
Mrs. Bobbie jabbed her finger in Omega’s direction. “You listen to me and you listen well, missy. You will not agree to meet a boy. You will not so much as look at a boy until you leave this house. You are a child, not an adult. Sex is for the sanctity of marriage. For two married adults such as Mr. Al and myself. It belongs in the marriage bed, not out in the woods, in the dirt. Am I clear?”
She was inches from Omega now, and I saw clearly Mrs. Bobbie was wrong. Omega was an adult and this was an argument not between a woman and child, but between two peers of equal standing, each with their own particular weapons of warfare. I also recognized I had no idea what this battle was being fought over. I just knew I didn’t have a part to play in it. I didn’t belong here, and I wanted out.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Bobbie,” I said. She didn’t look at me.
Omega grabbed the panties. Her face was burning but her eyes were grim. She turned, as if about to leave.
“No camping trip,” Mrs. Bobbie shrilled at her back. “Neither of you. You’ll both stay behind. Here with me, to do chores.”
Omega hesitated for a fraction of a second, then wrenched open the door and stormed out. I waited a moment longer, wringing my hands, wondering if I was dismissed, or if I should stomp out like Omega. Mrs. Bobbie didn’t even bother to look at me. She sank on the bed, her fingers picking imaginary lint from her pilled black trousers. Smoothed and cupped her hair. Smoothed and cupped, smoothed and cupped.
“There you go,” she croaked. But I didn’t think she even realized I was still standing there. “See how you like that, Mr. Sneaking Off to the Woods.”
I crept out as quietly as I could and went and climbed into my top bunk. I fell asleep and slept through the pizza and the football game. But it turned out it didn’t matter, because Omega and I had been forbidden from going to that too.
Chapter Eighteen
“Go away,” Omega said.
I was lurking in the doorway of her room, gazing at her the way Bitsy looked at us through the dining-room window when we sat down to supper. I’d been circling her all weekend, far enough away not to aggravate her, close enough to gauge her mood. So far, she’d acted like I was invisible. Now it was Sunday night—fifteen minutes until lights out—and I was desperate. Somehow I sensed that if I did not repair whatever it was that had broken between us before Monday morning, she and the rest of the Super Tramps would be lost to me forever.
“I know who did it—” I started.
She twisted around, her face a thundercloud. “I said get out!”
I darted away before she got really mad and chucked a book or something more substantial at me. Back in my room, I knelt on the floor, pulled out my backpack, and went through my binders and books, smoothing and sorting every homework paper and book report and math worksheet. I checked and double-checked to make sure I’d completed every assignment for the upcoming week.
Sometimes I thought I was just like Mrs. Bobbie, with the organizing. Smooth and cup. Smooth and cup.
Every now and then, I would stop and chew one of my already-ragged nails until a tiny bead of blood would bubble out. Like the papers, my thoughts shuffled themselves in order of importa
nce in my head, then flew apart and reshuffled. But on the inside, I could feel something winding tighter and tighter, like a coil. Mrs. Bobbie might be annoying, but she wasn’t dumb. She had to know Omega would never send her underwear to one of the boys at school. There were plenty of reasons:
All of the boys at Mount Olive Christian were greasy haired and acted weird when they got around the Super Tramps, whooping and giggling and clobbering each other like a bunch of chimpanzees.
None of us girls had more than three or four pairs of underwear to begin with, and even those we had to wash in the sink just to have enough to make it through the school week.
If Omega was going to give a boy her panties, I’d seen enough TV to know she would never, ever give him a faded-out pair like that. She’d give him filmy, delicate, lacy panties—the kind none of us had ever owned and, if we did, we sure wouldn’t throw away on some greasy-haired chimpanzee.
Even if Mrs. Bobbie was dumb enough to think Omega had done that, Omega knew I hadn’t done anything. So why wouldn’t she speak to me? Why was she angry? Didn’t she understand we were both being falsely accused?
She had to know Chantal had set the whole thing up. Omega knew everything that went on in this house. She ran the place. Orchestrated every event that went on inside these walls, every change in temperature, every passing storm, every ray of sun.
I knew somehow, even though I was young, that it had to do with the fact that Mr. Al liked to hang out at the clubhouse with us. That must have made Mrs. Bobbie really jealous. Which made sense but also seemed odd to me, because Mrs. Bobbie was an adult who could do anything she wanted. We girls got stretched-out hand-me-downs and mac and cheese out of the box, and she got weekly manicures, bubble baths, and Pepperidge Farm cookies. Plus, she and Mr. Al had been married for a long time, over ten years, I thought. Seemed like she wouldn’t mind him spending an hour or two with the kids he was house dad to. That was his job.
I shoved my binder in my book bag, rocked back on my heels, and pushed my new glasses up my nose. I had to do something—something big and real to prove to Omega that I’d never betray her. To make her know that her friendship was more important to me than anything else in the world. But I would wait until the time was right, like I’d done with Chantal and the stolen food. I would wait until an opportunity presented itself, then I would make my move.
I went to sleep easily that night—Chantal’s regular jolts didn’t bother me. Her whispers—Fat Fuck, Four Eyes, Egg Salad—barely registered as I nestled deep into the warm covers. The girl was beneath me in a literal sense and a figurative one too, I thought with satisfaction. And she would be sorry for ruining my friendships with Omega and Shellie and Tré. She would be very, very sorry.
Two weeks later, we had a brilliant blue-sky October Saturday morning. Orange leaves drifted and the smell of far-off smoke in the cool air lent an air of expectancy. For most of the girls, the anticipation had everything to do with the camping trip.
For me, it meant destroying Chantal.
Mrs. Bobbie had assigned Omega and me a list of chores as long as our arms. Omega had torn the list, thrust half of it at me, and gone to work spraying Lysol on the grout in Mrs. Bobbie’s pink bathroom without even a glance my way.
She was still mad. But she’d also stopped talking to Tré and Shellie, which made me feel somewhat better. I was more determined than ever to bring our leader back to life. To see the spark in her eyes again. To hear the house filled with her mocking laughter. Things had grown so gloomy.
I’d found an excuse to walk to the main office—picking up a box of fabric that had been sent to Mrs. Bobbie from some church in Atlanta—and was dawdling near the small parking lot. I was wearing a new sweater—pale-blue angora with a white stripe across the chest. Well, it wasn’t new. It was one Omega had outgrown and thrown into the box in the hallway closet. I’d seen her do it one afternoon, and the minute she’d disappeared back inside her room, I’d tiptoed down the hall and fished it out. Now, I ran my fingers lightly over a downy sleeve. The day was too warm for it, but I didn’t care. I felt like the new Daphne wearing it.
I watched the girls who were going on the camping trip swarm around the three white vans parked in the lot. They dropped their duffels and sleeping bags and pillows in a pile that grew rapidly. They clumped in groups, one or two separating and joining another group, chattering excitedly. They didn’t seem to notice me, and I didn’t join them or wave or anything. I wasn’t mad or even really disappointed anymore about missing the trip. I was thinking.
This wouldn’t be my big moment. I hadn’t come up with that one yet—the final, glorious act of revenge that would bring Chantal to her knees and show her she’d better never mess with me again. But the camping trip . . . it did provide an opportunity.
I went inside the office and told Miss Lacey, the lady who answered the phones and sorted the mail, that I was there to pick up Mrs. Bobbie’s package. She went into the back to get it, and I glanced around the office. It was done up in a Western theme, with horseshoes hung on the wall and cactus plants in pots. The curtains were made of red bandanas stitched together. By Mrs. Bobbie, probably.
A large omelet flecked with bits of orange cheese and pink ham sat on a paper plate, a few bites taken out of it by Miss Lacey. I heard a thump from the back room and quickly lunged forward, scooping up a handful of egg and cheese and ham and dropping it into the pocket of my jeans.
Miss Lacey reentered the room, box first, huffing. “Can you carry this all the way home, Daphne?” she asked. “It’s a booger.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I took the box and pushed against the front door with my rear end. The sun nearly blinded me. It really was too hot for this sweater. I set the box down on the porch and leaned against the hitching post. The mountain of camping gear had grown substantially, and now there were two houseparents milling around the vans too. Mr. Barry, the marine, and his wife, Mrs. Vessa.
I approached one group of squealing girls. They sobered when they saw me.
“Sorry you can’t go,” one of them said. Her name was Tiffany J. There were two other Tiffanys in her house, Tiffany L. and Tiffany B. The other girls all clucked sympathetically and said how unfair it was. How Omega and the other Super Tramps were mean and ruined everything for everybody. I nodded and glanced toward the pile of gear. Mr. Barry, Mrs. Vessa, and the rest of the adults were gathered at the rear of the vans, discussing something animatedly.
I moved to the pile. Chantal’s frayed backpack was toward the bottom. It had been red once, but was now bleached out to an uneven pink. On the back, with a black marker, Chantal had written *NSYNC in big block letters. Probably the same marker she’d used to write on Omega’s underwear, that jackrabbit. That Devil Eyes. That big bunch of Nothing with a capital N.
I scooped the omelet from my pocket, crouched, unzipped the pack. Inside, I felt clothing—a sweatshirt, a pair of jeans, and some underwear. A brush and a tube of toothpaste. I smeared the egg over it all, really smashing it in good. Then, at the bottom of the backpack, my fingers closed around a plastic bottle—the kind you got in a pharmacy. Ha! Chantal’s vitamins. I pulled it out and stuffed it in my pocket.
I looked furtively over one shoulder, then stood. The girls had migrated to the office porch and were pushing the porch swing and singing some song from the radio. Chantal had joined them and, as usual, was shouting over them, bossing them around. She hadn’t even noticed me yet or she’d be over here, running her stupid mouth. I squatted again, pulled Chantal’s sweatshirt out of her pack, then zipped it up and shoved the pack under the bottom of the pile.
I thought of Chantal shivering in her sleeping bag up at the falls, wondering if she’d dropped her sweatshirt on the way up the mountain. I grinned, then bit my lip. She’d wonder what happened to her vitamins too. I didn’t know how bad she’d feel without them—maybe she’d just get weak, feel sick or dizzy and have to sit out some of the activities. I hoped she’d feel miserable the wh
ole weekend. That would teach her. And sometime later, after she’d been back for a while, I’d leave the medicine bottle on her bunk, for her to find. Then she’d know who was boss. She’d be sorry she messed with me.
I stood and fluffed out the sweater over the bottle in my pocket. The sweatshirt I tossed under the closest van, then shuffled over to the porch and retrieved Mrs. Bobbie’s box, feeling the gaze of the girls. As I walked away, I heard someone call out.
“Have a nice weekend, Daphne Doodle-Do.”
I turned. It was Chantal.
When I got back to the house, I dropped off the box outside Mrs. Bobbie’s bedroom door and ran to my room, where I put the pills on Chantal’s bed.
I hadn’t bothered to read the label on the bottle or to even consider that Chantal had not told me the truth about the pills or why she had to take them. Even if I had seen the word on the label—Depakote—it still wouldn’t have meant a thing to me.
I wouldn’t have known that it was not a vitamin at all, nor that it wasn’t prescribed for girls with malnutrition, but for people who suffered from epileptic seizures.
Chapter Nineteen
After I finished talking, Heath spoke. “What happened to her? To Chantal?”
We’d migrated to the bed and were lying on our sides—bodies aligned, heads propped on our arms, faces inches apart. Heath smoothed a lock of hair from my face. His breath smelled of mint and wine. His eyes were fastened on me. They hadn’t left my face the whole time I’d been talking.
“She got sick. Up on the mountain, on the camping trip, the first night. She had wandered away, they think maybe looking for Tré and Shellie. She had a seizure and fell off a cliff. There was a search party. They found her the next day. Her body.”
He just stared at me.
“Say it,” I said. “Say what you’re thinking. It was my fault.”
Every Single Secret Page 16
