Just Another Girl

by Melody Carlson

  “No. It’s that other kind of bleeding.” I can feel the blood returning to my face now—throbbing in full force and probably making my cheeks bright red. “I need to take her some, uh, feminine hygiene products.” Oh crud, did I just say that? Out loud?

  His eyes get wide now, and I can tell this is way too much for him. Well, hey, it’s way too much for me too. But it’s my life. My sucky, crappy, messed-up, freaking life.

  5

  I take it back. I do have a Cinderella complex. And I am furious at my life—rather, my lack of a life. As I drive Rose’s Toyota over to the park to pick up Lily, I’m feeling enraged over just about everything. I’m angry about my family, my MIA father, my checked-out mother, my demanding sisters, and even the slow car ahead of me. And I can’t believe that I actually had to beg Rose to lend me her car. I threatened to call Mom and explain the whole situation. Then I reminded Rose that Mom still pays her insurance and that Rose is just as much Lily’s sister as I am.

  “Fine, but you better drive carefully,” she warned me as she handed over her precious car keys on that silly pink rhinestone key chain. Then, more discreetly, she slipped a bulky sanitary pad to me, and I tucked it into a side pocket. “It’s not a very good brand,” she told me. “I swiped it from the employee bathroom.”

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  She leaned back against the counter. “So, where’s Mc-Dreamy?”

  “Owen?” I said his name absently, acting like I barely knew him, which I suppose is true.

  “Yeah? Where’d he go?”

  “Probably home,” I said casually. I’d actually encouraged him to take off. He halfheartedly offered to go with me, to get his pickup and take me to the pool again, but I could tell he was pretty uncomfortable. I’m sure the idea of helping me rescue my messed-up retarded sister was overwhelming to a guy like him. I know that’s a mean description of Lily, but it’s just the way I’m feeling right now. And I suspect that Owen realized he was in over his head too. Anyway, he seemed relieved to make his getaway.

  “Well, don’t let Lily get blood on my new seat covers,” Rose said as I was leaving the shop. Naturally several heads turned at that, although I’m sure Rose will straighten them out. She’ll probably make up a story about how our sister was in an accident and how Rose sacrificially offered her car to rescue her. Rose always tries to come out smelling like a rose.

  It’s not until I’m halfway across town that I realize I don’t even have my driver’s license with me. So I’m very, very careful. But I’m still fuming. And I’m wondering why Kellie couldn’t have dealt with this little fiasco at the park. But then I realize she probably has her hands full with all those other kids. To be honest, I don’t know how she does it. And I can say this from experience, because she’s talked me into assisting on these field trips before. It’s no walk in the park.

  To be fair, once Lily loses it, well, it’s hard for anyone to deal with her. Anyone but me, I guess. My mom thinks I have the “magic touch” when it comes to Lily. But I think it’s only because she put a spell on me so that I would be enslaved to Lily forever. See, there I go again, sounding like poor Cinderella.

  I park Rose’s car apart from any other vehicles so that I don’t incur any door dings. (I know Rose will check.) Then I find Lily sitting on a cement bench a short distance from where her friends are playing. Her hair is still wet from the pool, and she’s clutching her Hello Kitty backpack in front of her and scowling. And it just figures, she wore her white shorts today. I’d totally forgotten about that. Poor Lily.

  “Come on, sis,” I say.

  “No.” She firmly shakes her head from side to side, still clinging to her backpack like it’s a life preserver.

  “No?” I put my hands on my hips and wait.

  “No.”

  “What? Are you going to sit there all day and all night? Like forever?”

  “I can’t stand up, Aster.” You can tell Lily is mad when she really accentuates your name—it hisses out of her mouth like a curse.

  “Are your legs broken?”

  Her heavy brows pull together to give me her darkest, meanest look now. “My. Pants. Aster.”

  “Oh, right.” I nod to Lily, then wave over to where Kellie is watching us from the play area. “You don’t want your friends to see the blood on your shorts.”

  “Yeah.”

  So I reach for her pack, which she does not release. But even so I’m able to unzip it and dig out her damp Little Mermaid beach towel. I shake it open, then go behind the bench. “Stand up,” I say. “No one can see you now. And we’ll make your towel into a skirt for you.”

  “Okay.” She sounds eager as she stands. I do my fashion magic, then walk around to see my “little” sister smiling with relief when she sees that I have managed to conceal the seat of her shorts, which really looked frightening. She must’ve gone for a while before she realized what was happening. I’m sure this must’ve been noticed by her friends—many who are too young to even understand why she’d have blood on her shorts. Maybe they were alarmed and thought she’d been hurt. I’m not sure I want to know.

  “Now, you need to remember this little trick,” I say as I walk her to the nearby bathroom. “You can always use a jacket or a sweater tied around your waist and hanging down to cover it up. I mean, if this ever happens again.”

  “Not ever again!” she sputters as I push the heavy door open.

  “Well, hopefully not, Lily, but you never know. It’s happened to me before.”

  “To you?” She looks at me with interest as I hold the stall door open for her. I take her backpack and hand her the slightly rumpled sanitary pad. Okay, perhaps it’s a little late, but it can’t hurt. As she goes into the stall, I feel guilty. Maybe this is my fault. Maybe I need to keep track of Lily’s cycle and make sure she has spare pads in her backpack.

  “Yeah, Lily, it happens to everyone.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Well, not guys. Remember this is just a girl thing. And it’s no big deal, really. You just need to learn how to cover things up. And we’ll keep extra pads in your backpack, just in case. We’ll use that zipper pocket inside.”

  “Yes! Yes!”

  It takes some coaching and time for her to get the pad in place. But I’ve taught her how to do this, and I know she can. Then she comes out, and I help her to rewrap her mermaid “skirt” around her thick middle, tucking the ends of the towel into the front of her shorts to hold it in place.

  “Very nice,” I say as we go back outside. “Now do you want to stay and play with your friends?”

  “No!”

  I figure as much. “Then let’s go home.” I hand her back her pack, and we head for the parking lot. It’s even hotter now. I think it’ll hit the mid-nineties before the day is over.

  “Is Rose here?” Lily stops and points at Rose’s car with a worried expression. Her fear is totally justified, because if Rose were here, she would probably scold and humiliate Lily for making such a mess of things.

  “No, Rose is at work. She just let me use her car.” I unlock the door and stare at Rose’s new seat covers. They’re some kind of Hawaiian print, hot pink and white, and in my opinion rather cheesy. Still, I know she’ll kill me if Lily gets them bloody. “Wait,” I say to Lily. “We need to put something down for you to sit on.” I dig through the clutter of Rose’s backseat until I find an old plastic shopping bag, which I transform into a seat cover. “There you go, sit on that.”

  Lily hums happily as I drive toward home. As always, she’s oblivious as to how she just blew up my life. She probably doesn’t even remember that “cute boy” who gave us a ride this morning. That’s over and done. And Lily’s life is always about Lily. Everything else is secondary.

  But, to be fair, isn’t everyone like that? Self-centered, self-absorbed, selfish? Except that most of us learn to conceal these unbecoming traits as we mature. Oh, they’re still there, but we camouflage them so as not to offend. But people like Lily just let it
all hang out. In a way that might be a good thing. It is what it is. What you see is what you get. No surprises. No tricks.

  I let Lily into the house and, once again, show her the cupboard where the feminine hygiene products are kept. Then I go to the laundry room and rotate more loads of laundry from washer to dryer to basket before I return to check on Lily, who is now sitting on the edge of the bathtub and staring at one of Rose’s fashion magazines.

  “Hey, Lil,” I say, holding up the basket of laundry. “After you get showered and cleaned up, do you want to fold these towels for me?”

  “Okay.” She grins like I’ve just invited her to eat cookie dough.

  “Thanks! I’ll put them on the couch.” Sure, I know the towels won’t be folded the way Mom likes, but I don’t really care today. Maybe I’m starting to go through a rebellion or something. But I just don’t care. Then I go to my room for my bag and my driver’s license, only to remember I’ll be riding my bike home. Toting a fashionable purse (okay, it’s only an Isaac Mizrahi from Target) while riding a mountain bike? I don’t think so. So I pocket my wallet and leave the faux leather bag behind.

  “Where you going?” Lily asks, suddenly suspicious of the car keys in my hand. She does not like being left home alone— ever.

  “Remember, I have to take Rose’s car back to the mall for her. Then I’ll come straight back here. I’ll be back in just a few minutes, okay?”

  “A few minutes . . . okay,” Lily parrots, slowly nodding. Naturally, she doesn’t question how I plan to get back here. Maybe she just thinks I’ll walk or run or even sprout wings and fly. And she doesn’t question how I got to the mall in the first place. She doesn’t even wonder why. It’s just not relevant to her at the moment. She trusts that I’ll do what I say I’m going to do, and that’s that. I’ve heard our pastor talk about childlike trust and how God wants us all to live like that. In some ways I think Lily’s got that one nailed. And sometimes I envy her that. Sometimes I wish my life were that simple. Then I feel guilty for thinking like that. And ungrateful.

  “Everything okay?” Rose asks when I hand back her keys.

  “Yeah, Lily’s home and fine.”

  “I mean, my seat covers.”

  “Your seat covers are fine too!” Then without thanking her— why should I?—and without saying good-bye, I head for the door. It’s all I can do not to growl at her. Then I realize that Rose is similar to Lily in that she wears her selfishness on her sleeve. Well, at least around me. I suppose she’s hiding it the rest of the time . . . or trying.

  As I walk through the mall, I feel lonelier than ever. I see pairs of girls toting bright-colored shopping bags, or happy couples walking hand in hand, or clusters of teens being loud and obnoxious, and it’s painfully clear that I am alone . . . and a misfit. I cannot believe that just a couple of hours ago I was with Owen Swanson, and he acted as if he actually liked me. Did I imagine that?

  No, it was real. I know it. But I also know that it’s over. Owen got a sneak peak into the life of Aster Flynn today, and even if he was momentarily and unexplainably enchanted, that’s all finished and done now. And, really, I can’t even blame him. Who wants to pair up with a girl who drags her mentally impaired sister around with her? What kind of guy would put up with someone like Lily hanging around, gawking, saying dumb things, sticking out her chest, making messes?

  So it’s just as well that this thing—whatever it was—has ended. Chances are, I would’ve only been hurt worse if it had gone on for a while. I would’ve really gotten my hopes up— and then been crushed. It’s better this way.

  I hurry through the mall, eager to get away from a place where I clearly don’t belong. I don’t even want to belong here— expensive clothes, purses, shoes . . . things I obviously can’t afford. As I mentioned, I’m more of a Target girl, or “Tar-zhay,” as Rose likes to say. And right now I have about ten dollars in my wallet, the remains of the meager allowance I “earn” by helping with Lily. I figured it out once—it’s like fifty cents an hour. Slave wages.

  As I walk past a wall of store windows curtained off so that a new display can be set up, I notice a girl walking next to me. She’s alone too. Her shoulders are slumped, her head is hanging, and she looks like she’s carrying the weight of the world on her. And then I realize that’s me. That’s my reflection.

  Eager to escape that pathetic girl, I begin to jog . . . and then I run full speed, bursting out of the mall into the hot afternoon sun. I sprint over to where my bike is still chained to the bike stand. I look at the empty slot where Owen’s bike was. Then I hurry to work the combination and unlock my bike. And, although it feels like an inferno now, I pedal like crazy for home.

  When I get home, I’m dripping with sweat and out of breath. Seriously, I feel like I could be having heatstroke as I fill a glass of water from the faucet and begin to chug it down. I go to the family room to find Lily flopped down on her old purple beanbag chair and glued to some lame cartoon that’s playing on TV.

  I stand there trying to determine whether or not I need professional medical attention, but decide that my heart rate seems to be recovering. So I pick up the remote to turn the volume down, which causes Lily to peel her eyes off the TV and look at me with a puzzled expression. “What’s a matter with you, Aster?”

  “Hot,” I gasp.

  “Oh.” Her brow creases as if she’s trying to compute this.

  “I just rode my bike all the way from the mall, and it’s about a hundred degrees out there.”

  She frowns and nods like she’s taking this in. “Really hot?”

  “Really hot.” I swipe the cold glass across my forehead, then sink down into the old plaid couch that sags in the middle. Like a hot, sweaty zombie, I sit there and watch Powerpuff Girls with Lily. This is my life.

  When the show ends, Lily turns to me and says, “Oh yeah. Mom said for you to call her.”

  “Mom called?” I stand up and reach into my pocket for my cell phone, which I turned off to save the nearly dead battery during my bike ride home. Great. Mom probably tried to call me too. And it’s unusual for Mom to call from work, unless something’s wrong. “Why did she call?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No. She did not call. I called her.”

  “You called Mom?” Okay, this is definitely not good. Mom does not like to be disturbed at the store unless it’s a real honest-to-goodness emergency. It took a long time to get Lily to understand this concept. Once she learned to use the phone, she called Mom again and again, and never for any good reason.

  “So why did you call Mom, Lily?” I’m trying to keep my voice calm.

  “I wanted to tell her what happened to me.”

  “You mean about getting your period at the park?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But why did you need to call her at work, Lily?” I’m trying not to get mad at her. I know it won’t help. “You could’ve waited until Mom got home to tell her. Remember, you’re not supposed to call her at work unless it’s an emergency. And then you should always call me first.”

  “I did.”

  I nod with realization. “But my phone was off.”

  “So I got worried. I called Mom.”

  “What did Mom say?”

  “For you to call, Aster. Like I told you already.”

  I take in a deep breath and dial O’Leary’s. I ask for Mom, and then, seeing that Lily is occupied with another dumb cartoon, I hurry to the bathroom so I can have this conversation in private.

  “What is going on there?” my mother demands in a tight voice that’s laced with anger.

  “Nothing, Mom. Everything’s fine. I’m sorry Lily disturbed you.”

  “She said she was covered in blood and that you had to come and get her.”

  So I quickly explain, playing it all down. “Then I had to take Rose’s car back to her and ride my bike back here and—”

  “Wait a minute, Aster. You’re saying you rode your bike clear over t
o the mall, then you borrowed Rose’s car to pick up Lily at the park, then you brought her home, drove Rose’s car back to the mall, and rode your bike home? Is that right?”

  “That’s pretty much it.”

  “Why on earth didn’t you just use your bus pass to get Lily?”

  So then I have to explain that I was already at the mall when Lily called.

  “Why were you at the mall?”

  “Why not?” I snap back with irritation.

  “Aster!”

  “Look, I was riding my bike with a friend. We ended up at the mall, which turned out to be a good thing, because I was able to make it to Lily a lot quicker by driving Rose’s car than I would’ve if I’d had to wait for the bus and then transfer and all that.”

  “Yes . . . I suppose you’re right.” Her voice sounds calmer now. I suspect someone has walked into her office, and she doesn’t want to sound unprofessional or out of control.

  “So, you’re not mad?”

  “Just worried. Lily sounded so upset. I’m sure that was a humiliating experience for her.”

  I head back to the family room, where Lily is sprawled out on the floor now. She’s eating directly from an oversized bag of chips and spilling crumbs all over our ugly brown carpeting. I notice now that the basket of laundry is still where I put it. Unfolded. She probably forgot. “Lily is perfectly fine,” I say in a stiff voice.

  Lily looks up at me and grins as if to confirm this.

  “I’m sure she’s forgotten all about her trauma,” I assure Mom.

  “Well, I just don’t want you to forget your responsibility in regard to your younger sister, Aster.”

  “Don’t worry, Mom. I never do.” Although I wish I sometimes could!

  “I’ll be working late tonight.”

  “I know.” Of course, I want to add. What else is new? But I know that will sound disrespectful. And I know exactly the response it would provoke. Mom would get very grumpy and say something like, “Well, someone has to bring in a living around this place. It’s not like your good-for-nothing father is sending us any money lately. You know that he’s more than two years behind in child support. If your deadbeat dad would just pay up, I wouldn’t have to work so many hours, blah, blah, blah . . .” And so I don’t go there. Instead, I tell her to have a good afternoon and to stay cool. Not that it should be a problem since the store has air-conditioning, whereas our house does not.