Not My Problem

by Ciara Smyth

  “She’s injured,” I said. “We’re not just carrying her around for the craic, you know.”

  Sister Dymphna frowned. “I don’t like young ladies who are cheeky,” she said.

  I don’t like old bats who are too senile to spot a pretty obvious problem.

  I forced my lips into a tight smile and followed Kavi through the door, where he set Meabh down on the little single bed next to the wall.

  “Off you go, young man,” Sister Dymphna said. “It’s not appropriate for you to be here with a young lady.”

  “But I brought her here,” he said, pouting as though she’d said something mean instead of telling him to feck off back to class. Kavi was kind of an odd duck. I hadn’t before appreciated his “I just escaped from a bunker” wide-eyed approach to life, but I was starting to enjoy it.

  Sister Dymphna glared and Kavi scampered off, giving us a sad wave goodbye.

  Meabh’s groans drew my attention back to her. Her foot looked even worse somehow than it did a few seconds ago.

  “Are you on your period, love?” Sister Dymphna asked gently.

  Meabh’s face contorted at the ridiculousness of this question, but I knew that Sister Dymphna asked this every time anyone came to the sick bay. She was obsessed. You could walk in with a pencil sticking out of your eye and she’d ask the same thing. I knew because I regularly skived off and no matter what I said was wrong with me, she looked at me like it was definitely my period and she knew that I wouldn’t be having one if Satan hadn’t tempted womankind with sin. I could tell Meabh had lost her ability to pretend to be the sweet, perfect student, so I saved her.

  “She’s sprained her ankle or something.”

  Sister Dymphna nodded like I’d told her something valuable that she couldn’t have found out any other way.

  “I’ll be off, then,” I said, and I gave Meabh a nod, but her eyes were squeezed tight shut. Then I felt a twinge. I think they call it guilt? Maybe I should not have agreed to throw her down a flight of stairs. You’re probably not supposed to indulge people who are having actual breakdowns by encouraging their desperate impulses.

  “Do you not want to stay here with your friend?” Sister D turned her face to me, pausing while unlacing Meabh’s shoe.

  I hesitated. Meabh was breathing hard, short breaths like she was in labor as Sister D eased the shoe off. I half expected her foot to come off with it.

  I sighed. It was my doing, after all. The least I could do was hang around. Besides, I might have to remind her she’d begged me to do it in case she got any funny ideas about telling on me.

  “Don’t do me any favors,” Meabh snapped. As though my reluctance amazed her.

  “I won’t. Not again,” I retorted, and threw myself into the chair that sat at the foot of the bed. I watched with my face scrunched up as Sister D held Meabh’s foot and inspected it.

  “I think it’s sprained, love. But you’ll have to get an X-ray just in case. I’ll call your father.”

  Meabh groaned again. I couldn’t tell if it was for the foot or her father.

  Before she left to get Mr. Kowalski, Sister D unlocked a cupboard that contained exactly one box of painkillers, took two out, and put the box back, locking the cupboard again. She gave these to Meabh with a glass of water and an ice pack from the small fridge-freezer that hummed in the corner.

  “Good thing she locked that cupboard again, eh?” I said when she was gone. “Else she might come back to find us here absolutely off our tits, snorting lines of ibuprofen off the sink.”

  “You don’t have to stay,” Meabh said, not laughing. I suppose expecting her to appreciate my comic stylings was a bit much to ask under the circumstances.

  “It’s all right. I’m getting out of class, aren’t I?”

  Meabh made a face. “Do you think if I leave school early it’ll count against my attendance record?”

  “Probably. And then when you die Jesus will be like, go fuck yourself, Meabh. Down to hell with you. I know all about the day you missed double Maths because you went to A and E with a foot that looked like a purple cauliflower.”

  “Saint Peter,” she said, wincing as she tried to shuffle into a more comfortable position.

  “What?”

  “It’s Saint Peter who greets you when you die.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Right, well, he’ll be there too obviously. But when Jesus saw your name on the naughty list he was like, Pete, I gotta come down and hang out with you at the gates and see this bitch for myself. Fuckin’ chancer, she is.”

  “He’s not Santa. There’s no list.”

  “Well, of course there’s no list. It’s all a load of bolloxology, but I’m not going to let that get in the way of making fun of you, am I?”

  “Heaven forbid.”

  “They would if they could. They try and ban everything fun.”

  We both heard the footsteps at the same time and we both had the same reaction, where your shoulders slump and you resign yourself to being out of control of whatever happens next.

  Mr. Kowalski entered the room. He looked gentle and sweet. He looked like your friendly school principal, the kind from TV who tries really hard to understand the misunderstood. He was much older than most dads of people my age. He was an average height, average build white man with graying hair swept back in a style that has looked the exact same since the first time I met him. I half think if you reached up and touched it, you’d find it was actually molded plastic like a Ken doll. He wore relaxed open-collar shirts and beige middle-aged trousers. No. Not trousers, slacks. He made embarrassing dad jokes and walked around the school smiling all the time like he was fucking delighted to be there. I didn’t trust it one bit. I assumed he let the act drop at home and that’s when he was horrible to Meabh.

  “What did you do, angel?” he asked, his face pale and his voice concerned. He didn’t even notice I was there, he was so worried.

  Meabh burst into tears.

  Christ, how did she have anything left in the tank?

  “I. Fell. Down. Stairs,” she said through heaving sobs. He sat beside her on the bed and threw his arms around her and stroked her hair until she calmed down. When she got her breath back, she spoke again.

  “I won’t be able to play in the championship.”

  “Ah now, Meabh, you don’t know that yet. It might be only a minor twist.”

  Were his eyes closed? I was no sprainologist but it was definitely not minor.

  “I don’t think so, Daddy. It feels bad. I don’t think it’ll heal in time.”

  I almost choked when she called him “Daddy” but I reined it in. There’d be time later to make fun of her for that.

  “Don’t worry, pet. I think if anyone’s foot could make a miraculous recovery, it’ll be yours.”

  I could see where she got her arrogance from. He thought even her ligaments were somehow better than everyone else’s.

  He looked at me then, his face shifting from worry to surprise.

  “Aideen.” He furrowed his brow.

  “Sir.”

  He didn’t know what to say when I didn’t offer an explanation. I could tell he was trying to think of a polite way to ask what the hell I was doing with his daughter. I probably wasn’t the kind of company he’d choose for her.

  We wrestled with the silence for a few seconds, but I won.

  “Meabh, do you think you can walk to the car if I get you crutches?” he asked, turning his attention back to her. “I don’t think your old man is quite up to carrying you with my bad back. You didn’t hurt your wrists or shoulders or anything?”

  “My ribs feel a bit sore but I could use crutches.” She smiled.

  “That’s my girl. Such a trooper. See, you’ll be back on the pitch in no time. I know you, you won’t let a thing like this get you down.”

  When he’d left the room, presumably to find Sister D and locate crutches, Meabh’s face dimmed. Like the sun that shone out of her arse, creating a halo effect, su
ddenly faded.

  “He seems really worried about you,” I said. But I was more than aware that someone could seem like one thing and be another.

  “He’ll accept it once he hears from the doctor. Maybe it will be broken after all.”

  “Fingers crossed,” I said.

  Meabh shifted so she was sitting on the edge of the bed. She looked forlornly at me.

  “Can you help me get up?”

  “It’s just one thing after another with you, isn’t it. Aideen, push me down the stairs. Aideen, take me to the nurse’s office. Aideen, help me stand up.”

  “You’re not as funny as you think you are.”

  “I am though,” I said. But I got up and sat beside her so she could throw her arm around me, then hoisted her up to standing. She leaned on her good foot, but when she gingerly tried to put some weight on the other one, she winced.

  “Your hair is in my mouth,” I said, spitting it out. I resisted the urge to ask what shampoo she used because the scent was heavenly. Couldn’t let her know that; her self-esteem was bloody dangerous as it was.

  “Don’t spit in my hair!”

  “Don’t get hair in my spit. That’s my good saliva.”

  “You’re exhausting.”

  “Says the girl who considered giving up sleep to take on more activities.”

  “That’s different.”

  “I agree. It’s very fucking different.”

  “You don’t have to swear so much.”

  “I don’t have to. But it makes me sound fucking cool.”

  She almost smiled.

  “You can let me go now.”

  “I don’t think I can. Unless you want to sit back down and wait for your crutches.”

  She eyed the bed.

  “No, if I sit down again I won’t be able to get up again. My ribs really do hurt.”

  “Sorry,” I said automatically.

  “No, don’t be silly. You can’t precision injure someone with a staircase.”

  We fell awkwardly silent, her hanging on to my neck. I hadn’t realized there was a clock in the room, but suddenly it was ticking loudly.

  “Look, seriously. Thank you for doing this.” She caught my eye. It was hard not to when her face was almost stuck to my face. “I really do appreciate it. It’s such a relief.”

  I wanted to shrug it off but I couldn’t because my shoulders were in use, so I smiled instead and she smiled back. She really did look relieved. Like the stick up her ass had decreased in width or length. Whichever one would affect comfort more.

  I felt a warmth in my stomach that I wasn’t used to. Was this what good deeds felt like?

  “All right, I give up. What is that? Papaya?”

  Meabh gave me a blank look.

  “Your hair or something. You smell amazing.”

  She immediately blushed, pink spreading across her slightly sallow cheeks.

  “Mango body butter,” she said. “From the Body Shop.”

  Great. I was standing there sniffing her skin. That wasn’t weird at all.

  Just as I was about to die of shame, the door opened again and I immediately rearranged my face into something more neutral, as though that could make me invisible to the principal.

  “You should be resting with your leg elevated unless you absolutely have to be on your feet, Meabh. You want to bring down the swelling as quickly as possible.”

  “Yeah, Meabh,” I said with an exaggerated sigh and a sly hint of a smile, “it’s like you want to miss the whole season!”

  She gave me a dirty look as I helped her into a pair of crutches. I beamed at her.

  Then Mr. Kowalski set his eyes on me, and I stood frozen while Meabh hobbled off down the corridor.

  “Thank you for helping Meabh,” Mr. Kowalski said when she was out of earshot. “That was very kind.”

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. I wasn’t falling for the nice guy bit.

  “Now get yourself back to class. I know you’re supposed to be in Maths right now and I don’t want you missing any more than you have to. Those absences are starting to worry me again, Aideen.”

  “Yes, sir. Right back to class.” I waved him off with a cheery goodbye and when the door swung closed I gave him the finger. It’s the little things that keep me going.

  5.

  If the principal wasn’t staying the rest of the day, then I didn’t see why I should either. I decided my bag would be fine in the sports hall overnight by itself. There was nothing in it anyway except a king-size Snickers. Which I would miss later, but it wasn’t worth running into Ms. Devlin and being downright bullied into remaining in class.

  I took the long way home, looping round town and walking to the bus stop nearest Mam’s work. As soon as I caught a glimpse of her laughing in between puffs of what I knew to be strawberry-flavored vape, my heart slowed down for the first time since that morning when I realized she was gone. That’s why I don’t need to do PE. I get all my cardio from anxiety about what my mother is doing at any given moment. When I’m one hundred years old and using the Flubberygiblets cash to freeze my bod for whatever reason rich people do that, and they ask me how I survived this long on a diet of chocolate and TV, I’ll be able to smile wryly and say it’s all thanks to my mam and her parenting choices. I told myself she must have gone outside for a proper smoke that morning and I missed her.

  On the bus I got some dirty looks from some middle-aged bore bags who took one look at me in my uniform and assumed I was mitching. People think it’s old biddies who give teenagers a hard time but in my experience old biddies love me; it’s people my mam’s age who are uptight and look at me like I’m gonna burn their houses down. Somehow they can tell I’m poor just by looking at me. I don’t know what it is that gives me away. The fact that my stop is a block of flats with graffiti and piles of rubbish dumped outside probably doesn’t help. They look at me like I’m about to batter them round the head with a bottle of hard cider and steal their purses.

  I scowled back. I could be going to the dentist or the doctor or something. They didn’t know. I thought about how I really needed to do that essay for Ms. Devlin because I could sense today that I’d reached the limit of her patience and if I didn’t do this one she’d lose the head.

  When I got home the flat was so cold that I couldn’t bear to get started on it, though, and instead I made myself three cups of tea in a row and watched daytime telly until it changed to early evening game shows and I heard Mam’s key in the lock. She came in, threw her coat on the couch, and collapsed onto it.

  “Mam, we’re trying to use the hooks, remember?” I grumbled, picking up her coat. I’d picked up these really pretty hooks in the charity shop that looked a bit like doorknobs but all colorful and painted. I’d hammered them into the wall myself with a shoe heel.

  “Yes, love, sorry, habit of a lifetime.”

  You could say that again. If she came home and didn’t leave everything lying at her arse I’d know the body snatchers had landed. I hugged her and she smiled. I don’t hug her because I love her, although I do; I hug her to check. I didn’t smell anything except a bit of her good perfume she got for Christmas last year. Not so much that it was trying to cover anything up though.

  “Don’t be giving me grief now,” she said, wagging her finger at me. “I’ve had a long day and my feet are killing me. Do you know I basically did all of Margaret Burns’s color today, mixed it, applied it, washed it out, gave that old bat a head massage, the groans of her, like, obscene, and who does she tip? Bloody Nadine just because she’s the one with the pair of scissors. And you’d think Nadine would maybe give me a euro or two because she knows I spent a lot longer on her than she did, but you know she wouldn’t put her hand in her pocket to scratch her arse, that one.”

  “You’re right, Mam. I don’t know why you bother with her.”

  “Well, someone else did give a big tip. Little old Annie. And you know, if you look in my pocket you might find something to interest you.”
r />   I went back to Mam’s coat and rifled through her pockets, extracting a small bottle.

  “Ah, Mam, thank you so much!” I hugged her for real this time. It was fancy hair serum, the only one I’d ever tried that did anything to help the curls. It cost a bomb. We couldn’t really afford to spend money on this. And yet, selfishly I was pleased she had without consulting me because I would have said no.

  I felt bad for being suspicious of her all day when she was thinking of me and doing sweet things like this.

  “Are you hungry?” I asked.

  “Starving.”

  “I’ll put something on,” I said. “Go on, relax. And take that thing off. It’s going to blow up someday.” I meant the vape, which hung from a chain around her neck.

  “It’s grand, love. It’s not one of those knockoff ones.”

  “Well, don’t come crying to me when you’ve a massive hole in your tit,” I said. “You’ll be a quare sight then, walking round the town. There goes Lisa Tit Hole, they’ll say as you pass by.”

  She rolled her eyes but she took the vape from around her neck and set it pointedly on the arm of the couch. Great. Now our sofa could blow up and set our whole flat on fire. I didn’t say that though because I’d done enough nagging.

  The bread had a couple of tiny specks of mold on the crusts so I picked them off before popping them in the toaster.

  “We need bread,” I said, glancing over at Mam, who had put Fair City on.

  “Oh right, sorry, love, you said that last night, didn’t you? I totally forgot. I’ll get it tomorrow, I promise.”

  I made a mental note to take a couple of euro from Mam’s work tunic and stop at the shop on the way home.

  We watched TV for a bit, but Mam was mostly on her phone. The only person who ever messaged me was Holly, but I kept glancing at my phone thinking I must have got a message and not heard it. Eventually I gave up and decided to message her. When I was mid-typing my phone buzzed in my hand and my heart did a little smile. Finally.

  But it wasn’t Holly.

  The profile picture was of Hillary Clinton but I doubted she was getting in touch. Although I assumed if she did she would be disappointed with me for not living up to my potential, so it wasn’t encouraging either way.