Dirty Little Secrets (8 page)

Mom took both of them from me and looked from one to the other. “They're both so pretty.” She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “You know, Christmas is just around the corner. Maybe Santa can bring you a new wallet, and you can save your money.”

“You don't have to do that,” I said. “Besides, these are expensive.” I'd learned not to expect too much for Christmas or my birthday. Mom always seemed to have some sort of financial crisis right before a major holiday.

“They're not that much,” Mom said. She turned the blue one over and looked at the back. “They're already forty percent off—and I'll bet they'll go down more closer to the holidays. What color do you think Santa should bring?”

I smiled at her. Sometimes, mom could be cool like in the old days. “I don't know. Why doesn't he just surprise me?” I put both wallets down on the display. “But Santa shouldn't bring me pink.”

“I'll let him know,” she said.

On Christmas morning, we went over to Aunt Bernie and Uncle Jack's house to open presents. They weren't really related to us, but they'd been friends with Mom since before she and Dad got divorced and were the closest thing we had to family nearby. They didn't have any kids, and we'd been opening our presents at their house since I was little. Best of all, they had a huge house in the hills, so there was always room to play with whatever new toy we'd been given.

I still had a few presents left to open when Mom handed me a big, square box. Things shifted inside when I shook it, and I couldn't imagine what was in there. As I tore off the wrapping, Mom sat excitedly on the sofa waiting for me to see what was inside. I lifted the lid to find not just a green wallet, not just a blue wallet, but a bunch of wallets in all different colors scattered in the box.

“Do you like them?” Mom asked, clapping her hands like a little kid. “Remember, we saw the wallets in Macy's that day?”

I set each one out on the carpet in front of the fireplace. There were eight of them, in every color except pink. I looked at Mom. “I remember,” I said. “But I thought you were only going to get one.”

“Well, they were such a good deal, I decided to get a few,” she said, waving the cost away with her hand. “You know I can never pass up a bargain. Your present is that you get to choose whichever one you want.”

I picked up the green one. “Thanks, Mom. But what are you going to do with the rest of these?” I could see Aunt Bernie staring at us with a strange look on her face.

“I don't know,” she said. “People always need gifts, or I'll take the rest back.” She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “I just want you to be happy.”

Aunt Bernie laughed. “Well, Joanna, my birthday is in February. Just remember I've got my eye on the gold one over there.”

“You got it,” Mom said, laughing like it was all a big joke.

As I sat there with the Macy's bag in my hand, I realized she'd never intended to return any of these. She always bought things for people and then could never remember where she'd put them, so they just got swallowed up with everything else—the gold wallet meant for Aunt Bernie was sitting right on top. Bernie and Jack always left for a long vacation in Hawaii after Christmas, but maybe I'd surprise her with it when they got back.

I turned it over to look at the price tag. Fifty dollars. Even if she'd gotten these at half price, it still meant there was almost two hundred dollars' worth of wallets in just this one bag.

I sat down on the recliner and picked at the pile on the couch. Who knew what was in the rest of the house? How many more Macy's bags was I going to find? How many shirts still had their tags? How many pairs of shoes did she buy and then toss in a pile, never to think of them again? I could feel myself starting to get angry, but I tried to get back to work. I didn't have time to feel things right now. I tossed the Macy's bag to the side and figured I'd decide what to do with it later. There was one last box full of paper sitting in the hallway, so to make room I grabbed it and yanked open the front door.

“Hello?” The delivery driver stood on the porch with an equally big box in his arms, his eyes peering over the top of it.

Startled, I dropped my own box in the doorway, and then shoved it out of the way so I could shut the front door quickly. My heart was pounding, but I tried to look calm.

“I'm sorry I scared you,” he said. He shifted the weight of the box to one hip and glanced down at his clipboard. “I'm looking for Mrs. Tompkins.”

From the lack of alarm on his face, I didn't think he'd seen anything inside. At least he wasn't giving anything away. I looked back at the door to make sure it was shut. “You, um, you just missed her.”

He nodded at the door. “Do you live here?”

“Yes,” I said.

He held the clipboard out to me. “Would you mind signing on that line at the bottom?”

I scribbled something that looked like my name at the bottom of his list. He took a step toward the front door. “This is really heavy—how about I bring it in for you? I can just drop it inside the door.”

“No!” I said too quickly and then caught myself. “No, it's fine. I'm just going to put this box in the recycling. I'll get it when I come back.” I pointed to a spot along the wall. “You can just set it there for now.”

“Are you sure? I'd be happy to bring it—”

“I'm sure. It's fine.” I picked up my box and watched as he set his down by the door. “Thanks.”

“No problem. You have a good day.”

I waited until he got back into his big brown truck and drove away. After dumping my box out back, I examined the delivery on the porch and wondered what on earth Mom could have ordered this time. It was huge and had the logo of that TV shopping network on the side, like most of the empty boxes I was pulling out of the garage.

The street was quiet, so I took the keys out of my pocket and sliced open the tape that held the top shut. As I peeled back the flaps, I could see what it was Mom had to order just three days after Christmas. I pulled it partway out of the carton until I could see what it looked like, then let it slip right back inside.

A mixer. One of those huge red mixers that sat on a counter, with a big silver bowl, and whipped up endless batches of cookies for waiting children. For other people's waiting children, because we hadn't baked anything in this house for years. It was something for a house we didn't have, probably bought with money she always said we didn't have. But I bet she got a really good deal on it.

I kicked the box but it just wobbled a few inches. I hadn't realized how heavy it was, but the pain in my big toe felt almost satisfying. My eyes watered as I walked back into the house and slammed the door with my heel. The walls rattled, and this time I didn't feel guilty about it. With any luck, someone would come up on the porch and steal the stupid thing.

chapter 7

2:00 p.m.

I stood in the hallway, sweat beading at my hairline, my hands already aching from carrying the bags and boxes to the back. I'd been busting my butt for over three hours now, and the place didn't look any different. My eyes fell on the stacks of newspapers that still reached to the ceiling and the mountains of clothes and bags I hadn't even had time to touch. The kitchen still reeked of garbage and rot, and the paths were no wider than when I'd started. Three hours hadn't helped at all. How much would I be able to do in two days?

It's not going to work
. That thought began to play over and over again in my head, pounding in my ears like I'd just run a mile. My stomach started to churn as I let the wave wash over me. I thought about giving up. It would be so easy to walk outside and dial three little numbers and end all this craziness. That would be the easy way out now, but what about later? What about tomorrow, when I had to look at Kaylie and her parents and see the disgust on their faces? When I had to see pity replace anything positive in Josh's eyes? Phil had just moved out and gotten a normal life a couple of years ago—could I really take it away from him?

I took a deep breath and forced myself to think about the house the way it could be.
After
. I could replace the peeling, gray paint with a fresh coat that would make it look almost new. We could fix it up real nice, replacing the lingering stink with fresh flowers on the table every week.

I could feel my heart stop racing and my breathing slow. Thinking about the life I was going to have after was better than Valium for calming me down. Giving up wasn't an option. Repeating that to myself was the only way I was going to get through this. Giving up was not an option.

Opening my eyes, I realized I'd been going about this completely the wrong way. Nobody cleaned a mess this big by picking up one little piece at a time and separating it into this pile or that bag. Aunt Jean hadn't worried about recycling. She'd even resorted to a shovel at one point as we filled up the Dumpster. I had to stop seeing each little thing individually and start seeing it as one giant thing that stood between me and the rest of my life.

Aunt Jean was right—a shovel was the only tool for this job. Thanks to Mom's “collecting,” we happened to have several out by the shed in the back. I dragged the green trash can into the house and set it up with a bag in a small, clear spot on the living room floor.

Even though I knew Mom was gone, it was hard to really believe she wasn't going to burst through the front door and start screaming at me for touching her stuff. She wasn't going to tell me that I never helped her and that she worked too hard to have time for stupid things like cleaning the house. I jammed the stuff as far down into the plastic bags as I could, poking and punching at the clothes, papers, and scraps of fabric she valued more than she valued any of us.

Before I realized it, I had four bags full of junk that needed to go outside. Four was about the upper limit for the number of bags I could stack around the recliner before they took up all available space. When I checked out the peephole in the front door, there was an old couple slowly shuffling down the street. I tried to think about how many trips I'd taken to the backyard today. It had to be at least eight or nine. In an hour or two, people were going to start coming home from work, and the street was going to get a lot busier.

I stepped away from the door and tried to figure out another way to get this done. The hallway was still too cluttered to drag bags or boxes through, but if I continued to cart things out the front door and around the side of the house, people might get suspicious. It was getting colder in the living room, so I grabbed my jacket off the door and put it back on while I thought. Leaving the windows open in the back of the house was going to be good for keeping Mom . . . cold, but I was going to freeze in here tonight.

The windows. That was it. I grabbed one of the bags and dragged it through the living room and into the dining room. The window in that room was blocked by a small pile of boxes and bags that reached just past the windowsill. I didn't bother clearing any of it away, but just stood on top of the pile and undid the latch. Like the rest of the house, the windows were old, and this one probably hadn't been opened in years. Part of it was held shut with paint, but I banged on the top of the frame until it began to inch up little by little.

When I finally had the window opened wide enough, I stuck my head out to see what was down below. There were a few old plastic milk crates stacked against the house, but other than that it was clear. I balanced the full garbage bag on the ledge and, with a shove, sent it flying out the window where it bounced off a crate and settled onto the ground. This was the perfect solution. Not only would it save me from having to haul all this stuff out the front door for the world to see, but I could keep everything right here on the side of the house until they took Mom away.

Now it was like my body was on autopilot. All my energy was concentrated into grabbing whatever was on top of the closest stack and shoving it as far down into the trash bag as it would go. Grab a handful, shove it in the bag. Grab another handful, shove it in the bag. Bag after bag, pile after pile. I felt like I was finally making progress.

Halfway down one pile, I found what at first looked to be a large box covered with a hot pink towel. When I hit it with the back of my hand, it sounded like metal clanging together, and I realized it wasn't a box. I could see ridges under the towel that made it lie in waves along the top. Even before I pulled the towel off, the faint smell of cedar chips told me what it was and made me a little sad all over again.

I hadn't seen the hamster cage since ninth grade.

“Make sure you feed him this week,” I said to Mom as I set Petey's cage down in a cleared spot on the kitchen counter. “He likes sunflower seeds and these green pellets. Also, little bits of apple and peanuts at night.” Petey was curled up in a ball on his mound of cedar shavings. Every morning, he'd spend hours getting the mound just right so he could turn around three times and snuggle into it with just one ear showing.

“He eats better than I do,” Mom said, peering over the top of the cage. She poked a finger in through the bars and wiggled it around. “Here, Petey Petey.”

“He doesn't like it when you do that,” I said to her. I was already annoyed. She never made anything easy.

“How do you know what he likes?” she asked. She waggled her finger at him one more time. “Since when did you start speaking hamster?”

“It scares him,” I said. “Look, he's curling up tighter and digging in the shavings. That means he's scared.”

“Maybe you don't handle him enough,” she said. “Otherwise he wouldn't be such a scaredy-hamster.” She pulled her finger out of the cage and stood up straight to look at me.

“Don't pick him up while I'm gone, okay? It's only two weeks—he'll be fine. Just feed him twice a day and make sure he has enough water in the bottle. I'll clean the cage when I get back.” I wished I could take him with me to camp, but it would be hard to explain to the other junior counselors why I couldn't leave him at home. All Mom had to do was shove some food in his cage, and with it sitting in the middle of the kitchen, there was no way she could forget. I just kept telling myself he'd be fine.