Keeping You a Secret (8 page)

“Holland,” Mom called down the stairs. “You have company.”

Cece? Could it be?

I took the stairs two at a time and rushed into the living room. “Leah. Hi.” Of course it wasn’t Cece. She didn’t know where I lived. Leah sat on the edge of the recliner, bouncing Hannah in her lap.

“I can’t believe how big she is.” Leah spread Hannah’s arms apart and played pat-a-cake. “It’s only been a few weeks since I’ve seen her, hasn’t it?” she asked Mom, who was folding baby clothes next to Neal on the sofa. Some stupid reality show on TV had a fat guy fastening a bungee belt around his middle. “I was just here over Christmas,” Leah said.

“They grow up fast.” Mom smiled at me. “Too fast.”

“No kidding,” Leah said. “Her hair’s gotten darker. Plus, she’s put on like twenty pounds.”

“Ten of that is the dump in her diapers.” I fanned the air. “Whew, Hannie. A little too much mashed banana.”

Mom tossed me a Huggies.

“I’ll do it.” Leah held out a hand and I passed her the diaper. I’d known Leah practically my whole life and could tell something was up. She wasn’t crazy about babies, since she had three bratty little brothers. She rarely dropped by in the evening when we were in school. She worked and I worked, or I had practice, or I had Seth. A wave of guilt washed over me. I never had found time for a real heart-to-heart with Leah.

I was going to say, Bring Hannah to my room, but Leah laid her out on the rug to change her. The dryer buzzed downstairs. Mom slapped Neal’s leg and said, “Come on, honey. Be a good role model and help me with the laundry.”

“Now?” Neal whined. “But he’s going to jump off the cliff.”

“Holland will let you know if he lives.” Mom scooped Hannah off the floor.

Thank you, I mouthed as she passed by. Neal traipsed after her, grumbling.

I curled cross-legged on the floor next to Leah. “What’s up?”

She exhaled a long breath. “Conner broke up with me.”

“Oh, my God,” I gasped. I scrabbled to my knees and threw my arms around Leah, expecting her to disintegrate it tears, suffer an emotional meltdown, implode. She didn’t. Didn’t react at all. I drew back.

“It’s not like I wasn’t expecting it,” she said.

“Were you?” This was news to me. “I thought you were deliriously happy.” That’s what she always said whenever anyone asked. “ ‘We’re deliriously happy. We couldn’t be happier.’”

She fondled her ring finger, which was now empty. “Things were sort of weird over Christmas. Even before that, he hadn’t been e-mailing me as often. Or calling. I think he really wanted to break up before Christmas, but he didn’t have the heart.”

“The balls, you mean.” I shook my head. “God, Leah. You never told me there was anything wrong.”

She met my eyes. “I was hoping it was just me. You know how I am. If anyone’s even in a bad mood, I figure it’s something I did or said.”

I rubbed her arm. “What did he say exactly?”

“Exactly?” She tilted her head at an odd angle. “His exact words were, ‘I’m setting you free.’”

Oh, no. That could only mean…

“Obviously he’s met someone else.” Leah’s head dropped.

“Bastard. I never did like him.”

Leah let out a short laugh. “That’s what my mom said. Not that I told her first; she was just standing there when he called tonight. You’re the first one I’ve told.”

Whatever difference that made. “Your mom’s right. The guy’s a prick.”

“Yesterday, he was God’s gift. Today he’s a prick.”

“Leah –”

“It’s okay. I understand.” She scooped up a rubber ducky from the floor and squeezed it. “It’s for the best, really. It never would’ve lasted. We don’t have the same thing you and Seth do. The fire, you know? The passion.” She smiled at me.

The Passion. Right. Screams blasted from the TV and I remoted it off. “So, what are you going to do? Next year, I mean. You were so psyched about Americorps.”

“Only because
he
was.” Leah set the duck atop a box of baby wipes. “I don’t know. Remember how you and me and Kirsten always talked about getting an apartment together after high school? Going to the same college? That was our dream.”

Yeah, a hundred years ago. The apartment still sounded like fun.

“Kirs has been talking about Western State. Her cousin goes there and he really likes it. Maybe I’ll apply with her.” Leah pushed to her feet and wandered over to the picture window. Drawing the sheers, she gazed out into the night and added, “Kirsten’s going to shit a brick when she hears about Connor.” Leah twisted her head around to look at me. “Maybe not. She was more in love with him than I was, I think.”

“Kirsten was in love with his money,” I muttered. “But then, so was I.”

“So was I,” Leah said. We both cracked up. She released the curtains and turned, folding her arms around herself. “It was nice to dress up and go out. All those society dances and fund-raisers his mother was involved in…”

“Don’t forget the flowers and candy and crap.”

“That too.” Her eyes shone. The light extinguished when she added, “But sometimes he made me feel like he was buying me. Like, for instance, he always let me know exactly how much he’d spent, so I’d feel obligated to –” She stopped.

My jaw unhinged. “Have sex with him?”

“No,” she said quickly. “No, it wasn’t like that. He never forced me or anything. I probably just imagined it.” She shook her head. “I’m mad at him, that’s all.”

“Leah, if you felt that way, it was real. You have every right to be pissed. Come on.”

Her face changed. “You’re right. Especially if he’s been cheating on me.”

“Oh, Leah.” I wanted to hold her. Comfort her. I knew her well enough to know she was devastated. She’d made all these plans; rearranged her life around him. Before I could get up and got to her, she lowered herself to the sofa and bent over, elbows on knees. “What are you doing next your?” she asked. “Going to college with Seth, probably, huh? You couldn’t talk him into Western State, could you?”

Mom bustled into the room. “You can’t be serious,” she said.

How long had she been standing there, listening? I hated when she did that.

Settling Hannah into her baby seat beside me, Mom said, “You girls need bigger dreams. There’s no way Holland’s going to a state school. I know Seth wouldn’t dream of it. And you shouldn’t either, Leah. It’d be a waste of your talent.”

“Unless, of course, your talent is human waste,” I murmured.

Mom looked at me. I looked at her back. How did she know what Seth dreamed of?

Leah said to me, “Have you decided? Seth was asking me yesterday if you’d said anything.”

“Jesus.” I shot to my feet. “Why doesn’t everybody just get off my back.” I stormed into the kitchen, almost colliding with Neal. We side-stepped each other, being careful not to touch. As I wrenched open the refrigerator and grabbed the milk carton, I sensed Leah behind me. She Said, “I’m Sorry, Holland. I didn’t know it was a sore subject.”

I took a slug of milk, set the carton back in the fridge, then plastered on my don’t-worry-about-it smile. “I haven’t decided, okay? Seth assumes I want to go with him, but I don’t know what I want.”

“Okay,” Leah said. “No pressure.”

No pressure. Right. So why was I on the verge of explosion?

“You want to come with me to tell Kirsten about Connor?” Leah said. “We shouldn’t leave her out. You know how she gets.

I didn’t really want to go. It was late, I didn’t feel well. “Sure. Let me get my shoes.” I padded over and gave Leah a hug. What are friends for?

***

Thursday Cece reappeared, huddling in front of her locker with her coffee and donuts and earphones, the baseball cap on her head. She wore a T-shirt that screamed: OUT! AND PROUD!

I was so glad to see her, the hall lights grew brighter.

Her eyes were closed, but she blinked up at my approach. Hi, I mouthed.

She removed the earphones. Leaning forward a little, she reached around and shut her locker door.

I dropped my duffel. “Oh, my God.” Both hands rose to cover my mouth. “My God.” Someone had spray-painted down the length of her locker: DIE DYKE.

“Not terribly artistic, were they?” Cece cocked her head upward. “I mean, the letters all run together. There’s no style at all. Really amateurish. Not to mention extremely unoriginal.”

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak. Didn’t realize tears were streaming down my face until Cece shouted, “Don’t!” She rushed across the hall and pinned me against my locker. “Don’t cry. Don’t you let them see us cry.” Her eyes pooled with tears. She retreated and gathered her stuff.

I stood frozen, stunned. Her words echoed in my ears: Us? What did she mean by us? She was fleeing down the hall.

I gaped at her locker. How could they? Anger burbled up from my core. How
could
they?

I found out soon enough she wasn’t the only one targeted. Brandi’s locker had the same massage, and three guys got the more obscene FAGS FUCK OFF.

It spurred a hurried assembly. Mr. Reynardi threatened the entire student body with legal action for what he called “this deliberate act of vandalism, this marring of school property, this criminal mischief.”

Criminal mischief? He made it sound like a stupid prank. What about destruction of people’s lives? What about destroying their trust in others?

Reynardi ranted on and on about prosecuting to the fullest extent of the law, blah, blah, blah. He wanted names and he wanted them now.

Get real. Like someone’s going to stand up and confess? Rat out their friends?

After the assembly I was so irate, I stormed to my locker. Cece was there. The others who’d been tagged were hanging out at her locker, too. One of the guys had a videocam and was shooting a tape of Cece, as if she were starring in a silent movie – making the discovery of the hateful message, tearing her hair out. She was funny. Made me want to laugh. I couldn’t laugh. I felt too angry, too numb. I heard her ask for a copy of the tape because it’d make great PA.

What’s PA? I wondered.

I was so intent on watching her – them – that I didn’t notice the crowd forming. A dozen or so people had circled around and were closing in on Cece and the others. The guy with the videocam lowered it slowly. There was this prolonged moment of silence, tension so thick you could taste it. Oh, my God, I thought. It’s a lynch mob. They’ve come to finish the job. Say something, my brain commanded. Speak up.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry this happened to you,” a voice carried in from the rear. I recognized it. “I hope you don’t think we’re all this way,” Leah said.

There was a general murmur of agreement. Cece and the others didn’t respond. Most of them cowered against the lockers, looking freaked. They looked to Cece for direction. She clapped once and said, “Okay, let’s get this on film. You guys can be extras. I want to see moral outrage here, and fury. Like this.” She shook a fist at the crowd to demonstrate. “Anyone got a beer? We could do foaming at the mouth.”

Laughter filtered through the crowd.

Cece cued the camera, and the extras really got into it, hamming it up and acting out. Across the hall, Cece’s eyes found mine. They spoke the truth; she wasn’t enjoying this. She was humiliated. Hurt. Afraid. Her fear was so palpable it made my blood curdle. I wanted to find whoever had done this to her and kill them.

“Did you finish your essays on those two applications?” Mom asked at dinner. “They have to go out next week.”

“Yes,” I said.

Mom eyed me. Cece was right, I was a terrible liar. “I’ll do them tomorrow.”

“You keep saying that.” Mom passed the bowl of creamed corn to Neal. “You’re running out of tomorrows.”

Running out of tomorrows, I repeated to myself in my room, sprawling across my bed to begin another midnight marathon of homework. Sometimes I felt as if there were no tomorrows, that everything, my whole life, was crammed into one long day. A continuous stretch of meaningless time. Sometimes I even wished there was no tomorrow, if this was all I had to look forward to.

I opened my econ text, then shut it. I scrounged in my pack for my sketchbook instead. So far it included a full-page, cross-hatched drawing of Cece’s head, a side shot of her ear, a drawing of her right hand on the art table with the assortment of rings she always wore. I wasn’t close enough to get details of the patterns in the rings.

On the next page was a picture of the light switch – wow, that was exciting. I flipped to a blank page. With a half-moon shadow from my study lamp, the basement rafters would make a stunning still-life. Ugh. I needed inspiration. What was it Mackel said? “Let it come. Don’t force it. Just free-draw.” Which, to me, meant free fall. It was at time like this I wished I did drugs.

Okay. I got up and searched through my CDs. Didn’t get too far. I cranked up the volume on Dixie Chicks and lay back, closing my eyes, to “let it come.”

What came was her. The way one side of her mouth cricked up a little higher than the other when she smiled. That freckle, or mole, right above her lip. The sparkle in her eyes, the warmth. The fire, too, when she was pissed. Her skin, how it seemed to glow. I positioned my pencil and began to transfer the image of her from my mind to paper.

The CD ended and I focused on what I’d drawn. Her head, sporting a baseball cap, not a bad likeness. Her face was wrong, though. Out of symmetry. I could see her so clearly in my mind’s eye, hear her laughing. That sound, the music in her voice.

The sensation was stirring. It aroused me in a was… almost as if…

As if I was falling for her.

Okay, that didn’t shock me. I’d had crushes on girls before. I mean, who hadn’t? I’d see a girl in the mall or at swim meets and think, Wow, would I ever like to meet
her
. I wouldn’t act on the impulse or anything. I’d stop myself.

That’s what it was with Cece. An innocent crush. I admired her. She was strong, self-confident. So damn cool. Attractive in a way only another girl would see.

What
did
I see? I didn’t know exactly. Couldn’t capture it on paper. It – she – wouldn’t stay still.

I lay the sketchbook aside and scrambled to my feet, ejecting the CD and tossing it in my bag. At the top of the stairs, I ran into Mom and Neal in the kitchen, necking. “Ooh, caught ya,” I said, waggling an accusatory finger.