Betsy Wickwire's Dirty Secret

by Vicki Grant

  But the real kicker was Nick’s green hoodie. I’d seen it months ago in Carly’s bedroom.

  Her bedroom.

  What kind of crazy mind games did I have to play to convince myself that that was a-okay?

  Carly said I must have borrowed it and left it there myself, but I knew that wasn’t true. It seemed weird even at the time. So why hadn’t I suspected anything?

  God had been looking out for me then. He’d left that hoodie there as proof—as irrefutable evidence —but I just refused to see it for what it was.

  Now, of course, I couldn’t stop seeing it. I kept picturing it on Carly’s floor and just the way it lay there—all unzipped and sprawling—practically killed me. I kept imagining Nick throwing it off, Carly pulling it off him, everyone pulling everything off, and I felt like such a moron. How could I have been so naive?

  The elevator opened on the twelfth floor. Long seconds passed. No one got on. I looked up. I was worried someone would be standing there, staring at me, but, other than a dusty fake tree in a plastic pot, the hall was empty.

  That’s when it hit me.

  The multiplex.

  I had to slap my hand over my mouth to keep from sobbing. Carly.

  I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t want to breathe.

  Standing beside that fake tree. Whispering in his ear. Her perfect little hand lined up against his perfect dark whiskers. The smile just starting to bloom on his face.

  I’d run into the theatre lobby late because I’d been working. Nick and Carly had both been off that day.

  They’d spent it together.

  My heart slammed head first into my chest.

  They must have spent it together!

  I suddenly knew why Carly kept agreeing to trade shifts with people. She wasn’t helping them out. She wasn’t being sweet, bubbly, everybody’s-little-best-friend Carly. She was helping herself. As long as I was busy working and they weren’t, she and Nick could be busy doing other things.

  My teeth started chattering. The elevator door slid shut.

  Not this again.

  It’s the little stuff that always sets you off. You think you’re okay. You think you’re almost handling it. Then you see a fake tree or hear the first three notes of “Nowhere with You” or catch a whiff of Crest Midnight Mint on someone’s breath and you just lose it. And all because, once, you saw them whispering by a fake tree. Or danced to that song with him. Or tasted Midnight Mint when he kissed you.

  And realize that’s what she’s tasting now.

  Next thing you know, you’re heaving and gulping like you’re drowning. You can’t even pretend you’re okay any more. Your mother has a doctor’s appointment set up before you’ve even uncurled your toes.

  I slumped against the metal rail on the elevator wall and tried to shake all that out of my head but it didn’t do any good. Toothpaste, plastic trees, banana muffins, white T-shirts, whiskers, hands, feet, water, air—pretty much everything made me think of Nick and/or Carly. Nothing had been spared. These days, even my good memories had turned to crap.

  Anything I’d ever seen them do or not do was suspicious to me now. Everything was either proof that they were in love and couldn’t hide it or proof that they were in love and had to hide it.

  The elevator started to move. I threw myself on the stop button. What if someone got on and saw me like this?

  That was almost the worst part of this whole thing. In my room, alone, it wasn’t so bad. Even when I was sobbing, it was sort of bearable. It was only pain. But the thought of other people seeing me? People talking about me? People knowing? It felt like someone had my heart in their hand and was squishing it through their fingers.

  I leaned my face against the cold, metal wall. The cramp eventually went away, but the thought didn’t. Everyone must have known all along.

  That’s why everyone was always laughing. Mrs. Rubin outside the auditorium when I asked her if she’d seen Carly. Kirsten MacMillan and Sarah Giacamantonio going, “Oh, nothing!” The guys from Nick’s hockey team collapsing on top of each other. Suzy Crocker in the cafeteria with blue Gatorade spraying out her nose.

  How was I ever going to be able to show my face again?

  And now Mom wanted me to tell the doctor about it too. Let another person in on the joke? That was going to help? It was like handing people cream pies to smush in my face.

  I’d gotten in the car this morning planning to skip the appointment. I had figured I’d just wait in the Medical Arts Building until a reasonable amount of time had passed, then I could go home acting like I was more or less cured. I figured that would take the heat off for a while.

  But standing here, counting up all the people who knew about Nick and Carly, or were just hearing about it now, or were bound to find out about it sooner or later, I realized that skipping a doctor’s appointment wouldn’t be enough. I needed to do more than that.

  I needed to escape.

  Chapter 4

  Just making that decision did it. I immediately felt better. I could even see the difference in my wavy reflection on the elevator door. I was still scrawny and mauve, but I didn’t look quite so much like a crack addict any more. There were signs of life behind the purple circles now.

  I’d always liked challenges. I was the type of person who just needed to set a goal, then I was like a dog with a bone. Nothing could stop me. That’s how I’d made the varsity basketball team in Grade 10. That’s how I’d finally mastered le conditionnel passé. That’s how I was going to escape this nightmare.

  I squared my shoulders and took a breath. I could do this. I just needed to get away from Halifax—get away from Nick and Carly and everyone who knew them or me or us —then I’d be fine. I had to go somewhere new where I could start from scratch.

  I felt a thud in my chest as if someone had hit me with a medicine ball.

  University. Oh my god. I hadn’t even thought about university. Nick and Carly and I were all supposed to be going to McGill in the fall.

  A gruesome picture of them writhing on the campus lawn popped into my head and I knew there was no way I could spend four years in Montreal with them slobbering over each other. For a second, it was like my spine melted—then I thought, No. Forget about McGill.

  I made myself breathe and just concentrated on being realistic. McGill was not happening. In fact, I couldn’t see myself going to any university, at least not in the condition I was now. There was no room in my brain for school.

  I had to get out of town. That’s all I could think of.

  But how? Last time I’d looked, I had about $212 in my bank account. That wouldn’t get me far. I squinted at nothing in particular and tried to think this through.

  I thought of hitting Mom and Dad up for cash but trashed that idea pretty fast. They’d shit if they thought I wasn’t going to McGill. Hell, they’d shit if they suspected I was leaving town.

  They couldn’t even know I was thinking about it.

  I needed a job.

  A flashback of Nick and Carly in the kitchen got me right under the ribs, but I tried my best to ignore it. My exit from Jitters hadn’t been stellar but I figured the manager would understand. He’d give me a good reference. I’m a good worker.

  I smoothed down my hair. I am. That much was true. I leaned in close and looked at my reflection again. I’d pluck my eyebrows as soon as I got home, then start looking for a job. I pressed the Lobby button and felt like I was hitting “Go!”

  The elevator stopped at 8 again and two ladies got on. One said, “Good Lord. I thought you’d never come back.”

  I smiled like stoopid elevator. They stood with their backs to me and started talking as if I wasn’t even there.

  The other lady said, “No really, Cheryl. Twenty bucks an hour? Are you crazy?”

  “That’s what you pay a cleaning lady these days.”

  Twenty bucks. My ears perked up. That’s twice what I’d been making at Jitters. How hard could it be to clean a house?

  “
Is it worth it?”

  “Nancy, please. It’s absolutely worth it!” Cheryl laughed. “I leave a pigsty in the morning and come back after work to a spotless house. I never even lay eyes on Tonya. It’s heaven.”

  Never lay eyes on Tonya. This was almost too good to be true. A place to hide out for a while and make twenty bucks an hour? This couldn’t have just been a coincidence. Someone was smiling down on me from somewhere.

  I thanked the ladies — I’m sure they had no idea why — and got off the elevator. Sun streamed into the lobby. I was suddenly, surprisingly, starved.

  I hadn’t had an appetite in so long that I’d more or less assumed I’d just stopped getting hungry, that I’d outgrown it. I hadn’t missed it any more than I missed my baby teeth. But now it felt good, the way a back rub that kind of hurts or brushing your hair with wire bristles feels good. It reminded me I was alive.

  There was a Tim Hortons right across the street from the Medical Arts Building. Saliva bubbled up around my tongue.

  A turkey club on a toasted whole-wheat roll. Iced tea. And a chocolate macadamia-nut cookie.

  No. Screw it. I hadn’t eaten in over a week. Two chocolate macadamia-nut cookies.

  Then I thought, You crazy? Everyone I knew went to Tim Hortons. Another flashback, this time of Carly stealing the last bite of Nick’s sandwich, licking her fingers, winking.

  I shook it out of my head. No more turkey clubs for me. I needed to find somewhere else to eat.

  A rusted-out Volvo pulled up in front of the Medical Arts Building and I remembered this dark, dingy sort of “alternative” café I’d been to once. It wasn’t that far from here but it was definitely off the beaten track. What was it called again? Poppies? Geraniums?

  I could picture the big yellow and orange flower scrawled on the sign. Mom’s half-sister had insisted we try it when she’d stopped in Halifax on her way home from Nepal. Aunt Brenda was exactly the type of person who’d hang out at a place like that. People who wore hiking boots and boxy, hand-knit sweaters all year long. Grandparents with scraggly, grey braids and/or beards. Art college students.

  I couldn’t imagine any of my “friends” showing up there. (I actually saw the quotation marks around the word friends.) The smoothie I’d had there was pretty tasty, too, come to think of it. My mouth filled up with saliva again. I turned and headed north.

  I walked the rest of the way lost in logistics. I’d put an ad in Kijiji, that’s what I’d do. I wouldn’t use my own name. I’d check to make sure I only worked for people I didn’t know. It was all so easy. I practically whistled all the way to Agricola Street.

  And then there it was. Zinnia’s. That was the name of the café. The black sandwich board out front had some inspiring quotation written on it in chalk. It seemed like a good omen. I checked the price of smoothies. “Extra large, fresh fruit, all natural, locally sourced yogourt and honey — $4.75.”

  A little on the pricey side but I didn’t care. I’d be making twenty dollars an hour soon. I could splurge, just this once.

  It was cool inside. The walls, the ceiling, the floors were all painted a dark, metallic purple. The room smelled of slightly burnt coffee and something that reminded me of my grandmother. The bowl of dried flowers in Granny’s downstairs bathroom.

  Granny “adored” Nick.

  I felt a little stab of panic—was this going to turn into another toothpaste/fake-tree moment? —but it passed. I was fine. I had a focus now and it wasn’t Nick. It was getting a life—and that smoothie.

  The girl behind the counter had numerous facial piercings and long hempy dreadlocks. She smiled at me blankly. She had no idea who I was. I ordered the five-fruit smoothie and sat down to drink it in a cracked black booth at the back of the café.

  It was delicious. Tart and sweet and just thick enough that I had to work a bit to suck it up the straw.

  Hard to believe anything that colour could be all-natural. Is fuchsia found in nature?

  I couldn’t think of any fuchsia fruit.

  Was that a weird thing to even think about?

  I didn’t know. That was another thing that had happened to me in the last week or so. I kind of lost my sense of normal. Somehow, things used to be so much clearer to me before I’d seen Nick leaning in to Carly with that look on his face.

  That made me wonder if I’d have to worry about creeps and sexual deviants answering my Kijiji ad.

  I made figure-eights in the smoothie with my straw and kind of laughed. Ten days ago, thinking about dealing with deviants would have scared me or grossed me out or at least given me something to joke about with my friends. Now it just seemed like a consideration. Which bus to take there. How much to charge. Whether I’d have to defend myself against perverts.

  I lifted the straw to lick it. A long, shredded-wheat-coloured hair coiled around the end and drooped back into the glass.

  My stomach heaved. There was nothing I hated more than random, unattached hairs. Hair in my food. Hair on the floor. Even one of my own hairs stuck to the sink always made me bolt out of the bathroom, screaming.

  Oh my god. What was I thinking? I’d never be able to clean houses.

  This picture of a damp little nest of hair tucked in the corner of someone else’s shower popped into my head. I pushed the smoothie across the table and turned my face to the wall.

  Revulsion, depression, hopelessness—all that stuff—

  came over me like a wave of motion sickness. I cupped a hand across my mouth and stared at the shiny purple paint, hoping it would make me think of something else. Anything else.

  “Betsy?”

  I turned at the sound of my name. It was a simple reflex, but it was about to make my life very complicated.

  Chapter 5

  A short green-haired girl wearing enormous black-rimmed glasses and a little kid’s Teletubbies T-shirt was standing beside the booth. She scratched her ribs and said, “What are you doing here?” I had no idea who this girl was. She said, “You don’t remember me, do you?” I tried to smile. “Yeah. Yeah. I do. You’re …” There was something vaguely familiar about her, now that I got a good look. I just couldn’t place her.

  She closed one eye and shook her head. “No, you don’t. I’m Meghan Morris. You know, from Grade 10 drama?” She slipped into the booth across from me. “Least I used to be when my hair was, like, you know, beige. I’m Dolores now. Mother doesn’t care for the name—but too frig-gin’ bad, eh? What do you think? Dolores Morris. Doris Dolores Morris. Don’t you just love the way it trips off the tongue?”

  Was she trying to be weird?

  I had no idea what to say. I moved my lips a few times but never really got started on an answer.

  Dolores/Meghan/Whatever didn’t seem to care, or even notice. She picked up my napkin, licked it and started wiping something sticky off the table.

  “No, seriously, I mean it,” she said. “What are you doing here? Zinnia’s isn’t the type of place you’d normally find the—dot, dot, dot —’popular kids.’”

  She stopped wiping the table and looked at me as if she actually expected an answer.

  “Well. I was just, I don’t know, hungry so I …”

  Dolores slid the smoothie toward me. It felt like she’d aimed a blowtorch at face. I had to turn away.

  “How come you’re not drinking it, then? Too ‘granola’ for you or something?”

  I managed to shrug.

  Dolores said, “Oh, no. Don’t tell me. Hold on …” She stuck her nose deep into the glass, sniffed, then slumped back in the booth with her hand on her heart as if she’d just averted a major disaster. “Phew! For a second there, I was worried you’d ordered the Power Smoothie. Big mistake. They put kelp in it. Seriously. A seaweed smoothie. Like, ugh, gross.” She sat up and took another sniff. “But this one smells okay. Not too fishy or anything … So you just, like, savouring it or something?”

  I couldn’t bring myself to mention the hair. “No. Just not as hungry as I thought, I guess.” I ho
ped that would put an end to the smoothie discussion.

  “Really? Geez. Well, I’ll take it, then.” She didn’t wait to see if that was okay. She wrapped her lips around my straw and took a big slurp.

  My brain gagged. There was no way I’d ever have just taken somebody else’s smoothie. No way I’d ever have used somebody else’s straw. Especially somebody I barely knew.

  Dolores swung her tongue around her lips and groaned pornographically. “Food is definitely love. Don’t let anyone tell you different.”

  She picked up the straw and started to lick it. The hair was still there but now a mushy hunk of strawberry hung off the end.

  A clot.

  I wished I hadn’t thought of that.

  A clot of strawberry.

  My shoulders curled forward. I was definitely going to hurl if Dolores put that in her mouth.

  “Hair.” I said it quickly, keeping my teeth together, just in case.

  “Hunh?”

  I wagged my finger at it.

  Dolores held up the straw and tilted her head as if she was checking the underside of a car. “Oh.” She slid her fingers down the hair and the clot plopped back into the smoothie. “Wow. The hair’s as long as my arm. Look!”

  I couldn’t.

  “Oh. Does this bother you?”

  I turned my face to the wall and nodded. Even Carly knew better than to joke about something like this.

  “You’re kidding. It’s only a hair.” I heard her take another long slurp. “I mean, a head hair. I could understand if it was a body hair or something. Like, if I found evidence that, say, somebody’s armpit—or, you know, whatever—had been dangling over my smoothie, I’d definitely have second thoughts but …”

  I wouldn’t normally be rude but I had to stop this. “Could we talk about something else please?”

  Dolores didn’t seem the least bit offended. “Sure.

  What?”

  I shrugged like you decide. All I really wanted to do was leave but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.