Lay It on My Heart

by Angela Pneuman

  The next girl called has very poor jumps, compared to Kelly-Lynn. She barely gets her feet under her when she lands, and when she tries to flip across the gym floor, after her name is called, she manages four cartwheels and then tumbles right out of her round-off. If this girl made the team, Kelly-Lynn must surely have made it, but she’s not among the three girls who are called next. Under the goal, Kelly-Lynn jumps nervously, like the gym floor is heating up beneath her feet. When only one spot remains to be filled, all the girls except for Kelly-Lynn grasp each other’s hands. Kelly-Lynn closes her eyes. “Rachel Wood,” says Mrs. Perry, and Rachel Wood screams and runs down the gym floor forgetting all about how she’s supposed to show off her gymnastics.

  Mrs. Perry has more to say. Congratulatory words. Consoling words. But Kelly-Lynn’s not waiting around. She’s making her way up the bleachers to where I’m sitting, her face as still as ever. It’s not until she reaches me that I can see her mouth is trembling.

  “You were way better than those other girls,” I say as she sits down.

  “I knew it wasn’t going to happen,” she says.

  “But they couldn’t even do the standing back tuck.”

  She motions me to lean in close so she can whisper something, and from behind us a boy says, “The lesbians are telling secrets.”

  “Shut up,” says Kelly-Lynn. “We’re not lesbians.”

  “Ask Ronnie Rietz,” says the boy.

  Kelly-Lynn’s neck begins to turn red and splotchy. I follow her gaze to a tall blond boy down on the first bleacher, surrounded by kids, including Theresa. Kelly-Lynn raises her hand for a teacher, and Mr. Rodriguez, who teaches shop, steps down from his lookout a few bleachers behind us.

  I expect her to report the comment, but all she says to Mr. Rodriguez is “Can I go to the bathroom?” Then she crooks her finger at him, and when he leans in she tells him she’s having monthly issues.

  Mr. Rodriguez sighs and takes out his small pad of hall passes.

  “She’s having monthly issues, too,” Kelly-Lynn says about me, and even though this will be true again soon enough, it is not true now, and it is nothing I would share. My face burns as Mr. Rodriguez tears off two passes.

  We climb down the bleachers and head for the doors at the far end of the auditorium, passing near enough Ronnie Rietz that I hear one of his friends say, “Lesbian,” before they bust themselves up laughing.

  “Keep walking,” Kelly-Lynn says through her teeth.

  By the time the metal doors clang shut behind us, we’re almost halfway down the hall to the bathroom, Kelly-Lynn dragging me behind her. Inside, I follow her into the handicapped stall. It smells strongly of cigarettes, and down the length of the door someone has drawn a huge cartoon penis with Magic Marker. Kelly-Lynn wipes off the toilet seat with toilet paper and then sits on it, fully clothed. “Ronnie Rietz is an asshole,” she says. Her mascara is running a little underneath her left eye, and I tear off more toilet paper and hand it to her. “There was this party at his house, after cheer tryouts. You should see where he lives. Behind that horse farm? With all the buildings painted white and red? And Theresa was there, and everyone said ‘Hey,’ and we drank beer and watched television until more people came, then someone put on music and we danced. It was a party, you know, just regular.”

  I have seen a party like that once, in a movie at church about the dangers of drinking. As the night went on, the camera grew more and more shaky, to indicate drunkenness.

  “So then the girls all sneak off to fix their makeup and it’s just me and some guys, and one of them tells me that Ronnie Rietz wants to talk to me. So I follow them upstairs to where Ronnie’s in his dad’s office, sitting behind the desk. Then it’s just the two of us, and he starts talking about how none of the girls want to be my friend because I’m so pretty.”

  “You are pretty,” I say. Even right there, with her makeup a mess from crying, it’s true; she’s still pretty.

  “Thanks,” she says. “You might be pretty, too, once your hair grows out. Anyway, I don’t say anything back. He’s just like every other boy. You want them to talk to you so bad, because you think it’s going to be so great, but it never is. He says the girls think I lie a lot. Which I don’t that much. I tell the truth a lot, too.

  “So then Theresa walks in with that Mindy girl. And even though Ronnie’s been doing all the talking, he tells Theresa that I have been begging him to let me suck his dick so I can figure out if I really am a lesbian.”

  My mouth drops open.

  “I know,” Kelly-Lynn says. “Theresa starts laughing, but that Mindy girl says, ‘I believe it,’ and then they all just look at me and I run out of the room. And no one at the party knew what was going on, but I knew they would soon, and I wasn’t getting picked up until eleven o’clock. So I go out the kitchen door and hide in a bush and wait.”

  “What did your mom do?”

  “My aunt,” Kelly-Lynn says. “Rob took my mom to rehab. Again. And I would never tell Aunt Sheila because she’d probably call Ronnie Rietz’s parents. Telling her would be social suicide. Not that I’m ever going to be popular anyway.”

  “Maybe it’s not as great as you think it would be,” I say. “Like talking to boys.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I’m sorry that happened,” I say. And I am. We both look at the floor, with its tiny, square yellow tiles and gummy grout. “Something weird happened to me too,” I hear myself say, as if what I have to share might make her feel better. I reach into the butt purse for the photos.

  Like me, it takes Kelly-Lynn a moment to figure out what she’s looking at. “These are real?” she says. “These are like Faces of Death. Have you seen Faces of Death?”

  “No.”

  Kelly-Lynn studies the woman on the table for a long time, then hands the pictures back to me with a sour face. “Where did you get these?”

  “Seth.”

  “Your boyfriend?”

  “Sort of,” I say. “They keep him from lusting.”

  “They what?” She blinks at me like I’m nuts. “How?” Someone enters the bathroom, and Kelly-Lynn draws her feet up onto the toilet so that if anyone looks they will think only one person is in the stall. We listen as the girl pees and flushes. “You can’t have these in school,” Kelly-Lynn whispers as the girl’s washing her hands. “Not even in your purse.”

  “I didn’t know where else to keep them.” I take the photo with the thumb and give it one more hard look. Then I tear it in half. Then I tear the halves in half, and I keep going until it’s in little pieces that I drop into the toilet, where they form a crust on top of the water.

  Kelly-Lynn presses the lever, and the toilet gives a half-hearted swirl. The crust lowers, rotates, but remains intact. I try it again, holding down the handle, and even though the second flush is more enthusiastic, photo pieces pop back up as the bowl refills.

  Kelly-Lynn pulls a purple lighter out of her purse. “My mother’s,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I’m trying to make her quit. I’m sure she’s smoking like a chimney in rehab anyway.” We square off on either side of the toilet. She flicks the lighter, and I let it lick at the corners of the remaining three pictures, which start to smoke. At the last second I save the one of the woman on the table and dip the corner of it into the toilet to put out the flame. Kelly-Lynn just raises her eyebrows. We watch the rest of the pictures burn. When the heat comes too close to my fingers, I drop it all into the toilet, and as the bell rings, Kelly-Lynn flushes again, holding down the lever until the first girls start entering the bathroom. This time everything disappears from the bowl. I tuck the picture of the woman, now with charred edges, back into the butt purse.

  “Smokey,” someone says from in front of the sinks. Then it falls quiet, teacher quiet, and when Kelly-Lynn and I push open the stall door, Mrs. Teaderman is waiting by the paper towel dispenser with her arms crossed.

  “I am not surprised by the smoking,” she says, “because it is unfortunately very comm
on in this county. I am surprised, however, at two smart girls like you. Follow me, please.”

  “We weren’t smoking,” I say.

  “Take it up with Principal Conrad,” Mrs. Teaderman says. “Charmaine, especially. I find this very hard to comprehend.”

  In front of class Mrs. Teaderman seems graceful enough, but in the hallway she walks like a giraffe, leading with her knees and landing on her toes. Daze would say she walks like her feet hurt, which is something no woman should let on. Even so, Mrs. Teaderman is hard to keep up with. Kelly-Lynn nudges my arm. “Tell them you have a family situation,” she whispers.

  Principal Conrad takes Kelly-Lynn inside first, and Mrs. Teaderman goes in, too. In the long moments they’re behind closed doors, I listen to the gentle metallic sliding of the filing cabinet as the secretary slips information into student files. My homeroom teacher says that our student file follows us for the rest of our lives. Like a tattoo on your forehead listing every time you got into trouble. Or marks on your hand reminding you that you’ve forgotten to pray. I start to open my purse for a pen to make another mark on my thumb, but then I remember the picture and keep it closed.

  When Kelly-Lynn comes out, Principal Conrad and Mrs. Teaderman are still talking to her.

  “I will,” Kelly-Lynn is saying. She shows me her calmest face, fully recovered now from the cheerleading disappointment. “Thank you very much, Principal Conrad. Thank you, Missus Teaderman.”

  “No more smoking,” says Mrs. Teaderman. “It’s no way to deal with your problems.”

  “I’m done with smoking for good,” says Kelly-Lynn. She speaks with such resolve that I’m convinced, even though I know she doesn’t smoke in the first place.

  “Charmaine?” Mrs. Teaderman says, and I stand and make my way into Principal Conrad’s office.

  “Peake,” says Principal Conrad as I sit down. “Peake.” He has my file in front of him on the desk, completely flat. Beside my file, Kelly-Lynn’s file is as thick as a Bible, probably from all her transfers. “I know I know that name. Missus Teaderman?”

  “I found her smoking with Kelly-Lynn.”

  “I wasn’t smoking.”

  “No?” Principal Conrad and Mrs. Teaderman exchange a glance.

  “Was Kelly-Lynn smoking?” Mrs. Teaderman asks.

  I know Kelly-Lynn told them she was smoking, so if I say she wasn’t, which is true, then I sound like a liar. But if I say she was, which isn’t true, then I really am a liar, even though I sound truthful. I shrug.

  “Can’t remember?” says Principal Conrad. “That’s funny, because it just happened.” He’s not speaking in an unfriendly way, just an unyielding way. The dome of his head is a pointed oval, like the top of an egg. “Want to know what she said?”

  “Okay.”

  “Well, Miss Brooker admits she was smoking but says you weren’t. Would you say that’s accurate? Or would you say she’s just trying to be a good friend?”

  “Kind of both,” I say.

  “I don’t understand that answer,” says Principal Conrad, “but if you say you weren’t smoking, and Miss Brooker says you weren’t smoking, then I’m inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt. Just this once. And Miss Brooker has a lot going on at home.”

  “What about you?” Mrs. Teaderman says. “Anything at home we should know about?”

  “No.”

  Mrs. Teaderman frowns at me like she knows better. Like she has read every single DO NOT READ entry in my freewriting journal. All the letters to my father.

  Principal Conrad touches the fingers and thumbs of both his hands together in a sort of triangle, then lowers his head and peers through it. “Charmaine Peake, I’m going to tell you what I tell every young person who ends up in my office.” He smiles briefly at Mrs. Teaderman, who is listening politely, then peers at me again through his hand triangle. “These are some tough years. For everyone. Transition years. Some educators even say these years are the hardest, but I take a different approach. A more realistic approach. I like to suggest to young people that these are the years when they begin to figure out what kinds of problems they’re going to keep right on having for the rest of their lives.”

  It’s the heaviest thing I have ever heard, and it blazes like truth. “Oh,” I say.

  “That’s meant to be useful,” Principal Conrad says. “Not discouraging.” Then he slaps his desk with both hands. “Daisy Peake. I knew I knew you. Custer Peake. Oh, yes. I think I’m getting the picture. Smoking doesn’t fly with your family, I well know.” He turns to Mrs. Teaderman and chuckles. “Daze Peake had it banned from school board meetings years ago. In Rowland County. One-time tobacco capital of Kentucky.”

  Mrs. Teaderman squints thoughtfully at me.

  “Charmaine, I don’t really think this offense warrants a phone call home. But don’t let it happen again. Missus Teaderman?” says Principal Conrad with finality.

  “Principal Conrad,” says Mrs. Teaderman, imitating him exactly, “thank you for your time.”

  “My pleasure,” says Principal Conrad. “And Charmaine, you can tell your grandmother that John Conrad sends his very best.”

  Back in the hallway, Mrs. Teaderman stops me with a long, skinny hand. “You can talk to me, Charmaine, if you ever need to,” she says. “I can be a good listener.”

  “You read my DO NOT READ entries.”

  “I absolutely did not.”

  “I don’t care. Read all the DO NOT READ entries you want.”

  “I didn’t,” Mrs. Teaderman says. “And I won’t. I’d like for you to believe me, but it’s okay if you don’t.”

  We have fallen into awkward step, Mrs. Teaderman trying to match her long legs to mine. The hall stretches on and on, blue lockers on one side and closed classroom doors on the other.

  “Think about what I said,” says Mrs. Teaderman as we reach the same girls’ restroom where it all started. Then she pushes open the door and it swings shut behind her.

  I don’t bother going to the last bit of earth science, my final class of the day. And instead of heading out the side doors to the line of buses, I remember to head out front to wait for Phoebe. When the last bell rings, the cement benches around me fill up with other kids waiting for their rides. It’s warmer than it’s been, and I take out my English notebook and fan myself while station wagons and vans pull up one after another.

  After everyone else has been picked up, I open the notebook and write my prayer once, twice, three times. I never thought of writing it out over and over, like lines on the chalkboard when you get in trouble, but I write it a few more times until another bell rings, which I didn’t expect, since school’s already over. I’ve lost track, now, of how long I’ve been waiting. The buses are long gone, and the sun is low, shining through a line of trees. I start a new letter to my father, telling him that Kelly-Lynn’s mother is in rehab, that Kelly-Lynn comes from a broken home. Then I wish I hadn’t written broken home, and I scribble over it. Then I go ahead and scribble over the rest of what I’ve written, too, and by the time Phoebe turns into the semicircle drive, I have, like an angry child, covered all of the front of a page and most of the back, even where there was no writing to hide, with a fierce black cloud of scribbling.

  As she pulls up, the Pinto coughs and dies. She restarts it, and a grinding sound echoes against the building.

  “I don’t know what we’re going to do about dinner,” she says as soon as I get in. “I don’t have a cent on me. We might be able to eat with your father in the dining room.”

  “Okay.”

  “Would that be agreeable to you or disagreeable? It’s impolite to respond with ‘okay.’ People can’t tell what you’re thinking.”

  “Agreeable,” I say.

  “That’s better,” says Phoebe. “How was school?”

  It is impossible to tell her about the pictures, about Kelly-Lynn, about the principal’s office. There is too much I can’t explain, even if I wanted to. “Fine,” I say.

  “Curi
ous about anything?” she asks, drawing out the words like I might be hard of hearing. I have no idea what I should be curious about, so I look at her hair, which seems the same, and her clothes, which seem to be what she was wearing when she left this morning.

  “Um, why you were late?”

  “I wasn’t that late. It didn’t kill you to wait for a few minutes. Anything else? No? What I’d like to know, I guess, is if it ever occurs to you to ask me how my day went.”

  It doesn’t. It has never occurred to me even that it would be a good or bad thing to ask. “How was your day?”

  “Fine,” says Phoebe. “Thanks for asking.”

  I wait to see if she is finished, and when she doesn’t say anything more, I open my algebra book.

  “I don’t know how you can read in a moving vehicle,” she says. “It makes me positively sick to my stomach.”

  I listen for something she might want me to answer, but there’s nothing. I copy out the first algebra problem. I am not great at math, but I enjoy copying out each problem, the new, neat chance to get something right. I almost never see the problems through to their correct answers, though, and when I turn in math homework, whether I use pencil or pen, the paper is a mess.

  Phoebe sighs loudly. I wedge my finger into the crack of my algebra book and wiggle it around until the space gets bigger, as if I could make myself small enough to crawl inside and disappear.

  At the two-way stop, Phoebe asks me to check to the right for traffic while she looks to the left. “Am I good?” she says when her way is clear.