“These feel pretty much like diapers, if you ask me, but they do the trick.” Mrs. Kleinfelter’s voice seemed unnecessarily loud. She handed a bulky rose-colored box to Jory. The woman on the front of the box was standing in a field of flowers and gazing peacefully out at nothing. She held a daisy in her languid hand. Modess, the box read in swirling script, . . . because.
Mrs. Kleinfelter now handed Jory a much smaller, flatter box. “That’s the belt,” she said. “It looks more complicated than it actually is.” Mrs. Kleinfelter shook her head. “You won’t believe it, but in my day we had to wash our secreties out by hand. That’s what we called them: secreties. Unmentionables were your underwear.”
Jory cast a quick glance up and down the aisle. A blond woman with two small children in her cart wheeled around the corner and stopped next to them and stared at the display. She sighed loudly and then suddenly swatted the older child on the head with her wallet. “Dammit, Darren,” she bellowed at the child, who was clinging to the side of the cart with an air of desperation. “Sit your ass right back down, now!” A man wearing a plaid fishing hat picked something off the shelf a little to the left of them and then walked away, whistling tonelessly and giving them and the blond woman a wide berth.
“I’m not sure about those Tampax. I know they’re a modern thing and all . . .” Mrs. Kleinfelter was reading the back of yet another type of box.
“That’s probably plenty,” Jory whispered. “I think we can go now. Really.”
“Hm,” said Mrs. Kleinfelter. “We just never used these in my day.”
“It’s all right,” Jory said, and tugged faintly on Mrs. Kleinfelter’s coat sleeve.
“Jory!”
Jory whirled around to see Rhonda Russell leaping up the aisle toward her. “What are you doing?” Rhonda was saying. “Where have you been?” Rhonda flung her arms around Jory’s neck. “Everyone thinks you’re dead,” she shrieked happily.
“I’m not,” Jory said, glancing behind Rhonda.
“Oh, my gosh, Mark Pilkington said he saw you and Grace waiting tables out at the Red Eye in Homedale and I told him he was insane.” Rhonda looked Jory up and down. “Why aren’t you in school? Why aren’t you at church?”
“You got cheerleader,” Jory said, taking in Rhonda’s pleated navy-and-silver skirt and fitted sweater with the tiny silver-helmeted man on the front. “‘Arco Christian Academy Crusaders,’” Jory read out solemnly.
“ACK-ACK!” Rhonda squawked. “Isn’t it hilarious?” Rhonda twirled around in the aisle and watched her own skirt unfurl like an umbrella. “You won’t believe it—Mr. M is making us hand out tracts to the other cheerleaders during halftime. We’re supposed to do our Hello Cheer and then give each of them a ‘Four Spiritual Laws’ booklet. It’s so embarrassing I could die. I mean literally die. I hate our shoes too—look at them—they look like orthopedic shoes for eighty-year-olds. Oh . . . sorry.” Rhonda stared at Mrs. Kleinfelter, who was staring back at her. Rhonda leaned closer to Jory. “Is that your grandma?” she whispered.
“No,” said Jory. “You got your new teeth in.”
“Yeah, my dad got his janitor job back and my mom said if he didn’t pay for them I would never find a husband or ever leave home, so he forked it over.” Rhonda grinned deliberately and then ran her tongue across her front teeth. “They still feel weird. Paul Farwell made me kiss him the day I came back from the dentist.”
“Gross,” said Jory.
“I know,” said Rhonda, sticking out her tongue. “He asked me to the Halloween party and everything.” Rhonda grabbed Jory’s wrist and tried to pull her farther down the aisle, away from Mrs. Kleinfelter. “Whenever I called your house, your mom said you were sick.” Rhonda peered at Jory with her slanty-cornered eyes. “Why aren’t you at school?”
“Oh,” said Jory. “Well.” She lowered her voice. “I’m going to Schism.”
“What?” Rhonda gripped Jory’s arm more tightly. “Schism? No, you’re not!”
Jory nodded.
“Get out!”
“Yeah, my dad thinks—I don’t know—that I—that Grace and I—need . . . more of a chance to witness to unbelievers. Or something.” Jory tried to shrug.
“Schism!” Rhonda’s mouth with its brand-new teeth hung slightly open. “How completely grody!” She was silent for a moment. “Are there any cute guys there?”
Jory glanced up and down the aisle. “Just a sec,” she said. Jory walked back to Mrs. Kleinfelter. “I’m going to go outside and talk to my friend for a minute, if that’s okay.”
“Oh, all right,” said Mrs. Kleinfelter. She glanced at Rhonda, who waved. “Here,” Mrs. Kleinfelter said, holding her hand out for the box of Modess and the sanitary napkin belt. “I’ll pay for these and meet you out at the car.”
At the thought of getting out of the store, an immense weight lifted off of Jory. Super Thrift and its cantilevered roof sailed gently up and away into the upper hemisphere, like the cycloned house in The Wizard of Oz in reverse, an enormous drugstore-shaped balloon disappearing into the nothingness of the sky. “Let’s go,” she said to Rhonda, peering behind her and grabbing Rhonda’s hand and pulling her down the feminine products aisle and past the shampoo/conditioner/hair coloring/hairnet aisle.
“You have to come to the Halloween party,” Rhonda said. “You could even stay over.” She squeezed Jory’s arm. “There’s gonna be a haunted house and everything. Oh, hey—look!” Rhonda picked a red paisley bandanna off a rack of farm clothing and began tying it, gypsy-style, around her head. “We could go as hippies.”
“Or pirates.” Jory gazed longingly up at the store’s front entrance.
Rhonda stopped and squatted down so she could see the bandanna’s effect in a display mirror. “Hippie pirates,” she said, smoothing the sides of her hair. “Sweet.”
“Oh, no,” whispered Jory. “No, no, no.”
“Seriously, look at this,” said Rhonda. “It’s so perfect.”
“Miss.” The man with the pit stains stood in front of Jory and Rhonda. “You know you’re not supposed to be here.” His arms were crossed and he looked exactly the way Jory remembered him: short and balding, with hair in the front that was like the fuzz on a baby duck. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave now,” he said.
“What?” Rhonda looked blankly at the man. “Why? I need to buy this bandanna first.”
“You’ll need to go, unless you’d like me to call the police.”
“Let’s go.” Jory tugged at Rhonda. “C’mon.”
“What?” Rhonda looked dazedly at the man. “I was just trying it on.”
A few customers had started to glance over at the three of them.
“Let’s go, girls.” The armpit man grabbed at Rhonda’s arm.
“This is insane.” Rhonda shook her arm out of the man’s grip and widened her eyes. “Is there a law against trying things on?”
“No, there’s a law against shoplifting.” The man recrossed his arms.
“Excuse me,” said Mrs. Kleinfelter. She had come up beside them, holding the large box of Modess in front of her. “Is there a problem here?”
“Yes!” Rhonda turned to Mrs. Kleinfelter. “He thinks I’m—I don’t know—shoplifting or something, just because I tried on this bandanna.” Rhonda’s voice rose up in pitch. “I was going to buy it. I didn’t walk out with it or anything.”
“Sir,” said Mrs. Kleinfelter, “I think you must have made a mistake.”
“It’s no mistake,” said the man. He pointed at Jory. “This girl here is a shoplifter and a thief and has been banned from our store. Her parents were notified and a report was filed over two months ago. I can show you all the paperwork if you want.”
Rhonda and Mrs. Kleinfelter looked at Jory. Jory looked back at them, and then at the floor.
“Well,” said Mrs. Kleinfelter. She cleared her
throat. “I have to say that whatever happened, however many months ago, is no reason for any kind of rudeness or manhandling now, and—and . . . I will personally never be coming back to this store, and I will be telling all of my friends to never come to this store, and I will be saying the same to anyone I speak to, so—” She thrust the box of Modess into the man’s arms, along with the sanitary belt and the smaller box of Tampax. “I’ll just leave these with you because I certainly don’t want to be accused of shoplifting.” She turned to Jory. “I think we’re done here,” she said.
Mrs. Kleinfelter began walking toward the front of the store. Rhonda and Jory followed behind her. They walked past the racks of bandannas and cowboy hats and folded overalls, past the shoppers who had been silently observing this interchange. “Wow,” whispered Rhonda, and gazed at Jory, her eyes huge.
“It’s not what you think,” said Jory.
“I don’t know what I think,” Rhonda said. “Except . . . wow.”
They walked through the whoosh of the automatic door and out into the parking lot.
The three of them stood outside blinking in the afternoon sunlight.
“Well, holy cow,” Rhonda said, in a reverent voice.
“Do you need a ride home?” Mrs. Kleinfelter shaded her eyes with her hand.
“I rode my bike here,” Rhonda said, apparently just remembering. She walked across the sidewalk and pulled a blue ten-speed out of the bike rack and swung her leg over the bike’s bar. “I guess I’ll see you later,” she said to Jory.
“I guess,” said Jory. She watched as Rhonda pedaled shakily out of the parking lot, her cheerleader skirt billowing out behind her.
“I think she forgot something,” said Mrs. Kleinfelter, pointing to her own head.
Rhonda was already halfway down the block. Even at this distance, the red bandanna stood out like a small warning flag. A bright little beacon bobbing up and down, up and down as she pedaled steadily away from them.
In the pickup truck, Mrs. Kleinfelter turned on the radio and they listened in silence as a man sang twangingly about trailers that were for sale or rent. As they drove, Jory kept her face turned toward the passenger window and tried not to have any thoughts. Even so, she kept having sharp little flashes of the armpit man pointing at her and saying, This girl here, this girl, this girl, as if it were a kind of sentence being handed down. This girl.
They were halfway back to the house, to Henry’s house, when Mrs. Kleinfelter suddenly sat up straight. “Oh, no, we didn’t buy you your things!” She snapped off the radio and gave a sigh. “I got distracted.”
“It’s all right,” said Jory.
“We could try the Penny Wise, or maybe the Albertsons on Seventeenth. Let’s do that. I can turn around here and head back toward Seventeenth. It’s not that far.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Jory. “I don’t need them.”
“I know you’re feeling bad or guilty or whatever, but that doesn’t mean you have to be a martyr. Certain things can’t be stopped or ignored, no matter how bad you feel.” Mrs. Kleinfelter slowed the truck and made a wide U-turn in the middle of the street.
Jory closed her eyes for a second and then opened them again. “I don’t need any pads or Tampax or anything because I’m not having my period. I’ve never even had my period.”
Mrs. Kleinfelter drove another block and then pulled over next to a small house with a large German shepherd chained in the front yard. Jory could see the dog’s tail wagging forlornly against the dirt-packed lawn. Mrs. Kleinfelter turned off the ignition and sat staring at the steering wheel.
“I didn’t want to go to PE,” said Jory. “I know it sounds dumb and I can’t really explain it, but one thing sort of led to another, and now I’m supposedly having my period.”
“I see,” said Mrs. Kleinfelter, still gazing forward.
“I can’t explain it,” Jory said again. “I just keep saying things to get out of doing things and then it just gets worse and worse.” Jory could feel hot tears building up behind her eyes. “I’m a horrible person. I am. I’m the worst person, and I’m a complete chicken too.”
Mrs. Kleinfelter finally turned her gaze on Jory. “Well, it must take a certain amount of bravery to steal things.”
Jory made a sound that was a half laugh, a crying laugh. “That’s the funny part,” she said. “I didn’t even take anything. They must have told my parents I did, but I didn’t, and my mom and dad didn’t even ask me—they just believed them. They believed the armpit man, and a man you’ve never seen, the earlobe guy, the man with the tie with little flags on it. My parents believed them over me!” Jory began to cry in big, ragged, choking gasps that sounded horrible, even to her. “And a woman took my clothes off,” she gasped out. “A woman with red hair and lots of silver rings. She took my clothes off and no one even cared.” Jory put her head on the dashboard and cried. Then she leaned back in the seat and howled and cried with both her arms covering her face. She could hardly breathe.
Mrs. Kleinfelter dug around in her pony express bag and pulled out a bedraggled-looking Kleenex. She handed it to Jory.
Jory tried to wipe her face. She scrubbed at her eyes with the Kleenex and took a few huge breaths. She blew her nose loudly, and then gasped a few more times. Her chest kept heaving in a weird way she couldn’t control.
“It’ll get better in a minute or two.”
Jory nodded. She tried to flatten out the Kleenex against her leg.
“Does this have something to do with why your parents moved you all the way out to Henry’s house?”
“No.” Jory gasped, her lungs still stutter-stepping. “Not really. Well, maybe that’s part of it. But it’s mainly because Grace thinks she’s having an angel baby, and they don’t want anyone to know. They don’t want anyone to know that she’s crazy and that she’s pregnant. And, I guess, that I’m a shoplifter—they probably don’t want anyone to know that either.”
Mrs. Kleinfelter ran her hand across the base of the steering wheel. “She’s pregnant,” she said.
Jory nodded. “She said God came to her and gave her this baby somehow, and now my parents have flipped completely out.”
“Well, yes,” Mrs. Kleinfelter said. “I suppose so.”
Jory suddenly realized that she had just done the thing she wasn’t supposed to do. She had now told Mrs. Kleinfelter everything about their family, and before that, she had told Grip. Who wasn’t she going to tell?
Mrs. Kleinfelter made a sad, disapproving noise with her tongue.
Jory felt sickly, sharply guilty. And traitorous. “I guess it’s not so bad,” she said. “I mean, my dad just wants what’s best for us.” She pulled and straightened the Kleenex into several pieces. “He’s just trying to do what he thinks is best for everyone. For all of us.”
“Yes.” Mrs. Kleinfelter nodded slightly. “That’s a hard thing to know sometimes—what’s best, I mean.”
“Yeah,” said Jory softly. It came out more like a sigh than an actual word.
“I really hardly know what to say. I can’t think of a single phrase that seems appropriate here.” She smiled briefly and then frowned again. “Maybe, ‘This too shall pass.’” Mrs. Kleinfelter turned and put her arm across the seat of the car, then patted Jory on the shoulder, three short pats, so light that Jory could barely feel them.
“Okay. Well, then.” Mrs. Kleinfelter sat back up and turned the truck’s engine on. “I guess if we don’t need anything from any drugstores, we should just be heading on home.” She put the truck in first gear. “How does that sound to you?”
Jory nodded.
Jory watched the houses and driveways and fences go by. She felt horrible in a way that wasn’t entirely bad. Her eyes hurt and her nose was plugged, but she felt a certain amount of relief, as if she had been purged of a dreadful thing that had been housed inside her body. It was like throwi
ng up—the worst part was beforehand and the best part was afterward, although no part of it was very good.
“I don’t understand.” Grace was standing at the front door talking to Mrs. Kleinfelter in a low voice. “Why didn’t Jory buy anything?”
Jory could hear them talking even though she was in the kitchen, mainly because she was holding her breath and listening as hard as she could.
“Well,” Mrs. Kleinfelter said, “Jory doesn’t seem to need anything after all.”
There was a small space during which no one said anything.
“I don’t understand,” Grace said again. Jory could picture the expression on Grace’s face as clearly as if she were in the living room with her.
“You should talk to Jory,” Mrs. Kleinfelter said. “And, Grace, I would be as kind as possible about it if I were you.”
From behind the kitchen door, Jory blushed.
“Well, I certainly will.” Grace sounded somewhat indignant at the idea of her not being kind, and Jory’s face continued to burn. There was a moment of silence. “Well,” said Grace, “thank you for doing this favor for us.”
Mrs. Kleinfelter gave some sort of muffled response and Jory heard the front door shut. She scampered over to the refrigerator, pulled open its door, and tried to look interested in its contents.
Grace sat down at the kitchen table. “I’m sure you heard all that.”
Jory stood holding a box of raisins.
“So?” said Grace, her eyebrows raised.
“I don’t think raisins need to be refrigerated,” Jory said.
Grace said nothing.
“I’m just not having my period after all.” Jory said this into the refrigerator. She put a jar of mayonnaise farther back on the metal shelf and picked up and examined a can of sliced peaches. “I thought I was, but I guess I wasn’t.”
Grace remained silent.
“That happens sometimes, doesn’t it?” Jory turned and watched Grace tracing her fingernail along a crack in the table’s linoleum.
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