Tell Me a Secret

by Holly Cupala

  Like Xanda.

  “—then where will this baby be? Without a mother or father, and we get stuck with the bill?” Her voice rose to a familiar tone. She slammed the car into park. “If you have any shred of unselfishness, you’ll give this baby up to a family who is capable of caring for it. If you keep it, you’re condemning it to a life of misery. I can’t believe you would be that selfish.”

  You mean condemning you, I thought.

  “On the other hand, if you give up the baby, you could still pursue your art.” Under her breath, she added, “We can only hope you will decide to pursue a more stable career later.”

  I couldn’t believe this was happening. Was she really trying to force me to give up Lexi? How did Xanda and I ever come out of you? I wanted to scream. All she cared about was looking perfect. Even if I said the words, I knew she wouldn’t hear them.

  “You can either keep the baby or go to art school. The choice is yours.”

  I couldn’t wait to find Nik online. I didn’t even care about keeping up my college-student story. She could know everything there was to know about me, every hideous truth I’d ever tried to hide. Ugly or not, Nik, here I come.

  I hadn’t seen her online since before Halloween. Maybe she was visiting her stepson, who lived a few hours away. She was bound to be back by now.

  I logged on to the BabyCenter board, and a feeling of dread swept over me. Entry after entry began, “Nik, I am so sorry.” Or, “Nik, I can’t believe this happened to you.” The chat room was silent.

  I scrolled back through the day’s posts and found hers, posted by FemmeNikita at 9:32 this morning:

  I’m writing to tell all of you how much it has meant to me to have your friendship and support through this sweetest time of my life.

  Last week, I started cramping and bleeding. My husband rushed me to the hospital, where I delivered our baby at twenty-three weeks, too early for him to survive. Even at less than a pound, he was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. We named him Micah James. I won’t forget his tiny fingers and toes, or the way he fit in the palm of my husband’s hand. I have never seen my husband weep as he wept over our little boy.

  Our hearts are broken. But faith always manages. I won’t be posting anymore on this board, as it is painful to hear about your pregnancies when we have lost one so precious to us. I hold you all in my heart and wish you joy.

  Faith. The future. A life without Micah James.

  My own crisis suddenly seemed so small.

  That night I lay in bed, the images of Lexi replaying in my mind like a window into another world. I tried to recapture the wonder of her profile—tiny chin, nub of nose, round skull with two hemispheres of brain beneath. Ten fingers, ten toes, a spine rippling with tiny bones. Small enough to fit in the palm of my hand.

  I lay on my back like the ob-gyn said, waiting to feel a flutter.

  I had nearly slipped into unconsciousness when I did feel something, like a bubble popping. A gurgle. I wondered if it was just gas. I poked my belly where I felt it and waited.

  The bubble popped again, a tap of recognition.

  Nineteen weeks after we had started this journey together, Lexi and I shared our first communiqué—a secret Morse code between passenger and host.

  Twenty-two

  My parents wasted no time setting me on the path to banking glory. I completely bypassed the application and interview process for my cushy new job at First Washington Credit Union, filing and processing checks in the secretarial dungeon and occasionally filling in for a teller.

  No doubt they expected the job to be so terrible, I’d make the call to Social Services myself—and I might have, if I hadn’t just read about Nik and felt Lexi for the first time. I wasn’t about to lose her or my dream. Money in the bank, as Dad would say. Lexi and I would need it.

  I’d been in the credit union a thousand times before, but it’s funny how you notice details when your cell door is about to slam and lock—like the carpet coming undone in the middle of the room, or the slightly mismatched square by the loans desk. Or the scowl on the loan officer’s face under a mop of fat dreadlocks as she watched my mom and me walk through the revolving doors. Carefully she extricated herself from the desk and shambled toward us. She shot a glance toward one of the tellers, who immediately hustled to the loans desk. The others rearranged themselves to fill the gap like the Von Trapp Family tellers.

  I struggled to arrange my new shirt and pants.

  As usual, I had gone through my closet about fifty times yesterday. Desperate and close to tears, I’d crawled into the passage to check Xanda’s boxes for something—babydoll dress? Poncho? Anything. I nearly crashed into my mother as she came into the office, my face a red, puffy dam.

  “What’s this about?”

  Just pick something, I thought. Instead, I sniffed, “Nothing.” We did a little dance in the hall, her capturing and me trying to escape.

  “I was looking for something in…the passage.”

  “Why do you want to get into Xanda’s things?” Her eyes narrowed as she took me in—red eyes, skanked-out hair, my low jeans and the hem of my sweater grazing my newly outed, and extremely touchy, belly button. The light of dawn spread across her face.

  “I see. Well, I guess we’re just going to have to go shopping then.”

  She smiled—like this was a peace offering, after trading art school for banking hell.

  A half hour and a rainstorm later, we were cruising through the mall in search of The Well-Heeled Mother. Though it could have been The Well-Heeled Grandmother. When I started to look through a rack of cute sheer tops, Mom steered me to the “much more practical” round of striped button-ups and stretchy black slacks.

  The salesgirl, perky and looking ready to pop herself, sidled up to my mom. “We’ve got some great new winter arrivals. Are you the lucky mama?”

  “No,” glowered Mom.

  The clue gun missed, and the girl turned to me. “You?”

  I nodded.

  Back to Mom: “So you must be the proud grandmother. Is this your first?”

  “Yes.” Though she looked anything but proud, with me hunting through a rack of enormous, tent-shaped tops.

  “Congratulations! Let me show you our basics—great for work, or”—the salesgirl shot an unsure look at me—“er, school, or…whatever.”

  Before I could say “muumuu,” I had a stack of clothes in a dressing room with two “bellies”—pillows I could strap around myself to see what I might look like in a few more months. I put on one of the shirts—a red one, like Nik’s Killer Tomato shirt.

  She wouldn’t be needing it now.

  After hours of mother-daughter retail bonding, we finally emerged with a nonrefundable bag of the most unflattering clothes I would ever wear. But at least I would have something to wear, Mom reminded me.

  We had almost escaped the mall when I spotted an Elna Mead group at the sushi bar next to Guess. They hadn’t spotted me, probably because I looked like a well-heeled grandmother now.

  And that’s when Essence’s voice said brightly, “Hi, Rand. Hi, Mrs. Mathison.”

  My mom stopped dead in her tracks, and I had no choice but to follow suit. It was still pouring down rain, and she was the one holding the keys.

  “What are you doing here?” Essence asked. Like we weren’t allowed to go to the mall or something.

  “Just out to do some shopping,” Mom said, waving our bag.

  “Wow, you’re getting huge.” Exactly the kind of observation I could always count on from Essence.

  “I’m not huge,” I muttered. “I’m almost five months pregnant.”

  “She didn’t mean anything, Mandy,” my mother growled. Mom defending Essence—that was a first. Must be their chummy new relationship, now that Essence had stepped into the role of Brenda the Perfect. “She’s tired,” Mom explained. “Pregnancy, schoolwork…”

  “Yeah,” I cut in, “and starting tomorrow, I have that job you got for me since I can�
��t go to art school anymore.”

  Even Essence was taken aback. “You’re not going to art school?” Of anyone, she would understand exactly what art school meant to me.

  “No, because somebody has to support this baby,” I parroted, “and it won’t be a starving artist.” I could see my mom getting increasingly uncomfortable with this line of conversation. Essence was right. Revenge could be fun. “Besides,” I added, “even art school isn’t worth giving up the baby.”

  “So,” Mom said, giving me the death stare, “Essence. About that Cornish recommendation letter—I’ll get it to you in the next few days. You’ve made some really incredible strides as an actor this year. I’ve been really impressed.”

  I was too stunned to respond. A letter of recommendation? For Cornish College of the Arts? Essence went back to gushing, completely oblivious to my mom’s conversation coup.

  Essence was prattling about the Guys and Dolls tryouts coming up, but I was somewhere between hurt and rage. Did she spill my secret just to get brownie points? This was about getting on my mom’s good side? Suddenly my memory shifted, the details in sharp relief—like her car spinning out of Milo’s driveway, a phone call away from ruining my life.

  So now, as the dread-head bank manager woman ambled toward me, some of that meekness stuck with me as I tugged my pants and shirt into place, unconsciously smoothing the tummy that had gone from fat to pregnant in one, unexpected pop.

  The woman finally reached us and locked eyes with me. “Shelley Jones. Manager. Follow me,” she said.

  “Well, I can’t stay,” my mom twittered, “I have to get to—”

  “Oh,” Shelley Jones said, “I’m sorry. Are you working here, too? I was under the impression it was only your daughter.”

  Whoa. I was instantly impressed. And the tiniest bit terrified.

  “Well,” said my mother. She looked more flustered than I had ever seen her. “I’ll be back to pick you up at six, then.”

  “Make it six forty-five. We don’t leave when the customers do.”

  “Oh. Of course. Six forty-five, then.” And my mom was out the door, leaving me to face Shelley alone. I followed her timidly to a windowed office in the back corner of the building. Plum-colored metal blinds fit floor to ceiling in the windows, sealed as if for an interrogation. She closed the solid wood door behind me and shuffled around the desk to an office chair clearly designed to accommodate her considerable weight.

  “Wow, that was incredible—”

  “So, you’re the pregnant girl I had to hire. Mandy.”

  “Rand.”

  “Rand. Apparently I’m supposed to reform you.” I was still standing there, unsure whether to stand or sit. She gave me the once-over, lingering for a moment on my newly striped belly.

  “What would you rather be doing besides banking? And don’t tell me hanging out with your boyfriend, because I really don’t want to hear about that.”

  I knew I looked like the village idiot, staring with my mouth open, but I really had no idea how to respond. I mean, I’d never been around anybody so…direct before. My family didn’t operate that way.

  Shelley leaned her head in closer. “I asked you a question. Are you impaired in some way that you are unable to answer my question?” She was completely deadpan as she said this, her eyes round and huge.

  “I’m sorry,” I stammered, “I mean, no, I don’t have a boyfriend. Not anymore.”

  “Of course not. So now that the boyfriend is no longer in the picture, and you graduate this year, what were you planning to do?”

  “Art,” I said, proud of myself for finally forming a straight answer. “I mean, I’m an artist.”

  “So banking is the worst thing your parents could think of to punish you for being pregnant.”

  That pretty much summed it up, didn’t it? So I simply said, “Yes.” And then I kind of felt bad for my parents and added, “Though they just want me to be able to support the baby since I decided to keep it.”

  She raised one eyebrow, the effect near petrifying. “And what made you decide to keep it?”

  I thought about telling her about Xanda, about the path I’d been tracing, how this baby would be the bird, the escape, the thing to change everything. But instead I blurted, “It was my parents. My parents wanted me to give it up. I wanted to keep her from the beginning.”

  “So you got pregnant on purpose?” Again, the deadpan face. I didn’t think I could get used to this.

  “No!” That, I was sure about. “No, it just happened. It was an accident.”

  “Right,” she said, like she didn’t quite believe me. “So. Back to banking. Can I assume you are planning to dedicate yourself to learning the banking trade? Or are you going to be daydreaming about art and babies all day long?”

  Of course I would be thinking about art and my baby. But I would try. That was all she could expect from me. “I’ll do my best,” I said.

  The rest of the afternoon, Shelley Jones dedicated herself to teaching me the fine art of banking grunt work.

  Twenty-three

  Throughout November, I performed a bevy of soul-sucking tasks for Shelley, who quickly decided my top banking talent was destroying sensitive financial documents.

  “You can think about art and that boyfriend all you want, cozying up to the shredder,” she said.

  I had to gulp back a “Yes, sir.”

  Not that I wanted to learn banking from the inside out, but she could at least give me a chance. Any time I strayed from shredding, her door would swing wide and she would give me that look. It kept me shredding four days a week.

  When I wasn’t shredding, I went to Christmas montage practice or church on Sundays with barely enough time for homework and sleep. Everything else faded, including the BabyCenter girls. There wasn’t much to say, now that Nik was gone.

  “You’re still applying to Baird, aren’t you?” Mrs. Crooker asked when I told her my art class had been replaced by the work-study program. I didn’t tell her my parents had pulled the plug on art school. I had time, I thought. Applications, financial aid…there had to be time to change the direction of the future.

  “Yeah. I just have to finish a couple more drawings.” I filled my notebook with sketches of Lexi, of the landscapes inside my mind and body, of Xanda, trying to pick up the trail where I had left off. Things didn’t go down the way you think, Dylan had said. Don’t ask your parents. They’ve been lying to you all along.

  The only clue I had for what might have happened was the photograph I stole from Dylan. One Saturday morning, I spent an hour searching every passage and cupboard for a single photo of Xanda in the years before she died. Had Mom destroyed them all? The albums—neatly arranged on the office shelf—had pictures of my parents, of me when I was little, and a few seemingly accidental ones of Xanda as a kid—holding me, in the background, almost an afterthought. Except for an elbow here, a flash of hair there, almost no evidence of her life was left.

  As my belly got bigger, so did the moat of space surrounding me at Elna Mead. Delaney and her entourage no longer acknowledged my existence. I wanted to talk to Kamran, but what could I say? About Halloween? About Lexi? He would be knee-deep in his MIT application now, with Harvard as backup—which only made me cling to Baird more, hoping somehow our space-time continuums would collide.

  I almost did collide with a swift, tiny blond on my way out of class. I thought she was new until I recognized the brown eyes under a gloss of new highlights.

  “Chloe?” Her hair was the same color as Delaney’s now, practically twins. She wore a tight black sweater that used to be Delaney’s. And before that, it was mine.

  “Oh, Rand. Hi.” She looked up at me nervously, like I was about to push her over here and now.

  “I’m sorry about what happened,” I began.

  She was looking past me, and I followed her gaze. Delaney waited for her in the main corridor, with a junior Delaney always pointed out as an example of what not to wear. Delaney looked di
fferent, too—from naughty to nice, reinvented into the object of Kamran’s desire.

  “Um, gotta go. See you around,” Chloe mumbled before scurrying into the new triumvirate.

  “You dumped your best friend for that?”

  Voice of my conscience? Hardly. It was Essence.

  The shirt she wore—faded maroon, cracked screen printing of a caged bird, brass stitching…I remembered the day we went shopping for it, after she had saved her babysitting money to buy something cool to wear to the eighth-grade assembly. We sat together on the front lines hoping Erik Anderssen would notice one of us—it didn’t matter which.

  Part of me was embarrassed for her, wearing that ratty old T-shirt with jeans, probably dropped off at the thrift store a decade ago along with the navy blue cardigan she wore.

  But the other part noticed how different she looked, now that I wasn’t seeing her through Delaney’s eyes. Pretty, even.

  “An apology wouldn’t hurt, you know.” The whiny edge to her voice was gone. Now it was just cold.

  “An apology?”

  People walked around us like water navigating the rocks, flowing into the classrooms before the bell rang. No one noticed the geek and the outcast, yesterday’s news.

  “Yes, an apology. I realize I’m not as cool as Delaney, and I probably never will be. But we were friends, Rand. Do you want to know how I felt when you and Delaney started hanging out? I was happy for you. I was glad to be included, but mostly I was happy for you, because I knew that’s what you wanted. I thought maybe it would help you deal with Xanda…but it only made you mean.”

  She waited for me to respond.

  I could have taken the path she offered me. Said, “I’m sorry I chose Delaney over you.” I wanted to. Ten years of memories pressed me to say the words I’d just said so easily to Chloe. She had been my friend—my dorky, annoying, truthful best friend.

  But in a flash, I remembered the look on her face when she peeled away from the party, burning with my secret. She could afford to be nice, now that she had what she wanted.