by Lin Oliver
I had to admit, that sounded pretty good.
“The subject today is Secrets,” Ms. Carew said. “Who here has a secret?”
Everyone’s hand shot up into the air, including mine. She looked over at me and smiled.
“Sometimes we keep secrets because we want privacy; that is, we want to keep something all to ourselves. And that’s fine,” she said. “But there are other kinds of secrets we keep out of fear. We are afraid to show this part of ourselves, for fear we’ll be made fun of or appear to be different. What I have learned,” she went on, “is that when we share these kinds of secrets, we find out that we are not that different from one another. Deep down, we’re all afraid of—and want—the same things.”
Ms. Carew sat down on the floor cross-legged in her beautiful African-print skirt, and slipped off her sandals. As the rest of us sat down, I noticed that her toenails were painted the same lime green as my fingernails, which looked really beautiful against her brown skin. You don’t often find a teacher with hot-green nail polish on her toes. From across the circle, Sammie watched me check out Ms. Carew’s fashionable feet and flashed me an amused smile, as if to say, “I told you she was cool.”
“Today, I’d like to ask if anyone is willing to share a secret,” Ms. Carew said. “Know that whatever we say in this room stays in this room, and that your secret is safe with us.”
The first one to raise a hand was Bernard.
“I keep my weight a secret,” he said, “because I weigh more than anyone thinks I do. I have this roll of fat around my middle that no one knows about. When I go to the beach, I keep my shirt on and when my family asks why, I tell them that I don’t want to get sunburned. So I guess you could say that everything between my chest and my hips is a big fat secret.”
I was amazed. First, because he was so willing to just put it out there. And second, because I never thought boys worried about their weight or how they looked in a bathing suit. It was news to me.
“I know exactly how you feel, Bernard,” Sammie was saying. “I worry all the time about my weight. I’m always wondering if everyone is looking at me and thinking how fat I am.”
“You’re not fat,” I responded immediately. “You look fine. Dad’s just made you feel fat because you’re heavier than me.”
Ms. Carew held up her hand.
“Charlie,” she said gently. “I know Sammie appreciates your remarks, but we’re not here to talk people out of how they’re feeling. Whatever they feel is their truth, and we have to listen with open hearts and accept their feelings as real.”
That seemed crazy to me. I mean, just because you feel something doesn’t make it true. But everyone else was nodding in agreement. Suddenly, I felt so stupid sitting there.
The next person to talk was Will Lee.
“My secret is that I like older women,” he said. “I’m only in the sixth grade, but I’m always falling in love with seventh-graders.”
Was he looking at me out of the corner of his eye? Oh no, I hoped not.
“Recently, I had a crush on one of my sister’s friends, and she’s in the eighth grade,” he went on. “I asked if she wanted to hang out with me some weekend, and she rejected me. Made up some phony excuse about having a boyfriend, which I happen to know she doesn’t because I hear her talking on the phone with my sister.”
“You need to pick on people your own size.” I chuckled, giving him a friendly little poke in the ribs. It was hard to take him seriously. He seemed like such a little kid.
“I’m uncomfortable with the way you’re acting,” a girl named Keisha said. I looked around to see who she was talking to—it was me!
“I was just making a joke,” I said.
“Will was opening up about a secret he has,” Keisha said. “I don’t think he was looking to be laughed at.”
I felt myself flush with anger.
“I wasn’t laughing at him,” I said in a voice that sounded snappier than I had intended. “I was laughing with him. There’s a big difference.”
“Charlie is new to our group,” Ms. Carew told the others. “She’s just learning to listen and accept.”
Boy, that made me feel even more idiotic. How hard is it to listen? I have ears and Dr. Hartley checks my hearing every year at my annual checkup. I was listening. I truly didn’t understand what I was doing wrong.
“I just want to support Charlie and say that I’m glad she’s here,” Alicia said. “She’s been going through some tough times, and she could use all our support.”
Everyone in the circle turned to me. I felt like they were expecting me to spill my guts about what I’d been going through, but I could feel myself closing up like a clam shell. I hate it when I’m expected to do something that I’m not comfortable doing. Like, when we were little, our Mom would always want Sammie and me to sing “Oh Susannah” at family gatherings so everyone would see how cute we were. I remember one year pretending to zip my mouth shut, refusing to open it for the whole party. Call me stubborn, but I don’t perform like a trained dog.
“Do you feel like sharing with us, Charlie?” Ms. Carew said.
“Maybe some other time,” was all I could muster.
“We’re okay with that,” she said. “It takes a while to build up trust. Does anyone else want to share a secret? Take it out in the open and let it breathe.”
Sara Berlin put her hand up tentatively.
“This is something I’ve never talked about to anyone except my mom,” she began. “And it’s going to be really hard to share. It’s kind of similar to what Bernard was saying about being afraid to take his shirt off.”
I wondered what it could be. It certainly couldn’t be her weight. Sara was tall and slim, with not an extra ounce of fat on her.
“So Bernard was basically saying that he was ashamed of his body,” she began. “I am, too.”
“This is a very common theme we all share,” Ms. Carew said. “No one’s body is perfect, and yet we all feel that we have to keep our imperfections a secret.”
“Is it about your hair?” a guy named Devon asked. “It’s obviously really different than most girls’ hair, but I think it’s awesome the way it sticks out all over the place. It’s like it’s saying, ‘I will not be ruled by you.’ That’s awesome.”
“Well, it is about my hair, but then again, it’s not,” Sara said. Everyone just sat there quietly, while she actually wrung her hands with nervousness. Wow, why didn’t she just spit it out? This hinting around at everything was driving me crazy. As far as I was concerned, it’s either about your hair or it’s not.
Sara took a deep breath and then suddenly reached up with both hands and pulled her hair up behind her ears. It was so thick and curly that when she pulled it all together on top of her head, it looked like a fluffy black cloud was hanging over her.
“See,” she said. “There’s my secret. Now it’s out. Or I should say, they’re out.”
As I stared at her, I realized that I had never seen Sara with her hair up. Now that there was no hair surrounding her face, the thing you noticed were her ears. It’s not like they were deformed or anything like that. But they were really big and stuck out far from her head. And when I say ‘far from her head,’ I mean very far from her head.
“Kids have been teasing me about my ears ever since I can remember,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes. “Even when I was in preschool, one of the kids told me I looked like Dumbo.”
Ms. Carew sighed. “Children can be cruel,” she said. “That must have been very hard for you, Sara.”
She nodded. When she spoke again, her voice sounded like she had that lump in your throat you get when you’re trying really hard not to burst into tears.
“Ever since I realized I had protruding ears, I’ve covered them up with my hair. Thank goodness it’s thick and curly. But I’m always afraid that on windy days, my h
air’s going to blow back and everyone will see what I really look like.”
“Have you tried really strong hair spray?” I asked.
Bernard looked at me, put his finger to his lips, and said “Shhhh.”
What was his problem? I was just trying to offer a helpful suggestion.
“Go on, Sara,” Ms. Carew said.
“My parents know how much this has affected my self-esteem,” she said. “And there is a surgery that can correct it. It’s called otoplasty, and they actually operate and pin your ears back so they’re closer to your head.”
“Oh cool,” I said. “Like an ear tuck. You should get that right away.”
“Charlie,” Ms. Carew said gently. “Please let Sara express herself without interrupting.”
I wanted to tell her that I was just trying to be helpful.
“It’s really expensive,” Sara said. “At least five thousand dollars. And we don’t have the money because my little brother is autistic and has to have a special tutor, which costs a lot, too. So I’m stuck looking like this, until I can earn enough to have the operation.”
She let go of her hair and let it fall back down around her face. It was like a signal for everyone in the room to gather around her in a group hug. Everyone but me. I didn’t want to be snuggling up with a bunch of people I barely knew.
“Thank you for sharing that with us, Sara,” Ms. Carew said, joining in the hug. “We’re all here for you. I think everyone understands the relief of getting your secrets out in the open.”
Maybe everyone else in that room understood that, but I didn’t. Why was she better off now that everyone knew she had protruding ears? It didn’t help them look any better. It didn’t help her earn the money to get them fixed. It didn’t take away all the teasing she’d had to bear her whole life. As far as I was concerned, it just spread the misery around.
After Sara’s story, the meeting kind of went downhill. A few other kids shared some minor secrets, but nothing that could compare with Sara’s. Ms. Carew recited a poem by a guy named Keats that said that beauty is truth and truth is beauty. I didn’t get it. To end the meeting, Ms. Carew put on some crazy flute music, and invited everyone to free dance, letting their bodies express their inner secrets. I was the only one who didn’t accept the invitation.
“You’re not dancing,” Ms. Carew said when she saw me perch on one of the desks pushed against the wall.
“I need steps when I dance,” I said. “And a beat doesn’t hurt, either.”
“I see. Well, maybe next time you’ll feel like dancing. I hope you come back, Charlie.”
“Thanks,” I told her. “I probably will.”
But a little voice inside me, the one that doesn’t speak out loud, was saying just the opposite.
“I can’t do it,” I told Sammie on the walk home. “I can’t be a Truth Teller. It’s just not me.”
“Sure you can,” she protested. “Everyone loved you.”
“First of all, they didn’t love me. Every time I opened my mouth, I got weird looks from people. I don’t blame them. In that room, with that group, I am weird. I don’t fit in.”
“But didn’t you feel how powerful the group was? Like when Sara described her awful ear problem. It was just so honest and raw.”
“I feel sorry for her, I really do. She’s a nice girl and I’m glad she’s one of your best friends. But that doesn’t mean she has to be my best friend.”
“Okay, we can talk about this more over our pizza at dinner tonight,” Sammie said. “Dad said he’d take us to Barone’s, and he’s even agreed to pay for it. Apparently, yesterday’s match moved us up in the rankings so he’s in a generous mood.”
Sammie and I paused at the red light on the corner of Pacific Coast Highway. Traffic was backed up with people headed to the beach to watch the sunset. There’s this public parking lot right next to the club and at four o’clock, they open the gates and let everyone in for free. People either sit in their cars and watch the sun go down, or get out and walk along the beach, waiting for that exact moment when the sun flattens out and disappears into the Pacific. Before dinner, Sammie and I usually go down to the beach with GoGo and watch the sunset. GoGo says any time you have a chance to watch the sun set over the ocean, you should not miss it. I think that’s pretty good advice.
I was glad for the heavy traffic because the roar of the cars whizzing by made it hard to talk or be heard. I was tired of talking. Sammie and I were never going to agree, and I was tired of her trying to convince me to love her friends. You can’t make yourself love people you don’t love.
And speaking of love, when we crossed the street and pushed open the gate to the Sporty Forty, who should we find sitting on the deck but Spencer Ballard. Apart from being the cutest boy I know, with dimples the size of the Grand Canyon, he is also the only boy I’ve ever kissed. Okay, it was just one kiss one night on the beach. That was before everything blew up between me and the SF2s, and he’s kept some distance between us since then. He’s nice and polite and everything when he sees me, but he’s definitely acted awkward the few times we’ve been alone together since then. I can understand that he’s not sure how to act around me anymore. It just sucks.
“Hey,” he said when he saw us. “You guys always get home this late from school?”
“Oh, we were at a Truth Tellers meeting,” Sammie blurted out. I wanted to stuff a sock in her mouth.
“Sammie was at the meeting,” I hurried to explain. “I was just checking it out.”
“I’m trying to get Charlie to join,” Sammie said. “She could use some better friends, if you know what I mean.”
I thought Spencer would hate her saying that. But he just nodded and gave me one of those smiles where his dimples light up his face like stars in the sky.
“The group has been pretty rough on you,” he acknowledged. “I keep telling them they haven’t been fair, that they need to see things from your point of view, too.”
If I hadn’t been so tongue-tied, I swear I would have asked him to marry me right there on the spot. I know twelve is too young to get married, but at least we could get engaged.
“But Lauren says that maybe you’re going to join some club she’s starting,” he added. “So that’s a good sign.”
“That’s what she thinks,” Sammie said. “Charlie and I have other ideas.” She seemed prepared to go on about it, but lucky for me, she was interrupted by GoGo yelling from the kitchen.
“Quesadillas just out of the pan,” she called. “Any takers?”
And before you could say salsa verde, Sammie had dropped her backpack and dashed into the clubhouse.
“So what exactly did Lauren tell you?” I asked Spencer when she was out of sight.
“Only that she’s invited you back into the group. I said that would be cool. For me, at least.”
I felt myself melting and it wasn’t from the sun. I looked down, trying to come up with just the right words to tell him that I had missed him. I didn’t want to be overly gushy like the Truth Tellers, but I didn’t want to be too distant and cool, either. As I turned some possible responses over in my mind, my dad came jogging off of the tennis court, a towel around his neck and his racket in his hand. It was so like him to pick the worst moment to show up on the scene.
“Spencer,” he called out. “I just finished your mom’s lesson. She wants you to play a couple games with her. Apparently, I didn’t tucker her out enough.”
“Guess I gotta go,” Spencer said with a shrug. “I’ll see you around, Charlie.”
He stood up and walked off toward the tennis courts, looking all golden in the setting sun. My dad flopped down in his seat.
“Thanks a lot, Dad,” I said.
“For what?” he replied cluelessly. He popped the top off a bottle of Gatorade and dabbed his forehead with his towel. “Mrs. Ballard has a nice foreh
and. Nice level stroke. Actually, I think she’s got much more potential than Mr. Ballard. Don’t tell him that, though.”
Tennis, tennis, tennis. Did he ever talk about anything else? Well, as a matter of fact, he did, right at that very moment.
“Lauren called,” he said, taking a swig of Gatorade. “Three times.”
“You didn’t tell her where I was, did you?”
“I told her you were with Sammie. She was really eager to talk to you. In fact, she asked if I had made a decision yet. Is there something you haven’t told me?”
If I had ever doubted whether or not I wanted to go back to the SF2s, my conversation with Spencer had put everything back in perspective. There was no decision to be made. What I wanted was crystal clear to me.
“Lauren and the girls are applying to start a Junior Waves club at school,” I said. “They want me to be part of it. And I totally want to do it.”
He nodded.
“So tell me, how much of your time do you think this club will take up? Because you know my feeling . . . school and tennis take priority over social activities.”
Of course, I knew he was going to say that. It’s his standard response whenever either of us asks to do anything. I pulled out my ready-made speech.
“I’m getting all As in school, Dad, except for maybe a B in Spanish, but I can bring that up if I practice with Esperanza and Alicia. And tennis-wise, Sammie and I are on a roll. You saw me finish off Fritz and Fernandez yesterday.”
He nodded again. That was a good sign. I was so glad I had pulled it together for the tiebreaker.
“Well, I like the idea of you being part of a sports fan club,” he said. “That makes a lot more sense than that wacky stuff your sister is into.”
That was a typical comment. My dad thinks anything that isn’t sports related is wacky.
“So I can do it?” I asked.
“School and tennis first. Do we understand each other?”