by Seven Steps
The bell rang, announcing the end of our lunch period. I was happy about it. It meant that I was one period closer to going home and finding something to wear that would both catch Jake’s eye and meet Jasmine’s approval. Or, at least Ariel’s approval, which was much more relaxed.
We threw our trays in the big, blue bin by the door and parted ways. Ariel and Jasmine went to leadership and I went to the main office.
Due to my good behavior, excellent grades and general lack of anything close to delinquency, I’d been selected to work in the main office as the Student Guidance Counselor.
It was the second best part of my day, after seeing Jake, of course. No grades to worry about, access to the teachers’ lounge with all its free soda and snacks and getting to hear all of the popular kids’ dirty little secrets was a pretty sweet gig.
Mrs. Bernice, the office aide, greeted me with a smile. The old woman had been at St. Mary’s Academy for as long as anyone could remember. She was ancient but also friendly and warm-hearted. She was the type of old person who asked kids if they wanted candy and, if they said yes, she gave them Halls. I knew that Halls were not candy, but I took them anyway. If anything, they would keep my throat moisturized. Plus, I didn’t want to be rude to such a sweet old lady like Mrs. Bernice.
Every day during sixth period, I turned from invisible student to a student who gave other kids advice that they had no intention of listening to. Student Guidance was a program created by Principal Mann last year. The idea was that kids who struggled with personal issues would feel more comfortable talking to someone their own age instead of an actual guidance counselor. And so, with minimal training and a small soap box that I pulled out for special occasions, I listened as my fellow students told me about their parents’ divorces, cheating boyfriends, the stresses of popularity and the pressure of trying to figure out who they were and who they wanted to be.
Today, Melanie Pleasant was waiting in my office. It was technically Mr. Mark’s office, but I claimed it now. Well, except the motivational cat posters. No one should claim anything that said, I Have a Case of The Meow-Days.
Melanie’s eyes were already wet with tears when I walked in, her skin turning blotchier by the second. That could only mean one thing. She’d broken up with her boyfriend again.
“He is such a jerk!” she said in to a crumpled facial tissue. I sat down in my chair and tried not to roll my eyes. “I caught him making out with Chrissy Tanner at a party yesterday, so I told him it was over.”
She blew in to the tissue, turning her red nose even redder.
To my count, this was Mel’s boyfriend’s sixth time cheating, and that was just in the last two months. The mystery boy had a habit of sticking his tongue down random girls’ throats and getting caught.
Mel sobbed hard, each tear tearing the snot-soaked paper apart. I handed her another tissue, which she took and promptly blew her nose again. I wrinkled my nose and pushed the floral box in her direction.
“Look Mel, this cheating has been going on for a while now. Don’t you think it may be wise to consider breaking up with him for good?”
Her tears stopped. She looked at me with shock and violently shook her head. I asked her to break up with her cheating boyfriend and she looked as if I’d just asked her to repair the Sphinx’s nose.
“I can’t. He’s popular and cute. Plus, he…” Her eyes dropped back to my napkin. “There are things that he can do for me that other boys can’t. I … I have to stay with him.”
She snatched another tissue from the box and dabbed at her eye. I examined her dark hair with the purple highlights, her black, super short dress with lace details in the arms. Her thigh-high grey boots and fishnet stockings. Mel’s look was a cross between goth and glam. Funny, I always thought girls who wore all black were supposed to be tough, but this blubbering mess was quickly proving me wrong. I sighed, breathing in a mixture of potted plants and warmed up leftovers coming from the teachers’ lounge.
Eggplant. Eck!
I turned my attention back to Mel and leaned forward a bit.
“Look, Mel. This guy is a sucky boyfriend that makes you unhappy. No matter how popular or cute a guy is, he’s not worth your tears.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, anger flickering in her dark eyes.
“You don’t know anything. You don’t know what it’s like to be popular. To have everyone watching your every move. If I dumped him, I would have to go to the fall formal alone, like some sort of herpes infested loser. No thanks.”
“Mel-”
“You know, I don’t know why I come here.” She threw her tissues in the trash and grabbed her book bag. “You don’t understand the sort of pressure that I’m dealing with.”
“What pressure? To dump your cheating boyfriend?”
“No, idiot. One does not just dump their boyfriend. They dump up.”
Dump up? That was a new one.
Mel sighed and rolled her eyes as if I was the stupidest person in the world.
“If you break up with someone, do it so that you can hook up with someone even more popular. That’s the way the world works, which means that I’ll have to wait for the dating pool to open up before I can do anything.” She blew out a breath. “I’m trapped. Trapped like a super hot rat with big boobs.”
She was right. She did have big boobs.
“You don’t have to be trapped.” I leaned forward and put my hand over hers. Mel was stuck up and condescending, but deep down, I believed that she was a good person. Just a little misguided. I wanted to help her. If only she would listen to me for once. “You are in control of your own destiny. No one can take that control away from you unless you allow them to. Will you at least try to remember that? You are in control.”
She looked out the window, away from me. I could tell that she wasn’t listening to a word I said. It made me feel like crap. Just because I wasn’t popular didn’t mean that I didn’t know about life. I knew plenty. And if I had a boyfriend, I would not allow him to cheat on me, no matter how popular he was.
She stood and grabbed her bag, still dabbing at her eyes.
“It must be nice not having anyone see you, Brenda. Freeing. Maybe one day, I’ll know what that feels like.”
“Bella. My name is Bella.”
But it was too late. She’d already walked out of the office, leaving me with my cat pictures and my seething anger.
I knew every mean thing her boyfriend did to her. I knew that her mother snorted cocaine first thing in the morning and that her father ordered hookers over the internet. And yet, she couldn’t remember my name.
Now that I thought about it, when she did come to student guidance, which was nearly every day, she never looked me in the eye. Sure, she looked in my general direction, but she never made direct eye contact and she never took my advice.
Just like the rest of them.
A sinking feeling pulled at my throat, making a lump form there. I clenched my jaw and sat back in my chair, hoping that no one else walked through the doors. I wanted to not care about the kids who walked through my doors, but I did. I wanted them to do well. Not just because they were popular, but because we all shared the same basic problems. We were all lost, looking for our voice. Even if that voice was our own conscience. That little person in our hearts who told us the right way to go. The one that told us we were worthy.
Mel was wrong about one thing. I did know the pressure she was dealing with. I was chosen to test out this whole student guidance thing because Mr. Mann thought that I was safe. In adult language, safe equaled boring. He mistook my smarts for blandness, and bland girls didn’t get in trouble. I guess he thought that if I could make girls more like me, then the school would be a better place.
I laughed shortly.
He should have let me tutor them, not mentor them. These girls didn’t listen to me. I could tell them not to swim with sharks and they’d do the exact opposite, for one very important reason. I was invisible. My advice was just air, e
asily dismissed though badly needed.
Maybe if I was popular then the other girls would listen to me. Respect me. Imagine the good that I could do if I had a voice. I could convince Mel to break up with her cheating boyfriend. I could convince Marcus Tyson that he didn’t have to be a football player just because his NFL father wanted him to. I could tell Lisa Grissel to sit down and talk with her parents about her passion for painting. I would tell Gerald Martin that it was okay to love Tillary Swanson, even if his parents would never accept her because she was black and he was white.
I could do so much good at this school if only someone would listen to me. If only someone would see me. But they didn’t. I was barely a blip on their radar. Being here was supposed to help the student body feel better, but it only made me feel worse.
Like I said, invisibility sucks.
I walked home alone, which wasn’t entirely uncommon. Ariel was on the swim team, and practiced after school four days a week. Jasmine always had family either visiting or leaving. Grandparents, cousins, nieces, nephews, uncles and every other relation from around the world all stopped in at one time or another. They would stay for a few weeks or months then leave, making room for the next relation to step in.
I’d often wondered what having such a big family was like. My family was small but tight-knit. My mom’s parents were dead, and my father’s parents ran a horse farm in North Carolina. Mom was an only child. Dad had an older brother and sister, Uncle Sam and Aunt Liz, neither of which were married or had children. We saw them every year around Thanksgiving.
Seeing my aunt and uncles every year reminded me of better days.
The days when I wasn’t invisible. When I was semi-popular, back in my hometown of Pikes Peak, North Carolina. When things were simple and life went on in unbroken lines.
But that was a long time ago.
Exactly five years, eleven months, twenty-four days, two hours, and fifteen minutes ago, my mother, Leslie French, drew her last breath on this Earth and shattered my entire existence. My mother, who looked at me with love and patience. Who listened to the tales of my life as if they were part of the holy cannon of scripture. Who noticed when my hair was different or my shirt was untucked, as it often was. Whose lap I crawled in to when I got home from school every day, though Daddy told me I was too old for such things. My mother, my life, was unfairly stolen from me. Breast cancer ravaged her body, rendering her unrecognizable. For six months, she warred with it, until one frosty winter morning in December, when she drew her last breath and took me with her in to the oblivion.
I missed my mother. I missed her laughter and her smile. I missed how she always smelled of Sunflower perfume. I missed how Daddy and she used to dance in the kitchen while she cooked dinner. I missed being happy. Missed the time when I was unfettered by sadness and this strange shield of invisibility. Her death was like a jail sentence, damning me to walk with bitterness, confusion and an ever-present sense that I was missing a part of myself.
They say that time changes everything, and they, whomever they are, were right. After six years, I can finally recall my mother without bursting in the tears. I can remember the happy times without falling apart. Like her dancing around the house to eighties music—Mom’s favorite. Or us sneaking up on Dad in the winter and pelting him with snowballs as he shoveled the driveway. And the animals. Mom loved animals. It was one of the reasons she’d married Daddy. Not only was he handsome and funny, kind and strong, but he came with his own horse farm, and God, did Mom love horses. Their romance was practically written in the stars. She, a sweet-hearted, sassy, black woman from Charleston, and Daddy, a corn-fed, white farm boy from Connersville. They truly loved each other, and I was a product of that love.
But now Mom was gone, leaving behind Daddy and me, two broken pieces just trying to hold each other up. We didn’t always succeed, but we tried. It was what Mom would have wanted. For us to keep trying. For us to not give up.
A shuffling to my left pulled my attention. I looked down. There, in a box marked Free Puppies, was a single, small dog.
Just one.
I read the messy scribble on the side of the box again.
Free puppies. Not Free Puppy or Free Dog. Free Puppies, as in more than one.
I looked around, searching for the person that might have left the box. People passed me, their feet stomping the sidewalk, their shoulders bumping into me, their eyes on the ground in the classic way that New Yorkers walked.
But no one stopped. No one paid attention to me or the dog that was now peering up at me with big, black, curious eyes. Its once brown coat was covered in patches of mud, or at least what I hoped was mud. It whimpered a little and backed up in to a corner of the box.
I looked around again, but no one seemed to care about me, or the dog.
How long had it been here? Hours? Days? I didn’t remember seeing it before. I would have stopped if I had.
I crouched down and I reached in to the box, intending on patting the shaking creature on a small spot that was clear of the crusted black gunk. The dog wouldn’t allow it. It pushed itself even deeper in to the corner of the box and howled.
The poor thing was terrified! I didn’t blame it. I’d be terrified, too, if I was left to die in a box in the middle of New York City.
I pulled my hand back and gave the animal a big, reassuring smile.
“You don’t have to be afraid. I won’t hurt you.”
The dog let out a bark, but it was weak. The poor thing was all crusty fur, skin, and bones. When was the last time that it’d eaten? Or had a bath? Or love?
I let out a breath and took another look around.
Still no one noticed me or the dog. If the dog died in that box, no one would care. The creature was invisible. Like me.
“You’re not invisible anymore,” I whispered to it. “I see you.”
I picked up the box, sending the dog rolling out of its corner. The smell was disgusting. Like poop and vomit and dog and dirt and everything else vile. I held my breath, pity crushing my heart. This poor animal had been left in this filthy box with its horrendous smell by some heartless person. How could they do that? How could they live with themselves knowing that this animal might die here?
People sucked sometimes.
“You don’t have to worry anymore. You have a home now, and a family.”
The dog still looked nervous, but didn’t howl again. I walked faster, toward the subway station, anxious to relieve this poor creature from its misery.
He’d have to suffer a little while longer but it would be worth it.
In that moment, I felt closer to Mom than I had in a long time. It was like she’d handed this puppy to me. This small, innocent creature, afraid of the world, jaded by love. Invisible.
Just like me.
The puppy laid in the box, its little paws digging into the bottom for dear life. I crossed the street and walked in to the subway station. Half an hour later, my new, stinky puppy and I emerged in Briar Hills, Brooklyn. Cool air snaked in to my jacket, chilling me. I could only imagine what the dog felt like.
“Don’t worry, baby. You’re going to be warm soon.”
I stopped by the pet store and used my emergency credit card to buy supplies. A crate, a comfortable mat, bowls, food, flea collar, shampoo. Everything ended up costing over two hundred dollars.
My dad was going to go nuclear.
My stomach tightened painfully but I wouldn’t let that stop me. I handed the cashier the credit card and held my breath while he ran it through. Daddy would just have to understand that this was an emergency. This poor creature needed a home. Yes, that little doggy jacket may have been a bit of a luxury, but he needed some luxury after what he’d been through.
I discarded the disgusting box in a trash bin and put the dog, who by now was covered in fresh poop, in the crate. It trembled as it walked in, looking through the wires at me. It was a pretty cute dog. It would be cuter when it was clean, but there was something about its ey
es, some friskiness that I liked. This dog had spirit. Someone just had to love it, and let it out.
That someone would be me.
I handed it a few kibbles from the food bag, and hoisted everything up on my overburdened arms.
Only two blocks and one elevator ride and I’d be home with what was sure to be my new best friend.
A soft breeze blew, and I imagined that my mom was there, hurrying me home with the new gift that she’d given me.
Thanks, Mom.
By the time Daddy came home an hour later, things had taken a turn for the worse.
“What the- Bella, did you poop in front of the door?”
No, but at this point, I might as well have.
I briskly scrubbed the dog’s stubborn coat and waited for my father, Maurice French, to pop his head into the bathroom. I don’t know what I dreaded more. Him seeing that I had the dog, or him seeing that the dog had pooped all over the house. Or maybe it was the two-hundred-dollar credit card bill that he’d see in another week. Either way, I was sure that a grounding was coming. But I didn’t care. I’d done the right thing. If that earned me a grounding, then so be it.
When Daddy found me a minute later, I was in the bathroom, trying to wrangle a still dirty dog under the detachable shower hose. I could smell his cinnamon gum from across the room. Daddy always chewed cinnamon gum.
“What is going on here?” he cried. “What is this?”
The dog, who had been fighting me for an hour as I tried to wash him, stopped his thrashing and looked at my father. He gave him an innocent expression. So did I. A bit of soap dripped off the tip of my nose. At this point, I was probably just as dirty as the dog.
I gave my father my best smile and hoped he was in a good mood.
“Hi, Daddy.”
“Don’t ‘Hi, Daddy’ me. What is going on? Whose dog is this?”
He was not in a good mood, but I would not be deterred. Not when I’d come so far.
I held my hands over the dog, dramatically presenting it.