Outcast (22 page)

Another flood of tears and hiccupping cries ripped through her. All of the secret things Becca did with boys didn’t make them stay around. It seemed like everyone was giving him or herself to someone else. People treated sex like it was a commodity to be traded for love, security, or simply a moment of pleasure. Nobody cared about the intimacy of it, the sacredness of it. Becca, Aunt P,
Chad
—they all used it for what they thought they needed at the time. And it didn’t stop there. Maybe Grace would have sex with Henry in exchange for a trip to Castles and Coasters. Maybe my mother did it to secretly have another baby, a baby my dad most likely didn’t even want. Everyone wanted something in exchange for it. It wasn’t unconditional; something seemed to always be attached to it. I wondered if I would be the same way, using sex to get something I wanted. My head swirled. I decided I had eavesdropped enough. I knew all the information I needed to know.

I discovered the details of the pregnancy test when I was trying to watch
Modern Family
. My mother was too consumed with more important matters to monitor my television consumption. I was supposed to be studying, but I didn’t care.

My dad left the house when the argument started. My mother and Becca battled in the back of the house. I turned down the volume to listen. Their dispute was pretty heated. My mother yelled a standard phrase of hers:
No daughter of mine will ever do that!
What really captured my attention was Becca’s response.

“It’s my body and I’ll do whatever I want with it!”

Now my curiosity was totally piqued. I hit the mute button on the remote control.

“You’re seventeen years old. You made your bed and now you’ll lie in it.”

“I’m not keeping a baby!”

I may have been naïve, but I wasn’t stupid. Becca was pregnant, and she didn’t want to keep the child. My thoughts scrambled like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I flashed back to the moment I plucked the EPT pregnancy test from the garbage—my mother’s garbage. What was it doing in there? Becca never would have hid it there. My mother must have known. She must have allowed Becca to take it.  

“Fine. You don’t have to keep it. You’ll give it up for adoption.”

I snacked on the potato chips I pilfered from dad’s secret stash in the pantry. It was a real on-the-edge-of-your-seat moment. But, at the same time, it was like having an out-of-body experience. My sister—still a teen, still in high school—was going to have a baby.

“I am
not
staying pregnant for nine months.” I heard the tears behind the defiance in Becca’s voice. “I’m getting an abortion.”

Stunned, I remained silent. And so did my mother. I could imagine the anger that swelled beneath the surface of my mother’s face. She was absolutely against abortion. No exceptions. It didn’t matter if it was rape or incest, my mother was a card-carrying member of the Pro-Life cause. She was a Catholic woman to the core.

Suddenly, in a burst of violence, a wicker basket bounced down the hallway, finally rolling to the edge of the living room. I didn’t want to become the victim of my mother’s anger. I turned off the television, slipped on some shoes, and headed out the front door just as my dad did when the argument first began. It seemed easier to run away from people and things instead of standing by and watching them fall apart.

The night sky exploded in blackness, the color of India ink. The city lights blinded the stars, making them squint in the atmosphere, dimming their brilliance to a slow, throbbing dullness. Sprinklers hissed as they showered the Midwestern-style lawns. The smell of water on the pavement mimicked the odor of a first rain.

I ran around the block to burn off some steam. But I felt a burning in my lungs and was winded far more quickly than I expected. I stooped over, hands on my knees, to catch my breath. I needed to get back into running, had to stop smoking.

When I’d recovered, I beelined it to Grace’s house. It was eight-thirty at night. I knew I should have called first, but I didn’t have time. She’d understand, especially after I told her what had happened.

My nerves galvanized when I saw Jake’s red Honda in the driveway. I considered turning around and going back home, but a force outside of myself propelled me forward. Before I knew it, I was at the front door.

“Noelle. I don’t think Grace is expecting you. Is she?” Mrs. Hallaran politely greeted me.

“No, but I need to talk to her.”

“Come on in, honey. She’s just working on a project with some classmates.”

I stepped into the foyer, looking directly into the living room. A semi-circle of people formed around the coffee table: Grace, Mina Liu from Grace’s history class, Jake...and Trina. I shook my head like an Etch-A-Sketch, hoping to clear away the image of her. When I opened my eyes, she was still there. Trina, the one person I absolutely hated. I didn’t care what Father Patrick or the Bible said. It had to be acceptable to loathe Trina Brockwell. There was no other reason for her existence.  

Grace behaved like nothing out of the ordinary was happening, like having Trina at her house was totally normal.

Grace merely looked at me and said
hi
. Jake gave me a warm smile, but he was seated comfortably next to Trina. And the queen bitch herself gave me a smirk that was loaded with innuendo. No one else picked up on it, but it spoke volumes to me. She was using Grace for one of two things, maybe both. She was getting back at me for stealing
Chad
away from her, or she was going after Jake. Why couldn’t Grace see how transparent Trina was?

Grace finally excused herself and met me in the foyer. I wasn’t even worthy of joining her study group.

“What are you doing here, Noelle?”

I glanced beyond Grace, toward Trina. I saw her touch Jake’s arm. I knew what she was capable of. My blood pressure thrummed, and my pulse quickened.

I wanted to scream out
Becca’s pregnant and having an abortion, but go back to your little party!

Instead, all I said was
nothing
.

“Why are you here?”

“To see if you wanted to study. That’s all.” My vision kept pulling away from Grace to the living room.

She looked at my empty hands. “You don’t have any books.”

“Must have forgotten them.”

She appeared puzzled, and I was glad. I wanted her to wonder about the real reason I was there.

“Look, I know you’re busy. I’ll let you get back to work.” I moved to hug her, but she stepped away. Grace always hugged back whether she meant it or not. I studied her for a moment, then immediately headed for the door, not turning back.

“Bye, Noelle,” Mrs. Hallaran called.

Her words awoke Jake from the spell Trina held over him in the other room. “See you, Noelle.”

I ignored him.

I no longer cared about the locker, which still hadn’t been repainted by the janitorial staff. I did care, however, that Trina was usurping my friend. And to make things worse, she was seizing her brother, the one who I’d a crush on since grade school. If the way she behaved with
Chad
was a sign of how she was going to act with Jake, it was all over for me. I needed to crush her before she could defeat me. And I wanted Cassie to help me do it.

“Haven’t you heard? Trina’s having a party.” It was all Cassie said to me when I presented my dilemma to her.

“I suppose you’re going, too?”

We stood outside the Taco Bell, smoking cigarettes. It was only something I did at lunchtime when I was around Cassie. It was as though I felt an obligation to smoke with her. Cassie looked at me like I was square if I didn’t do it. I graduated from merely holding it to taking a puff now and then.

“No, I’m not going. I have better things to do with my time than hang out with high school kids.” She exhaled a nicotine cloud. “No offense.”

“Then what? Crash the party?” I practiced holding the cigarette and putting it to my lips in different ways.

Cassie shook her head. “There’s not going to
be
a party.”

I didn’t understand, and Cassie knew I had no idea what she was talking about.

“What do you mean?” I took a final drag off the tobacco stick.

“You’ll see.”

What she meant was we would create posters and place them all over the school. The announcements advertised alcohol, drugs, parental absence, and free condoms. It was my task to design and print them all. Cassie told me that we needed enough to replace all the ones that Trina and her friends would rip down. We had to make sure that the teachers and administration saw them so that they could put a halt to the bash.

The posters were standard paper size—just the right dimensions to fit into a folder. When no one was looking, Cassie and I slapped them on the walls. By the time we finished, they were everywhere: hallways, cafeteria, library, and all the bathrooms. It was guaranteed that at least one teacher, priest, or nun would see them. We plastered Trina’s name over every poster. She was the only one who’d be held accountable for the scandalous party. All Cassie and I had to do was sit back and wait.

All of my time was spent preparing the posters, so there was no time to study. I didn’t care. It would all be worth it. The end of the semester was nearing a close anyway. It was too late to catch up on missed homework. I would make up for things on the midterms.

In the meantime, I thought back to Mrs. Muir’s phrase,
survival of the fittest
. It was that and so much more. It would also be
a pound of flesh
if I had my way. Getting revenge was all I cared about.

Since the argument with Becca, my mother was acting very moody. She’d always had a volatile personality, but now it was even more pronounced. It became obvious without even talking to anyone that Becca had not changed her mind. She intended to go through with the abortion.

It was the middle of November, nearing the holidays and the end of the semester. My mother was already upset with me because I had stopped going to church on Sundays. I knew she was angry, but she said nothing to me; she had Becca to deal with.

However, I arrived home from school one day greeted by her temper. “Your counselor called. She said your grades have fallen and you’re likely not going to make the honor roll at the end of the semester. Explain.”

Time to get creative. I couldn’t tell her that I’d used my study time to seek revenge against my worst enemy. She’d never understand, even if I was able to make a case for Trina being the cruelest person in all of bully history or the worst Catholic on the planet.

“There’s been a lot of tension around here lately.” I tested her reaction. When she didn’t explode, I continued. “It’s hard to study with you and Becca fighting all the time.”       

My mother, the strongest willed woman I have ever seen, the woman whose only emotion appeared to be anger, crumbled. She moved to her La-Z-Boy. Placing her head in her hands, she acted as though she was trying to wipe away all the stress that had built up and pressed itself into the pores and lines of her face.

“Sit down, Noelle.”

I edged my way across from her and sat on the couch. She proceeded to tell me about Becca’s pregnancy, which I was already fully aware of. She also recapped all the information I gleaned from their arguments—-that Becca had decided to have an abortion. My mother told me to pray for Becca to make the right decision. I didn’t know what the right decision was. I certainly couldn’t see Becca pregnant, much less with a baby. Maybe the correct thing for her was to have an abortion. What my mother should have said was
pray for Becca to do what I ask her to do
. It didn’t matter if her way was the best way or not.

“I need to ask you something important.”

I was afraid to say
what
, but I did anyway.

“Are you having …
relations
with any boys right now?”

I didn’t know how to answer. Relations? What was that? A term from the 1800s? If she meant sex, the answer was no. But if she meant kissing guys and letting them undo the buttons of my shirt, then the answer would be yes. Either way, it seemed like a very intrusive question, especially from a mother who had very little to do with me.

“I mean, I thought I raised you two right. What did I do wrong?” She talked into her hands. It was as if the answers were encrypted on her palms and she had to keep studying them to decipher it all.

I didn’t know what to say or what question she wanted me to answer, so I just sat there. She finally lifted her head and pleaded with me to tell her what she wanted to hear. I didn’t have to lie. I had never had sex.

“You don’t have to worry about me, Mom.”

She breathed a sigh of relief, then moved beside me. She held my hand for awhile. Perhaps my palm held the encoded answers, not hers. I felt awkward and just wanted to leave. I did feel sorry for her. She felt inept as a mother, like she had failed us somehow. Or more importantly, she had failed herself. She dropped my hand and ran her fingers through my hair like I was a little girl.