Every Single Secret(51)

“You want me to cut you loose, little girl?” Mrs. Bobbie bellowed. “Is that what you want?”

I shook my head. I could feel warmth beginning to creep into my neck, the tears rising. I thought I might throw up as well. And now I had to pee really bad.

“Jesus wants you to tell the truth, Daphne. Don’t you know that?”

I didn’t, not on any kind of literal level, but I nodded my head anyway.

“Jesus don’t want me to turn you out on the road, because there’s all sorts of things—people—out there who don’t necessarily care about a little girl’s purity. They do awful things to little girls out there. Shoot them. Stab them. Choke them with ropes. Tie them up with duct tape and throw them in the back of the trunks of their cars and drive them to the woods—”

Omega cleared her throat, and Mrs. Bobbie shut her mouth abruptly.

“I didn’t . . .” I began. But I couldn’t finish. I honestly could not conjure up a lie that would satisfy Mrs. Bobbie and get both of us off the hook.

“Chantal told me,” Mrs. Bobbie spit out, growing impatient with her interrogation.

At that, even Omega looked dumbfounded.

“Told you what?” I asked.

“Don’t play games with me, missy!” Mrs. Bobbie screamed. Then she collected herself, dabbed at the liner smudge beneath her blue shadow–ringed eyes. “I know you’re protecting her.” She flapped the panties in Omega’s direction. “Daphne was supposed to deliver your panties to a boy. As a message”—now the underwear snapped in my direction—“and I caught you.”

Omega was silent. I was silent. Mrs. Bobbie looked overwrought.

“I’m only glad your sin was exposed before you had the chance to follow it through.” She drew in a tremulous breath. Stood. “Omega. I have had my fill of your whoring behavior. Your whoring and sneaking and laughing. Your attitudes.”

The room suddenly felt so warm, so filled with hate, I couldn’t breathe.

Mrs. Bobbie jabbed her finger in Omega’s direction. “You listen to me and you listen well, missy. You will not agree to meet a boy. You will not so much as look at a boy until you leave this house. You are a child, not an adult. Sex is for the sanctity of marriage. For two married adults such as Mr. Al and myself. It belongs in the marriage bed, not out in the woods, in the dirt. Am I clear?”

She was inches from Omega now, and I saw clearly Mrs. Bobbie was wrong. Omega was an adult and this was an argument not between a woman and child, but between two peers of equal standing, each with their own particular weapons of warfare. I also recognized I had no idea what this battle was being fought over. I just knew I didn’t have a part to play in it. I didn’t belong here, and I wanted out.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Bobbie,” I said. She didn’t look at me.

Omega grabbed the panties. Her face was burning but her eyes were grim. She turned, as if about to leave.

“No camping trip,” Mrs. Bobbie shrilled at her back. “Neither of you. You’ll both stay behind. Here with me, to do chores.”

Omega hesitated for a fraction of a second, then wrenched open the door and stormed out. I waited a moment longer, wringing my hands, wondering if I was dismissed, or if I should stomp out like Omega. Mrs. Bobbie didn’t even bother to look at me. She sank on the bed, her fingers picking imaginary lint from her pilled black trousers. Smoothed and cupped her hair. Smoothed and cupped, smoothed and cupped.

“There you go,” she croaked. But I didn’t think she even realized I was still standing there. “See how you like that, Mr. Sneaking Off to the Woods.”

I crept out as quietly as I could and went and climbed into my top bunk. I fell asleep and slept through the pizza and the football game. But it turned out it didn’t matter, because Omega and I had been forbidden from going to that too.



Chapter Eighteen

“Go away,” Omega said.

I was lurking in the doorway of her room, gazing at her the way Bitsy looked at us through the dining-room window when we sat down to supper. I’d been circling her all weekend, far enough away not to aggravate her, close enough to gauge her mood. So far, she’d acted like I was invisible. Now it was Sunday night—fifteen minutes until lights out—and I was desperate. Somehow I sensed that if I did not repair whatever it was that had broken between us before Monday morning, she and the rest of the Super Tramps would be lost to me forever.

“I know who did it—” I started.

She twisted around, her face a thundercloud. “I said get out!”

I darted away before she got really mad and chucked a book or something more substantial at me. Back in my room, I knelt on the floor, pulled out my backpack, and went through my binders and books, smoothing and sorting every homework paper and book report and math worksheet. I checked and double-checked to make sure I’d completed every assignment for the upcoming week.

Sometimes I thought I was just like Mrs. Bobbie, with the organizing. Smooth and cup. Smooth and cup.

Every now and then, I would stop and chew one of my already-ragged nails until a tiny bead of blood would bubble out. Like the papers, my thoughts shuffled themselves in order of importance in my head, then flew apart and reshuffled. But on the inside, I could feel something winding tighter and tighter, like a coil. Mrs. Bobbie might be annoying, but she wasn’t dumb. She had to know Omega would never send her underwear to one of the boys at school. There were plenty of reasons: