Only hours before, I had made a vow to try to put away my feelings about Buddy. I was hoping I could be as cold about it as Ava was. Was I fooling myself? Was this impossible for me to do, and if it was, what would happen to me? I couldn’t fail Daddy. What I had thought was worrying before was nothing compared with what went on my head nearly the whole night. I fell asleep but woke up hours later, only to struggle to sleep again. When morning came, I was disappointed. I had finally gotten myself to sleep again.
Compared with Marla at breakfast, I was like some nun who had taken an oath of silence. Mrs. Fennel looked at me suspiciously, but Marla was so into her own excitement about the things Daddy had told us that she didn’t notice or ask me why I was so quiet. Ava had slept late, fortunately. She had no reason to get up as early as we did and wasn’t there at breakfast to torment me with her smiles and wry remarks.
Finally, on our way to school, Marla asked me why I was so quiet that morning. Did I dare ask her questions to see if she felt any of the things I felt? Would she rush to Ava to report them?
“Like me, you haven’t made any friends at school, Marla, so I guess it doesn’t bother you at all that we’re leaving, right?”
“Not in the least. Why? Does it bother you?”
“I know you’ve been unhappy sometimes, having to stay home while the other girls in your class go to parties or the movies together on dates. You’ve told me so.”
“It doesn’t bother me anymore,” she said.
“When did it stop bothering you?”
“I don’t know. Recently. Why, does that still bother you?”
“Sometimes,” I admitted. I looked at her. “You don’t have to tell me what you tell Ava,” I said.
She laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“That’s what Ava says about you. I don’t have to tell her what I tell you.”
“You and Ava talk about me?”
“Just like you and I talk about her and like you two talk about me,” she said. “Don’t start acting hurt or anything, Lorelei.”
“I am a little hurt, Marla. I thought you and I were closer,” I said.
“We’re as close as Daddy wants us to be, needs us to be,” she said. “Don’t try to get me to feel sorry for you, Lorelei.”
“I’m not.”
“Right,” she said. After a moment, she added, “Ava warned me you could be like this.”
“Like what?”
“Afraid of me,” she said, glaring at me the way Ava might.
“What? Why should I ever be afraid of you?”
“You will be,” she said confidently. She smiled and looked forward, as if she really could see the future. “You will be.”
“That’s not a very sisterly thing to say. I thought we were supposed to look out for each other,” I told her.
“And we will. At least, I will,” she said.
I was happy to arrive at school and get away from her. She was acting more cocky than ever. I was furious with myself for even trying to get closer to her, to share my feelings. Both of my sisters were making me feel more and more like an outsider now. It put me in a bad mood all day, and even those who always treated me as if I were invisible were obviously affected by it. They kept an extra foot or so away from me and hurried to get out of my way when I walked.
The truth was that the intensity of the anger and resentment I was feeling that morning surprised even me. It had a strange physical effect on my body, too. My arms and legs felt harder, my grip on things tighter. I felt my shoulders harden, and whether it was in my imagination or not, I thought I could hear more clearly, hear things said by students all the way across the hallways, as well as smell things more sharply. The bells that rang to end one period and begin the next reverberated in my bones.
And then the strangest feeling came over me when I was at lunch and sat close to Meg and Ruta. They were both fawning over Tommy Holmes, each probably dreaming of him asking her to the upcoming senior prom. It wasn’t simply the sight of them, the obvious ways in which they pressed their bodies against his or touched his hand or even wagged their shoulders and pushed out their breasts to catch his eye. As strange as it seemed, it was the sound of their heartbeats and the scent of their very sex. It nauseated me, and I had to get up and leave. Neither probably noticed. They were too involved in their effort to get Tommy interested in them.
I calmed down when I went outside, but my reaction to what I heard and saw was a little frightening. I felt as if all my feelings and thoughts were twisting around one another. My insides were in turmoil. I was never sick. I never had to leave school or go to the nurse’s office. I didn’t even recall being uncomfortable at the onset of a period. I knew nothing of the cramps other girls had. Was all of that finally catching up with me? Why wouldn’t Mrs. Fennel have mentioned such a possibility if it did exist?
I flipped open my cell phone and called home. She answered immediately. “What is it, Lorelei?” It was as if she had been standing near the phone, anticipating my call.