Secret Brother

I hurried down the hall, not even glancing at Willie’s bedroom door, and found that my grandfather had already left for work. Mrs. Camden was in the kitchen with My Faith and Myra, preparing breakfast for the boy. I charged in and poured myself some orange juice. I was already only minutes away from being picked up, so I grabbed one of My Faith’s homemade buttermilk biscuits and gobbled it down with a glass of milk. They were all complaining about how fast I was eating, Myra the most vocal, but I acted deaf and dumb.

Everyone apparently knew that Aaron Podwell was coming to pick me up. When he buzzed at the front gate, I pressed number five to have it opened, and that drew a moment of silence.

My Faith shook her head. “No boy’s more important than your health,” she said.

“Some boys might improve your health,” I told her.

Both Myra and My Faith widened their eyes together, but Mrs. Camden just smiled. “Let us know which it is,” she called after me, and the three of them laughed.

We’ll see who laughs last, I thought, and on a wave of defiance woven tightly with currents of rage, I sailed out of the front entrance and reached Aaron’s car just as he opened the door for me and said, “Ma’am, your chariot has arrived.”

“Take me to Rome,” I said.

He laughed and closed the door. As he came around to get in, I began to put on my lipstick. He sat behind the steering wheel, watching me with a big look of surprise and amusement.

“Nearly overslept,” I explained.

“You look good to me,” he said.

I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Sorry. I had to blot my lipstick,” I told him.

His eyes nearly exploded with delight, and I knew as he pulled away that he’d be in trouble with my grandfather if he had been there to hear the squeal of Aaron’s tires. “Oops,” he said.

“No worries. My grandfather is already at work,” I told him. He nodded, but when I looked to my right, I saw Jimmy Wilson looking back at us with disapproval that would certainly find its way to my grandfather’s ears.

10

Surprisingly, Aaron did not wipe my lipstick off his cheek before we entered the building. When I pointed it out to him, he stopped and, with a wide and dramatic sweep of his arms, declared he’d wear it like a medal of honor and fight to the death before wiping it away. We certainly didn’t need any other way of attracting attention. We had that the moment we walked in holding hands and everyone realized that he had picked me up for school. I kept my eyes forward, but I could feel everyone looking at us, their conversations stopping and then starting quickly as he walked me to my homeroom. Our school had a rule against boys and girls doing much more than holding hands. Kissing anywhere inside the building was especially frowned upon, so we just parted when the bell rang to go to our first classes of the day.

“Got a new limo driver, I see,” Sandra Roth said as soon as I sat at my desk in homeroom. It was no secret that the strawberry blonde with the biggest boobs in our class had been chasing after Aaron from the start of the school year. She had done everything but throw herself at his feet. “What did you do to get him?”

I spun on her as if she had pinched the back of my neck. “What makes you think I had to do anything?”

She smirked. Lila was listening at the desk right beside me.

“Did you do something to try to get him?” I asked, trying to sound as innocent as I could. “Something you’re ashamed of, maybe?” I looked at Lila and then at her. “Why so silent? Don’t you know that confession is good for the soul?” I asked. It came to me quickly because My Faith was so fond of saying it.

Her blood rushed to her face so fast that she looked like a cherry Popsicle. Lila laughed. I glanced at her and turned around to listen to the daily announcements, but I had no doubt that the table was set for today’s chatter. Sandra would seek a way to get back at me. I was in the game again, keeping my head above the surface of the pool of gossip. There was no longer anything off-limits about me now. The jealous could direct their rumors and lies toward me without restraint. Envy had shoved pity aside.

However, the remainder of my school day went better than I had anticipated. Aaron and I spent as much time together as we could, with him being in senior classes and me being a junior. Lunch and walks between classes were enough. I continued to toy with the idea of standing up Dr. Patrick, but I was worried that Grandpa would be angry and punish me by not letting me go to Audrey’s party. By the end of the day, Aaron revealed that he had sensed that I was in deep, if not troubled, thought about something from time to time. I could see that he was trying to navigate carefully through the minefield of my moods.

We had just started away from school when he turned and asked, “Okay, so what’s bothering you, Clara Sue? I mean, on top of all the other reasons for you to be upset. Three times today, you didn’t hear a word I said, and usually girls take notes when I speak.”

How much am I willing to trust him? I wondered. I wasn’t happy with how everyone at home was reacting to my feelings, and Lila just wasn’t enough.

“Taking this boy into our home and putting him in Willie’s room isn’t just a minor thing for me. I can’t help thinking about it.”

“Yeah, I could see that when I dropped you off yesterday. Anything new happen this morning before I picked you up?”

“I haven’t been very cooperative about it, and everyone is giving me grief, and now . . .” I hesitated, but I was like someone who jumped off a diving board and had second thoughts too late.

“Now what?”

“My grandfather wants me to talk to the boy’s psychiatrist this afternoon.”

“He’s taking you to a

psychiatrist?”