Secrets
Secrets don’t always stay secret—especially from my mother. It started after school when she pulled up to where I was talking with friends and honked like a fire truck trying to pass in traffic. Mom no longer lets me catch a ride with Brie or Kaneesha because she thinks they’re a bad influence. She has no idea. I see and hear everything, and I put what I learn to use. If anyone’s the influencer, it’s me, and I’m not talking Instagram.
My parents don’t know it was me who talked Brie and Kaneesha into piercing their ears in the fifth grade, and I told them how to do it, too, without getting infected. It’s that way with most things. I know the score, and I get shit done. To my parents, though, I’m a loser because I don’t fit their mold.
It’s my brother Chad, the firstborn son, who makes them proud: handsome all-star athlete, solid B student, Bible quiz champion. My mistake was being born female. He screws up, and somehow it’s my fault, but I don’t complain. That’s my freedom. I bear it.
Plus, I can’t help but feel sorry for the big doofus. He doesn’t know he’s hit his peak, and it’s all downhill from here. I even do his English homework for him. That “A” on his Hawthorne paper? That was mine. He wouldn’t know irony if it bit him on the ass.
So, my mother picks me up, and I have to sit in the front seat with her because the back seat is loaded with boxes of Christian-themed scented candles she sells to anybody who doesn’t see her coming first. You’re supposed to light one in the bathroom to cover your satanic farts, but I don’t know which smells worse. Since Dad got laid off, our house has become a multi-level marketing warehouse, and that extends to the car.
I open the door and slide in, dropping my backpack and tote bag on the floor. She says, “Hello, Jess” in her tight-lipped, eternally pissed-off way, and I grunt and settle back, turning my head to look at my friends as we drive away. I catch Brie’s eye, and she gives me a little wave.
We ride in silence. Thank God, Mom no longer asks me how my day went. It’s been a warmer-than-usual spring, even for Amarillo, and the AC is blowing strong. Eventually, she glances down at the floor in front of my seat and says, “What is that?” in her interrogator voice.
“What,” I say, instantly on alert.
“That!” she says, pointing to my bag.
I look, and I am horrified to see a corner of the condom box peeking out. “What?” I ask again, using my toe to nudge the box back into my bag.
“Don’t ‘What’ me, young lady.” (Here it comes). “Why do you have a box of condoms? Are you having sex? Who are you having sex with? Why do you need a whole box of condoms? How many boys are you screwing?”
First off, it astonishes me that my mother could read the tiny “Trojans” on the corner of the box. She’s an eagle-eyed freak. Second, I’ve learned not to respond when she’s on a roll with her ever-escalating questions. If accusation were a race car, hers could go from zero to sixty in three seconds flat.
I know she wants me to react—to launch a denial so she can humiliate me with her recitation of all the ways I’ve let her and Jesus down. So, I say nothing even when she demands, “What do you have to say for yourself?”
She pulls into a gas station, bends down, and snatches my tote bag. “Hey!” I say and try to grab it, but she’s too fast. She reaches in, removes the box of Magnum Thins, gets out, and stalks to the nearest trashcan.
Fuming over having my privacy invaded and my property confiscated, I am tempted to tell her why I have a box of condoms in my bag. I decide not to give her the satisfaction. She wouldn’t believe me anyway.
Pulling into our driveway, Mom turns and gives me a steely look. “I will not tell your father about this. It would kill him, absolutely kill him. He does not need to know his daughter’s a godless whore.”
I walk into the living room as Chad is leaving—Friday night hot date with his latest groupie, Melissa Hill. He doesn’t see Mom at first. “Hey Jess-ter,” he says, “Did you get…,” but I give him a look to shut him up as Mom steps around the corner. Behind her back, he raises his hands in a silent question. I shake my head.
For the next month, except for school, I am under house arrest, and I never get used to the frankincense-scented hell I have to endure. Despite my limited range, my mother checks my underwear for semen stains like I’m so determined to find a way to get busy in biology.
May arrives, and it’s the day before Chad’s graduation. The seniors have practiced their pomp and circumstance, and we’ve had an early supper because Chad has a date with Jen, his new squeeze. There will be a party in his honor tomorrow.
As Chad picks up the car keys to head out, the doorbell rings. Dad answers it, and Mr. Hill is standing there with his daughter, Melissa, who is a mess–eyes red, snorting snot. “Hello, Bill,” Dad says, a puzzled look on his face. “Melissa.”
“Frank,” Mr. Hill says. “We need to talk.”
Mom walks in, drying her hands on a dish towel. “Bill, what’s this about?” Chad turns toward the mudroom, hoping to slip out the side door.
“Chad,” Mr. Hill says, spotting my brother’s attempted escape. “Don’t you go anywhere.” Melissa hiccups and starts to sob. I sit in a corner where I can see and hear everything. Brie and Kaneesha will want to know.
