Billie Standish Was Here (15 page)

At least this would be my last year to suffer recess. I shuffled out the back door and sat down on the step with a book, same as I'd done twice a day for years. Most of the boys were already on the baseball diamond and the girls were split up into their usual coveys. There was yelling and laughing and the occasional indignant shriek. Every recess sounded exactly the same, every day, every year.

A pair of Keds appeared in front of me. I looked up from my book and found Harlan Willits pounding a fist into the pocket of his baseball glove.

“Hey, come help us out,” he said. “We need one more to make teams.”

I was too astonished to speak. I looked past him and saw the other boys standing in two groups, looking our way like they expected something.

I shook my head.

“Oh, c'mon. You gonna sit here all by yourself
and
keep us from being able to play?”

I said, “Girls don't . . . you know.” Fourth grade, like punching a time clock, girls stopped using the playground equipment
and
playing baseball. Everybody knew that.

“We're not asking girls. Just you. And it's not like it's a
law
.”

“But I haven't played since—”

“You'll still be better than the runts.”

“I don't have a glove.”

“There's plenty to go around.”

“I'm left-handed.”

“So's Bobby Johnson. We'll put you on opposite teams.”

I had run out of arguments. I marked my page and started following Harlan out to the field. The other boys would protest. They would come up with a better idea. I wouldn't have to play.

Then something really awful occurred to me. “Hey, Harlan,” I yelled toward his back. “Just because we have to study together, you know, it doesn't mean anything.”

He spun around and walked backward, wearing a look that could wilt jimson weed. He said, “Gee, I'll try to wait till after Christmas to ask you to marry me.” Then he spun forward and left me to blush at his back.

“Did you have fun?” That was the first thing Miss Lydia asked that afternoon when the day started tumbling out of me.

“Well, yeah . . . yeah, I did.” It was still a wonder. Once the game was underway, I was just one of them. I had done pretty well, too—got on base every time I batted and even tagged Bobby Johnson out at second with his own glove.

But that wasn't the point. I was trying to explain to Miss Lydia the utter horror of this team-studying business and she just wasn't getting it. I tried another tack. “But to be the only boy-girl study team—people will think we're some kind of freaks.”

“What people?”

“The other girls.”

“The other two in your class? Did they ask the teacher to make an exception and put you with them?”

“Well, no. . . .”

“Well, then, they know you had no choice in the matter. Why do you care what they think, anyway?”

Because there are two of them and one of me, I thought. They have the strength of the majority. And the power to ridicule is a mighty thing.

But I knew Miss Lydia would say that was rubbish. She was good at turning an old idea inside out to reveal its stupidity. So I kept quiet. She might be right, but it still felt wrong. She had forgotten what it was like.

“Sounds like you might have some fun studying, anyway. This Harlan sounds like a character.”

“Huh?” Harlan Willits was white paint. A clean chalkboard. Solid color wallpaper. Nothing.

Miss Lydia chuckled. “Well, you have to admit, that crack about asking you to marry him was a pretty good comeback.”

It was, when I reconsidered. Where did I get off anyway, afraid Harlan
meant
something by asking me to fill out the baseball field? In class he had looked mortified to be teamed up with me. I wasn't sure whether that should come as a relief or an embarrassment.

“Give it a chance, anyway, Billie Marie,” Miss Lydia was saying. “You're only young once—don't forget to have some fun.”

Right. I faked a smile, gathered her trash, and said good-bye. I didn't feel like telling her just then about walking into the lunchroom that day. My first time in it since I had run out of it bleeding.

How the smell of the room brought it all back. How my mouth suddenly tasted like stale cigarettes and coffee. How I had to sit with my head between my knees all through lunch period because I felt like I was either going to pass out or throw up.

Nor did I feel like telling her about my last exchange of the day with Harlan. Walking back toward the schoolhouse after second recess, he had fallen into step beside me and said, “Hey, you got a stomachache or something?”

And I'd said, “Oh, no. I just wasn't hungry at lunch, that's all.”

And he'd said, “That's not what I meant. I just wondered why you keep poking at your stomach like you do.”

A
   week later I was sick to death of school and told Miss Lydia so. I had studied the Constitution with Harlan a couple of times, if you could call it that when the two of us sat in opposite corners of the room with our noses in our books. But otherwise, every day felt like a rerun all day long. The end of May was at least ten years away.

“It seems like at least current events would be new,” Miss Lydia said. “It isn't like history repeats itself
that
quickly.” She chuckled at her own joke, but I felt too low even to humor her.

“We don't study current events,” I explained. “Too bogged down in history, I guess.”

“What?” Miss Lydia squawked so loudly it woke me up some. “They aren't teaching you to pay attention to the world around you?”

I didn't think so.

“Well, how are you supposed to take over when it's your turn?” she asked. The idea of anybody I knew at Cumberland Consolidated taking over anything was so funny I nearly fell out of my chair.

She didn't laugh with me. In fact, she looked pretty sore. “There's not any one of you aiming to grow up someday?”

I said, “Someday, sure.” But I didn't understand what she meant and she looked like she was trying to think of words that could penetrate my thick head.

“
Time
magazine,” she said finally. She looked pleased with the announcement.

I said, “Yeah, I noticed you get
Time
every week.” I was bringing her mail to her every day after school. It wasn't getting any easier for her to get around on her feet. “What about it?”

“From now on you're going to take each one with you as soon as I'm through with it and after you read it we'll talk about what's going on in the world.”

It sounded like a lot of work. “Oh, I don't think—”

“Oh yes, you are. You don't have to be sitting in a brick building at a desk to learn, you know. Most of my education came from being married to Mr. Jenkins.” Her face lit up when she mentioned him. “We read books and he talked with me about them like I had a mind as fine as his. . . . I learned a lot when we traveled together, too. Yes, sir. If that school won't bother to give you an education, I'll just take on the project myself.”

I didn't want to be anybody's project and I told her so. Then I said, “And besides, don't I have any say in the matter? I thought we were friends.”

She thought for a few seconds. Estimating my fee, I imagine. “Pretty, pretty, pretty please with sugar and cream on top?” This with her hands clasped under her chin and without the hint of a smile.

I cracked up and she started laughing, too. I said, “Okay. I'll give it a try, anyway.”

That night I read my first article about the war in Vietnam. I understood the individual words, but for all the sense it made to me it might have been written in French.

As it turned out, we'd have many other things to discuss before we got around to Vietnam anyway.

The next day I felt so punk I thought I might be coming down with something. I caught Harlan watching me feel my stomach and it hit me like lightning—I was starting to show symptoms. No doubt about it. The rest of the day I felt achy and lethargic and on the verge of tears. Even when I wasn't contemplating my future. Or lack of it.

I was starving by lunchtime and wolfed my food so fast I felt miserable. Even Miss Wilson noticed something was wrong. She said, “Billie? Are you feeling poorly?” and two big fat tears rolled down my cheeks before I could stop them.

I just shook my head and bit my bottom lip. What could I say? Any mention of being sick would mean a phone call home. A phone call home would require an explanation, maybe even a trip to the doctor.

I couldn't say a word, even though it was becoming clear this was a secret I would not be able to keep much longer. I had been scared of being pregnant ever since I'd found out it might be possible. But I never had got so far as “then what?”

Miss Lydia had told me to let her think on it and I had.

I slumped through the afternoon feeling fat and hopeless. Things had started getting somewhat peaceful at home, and now I was going to bring home The Worst News a Daughter Can Tell You. Age eleven years, ten months would beat the old Cumberland record by nearly four years. I'd be one of those girls people talked about the rest of their lives. The example mothers used to keep their daughters from ruining their lives.

Then there was the poison icing on the cake—if this came out in the open, I'd have to name a name. There would be no getting around that.

Everybody and their dog would know what Curtis had done to me, but I'd be the only one to focus on. The only one they'd look at and whisper about. And the women of Cumberland counted to nine so well and so often, it wouldn't take long for them to figure out a “when” to go with the “what.” Once they were there, it wouldn't be more than a mayfly's life before everyone decided Curtis's death had not been an accident after all.

I'd have to go away. That was all there was to it. I'd have to tell Mama and Daddy. My life still wouldn't be worth much, but at least they couldn't turn Miss Lydia in. Not without letting the whole world know what had happened, and they wouldn't do that for their own sake. They'd have to find a home somewhere or somebody to take me in.

Either I went away or Miss Lydia would have to. I was pretty sure they wouldn't let you off for murder even if you were older than Adam and had killed somebody worthless.

After all we had done, it was going to get away from us anyway. We wouldn't be able to stick together. I didn't bother wiping the tears away at that thought. I just sat at my desk in the back row and leaked trails down my face all through fifth-grade math. Sitting in the back row there was nobody to see me but Miss Wilson. She either didn't notice or didn't care.

I stopped by home after school to regroup before facing Miss Lydia and made a discovery that boosted my bad nerves up to a panic. I made a beeline across the street, jabbering like a chimpanzee before Miss Lydia even got the door all the way open. She made me slow down, then started getting all worked up herself. She told me to show her. I couldn't, so I ran back home.

I couldn't show her my panties while I was wearing them. I just couldn't. I put them in a paper bag, pulled on a clean pair, and ran back to find Miss Lydia holding the door open. She ripped the bag from my hand, tore it open, and burst out crying.

It was worse than I thought. “What? What's wrong with me?” I started blubbering too.

She said, “Lands, child. Oh, my sweet, sweet girl. Oh, lord,” and she pulled me into a bear hug.

“
What
, Miss Lydia?
Please!
”

She took off her glasses and mopped her face with a handkerchief before she collapsed into a kitchen chair. “Oh, honey, you really don't know, do you?”

I thought I had made that clear. For want of words I shook my hands like they were on fire.

“You're menstruating,” she said. “You've got your first monthly.”

I wasn't ready to accept that. “That—” I pointed at the sack. “That's
not
what that is!” Whatever I really had was so bad she couldn't say it out loud.

Her voice got gentle and she said, “It doesn't always look like you'd expect, Billie Marie. I should have known your mama wouldn't tell you and told you myself. But especially at first, it doesn't always look like what it is.”

It started to sink in. “But that means—” The seed hadn't sprouted. It wasn't there anymore. There was no Curtis, no baby. . . . There was nothing but
me
inside me. My belly wasn't going to announce Miss Lydia's and my secret to the whole world after all.

I stumbled into a chair. All that had changed in the last few seconds grew to such enormous proportions so fast I felt a jolt that raised goose pimples on my arms. I didn't start crying so much as explode into tears and Miss Lydia joined me.