Vivian lantzs second cha.., p.5
Vivian Lantz's Second Chances, page 5
Some of Mike’s spit lands on my cheek. I take a step back, wiping it off.
“Sorry,” I tell him. “I’m not much of a baker.”
I move toward the cafeteria line, but Mike blocks me, smiling wide as ever.
“Okay, but what about your parents? I bet your mom bakes a mean birthday cake, right?”
I squint at Mike. I hate when people do that: make assumptions about how many parents I have, or what gender they are.
“My dads are both terrible bakers,” I inform him. “Good luck, though!”
This time, I hurry off before Mike can get in another word. I feel kind of bad about it, but seconds later, he shouts “Hellooo” at someone new. So, I don’t think I’ve dampened his spirits.
Even though I’m late to lunch, there’s still a line. I wait my turn for a glop of tuna salad, an apple, and banana pudding. As I grab a jug of orange juice, I give myself another pep talk. I’ve cleaned up since Amberleigh’s group last saw me. No mud, no poop, no growling stomach. This time, I’ll make a good impression. Maybe I’ll even get an invite to that pool party.
Lunch is where this whole day turns around.
I set my sights on Amberleigh’s table and, most importantly, Alex. Alex with his warm brown skin and depthless eyes and the donut-hole-shaped mole beneath his lip. Alex, who looks especially nice in his gold and black uniform as he runs across the soccer field, sweat trickling down the back of his neck . . .
I heave a wistful sigh.
Yeah. Time to make this happen.
“Oh my god,” says a girl passing by. She whispers to her friend, and both of them look at me, giggling.
Panicked, I glance down, wondering if I missed a spot of mud on my clothes. Okay, there’s a little splatter on the hem of my skirt. But that’s nothing to laugh about. Jeez.
I walk on toward Amberleigh’s table, and I hear another snicker. This time it’s coming from a whole table of kids. They’re looking at me—and then, very quickly, not. More whispers and giggles swirl around me, like a growing cyclone. I catch shreds of whispers: “so embarrassing” and “she doesn’t know.”
Is this really over a speck of mud? I roll my eyes, acting like the whispers don’t bother me. They do, though. My veins are sizzling, and I feel my heartbeat all the way up in my ears.
“Vivian?”
I whirl around to see Mrs. Campos. Again. She looks uneasy—kind of like how I feel.
“Hey,” she says very softly. “Would you come with me?”
I don’t get what’s going on, but I follow Mrs. Campos to the caf doors. On the way, I hear more whispers and laughs. By the time Mrs. Campos and I reach the hallway, I’m gripping my lunch tray hard enough to bruise my fingertips.
Even so, I’m not prepared for what Mrs. Campos says next.
“Vivian,” she tells me, “I think you’ve started your period.”
I stand in the bathroom of the nurse’s office, facing myself in the mirror. I have officially tried every thinkable way to undo the last fifteen minutes of my life.
I’ve pleaded with God, in case they exist. I’ve wished for mutant time-reversing powers. I’ve promised Mother Earth that I will spend my twenties in the Peace Corps. I’ve even tried saying “Bloody Mary” three times, because I figure if anyone understands my predicament, it’s a girl who has the word “bloody” in her name, and even if she is an evil ghost, I’ve made my peace with her scratching out my eyes and transporting me to a dark dimension. Anything is preferable to my present reality.
But it’s no use. Nothing’s worked.
My first period. On my first day of school.
Turns out the thing kids were laughing about in the caf wasn’t the mud. It was the blood seeping through the back of my skirt. What I want to know is, how did I not feel anything? It’s my period. Shouldn’t I be aware of my own body releasing its own blood? Why did I have to be the last person at Bluebonnet Middle to figure that out?
“You all right in there, hon?” Ms. Wendy, the school nurse, raps on the bathroom door.
Nope, Ms. Wendy, I am not all right.
“Fine!” I call back, looking at the gym shorts Ms. Wendy gave me to change into. My skirt, tights, and underwear sit crumpled on the edge of the sink. Ms. Wendy gave me a pair of cheer shorts to use as underwear, as well as a pad, but now that I’m changed, I don’t know what to do with my bloodied-up clothes.
Staying in the bathroom longer won’t make things any better, I know. I’ve got to face the music, since I’m not getting any help from Bloody Mary. I wash my hands and open the door with the pile of clothes under one arm.
“Oh!” says Ms. Wendy, backing away. “Don’t worry. I’ve got something for those.”
She opens a cabinet and tugs out a mini trash bag. Shaking it open and holding it out, she says, “Go on and dump them in there.”
I do, watching miserably as Ms. Wendy knots the bag and sets it on her desk.
“We’ll leave that till after school,” she tells me. “You can stop by afterward to pick them up. And of course, I have a nurse’s note for your current class.”
Wait. I’m supposed to go back to class like this? I stare down at my ugly gym shorts, bare knees, and sockless shoes. I look like a total weirdo. If the entire eighth grade doesn’t already know about my period, they’ll know now.
I start to cry. Really cry. Like, a waterfall of snot and tears.
Ms. Wendy kneels in front of me, placing a hand on my shoulder.
“Hey,” she says. “Why don’t we talk for a minute?”
She motions to one of the stiff-cushioned chairs along the office wall, and as we sit, I wince at the weird feeling of the pad in my cheer shorts.
“I’m sure that getting your period like this was difficult,” Ms. Wendy tells me. “If it makes you feel better, you’re definitely not the first case to walk through my door.”
“I’m not?” I whisper.
“Mm-hmm. Your period is totally normal. Even if you’re feeling awkward about it today, believe me, everyone’s bound to have one bad first day of school.”
My bottom lip wobbles. Then there’s no stopping it: I burst into tears all over again.
“You don’t get it!” I wail. “Every first day is a bad day! Every. Single. One.”
I could tell Ms. Wendy about the preschool glitter incident, or “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” or my appendix bursting. I could tell her about my Master Plan, and how it’s been officially thwarted one time too many. Instead, I just cry for what feels like ten minutes straight.
It’s only when I let up that Ms. Wendy asks me gently, “Would you like me to call a parent to pick you up?”
I manage a heavy nod.
Ms. Wendy has to leave the room to make the call. The door clicks shut behind her, and I wipe the tears from my face. I hope Pop has his phone on him, because Da always shuts his off during the workday. Maybe I should have given Ms. Wendy the number to Be Kind, Rewind. Or maybe I shouldn’t have asked her to call my dads at all. Maybe I should suck it up, even though the thought of going back to class makes me want to hurl.
“Knock, knock?”
I look up, expecting Ms. Wendy to be in the doorway.
Instead, it’s Gemma Cohen.
“U-u-uh,” I choke out. “Ms. Wendy’s not here. She’ll be back soon.”
Gemma shuts the door, nodding. “Okay, cool.”
She crosses the room and plops into the seat right next to me. I catch a whiff of a fruity scent, like strawberry Jell-O, and I tense up. I’m a bigger wreck now than I was this morning, when Gemma ran into me. I probably look like a freaky, bedraggled raccoon. Gemma, on the other hand, is a vision. Her curly brown hair is pulled back, and she’s wearing cute knee-high boots. Her eyes glint as she looks me over. Which gets me wondering . . . why is Gemma here?
“Are you feeling sick?” I ask.
Gemma smirks. “I faked a stomachache in Mx. Ramani’s class.”
Whoa. “You lied to a teacher?”
Gemma narrows her eyes at me. That’s when I realize how judgy I must sound.
“Not that I think that’s bad,” I tell her.
Gemma shrugs. “It’s the first day of class. I’m not missing anything. Anyway, I emailed Mx. Ramani a week ago to ask for more outside reading, since I’ve done all mine. I’d say I’m in good with them.”
I blink at Gemma. I’ve never heard someone talk about teachers this way. Like they have an understanding. And how the heck has Gemma already done all the outside reading for social studies? There were, like, twenty-five books on the list we got over summer break. She must be some kind of genius.
“So, wait,” I say. “Why did you fake sick?”
Gemma’s expression softens. She casts me a tiny smile, like we have an understanding, and says matter-of-factly, “I wanted to check on you.”
I stare at her, knowing I must’ve heard wrong. Why would Gemma care how I’m doing? She barely knows who I am.
“I heard about what happened at lunch,” Gemma explains, “and the thing is, I’m the reason you fell this morning and messed up your look. Then Amberleigh was a jerk to you, and now this? You’ve had a majorly sucky day, and . . . well, I feel like it’s partly my fault.”
I give Gemma a weirded-out look. What she’s saying makes zero sense.
“You didn’t give me my period,” I point out.
“Sure,” Gemma says, “but I feel bad about the stuff that happened before.”
“It’s not like you knocked me over on purpose.”
“Well, okay,” Gemma concedes. “But I’m the one who’s friends with Amberleigh. I should’ve said something when she was being ugly to you.”
So Gemma does think that Amberleigh was being sarcastic earlier. That doesn’t feel great.
“It’s fine,” I tell her, not so convincingly.
She motions to my clothes. “Well, look on the bright side? You got a free pair of gym shorts out of it.”
I squint at Gemma. She squints back at me. The corners of her lips lift, and mine do, too. Then both of us are laughing. It’s like all the jittery energy I couldn’t cry out can be laughed out instead: a tumble of ha ha has that feel wrong but so right. As Gemma laughs, I notice a dimple on the left side of her smile. Seeing that makes my chest get warm. It gets extra warm when our laughs die down and Gemma rests her hand on the chair, her pinkie finger brushing my knee.
“I’m sorry you had a bad day,” she says. Looking thoughtful, she adds, “I’m glad we ran into each other, though.”
“Literally,” I say.
“Yeah.” Gemma’s dimple reappears. “Literally.”
The door swings open, and Ms. Wendy bustles in. “All settled!” she announces, before noticing Gemma. “Oh. Hello, hon.”
Then she’s back to telling me, “I got a hold of Diego. That’s your—”
“Pop,” I supply.
“Yes. He says he’ll be here in ten minutes, so you hang tight a little longer, okay?”
Gemma looks at me in surprise. “You’re not sticking around for the rest of school?”
“No,” I admit, hunching my shoulders and wondering if I should suck it up. The day isn’t over yet. I could keep working on the Master Plan. I could—
“Good for you,” Gemma says emphatically. “I wouldn’t, either.”
She hops off her chair, and I watch in awe as she sweet-talks Ms. Wendy, complaining about indigestion and asking for a cup of Pepto Bismol. Gemma gulps down the stuff, but when Ms. Wendy asks if she wants to lie down, she cheerily shakes her head.
“Just needed a quick checkup, is all,” she says, shooting me a wink on her way out the door.
Afterward, Ms. Wendy takes a seat at her desk, and as her nails clack against the computer keyboard, the good feelings Gemma brought with her begin to fade.
I thought it was bad last year when Posey McCowen dropped a box of tampons from her backpack on a field trip, and some of the eighth grade guys started calling her Plug-Up Posey. What’s my name going to be? Bloody Vivian?
Oh my god. Would Amberleigh call me that? Would Alex? Would Gemma?
I shift my left knee—the one Gemma’s pinkie touched.
No. I don’t think Gemma would, at least.
There’s a knock on the door, and I look up to see Pop’s bearded face peering through the window. Relief breaks over me like a tidal wave.
“Oh!” says Ms. Wendy, glancing my way. “You ready to go?”
I really think about that. I’m used to cursed first days. I’ve always muddled through them in the past. But this first day—it’s got me down, more than all the rest. Today, I tried to happen to life, but life just happened to me again and again, in all the worst ways.
So, am I ready to go?
I sigh, feeling the crushing weight of defeat.
Yeah, Ms. Wendy. I sure am.
6
IT’S QUIET AS the ancient tombs of Elystria on the drive home.
In the nurse’s office, Pop asked how I was; and when all I could do was sniffle, he patted my back and told me it’d be okay. He took me by my locker, where I grabbed my stuff, and on our way out, I tossed Trixie’s poop bag in a hallway trash can.
When I caught Pop staring, I muttered, “Don’t ask.”
“Not gonna,” he replied. “Let’s blow this Popsicle stand.”
Now, in the car, I clutch my bloodied clothes on my lap. The garbage bag is scented, and the smell of fake citrus fills my nose. KXAN radio is playing, but Pop turns it off when he pulls into the back lot of Be Kind, Rewind. He shifts the car into park as I stare blankly at the Reserved for Our Far-Out Customers! sign.
I don’t want to talk about this. I want to bury myself in bed, where I can drift into a hundred-year slumber. But Pop’s got different plans. We head inside, where Pop takes my clothes to soak them in the washing machine. Dads have finished cleaning up the back room and opened the shop, and Da’s talking to a customer up front. When Da’s through, Pop pulls him aside—filling him in on my Great Humiliation, no doubt—and flips the Open sign to Closed.
Pop suggests we “talk about things,” and before I know it we’re in my room, Dads sitting on the edge of my bed and Da holding a box of maxi pads.
I. Am. Mortified.
A few weeks after I turned ten, Dads sat me down to tell me about the third shelf of the linen closet, where they’d stocked the things I might need when I got my first period: pads, panty liners, and tampons. I could take my pick when the time came, they said. Once Arlo caught wind of that, he went around calling it “the menstrual shelf,” like it was a big joke, and the name stuck.
Ever since, my period’s been looming over me, like a giant thundercloud filled with gallons of blood. I know periods are normal. People get them everywhere, all over the world. I’m sure that once I get the hang of it, life will be dandy. It’s just my first period that I’ve been nervous about. It’s the uncertainty—not knowing when it’s going to strike. Cami got hers a year ago on a Sunday, when she was at home. I wasn’t sure I’d be that lucky, though.
During the summer, especially, when I sweated through my shorts on extra-hot days, I’d freak out that maybe some of that sweat was blood. But those were all false alarms. This one time I needed to be prepared? I wasn’t. I hadn’t even thought about packing a pad in my backpack this morning. Much good the menstrual shelf did me today.
“I get it,” Pop tells me, reaching across the bed to squeeze my hand. “You don’t feel like talking, and that’s okay. I only want to say that, believe it or not, you will recover from this.”
I don’t want to talk, but I can’t let that go.
“Everyone was laughing at me!” I burst out. “People are going to call me Bloody Vivian for the rest of my life.”
Da raises an eyebrow. “That would be unoriginal.”
“It’s not funny!”
“No,” Pop says gently. “It’s not.”
“It wasn’t supposed to go like this!” I keep wailing. “It’s the absolute worst of my worst first days. And it won’t just be today. It’ll be my whole year, and people won’t forget in high school, either. I’ll always be the girl who had her period in front of the whole school!”
In the midst of my wailing, a new solution pops into my head.
I clasp my hands in front of me, begging. “We could move! We could go back to Chicago. Or Siberia. Anywhere but here!”
“We’re not moving,” Da says firmly.
Dejected, I grab Mistmorrow and prop him under my chin.
“If you need another day off school,” says Pop, “that’s okay.”
The room goes quiet, and I peer over Mistmorrow’s ears to see Da and Pop swapping looks.
Da’s look says something like, We didn’t discuss that.
Pop’s says, It’s the right thing to do.
Take another day off school? It was bad enough conceding defeat in Ms. Wendy’s office. Then again, I don’t know if I can ever show my face at Bluebonnet Middle again.
“I gotta think about it,” I mumble into Mistmorrow’s fur.
Dads back off after that. Da hands over the pads, and Pop tells me that if I don’t feel comfortable talking about this stuff with them, I can always call Aunt Ximena. Finally, they leave the room, and the second Pop closes the door, I bury my face in Mistmorrow’s mane and let out a pent-up scream.
“He still won’t answer.”
I’m in the kitchen, sitting at an oak foldout table set for four. There’s a problem, though: only three of us Lantzes are here. Even after Da’s closed the shop for the day and Pop has nudged veggies around and around on the griddle, saying we can wait another five, ten, fifteen minutes; even after Da has called Arlo three times—he’s a no-show.
“Band practice?” Pop suggests, as he sets a tangerine poppy seed salad on the table.
We all know that isn’t it, though. Arlo’s practices are after dinner, at eight o’clock. Who knows what he’s up to? Maybe it’s not practice, but I bet it has something to do with “band life.”
Over dinner, Dads talk about the news and boring shop business while I pick at the grilled veggies and cheese on my plate. I’m grateful that Dads haven’t brought up school or my period again; I sure don’t want to think about either of those things. Right now? I’m trying not to think, period.
