The Smell of Other People's Hou - Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock Page 0,21

so obviously anything more would be asking a lot.

Even now I had no plan for the future, except that I knew I was never going to tell Ray what was happening. I had to do this all on my own—somehow—because I wasn’t going to trust anyone else ever, ever again.

—

Luckily the school year ended and my secret was still small enough that I’d managed to hide it from everyone, even Selma. I spent the first part of summer break sleeping. I could almost convince myself that I was Sleeping Beauty, and if I just managed to stay unconscious for the next few months maybe I’d wake up and be a whole new person. I didn’t know it then, but in a way, that’s what was going to happen; I just didn’t realize how far from a fairy tale it was going to be.

—

“Are you sure you should eat all that Spam and a bowl of Cap’n Crunch and three pieces of peanut butter toast?” Lily asks one morning. “You’re getting kind of fat, Ruth.”

“Well, that’s a nice thing to say,” I answer, shoving the whole slab of disgusting pink fake meat into my mouth and glaring at her.

“Suit yourself. But Bunny said something about it the other day,” she goes on. “She said even Dora has noticed.”

Well, isn’t that great? Dora, whose entire life was on display, nightgown and all, has decided it’s okay to talk about my weight? Maybe she thinks we’ve all forgotten that scene between her and her dad, now that she’s won the Ice Classic?

I feel myself start to shake. Lately I can get worked up about nothing. But this isn’t nothing. Of all people, Dora Peters is talking about me? So, now that she has money and a nice cozy home, I suppose I’m fair game, am I? I can just picture her over at Dumpling and Bunny’s, all of them sitting around the table and Dumpling’s mother making sourdough pancakes and venison sausage; I can smell the food they eat from the merry-go-round. Actually, I can smell food from almost anywhere these days. I have never been jealous of those girls before, but I can feel it rearing its ugly green head. I wish I could be anyone but me—even Dora—which means I’ve really hit rock bottom.

I want to jump up and yell, “Lily, you dumb shit, I’m pregnant!”

Why not? Gran is at the sink, pretending that her ears have fallen off and she’s blind as a bat. Suddenly she can’t see anything that’s happening to me, when she used to watch me like a hawk. How ironic that the bigger I get, the more invisible I become.

Except that I overheard her on the telephone, making a reservation for a bus ride to Canada under my name.

I could see how Lily might be absolutely clueless, considering she doesn’t even understand the difference between her and Bunny, but Gran? I had no idea that the silent treatment could be so much worse than public humiliation. Gran has more than one trick up her sleeve.

When I get up and head out the door, I pause, wondering if she’ll ask me where I’m going or when I’m coming back. The only sound in the room is Gran’s yellow dish gloves squeaking as she rubs the soapy sponge across a plate. She says nothing. When I leave I make sure to slam the screen door extra hard, and still she doesn’t come out. I am officially not even worth reprimanding.

I walk all the way to the Salvation Army without looking up, not at the river or the little white church where my parents got married, and not at Crazy Dancing Guy who is strangely silent when I pass. It’s one of those hot summer days that smells smoky from distant wildfires, and I am sticky with sweat by the time I push through the Salvation Army’s jingly door.

I need to buy some bigger clothes. Dora’s mother is there with some of her friends, and when I pass them in the aisle, well, let’s just say they did not go to the Gran school of feigned obliviousness.

“Someone’s got a bun in the oven,” one of them chortles.

I don’t look up; I just push my cart slowly between them. I stop and pretend to admire a rack of long woolen underwear. A person can never have enough long underwear.

“Remember those days, Paula?” The woman talks loudly, as if Paula is a hundred miles away instead of right next to her,