sad to think about anyone sneaking into her own front yard and throwing toilet paper around so that it would look like her friends or, even more ridiculous, her boyfriend had wrapped her house. But Twyla went ahead and did it all by herself.
Most parents, the second they saw all that toilet paper drooping out of their trees, would have gotten their kid out of bed in the middle of the night to clean it up. Not Twyla’s mom. Not Dori. She was probably proud of the streamers of toilet paper hanging down from the tall sycamore trees. Probably thought it was a bold declaration of the slob-queen housecleaning style she and my mom bonded over. As if the warped card table left out from a garage sale she’d had months ago, and the deflated husk of an ancient wading pool, and the acrylic painting she’d taped over a broken-out windowpane weren’t enough clues. So the Charmin was just left there to blow in the breeze all weekend.
Sunday night, it rained.
Monday, after school, I did what I always did and waited until the very last minute to get on the bus. Then I acted all distracted, and pretended that I was trying to find something in my backpack and that I didn’t see Twyla, sitting all the way in the back, waving wildly at me. I grabbed the first open seat as close to the front as I could manage. We always passed Twyla’s house on the way home. That day, though, before we even reached her house, a murmur passed through the bus and kids moved over to the windows on the side that faced it.
The rain the night before had made the toilet paper clump together into lumps of gray papier-mâché. Someone—I didn’t turn around to see who—yelled out, “Hey, Twyla, nice job on the wrapping!”
Everyone laughed. They all knew. Or just made the obvious guess that Twyla had wrapped her own house. I laughed with them. I had to. If I hadn’t everyone would have assumed that I had helped Twyla. That I was still her friend. That night was the first time I unlatched the screen on my window and sneaked out of the house. I took the long pole with the hook on the end of it that Mom used to clean the fan in the great room with me, went over to Twyla’s house, and cleared off as much of the TP as I could reach.
I get the same cringing, burning-with-shame feeling I had on the bus passing Twyla’s house when I think about how I’d held up my little bottle of water and waved it at Tyler like it was some secret lover’s signal. It was clear from the way he’d looked right through me that if he’d ever given me a second thought, it was, “What is the deal with that sketchy stalker girl?”
Who cared, though, really? I wanted to get out of band and he helped me do that. That’s all that is important. That’s all I really care about.
It’s Friday. Friday is a big day for the Jims ’n’ Jays crowd—the noontime equivalent of the Wake ’n’ Bake morning tardies—named in honor of their lunch favorites, Slim Jims and joints. Miles Kropp, a guy I’d written lots of slips for, meandered in. We always acted like we didn’t know each other, even though he’d been part of Twyla’s stoner-emo-goth group since sixth grade. His eyes, rimmed in thick black liner, are rabid-bat red. He stands on the other side of the attendance counter, not saying a word.
“Do you need a tardy slip?” I finally ask.
“Hu-u-u-h?” He makes a big deal out of slurring the word and saying it real slow.
I write his name at the top of the slip, the last one on my pad, and ask, “Reason for tardiness?”
“Huh?”
“We’ll just say ‘personal.’ ”
“Yeah. Right. Cool. Per-suh-nul.” He says it in a dreamy, sleepy way. “Like I’m a null person.” His giggle reminds me of Twyla. So does the way he is proud of himself, just like Twyla always was when she was high and expected me to be shocked and outraged but secretly impressed and jealous.
He leaves and the office is empty. Miss Olivia hasn’t gotten back from lunch yet. When she does, she’ll listen to all the attendance messages, then send me out to pick up the kids whose parents have called in asking for them to be excused for doctor’s appointments or to talk to the reps