Chapter 4

Dirty Laundry

I left my bedroom and, acting as normally as I could, sat at the dinner table with my mother, brother, and father. My mother smiled and tried to look supportive of me. Brian seemed unaware that anything out of the ordinary was happening. He focused his attention entirely on the dinner plate in front of him. My father simply stared at me, but I got the nonverbal message in his eyes loud and clear: Say nothing. I looked back at my mother, held her gaze for a few moments, then started trying to eat my dinner.

It tasted like plastic. No, it tasted like carpet. Actually, it tasted like nothing. Not that my mother's cooking was bad. On the contrary, it often was quite good. However, right now it seemed like my tongue wasn't working quite right.

Now that I thought about it, nothing looked quite right either. Or smelled right. Or felt right. My senses seemed to be really messed up. I felt eyes on me and looked up to see my mother still staring at me. Uncomfortable, I shifted in my seat. A jolt of pain shot up my spine as I did this, and I did my best not to flinch. I guess I didn't, because my mother didn't react as if I had, and looked down at her dinner plate. I cast a quick glance at my father, and I knew he had seen the flinch.

My heart skipped a beat. I was terrified. I didn't want to provoke him. Worse, I didn't want my mother to find out what had happened. I quickly looked down and tried to finish my dinner as fast as I could. I almost was finished when suddenly the food became too much for me and my stomach began to churn. I excused myself from the table and started quickly back towards my room. I needed to lie down. Quickly.

As I was about to throw myself onto the bed I heard my mother's voice from the doorway. "Angela?"

I stopped just short of my bed, braced myself, and turned around, praying that I looked like nothing more was wrong than what my mother thought was the matter.

"Angela, your father told me all about what happened at school today."

Bullshit, I thought.

"I just want you to know I'm not mad at you for getting upset and leaving. Those girls are to blame, not you. I'm going to call Miss White tonight and arrange for us to have a meeting with these two girls tomorrow. What were their names? Tara and Sarah?"

I almost burst into tears. I couldn't face them right now, not after what had happened just now. "No!" I shouted before I could stop myself. My mother looked taken aback. "I don't want to see them! I don't want to see Miss White! I never want to go back there ever again!" Shut up shut up shut up, I kept telling myself. It was too late, though. I had to let some of it out. "They're evil and I wish they would die!"

"Angela! That's enough!" My mother said loudly, but not angrily. "You don't mean things like that! You have to go back to school, Angela. Don't worry, once Miss White hears what happened I am sure that she'll put the fear of God into those awful girls. You leave this to me, Angela. Trust me, everything will be alright."

With that, my mother turned and left the room. As her form moved out of the doorway, I saw my father standing there. He stared at me for a few moments, then shut my door.

I lay on my bed and trembled. I listened to the sounds of my family going about the rest of their evening activities. At one point I heard the muffled sound of my mother on the telephone, presumably talking to Christine White, my principal, arranging the meeting for tomorrow.

Finally, silence descended on the entire apartment. Everyone must have gone to bed. I looked at the clock on my bedside table and saw that I had been lying here for three hours. It was time to go to bed.

I went to bed without changing into my pajamas or brushing my teeth.

I woke up at a few minutes after one. I usually didn't sleep in this late, but I guess I was exhausted from the previous day's.....experiences.

One o'clock? I guess my mother knew well enough to not try and send me to school today. She must have scheduled the meeting for later on today. I was not looking forward to this at all. However, if I made too much of a fuss about things my mother might see through me and realize there was much more upsetting me than just that. I had better just go along with this. And if things were straightened up at school, all the better. It would make one bad thing alright so I could focus on dealing with the other......badder thing that had happened to me.

I got up, cringing as my clothes stuck to me. I shouldn't have gone to bed without changing. I walked to my closet and was about to change when a thought struck me.

I couldn't let my mother wash these clothes.

How was I going to avoid her doing this, though? She would insist on me showering and changing, for hygiene reasons. I couldn't insist on cleaning them myself, because that would set off alarms in her head as well. I began to panic. What was I going to do?

I heard my mother showering in the bathroom. This would buy me some time. I changed into my pajamas, so my mother wouldn't get suspicious, then snuck out of the room, my dirty clothes in hand.

I left the apartment and snuck down the hall to the laundry room. I opened the garbage chute and tossed the clothes down it. As they fell out of sight, I wondered what the hell had I just done? This accomplished nothing. My mother knew what I had been wearing yesterday, and would notice the clothes were missing.

Shit, shit, shit! I couldn't stand here any longer. And I didn't have any time to run downstairs and outside to the dumpster the trash chute led to. My mother might be out of the shower anytime. Even if I had time, if one of my neighbors caught me digging around in a dumpster in my pajamas, that would do me no favors.

I ran back to the apartment, making sure to lock the front door behind me. My mother was still in the shower. I jumped back into bed and pulled the covers up over my head. A short time later the shower stopped, and eventually I heard the door open and my mother entered the room. I pretended to be asleep.

"Angela?" My mother said, gently shaking my shoulder. "Honey, time to get up."

I pretended to act all bleary and sleepy. I was sure my mother would call my bluff, but I guess I'm a better actress than I thought, because my mother explained that she let me stay home from school and that we were going to meet with Miss White later that day to talk about what had happened yesterday.

Fuck.

"Okay, Mama," I said, stretching and making a big show of looking tired.

"You get up and watch TV or something. Just take it easy today, okay? I'm going to go do the laundry and when I come back I'll make you something to eat."

I froze. She was going to notice the missing clothes. I tried to think of some clever plan to get out of this, but I couldn't. Nothing I could do but hope she didn't notice, and act dumb if she did.

I turned on the TV and pretended to lose myself in some dumb cartoon. What I actually focused on was trying not to lose it completely. How had my life gone so suddenly wrong in one day? God. One day. It felt like an eternity.

The apartment door opened. I tried not to scream. "Angela, where are the clothes you wore yesterday?"

I tried to act natural. "I dropped them in the basket. Why?"

"Because I can't find them. Are you sure you dropped them in the basket?"

"Yes."

"When? I don't remember seeing you come out of your room last night."

"I, uh, I came out after you went to bed. I had some thinking to do, so I stayed up late last night."

My mother studied my face intently for a moment. "Alright. If you say so. But where did they go?"

"No idea."

My mother frowned, then closed the door and returned to the laundry room. I sat back down on the couch and tried to stop my knees from trembling.

When my mother came back from the laundry, I could see she was still confused, but she didn't press me about it anymore. I thought I was off the hook. I breathed a small sigh of relief. She told me to shower and get dressed, so I did.

I took extra time in the shower, trying to wash off all the dirt, real and imagined. My vision swam as I gingerly tried to wash.....well, you don't need to hear that. I managed to keep from fainting or throwing up, and went through the rest of the day without giving my mother any indication that something was wrong, other than what she already knew.

At four o'clock mother told me to put my shoes on. It was time to go meet with Miss White at the school.

I tried to act unfazed, but I knew this was going to be too much.

I had no idea.