A/N: Well, here's the next chapter in this little story of mine. All I really have to say about this one is that it's longer and that it has some stronger language. But, other then that, that's about it. Enjoy, and please review! Danke.
Disclaimer: Pretty much positive that I don't own Hairspray.
"Today is the day
The worst day of my life
I'm learning to fall
I can't hardly breathe
When I'm going down don't worry about me."
--Boys Like Girls, "Learning To Fall"
Mid-April, 1962
"Brenda, love, could you come down and help with the groceries?"
Shit. She was home. Shit, shit, shit.
Brenda glanced around the painfully neat bathroom desperately, not sure what to do. She threw herself at the locked door, not wanting to open it, not yet.
"Lizzy?" she called out to her sister who waited on the other side of the locked door. "Could you help mom with the groceries?"
"Rennie!" the younger girl whined. "I really, really hafta go! It's an emergency!"
Brenda flapped her arms at her sides like a chicken trying to take flight.
"Yeah, well, Liz… I'm having a bit of my own emergency in here currently if you don't mind!" Brenda snapped.
"Mine's worse!"
'Does yours involve having a child?' Brenda thought bitterly, but shook the thought. If she thought it, it almost made it real. Almost. And if she could put off making it real for now, she sure as hell would. Maybe it was a faulty test. Maybe she should take another. But now her mom was home, and Jackie would surely notice this time around. And what to do with this test…
Brenda's line of thought was interrupted by the sound of someone coming up the stairs.
"Mommy! She won't let me in!"
"Alright, dear."
Quiet. The sound of skirts rustling in the hall. Her mother banging on the door.
"Brenda! Let your sister in!"
"Mom…" Brenda moaned, snatching the test up from the counter.
"Brenda! Today!"
Brenda glanced around frantically, until she knew her choices. Door one; she swallows it. Door two; she flushes it down the toilet. Door three; she throws it out the window. Or, of course, D; all of the above. Hurrying across the bathroom, not without that click, click of high heels Brenda was so used to, she flung the window open. If she tossed the thing out the window, it would land on top of the neighbor's trash can. How perfect. With one heave, Brenda had it out the window and in Mrs. Jenner's trash can.
"Brenda Ann-" Her mother was cut off and saved the trouble of strangling out Brenda's full name when she dove to the bathroom door, unlocking it and appearing before her mother and sister as fast as she could. Jackie narrowed her eyes at her eldest daughter, peering around the girl at the open bathroom window.
"Why's that open?"
Brenda shrugged, casually stepping out of Lizzy's way as the girl charged into the bathroom and stepping around her mother, fixing her hair which had deflated significantly after running around in circles in the upstairs bathroom. "I got hot," she replied simply, slipping into her bedroom and shutting the door behind her.
Mission: accomplished.
She had safely hidden the pregnancy test from her mother.
Now, how to deal with the next hurdle? Which was actually being pregnant.
Shit.
It was really real.
Brenda stepped carefully over to her full length mirror and examined herself. She didn't feel any different. Well, she did a little. She didn't look that different. Really. Brenda turned this way and that. She had put on a little bit of weight lately, but not that much. This couldn't be happening. It wasn't happening. Slowly, as if in a daze, Brenda backed up against the wall, watching herself in the mirror.
"You," she began, speaking to her reflection. "You, Brenda Lawrence, are a stupid slut. But that's okay. Because you're not really a stupid slut. This will all go away tomorrow morning." Brenda shut her eyes, and placed her pale hands over them. "This will go away, this will go away," she repeated over and over, in a sing-song voice as she slid down the wall into a curled sitting position on the cluttered floor. Determined, Brenda snapped her eyes open and slapped her thin hands on the ground beside her. She glared at her own reflection in the mirror, the same one she had preened over time and time again. "You, Brenda Lawrence, will not have a child!" she announced, pointing to the girl in the mirror. "You won't! You won't! You won't, you won't, you won't! You don't have the mothering instinct. You're only seventeen! You're too young! You can't have a child! You can't!" Brenda's fingers curled into tight fists at her side, and she wrapped her arms around her knees, burying her face in her skirt. She'd be okay. This was all going to go away.
The shrill call of the phone ringing didn't bring Brenda up to her feet. She let her phone ring, waiting for her mother to answer.
"Brenda!" her mother's voice came from the kitchen. "It's Darla."
Brenda sighed, and slowly crawled over to her bed and up onto it, rolling over onto her back to stare at the ceiling before grabbing the phone off her bedside table.
"Hullo?" Brenda asked dully, glaring at the ceiling. It was so dull. She'd need to brighten it up a bit.
"Bren! Okay, sunshine yellow or periwinkle blue? I like the yellow best, personally. 'Cause it's so bright and…and happy! You agree? "
"I guess. What are we talking about, again?"
"Oh, my Miss Teenage Hairspray dress, of course! Duh! It's all anyone's been talking about, their dresses. What does yours look like? Oh, by the way, do you need a ride to the dress shop on Saturday, because we were gonna go together for the fitting, remember? So mine's either going to be yellow or blue. What did you say yours was gonna be? Did I ask that already?" Darla's happy blabber came streaming over the phone. Brenda guessed she was only so peppy because of the dress. She was right, all the girls were getting really hyped up over the dresses. Brenda sighed. Well, that went down the drain for her, too. If this was really happening, she wasn't going to be competing in any pageants.
"Dar…I…I'm not going."
"Whadya mean? To the dress shop? But Bren! You promised!" Darla sounded hurt as she whined about the dress shop. Well, she had every right too be upset. But Brenda had more bitching rights at the moment.
"No, Dar. I mean, I can still go with you to the dress shop, but I won't have the dress fitted."
"What?" Darla gasped. "Why?"
"I'm not…I'm not doing the pageant."
"Excuse me? Brenda, why not?"
"Darla…" Brenda began, not quite certain what to say anymore.
"…Yes?"
"I…I can't tell you over the phone. Can I come over?"
"Sure. But Vicki and Becky are gonna be over in, like, five minutes."
"That's fine. They can hear this, too."
"Okay…Brenda, is everything alright?"
Brenda hesitated before answering. "I don't know." With that, Brenda hung up and rolled off the bed, attempting to regain her composure before she went down stairs. She slipped out of her room and down the stairs, passing her mom in the kitchen.
"Mom, I'm going to Darla's. I'll be back later, 'kay?" Brenda called as she left the house, starting the short walk to Darla's.
"Fine," Jackie called back, still working on putting away the groceries, with Lizzy's aid.
Darla lived across the street and at the other end of the block from Brenda. It was only a two minute walk, but it was just Brenda's luck that it should start to rain in that particular two minutes. It started with a single fat drop falling onto Brenda's nose. Then another, and other, until it had started to pour. She ran the rest of the way, trying to avoid the sudden torrential downpour. Brenda's hair was a ruin and her dress clung mercilessly to her body as she scurried up the Hans's front porch, pounding on the doorbell.
"Jesus, it's really coming down out there," Darla chirped, opening the door. She poked her dry head out of the wide oak doorframe as Brenda shouldered past into the nice, warm, dry foyer of the Hans household. Mrs. Hans stepped out of the gleaming white kitchen and into the cozy foyer, still drying a sparkling white dish with a perfect blue dishcloth. The one thing that always bothered Brenda about Darla's house was how…impeccable it always was. The whole household had that 'old-Colonial-barn-turned-cozy-little-cottage-house' feel. Glossy, polished wood everywhere, furry throw rugs in every room, porcelain show plates with pictures of luscious forests and stormy oceans painted on them placed on dust-less mantels, ridiculously spotless windows, over-stuffed leather armchairs. The whole deal. The living room even had a working fireplace, which always had a roaring fire in it, which was un-called for due to the constant Baltimore humidity. Brenda's theory was that Mr. and Mrs. Hans used to live on the Appalachian Trail or something, and they needed some reminder of home.
"Oh, Brenda, love, you're completely soaked! Do you need to borrow one of Dar's dresses?" Mrs. Hans cooed, brow wrinkled in concern. Brenda shook her head, trying her best to cover her figure. What if Mrs. Hans noticed her change in shape? Though Charlene Hans wasn't known for her talent of noticing people's change in weight, Brenda thought darkly. When Darla had gone on her notorious 'dieting' binge, when she had used…unconventional methods to get weight off fast, Mrs. Hans had failed to notice that her daughter was shedding pounds unnaturally quickly. A bunch of the other council girls were doing the same thing, and no one had been concerned, but Bren had noticed. She still felt a twinge of guilt that she hadn't done more to help Dar.
"C'mon, Brenda," Darla whispered, motioning up the stairs to her room. At that moment, the doorbell rang a second time and Charlene Hans hustled past the girls to pull open the heavy oak door revealing a significantly soaked Becky and Vicki.
"Wow, who knew you could get this wet walking from the car to the house, huh?" Becky said cheerfully, stepping into the house and wringing out her short mouse-brown hair onto Mrs. Hans's Persian rug, much to Mrs. Hans's apparent dismay. Vicki nodded along, carefully stepping around her best friend's puddle. Vicki and Becky were best friends, who looked like they should switch appearances. Becky was a petite girl, with small features, and upturned nose and thin, mouse-like hair which she kept cropped close to her face. Vicki had a more bold appearance, uncontrollable dark hair, full red lips, strong features, though Vicki was more mouse like then Becky by a long shot. Becky was, essentially, a drama queen. She had always harbored secret dreams of making it big in Hollywood as an actress, which lead her to be one of the more disliked council girls, since dancing wasn't her true "passion", and yet she had beaten out bunches of other girls for her spot on the show.
Mrs. Hans frowned. "I didn't know it would rain so hard. I'll get towels," she muttered, turning back into the kitchen.
"Let's go," Darla hissed, already half-way up the stairs. Vicki and Becky quickly followed suit, leaving Brenda to take up the rear.
Although Darla's room was clearly a teenage girl's, her mother's influence had found its way in there, too. The pale pink sheets on the bed were neatly tucked in, the glass case that had been built into the wall to house Darla's China doll collection was free of any fingerprints, dust or smudges, and all the pictures on the walls had been placed in simple wood frames. Darla sighed and collapsed onto her bed, pushing her sixteen year old teddy bear, Franklin, out of the way so she wouldn't have to sit on him. Becky and Vicki sat on the discarded Persian throw rug that looked like it had a better place in a prop store then someone's bedroom that Mrs. Hans had given her daughter. Brenda perched uncomfortably on the corner of Darla's bed, fiddling with her hands.
"So, Bren, what was it you had to tell us?" Darla asked, craning her neck to get a better look at her friend. Becky leaned forward expectantly, always ready for a piece of good gossip.
"Ooo, what is it?" Becky chimed in. "Speaking of, did you guys see Doreen at Fender's party last weekend? With that guy that Shelley brought? It was her cousin or something. Anyway, I heard that Sketch ended it with her the next morning." Brenda winced, shutting her eyes momentarily.
"That's a really great story, Becky," she said under her breath.
Becky turned back to Brenda. "What?"
"Nothing."
Darla nudged Brenda with her foot. "Come onnn, Bren! You can tell us! Out with it!"
"What- what I just said or…'the big secret'?"
"I wanna hear the secret, of course!"
Brenda sighed and stopped twisting her hands together. She paused, and met eyes with the other three girls in the room. They watched her expectantly.
"I think..." Brenda was interrupted by Charlene Hans bursting into her daughter's room unannounced.
"Mom!" Darla whined.
"Darla Marie Hans, you know that whining is unsightly. I brought towels up for you girls." Darla's mother smiled down at the girls before placing a stack of neatly folded starch white towels on the rug next to Vicki's soaping skirt and slipping out the door. Darla rolled her eyes.
"She can be sooo annoying," Darla practically growled, flapping her hands at Brenda as means to tell her to continue. Brenda titled her head back and shut her eyes. 'Just get it out…Get it off your chest,' she thought.
"I think that I'm going to have a kid," she spluttered out suddenly, shocking everyone, herself included.
"Are you serious?" Darla's words dropped like stones.
"Yeah," Brenda softly responded.
"Shit."
"Yeah, I know."
"Well, what are you gonna do?" Dar asked, pulling herself up into a sitting position.
"I…I don't know. I haven't really thought about it."
Becky and Vicki watched Brenda in a mixture of sympathy, horror and awe.
"Whoa," Vicki muttered. "So, are we the first to know?"
"You are…my parents don't know, the father doesn't know, no one knows." Brenda threw her hands in the air. She felt herself coming on the verge of hysterics. Hot tears were beginning to well up in the backs of her eyes, and she didn't even know why. She couldn't cry. Not here, not now. Becky leveled her eyes with Brenda.
"So, is Jesse the dad?"
"No." Suddenly Brenda really wanted to just laugh. Laugh hysterically for no good reason. Anything to keep the tears at bay.
"You slept with Corny Collins?"
Brenda paused. "Well, no. There was no actual 'sleeping' involved, if you want to get technical. But…well, essentially, yes. I guess…I guess I did." Brenda frowned, thinking about that. "It wasn't my idea. I just wanted to, you know…fool around. What we usually did. But then…things just got so out of hand. The next thing I knew…" she trailed off, letting them use their imaginations. "We were in his apartment," she added. Like it mattered.
"Really?" Darla breathed. "What was it like? I…I mean, wow. That's…okay. Wow," Darla corrected herself. "So when're you gonna tell him?" Brenda shrugged and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. The urge to cry was stronger now, and she didn't know if she could suppress it any longer.
"Do I look fatter to you?" she whimpered.
"No! Oh, no, of course not!" the girls chimed supportively.
"Tell the truth. Don't lie to me now, please."
The silence that hung in the room was enough to tell Brenda what she needed to know.
"Well…" Becky tentatively began. Brenda sprung to her feet, eyeing her reflection in Darla's mirror like she had done in her own at home. Now that her dress hugged her dancer's body, or what was her dancer's body, thanks to the rain, her figure was in much better view. And she was different. She'd put on weight around the middle. And Brenda couldn't help recalling feeling uncomfortable during her first few classes at school the last few weeks.
"My God," she whispered, more for herself then anyone else. "This is real." And in that moment, Brenda pressed her fist to her mouth to keep from crying out, but that couldn't stop the tears from streaming down her face.