Betsy Wickwire's Dirty Secret (16 page)

I
spat out the toothpaste and looked in the mirror. “Nothing happened last night,” I said. I had no reason to feel guilty. I was lonely. He was touching me. He's a nice guy. Nothing more. I leaned in close and got at my gums like the dentist told me to do. It just
looked
like something was going on, the way he had his arm around me and everything.

My heart started going crazy. I tried to ignore it and do something with my hair, but that about-to-cry look on my reflection made me stop. I had to pull myself together.

It's just a reaction to seeing Nick again. That's all this is. A normal reaction to being dumped by a long-term boyfriend. Who wouldn't be a little thrown off?

I thought of Nick watching Murdoch, with his broad shoulders and bare chest, leaning down to wipe the paint off my face. Nick says he's six feet but he really isn't. Murdoch is six-eight.

I smiled. Then I realized that was the type of thing I would have told Carly once upon a time, but Carly wasn't my friend any more. Dolores was. I'd tell her instead. Nick doesn't just have funny nipples. He pretends he's taller than he is. Can you imagine how burned he felt when he saw Murdoch with his arm around …?

My stomach flipped like a dying fish and I had to hold the side of the sink. Was I nuts? Tell Dolores that? It would sound bad even if it didn't mean anything. Which it didn't.

Murdoch was just helping me. He'd put his arm around me, that's all. He'd wiped the paint off my face and neck and dress and I'd looked up and seen the light blue stripes in his eyes and his dark red lips but he was just helping me. That's all this was. What else could it be?

Love
.

It was like someone had just jumped at me with a knife.

I'm in love with Murdoch
.

“No, I'm not.” I said it out loud.

Why did you think it, then?

I turned on the tap and splashed cold water on my face. I did it again and again but it didn't change anything. I was in love with Murdoch.

I looked at myself in the mirror and I thought of Carly. I felt sick. I might have been hurt and lonely before, but at least I'd been better than Carly.

I slumped onto the toilet, one elbow on the sink, my face in my hand. What was I going to do? Murdoch and Dolores would be here any minute. How could I look at Dolores? I clapped a hand over my belly. How could I look at Murdoch?

I told myself to stop. I told myself I wasn't in love with him. I barely knew him. He was too quiet, too geeky, too tall for me.

But none of it helped. I kept seeing him, a few centimetres away, that look on his face when he tucked the hair behind my ear, the way he held his mouth open just a little when he painted, the delicious smell of vanilla ice cream.

I slapped my forehead. No. I couldn't do this. I could not steal my friend's crush. I wasn't that type of person. I wasn't going to let myself be that type of person.

I sat up straight with my hands on my knees. I saw Murdoch with his arms under Dolores as she kicked and dog-paddled, her neck bent almost at a right angle—and it hit me. Who did I think I was anyway? Why did I even think I could steal Murdoch? He was so sweet to Dolores. There was chemistry between them. Anyone could see that. It was obvious he just thought of me as a friend.

I took a towel off the rack and wiped up the water I'd splashed all over the sink. I was way neater since I'd started cleaning other people's houses. I threw the towel in the hamper.

I'd learned a lot this summer.

I learned I could be tidy.

I learned I could be just as bad as Carly.

I learned a guy wouldn't necessarily like me.

I wanted not to be in love with Murdoch, Murdoch not to have noticed how I felt, things to be exactly the way they were before. But I also wanted to be in love with Murdoch, Murdoch to have noticed, things to have been different right from the start.

How could I make this all right? How could I be a good, kind, decent un-Carly-like person and not hurt Dolores and still get Murdoch?

It was like a Rubik's Cube. I'd get three sides right and I'd start to breathe again, then I'd turn it over and find out that the fourth side was a total mess.

I had to just stop seeing him/them. I had to break away. I'd broken away from Nick and Carly. I could do it again.

“Betsy! Your friends are here, sweetie.”

I'd call Paige. She wanted to do something with me. I'd just tell Murdoch and Dolores I had other plans.

“Betsy!”

I didn't know Paige's number. I had her on speed-dial but I'd killed my phone.

So what? I'd just lie, tell them I spending the day with her anyway.

I was afraid I wouldn't be able to pull the lie off.

Which lie? The one about Paige? Or the one about Murdoch?

“We have a number of live crustaceans in the car who are getting very anxious …”

Dolores was getting impatient. She'd bought lobster for me.

I looked at the door. I could say I'm sick.

No. I had to go. I'd go just this once. I'd act normal. I'd find Paige's number when I got back and make other plans for the rest of the week.

I put on my bathing suit and an expression I thought I could get away with, and went downstairs.

I
t wasn't really what most people would call a beach day. The sky and the water were both the same blah shade of damp Kleenex. I was glad Mom had forced the blankets on us.

A bunch of kids I sort of recognized from Lockview High were just leaving as we got there. One of the girls, I was pretty sure, was laughing at Dolores's sunhat. (I heard her say something about a UFO, which wasn't a bad description of it.)

“Bush league.” Dolores sneered as the girls left. “It has to be one-ten in the shade to go to the beach? Foggy days are the best. No pesky glare to worry about, no fighting with the crowds—not to mention how much warmer the water feels on days like this.”

Murdoch was carrying the lobster pot, the Hibachi, the charcoal, and three folding chairs. He stopped to get a better grip on everything. “That's just because the air's so cold.”

“Yeah, so? What difference does it make why it feels warmer? It feels warmer. That's the important thing. Geez. You guys. Between the two of you …”

Between the two of you …
I had this sudden, panicky,
oh god she knows
moment. It was ridiculous—that's not what Dolores was talking about, she was just saying we were whiners—but everything was like that now. Everything set me off.

When we'd stopped at the convenience store for drinks on the way there, Dolores said, “You guys are going to have to learn to control yourselves …” and I thought I was going to be sick then too—till I realized she was only saying there were no washrooms at the beach.

Then she asked what happened after she'd left the night before.

Murdoch said, “Not much,” then she said, “Not much? I need details!”

She looked at me just as I was remembering Murdoch taking his shirt off to wipe my face. I paused and fumbled and probably got pretty red too, then started rambling on about getting paint on my dress. Dolores looked mad or suspicious but it turned out she'd just remembered some irritating thing Frank had said, and a second later she was off on this long story about how he cheats at cards and thinks she doesn't know.

Murdoch set the stuff down on the sand. Dolores got
the barbecue going. I went to fill the pot. I walked into the ocean up to my knees and looked out at the nothing sky. Why couldn't there be a way for everyone to be happy?

I dipped the big, metal pot into the water. It weighed a ton and I had to hold my other arm out to the side for balance. I turned to walk back.

Murdoch was wading toward me. “Here. I'll take that.”

My eyes flicked past him to see where Dolores was. She was sitting in her folding chair, kind of smudged out by the fog. I couldn't tell whether she was watching us or not behind those big sunglasses.

“No. I can do it. Really.”

“Let me take it.” He was still coming toward me.

“Seriously.” I put my head down and kept walking. I sounded like Dolores.

“You're going to make me look bad,” he said. “Skinny guys look bad when they let girls carry heavy stuff.” He grabbed the handle without touching my hand. I knew he did it on purpose.

It was just a pot of water. It was just a hand. I wished my chest would stop heaving.

“Okay,” I said. “But I think that's probably sexist.”

“I think you're probably right,” he said, taking it from me. “But that's the way the world is. There are some things you just can't change.”

That was one thing I really didn't need to hear right now. I tried to make a joke. “Fine, but just because you carried stuff for me doesn't mean I'm going to mend your socks and cook your meals.”

I was digging myself in deeper all the time.

“You're breaking my heart,” he said.

I wasn't even going to go there.

“Water!” Dolores called. “What's taking you guys? We're wasting fire power here.”

“Better run,” I said, and he went on ahead. I held back, but could only do that for so long.

When I got to the barbecue, Dolores said, “Murdoch, would you bugger off for a while? Betsy and I need to have a little girl talk.”

Murdoch went, “Sure.” I went pale.

I had no excuse for what I'd done, for what I felt, for what I wanted to do. I was going to throw up.

Dolores watched Murdoch walk down the beach, then she turned to me and said, “What?”

My bottom lip started to quiver. “What what?” I said. “What do you mean?”

Dolores started to laugh. “God. What's the matter with you? I'm not your mother, you know. You look like you're scared I'm going to give you the birds-and-the-bees talk or something.”

Was I reading too much into this or was she torturing
me? I tried to smile. “Well, what do you want to talk about?”

“I just wanted to ask if you had a tampon.”

I took a little sobby breath and hoped it sounded like a laugh. I rooted around in my bag and said, “I'm about to start my period too.”

“Aw. How sweet. You know you're true friends when you're on the same cycle.”

True friends. I handed her the tampon.

“How do you think Murdoch feels about us?” Dolores said, and the tendons in my neck snapped like an elastic band.

“Having to deal with two premenstrual maniacs. Must be hell.”

She wiggled her bum down lower into the chair. She looked across the beach at him. He was drawing something in the sand with a stick.

I turned away. “You don't seem very PMS-y to me,” I said.

“In other words, no crankier than usual?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“You, on the other hand …”

“What?”

“You've been acting kind of weird.” I found some ChapStick in my bag and fumbled with the cap. Just get it over with. “How?”

“How? Like going all Bride of Frankenstein on me just a second ago.”

“Oh, sorry. Hormones.”

“Make you do crazy things.” Dolores snickered. “That old excuse.”

I took one of the blankets and smoothed it over my knees. “Yeah,” I said. Yeah, I thought.

Dolores leaned back in her chair as if there actually was a sun beating down on her. “You've got to learn to de-stress. Seriously. Maybe you should take up yoga or knitting or something. I mean it,” she said, suddenly looking over at me all squinty-eyed. “We're going to be really busy the next few weeks. That TV interview has done wonders for business. I've lined up three houses every day this week, so I really can't have you going all schizo-jumpy on me.”

I waved my hand at her, like
quit worrying
. I told myself I was going to start running again. I was going to run every morning until I was too tired to be jumpy or to think or to feel or to want.

“Murdoch and I were talking about going to the Valley tomorrow,” Dolores said. “Tubing down the Gaspereau River. That'll be good for you. Nothing like a terrorizing whitewater ride to help one relax.”

“No. That's okay,” I said. “I've got other plans.”

Dolores bolted upright in her chair. “I beg your pardon. Other plans? You mean, that don't include us?”

She took off her gigantic hat and sunglasses. She did a slow blink, then stared at me. After all the stuff that had just been going through my head it was weird realizing that I'd hurt her feelings.

I waved my hands like a ref signalling
no basket
. “No. It's not like that. Well. Yes. It's. I don't know. I was just going to call Paige because …”

“Paige. The girl at the festival.”

“Yeah. I just figured, like, you and Murdoch might want some time alone. It doesn't seem fair that you have to drag me with you everywhere you go.”

“What are you talking about?”

I finally got the cap off the ChapStick. I rubbed some on my bottom lip. “You guys are really nice to me and everything but, I mean, I know what it's like having a boyfriend. You want …”

Dolores went, “Pah!”

Murdoch looked up from his drawing.

She lowered her voice. “You think Murdoch is my boyfriend?”

“Um. Well, crush, then.”

“You nuts? Murdoch's not my boyfriend. He's not my crush either. I mean, don't get me wrong. I love the guy. But seriously. There are two big problems with him. First, he's not my type. This might sound cruel but every time I look at him, I think Nerd-och. Know what I mean? And
I know you're probably thinking that's so perfect—Nerdoch and Geek Girl—but it doesn't work like that. Opposites attract. I'm holding out for someone more along the lines of … what's the name of that blond guy, you know the goalie on the hockey team?” “Nick's hockey team?”

“Yeah.”

“Jack Connolly … You like Jack Connolly?”

“Yes! I've had a huge crush on him for ages. And by the way, it's rude to keep your mouth open like that, Betsy. I thought you rich girls knew better than that.”

I shook my head. “Sorry. I'm just shocked. Jack is so …”

“Dreamy?”

“No. Well, yes, maybe, I guess. I was thinking so, like, conventional. You know, straight. I don't think I've ever heard him talk about anything except sports.”

“My type of guy.” “You're kidding.”

“No. I'm not. For me, someone like Jack would be a real walk on the wild side. And I think I'd be the same for him.”

I laughed, then I smiled at Dolores with something like love. “You sure would,” I said. “Once again, I realize how little I know you.”

Dolores narrowed her eyes and spoke in a thick accent
of some type. “I am a voman of mystery. Another reason Yack vill go cray-zee for me.”

Murdoch was getting up, moving toward us. A wave washed up over his drawing.

“What's the other problem with Murdoch?” I said.

Dolores put her hat on again and leaned back in her chair. “Isn't it obvious? He's in love with you.”