Everything Is Perfect When You're a Liar (7 page)

“You don't know what
Wicca
is?”

“Kyla, that's rude.”

Then a man came out of Rowan's bedroom, pulling a shirt over his naked and tattooed chest. He looked exactly NOTHING like my father. He had a HAIRLESS CHEST.

“Hi, I'm Greg.”

GREG?! I swallowed. Did I really have to call these grown-ups by their first names, like they were kids?

Rowan handed each of us a bowl of rolled-up salami slices smeared with cream cheese. “You're not a vegetarian, are you?”

“No. But my mom is.”

“My mom is too,” Kyla said.

As I sat there chewing, wondering whether the Carringtons served caviar with their salami slices, I did a mental search of the entire Wiccan house, looking for clues to what kind of family bought their daughters jean jackets with studs. Period dogs, smoky smell, Bob Marley, doves, naked boyfriends, pajamas at three in the afternoon.
Wiccan
must mean “weird.”

“Oh!” Greg the boyfriend slapped the table. “I want to show you girls something I found today. It's in my van.”

I looked out the window and added “dark-green windowless van” to my list of clues.
Wiccan
definitely meant weird.

When Greg returned, he was holding something smallish and dark. Was it another animal?

“I found this in the wall behind some pipes at that old guy's house today. It's an antique.”

He put it down on the table. It was a gun.

This was officially the best day of my life.

I picked up two pieces of salami and shoved them in my mouth. “OUFNNDIT?”

They all looked at me. I washed the meat down with orange Tang and tried again. “You FOUND IT?”

Kyla pointed her finger at Greg. “That's stealing!”

“Kyla,” Rowan said, picking up the old gun and waving it around as she spoke. “Do not call people thieves. This is a found object and Greg was meant to find it.”

“Are there bullets in it?” I asked. Rowan froze. She looked at the gun, then at Greg. Greg said nothing. A long moment passed.

“Did you check it?” Rowan asked, pushing the gun back at Greg. “You didn't check it? GREG!”

Kyla and I shoved the dove back into its cage and scrambled down the basement stairs to her room. “GREG! I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU DIDN'T CHECK THE GUN.”

“A Wiccan is a witch,” Kyla said, as she shut the door to her tiny bedroom.

“YOUR MOM IS A WITCH!?!” I whispered shoutingly.

“Only when she meets with other witches. They protect us from a lot of bad stuff.” She pulled out a book covered in weird forestlike drawings to show me. I was enthralled. This was like listening to a ghost story, only it was a MOM story, which made it even scarier.

“What kind of bad stuff?” Tia and Amber jumped up on the bed. I stretched out my legs and blocked them with my feet from getting too close.

“Well, there was a lot of negativity around us after my dad left, so Mom waited for the moon to be ripe and smoked this skunky-smelling stuff.”

“Like from before?” I gasped. I was totally entranced. “Do you think she and Greg were doing spells when we got here?”

Kyla pushed the dogs off her bed with her feet. “Yeah, for sure. The music and stuff was a clue. You
are
smart. Anyhow, Mom's biggest spell was the one where she got rid of the negative vibes from my biological dad.”

But Kyla still looked sad to me. Maybe her mom was bad at being a witch.

“I'm not usually allowed to talk about my dad like this, but I miss him.” I was glad Kyla felt able to confide in me, almost as glad as I was that she'd pushed the menstruating dogs off the bed.

Now, five years later, in the school counselor's office, Mrs. Walker, without making eye contact and with a deep nonchalance, passed me a handout about supporting my peers. She exhaled. “You made it.”

I'd made the Peer Support Team.

The gods of seventh grade had smiled upon my love for oak, Mother Teresa, and church skirts.

I left the counseling office, feeling one step closer to my goal of becoming my school's Parker Lewis, and headed directly to Principal Wynychuk's office. If I was going to be the most popular kid in school, and bear the responsibility of becoming my school's peer guru, I really had to get in good with the leader of the school. I tapped on his door with my fingertips.

“Hi! I made something for you,” I said, casually reaching into my army-style backpack and pulling out a mix tape.

“What's this?” Mr. Wynychuk pulled down his glasses, smiling. For an old man, he was pretty handsome. I remember hearing he played football or something in the 1970s, and my mom used to brag about dating a football player in the 1970s, so I knew this guy had a really important legacy behind him, or at least that he might have dated my mom.

I passed him the tape. “I made you a mix tape of all of my favorite classical stuff. It's a little heavy on Vivaldi, but all good work-symphony mixes are. Oh, and I put a little Sinead O'Connor on side B. ‘Troy' will change you.”

Mr. Wynychuk smiled. “That's very thoughtful of you, Kelly. Thank you.”

I agreed. It was very thoughtful of me. “Bye!”

I left the office and walked across the hall to Aimee's locker.

“LOOK, IT'S THE ANOREXIC BITCHES!!” shouted Terry the mullet-headed ginger from his locker, surrounded by his friends, who all apparently had disdain for any girl with a body similar to their own.

“I AM NOT ANOREXIC! I EAT AT McDONALD'S ALL THE TIME!!” I shouted back at the ginger troll.

“What were you doing in the office?” Aimee asked. “And why are you wearing that weird long skirt?”

“I interviewed for the Peer Support Team,” I said, then paused for dramatic effect, cleaning my glasses. “
Got it!
” I winked, putting my glasses back on.

“Kelly, what is Peer Support?” She sighed. “You're always into the weirdest stuff.”

“
No, I'm not
, Aimee. It's a group of kids other kids can go to for support. You know, to listen to their problems? Help encourage them to talk to the real counselors? It's like the Baby-Sitters Club, only we listen to our peers instead of pretending we're old enough to look after little kids.”

“So you work for the counselors? Like a spy?” Aimee shut her locker.

I hadn't thought of that. “I hadn't thought of that. Aimee, I really want to do something
big
with my life. I think supporting my peers is a step in the right direction—you know, like how Mother Teresa looks after orphans? I can talk to the girls with Guns N' Roses T-shirts and hear what kinds of problems they have. They have
problems
, Aims. They also have boobs—I'm pretty sure boobs are a prerequisite for liking Guns N' Roses.” I pulled out the Peer Support pamphlet I'd quickly read in the counselor's office and read it to Aimee. “ ‘
Encourage honesty. Honesty can free people of their problems.
' ”

“Still sounds like mole work to me.” Aimee shrugged her shoulders and pulled her lips in tight, forming the deepest and most perfect dimples I'd ever seen.

“Also, I gave Mr. Wynychuk a mix tape I made for him.”

She stopped organizing her binders and looked at me with contempt. “You made the principal a mix tape?”

I twirled my index finger at my temple, making the international signal for
doy
. “Uh, yeah. He's cool.”

On the way to social studies, I stopped at my locker and put on my signature Guatemalan rainbow tribal jacket to spruce up the church skirt. No need to impress the gym teachers/counselors anymore; now I needed to show my peers I was one of the people.

I sat at my desk behind a loudmouth named Craig, a dead ringer for Zack Morris from
Saved by the Bell
, season one. He was my total crush. Craig turned to me. I tried to act cool, pulling away when he leaned in, but then he whispered to me:

“Kyla Warren has had sex with
three guys
.”

My mouth dropped.

“
S-E-X
sex?” I whispered back. “Like a full-on penis-in-the-vagina thing?”

He nodded, putting the end of his pen in his mouth and making his eyes really wide. People were having SEX in the seventh grade? Like, real people?! I could barely stand close to a boy without sweating from every inch of skin on my body, including my back. This Guatemalan jacket was made of cotton, but it was the thickest thread available, and now Craig was whispering to me about sex and I was like a waterfall in there.

“Are you sure? I don't believe it!!”

I was shocked, and I couldn't fake nonchalance. Sure, Kyla's mom was a Wiccan who lived with a hairless naked gun thief. But THIS?

“It's true. She told me herself.”

“Really?” I stopped a minute to think. And then it hit me.

“Oh my God, Craig! She could have AIDS!”

Craig's eye widened again, and he whispered, “Like Magic Johnson?!”

I nodded furiously. “Exactly! Magic Johnson had sex with
at least
three people. And he's going to die any minute.”

My mom, you see, had recently added AIDS to her list of disease obsessions. She told me, over and over again, that it wasn't
just
transmitted through sex. She explicitly warned me to “Stay away from all bodily fluids! Bloody tissues, bloody anything! Even bloody people. ESPECIALLY BLOODY PEOPLE!” I was ready to avoid anything bloody that crossed my path. I expected it to happen at any moment. AIDS WAS EVERYWHERE.

The moment Craig told me that Kyla had had sex, I knew there was a 95 percent chance she had AIDS. Forget pregnancy, it was all about AIDS, which could be spread by saying the word
sex
, by even
thinking
about sex. Sex and AIDS were synonymous.

I spent the entire social studies class pretending to read
Animal Farm
, but really I was thinking about how I'd be the one who would nurse Kyla in her final days. I'd be the only kid in school brave enough to be her friend. I would be her oak tree, spreading my branches out and protecting her from the storm of AIDS till it finally consumed her.

When the bell rang, I went to the girls' washroom. While the kids were tipping and rocking and robbing the ice cream machine outside, carefree, I had to shoulder the burden of knowing that a friend I'd known since second grade was about to die. As I sat in my shiny pink cinder-block stall and peed, I steeled myself for the task ahead. I took a deep breath. As soon as this pee was through, I would go find Kyla and become that open ear I'd been for her before, when she couldn't talk about her dad, when we saw the monkey penis and the loaded gun. I had to find her, I had to counsel her. I hadn't even read the Peer Support Team handouts yet, but this would be my first Peer Support success. And if Kyla didn't have AIDS already, I could totally prevent her from getting it!

The pee ended, and with that flush came the knowledge that I was about do something really, really good. I was singlehandedly going to prevent an AIDS outbreak in Kenilworth Junior High.

As I came out of the bathroom, I noticed a circle of kids staring. I looked around to see what they were looking at. Then I realized they were looking at me.

“What?” I asked everyone and no one in particular. I noticed a Peer Support poster on the bathroom door. “Yeah.” I smiled. “I did totally make the team.”

Then I saw her.

Kyla was in the middle of the mob. She came running at me. I lifted my arms to shield my face.

“DID YOU TELL EVERYONE I HAVE AIDS?!” she spat.

I was paralyzed. For one thing, I was in shock. For another, flecks of her spit had landed on me. Now I probably had AIDS too. My mom was going to kill me.

“No!” I said. “I didn't! I didn't say you
had
AIDS to ANYONE!!”

Kyla was momentarily deflated. She looked over at Craig. “Is that true?” I could feel the sweat start to run down my back. Damn Guatemalan cotton.
Craig?
Craig, my own personal Zack Morris, was responsible for this?

“Kelly,” he said in an incriminating tone. He couldn't have been more handsome if he had actually called me Kelly Kapowski. “You
did
say it.”

Kyla spun back around and melted me with her Firestarter eyes. “You and your stupid African jacket!” she yelled right in my face.

“Hey!” I said. “It's GUATEMALAN!”

We both stood there, hearts beating, breathing hard. If she was full of AIDS, I was inadvertently speeding up the death process.

I looked at Kyla straight in the eyes, adjusted my glasses, and said, “Kyla, trust me. I did NOT TELL EVERYONE YOU HAVE AIDS!”

I was shaking. This was the first almost-fight I'd ever been in with anyone besides my sister. Kyla looked like she wanted to believe me. “Fine,” she said, “then what
did
you say about me?”

Oh God. She was going to make me say it? I looked over at Craig, who quickly looked away. What a pussy! Suddenly he meant less to me than Screech.

“I said . . .”
Oh God,
I thought.
I'm a
terrible
liar.
Almost inaudibly, I mumbled, “I said you
could
have AIDS.”

“What?” she said, stepping closer. She may have thought I'd mumbled something else, like “you cook ham 'n' eggs,” and just wanted to make sure.

I spoke up as slightly as I could. “I said you
could
have AIDS. But only becau—”

She was on me, grabbing my hair. She flew into me with her whole body and we both hit the wall. Our binders popped open as they hit the ground, and papers went flying everywhere. Then someone picked me up. It was our math teacher, Mr. Lee, a tall Chinese man who, according to junior high lore, had a drawer full of booze in his desk.

“Both of you, pick up your stuff!” he ordered. “The rest of you, GET TO CLASS!” Everyone else scrambled out of the hall. Then he smiled this really creepy “I'm going to enjoy this” smile and dragged Kyla and me into his classroom.