Public Secrets

short time. She thought about Bev and hated it that her father never spoke of her. Even though they had never divorced, Emma thought. Some of the girls at school had parents that were divorced, but you weren’t supposed to talk about it.
She still thought of Darren, her sweet little brother. Sometimes she could barely remember how he had looked, how he had sounded. But when she dreamed of him, his face, his voice, were as clear as life.
She remembered almost nothing about the night he had died. Nuns tended to drum such pagan nonsense as monsters out of young girls’ heads. But again, if she dreamed of that night, as she did when she was ill or upset, she remembered the terror of walking down the dark hall, the sounds all around, the dark monsters holding Darren as he cried and struggled. She remembered falling.
And when she awoke, she would remember nothing at all.
Marianne came through the door in an exaggerated stagger. She held out her hands. “Ruined.” She dropped backward onto her bed. “What French count would want to kiss them now?”
“Rough going?” Emma asked, struggling not to grin.

“Five bathrooms. Dis-gus-ting. Ugh. When I get out of this joint, I’m going to have a housekeeper for my housekeeper.” She rolled over on her stomach, crossing her ankles in the air. Emma only smiled, enjoying the sound of Marianne’s brisk American voice. “I heard Mary Jane Witherspoon talking to Teresa O’Malley. She’s going to do it with her boyfriend when she goes home this summer.”
“Who?”
“I dunno. His name’s Chuck or Huck or something.”
“No, I mean Mary Jane or Teresa?”
“Mary Jane, you dork. She’s sixteen and built.”
Emma frowned down at her own flat chest. She wondered if she’d have boobs to speak of when she hit sixteen. And if she’d have a boyfriend to do it with.
“What if she gets pregnant like Susan did last spring?”
“Oh, Mary Jane’s folks would fix it up. They’ve got piles of money. Anyway, she’s got something. A diaphragm.”
“Everyone has a diaphragm.”
“Not that kind, dummy. It’s birth control.”
“Oh.” As always, Emma was ready to defer to Marianne’s greater knowledge.
“You put it in, you know, inside the sacred vault, with jelly and it kills off the sperm. You can’t get knocked up with dead sperm.” Marianne rolled over to yawn at the ceiling. “I wonder if Sister Immaculata ever did it.”
The thought was enough to bring Emma completely out of the dumps. “I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure she bathes in her habit.”
“Holy hell, I nearly forgot.” Marianne rolled again, and digging into the pocket of her rumpled uniform, pulled out i half-pack of Marlboros. “I struck gold in the second-floor John.” She scrambled up to search through her underwear drawer for a pack of matches. “Somebody had them taped to the back of the tank.”
“And you took them.”
“The Lord helps those who help themselves. I helped myself. Lock the door, Emma.”
They shared one, blowing little puffs of smoke out the open window. Neither enjoyed the taste particularly, but gamely dragged on. It was adult and sinful, two things both of them craved.
“Two more weeks,” Emma said dreamily.
“You’re going to New York. They’re sending me to camp again.”
“It won’t be so bad. Sister Immaculata won’t be there.”

“That’s something.” Marianne tried to adopt a sophisticated pose with the cigarette. “I’m going to try to talk them into letting me stay with my grandmother for a couple of weeks. She’s pretty cool.”
“I’ll take lots of pictures.”
Marianne nodded, thinking further ahead. “When we get out of this place, we’re going to get an apartment, like in Greenwich Village or L.A. Someplace cool. I’ll be an artist and you’ll be a photojournalist.”
“We’ll have parties.”
“The biggest. And we’ll wear all kinds of gorgeous clothes.” She held out the hem of her uniform. “No plaids.”
“I’d rather die.”
“It’s only four more years.”
Emma turned to gaze out the window. It was hard to think in terms of years when she wasn’t sure how to get through the next two weeks.

A CONTINENT AWAY , Michael Kesselring studied himself in cap and gown. He couldn’t believe it. It was finally over. High school was behind him and life was just around the next bend. There was college, of course, but that was a summer away.
He was eighteen, old enough to drink, to vote, and thanks to President Carter, had no