Lola is Just Like Me

Chapter 02

The sick feeling slipped from my stomach through my thigh, where it passed into Lola’s hand. She reassured me in unique, silent ways.

“I’m sure she’ll be here soon,” Lola cooed. “She always knows how to make things easier on us, Ty. And Mrs. Simmons will help her, I’m sure.” I nodded, knowing she was right but still filled with fear and anxiety. I wasn’t afraid of the punishment but rather the limbo of waiting for it to arrive.

Then I saw Marie. She was dressed up from head to toe in the kind of gleaming clothes that made little girls like me respect a woman. Even when Lola had told me how my mother’s death had bought her all those things, I still felt like she was a few steps above me on some grand scale. The way she sauntered into the school office like it was no big deal made me feel a little better. The sunlight struck her blond hair and passed through it, filtering out in golden strands of light. Saying I loved the woman was a bigger stretch than I would have liked even then. I did fear her, though, which was close enough for me.

Mr. Langdale looked up from his computer screen as my step-mother entered the room. Before acknowledging the principal, she passed me a warm smile like she always did in the company of others. It made me feel good inside for a moment; I savored the forced interaction because it reminded me of the way my mother used to smile.

“Ms. Cole,” the principal addressed me, “could you leave the room so your mother and I can have a talk?”

“He called her your mother,” Lola hissed from beside the door. I dismissed the comment and nodded; I would let the “mother” thing pass this once. “You would think the whole town would know,” Lola complained as we left the room, “that the woman isn’t your mother. She wishes she was like your mom.” I could hear Lola start to choke on her tears. She was always more emotional about the accident than I was. Outwardly, at least.

“I can’t just fight the principal. Think of the trouble I’d be in. You know how you hate detention.” I sat down on one of the cheaply padded seats in the front lobby. The school buses were leaving for the day, and seeing them go with their loads of children turned the school more or less into an island. I relaxed a little. Durham Elementary. The waxed halls and intricate art on the walls, close to the ceiling. The blue doors and wide windows that made the place feel like an extension of the forest. The plastic playground and its bright colors. I could remember four solid years there, and they weren’t always the best. Where the other two years had gone was beyond my reasoning at the time.

“Don’t think back that far,” Lola sputtered. I was caught off guard, but her words sank in. And I obeyed her, as I always had. “Hey, I know! We can see what the principal is saying with your step-witch.” Lola turned and sat on her knees, looking through the glass into the office. I waited patiently, paying her no attention as far as anyone else could have seen. I heard her whispering words to herself, presumably repeating what she read on the lips of the adults. I had never known anyone like her in my entire life, but she always made me feel… nostalgic.

“What are they saying?” I asked when Lola stopped mimicking the words. She twisted a bit and sat down on her feet again. I turned my head to her distress and tried to make a guess. “Are we in trouble?” She shook her head. Her eyes filled to the brim with her shaky kind of grief. “Well, what’d they say?”

“Nothing. Your step-mother’s tryin’ to bail us out with some kinda sob story.” Lola held her eyes open until the tears faded. She looked over at me with her deep emotions and made me feel good. It comforted me to see her react to things, in whichever extreme it happened to be at the time. She was the only person that could have done that with tears and resistance; other people would have been appalling. My arms ached to hold her.

“Well, that’s a good thing,” I said, turning my eyes to my lap. “That’s the sorta thing that’ll help us out.” I won’t lie and say I felt nothing when the accident was thrown around like a cheap newspaper column. I did feel disparaged. When they turned it over as if it were nothing more than the death of a pet, I did get a heavy feeling in my chest. And as I sat there, with Lola simmering in her own sorrow, the edges of my scar started to tingle like a sack of squirming larvae. My hand wandered up to my left cheek, caressing the tip of the mark. Thinking about the accident always made my scar come alive.

“You think it will?”

“Yeah, I think so. Lola, you don’t need to-” My blood ran cold. The corners of my mouth quivered involuntarily. The boy with the broken nose was watching me talk. My gaze met his, pushing his eyes away like the opposite poles of a magnet. Lola muttered a mild curse.

“You think he noticed?” Lola’s throat was tight, her voice a high-pitched whimper. But I couldn’t answer. I didn’t have to. Nobody could miss it. To this boy— Trevor, the boy I had just injured, the boy who was waiting for his mother— I was talking to myself. For the first time to my knowledge, someone had witnessed a conversation between Lola and myself. My dirty laundry had been aired out and carted away. And I knew Lola would want to get it back.