The Secret Sister

the cozy comfort of the coat on a chilly spring morning.
“That looks like it’s worth more than my month’s rent,” she said, her hand lingering over the fine wool. “You found a sugar daddy or – no…” Her hand flew to her mouth. “The prof’s buying favors. Don’t tell me.”
I pushed past her. “I won’t.”
“You can’t hide it for long,” she said, touching the side of her nose. “I have that sixth sense. Remember.”
By now her shrill voice had lured Robin from his dingy, book-cluttered lair. He stood, red-rimmed eyes blinking as if he’d just blown in from an all-night party, his wispy hair still flattened from crashing on some bug-ridden sofa.
“Did I miss something?” he said, scratching his left armpit.
“Anna’s become a kept woman,” said Sabrina.
“Bullshit,” I hissed and left them both standing, open-mouthed at the swish of satin lining and the click of my tan leather boots on the asbestos tiles.
We’d just had an influx of new students that week. A group of seventeen-year-olds who spent their nights turning tricks on the downtown riverside. They sat at the back of the class, their faces vampire white, their bleary eyes edged with smudgy black liner. The hems of their dusty black trench coats brushed the floor and each sported crazy manga style mops of hair dyed to inky blue-black. Two of them had silver and brass rings piercing their ears, while the other two wore eye shadow and blood red lipstick. Like weirdly beautiful Pierrot dolls, they sat glowering beneath their mantle of hostile silence. The other students had turned away as if they didn’t exist. Evidence, from my experience, that the new kids had viciously staked out their territory, establishing a no-go zone around themselves before I’d even entered the class.
“Morning everyone,” I said, throwing my coat onto the chair to reveal the glistening lining.
“You win the lottery or something, Anna?” said Hailey, a blonde girl with a half-shaved head.
“Just a gift,” I said, piling the daily journals into my arms.
I handed them over to Clarence, a pudgy guy with a red Afro.
“Great gift,” he said, distributing them to the class. “Some dude must really be into you.”
“Or maybe it comes at a high price,” said Viola, a muscular girl with a buzz cut and a broad smile.
“Okay. Enough speculation about my private life. Let’s welcome our new students,” I said, glancing over at the back of the classroom. “Would you guys like to introduce yourselves to the rest of the class?”
My request was met with pursed lips, scowls and shaking heads.
“Okay,” I backtracked. “Maybe when you’re feeling more comfortable we can try. In the meantime, we’ll do our daily journal writing and follow up with novel study groups.”
It took a while to convince the newcomers that I’d scan their journals but wouldn’t comment on any of the content, so they were free to write about anything they wanted without stopping to think too hard or censoring themselves.
“The idea is to fight your inner editor and tap into your most original, unfiltered ideas.”
“Does that mean we can write any swear words we like?” asked Dane, the guy with the most hardware on his ears. The other three covered their mouths and tried not to snicker. Obviously they thought laughing was uncool.
“I said anything and I meant it,” I repeated.
They grasped the glossy scribblers and pens as if they hadn’t been given anything new in years and immersed themselves in the task for the next half hour, stopping every now and again to suck the end of their pens and conjure up images from their young lives they thought I could barely imagine.
At three thirty I slipped out of the school, keen to avoid another grilling from Sabrina and not ready to tell Daphne about my change of address. I didn’t want the whole world to know about my new living arrangements until I was sure living with Guy was more than a temporary stopover. I’d had too many of those in my life. Flying under the radar was my style anyway. Low-key. Proffer the least possible amount of personal information and don’t confide in anyone. I’d learned this from an early age. Birdie was my only confidante. I’d never had a best friend to pour my heart out to.
Not that I didn’t socialize. I’d gotten into the habit of going out for drinks with Sabrina and her buddies at least once or twice a month. But a noisy bar or nightclub is no place for sharing intimacies when there’s electronic music pounding out at a thousand decibels and everyone yakking so loud you can’t hear yourself think. That kind of setting suited me just fine. Besides, I’d learned during my university days that nobody really listens to each other anyway. They’re just waiting for a lull in the conversation. The moment when you stop filling them in on your boring life and basically shut up so they can jump in and talk about themselves.
That’s why most people gravitate to the good listeners, the empathetic people who nod and sigh and shake their heads at just the right time. At college I’d become popular without anyone realizing I wasn’t actually listening to them. That all the time they were pouring out their innermost secrets, I had a whole other dialogue going on in my head.
Perhaps that’s a testament to human superficiality. Because when all is said and done, we’re alone. No matter where we are or who we’re with. We come into the world alone and leave it the same way, only I didn’t. I came in with Birdie right behind me.
I thought I’d be with her until the end, but it didn’t happen that way.
I’d found out that one of my new students, Dane, was living at the group home where Birdie and I were sent after the Penners’. Now I’d moved to Guy’s it was on my driving route home, so I drove there and pulled up to a stop on the narrow street, shaded by its