Dirty Secrets

Part 7

At dinner time, Clover chopped up a slice of meatloaf with her plastic fork and stirred it into a pile of mashed potatoes while Lyla and Shaniece looked on aghast. She ripped open a ketchup packet and squirted it onto the mixture.

"Are you for serious?" Shaniece asked. "What is going on with that plate?" Shaniece stirred her steaming bowl of ramen noodles.

"Do I want to hear this story?" Lyla asked.

"My mom makes a meatloaf and mashed potato casserole thing. It's like the only decent thing she knows how to cook."

"And the ketchup?" Lyla took a bite of her pizza.

"She makes it with some kinda tomato sauce, so I thought ketchup? Same, right?"

Lyla and Shaniece shrugged.

"So how'd your visit go? With your old man?" she asked Lyla.

"Uh. My dad. Good." Lyla wiped a napkin across her lips.

Clover jammed a forkful of food into her mouth. She didn't finish chewing before she said, "I wish my mom would just stay the hell outta here. Like she's doing me a favor by popping in and just staring at me. Makes me feel like shit."

She shoveled another helping into her mouth.

"It wasn't like that with my dad," Lyla replied. "But I could tell that he was sad seeing me in here, though."

"Right. I forgot. First time. Hashtag sad."

Lyla thought, "I hope it's my last time."

Shaniece blew on her noodles to cool them and tentatively took a bite. "Agh! I nuked these too long."

"Like I don't already feel shitty enough," Clover griped. "My dad's pretty cool, but when my mom comes by herself. Just. Don't. Bother. Puh-lease."

Lyla didn't have much of an appetite to begin with and watching Clover add another packet of ketchup to her meatloaf concoction turned her stomach.

........

That night in the Common Room, Lyla shared an overstuffed chair with Shaniece. They watched "Animal Planet." Natalie leaned against the side of their chair intently picking at her nails, glancing up occasionally at the TV.

"I literally saw this one like a hundred times," she sighed.

Three kids played cards at the table on the other side of the room. At the next table, a raucous game of Jenga was in progress. Maisie, the girl with pink hair, sat like a statue gazing through glassy eyes.

On his back, Packer stretched out his long body on the floor with his hands folded beneath his head, watching TV. His stocking-clad feet tapped quietly on the carpet. Bo, a freckle-faced kid lying on his side had fallen asleep.

Shaniece nudged Lyla then gestured to the couch behind them.

Nestled together beneath a knit blanket were Clover and Eric. She rested her head on his shoulder and occasionally whispered to him, which caused them to giggle. It was fairly obvious what busy hands were doing under the blanket. Eric leaned in and kissed her tenderly.

Lyla closed her eyes and remembered the taste of Jack's lips. She recalled standing at the bathroom sink of her home, arms wrapped around his thick neck. She gazed up at him longingly. A moment of tension lingered before he leaned forward and lightly kissed her.

Gentle kisses gave way to open mouths. She breathed so deeply that she feared that she might hyperventilate and pass out in his muscular arms.

He kissed her neck softly, his hands roaming from her back to her gentle curves. Their eyes met. He pulled Lyla against him. His body felt like it had been carved from granite.

She opened her mouth and brought her lips to his. Another series of kisses that further awakened her deepest desires. She gently bit his ear.

"Take me to bed," she whispered.

"Hands," the night nurse's voice jolted Lyla from her memory. The nurse's thin eyebrows creased into a disapproving V. "Clover. Eric. Let's see those hands. Now."

Eric produced his hands from the blanket and raised them, an innocent look on his face. "What?"

Clover appeared to be zipping her pants beneath the blanket.

Shaniece laughed. "Way to blow up their game."

Lyla snickered.

"Fifteen minutes til lights out." The nurse turned off the TV. "Let's everybody move back to your rooms."

........

Just before 'lights out,' the night nurse led Lyla down the hall toward the girls' bathroom, selecting a key from her lanyard. A custodian mopped the glistening marble floor between two upright yellow plastic signs that said: CAUTION WET FLOOR.

"Careful," he muttered as they passed.

The nurse unlocked the bathroom door. She held it open with her backside then patted down Lyla's shirt and sweatpants.

"Hands," she said.

Lyla showed her open hands as she did a "pee dance," shifting back and forth on her feet.

"I'm not gonna hurt myself. Come on. I'm gonna pee my pants."

The nurse gestured Lyla inside then closed the door behind her.

As she sat on the cold metal toilet, Lyla rubbed her upper arms. Damn, it was freezing in there.

She finished, pulled up her pants, then washed her hands with cold water in the metal sink. Shivering, she pushed open the bathroom door and was surprised to discover that the nurse had vanished. She patted her dripping hands on her sweatpants.

The custodian continued to mop the floor.

As she passed he hissed, "It's a shame when someone leaves you. All alone."

She whipped around to discover the creepy unshaven man from the park. His lips parted in a sinister grin revealing yellow teeth peeking out from his stubbly face. He leaned forward on the mop leering at her.

Lyla froze. A spider crept out from the cuff of his shirt, across his hand and onto the mop handle.

"You know what I mean... Kitten?"

She felt her voice clogging her throat, her lungs burning.

He pushed the tip of his tongue over his lower lip. Like a roll of toilet paper, his tongue rode down past his chin, beyond his neck, and onto his chest.

Lyla spun on her heels and raced down the hall toward her room. When she passed the nurses' station she looked over her shoulder. The custodian was gone.

Lights out.