The Girl Is Murder by Kathryn Miller Haines Page A

the agonizing uncertainty of having loved ones off to war, or so she thought. I could ask her about Bill again, but coming out of the blue that might seem strange. No, if I was going to get her to talk to me, it had to be because I had received some news.
    It was, in many ways, the perfect setup. After all, I’d been pulled out of typing class the day before. As far as anyone knew, the news could’ve been delivered then.
    I didn’t tell Pearl my scheme. I didn’t want to admit that the tenuous connection I had with Suze was built on a big fat lie. And I certainly didn’t want my one friend to know that I was about to play on Suze’s sympathy by claiming that I had bad news about Pop.
    Fortunately, Pearl had to leave before the lunch period ended.
    “I’ll find out if there’s any other talk in the attendance office,” she told me as she packed up the cookie she still hadn’t eaten. “Meet me after school on the steps.”
    “Sure.”
    As Pearl exited, Suze, Rhona, and a third girl headed for the girls’ restroom. The hot lunch that day was liver and onions—the liver was cold in the middle, and the onions hadn’t been cooked at all. I’d pushed the onions to the side when I ate, having no desire to eat them raw and reek of them all afternoon. When the girls made their exit, I shoved the onions into my napkin and gently blotted the gravy from them. Once they were more white than brown, I squeezed them until their juice oozed through my fingers. Just in case anyone was watching, I feigned dropping something under the table, and when I bent down to pick it up, I pressed my onion-soaked fingers against the corners of my eyes.
    I hadn’t been prepared for the stinging. Or for the smell.
    The onions worked their magic, though. Instantly, I had a face full of tears. I picked up my things, clutched a napkin to my cheek, and entered the girls’ bathroom.
    All three girls were smoking. The cigarette smoke combined with the onion fumes was pure agony.
    “Oh, sorry,” I said between tears that had progressed from pretend to real. “Is it all right if I … ?”
    Rhona shrugged. The girl I didn’t know exhaled a plume of smoke. Suze said, “Go on, baby.”
    I eased myself into a stall and tried to figure out what to do next. Hadn’t they noticed my tears? Or had I miscalculated and smeared liver gravy down my face?
    I wiped my cheek with a tissue to check for signs of food. My face was clean. I put my fingers against my eyes again and reignited the water. I sniffed, I sighed, and when that failed to stir any reaction, I blew my nose as loudly as possible.
    The warning bell rang. We had ten minutes to get back to class. “You coming, Suze?” asked the nameless girl.
    “I’m right behind you,” she said.
    The door groaned opened and closed. My eyes longed to be flushed with water. I eased out of the stall and found Suze waiting for me.
    “Everything copacetic?”
    “I …” I squeezed my eyes tight and willed more tears. They didn’t come, and so I forced my mind to wander to the saddest thought it held: Mama. That did the trick. No longer did I need onions and cigarette smoke. The emotion was real now. “No. Not really.”
    “Did something happen to your pop?”
    I nodded to let her know that yes, that’s exactly what was upsetting me. “He’s been wounded.”
    “Oh, no.”
    “We got a telegram yesterday. They pulled me out of typing class to tell me. I can’t stop thinking about him.” I was a terrible person. At least part of it was true. I had been pulled out of class and Pop had been injured. It had just happened ten months before.
    “Are they sending him home?”
    “They didn’t say. I don’t know how bad it is. I don’t know if he can come home. I don’t know if he might …” My voice trailed off.
    “Oh, baby, you must be sick inside.” She put her arm around me and I breathed in the scent of My Sin perfume and baby powder. Sick inside? She didn’t know the half of it. Someone