have gotten into your room. You're not the most popular girl on campus. Maybe someone's jealous of you.'
'Someone?' I said, smiling.
'Or maybe,' she said, her hands on her hips, 'that was your bottle.'
I laughed and shook my head.
'I wonder what she'll do to you,' Samantha said.
'It doesn't matter. I don't care,' I told her, and I meant it. I didn't.
Just before dinner Mrs. Penny arrived to inform me that I was to spend the evening scrubbing all the bathrooms at the school. The head custodian would be waiting with soap and water and a brush. I was to do it every Saturday night after dinner for a month.
I accepted my punishment with a quiet resignation that annoyed Gisselle and both surprised and impressed the other girls. They never heard a complaint from me, even when it meant I wouldn't be able to attend movies or go to a dance. I knew the head custodian, Mr. Hull, felt sorry for me, and he even began to do some of my work and have some of it completed before I arrived.
'These bathrooms never looked so good come Monday morning,' he told me.
He was right. Once I realized I couldn't get out of the penalty without causing even more of a problem, I decided to attack it with enthusiasm. It made it bearable. I took out stains that were seemingly embedded, and I got the mirrors so shiny that there wasn't the smallest smudge on the glass. On my third Saturday, however, I found that someone had stuffed the toilets in one of the bathrooms and flushed and flushed so the water would run over the floors. It was a disgusting mess and Mr. Hull came in to assist me, mopping up first. Even so, the stench got to me, and I had to get some fresh air to stop from throwing up my supper.
Two days later, I woke up very nauseous and had to run into the bathroom to throw up. I thought I had a terrible stomach virus or had been poisoned by the cleaning fluids I had to dip my hands into to clean the bathrooms properly. When the nausea came over me again that afternoon, I asked to be excused from class and went to the school infirmary.
Mrs. Miller, our school nurse, sat me down and asked me to describe all my symptoms. She looked very concerned.
'I've been more tired than usual,' I admitted when she inquired about my energy.
'Have you noticed yourself going to the bathroom more frequently to urinate?'
I thought a moment. 'Yes,' I said. 'I have.'
She nodded. 'What else?'
'I get dizzy once in a while, just be walking along and things start to spin on me.'
'I see. I assume you keep track of your period,' she said, 'and at least have an approximate idea of when it should arrive.'
My heart stopped.
'You've missed one?' she asked quickly when she saw the look on my face.
'Yes, but . . . that's happened to me occasionally before.'
'Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately and noticed any changes in your body, especially your breasts?' she asked.
I had noticed tiny new blood vessels, but I told her I thought that was because I was still developing. She shook her head.
'You're about as developed as you're going to be,' she said. 'I'm afraid it sounds like you're pregnant, Ruby,' she declared. 'Only you know if that's a possibility. Is it?'
I felt as if she had dowsed me with a pail of ice water. For a moment my whole body became numb, and the muscles in my face wouldn't work. I couldn't reply. I didn't think my heart was even beating. It was as if I had turned to stone right before her eyes. 'Ruby?' she asked again.
And I just started to cry.
'Oh dear,' she said. 'You poor dear.'
She put her arm around me and led me to one of the cots. She told me to lie down and rest. I remember that as I lay there burying myself with a mountain of self-pity, hating Fate, cursing Destiny, I wondered why love was made to be so wonderful if it could put me in such a state of affairs. It seemed like a cruel joke had been played on me, but of course, I had no one to blame but myself. I didn't even blame Beau, knowing somehow that I had had the power to say no, to turn him away, but had chosen not to do so.
A little while later, after my crying had subsided, Mrs. Miller pulled up a chair beside me and sat down.
'We'll have to inform your family,' she said. 'This is a very personal problem, and you and your family will have to make some important decisions.'
'Please,' I said, seizing her hand, 'don't tell anyone.'
'I won't tell anyone but your family and, of course, Mrs. Ironwood.'
'No, please. I don't want anyone to know just yet.'
'I can't do that. It's too much of a responsibility, dear. Surely after the initial shock, your family will give you support, and you and your family will make the right decisions.'
'Decisions?' There seemed to be only one decision—suicide, or at least running away.
'Whether to have the baby, to have an abortion, to inform the father . . . decisions. So you see, there's too much responsibility for us to keep it a secret. Others have to know. If we didn't tell them, we would be remiss. I would be irresponsible and certainly held to account. The least that would happen is I would be fired.'
