We Tell Secrets in our Secrety Society

Nora thought it was cute that the girls assumed they were whispering amongst themselves. There wasn’t much room for her to go in the apartment and they were sitting on the opposite side of the long table she had pulled in a rented rusted trailer from their old home. It was one of the few things she’d felt compelled to take.

“I heard that Layla isn’t going anywhere this summer.”

“What do you mean? Not even camp?”

“I don’t know about that, but her mama is still looking for a job.”

Aurelie frowned.

“So is my mama…”

On the other side of the long table, Nora stiffened. She decided it was best not to say anything, but rather let the girls have their privacy. She could feel their eyes on her. Lucy broke the silence.

“Did you know that her mama and papa don’t sleep in the same bed?”

Nora stifled her laugh. She dove back into the website she was focusing on. Instructions on how to self-publish a scientific article. Maybe she should put on headphones in order to give the girls privacy. They were just small kids, but they had already established their own secret world. It was nice to be a part of it, at least on the edge, at least for a little while longer.

It pleased Nora that Aurelie was no longer asking with rabid obsession if she and her father would be getting back together. It pleased her that her daughter was doing well, adjusting to a new place and surrounded by friends. Even though the apartment was only a one-bedroom, even though they hadn’t been on holiday for two years, it pleased her that they were able to work it out together, that they had rebuilt a peaceful home just the two of them, and that things were looking on the up and up.

As she glowed in those thoughts, she also allowed the less flattering thought that the idea of other parents in her daughter’s circle breaking up pleased her as well. It was a bit of a quiet “I told you so moment”, something her core self could only say to a deep nucleus tucked away within her, where the secret throbbed and then was gulped up by something soothing, protective, and bigger than herself.

“There’s only a few things that daddies can do that mommies can’t.”

“Like what?”

“Like pee standing up.”

“Or grow a beard.”

Her article had been ready for a long time. She had come to the definitive end of reviewing it. The experiment had been carried out to completion a few years prior. She was helped by her collaborators, who were, like her, behavioral psychologists, but there had also been a team of biologists and even one chemist involved. The data had been collected and stored away in refrigeration units across the continent. It could probably be discarded by now, although she viewed one vial in a particular with a fond nostalgia.

“My mommy has some hair on her face.”

Nora raised an eyebrow but remained silent.

“She could shave it.”

“My mom uses a cream.”

“I’m not going to have hair on my legs.”

“It’s on her face.”

This would be her first successful science experiment since leaving the lab to become a mother. She had been a rising star in the psychology department before falling in love with the bad boy of the university. He studied physics. How surprisingly cliché it all turned out to be. He talked a good game and made her feel the center of his world. He also said psychology wasn’t a real science. Nora frowned.

“Mama, can we have some ice cream?”

“Soon, dear, I just need to send something and I’ll make a sundae for you girls. Do you all take yours with whipped cream?”

“Whipped cream!” they shouted back at her in near unison, their arms stained with streaks of marker and palms splashed in glitter. Nora smiled at their simple and spontaneous joy. It had been so long since she’d felt that way herself. Life has a way of knocking it out of you past a certain point. But there was a secondhand type of joy that she felt looking at her radiant daughter’s face, the vestiges of babyhood and the promise of womanhood to come, along with her girlfriends, the sisterhood, and it almost made up for the dark sphere that buzzed deep inside her.

She didn’t care that she would have to vacuum after Aurelie went to bed. She didn’t care about the mess, the awkward encounters with the parents she just couldn’t connect with no matter how hard she tried, not even the dads who would hover in the door, looking at her for too long, waiting to be invited in. Aurelie made it all worthwhile. All of this was to give her a good life.

“When can we have whipped cream?” Purelle, a girl who Nora didn’t particularly like, was suddenly at her elbow. Nora tried to think that this kid, who looked like her mother drank when she was pregnant with her, could still turn out to be respectable if only she learned to behave, give in less to violent outbursts and listen more. It wouldn’t be Nora that would take her under her wing. She didn’t even have mental space for a cat, let alone for any other thing else in her life. But she thought of Didi, one of her collaborators, and her heart softened. It was possible, a long way down the line. She looked at Purelle and could see her looking at the screen and she didn’t like it. At this age, who knew if or what they could read.

“As I said, I will make you guys sundaes, not just whipped cream, when you give me a few more minutes of peace and allow me to finish my work.”

Purelle was still standing there, her mouth open slightly, still staring at the screen. Nora looked to her daughter, sat directly across from her at the head of the table. An unseen jolt of energy passed between them. Aurelie beckoned her friend back over to her.

“Come on, Purelle, let’s go. We’re gonna make a secret society.”

Purelle dashed just as Nora leaned back to laugh.

“A secret society?!” she couldn’t resist taking the bait. Aurelie threw her hands up to cover her face and let out a little contained shriek. It was adorable.

“Come on, guys! My mom knows about it! Let’s run!” and all four sets of feet took off into ‘Aurelie’s room’ next door, where Nora had promised her daughter not to tell anyone that she also slept on the foldout couch.

She clicked through the pages, her eyes lazily scanning the formatting. Everything was there. The header, with her name and object of research, the abstract, the full text - seventeen reasonable and well-written pages, digestible but impactful - and the acknowledgments. Aside from the usual gratitude to university professors and family, her collaborators for this particular experiment were boldly included:

To the Scientific Sisterhood, my collaborators. We will always persevere in our search for the truth. Together our brilliance parts the sea of ignorance like God did for Moses, flooding the unrighteous like He did the Egyptians.

There was nothing more to say. It was that way and if it was any different it wouldn’t have been mentioned. Convinced that the pages were numbered, Nora attached the file to the peer-reviewed website and hit ‘Submit.’ A feeling of satisfaction flooded her body. Years of research, study and experimenting involving multiple people across multiple continents, encrypted communications and all the pile of notes that she had to take a lighter to when they moved out of their old house danced through her mind.

She remembered how the flames licked the edges of the paper that night.

Aurelie stood up in her bedroom and opened the window from the second floor. It had been a beautifully spacious house.

“Mama? Papa?”

Her white face in the window.

“Go to sleep, daughter.”

“Where’s papa?”

She kneeled to pick up a stick.

The feeling of accomplishment in Nora was always quickly replaced by a kind of longing for a reward. Or some sort of recognition. Packing up her research, putting their suitcases in the car, selling the house on the other side of the continent, several time zones between them and their past lives, and now the feeling of waiting for the peers to read her, to chime in.

Now to wait. But hearing the voices of the girls in the next room, she bolted upright, remembering the sundaes.

She walked past her and Aurelie’s bedroom, discreetly trying to pick up hints of her daughter’s social life even as she wanted to give her space to blossom on her own.

“You can’t do one color on your hand.”

“But my mom does.”

“But that’s for grown-ups, we’re kids!” It was Aurelie’s voice. Nora stopped in her tracks by the door and smiled. Her kid was so genuine. She waited, but the growing silence beyond the threshold told her she had been caught out. As she moved on, there were some whispers behind the door.

“How’s the secret society going in there?”

“Good!” they all burst out at once, then Aurelie’s head popped through the door.

“Mama, can you come into my room, please?”

Smiling at her formulation, Nora eased over the threshold, choosing to ignore the explosion of half-naked dolls and uncapped markers and glitter strewn all over the floor. Yes, she would be vacuuming later, that was for sure.

“Mom, do you want to join our secret society?”

Before she could say anything, Purelle put her hands over Aurelie’s mouth. “No, Aurelie! She’s a mommy!”

Nora wasn’t sure what she resented more: being left out, or this mug touching her daughter’s face. Aurelie took a step back, though, which her mother was proud to see.

“What’s your secret society?” Nora asked, looking at the girls in turn, deliberately ignoring Purelle. Lucy looked at Aurelie and giggled. The protagonist of this afternoon’s playdate leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially.

“It’s where we come together…”

“And tell secrets!” Purelle blurted out. Nora couldn’t help but frown, disappointed. She wondered what was the matter with this child, and she had strong feelings about her behaviour as well. She would maybe consider saying something to her mother, but the woman elicited both pity and scorn. Purelle was her fourth child by her fourth man. Her roots were never dyed and her face always looked like she’s been drinking. The mother’s, not Purelle’s.

It was like she took away something that could have been a funny moment between mother and daughter. Even Lucy, who was a sunshine of a kid. Nora would have enjoyed having a laugh with her. But not this one.

“So what kind of secrets do you tell?”

Aurelie stepped forward. “Well, I told that Lucy is in love with…”

Lucy jumped forward and covered her friend’s mouth with her hands, then looked at Nora with an adorable expression. Nora softened.

“Daughter, are you sure that it’s worth being in a secret society if you’re going to tell your friend’s secrets?”

Aurelie smiled guiltily and whispered to Lucy. Purelle pulled her by the shoulder meanwhile. Nora turned away, trying to hide her exasperation.

“Well, my secret is that I like to make sundaes for my kid and her friends, so I’m gonna go do it.” Nora walked through the door, allowing it to fall slowly shut behind her. A burst of giggles exploded from the room. She went to the kitchen and opened the cupboard to take down the glasses for the sundaes. American ‘50’s style, with long stems and rims that turned outward like pouted lips. A real pleasure to eat from. Before going to the fridge, she rested her hands on the counter and let out a sigh. She loved her daughter, of course. This was all for her in the end. Still, having a kid wasn’t easy, and her friends being by made her understand the wisdom of one and done.

Footsteps behind her. She pulled herself up. It was Purelle.

“Can I help you?” Nora asked with a chill.

The poor child, with her slightly too-large forehead and over willingness to help made Nora feel sad, but not enough to nurture her. She didn’t want to be cruel because she saw this girl as an extension of her daughter. But it was an extension of Aurelie that she didn’t particularly like. It was bound to happen. Aurelie would grow up, keep real secrets from her, secrets that couldn’t be broken into by manipulating a cheap lock on a notebook with a unicorn on it.

“I am Aurelie,” she’d written, “and I like to ride ponies. My best friend is Lucy. And also Purelle.”

“Just go and play,” Nora said, surprising herself with her own abruptness. She moved to the fridge and reached up over Purelle’s head to open the freezer. The child stood, barely masking her awe as the box of chocolate ice cream floated above her. Nora thought it must seem like such a treat to her. Suddenly, Purelle’s eyes dropped to the floor and Nora, content with the realization that the girl was going back to play in the bedroom - or rather, Aurelie’s room - turned around safely to start spooning out the ice cream.

The fridge opened behind her and Nora sucked her breath in, paralyzed.

“I’m going to help you,” Purelle said again, “where’s the whipped cream? Is that a hand?”

It was said in a rapid fire of innocence that Nora had come to be used to and find adorable in her own child. Quickly, she pivoted and slammed the fridge door shut. Then she leaned into Purelle’s face.

“Never - and I mean never, ever, in a hundred million years - open a fridge without asking first.”

She looked deep into Purelle’s eyes. They were bright and simple. The little girl just stared back.

“Now go,” Nora whispered.

Purelle went, without looking over her shoulder. Nora let out a sigh. She could have screamed “FUCK!” but her daughter was in the next room. She would let the ice cream melt while she had a cigarette and got her breathing under control.

It was like it just had to happen when the paper was published. She couldn’t even relax in her own house. She was trying to do something nice for her kid and her friends and now what, they would have to move again? No, that alcoholic fetus baby wouldn’t actually say anything. Kids’ memories were weird. Sure, she would remember it for a long time, but it could always be a dream, or something. Nora would have to behave normal in front of the mother, and be careful not to overcompensate by praising Purelle too much. It would be inauthentic.

Today, of all days. They wouldn’t move, they didn’t have to, it was true. But she would have to find another place for the hand. It had been her favorite thing about him. Her collaborators all agreed he had had lovely knuckles. The ring shone lovingly through the green formaldehyde every time the refrigerator door opened. Aurelie smiled when she saw it. She said it reminded her of a star. It had been nice for Nora to be able to keep her favorite thing about him so close.

She would have to find another place for it, which was a pity. But the silver lining, she quickly saw, was that maybe now she had an idea of another study. She could study and write something about Purelle.

She uncapped the whipped cream, shook it and sprayed it over the slightly melted chocolate ice cream. “Girls!” she called. They came running instantly.

“Ice cream!”

“Yummy!” cried Purell.

“Yes, it’s yummy ice cream,” Nora agreed, watching with curiosity as Purelle took the spoon with her left hand and began to eat. Aurelie caught her eye.

“Thank you, mama.”

“You’re welcome, baby.”

She knew she could count on her first collaborator for help. Aurelie could be trusted, Nora knew, not to tell a secret.