Pipe Dreams(47)

       
           



       

Nothing.

Having no other choice, she waved the card in front of the scanner,  pushing the door open when the light turned green. Elsa's room was  beginning to darken, too, though nobody was napping on the bed. Her  heart dove toward her shoes, until she saw the strip of light under the  bathroom door.

Thank you, baby Jesus.

Lauren tapped on the door. "Elsa? Couldn't you hear my knocking? It's almost time to go."

She waited, expecting to hear the teen say she'd been in the shower. But  Elsa didn't say a word. Though . . . Lauren listened harder. She heard a  sniffle.

"Elsa? Are you okay? Can you open the door?"

"N . . . no."

The tingle at the base of her skull was back. "Are you ill?"

"I . . ."

Lauren heard a sob. "Honey? You're scaring me. Open the door, please."

"I can't."

"You can't? Why?" Her mind began offering up explanations, each more  frightening than the last. Elsa had slipped and hit her head. Elsa had  slit her wrist with a razor blade. Elsa was experimenting with heroin.

Okay, the kid's carry-on would never have passed inspection if those last two were true. But still.

She tapped again. "Open this door." She tried the knob. It was locked, of course.

"God! Just go the fuck away!"

Lauren took the kind of deep, cleansing breath that Ari tried to get her  yoga classes to take. Then she took two more. Yelling at a locked door  was not going to win the girl's trust.

She backed away, then opened the adjoining door to slip back into her own room. She dug out her Katt Phone and tried to think.

After a few more yoga breaths, she called Mike's number. "Hi, honey.  Hope your pregame routine is going well. I don't want you to worry, but  Elsa won't come out of her bathroom. As a precaution I'd love to know if  she's been feeling ill. But I suspect that she's fine and just pushing  my buttons a little bit. If you have any intel, shoot me a text.  Otherwise I'll talk her out of there in a bit and we'll both be cheering  for you. Love you."

She hung up, wondering if calling him had been the right thing to do.  Mike probably wouldn't see that message before the game, anyway. He was  probably stretching with his teammates and chatting with the goaltending  coach.

Lauren went back into Elsa's room and stared at the door. She's only a  sad teenager, not a lion, Lauren reminded herself. "Honey," she said to  the door. "If you won't tell me the problem, or come out of there, I'm  going to have to call maintenance and get them to open it for me."

"No!" Elsa invested so much fear into this short word that Lauren's pulse kicked up a notch again.

"Why?" Lauren demanded. The bathroom doorknob had a little hole in the  center of it. The ones in her apartment were the same. If she could  thread a straightened coat-hanger into that hole, the lock would release  with a pop . . .

The doorknob turned suddenly and Elsa's face appeared in the crack, looking both angry and scared. "I have a p-problem."

"What kind of problem?" Lauren whispered.

"There's . . . blood everywhere."

"What?" Lauren nudged the door, moving Elsa out of the way. When it  swung open she saw bright red blood on the bath mat. She grabbed Elsa's  wrists in her hands, but they were perfect.

And shaking.

A fraction of a second later, more pieces of the puzzle began to align  themselves together. The pair of jeans cast onto the floor. The  wastebasket full of wadded-up tissue. The red smear on the toilet. "You  just got your period?" Elsa nodded tearfully, and Lauren felt a great  flood of relief. Then one more lightbulb illuminated. "For the first  time?"

The child dropped her chin, and her shoulders sagged.

"Oh," Lauren said slowly. "Oh, honey. That must be scary."

Elsa let out a sob.

"Hey!" Lauren said quickly, pulling herself together. "You're okay!  You're fine." Instinct kicked in and she pulled Elsa against her body,  one hand on the back of her head. "Breathe, okay?"

"It's . . . everywhere," Elsa cried.

"It looks worse than it is," Lauren babbled. "Just a little mess. You're just surprised, right? Did it start earlier today?"

"I . . . I guess. I saw some . . . brown in the airport. And then I shut the TV off and got up and . . . and . . . it gushed."

"Okay, okay," Lauren soothed. "You're fine. I know you feel scared,  because it seems weird to see a lot of blood. But this is totally  normal." It wasn't her most elegant speech, but she was pinch-hitting  here.                       
       
           



       

"I want my mom," Elsa sobbed, her narrow shoulders shaking.

Lauren's eyes welled instantly and spilled over. "Oh, honey. I'm so, so  sorry she isn't here." She swallowed her own tears. "Let's get you  cleaned up. I'm going to help you the best I can. I know it's not nearly  the same as having your mom around, but I've gotten periods for a long  time, okay? I'll get you set up."

"Okay," Elsa ground out.

She convinced Elsa to take a quick shower while she went to look in her  luggage for a pad. Luckily, she found one. Often there were only tampons  in there.

With Elsa standing there in a towel, she gave her a quick explanation of  how pads were affixed to underwear. "You can just throw your ruined  ones away, okay? I have extras. And we'll use cold water to get the  stain out of your jeans. Do you have another pair with you?"

She did, luckily.

Ten minutes later, Elsa was dressed in clean, dry clothes and sitting on  her bed looking a little shell-shocked but otherwise fine. It was  almost time to head over to the rink, but Lauren took the risky step of  climbing onto the bed next to Elsa. She hugged her knees to her chest  and sighed. "I got my first period on a bus trip with my class. In  eighth grade."

"Oh, no!" Elsa gasped.

"It was on the way home, at least. I tied my sweatshirt around my waist.  But I was still a hundred percent sure that everyone saw. I felt like I  was glowing like a beacon."

Elsa groaned, because the idea of bleeding in front of your classmates  was universally acknowledged to be a fate worse than death.

"We'll buy some pads in the hotel gift shop on our way to the game, all right? I'll stash them in my purse."

Elsa risked a glance in Lauren's direction. "Thank you," she said gruffly.

"It's nothing, honey. I know it seems like a huge deal today. But you  get really good at handling the details, and life goes on. You can ask  me for anything, okay? One of these days you'll be ready to handle  tampons, which makes life even easier. But today is probably not that  day."

"Ew, no," Elsa said, and Lauren had to bite back her smile.

There was a crash in the other room, and Lauren jumped. A split second  later, Mike appeared in the doorway between the two hotel rooms, his  face red, his eyes wild. "What happened?" he panted.

For a second, Lauren just blinked. "You're supposed to be at the rink!"

"No kidding! But I got a call from you on my phone that there's some  kind of crisis. I texted you back a hundred times with no answer."

"Omigod," Lauren said, sitting up straighter. "The message I left! I'm so sorry. We're fine."

"Looks that way." He bent over and grabbed his knees. "Jesus. Ran all the way here."

"I'm sorry, Daddy," Elsa said quickly. "You'd better get back. Like, yesterday."

He stood up and leaned on the doorjamb. "You two sure you're okay? Want to tell me what happened?"

"Later," Lauren said.

His eyes shifted to Elsa. "Young lady, were you causing drama?"

Lauren tried to meet his gaze and tell him to drop it, but his eyes had a laserlike focus on his daughter.

Elsa swallowed. "I wouldn't come out of the bathroom because I got, uh, my period."

His expression went from angry to shocked to completely uncomfortable in  about two seconds. "Oh," he said slowly. "Uh, okay. And . . ." He  scratched his chin. "Is that, uh, working out all right?"

"Yup," Elsa said quickly. "You can go back to guarding the net now."

"Right," he said.

"Right," Lauren repeated.

"So . . . I'm just going to . . ." He pointed over his shoulder.

"Stop 'em all," Elsa encouraged.

"Stay sharp," Lauren added.

He gave them both one more appraising look. Then he turned around and  disappeared. The next sound was the hotel room door shutting again.

"Whoops," Lauren said into the silence.

"Yeah," Elsa whispered. "Did you . . ." A hysterical giggle bubbled out of her chest. ". . . see the look on his face?"

"I did." Lauren kept it together for about two seconds before bursting out in laughter.