My Mother Got Married by Barbara Park Page A

room.
    “Sorry,” she said. “Sorry.”
    “No … it’s okay,” I called after her. “Really.”
    I wished I could have told her that I understood. I didn’t, though. How could I? How could anyone understand something as sad as that?

(seven)

T
    HE NEXT day things seemed to be back to normal. Lydia’s alarm went off at six A.M. Then, just like every other school morning, I heard her come padding down the hall in her fuzzy bunny slippers. The ones with the ears. Then the bathroom door closed and the sound of the lock echoed in the hallway.
    That was that. Lydia wouldn’t come out again until her ride to school started honking the horn. Even if Thomas and I had to go really bad, she wouldn’t unlock the stupid door. The first week she moved in I made a wet spot on my Superman, Man of Steel pajamas. I’ll never really forgive Lydia for that.
    The trouble was, even when I did get into the bathroom, it wasn’t the same as it used to be. Makeup and hair junk and perfume were crammed everywhere. Sometimes there was so much crap I couldn’t even find my toothbrush. Once when I picked it up, it had already been used. I still get queasy when I think about it.
    Besides the bathroom mess, rubber bands with little hair balls in them could be found all over the house. Like suddenly, she would be walking through the house and get this uncontrollable urge to rip out her ponytail, hair and all. It was disgusting and scary at the same time.
    There was one more thing, too. Lydia smelled. I’m not kidding. She would walk by, and suddenly this giant perfume cloud would fill the air and make you cough. It hung in the air for about twenty minutes. To breathe, you had to put a hanky over your nose.
    I’m not exaggerating. One night at dinner Ben took a whiff of her and pretended to clear out his sinuses. Lydia got tears in her eyes and left the table.
    She ran upstairs to take a bubble bath. She took at least two baths or showers a day. That’s twice as many as I took the entire time I was at camp.
    “Great!” she shrieked from the top of the stairs. “Thomas used all my bubble bath again! There was almost half a bottle left last night and now it’s gone!”
    Ben glanced at Thomas and frowned.
    Thomas shrugged and shoved in another forkful of mashed potatoes.
    “Did not,” he mumbled.
    Lydia stormed back down to the kitchen and held the empty bottle upside down.
    “Look at this! It’s totally gone! He must have had bubbles up to the ceiling!”
    Thomas kept right on eating.
    “Did not,” he repeated quietly. A kernel of corn fell out of his mouth onto the place mat.
    “Yes, you did! You did too!”
    This time Thomas looked up and smiled. “Not, not, not,” he said.
    “Too! too! too! too! too! too! too!” shrieked Lydia.
    I excused myself from the table. Fights at dinner cause indigestion. And besides, I had enough problems of my own without getting involved in this one.
    But just in case anyone wants my opinion, if Lydia had wanted to keep her precious bubble bath to herself, she shouldn’t have put it right out on the tub in plain sight. It’s not like it had her name on it or anything. Who knew?
    And anyway, if the stupid bubbles had lasted longer, I wouldn’t have needed so much.
    U NFORTUNATELY , Lydia hogged more than just the bathroom. She was also a telephone hog. I’m not sure which was worse. When you think about it, the telephone and the toilet are a lot alike. You might not use them that often, but when you need them, you need them.
    One night, because of Lydia’s blabbing, I had to walk home from Martin’s house in the pouring rain. I tried for an hour and a half to call my mother to come get me. That’s ninety straight minutes! And all I could get was a busy signal!
    Getting a busy signal for an hour and a half makes a person crazy. I’m not kidding. I read about a guy who got so mad at a busy signal that he shot his telephone right in the receiver. He said it was self-defense. I can understand