Julie’s Monday started off in her new normal way. Mom changed her in the morning; she got dressed and then was off to school. Julie did spend a bit more time than normal picking out her clothes. She remembered what Becky had been saying about being able to tell if she was wearing a diaper or not. She figured she had to kind of choose a happy middle ground here. Yoga pants or anything really tight fitting and you could see the diaper outline. Skirts too lose and there was that slim chance you could hear the diaper. In the end, Julie just went with a pair of jeans.

Nothing much of interest happened in class, and she managed to stay dry throughout the morning. When her literature class ended, she started walking towards her normal lunch spot with every intention of having lunch with her friends. She was about half way there when she finally realized that the “Hey. Excuse me.” voice she had been hearing might actually be directed at her.

Julie stopped and turned around to see who was talking to her. She didn’t see any of her friends anywhere though. She turned back around and was about to start walking again when a hand gently touched her shoulder, causing her to flinch slightly in surprise.

“Woah, sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I thought you saw me.”

Julie did a double take. Kate. Again. And now they were talking. She wasn’t sure what to say, so she finally managed an awkward ‘Hi.’

Kate didn’t hesitate and just jumped right in.

“Hi. I’m Kate.” Kate extended her hand.

“Nice to meet you Kate.” Julie wanted to be polite so she gently shook Kate’s hand. “I’m Julie.” She paused and then continued. “I’m not really sure, I mean, do I know you?”

Kate didn’t skip a beat. “Nice to meet you Julie. I’m sorry, I don’t think we have officially met, and I wasn’t sure if you recognized me. I saw you the other day at Ms. Bernard’s office. You kind of ran into me.” As she said this Kate made a funny face and laughed to show that she thought it was funny, and not that she was upset or anything like that.

Julie did of course remember that moment, although outside of Becky, she hadn’t told anyone about it. Is that why Kate had been waving to her? Was Kate upset with her for running into her perhaps?
“Yea, I’m sorry about that. I should have apologized. I….”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. Trust me, I’ve been there.”

There was something about the way Kate said ‘I’ve been there’ that caught Julie’s attention and gave her pause. She looked up at Kate. Kate looked back at her, raised her eyebrows and nodded. Julie’s heart skipped a beat. Her intuition was telling her something that didn’t make any sense.

“Wait, what are you talking about?” Julie asked slowly.

If Kate was aware of Julie’s apprehension, she wasn’t letting on. “I was talking about when you were waiting to go see Ms. Bernard, and when I opened the door to leave, you nearly bowled me over trying to get inside.”

Julie thought about her friends waiting for her at lunch. She wasn’t totally sure where this was going, but she decided she wanted to get there quickly. Time for the direct route.

“No, I mean the part about ‘I’ve been there’. What do you mean? Do you run into people a lot or something?”

Kate looked at Julie, paused, and then smiled again. “Ok, good, that’s what I thought. Look, I think you know what I mean. I get the feeling you are in a hurry, but if you have a few minutes I’d like to talk with you a bit. I think you might really want to hear about something.”

Julie had a couple of thoughts. Maybe Kate was trying to recruit her for the volleyball team. Maybe this was some kind of senior thing. But her instincts said it was none of the above.

“You got a few minutes?” Kate asked again.

Julie decided to say yes. She looked at Kate and nodded.

“Ok, come over here and we can sit.” Kate said.

Julie followed Kate over to a small concrete bench. They sat down.

“Is this about the volleyball team? One of my friends told me you play. She said you were really good.”

Kate shook her head. “Nope, but if you want to talk volleyball we can do that too. No, this is about something else. We call it D Club.”

Julie heard ‘Glee Club’. “Oh, I’m a really bad singer…”

“What? Singer?” Kate said with a confused look on her face. Then she got it and smiled. “No, not Glee club, D club. As in the letter D. D as in diaper.”