Skin

by Napoli, Donna Jo

  Becca teaches us a routine. I love learning routines. Once you finally get them and you don’t have to scramble to remember what comes next, you can put your energy into finding out how far you can go with each move. You can make the routine yours. Your body takes over. You dance.

  I pound the routine into my head.

  Then I surrender to my body. And my body does what it should. My arms transfer energy one to the other as though they’re connected through the center of me. I twist my spine so far, I can feel my kidneys sing. Whoosh, and my torso swings down between my straight V legs and I’m looking at the rear wall and reaching for it. This is good. Something is going right. Whatever war my skin is waging against me, my muscles don’t have any part in it. This is good. Really good.

  Sweat-drenched, we stagger off to the locker room. I hold back and wait for the others to shower first. Some of the senior girls strip completely before they step inside the shower curtain. Most girls strip down only to their panties and bra, though, then go inside the shower curtain and hang their undies over the curtain while they wash. No one goes inside the shower curtain fully dressed.

  But that’s what I’m going to do. And I figure it’s less likely anyone will notice if I wait till everyone else has had their turn.

  I’m wearing tights under my shorts and a shirt that goes down over my elbows. It’s still too warm out for tights, but the splotch on the inside of my thigh is low enough that it showed when I tried on my shorts this morning. So I threw tights into my backpack along with the shorts.

  I sit on the bench and look down at my feet, so I won’t be tempted to look in the mirror and search for hints of new spots. Mirror checking threatens to become an obsession.

  “You didn’t do so bad today, girls,” says Becca, buttoning up her shirt and addressing all of us as a group. She was the first to finish showering—the queen. She doesn’t mean to act superior, I know. She’s just trying to be encouraging. But she comes off as self-satisfied.

  As if she heard my thoughts, Becca jerks her chin toward me. “You like Oscar Brown, Junior, huh, Sep?”

  So that’s the name of the jazz singer today. I give a small smile. Then I get up and stick my head in my locker and pretend to be looking for something.

  “You were really into it out there.” Her voice is friendly. “I bet Joshua would have liked to see that. You’re becoming a sexpot. Even the way you walk down the halls, it shows.”

  I push my head so far into the locker now, it presses against the back wall.

  “Well, see you all next week.” I hear Becca’s locker door slam.

  I wait a while, then I straighten up, open my math book, and stand in front of my open locker, reading.

  The conversation dribbles away to nothing.

  “You can shower now, Sep.” It’s Melanie. She’s come over behind me.

  The way she says it discourages me. I’m going to wind up getting a reputation as a weirdo about shower behavior even before everyone sees my vitiligo and finds out how truly weird I am.

  I close my locker and go over to a shower stall and step inside the curtain, then I strip and turn the water on to the hottest it will go. Steam comes up. School sets the water heater higher than we set it at home. I love the school shower.

  I stand a long time with the water beating on my neck and back and butt.

  Then I remember Owen. I agreed to walk home with him today. He’s waiting for me.

  Quick, I slip on my panties and bra and peek around the curtain.

  Melanie’s sitting on the bench looking at me. “You modest?”

  I retreat behind the curtain and put on my shirt. It covers the spots on my belly and back and on my upper arm and elbow. But there’s no point in putting on my tights and shorts, because I want to change into my jeans to go home. I hold my tights and shorts in front of my thighs. Okay, this works. No white spots show now, though the one on the back of my hand almost shows; the three red magic marker dots have washed to light pink.

  I come out.

  Melanie glances up from tying her sandals. They’re the classic kind that lace halfway up your calf. “You did look good again today. Becca wasn’t exaggerating.”

  “Thanks.” I look at the tattoo on her ankle and wonder about what Joshua said. “You’re here kind of late.”

  “I was waiting for a call from my little brother. He was supposed to tell me where to meet him. It’s our dad’s birthday tonight and we have a plan. But Raymond flaked out on me. Like usual. He didn’t answer my texts—he didn’t answer my calls—and now he just texted me and said we’ll do it tomorrow, as though birthdays can be pushed around however you want. He can be such a jerk.”

  “I get it.” I smile. “I’ve got a little brother, too.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, I’m off. Want to walk home together?”

  I blink. Am I imagining things or is there something wistful in the way she says it? “I’m already walking home with someone.”

  “Joshua?”

  “No.” But that feels too abrupt. After all, Becca mentioned Joshua, so it isn’t like Melanie’s being nosy. “Owen.”

  “He’s nice.” She rubs the top of her thighs and stands. “Well, another time.”

  I walk to my locker and open the door to hide behind it. Melanie’s footsteps retreat and I hear the door open and close. I pull on my jeans and stuff my shorts and tights in my pack and run for the parking lot.

  Owen’s standing at the edge of the lot, near the activity bus stop. “So you didn’t forget about me?”

  “Sorry. I got involved with a shower.”

  He nods. “I thought only guys did that.”

  “Owen! I’m shocked.” I slap my hands on my chest dramatically. “What’s gotten into you?”

  “How are you liking logarithms?”

  “You’re changing the subject. And not artfully. I already had logarithms in trigonometry last year. I just forgot. Sorry I sent you that stupid text last night—every year I seem to have to start at the beginning all over again. It’s discouraging.”

  “I’m the same way.”

  We cross the street and I realize I’m a ball of tension. I let my arms give a quick shake to release the muscles. “No you’re not, Owen. But I won’t stand in the way of your being nice if you want.”

  “I’m not being nice. It’s true. Math is like that. You have to learn things a dozen times before they sink in enough to be part of you.”

  I wonder if that’s so. In elementary and middle school the math lessons at the beginning of the year were always review. I resented them. But maybe they weren’t a waste of time after all.

  I look around. Melanie must have taken a different route. But what a stupid thought—I don’t even know where she lives.

  “Looking for someone?”

  I shouldn’t be. I’m not even really friends with Melanie. “What do you know about tattoos, Owen?”

  “You thinking of getting one?”

  “No. I thought about it, but decided it wouldn’t serve my purposes, after all.”

  “‘Wouldn’t serve your purposes,’ huh? You sound mysterious.”

  “I’m not.”

  “So if you’re not going to get one, why are you talking about them?”

  “I just want to know what you know about them.”

  “Less than you do. But I do know people often regret them. This counselor at camp when I was just a kid—”

  “You mean last year?”

  “You want to hear or you want to make fun of me?”

  “Sorry. Tell me.”

  “She said that her cousin got a tattoo when she was eighteen, of her favorite movie star.”

  “That doesn’t sound bad.”

  “Exactly. That’s the point. To teenage girls it doesn’t sound bad. And if she had gotten it ten years before, she’d have chosen a spotted dog or a pink dinosaur or something. So how do you think she felt about that movie star ten years later?”

  I laugh. “Good point.” I rip a leaf off
a bush as we pass. “Ever heard that some tattoos have meaning? I mean, of course they have meaning, but, you know, that some send a kind of message?”

  “You’re either being obscure or you’re an idiot, Sep. Tattoos can mean all sorts of things.”

  “What about pink triangles?”

  “On the ankle? For lesbians?”

  So Owen knows, too. I can’t believe it. “How long have you known that, Owen?”

  “About those triangles? Since last year. Why?”

  “How did you find out?”

  “What are you talking about, Sep? They were a big deal. Everyone knew.”

  “I didn’t. What if I had gotten a pink triangle on my ankle just by accident?”

  “Well, you’d have been screwed.”

  “So screwed.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Major screwed.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And all by accident. Do you ever think about how many things happen to us just by accident, Owen?”

  “Of course. But I don’t dwell on it, Sep. You can’t do anything about accidents.”

  We walk a couple of blocks in silence and cut through the woodsy area by the condominiums. Owen slips off his backpack as he walks, reaches in, and hands me a book. Then he puts his backpack on again.

  I look at the title. The Things They Carried. “What’s this?”

  “A gift. I put it in my pack yesterday, after you apologized. It’s appropriate, because you cussed last time we were together.”

  “Is it about cussing?”

  “And other things. The Vietnam War.”

  “You care about the Vietnam War?”

  “If you read it, you will, too. Ordinary people, just a little older than us, wound up halfway around the world shooting at people and getting shot at and trying to figure out what it means.”

  “What war means?”

  “War. Life. Everything.” Owen’s voice goes suddenly thick with emotion. He hardly ever gets emotional. His dad has diabetes, the bad kind that you get when you’re little, and I was with him once when his dad went into diabetic shock, so I know: Owen is a rock. Or at least he tries to be.

  I move closer. “They had the draft then,” I say softly. “Nonno talked about it once, about what a lousy system it was. Italy was different. In Italy every guy did military service after high school, no matter what.”

  “That had to suck.”

  “Yeah. But it was fair. Nonno was big on being fair.”

  “Does anyone sit in his chair yet?”

  “Just Rattle.”

  “Time,” says Owen. He clears his throat. “Some things take time.”

  “I guess. At least we don’t have the draft anymore. We won’t wind up in the middle of a war like the characters in this book.”

  “We have to figure out what it all means anyway, Sep, no matter where we are.” He hooks his thumbs through his backpack straps and hikes the pack up his back a little. “Besides, we sort of are in the middle of a war. All of us. The same big war. ’Cause all these wars, they’re all connected.”

  “You’re lecturing me now.”

  “Sorry.” He shrugs. “I’m bad at apologies. Here I go offending you when the book’s supposed to be an apology.”

  “For what?”

  “For last time. I understand you feel lousy, even if you don’t want to tell me about it. You’ve got things to figure out—like we were saying. I’m sorry I tried to minimize it. I was stupid enough to think that might help.”

  I feel off-balance. I’m the one who was in the wrong—but Owen actually understands why I acted so bad. I want to thank him profusely. But I know if I try, I’ll get all sappy. And something’s already too sad in this conversation. Without a word, I slip off my backpack, slide in the book, and sling the pack back on.

  “So how’s it going, Sep?”

  “I can’t complain.” Which isn’t true. I complain all the time. But Owen’s just getting the conversation going again. The least I can do is try to be cooperative. “What about you? Spending a lot of time at that website? The one of the political genius?”

  “Chomsky dot info. Have you looked at it?”

  “No.”

  “You’re making a mistake.”

  “I’ll look. I’ve had other things on my mind.”

  “You and Joshua—how’s that working out for you?”

  There’s something in his voice that makes it seem like a challenge. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Uh, let’s see. We’ve been friends for years and something new and major happens in your life. Could that be it?”

  “We’re getting along good.”

  “That’s great.”

  We come out on the other side of the condos and turn up Milton Street.

  “But we won’t be together for long.”

  “What do you mean?” says Owen.

  “Things happen. Accidents. Like you said, you can’t do anything about accidents.”

  “Could you be a bit more edifying?”

  “No.”

  “Am I supposed to guess?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “You brought it up.”

  “So I’m burying it.”

  “Well, I’m still above ground. Remember that later.”

  “What’s that mean, Owen?”

  “You’re smart; figure it out.” The corner of his mouth twitches, as though he’s fighting to control himself. He turns at his street without a farewell. His shoulders are squared, like he’s marching away.

  I stare after him. Owen. He’s the first one I bounce ideas off, especially school stuff that Devin would hate talking about. He’s always there. We’re good friends. But this year is different. And he just gave me a gift—a used book, but a gift anyway. I swallow. In that text message when I apologized for being such a jerk, he wrote, “I still love you.” I say it to him all the time, but he never says it back. Only he did in that message. Oh my God, anyone else in the world would have figured it out long ago: Owen likes me. That way. And all along I thought I understood him—I thought he was so easy to understand.

  An enormous sadness weighs me down.

  I touch my lips. They’re cinnamon red today. Devin gave me a new lipstick out of the blue on Sunday, when I borrowed the sex novels. She’s wearing lipstick to school these days, too. Solidarity.

  I put on lipstick the first day of school and Joshua came after me full throttle. Oh, I responded all right. But he initiated it. And lipstick just might have been the ignition.

  But then Melanie—it felt like she was flirting with me—or almost—’cause why would she offer to walk home together when she doesn’t even know if I live near her—unless she does know, which means she had to find out.

  And now Owen.

  And I don’t think lipstick is what’s making Melanie or Owen notice me.

  It’s like being with Joshua has changed me. Maybe I’m giving off a signal that says “come hither.” Pheromones, like a moth or a hamster. I’m even walking different—that’s what Becca said in the locker room. Is that what sex does to you, make other people perceive you differently?

  Well, I don’t want this. I want Joshua. I want whatever can happen with Joshua before my world turns to slime. But I don’t want anyone else’s attentions. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Not Melanie’s. And not Owen’s. Never, never Owen’s.

  I’M READING POETRY BY Langston Hughes. Oh, poet, where have you been all my life? We’ve got ten poems in our school textbook, but Mr. Batell told us to hit the library and find more and memorize our favorite one, because he’s going to call on some of us at random to recite. Which means, of course, that we all hit the Internet instead, and we’ll probably all come in with the same poem tomorrow. But that’s okay. I can stand to hear any one of Langston Hughes’s poems twenty times, a hundred times, nine hundred times.

  And some of us actually made it into the library. I did.

  Langston Hughes wrote novels and shor
t stories and plays, too. But I don’t want to read them. I mean, they might be as fantastic as his poetry, but it would kill me if they were. His poetry is diamond hard. The only thing that keeps me from bleeding out entirely is the brevity.

  So maybe I couldn’t survive hearing one of his poems nine hundred times, after all.

  I started out by reading his collection Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz. I chose it because I’m the only one of my friends who calls her mother Mamma, though Langston Hughes spells it with one M.

  That Hughes collection is okay. More than okay. And jazz influenced this poet, that’s for sure. You hear it in the rhythms. An improvisational air. But other poems of his do more for me. Like “Dream Deferred”—that poem turns me inside-out. It dares you to be honest.

  Honest.

  What I honestly want is to enjoy what Joshua and I have together while I can. I haven’t hurt anyone.

  But I might. If I keep this up.

  That’s the honest truth.

  I put my notebook back in my bottom drawer and walk through the house searching for Mamma. She’s in her study, taking laundry out of the dryer. Mamma doesn’t like us to use the dryer. She says things like, “What’s the sun for?” and makes us all hang the laundry out.

  Today, though, it rained hard, and even when it stopped, the air hung wet everywhere. So Mamma relented.

  “Is it really your week to do the laundry?” I frown. “I thought it was mine.”

  “It probably is. Come help me.”

  “Later. After we get back from the mall.”

  Mamma sticks her tongue in her cheek and I can tell she’s chewing on it. “We’re going to the mall?”

  “Please?”

  “It’s Wednesday. I thought that was a Thursday routine. After seeing Dr. Ratner.”

  “We’re not going back to Dr. Ratner till the middle of next month, remember? I can’t wait that long.”

  She shakes out one of Dante’s T-shirts and smooths it on her belly, then folds slowly. “Mr. Weisskopf caught a couple of teens in his gazebo last night. Do you know anything about that?”

  “Is that all he told you?”

  “He thought the girl might have been you. But he didn’t get a good look.”

  “Is that what he said? That he didn’t get a good look?”