Mademoiselle

by Suzanne Jenkins

  For weeks, we’d walk to and from school, meeting between classes, sometimes having lunch together, and we’d never mutually touched each other. Putting his hand on my upper back when we were walking down the halls took some getting used to, my body reacting like it did the first time, but he did it so often, I eventually got used to it. A classmate confirmed my initial guess was correct; it was a sign of possession. Wax let other guys know I was taken.

  “I see that hot Walter Spencer had his hand on your back,” she’d said. “I guess he’s telling the world whose girl you are.”

  After our Li’l Abner conversation, he gently took my hand instead as we walked. It was the first time we’d held hands. Large, soft and dry, his hand enveloped mine, like a warm glove. When he finally let go of me, the air hitting my skin felt cold, and I wished I had the confidence to take his hand back.

  “We have homecoming, too. It’s in a few weeks. First there’s a game on Friday night, then the dance on Saturday, and then we’ll go to dinner afterward. Would you be my date?”

  The answer should have been easy; I’d just asked him to go out, and now he was asking me. Why was I hesitating? Fear that involvement with him past the hand holding stage would distract me from my goal. I wouldn’t allow anything or anybody to get in the way of that.

  “Okay, I guess,” I stammered, suddenly freezing cold.

  Forcing myself to smile at Wax, he seemed so appreciative that I’d said yes. When I talked to Ida about my conflicting feelings, she had a ready answer.

  “You’re not attracted to him,” she said. “It’s as simple as that.”

  I disagreed. I was attracted to him, but I wasn’t relaxed around him. I couldn’t let my hair down. When we ran together, even though I was thin by most standards, I held my stomach in the whole run, which turned out great for my abs, but I’d have to put an ice bag on my back all night.

  Plus, he never made a move that might lead to anything, and I mean never. Being relaxed around him might not be a good thing. If I was comfortable, it might lead to badness.

  My mother coined the term badness when the older girls started to date.

  “Don’t get into any badness,” she’d remind them.

  Later, I’d hear them giggling and conspiring at night, confiding in each other about the badness that had taken place.

  Yes, I definitely wasn’t up to any badness with Wax Spencer. And here was the second dilemma. I might have been attracted to Wax, but after a while, I didn’t have any desire for him, if that’s the right word. The first months together, I resisted my need for him to show interest in me physically; I longed for him to kiss me or tell me that he loved me. When that didn’t happen, after enough time passed, I only wanted him for a friend. I think his hesitation, his need to respect me, might have hurt us in the long run.

  There was a big difference for me between being attracted to someone because of their physical appeal and desiring to be physical with them. I was scared to death of my own physicality, and Wax’s apparent disinterest made that worse. Coupled with my obsession to succeed academically, our relationship was apparently doomed.

  My sisters were concerned for me, saying I was denying my birth right as a woman by not making a move, but I disagreed. Lynne and I were standing in line at Kroger waiting to pay for our groceries, when a classmate of hers, a young, pregnant, and unmarried girl walked into the store with her mother. I elbowed Lynne so hard she grunted.

  “Badness,” I whispered. “Forget desire.”

  Lynne snickered as she placed our things on the belt.

  “That’s just stupidity,” she replied. “And it never has to come to that.”

  She looked at me with her eyebrows up and an all-knowing grin.

  “No way!” I said, shocked.

  She slowly nodded her head, smiling. Well, I didn’t care what my sisters did; I would never be the one to initiate going all the way with Wax Spencer. Forget the magazine; I’d rather join the cave-dwellers first, or whatever it was people did to avoid life in society. I’d become a nun.

  “Ha, you say no now, but trust me, the day will come when you won’t be able to stand it another minute,” she said, grinning at me. “I’m only speaking for myself, mind you. Don’t breathe a word of this to Ida.”

  I put my fingers in my ears and started to make the familiar chant when I didn’t want to hear what was being said to me.

  “Yayayayayay!”

  Lynne just laughed, giving me a little shove. The check out girl was smiling at us.

  “How embarrassing,” I said as we left the store.

  “We need to drop this stuff off at home,” Lynne said. “Then we can drive to Blazo’s and have a little chat.”

  “Forget it! You don’t need to talk me into anything. Except for those dances, I’m not even really dating the guy,” I said. “And he’s shown no interest in me in…that way.”

  “You’re dating,” she said. “You see a guy everyday, even if it’s just for lunch, you’re dating. I see how he is with you.”

  Then she got in close to me and whispered. “Pipi, Wax is a nerd. You have to give these nerd guys an extra push to get them going.”

  “Forget it!” I yelled again, nervously laughing.

  Growing up and reaching for my destiny, being self-confident, when the time came for me to be with someone it would be because we were good together, not because of what I needed from him. Wax was my security blanket for high school, not for life. I could make it on my own after he left high school, I was sure of it. It would be the journey after we graduated that would test me to the core.

  Chapter 4

  I’ve blamed my lack of confidence on my red hair, my awful name, my father dying and leaving our mother a young widow. Now that I’m an adult, I can honestly say my mom did such a good job filling both parental roles, I didn’t notice my dad wasn’t around, even before he died. An enlisted Air Force man, he was rarely home, and when he was, our lives revolved around him. Everything changed when Dad walked in. I never admitted it, but the presence of someone different in the house confused me. Our lives were turned upside down for the time he’d be home, and then once he was gone again, it would settle back down to normal. After he died, I barely noticed his absence.

  One spring weekend during my junior year in high school, the older girls were home from college, and we sat around the table talking long after the sun moved behind the house. The shadows cast by the trees in back conjured memories of growing up, the fun times we’d had when we were all at home, looking forward to the summer right around the corner.

  As often happened, the conversation turned to reminiscing about my dad, innocent chatter of fun times they’d had. But sometimes the mood switched to the what ifs, the if onlys. I listened to Angela talking about his death; she was still sad after all these years. She cried while she talked, and everyone patted her shoulder, prompting her to continue.

  “I pretend he’s deployed,” she said. “He’ll be gone for six months or a year, and then I’ll fantasize that he is home. It’s easier to do this when I’m away at school; I just pretend he’s here. When I come home, I imagine his reaction seeing me. We are all growing up, and I go through all the antics I imagine he’d have; commenting on our hairstyles, our grades, giving advice about school, asking about our dates.

  “Mom, I pretend he’s with you, too,” she said, turning to my mother. “I pretend it’s time for him to go back to war. I can see him kissing you goodbye at the airport, and you and me and baby Pipi in the stroller, walking away from him to the parking lot for the last time.

  “He’s so handsome, standing in his blue uniform with his duffle bag on the floor next to him. I keep turning back to look and he waves to me, but the last time I look, he’s gone.”

  Angela cried at this juncture, and everyone waited patiently for her to pull it together so she’d continue reminiscing. Her memories were all I had of my dad, and I discovered I was making her memories my own.

  It occurred to
me that the whole family didn’t go with him to say goodbye because there wasn’t room in the car due to my stroller and his duffle bag. The other girls accepted their position in the family hierarchy as being unimportant enough to stay home from the airport. I wondered if they’d ever been resentful and that was why Angela had the fantasy. She’d stayed home at the neighbor’s house the last time my dad left. I was glad it wasn’t a problem for me.

  “Mom, I pretend you and I are going to the airport to pick him up the last time he came home,” she continued.

  I looked over at my mother and suddenly thought that as helpful as they were for me, Angela’s frequent walks down memory lane might be difficult for our mother.

  “In my dream, you and I look like we do now, but dad is still young. It’s not jarring to me; I expect it even in my dreams. He’ll always be young.”

  Everyone sighed. Dad would always be young. The rest of us would age; my mother had gray hair and crows feet. I remembered her being voluptuous when I was small, but looking over at her now, I realized how slender she’d become.

  Breaking the spell, I reached out for her and grabbed her arm, suddenly worried.

  “You okay, mom?” I asked passionately.

  The loss his death had been for her suddenly occurred to me. She’d always stayed so busy looking after us, I assumed it had been enough to fulfill her. The loneliness must have been crushing.

  She nodded, but didn’t make eye contact, upset. It was the first time we noticed the effect our chats had on her.

  “I can’t believe he’s been gone all this time,” she said, absently.

  Getting up from the table, she stretched, clearly trying to move on from Angela’s revelation, but having trouble doing so. The rest of us were mortified that we’d possibly…probably hurt her, maybe many times, never considering how insensitive our conversation was.

  “I guess I’d better think about fixing dinner. What should we have tonight?”

  We watched her walk over to the refrigerator and open the door to look in like she always did, no one offering any suggestions.

  Martha nudged Angela and mouthed enough, scowling, and got up to join my mother.

  “Mom, let’s go out for dinner,” she said taking her hand. “It’s a beautiful spring evening, and you deserve a night off.”

  Resisting, she claimed she didn’t mind cooking for us. It was usually at this point that Angela would get up and offer to help her, however, she was too upset.

  We’d always coddled Angela. I felt that she’d overstepped some invisible boundary of thoughtfulness. Martha would tell the rest of us that Angela’s forays into the past would be private, from now on.

  “Unless mom starts it, she’s to keep her mouth shut.”

  If Angela was annoyed or hurt that she’d had restrictions placed on her, she never said anything to us as a group.

  “It’s time to find something else to talk about.”

  I began to wonder if she had any other conversation when she was home and observed to see if she did. Martha whispered that Angela was a much different girl at school. I’d accepted my sisters, never guessing the face I saw might not be their only self. Except for the frustration with my friendship with Wax, I didn’t have any secrets from my family. What they saw at home was what I was.

  “What’s she like?” I asked.

  Martha rolled her eyeballs.

  “Take a guess,” she said. I had no idea and said so. “Well, you know how mopey she is here? How mother waits on her, and Lynne and I baby her?”

  It was second nature to do so, and I’d never thought anything of it. I shrugged my shoulders.

  “So?” I asked.

  “At school, she’s a clown. She’s in trouble for her sarcasm all the time. I’ve seen her lose control in a classroom and laugh uncontrollably until she asks to be excused. It’d be hysterical if it wasn’t so embarrassing.”

  I don’t remember where Ida and the others were. Lying on Martha’s bed, she and I munched a bag of chips. My mother was bringing laundry up from the basement, and when we heard her on the steps, we hid the bag. No food allowed out of the kitchen.

  This disclosure about Angela rang so untrue, I just couldn’t see her laughing in a crowd, or being the life of a party, or doing anything that wasn’t solemn and controlled. I wondered if she didn’t have an undiagnosed mental problem, like I did.

  “I don’t believe it,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard Angela laugh out loud.”

  Martha smiled an all knowing grin.

  “Yeah, well believe it. We all have our moments where we lapse into our real selves. I’m completely different at school. I don’t volunteer to help, refuse to organize or lead anything.”

  Martha was my rock, and our mother’s, too. Maybe it was all the responsibility one person was able to carry as a young adult.

  “I’m like this no matter where I am,” I said stupidly, holding my hands out.

  I looked at Martha, embarrassed, and she started laughing.

  “You aren’t kidding. One thing I’ve always loved about you, Pipi is your honesty. You are really authentic,” she said.

  “I hate that word,” I said. “What does it mean? So are you saying Angela is putting on an act to be relaxed and funny when she’s away at school? She acts all moody and disappointed at home so Mom will feel sorry for her? That really doesn’t make a bit of sense.”

  “She acts the way we expect her to act,” Martha replied patiently. “It’s the way we allow her to act. She has an audience here. At school, no one cares what makes her sad or what her memories of Dad are. The role she acts here at home was as Dad’s favorite. He’s dead, so she just modified it to be ‘I’m depressed now that dad is dead.’ Do you get what I mean?”

  I shook my head. It still didn’t make any sense. If what Martha said was true, my sisters were role-playing when they were home, and I didn’t really know them. It made me angry.

  After that, I began to look at my family differently. My four sisters weren’t perfect, and it was a shocker. The realization that I was really alone in the world, that my sisters weren’t who I thought they were, replaced my former wellbeing. A false sense of security I had from being enveloped in a tight knit family was just that; false. We truly didn’t know each other. If that could be said about my family, what hope did I have?

  That weekend, with all of us home from school, was a turning point in my life. The idea that I didn’t particularly like one of my siblings opened the door to the truth that they might not like me, either. If I wasn’t loved and adored by the family, I was vulnerable to whatever was lurking to destroy me outside of the cocoon of the house, and my experience was that there was a lot lying in wait.

  Everything about my life changed that week. No longer able to count on my family to take care of me forever, I made a commitment to work harder at school than I ever had before. That longed for job would become a reality if I gave it my all.

  I ran harder in track. Because that wasn’t taxing enough on my body, I started playing on the field hockey team with more determination to win, leaving Wax in the wake of my new obsession.

  Noticing right away, he didn’t hesitate to question me, grabbing my arm as I rushed to the locker room after school.

  “Where are you going, Pipi?” he asked. “You’ve been like a maniac all week. Slow down.”

  I stopped short, resisting tearing my arm away, not wanting to have to explain anything, but knowing I owed him an explanation. Holding on to me, he looked at me with concern in a way I knew, with his head pushed forward from his shoulders, determined. I was not going to succumb, however.

  This was his senior year; we had until June together, and that was it. Wax was going away to school in Massachusetts next fall, as far as I was concerned, that would be the end of us. Our history was as school friends. Over the summers, we’d chatted on the phone, but we never had a date aside from school dances. Not once. I waited for him to ask, but he was always busy working or invol
ved in one activity with friends and family after another.

  We could remain friends after he left, but a couple? Forget it. He might as well be going to Antarctica.

  “You’ve been avoiding me.”

  Taking a deep breath, I didn’t want to get emotional.

  “I’m sorry, Wax. I have to stay after school every day this week for practice. I should have told you,” I said apologetically.

  I didn’t want him to get defensive.

  “Oh,” he said, letting go of my arm. “That’s no big deal. I’ll come and watch when I don’t have to work.”

  We walked toward the locker rooms with that buffer of air between us. I didn’t mind if he watched. A big group of students stayed, and he’d sit with his friends while I ran like a fanatic, trying to attack the ball with all of my effort.

  When practice was over, I looked at the bleachers and he was still there, talking to one of his classmates. Running to the locker room, I showered and dressed. Like being with a brother, I wasn’t as self-conscious around him about my appearance as I was at the beginning, and unable to tame my wild hair, I caught the bushel in a rubber band. Waiting for me outside of the locker room, his lanky frame leaning against the wall, I could see him trying not to say anything about my hair, but I knew he liked it. It was for my sake he didn’t respond teasing or otherwise. My teammates weren’t so kind.

  “Wiener, you have some wild hair!” they yelled.

  I just snickered and shook my head, the flounce of hair whipping from side to side.

  Wax grabbed my arm again as we walked away.

  “Slow down, will you please?” he said, laughing.

  I tried to, but it wasn’t easy. After a game, I was wired and would stay that way until I got home and could really relax. Trying to corner me, I could feel his eyes on me, something different emanating from him.

  Silent, we reached the cemetery. There weren’t any sidewalks on this side of the street so we walked in single file along the fence, me in front. We approached the entrance, and he pulled me through by my arm.