Hello Groin

by Beth Goobie

  With a nod, I sat down in an empty chair. “That’s sort of what I want to talk to you about,” I said. “Michelle Allen quitting.”

  Ms. Harada lifted an eyebrow, but said nothing.

  “Well,” I said reluctantly, “the reason she quit was because the other girls on the team...well, some of them...hazed her into quitting.”

  A frown crossed Ms. Harada’s face. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  I gave her a quick rundown on the conversations that I’d had with Rachel and Julie, then added, “I know I should’ve come to you right at the beginning. I regret that I didn’t, I really regret it. Last night I called Michelle and talked to her about it. She said it was all small stuff—no bruises, nothing major stolen, no out-and-out accusations. But she got the message.”

  For a long moment Ms. Harada sat there, just staring at me. “I never...picked up on it,” she said slowly. “Not a thing. Was everyone involved?”

  “Probably not,” I said, running through the team members in my mind. “But they all would’ve known about it.”

  Eyes narrowed, Ms. Harada sat lost in thought. “That is not the way things go on my teams,” she said finally. “I’ll certainly be giving Michelle a call tonight. Thank you for telling me about this, Dylan.”

  “She said she wouldn’t come back,” I said, getting to my feet. “Everyone would just get a hate on for her over it, worse than before. It wouldn’t be worth it.”

  Ms. Harada nodded, her face serious. “We’ll see,” she said as she held open the door. “Like I said, that is not the way things go on my teams.”

  I stepped through the doorway, then turned back to face her. “Ms. Harada,” I said hesitantly. “Would it be possible...”

  The look on my face must have told her what I’d been about to ask. “My lips are sealed,” she said firmly. “No one needs to know my source on this one.”

  “Thanks,” I said in massive relief.

  “I understand,” she nodded. “Things haven’t changed that much since I was your age.”

  With another grim look, she closed the door.

  That evening I wrote out my explanation for the library display and brought it to my lunch-hour shift the next day. When she saw it, Ms. Fowler broke into a pleased smile and went into her office to fetch the display case key. As she unlocked the case, Joc steadied a chair for me and I climbed onto the seat. A crowd gathered quickly, making the expected wisecracks as I removed the censor strips, then surging forward excitedly to read the exposed titles. So I explained that these were Ms. Fowler’s substitute titles, not my original ones, and handed them to her.

  “A souvenir?” I asked, watching her closely.

  An odd light flashed in her eyes and she nodded. Turning back to the display case, I opened my binder and took out a new flaming orange, open-book silhouette with Foxfire written across it. With a huge grin I stapled it into the girl figure’s groin, then removed The Once and Future King from the boy figure’s mouth and returned it to its original position.

  “What about the guy’s mouth?” demanded someone in the crowd. “It’s just a big hole.”

  “Just a sec,” I said, took out another construction-paper book with the title Fear Nothing written across it, and stapled it into the boy figure’s mouth. And then I pulled out the explanation that I’d written up last night and stapled it into position between the girl’s and boy’s feet.

  Stepping down from the chair, I stood beside Joc and studied the display. Yeah, it felt like it was mine again—Foxfire, The Once and Future King, Fear Nothing, everything. Even the explanation looked great, and I read it over one last time, speaking the words quietly inside my head: Our entire body is our mind. Every part of it is our heart and soul. We think and feel and hope with our groin, just as much as with our brain and heart. That’s why I put Foxfire and The Once and Future King where I did—because the groin needs to be a place of justice, truth and respect just like the heart and brain.

  “Sweet,” said Joc, putting her arm around my shoulder and giving me a quick squeeze.

  “Yeah,” I grinned back at her. “It is, isn’t it?”

  For a second I thought about kissing her, but I wasn’t quite ready to do that in front of twenty-or-so kids who were busily reading my comments about the importance of living in their groins. So instead I picked up the chair that I’d used as a foot-stool and carried it back into Ms. Fowler’s office.

  “Well, Dylan,” she said, following me in. “That is simply a wonderful explanation. I’m so glad your display is going to stay up for another month. It’s all worked out so well, hasn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” I said, turning to look at the kids crowded around the display case. They sure looked interested. One guy even had his nose pressed flat against the glass. “I guess it did in the end. But I was wondering...”

  I glanced at her, then away, unsure how to proceed.

  “Yes?” asked Ms. Fowler, pausing in the doorway, her quiet watcher’s eyes on my face.

  “Well,” I said in a rush, feeling my face heat up. “I was wondering if you’d like to go out for lunch sometime with me and a friend. My girlfriend, actually.”

  Ms. Fowler looked startled. “Your girlfriend?” she repeated.

  “Yeah, Jocelyn Hersch,” I said, scanning her face for clues. “She’s right over there, by the check-out counter. We just started going out.”

  “Oh,” Ms. Fowler said a little breathily, her eyes darting toward Joc. Slowly, cautiously, a tiny crouching smile took over one corner of her mouth.

  “I just got some funds to hire a few students to do repair work on our older books,” she said hesitantly. “Perhaps you and Jocelyn could come in some weekend to do that, and we could have lunch then.”

  “Sure,” I said, giving her a massive grin. “That would be great.”

  Ms. Fowler shot me a quick look, then another one, before turning to leave. “Thanks again for doing the display, Dylan,” she said. “I’ll see you at ten to one.”

  “Okay,” I said, following her out of the office, then watching as she locked the door and left the library. Ms. Fowler, mystery woman, spy for the gods. Turning, I glanced through the office window at the large globe that sat on the counter behind her desk and gave it a mental thumbs-up. Then I planted myself behind the check-out counter and officially started my Tuesday lunch-hour shift.

  When Dad had first asked Keelie what she wanted to be for Halloween, she’d said, “A lesbiAN with two vaginas.” While it hadn’t taken too long to get the biological misunderstanding sorted out, she’d continued to refuse to let go of her idea of dressing up as a lesbian.

  “How about Harry Potter?” Mom had suggested.

  “Uh-uh,” Keelie had said flatly. “Everyone in my class is going trick-or-treating as Harry. Except Bert the Nose Picker. He’s going as Valdemort.”

  “Bert the Nose Picker?” Mom had echoed faintly.

  “He picks his nose a lot,” Keelie had explained calmly. “And eats it.”

  Even when Mom had changed tactics, bringing home a bright fluffy Tinkerbell costume, Keelie had refused to change her mind. So at 4:30 on the thirty-first, things were looking pretty tense. Dad and Mom were still at work, and Danny and I were in the kitchen having a last-ditch whispering session while Keelie rooted through a box of dress-up clothes in the living room, looking for something she figured a lesbian would wear. Finally, at a quarter to five, Danny got his supersonic brain wave. Sitting Keelie down on the couch, he craftily explained that in all his years of Halloween trick-or-treating, he’d seen zillions of kids going door to door, and it was always the Tinkerbells who got the most candy.

  An equally crafty look snuck onto Keelie’s face, and she sat for a moment just thinking. Then she asked, “What about the Wicked Witch of the West?”

  “Wicked Witches of the West come in a close second,” Danny said immediately.

  “Hurray!” hollered Keelie, jumping up from the couch. “Tinkerbell is stupid, but there’s lots of good
wicked witch clothes in this box.”

  Within five seconds dress-up clothes were being tossed furiously all over the room, and eventually Danny and I helped Keelie squirm into an old sequined dress of Mom’s, one of Dad’s cast-off housecoats, two large floppy hats and a plastic nose-and-mustache set. Then we escorted her up and down the street, watching as she pounded down each neighbor’s door and bellowed, “Trick or treat!” Finally, after she’d dragged us through practically the entire suburb, Danny and I force-marched her home and I put her to bed.

  “So, did you have fun tonight?” I asked, tucking her in.

  “Uh-huh,” she said sleepily. “‘Cept for one single thing.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “I wanted to be a lesbiAN,” she said, burrowing her face into her pillow. “And nobody would let me.”

  “Huh,” I said, my thoughts racing. “But being a real lesbian is different than dressing up. It’s something that happens inside you, not on the outside.”

  “Like in your stomach?” asked Keelie, rolling onto her back and looking at me.

  “Close,” I said. “It’s something that happens to some girls when they’re twelve or thirteen, but not all girls. And you can’t know ahead of time. Your body can only tell you when it’s ready.”

  “Oh,” said Keelie. She lay quietly for a moment, staring past my head, then focused on my face. “How will it tell me?” she demanded.

  My thoughts raced some more, trying to come up with an explanation that she wouldn’t twist into two vaginas, seventeen penises, or some other biological catastrophe. “That’s for your body to tell you,” I grinned down at her. “You’re just going to have to wait to find that out.”

  A brief scowl crossed Keelie’s face. “But I want to be a lesbiAN just like you,” she said.

  Well I couldn’t help it—my grin got so big, it practically bust my face wide open. “You can’t be just like me,” I said, leaning down to hug her. “You have to be like you. But you can be my only only little sister out of the whole wide world.”

  Keelie’s arms came around me and we squeezed tight. “Okay,” she mumbled. “I’ll wait until I’m twelve or thirteen, and then see if I’m just like you.”

  My little sister is the most stubborn, most absolutely brilliant thinker I’ve ever met. “We’ll see,” I said, rumpling her hair. “G’night.”

  “G’night,” she replied. “Have to say g’night to Danny too.”

  “I’ll go get him,” I promised. After Danny it would be Mom, and then Dad. It was Keelie’s regular bedtime routine, something that pushed back her actual falling-asleep time by twenty to thirty minutes if she worked it right. Knocking on Danny’s door, I gave him the message and went to my room. Then I sat down on my bed, picked up my phone and held it in my lap, just looking at it. At that precise moment I was feeling as confident as I probably ever would. It was now or never. So with a deep breath, I dialed.

  The phone rang and a woman said, “Hello?”

  “Hi,” I said. “Could I speak to Sheila Warren, please?”

  “Who is this?” the woman asked quickly.

  “My name is Dylan,” I said.

  “Dylan who?” she asked.

  “Dylan Kowolski,” I said, a bit irritated. It wasn’t the woman’s questions that bothered me, it was her tone. The conversation felt like an interrogation.

  “Dylan Kowolski,” the woman repeated. “I’ve never heard Sheila mention you. Do you go to Confederation Collegiate?”

  “No,” I said flatly. “But I met Sheila there at a dance last month. Now, can I please speak to her?”

  The woman hesitated, then said, “Oh, all right. Sheila, there’s someone on the phone for you.”

  Footsteps thudded toward the phone and then Sheila came on. “Hello,” she said.

  “Finally!” I said. “It’s me, Dylan Kowolski—the girl you met at the dance.”

  “Oh,” she said, catching her breath. “Hi.”

  “It’s like trying to get through the FBI to talk to you,” I said. “Major third degree.”

  “No kidding,” she said. “My parents aren’t too happy about... Well, they call it my attitude, right? I figure I’m stuck until I graduate and then I’m out of here.”

  I lay on my bed, trying to absorb what she was telling me. With a family like that, how had she ever had the courage to face up to who she was? Sheila had guts.

  “My parents are different,” I said slowly. “I told them last week, and they’re fine with it. So’s my brother.”

  “So you’re out?” Sheila asked.

  “I guess,” I said. “I mean, I haven’t made an announcement over the school PA or anything, but I’m not hiding it anymore. And I broke up with my boyfriend.”

  “Oh,” said Sheila, her breath quickening. “Well, can we get together? I—”

  “I’m seeing someone,” I broke in. “A girl. So I can’t, really.”

  “You’ve got a girlfriend?” Sheila whispered.

  “Yeah,” I said, with a feeling of what was almost awe. “I do.”

  “Well, for how long?” she asked. “What about what happened at the dance? I felt that, and I know you did.”

  “Yeah,” I said quickly, “I felt it a lot. It was the first time I’d kissed a girl, and after I finally stopped freaking out about it, I realized a lot of things about myself, both good and bad. So it was really important and I’m glad it happened. And I guess the reason I’m calling you now is to say I’m sorry for hurting you, if I did. But also, I guess, to say thanks. Because it was really important to me.”

  “Oh,” said Sheila in a flat, dead-sounding voice.

  I bit my lip. She was hurting all right.

  “My girlfriend,” I said, pushing on, “is someone I’ve known since grade three. We’ve always been attracted to each other, but we just started going out last week.”

  “But what about that kiss?” said Sheila, her voice trailing off. “It was so strong, I—”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Partly because I was drunk, and partly because it was my first time. I didn’t really know you, Sheila. It was just—”

  “So get to know me,” said Sheila.

  “Look,” I said, “it’s strong with my girlfriend too, believe me. And I know her. So when I kiss her it’s not as wild and crazy, but it’s deeper, y’know? I guess I trust it more.”

  Sheila groaned softly. “I really felt you,” she whispered. “I still do.”

  “I felt you too,” I said. “And like I said, you showed me something really important about myself. So thanks, okay?”

  She sighed and a rush of static hit my ear. “I guess,” she said slowly.

  “You’ll find someone,” I said. “But give it a chance to happen. You don’t have to push so hard, y’know?”

  Another rush of static hit my ear. “I guess,” she repeated, then added, “Hey—you weren’t just drunk. It was more than booze, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said, hesitating, “it was. You’re sexy, Sheila. You shoot sparks. But it kind of killed the mystery when you started stalking me at the mall.”

  A slight laugh crept into Sheila’s breathing. “Well,” she said dryly, “I wasn’t sure if I wanted to kiss you again or punch you out, actually.”

  “Okay,” I said, riding out another flash of guilt. “I’ve been a real shit to you and I am sorry. Really. I’ve definitely learned my lesson about drinking and kissing.” I paused. “If you want,” I added hesitantly, “maybe we could all get together—you and me and my girlfriend—for a movie or something.”

  “So I can watch you two?” demanded Sheila. “I don’t think so. Thanks, anyway.”

  “Well,” I said, coasting a definite wave of relief. “I guess it’s goodbye then.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Bye.”

  After I hung up I lay on my bed for a while, thinking my way through everything that had happened. School had only been going for two months and already so much had changed. And the truth was that even now when
I thought about that kiss behind Confed, I got shot full of sparks. Sheila Warren was sexy, and when she got a grip and built up some confidence, her phone would be ringing off the hook no matter how much her parents complained.

  Outside my bedroom door, the house gradually settled down for the night. Dad came in to say goodnight, and I heard Danny come and go in the bathroom across the hall. Still I lay on my bed, thinking my way through what had happened. But no matter how much I went over it, something hidden kept nagging at me, something I couldn’t quite pin down with my mind. Carefully I went over everything again, and then around 12:30 it hit me.

  Getting out of bed, I switched on my desk lamp and pulled a piece of foolscap out of my binder. Across the top, I wrote:

  Dylan Kowolski’s Book of the Living

  And then I wrote:

  The Positive Confessions

  And then I wrote:

  Hail, Unem-Snef, who comest forth from the execution chamber, I have crawled out of the grave.

  Hail, Basti, who comest forth from Bast, I have broken out of my fear.

  Hail, Cam, who comest forth from the temple of decency, I have told the truth.

  Hail, Dad, who comest forth from a great heart, I have let myself feel pleasure and love.

  Hail, Keelie, who comest into the early morning bedchamber, I am seeking my own happiness.

  Hail, Joc, who comest forth out of my heartbeat, I have lain with sweetness.

  Hail, Dylan, who comest forth from my brain and my heart and my groin, I am letting my heart beat, I am living its heatbeat.

  For a long moment I sat in the blurred circle of lamplight, reading and rereading what I’d written. Then I crawled into bed, loosened the string on my pajama bottoms and slid my hands between my legs.

  “Hello, groin,” I said.

  And I did whatever I wanted.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  It was one week later and Joc and I were sitting in the cafeteria, speed-reading through the last few chapters of 1984 for our after-lunch class. Not at the senior jock table and not at the official lesbians table—just one next to an exit where the social leftovers sat, the fringe of the fringes like Tracey Stillman, the Virgin King and those looking for an in-between place, somewhere to park your butt and get your bearings.