Girlish

by Lara Lillibridge

  Girl didn’t care that her mother was gay—it was the way her mother had been for as long as she could remember. But everyone else made it a big deal. Girl cared that Stepmother was always yelling, and that Mother loved Stepmother best—more than she loved Girl and Brother, it seemed. Girl cared that Stepmother appeared to hate Brother and hit him all the time. Stepmother told Girl over and over that she loved her, but her words felt like nothing.

  Stepmother was what they called “Baby Butch” back in the 1970s. This was the best kind of butch to be; tough and strong but with a cute face. In the lesbian world, she was a catch. Throughout her life, a lot of men asked Girl why lesbians were so ugly, by which they meant masculine, and if ugly women became lesbians because they couldn’t attract men. Men asked, “Have you ever noticed that most lesbians are women that men wouldn’t want to fuck?” The truth was that while the lesbians Girl knew were a few decades behind in their fashion role models (think mullets, lots of mullets) they had a different scale of attractiveness. Many didn’t want to look feminine, not because they were bad at it, but because they did not subscribe to the fashion industry’s sexualization of women. The butch look was popular because women still wanted to feel like their partner could protect them and kick some ass if need be, but there was also an appreciation for the androgynous, the gender-bending.

  Stepmother wanted to be a 1950s-style husband. She wore burgundy sweater-vests over pale yellow button-down oxfords, and jeans or polyester slacks that hugged her fat stomach. Her small feet were always in loafers or sneakers, never heels. When Stepmother went to work she wore skirted business suits under duress, and she always wore the same small, gold hoop earrings. Her hair was short and dark brown, parted on the side. Everyone in the family had the same haircut: Mother, Girl, Brother, Stepmother. Only Girl hated it. Girl wanted long hair and ponytails, but she wasn’t allowed to grow it until third grade, or until she stopped crying when Stepmother combed it, whichever came first.

  Stepmother often went to the library to find home repair manuals. She liked to fix things. She got a book on how to patch concrete and repaired the basement wall, saving them five thousand dollars. But she must have missed something, because by the time Girl was twenty, the house had slowly collapsed inward, so that the light switch plate in Girl’s old bedroom was half-buried behind the door frame.

  Once, Stepmother was repairing a rusted-out hole in her Datsun station wagon. Girl stood nearby, watching and chewing gum.

  “Girl, give me your gum,” Stepmother said. Girl pulled her gum out of her mouth with her thumb and forefinger and handed the wad to Stepmother. Stepmother balled it up and used it as filler for the hole in the car, painting over it with touch-up paint.

  “Hey! That’s my gum!” Girl protested, poking the repair with her finger.

  “Look what you did! You dented it! Now I have to do the whole thing over again. Do you have any more gum?” Stepmother asked.

  notes from the fourth wall

  10 steps to raising children who behave properly

  1. It is good if you can procure children who are already slightly damaged by other people, say, a father who abandoned them or a parent who has untreated mental illness or alcoholism. In our experience, this will cut their learning time by half.

  2. Yell often and randomly. This is so obvious that it almost doesn’t merit writing down. Keep in mind that all yelling is not created equal. For example, constant yelling can be confused with hearing loss, and is therefore ignored. To be truly scary, the yell needs a narrowing of eyes to provide an edge of meanness. Fun words to yell: loser, wimp, pussy, or WhatTheFuckIsWrongWithYou. Yelling without possibility of following up with physical harm is all foam and no latte, which leads us to #3 …

  3. Corporal punishment. This is a no-brainer, but for those of you who are faint of heart, please keep in mind that one need not draw blood or leave a mark to provide psychological damage. Spanking hard enough to sting will suffice, particularly if it is carried out in a basement or other scary place. Best practices include changing up the requirements for spanking/hitting/et cetera so that the children never know what will result in physical punishment. Further information on this technique can be found in several popular dog-training manuals under intermittent negative reinforcement. Think of yourself as a slot machine that randomly punches the player.

  4. Never underestimate the power of negativity. If you don’t have the physical stamina required for #3, it can be just as effective to ensure that the child knows they are a failure, preferably in everything. All-pro parents know that there is always one good child and one bad child, so it’s not hard to find reasons to draw everyone’s attention to the loser child’s errors. If done properly, one only needs to throw a handful of criticism in the direction of the good child to scare them into submission. The good child knows that if they cross over into bad-child territory there is no redemption. Helpful phrases: it is all your fault, you can’t do anything right, I should have known you’d screw this up, etc.

  5. Privacy is for the weak. While some advanced parents actually remove doors from bedrooms, we have found that walking in on naked teenagers works just as well, especially if you pause and linger for conversation. Long conversation. With roving eyes. Also effective is the Stand Silently and Stare While Scratching Your Own Butt technique.

  6. Blow your nose at the dinner table, open the Kleenex, and look at it. Manners, like all rules, are just for children. “Do as I say, not as I do” sounds better than “we don’t hit people in this family unless I am the one doing the hitting.”

  7. Do not, under any circumstances, defend your children from bullies at school. They might get the idea that bullying is not an effective behavior management technique. Better yet, make sure they know that if they stand up for themselves, they will be punished even more once they get home.

  8. Don’t forget to take everything personally. We all know that everything children do is just to spite their parents: hair styles, clothing, music. They need to consider your feelings in every decision they make, because you really do know better than they do. If they can anticipate your judgment, they will self-correct before disaster strikes.

  9. If you have not yet made fun of your children, please put this book down now and do so immediately. Scorn, ridicule, tease. It teaches them to have a thicker skin and also provides endless hours of pure enjoyment.

  10. In all of your behavior modification/training of the children, don’t forget their mother. The more you berate her in front of the children, the more complete your power is over the entire household. They will quickly learn that they have no advocate, that there is no one who can influence or sway your opinion.

  no one minded the children

  There were two black grand pianos placed back-to-back, the keyboards opposite from one another. The floor was shiny hardwood, and Girl’s and Brother’s three- and four-year-old feet echoed as they ran underneath them. Girl could run beneath the pianos without ducking. She and Brother ran up and down the room and laughed, even though they weren’t supposed to laugh, because this was a funeral. Mother’s only brother had died suddenly of pneumonia, a complication of chicken pox. He was thirty-seven. No one minded the children running beneath the pianos. Girl’s shoes were shiny black patent leather and she wore white tights that were too short in the crotch and constantly needed to be tugged up when no one was looking.

  The moment the children missed when they ran under the pianos was the harsh record player screech of the words, “I am Mother’s lover/girlfriend/we are lesbians,” spoken by a woman to the mourning relatives milling around in the Jewish funeral home. Like a bell, the words couldn’t be un-rung. After the funeral, all the cousins leaked out of Girl’s life like water in a sieve, some fighting to leave faster, some dribbling slowly, until they all were gone eventually—all except Girl’s uncle’s widow. She and her children alone remained family. Maybe if Girl was sitting like a good girl on the sofa she would remember the sound of her relatives turni
ng their backs on them.

  Parsky Funeral Home was the only Jewish funeral home in town. There were deep blue curtains for the immediate family to sit behind if they chose, so no one could witness their grief. Mother did not pull the curtains when her father died when she was twenty-five, and she did not pull the curtains when her mother died two years later, but when her only brother died Mother pulled the curtains and stayed alone in her grief. Girl and Brother sat outside the curtains with a friend Mother would never name in the years to come—it was this nameless friend who outed her and chased all of her relatives away. Girl never pressed for details—she was too afraid of making Mother cry.

  Stepmother liked to tell a story of two cousins who came over for dinner, holding hands and giggling uncomfortably on the couch. Stepmother said the word giggle with derision. Was it Mother and Stepmother who walked away from the extended family, disgusted by their discomfort? The cousin-couple did come to dinner. They were trying—was their effort just not good enough to make them worth keeping? Or did they refuse to return after that one awkward dinner?

  When Girl was ten her family was invited back to the annual family reunions where everyone was nice to her but too old to be of interest. She was suddenly supposed to care about these cousins she didn’t know, people who still did not invite them over for holidays but always showed up at funerals. Girl always had trouble letting go of resentments.

  Mother had a lot of cousins. Back in high school, Mother was forced to take a first cousin to her school dance, and had to wear knee socks instead of pantyhose. When she was first divorced, a female cousin moved in with her to help Mother with the children in exchange for rent. With the death of her brother, Mother became the only surviving member of her immediate family, and then was cut off by all the more distant relations with the utterance of that single word, “lesbian.” Only her brother’s widow and their children remained.

  Girl had no people. They were lost to her when whomever they sat with on the day of the funeral outed Mother.

  Years later Girl finally asked Mother, “Who did we sit with at Uncle Bear’s funeral?”

  “You sat with me,” Stepmother said.

  “It was Bonnie Mason,” Mother answered.

  elementary school

  the deconstruction of a male child

  Brother was older than Girl, but somehow more fragile. He was afraid of dogs, and wouldn’t even hold their kitten unless she was wrapped in a towel. Because he was older, he had to do things like go to school first and alone. Because he was always in trouble, Girl’s transgressions were often overlooked as inconsequential by comparison. Girl got to trail behind in the wake he broke for both of them, but she made up for it when they were together. She made friends at the day camps they were sent to over the summer, in both New York and Alaska, and introduced them to Brother. She defended him and covered up for him at home. Girl even occasionally did his chores to keep life somewhat on an even keel. It was her job to take care of Brother—no one else was going to.

  Stepmother hated everything about Brother. He was a weak little weenie, just as disgusting as that silly bouncing appendage he had between his legs. He wasn’t good at sports or making friends, and he wasn’t motivated to do his chores or his homework.

  Brother was a scrawny boy-child, and he grew so tall and so skinny that Girl called him “the evolution of a pencil—proof that people came from writing implements.” He didn’t have many friends before high school, and someone was always chasing him or stealing his shoes or sitting behind him in class talking about all the ways they would disembowel him. When he got home, Stepmother constantly told him what a waste he was. “If I were a boy, I could have been a doctor, or a lawyer. You were born with all the privilege I never had, and you just squander it! You are an asshole, just like your father!”

  But unlike Girl, Brother sometimes yelled back or got on his bike and rode away. Girl wished she were as brave.

  In sixth grade, Brother stopped doing his homework. He just stopped bringing it home or worrying about turning it in. Girl wished she could be so blasé about it, but she hated to be in trouble, hated the teacher’s disapproval when she missed an assignment. Brother just stopped caring. Stepmother was enraged, and he was more or less permanently grounded. Stepmother threaded a tiny luggage lock through the hole of the TV plug to keep them from watching it after school.

  “I know it’s not fair to you, Girl, but Brother is grounded, so neither one of you can watch television,” Mother said. Brother didn’t mind that, either—when their parents were gone, he just straightened out a paperclip and picked the lock.

  Stepmother and Brother fought often and loudly, screaming throughout the house. When Stepmother yelled, Mother grabbed her keys and left.

  Girl didn’t know what Brother had done this time—or hadn’t done, most likely. Chores, homework, or both maybe. This time, Stepmother took him to the basement.

  “I refuse to listen to this!” Mother yelled, slamming the green side door behind her. Girl ran outside, but by the time Girl got there, Mother’s car was pulling away from the curb. She was never entirely sure if Mother was coming back.

  Girl could hear Brother scream from the basement, but she was too afraid to go downstairs. She stood frozen in the kitchen, listening, loathing churning her stomach for her own inaction. Someone needed to save Brother, but she wasn’t brave enough.

  Years later Mother told Girl, “Stepmother always knew where I was. I went to the movies, always at the Webster Theatre. I’d get a large popcorn and watch a movie by myself—whatever was playing at the time. If I was really mad, sometimes I’d watch two. But I always came home.”

  When Girl went into the basement the next day, there was a blue wooden paddle broken in half on the ground, the end splintered and frayed. She didn’t throw it away—it was the only proof they had. She wanted to outline it in chalk like a crime scene, so Mother couldn’t ignore it.

  “The paddle wasn’t that thick. You are always so dramatic,” the children were told.

  camping

  Every summer, the family went camping. Stepmother’s bronze Datsun station wagon left the paved road and turned down the dirt path into the trees. The turnoff was marked by a small green sign that only said, Welcome Friends of Sabra. The sign was round and only a foot wide, hidden among the wildflowers at the edge of the woods. No one would notice it if they weren’t looking. Grass and small flowers grew in the hump in the middle of the dirt road, and the trees were so thick they formed a dark tunnel speckled with sunlight. Bushes and branches sometimes brushed the sides of the car, and the children reached their hands out the windows to grab them. The dog sat in the middle of the back seat between Girl and Brother, and once they turned off the main road, the dog whined and wagged, the wispy fur of her tail slapping the children in the face.

  When there was no longer any danger of being seen from the main street, Girl and Brother were finally allowed to shed their clothing. Girl frantically pulled off her too-short pants and marginally fashionable shirt in a race to return to her natural state before the car stopped. Her chest was as flat as Brother’s, but she was only eight. Their limbs were long and thin and their round bellies stuck out. They both had outie bellybuttons and dark brown hair, but hers was long and his was short.

  The children hurled themselves out of the car, untangling their long legs from the balled-up clothing at their feet, and ran down the hard-packed path toward the pond. Their bare feet slapped the powdery dirt as they ran through clouds of gnats congregating in sunbeams that filtered through the forest canopy. There were evergreens and maples, oaks, and trees Girl didn’t know the names of. Blackberries and raspberries grew wild at the sides of the path, and they’d stop to pick them, staining their fingers and chins before they ran off again, racing to get to the beach first. The gnats chased them, but the children were too fast.

  They couldn’t swim in the avocado-colored pond until their parents came down to the beach, so instead they looked for their
summer friends, Stephanie and Steven. They said hi to the adults they knew, too. Vicki was pregnant, and she didn’t mind Girl looking at her popped-out bellybutton on her naked belly. It looked just like a brown barnacle. Vicki’s nipples were brown, too, and her breasts high and firm, her bottom round and full with pregnancy. Vicki was beautiful with long brown hair, and she was thinner and younger than Girl’s parents. There was no Sabra of Sabra’s Pond. Vicki and George owned the campground and they were gentle and kind people with no tan lines, their skin evenly golden brown all over. Girl’s arms were darker than her chest and belly from having to wear clothes all the time at home.

  There were a few men at the beach lying on their backs in the sun, their soft penises flopping to one side and resting on their legs. Girl looked at them out of the corner of her eyes. She knew not to stare, but penises were fascinating, even if they were attached to ugly old grown-ups. They were all circumcised. Did men have to put sunscreen on their testicles so they didn’t get sunburned? No one looked twice at her here. She was just a naked kid in the woods.

  You couldn’t tell it was the seventies—without clothes or TVs or radios, the family belonged to no decade. No one could tell Girl was a nerd without her out-of-style clothing. She could be anyone or anything she wanted, and what she wanted to be right then was an Indian princess, or maybe a forest nymph.

  Mother and Stepmother finally came down to the beach with a blanket to sit on. Mother was big, round, and naked, her breasts resting on her stomach and her privates hidden by thick, curly hair. Stepmother was still wearing her white cotton underwear, white bra, baseball hat, and sneakers. Stepmother was always slow to undress. Maybe it was because she was from West Virginia, or because her father was a minister, or maybe just because she didn’t realize or care about how badly Girl needed to get in the pond.