Girlish

by Lara Lillibridge

  The one rule Mother expressed loudly was “no naked photographs.” Once, at Sabra’s Pond, Girl and her friend Stephanie were singing a song down at the beach. Well, actually, Stephanie, a year younger than Girl, was singing, but she was shy and hid behind Girl, who stood in front and lip-synced. One of the adults grabbed a camera, but was stopped by someone before they could depress the shutter.

  “Judy doesn’t allow photographs of the children,” they explained. Mother didn’t want Girl to have anything in her past that could affect her future.

  Girl was thirteen when it happened, a few months shy of fourteen. She had kissed her first boy at an amusement park—both of them in their long Hawaiian shorts called jams—one month before she turned thirteen, and during the next year she kissed a few more, but no hands had gone over her shirt or under it. The kids at church were all kissing each other in the woods, more a game than any real intention. Girl would kiss just about anyone to see what it was like, but when one of the boys tried to get her to kiss her brother, “just so you can say you have kissed everyone at church,” she refused. Kissing his best friend had been weird enough.

  One day, the family was over at Mother’s best friend’s house. The grown-ups were talking downstairs, and Brother and Girl were upstairs with Jim, Mother’s best friend’s son. He was the only kid they knew who had a lesbian mother, and it was always a little more relaxed around him, like a cousin, only not exactly. Jim was one year older than Brother, two years older than Girl, which would have been enough to make him their natural leader, but more than just age, Jim was a genius. He had skipped a grade or two already and had his own personal computer. The children played B-52 Bomber on his Amiga, and there was a virtual therapist program called Eliza that Girl particularly liked. When you typed “shut up” to Eliza, she replied “OK” and closed the program.

  Jim also had a real camera, not just a point-and-shoot, and his own darkroom.

  “We should take pictures of Girl,” he said. “You know, like if you want to do Playboy one day.” He brushed his dark chestnut hair to the side, his brown eyes bright behind his wire-rimmed glasses. Girl had a kind of half-crush on him, but he never said or did anything to indicate he felt the same.

  “With your tits you should definitely do Playboy as soon as you’re old enough,” Brother agreed. “Then we wouldn’t have to get jobs.”

  Girl wasn’t so sure. She thought, yeah, if times got tough, it would be good to know that she had something to fall back on, but if she did Playboy, she’d keep the money for herself. She wondered how much they paid.

  “They wouldn’t even know you aren’t eighteen now,” Jim added.

  “Did you see the pictures of Madonna? She was fourteen and they printed ’em,” Brother said.

  “She was not,” Girl argued. “That would be against the law.”

  “It wouldn’t be against the law if she said she was eighteen. Her tits were tiny. No way she was eighteen,” Brother said. He was sprawled on Jim’s bed, lying haphazardly on top of the dark blue rumpled sheets. Girl wanted to see the topless pictures of Madonna, but didn’t say anything.

  “But what if I want to run for president some day?” Girl asked, kind of joking. She didn’t actually want to be president, but that was what Stepmother was always saying.

  “I’ll give you all the negatives,” Jim said.

  “How do I know you won’t print a copy for yourself?”

  “How long have you known me? I would never do that to you,” Jim said. Girl didn’t know how not to believe him. His mother was her mother’s best friend. She had known him since before she had known words.

  “It’s important for you to get comfortable with nude photos,” Brother said. “You really need to always have that option with your tits. You’d be a star for sure, but only if you get comfortable with the idea now.”

  “Okay,” Girl said. “But I’m only doing it if I can wear sunglasses and Brother’s fedora.” The hat was the coolest thing either of them owned, and although they sort of shared it, the way they shared Girl’s Doonesbury T-shirt, it was officially Brother’s property.

  “Let’s go,” Jim said.

  Girl took off her shirt and bra, but left her acid-washed jeans on. No way was she taking them off. She pulled the black fedora over her permed hair—the real reason she wanted the hat, to disguise her latest perm misadventure—and put on a pair of “Risky Business” sunglasses. She felt like a model, and when she saw the pictures the next time they visited, the 8 x 10 black-and-whites looked arty, not pornographic.

  “Where are the negatives?” Girl asked Jim.

  “They’re in a pile around here somewhere,” Jim said. “I’ll have them for you next time. Let’s do another, but this time, you should take off your jeans. And I’ll shoot in color.”

  Girl was wearing her only matching set of bra and panties that day, or she would have said no. She did want pictures that looked more like Playboy than something you’d see in an art museum, so she stepped out of her jeans and pulled her shirt over her head. This time, she refrained from wearing the hat and glasses.

  Jim snapped away from multiple angles, while Brother encouraged her. “You look great, Girl. These are gonna be so hot.” Girl could see Jim’s erection through his jeans, but didn’t comment on it. It was power, to be able to make a man hard without even touching him, so when he lay on the floor and asked her to straddle him, so he could shoot from below, she agreed, even though it made her squirm inside. That last picture was too far.

  She called him on the phone a few days later.

  “How did they turn out?” she asked.

  “Oh, it’s a funny story,” he said. “It turns out, there wasn’t any film in the camera. We’ll have to shoot them again the next time you come over.”

  Girl’s lungs tightened. No film? Really? How was that even possible? Would the camera still advance if there was no film? Wouldn’t he have known? She didn’t say anything, though, because she didn’t want to believe it had all been a hoax, or worse—that pictures of her existed that she had never seen.

  “What about the other negatives?”

  “I still can’t find them.”

  “Well look, okay?”

  “Okay, okay,” he said, but the negatives never showed up. Girl wished more than anything that she had never agreed to that second shoot, and she really, really wished that she hadn’t let him take a photo between her legs from the ground up, even if she was wearing panties.

  high school

  girl turns fourteen

  For Girl’s fourteenth birthday, she didn’t invite any of her school friends, just the half-dozen kids that made up the church group, who ranged in age from thirteen to sixteen. It was a last-minute party, thrown together that Sunday, so the guests were only given two hours’ notice. Girl just wanted to have fun, and the day was sunny. All the kids ran through Durand Eastman Park, running up and down the paths in the woods and winding up on the beach. Even though it was September, it was actually warm enough to swim, and Girl, Brother, Karl, and Dave all swam in their clothes. The good girls stayed on the beach but not in a condescending way, more like an “I’m wearing nice clothes” way.

  Running through the woods sopping wet, Girl and Karl found themselves alone for a minute, and soon they were kissing and fighting to get their hands under wet jeans while no one was around. Later, Girl was alone on a different path with Dave, and it was his mouth and body she was tangled with. That was just how they were at church—Brother had kissed all the girls, even the good girls, at least once. They were all still virgins and no one took anything that far or thought it meant anything. It was a hobby, like skateboarding, only one that everyone could participate in, not just the boys.

  Mother had taken Girl to the grocery store to order a cake for the party. Girl always hated ordering her own cake—picking out the picture and even choosing the writing. It felt like buying herself a birthday card. She just wanted someone to surprise her. She picked up the book of cake d
ecorations and pointed to the most ridiculous one she saw: a red lobster.

  “And what do you want on the cake?” the baker asked Mother. Mother looked at Girl expectantly. How hard would it be for Mother to pick the words? Girl thought. She felt so stupid telling the woman “Happy Birthday Girl” every year. Fuck that noise. Not this year. Fuck ’em all.

  “I want it to say ‘Happy 47th Wedding Anniversary Joe and Mabel,’” she said.

  “Really?” the baker asked.

  “Really,” Girl said. She knew that her friends would get it. They would see how funny it was.

  She opened her presents, touched that somehow between church and the unexpected party the girls had found a way to get her something and even wrap it. She hadn’t been expecting anything. For once, she wasn’t concerned with getting gifts. When it was time to eat the cake, some of the kids laughed and others thought she bought it on the sale rack, but Girl didn’t care. Brother knew exactly what she meant. Brother knew her better than anyone else.

  Girl didn’t have any photographs from her little kid birthdays. No first birthday picture with cake smashed all over her face like her friends had. So she decided to reenact it. She held her hands behind her back and face-planted into her piece—not the whole thing, that would be gross. The boys laughed, the girls looked embarrassed. Fuck it, it was her birthday, the best one ever.

  quicksand

  Mother said that the infection began with a herpes outbreak in her mouth, the worst she had ever had. Mother woke up after midnight to find her left eye was red, more painful that anything she had ever experienced before. Girl was small—three? Four? Brother was a year older. The doctors removed Mother’s cornea that night, replacing it with one someone had donated by checking the organ donor box on their driver’s license, their eyes harvested at death and the corneas frozen away until someone needed them.

  “If kids ask you what’s wrong with my eye, whatever you do, don’t tell them I had herpes,” Mother instructed as she drove Brother and Girl to their first day of school—kindergarten for Girl, first grade for Brother.

  “What am I supposed to tell them?” Girl asked.

  “I don’t know, but don’t tell them that.”

  “Why not? You did have herpes,” Brother said.

  “But there’s a bad kind of herpes, and I didn’t have that kind. I had a different kind, and people might not understand.”

  “What’s wrong with your mother’s eye?” asked every kid who ever saw Mother.

  “Um, she had an infection,” Girl said.

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Girl answered. It satisfied nobody.

  Mother went on to have three more transplants before she lost her eye entirely. For Girl’s entire childhood, her mother’s left eye was red, goopy, half-closed, swollen. A few times a year, the transplant would “reject” and Mother had to get shots in her eye. Girl could not think of anything worse than having her eye clamped open, watching the needle get closer and closer … she clenched her eyes shut just thinking about it. If the shots didn’t work, Mother went back in the hospital.

  When Girl was thirteen, Mother awoke from her latest eye surgery unable to move her arms. The doctors ran test after test, but their final diagnosis was that it was a stress reaction—psychosomatic. Mother had always told the children that the surgeries were no big deal—she had held in her terror for too long.

  After a few days, Mother was able to move her arms, but not properly. If Girl held up a finger for her to touch, her arm moved in a horizontal Z through the air. Her hands were numb and unable to grip coins, a pencil, a fork.

  “We’re gonna need you to stay home with Mother this summer,” Stepmother said. “You are both going to have to help out more. Grocery shopping, cooking dinner. You’re going to have to pick up the slack.”

  “But—” Girl started to object, but Stepmother cut her off.

  “We are a family. We all have to contribute. It won’t hurt you to stay around the house.”

  Mother was the person Girl loved most in the world, but Girl couldn’t figure out how to make her okay again. The details Girl could manage: buying groceries, answering the phone, cooking dinner. Girl did not know how to comfort her, and the thought of failing her made her want to run down their tree-lined street, run till her nose ran from the wind and her legs ached, run until she was a less selfish daughter.

  Girl was afraid, not just of the loss of summer—riding bikes and horses and swimming—but this feeling that Girl would lose herself into her mother. Girl knew she had been waiting all her life to take care of someone. She had watched Mother for as long as she could remember—trying to learn how to give up everything of yourself for other people. Girl knew she wanted to do this someday, and she knew she did not want to do it at thirteen. Girl had a feeling that if she stayed home with Mother, she would never leave again, and she would morph into a smaller version of her mother, forced to wait on everyone and not talk back.

  Girl had been trying hard to learn this mothering business. When Girl was cold she said she was warm enough. Girl tried to always make her vote for “whatever you want to do.” Girl tried to swallow every opinion and complaint whole without choking on it. But she was young. She wanted to run as fast as she could and swim and laugh with her friends. She wanted to jump up onto her pony’s bare back and feel his sweaty sides beneath her naked calves. She did not want to do chores and walk to the grocery store with their green folding grocery cart like a homeless person. She hated using coupons. She felt no satisfaction in helping take care of the family while her mother couldn’t. More than that, Girl resented it. She knew she only had a few more years before this would be the rest of her life. She did not want that life quite yet. Becoming Mother’s caretaker meant Girl would be fully subsumed by the woman she was destined to become. Her future was waiting to devour her. She just wanted one last summer.

  Girl had been hungry for as long as she could remember. Her chest cavity was filled with hunger pains from the empty walls rubbing together. No matter what Mother did, it wasn’t enough to ever fill the hollowness. Beneath her sternum, a burning ache—a craving—left her concave. Yearning, futile appetite for love … what did that even mean? This feeling that she was broken, missing a piece, when did it begin? When Girl was born? When her father moved to Alaska when she was four? When Girl watched her first Disney movie with a handsome prince who swooped in and surrounded the princess with dancing hearts and singing bluebirds and blaring theme music? All she knew was that there was this quicksand inside her that devoured everything and was still gaping.

  Is it any wonder, then, that the first time she found a boy who wanted to touch her under her clothes she fell head over heels in love? Even though Mother was sick, Girl was still allowed to visit Father for three weeks. Jack was the son of Father’s office manager, and a few years older than Girl. His face was scarred with acne and his body was heading toward plump, but not there yet. He wore his hair in a sort of spikey, side-swept style kept in place with a lot of gel. His clothes were preppy and he talked a lot about all the cool parties he went to and how pretty his girlfriends were.

  One day that summer he decided to kiss Girl. That was all she needed to fall in love, and her returning kiss was all the permission he needed. Quickly he was under her shirt, unbuttoning her jeans, and shoving rough fingers painfully into her. He told her to go underwear free, because the little girl panties her mother insisted on buying her were far too uncool for him to look at, and she gave them up, even though her jeans chafed. He didn’t wear underwear either. In the past year she had thought long and carefully about how much time she would need to go to the next “base” of sexual play, but Jack convinced her to throw the timeline out the window. Jack taught her how to touch a boy and talked her into oral sex, something she wasn’t sure she wanted to do. He held his hand on the back of her head and pushed it rhythmically up and down. He made it clear that Girl wasn’t cool enough to be his actual girlfriend, though,
and Girl’s I love yous went unanswered.

  It was summer and the Alaskan sun did not set. Perhaps if the night had darkened predictably, like at her mother’s house in New York, Girl would have been able to hold back her fervor. She had no rest from it, her circadian rhythm was off-kilter. The Anchorage night only faded to pale gray so her love grew unabated. Infatuation made her unable to eat, think, tie her shoes. The sun did not set and so Girl did not sleep at night. Jack did not fall in love with her, but he had been born in Alaska and was used to the cycles of the Arctic sun.

  Girl knew Jack wanted to have sex, and she knew he didn’t love her. Mother and Stepmother were always warning her about how a lot of girls tried to have sex to make a guy love them and that it never worked. She knew they were right, but she thought maybe if they had sex he’d keep coming around, and maybe that would be enough. “Save your virginity for someone who loves you,” Jack said. “But if you really want to do something, we can have anal sex.” Girl knew she didn’t want to have anal sex. Nothing about it sounded good to her, but maybe if she was the only one who did it with him, he’d stop looking for a “real” girlfriend. Not that it would be enough to make him love her, and it wasn’t his fault that she was such a geek. She wouldn’t want to be seen with herself, either. She knew he loved her body, though. He was always talking about how she looked like a centerfold. Girl decided she’d try this thing for him. Maybe if she was willing, it might be enough. She was thirteen. At least she didn’t have to worry about him telling anyone about it, because he’d never admit to having any involvement with her whatsoever.

  The day before she had to return to New York to go back to school they snuck into his house when no one was home and went down into the lower level living room, where his older sister lived and which was completely off limits. He wore a white T-shirt with a cool neon Forenza logo on it. He didn’t take it off.