Girlish

by Lara Lillibridge

  “Stepmother cannot—and I mean cannot—keep reopening old wounds. She was up crying all night. She is bipolar, and it is too hard on her,” Mother told the counselor and Girl.

  “She hit me in the face, Mother,” Girl said.

  “I choose to believe that you are lying,” Mother replied. “And if I have to choose one of you, I choose her. You will be going off to college and starting your own life next year. If I chose you I’d be alone.”

  “If you left her I would stay with you forever,” Girl said, wanting that more than anything. Choose to believe, Girl repeated in her head, wondering if Mother meant that as intentionally as it sounded. She didn’t say I think or even I believe Stepmother. Was she really actively choosing to believe?

  “You think that, but you are growing up. Stepmother will never leave me. I have to think of my own life.”

  That was the end of counseling. What was interesting, though, was that Stepmother never accused Girl of lying. She never said the slapping hadn’t happened, only that she was justified in her actions. Mother was the one who decided to relegate the story to something all in Girl’s head. And Mother never asked Girl to come back home.

  Next Girl had to check an equally hard item off her to-do list: get child support from Father. This wasn’t as easy as it sounded. Father wouldn’t object to the money, Girl knew that. He sent Mother two hundred dollars a month, and he had to send it to wherever Girl lived. When she had lived with Suzy, he sent Suzy’s mom a check without even being asked. The problem was that she had not spoken to him in a year, and she’d have to sell herself out to get that check. Worse yet, because she was staying with friends, she’d have to call him collect.

  “Hi, Dad,” she started, her heart racing, her hands clammy on the white phone.

  “Girl,” he answered.

  “I wanted to say that I’m sorry I lied about you sexually abusing me.” Girl figured her heart might explode if she didn’t get right to the point.

  “That makes me happy to hear. It was the worst possible thing you ever could have said about me,” he replied. Girl fought back rage—now wasn’t the time to discuss the meaning of the term covert sexual abuse or talk about how she felt when he watched her get dressed every morning. She needed the money.

  “Well, when I was in treatment, they kept pressuring me to say it,” she said instead.

  “You know I would never hurt you, Girl. I would never, ever touch you.”

  “I know, Dad. I’m sorry.” She closed her eyes, telling herself to just get this over with so she could move on.

  “It means a lot to hear you say it,” he said.

  “I’m sorry I lied, Dad,” she repeated.

  “So how are you?” he asked.

  “Well, I got into a fight with Stepmother, and I moved out. I’m looking for a place to live.” This was safe—Father and Stepmother had always hated each other, and she knew he was always looking for anything to make him feel superior to Stepmother—just like Stepmother was always looking for any reason to “win” over Father. They chatted briefly and he was happy to mail her checks in care of her boyfriend. He loved that she had a boyfriend—anything to prove that she wasn’t going to “turn gay.” He sent her a check, just as he promised, and Girl opened her first checking account and used a starter check with a picture of mountains in the background to write her first rent check to Ravina, the friend of her mother’s best friend who agreed to rent her a room for $200 a month, food not included.

  south wedge florist

  Now that Girl had a place to live, she needed a job. She moved in on a Friday night and stayed up late, unpacking her clothes and arranging the few possessions she had onto the bookshelves that came with the room. Somehow, her things looked prettier here than they had at home. It was a nice room, and she didn’t mind how small it was—it was about the size of her room at home, just enough to fit a twin bed, not a double—though it was not painted as nicely. Ravina, her landlady, was pleasant but the lines were clear—she was the tenant and neither of them were interested in pseudo-family dinners. Girl liked Ravina’s twenty-one-year-old daughter, Rea, but she was rarely home. Girl missed her mother.

  That first Saturday Girl dressed in a nice sweater and the plain black pants left over from when she worked at Little Caesars Pizza. She pulled her long hair into a ponytail in an effort to look more professional and then hit the streets. Without a car, she needed a job close enough to walk. She didn’t want to take a bus after dark if she could help it.

  A dry cleaner had a help-wanted sign, so she asked to fill out an application. Her best friend, Rose-Marie, worked at a dry cleaner’s and it seemed easy. Do you have permission to work in the United States? Yes. Have you ever been convicted of a felony? No. Have you ever used recreational drugs? Shit. Girl checked the “yes” box, but wrote in the white space, I have been clean and sober for over two years. She knew they’d never hire her after reading her answer, but she couldn’t bring herself to lie. She wished she hadn’t even left the application for them to read.

  Girl walked into a gift shop and asked if they were hiring. They weren’t, but the lady behind the counter was sweet and said she’d keep her name and number in case anything opened up. Girl walked by Jacqueline’s without stopping. It was an old-fashioned store out of sync with the current decade, where women made appointments to sit on a couch and sip tea while shop girls brought out expensive dresses from the back. Girl knew she would never fit in at someplace like that. Across the street was a flower shop, though, and she had floral experience, even though she wasn’t skilled enough to call herself a florist. Easter was coming up, and they might need extra help for the holiday. Even a few days’ work would keep her going for a little while longer. She’d skip a meal if she had to, but she was never going back home.

  Heavy gold antique picture frames filled with green sheet moss instead of paintings hung in the large storefront windows. The fishing line suspending them was nearly invisible, so they seemed to float in midair. She paused in front of the glass door with gold lettering that read South Wedge Florist, took a deep breath, and pulled it open. A small brass bell jangled. The shop had glossy black floors and high tin ceilings, also painted black. Glass shelves were layered with southwestern pottery and crystal vases. She noticed a framed newspaper article about an Olympic swimmer’s wedding, and another about Ronald Reagan’s inaugural ball. While she waited for the manager, she read that the shop’s owner had done the flowers for both of them. A short, slim man came from the back to the church-like podium they used instead of a counter. He had perfectly moussed hair and gold-rimmed glasses like Girl’s, only thicker.

  “May I help you?” he asked.

  “Hi, I’m Girl. Are you hiring by any chance?” She sounded braver than she felt, but smiled anyway.

  “That depends. Do you have any experience?” he asked.

  “I worked for Flowers for All Occasions for a year and a half, but the owner won’t give me a reference.” She knew she shouldn’t say that, but what was the point in glossing over it? If he called to check her references her old boss would give him an earful—might as well get it out in the open now.

  “Jessie Santos?” His face lit up. “She fired me too! That crazy bitch with her half-a-flower-arrangements, always throwing things! I’m William, by the way. I’m the manager.”

  Phew, she thought. It might be okay after all. Girl had also ducked the occasional flower arrangement hurled across the shop by her old boss.

  “I’ll talk to Ryan and call you next week. I’m pretty sure we’ll need someone soon.”

  Girl wrote down her name and phone number on one of the black-and-gold bi-fold cards and went home to wait. She had never seen a card that worked that way, folding in half like an empty book. She put one in her pocket before she left, promising herself to be brave and call them if she didn’t hear back soon. When she got home she put it on the shelf in her room where she had arranged all her treasured things, as an offering of hope.

&nb
sp; William called a few weeks later, and Girl started on a Saturday in May, the week before Mother’s Day. She dressed again in the same pants from Little Caesars Pizza. She knew they weren’t trendy or cool by a long shot, but on the phone they had said no jeans, and they were all she had that wasn’t denim. When she walked back into the shop, she knew she should be assertive, smile, and hold her hand out firmly to shake, as Stepmother always told her, but she wasn’t sure she’d be able to. She had used up all her professionalism job-hunting, and now she was left timid. She twisted her rings around her fingers and tried not to tug at her clothes.

  “Hello, my name is Ryan,” a tall, thin man said. The shop owner, she remembered, from talking with William. Something in Ryan’s phrasing reassured her. My name is, a phrase from kindergarten or Spanish class, unexpected from this someone who was closer in age to her mother than to herself.

  “My name is Girl,” she said with a smile, parroting his phrase as she reached for his handshake. Ryan had dark black hair and the kind of thick mustache she didn’t normally like, but somehow looked okay on him. He was tall, easily over six feet, but rail thin. He couldn’t have weighed more than one hundred and fifty pounds, but she didn’t take it to mean anything. Brother was tall and skinny like that, too. It made him less intimidating, even though he wore dressier clothes than any florist Girl had ever seen. Ryan wore gray dress pants, not just khakis, and a dress shirt buttoned to the wrists. He sported a silver and turquoise bolo tie close to his Adam’s apple, the black leather strings dangling on his narrow chest.

  “Come in the back and I’ll introduce you to everyone,” he said, and Girl followed him past the coolers into the empty space at the heart of the building where everyone worked. “This is Tony, and my partner Mike—they are our delivery and setup team. You met William, the manager, already.” She followed him to one of the counters like a little duckling imprinted on the wrong mother, but devoted nonetheless. “We’re getting another florist, Bob, but he hasn’t started yet. He’s moving here from Rhode Island.

  “Do you know how to make a bow?” he asked. Shit. She had been trying and failing for over a year to make a bow. Jessie, her old boss, gave up on teaching her and said Girl would never learn because she was left-handed.

  “Um, not really,” she admitted. Bet he’s regretting hiring me, she thought to herself, but tried to push it out of her head. She was supposed to be confident, cheerful, someone he’d like working in his shop, not some depressing girl-child.

  “Here, I’ll show you, and we can chit-chat while we make bows.” Girl watched Ryan’s long, thin fingers intently as he twisted and looped the ribbon, mimicking him as best she could. She did it! It was actually pretty easy. She didn’t know why she had struggled so long.

  “I love the windows,” she said.

  “It’s the one thing no one else can touch here. I don’t arrange flowers much anymore—too much paperwork—but the windows are mine. Here, when you cut the loop, cut out a tiny triangle to make the tail prettier.” Everything he did was done with tiny, perfect details.

  “How did you ever get the idea to frame sheet moss?”

  “We were all getting high during the ice storm,” he said, “and there was this pile of gold frames in the attic. Someone, I don’t know, William, or Tony, or Mike, I don’t remember, but one of them said we should put moss in the frames so we did.” Girl didn’t have a brain that thought of things like that, but then again, she didn’t get high anymore. Something in the way that Ryan admitted to his drug use so casually made her protective of him, like he didn’t know better than to admit to stuff he shouldn’t. She was seventeen—she knew when to keep her mouth shut. Except she hadn’t, when she filled out that application at the dry cleaner. But at least she was ashamed of it, not so unapologetically matter of fact.

  The front bell rang, signaling a customer.

  “Follow me,” he said, and they walked back to the podium at the front of the store. Ryan showed her how to wrap fresh flowers in a bubble of cellophane leaving the stems exposed—the opposite of how they did it at her old shop—and tie the bottom with raffia.

  “We tie everything with raffia, and attach one of our cards. It’s our signature,” he explained.

  “When did you buy the shop?” she asked him.

  “Oh, I didn’t buy it, I opened it fourteen years ago,” Ryan said.

  “You didn’t just buy it, like in the last year?”

  “No. We moved here on East Avenue from the South Wedge neighborhood two years ago. Is that what you mean?” She shook her head, confused. At her last job, Girl worked with a man named Bruce, who had come to Flowers for All Occasions after he said that the last shop he worked at—South Wedge Florist—had closed. Bruce said the owner died of AIDS. Jessie, her boss at the time, had asked if any of the fixtures were for sale.

  “I used to work with a guy who said he worked at South Wedge Florist—Bruce. He said the shop closed because the owner died of AIDS.”

  “I don’t got AIDS,” he said. “Bruce must have been mad I fired him.”

  She had never like Bruce anyway. They had worked opposite shifts, rarely seeing each other for more than a few minutes unless it was a holiday, and he was kind of weird. He wore eyeliner and would burst into falsetto unexpectedly. Plus, if Girl was late for her shift, which she generally was, he would lock the shop and leave, instead of waiting for her like he was supposed to.

  “Where do you live?” Ryan asked her as their fingers twisted the white ribbons into a string of bows, ten to a length. It was quicker to just make a daisy-chain that could be hung on the wall than to cut them as they went.

  “I rent a room on Beresford, near Mercy High,” she answered.

  “You don’t live at home?”

  “No, I moved out this past January,” she said. He didn’t ask why, and she didn’t offer.

  “And do you have siblings?”

  “I have a brother who is a year older than I am.” No sense in mentioning half- and stepsiblings at this point. It was better to keep things simple. She wished she didn’t sound so awkward, but she couldn’t help it.

  “I have two boys, sixteen and eighteen, about your age, right? Ryan Junior is in twelfth grade at Rush-Henrietta.” Ryan continued. “Manny is a sophomore. You’ll meet them one of these days. They come in every now and then.”

  “I’m a senior, too, at Irondequoit.”

  “That’s awfully far, isn’t it?”

  “I take a bus and transfer downtown. It’s okay, I don’t mind, and I’m saving up for a car.”

  “Well, if it’s ever raining, one of us will drive you home from work,” he said sternly. “And your parents? Are they still together?”

  “My mom and stepmother.” She paused. It had never been safe to just come out and say they were lesbians, but she was ninety percent sure Ryan was gay. “Mother and Stepmother have been together since I was three. They’re lesbians. My dad lives in Alaska.”

  Ryan’s fingers stopped twisting the ribbon. “Will my children hate me for being gay, do you think?” he asked. It was interesting—every man Girl had ever met asked her if she was a lesbian when they found out about her mom. Ryan was the first one who didn’t. She’d come to learn that his question—about his children hating him—was the first question every gay parent would ask her the moment they found out about her family. She wondered what it would have been like to have parents that didn’t hide their orientation. In her house, the secret hung over every new friendship. Being gay was about the worst thing she could imagine happening to someone, but here was an obviously gay man, running a business peopled by other obviously gay men, and it suddenly didn’t seem so bleak. It seemed … well, not exactly mainstream, but okay, fun. Ryan smiled a lot, and the shop was filled with laughter.

  “I don’t know,” she hedged. “Well, yes, they will,” she amended, deciding to be honest. “But if you weren’t gay they’d hate you for something else, like if you had an accent, or were too strict or were overweight.
Teenagers always hate their parents every now and then. They’ll get over it, though.”

  From then on, Ryan looked out for Girl like she was one of his kids. He’d cut off shoptalk that got too sexually explicit, and he’d give her a ride home if they stayed even a half-hour late. At the same time, he treated her like a fully-formed grown-up, quickly trusting her to do all the corsages and boutonnieres for the weddings, rarely double-checking her work.

  Girl only worked three days a week: two half days on Thursdays and Fridays, and a full day on Saturdays. She mopped floors, dusted shelves, washed out ashtrays, and cleaned the bathrooms in addition to the wedding work. She didn’t mind—she was used to working alone, so it was a nice change to have other people around.

  Ryan took her along on her first wedding detail, showing her how to reach inside a woman’s dress to secure the pin to her bra strap underneath, saying, “Now just let me know if I get too fresh!” Girl learned to mimic him, the teasing flirt of gay-speak putting the mothers and grandmothers of the brides at ease. He showed her how to pin down an aisle runner, how to tape bows to pews, and her favorite—how to fluff a bride’s train. It was like when they did parachute games in gym class—Girl’s arms went up and snapped back down, a puff of air raising and lowering the white satin fabric so the train would trail perfectly behind the bride. The gesture transformed Girl from a high school senior to a lady in waiting granted the servant’s intimacy of seeing the back of the knees of the princess.

  Girl spent Saturdays sending brides down the aisle, then raced ahead of the guests to the reception site, where Tony would be high on a ladder, stapling yards of fabric to the ceiling while Girl decorated the wedding cake with fresh flowers and tied gold ribbons on napkins. They placed arrangements on glass stanchions three feet above the round mirrors at their base, and she’d arrange votive candles around each one. Girl lost herself in daydreams of her own elegant wedding someday. She wanted to be a bride more than just about anything.