Bad Grrlz' Guide to Reality

by Pat Murphy

  A few minutes later, Susan realized she had just enough time to get to the workshop.

  Max was talking about character development when Susan slipped into the chair beside Pat, smiling apologetically. Max returned her smile, and kept talking.

  “Some authors begin by observing people they know, writing long descriptions about what they wear and how they stand and the kind of car they drive,” he was saying. “And that’s all very well. It’s useful to know whether your character wears faded jeans or three-piece suits. But I’m more interested in a character’s interior landscape than in what they are wearing. What I want to know is how their clothes reflect and reveal that inner landscape.”

  Susan took out her notebook and pen.

  “So we’re going to try a little exercise in character development and description. I want you to choose one article of clothing that belongs to a particular character. Describe that piece of clothing in such a way that I know its owner, know something about how that character thinks and feels. I’ll give you five or ten minutes to try it. Any questions?”

  Alberta had a question, of course. She wanted to get the rules very clear before she could begin. Yes, he meant any article of clothing at all. A shirt, a shoe, a hat, a piece of lingerie. Well, yes, if she wanted to write about a shoe, she could write about a pair of shoes, since they could be viewed as a single article. Yes, she could choose to write about a pair of gloves instead, if she liked.

  He was still fielding questions when Susan started writing.

  “The silk scarf was looped carelessly around the handle of her bag,” Susan wrote, “though she wasn’t a careless sort of woman. Impulsive, perhaps, but not careless. She liked the scarf for its intense colors, reds and golds reminiscent of the burning embers in the heart of a fire. She liked the way it looked on the handle of her bag.”

  Susan hesitated, remembering a fashion article she had read a few months ago. Her mother had given her a subscription to the fashion magazine for her birthday. Susan had little use for its advice, but she dutifully paged through each issue. She remembered an article about learning to “accessorize,” a word that Susan thought was awkward and ugly. The photos accompanying the article had shown cool, disdainful women wearing silk scarves. One wore hers in a graceful bow around her neck; another had hers knotted around her waist to make a stylish belt; a third wore hers like a shawl, draped elegantly over her shoulders. The heading on the page said something about the “amazing versatility of a simple scarf.”

  Susan remembered checking the prices of the scarves pictured.

  The cheapest had been 150 dollars. She knew that in her hands, all those expensive scarves would misbehave, knotting and crumpling and, no matter what she did, looking just plain silly. But in the hands of the fashion models, these scarves were versatile. Susan suspected that Mary accepted the scarf’s versatility and took it farther than any of the fashion models would dare.

  “She recognized the scarf as a square of fabric that had many possibilities,” Susan wrote. “It was such a versatile article of clothing. She could wear it around her neck as a fashion accessory. In a medical emergency, she could fashion it into a sling. If she needed to make a daring escape, she could tie it together with bed sheets and throw it out the window as an improvised ladder, trusting to the strength of the silken fibers. Or, if a situation called for anonymity, she could fold her scarf into a triangle and tie it over her nose and mouth like a bandit in an old Western.

  “So many possibilities. She was a woman who thrived on possibilities, on adventure, on mystery and unexplored territories. She would set off boldly, not knowing where she was going and not caring either. If you were lucky—if you looked like someone who might be interesting, who might be bold, who might be willing to learn how to use a scarf for purposes other than those described in fashion magazines—she might invite you along.”

  BAD GRRLZ’ GUIDE TO PHYSICS

  CONSIDERING GOOD GIRLS

  My friend Susan told me last night that she had decided to stop being a good girl. I think this is an excellent decision on her part.

  From what she’s told me, Susan has always been a Good Girl. She listened to her mother, even when her mother was talking bullshit.

  I hate to say it, but mothers do that sometimes. They may do it with the best possible intentions. Maybe they are trying to protect you from the dangers of the world when they say, “Oh, sweetheart, do you really want to …?” Fill in the blank with whatever it is you really want to do: become a physicist, hitchhike across country, wear that sweater with those shoes. Well, maybe mom was right about the hitchhiking, but physics can be fun and magenta and chartreuse can go together in a clashy sort of way. Very early in life, I learned when to listen to my mother and when to ignore her. But as far as I can tell, Susan has always listened to her mother and tried to be good. She went to college and married her first boyfriend—a control-junky asshole in my opinion, but maybe that’s just me.

  This cruise seems to be one of the first times she has ever broken loose. I was glad that she went off to explore Hamilton on her own. Seems like she had a great time.

  I think Officer Tom is interested in her, but she denies it. The girl has such a rotten self-image. Officer Tom may be able to get past all that. I hope so, for his sake and for Susan’s sake. He seems like a nice guy. A little stiff, maybe, but a nice guy.

  Anyway, I’m glad that Susan has decided to become a Bad Grrl. I think I can be a fine role model in that regard.

  THIRTEEN

  “Don’t put your faith in maps. The map is not the territory,” Gitana explained to Ferris. “In fact, the map only bears a faint resemblance to the territory. It leaves out jar more than it includes.”

  —from The Twisted Band

  by Max Merriwell

  Susan stared at herself in the mirror, watching as the beautician’s scissors transformed her into another person entirely.

  In the mirror, she could see another mirror on the other side of the small room. In the reflection of that mirror, she could see both a reflection of the back of her head and a reflection of her face in the mirror in front of the chair. In that reflection of a reflection of a reflection, she could see more reflections, marching away into infinity. In all the reflections, handfuls of her curly hair were falling in clumps as the beautician wielded her scissors.

  Susan felt remarkably calm. The clip, clip, clip of the scissors blended with the calypso music that played in the background. She breathed in the fruity scent of conditioner—Annette, the beautician, had insisted on treating her hair to a moisturizing mango conditioner before the cut.

  Susan felt the chill of the scissors as they snipped around her right ear. In the mirror, she could see her ear peeking through the curls. It looked small and pale, exposed to the world for the first time in decades.

  “This hair was made to be short,” Annette said.

  “I always thought my face was too round for short hair.”

  Annette shook her head. “Whoever told you that was an idiot,” she said.

  Susan smiled. As she recalled, her mother had imparted that bit of information when Susan was twelve years old. Susan had always believed it was true.

  “You’re going to be a new woman,” Annette said.

  “That’s good,” Susan said, partly to Annette and partly to herself. “I was getting a little tired of the old one.”

  Half an hour later, Annette brushed off Susan’s shoulders and neck, whisked off the smock, and sent her back into the world. Susan stepped out of the salon onto the deck and stopped for a moment at the railing.

  The ocean breeze tickled the back of her neck lightly and she smiled. She reached up and ran her hands through her curls. So short. So bouncy. She shook her head. It felt so light without the weight of her hair. It felt so strange. It felt wonderful.

  “Hello,” Mary called as she walked toward Susan. Mary’s dark hair had been cut to chin length. She looked great.

  Susan smiled at Mary. �
��I should have done this years ago,” she said.

  Mary shrugged, smiling. “Well, you’ve done it now. Where shall we go for lunch’“

  “Somewhere new,” Susan said. “Terra incognita. Somewhere I’ve never been before.”

  “Your choice,” Mary said.

  Mary waited and Susan thought about the restaurants she had seen listed in the ship’s directory.

  “How about Penelope’s?” she said.

  “Sounds good to me,” Mary said. “Lead the way.”

  Susan set off with great confidence. She had studied the ship’s map to learn the way to the salon, and she remembered that it showed a companionway just to the stern of the salon.

  She strolled beside the railing, letting the wind tousle her hair. They reached the stern, where a small sun deck held half a dozen deck chairs filled with sunbathers.

  Susan stopped, baffled. “I thought the map showed a companionway down here.” She frowned, feeling like a fool. Mary, she thought, was the sort of woman who could find her way without hesitation.

  “Maybe we missed it,” Mary said. “Let’s try around this way.”

  “Well, I remember the map showed …”

  “Oh, don’t worry about the map. You can only trust a map so far. The map is not the territory, you know.”

  “I didn’t mean to get us lost,” Susan said apologetically.

  Mary shook her head, smiling. “If we’re lost, we’re bound to end up somewhere interesting.” Mary started out and Susan followed. As they walked along the railing, heading toward the bow of the ship, Mary told Susan about how she dealt with being lost. “On my first visit to Katmandu, I developed a strategy that worked quite well. The streets and alleys there twist and curve and meet at the most unlikely angles. I’d set out walking from the Katmandu Guest House, leave the main street, and be lost in fifteen minutes. Then I’d wander and explore. When I wanted to go back, I’d flag down a rickshaw, bargain for the fare, and tell them to take me to the Katmandu Guest House.” She smiled. “I didn’t need to know where it was. I just needed to find someone who did.”

  Susan nodded, trying to imagine herself using such a strategy. When she and Harry had visited Paris, she had suggested going out for a walk. Harry had consulted a map at every corner, insisting she look at it with him. “You have to know where you are,” he maintained. Harry always knew where he was and it bothered him that she didn’t.

  At Harry’s insistence, she had tried—she really had tried. On that trip, she learned that she could keep track of where she was if she paid close attention, remembering the street signs, remembering landmarks, looking back at where she had come from so that the way would look familiar when she returned.

  She could do it. But the effort of remembering the way had spoiled the pleasure of taking a walk. She couldn’t take the time to admire the fruits and flowers of a street vendor; she was too busy getting her bearings. She couldn’t stare up at the architectural details of old buildings; she had to check the street signs and consult the map.

  “I should have tried that when I was in Paris,” Susan said. “Except there weren’t any rickshaws.”

  “Flag down a taxi instead. That works in just about any city.” Mary had found a door marked emergency exit. She had her hand on the knob.

  “Wait,” Susan said, fearing that an alarm might go off if Mary opened the door. But it was too late: Mary had the door open already. No alarm.

  “The doors marked ‘emergency exit’ lead into crew areas,” Mary said.

  “But those are off limits to passengers, aren’t they?” Susan asked. Mary shrugged. “If we meet a crew member, they’ll just ask if we are lost.” Mary started through the door and up the stairs. “It’s a shortcut.”

  “To where?” Susan said. The words had a familiar sound. She realized that they were Harry’s words: he had asked that whenever she suggested that a particular route might be a shortcut.

  Mary shrugged, smiling. “To adventure, to nowhere in particular, to somewhere interesting, to where we want to go. Let’s check it out.” The companionway led to the aft portion of the recreation deck, where they found a basketball court, occupied by half a dozen sweaty, shirtless men, and a shuffleboard court where two teenagers in baggy shorts were playing a game of what Mary called “Sudden Death Shuffleboard” because the young men were playing it with such speed and intensity.

  Mary led the way toward the bow, where they found another companionway. Eventually, after wandering past a sun deck and a wading pool, they were somewhere Susan recognized. “I’ve been here,” she said. “Penelope’s is this way.”

  Mary nodded. “I told you it was a shortcut,” she said.

  Mary took a table by a window, where they could look out at the waves that sparkled in the tropical sunshine. The bar was in the center of the room.

  It was a bright, cheerful room. The walls were white. Mirrors above the bar reflected images of the room. Looking up at the mirror, Susan caught a glimpse of Mary. For a fraction of a second, she did not recognize the short-haired woman sitting across from Mary. Then she smiled at her own reflection. She looked like a new person—so relaxed, she thought, so happy with herself.

  When the waitress came to take their drink orders, Mary studied the drink card on the table. Photos on the card showed frothy concoctions involving alcohol in various forms combined with coconut, pineapple, mangos, and other tropical fruits.

  “Could I get a Flaming Rum Monkey?” Mary asked.

  The waitress, a perky blonde, frowned. “I’ll see if the bartender knows how to make one.”

  “All right. If he doesn’t, I’ll have a Flamingo Frappe.”

  Susan surveyed the list. The Flamingo Frappe involved apricot brandy, lime juice, gin, and grenadine. “I don’t know,” she murmured, staring at the card. She usually ordered a daiquiri. But today she wanted something different.

  “How about a Tropical Storm,” Mary suggested. “Lime, rum, crushed pineapple, and grenadine.”

  “Sure,” Susan said. She liked pineapple. “I don’t usually drink at lunch,” she told Mary as the waitress walked away.

  “You’re a new woman,” Mary said. “You may find yourself doing any of number of things you don’t usually do.”

  A few minutes later, the waitress returned with their drinks. “I’m sorry,” she said. “The bartender doesn’t have a recipe for a Flaming Rum Monkey. He suggested you try Aphrodite’s Alehouse. Frank, the night bartender there, knows how to make every drink around.”

  Mary smiled, plucking the neon pink umbrella from her drink.

  “I’ll do that.”

  As the waitress walked away, Susan asked, “What’s in a Flaming Rum Monkey?”

  “I don’t know,” Mary said. “It hasn’t been invented yet.” Susan frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I made it up. You see, I’ve always thought cocktails have the most fabulous names. You’ve got swizzles and rickeys and fizzes and flips and smashes and shrubs and slings. Great words, all of them. Then you get into specific names, like the Beachcomber and the Side Devil and Mrs. Fizby’s Fizz. Bartenders make drinks up and some go on to immortality. So I thought I’d make up a name, and see if I could find the drink that went with it.” She grinned.

  “So there is no such thing as a Flaming Rum Monkey?”

  “Not yet. But I figure it’s only a matter of time. It’s such a catchy name. And it just begs to have variations. You could have your Mexican Monkey, made with tequila; your Irish Monkey made with Old Bushmill. And if you make an iced version, that would be a Monkey in the Snow.” Mary gazed out the window, contemplating the possibilities. “I figure the drink probably involves coconut—the monkey connection, you know. In fancy places, maybe it’s served in a half a coconut shell.”

  Susan studied Mary, marveling at this odd woman. “But if it doesn’t exist, why ask if the bartender can make it?”

  “I figure that one of these days, I’ll find a bartender who is inspired by the name and wants
to figure it out. Maybe Frank in Aphrodite’s Alehouse is the man. We’ll see.”

  She smiled at Susan, and Susan returned her smile. Mary seemed willing to include Susan in this adventure, and that made Susan happy. But she was a little skeptical. Inventing a drink seemed like fun—but baffling bartenders by pretending a drink already existed didn’t seem to Susan like the best way to do it.

  “Why not just tell him you want him to invent a drink’“ Susan said. “Rather than pretending it already exists.”

  “Asking someone to invent something puts them under a lot of pressure to be creative. I think I’m making it easier on them. All they have to do is match up a drink with the name.”

  “You think a bartender could figure a drink out, just from the name?”

  “Oh, names are very powerful,” Mary said.

  “But in the meantime, you’re spreading confusion,” Susan observed.

  “Exactly.” Mary smiled. When Susan frowned, she went on. “A little confusion is a wonderful thing, don’t you agree?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t much like being confused myself.”

  “Most people don’t. People like finding patterns in things—they like explaining things and learning how one thing relates to another. When you’re confused, you can’t see any patterns, and that’s uncomfortable. So you start casting about in search of pattern, trying to make order from the confusion. Eventually, you sort it out and you fit whatever confused you into a pattern and then you’re happy.”

  “Okay,” Susan said slowly.

  “But sometimes, it’s good to be confused. I enjoy it. If you are confused often enough, you learn to be confident that you’ll sort it all out sooner or later. You figure out methods for dealing—like hailing a rickshaw in Katmandu. You learn to relax with confusion—and that’s a very powerful place to be.”

  Susan felt a little dizzy. She sipped her Tropical Storm and tried to relax with the confusion.

  Mary was leaning back in her chair, studying Susan’s face. “I think you tell yourself the wrong sort of stories,” Mary said.