Everything Must Go

by Jenny Fran Davis

Subject: Re: visit?

  October 29, 2:13 p.m.

  Hey, D,

  I want to come. I really do. I miss you, dude. But things are kind of complicated. I do have some time later in the semester. Did I tell you about that girls’ school—the tutoring gig? It’s a long story.

  E

  RETURN TO SENDER

  Emma Goldwasser

  82 West 17th Street, Apt. 2B

  New York, NY 10011

  October 31

  Mum,

  I haven’t heard from you in a few weeks, so I wanted to write and let you know how things are going. Today is Halloween (as you can see from the date), and it was fun to get into costume.

  Please write to me whenever you can. I’m curious to hear about your new apartment.

  Love,

  Flora

  PS: Did Daddy send you my midsemester report?

  Lael Goldwasser

  Harvard College

  2609 Harvard Yard Mail Center

  Cambridge, MA 02138

  November 1

  Lael,

  I’m still shaking from what just happened.

  I’ve just about had it with meeting for worship. I think it was sent from the devil just to torture me. But let me back up.

  Meeting for worship is mandatory. It’s every Wednesday for an hour, right at the end of classes. Half an hour of silence. No knitting, no journaling, no reading. We straggle in from women’s literature, sit on hard-backed pews, and try to get in touch with the great beyond. Quakers believe in direct communication with God, that every person should speak her own truth; there are no preachers or rabbis or reverends. It’s very beautiful, and all that, but have you ever tried to sit in silence for half an hour?

  It’s really hard.

  Usually I watch people. I watch the ropes of drool that slither out of Althea’s mouth when she falls asleep on her pew (because they can’t exactly outlaw napping, though it is discouraged). I watch the people who get creepy smiles with their eyes glazed over. I watch Gabriel, the environmental studies teacher, and his wife, Sarah the baker, hold hands when they think nobody’s looking. I imagine Sam, who’s excused from Meeting for Worship because he sometimes uses the hour to talk on the phone with his analyst back in Montreal. Sometimes I manage to daydream a little, despite the hard pew pressing into my spine. The minutes always drag by, but usually it’s halfway bearable, even kind of calming and nice.

  But not today.

  Today, twenty minutes into the meeting, Juna stood up to speak her truth. People are allowed to do that, you know—stand and speak their truths. She was wearing a dress that was three different, yet equally abhorrent, shades of yellow. She looked like a penis turned inside out.

  “I’ve been thinking about shell speak,” she said. People always begin their comments with “I’ve been thinking about …” because it’s not normal to barrel right ahead into a thought without any preamble.

  “It feels weird to me that we’re working to create this community of, like, decreasing the value of physical appearance, yet it doesn’t seem that we’re all equally committed to that,” she said. “I feel disheartened when people bring relics of the empire, like fancy shoes and designer clothes, into Quare. I thought Quare would be an escape from all that. We’re trying to build this radically inclusive community where we’re judged for things other than our clothing, and being reminded of the premium that the outside world places on appearance hinders that work.”

  I was sitting there, barely breathing. She was talking about me. She thought I was the empire. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me, looking at me but pretending not to. It was all so obvious. And BECCA! She was trying hard to hide her smirk from me, but her cheeks still pulled her entire lower face up, making her look deranged.

  And I was royally pissed. My hands started to shake. I looked down at the outfit I chose this morning: a white short-sleeved blouse tucked tastefully into a vintage wrap skirt. Black DKNY stockings. Suede boots with a half-inch heel. I had stared at my reflection in the mirror this morning and felt like a young woman trying to make it in the male-dominated world of publishing in the 1960s, and I’d felt damn good, like a real vixen.

  My heart was thudding so hard that I could feel it in my earlobes. As soon as Juna sat down, smug and self-satisfied, I stood up shakily, grabbing on to Lucy’s shoulder for support. My toes were clenched inside my boots. Everyone looked up at me expectantly, their eyes trained on my face. Their greasy hair fell in stiff blocks, glasses sliding down their noses, chapped lips open wide. Their unwashed clothes emitted a smell so strong that it was visible. I would never say this to anyone but you, but I couldn’t help feeling that despite their holier-than-thou values and righteousness, I was better than they were. Emboldened by Dean’s email (I’ve included it), I felt SPECIAL. I looked out at the sea of flannel and Mason jars and Birkenstocks with socks. I am superior, I thought, because I am all that and more.

  There’s nothing quite like being angry and also being sure you’re right.

  “No one’s placing undue premium on clothes besides you,” I said. My voice was shaking so badly that I had to take a few deep breaths. It was dead silent. Some people looked away, while others looked up still, bleary-eyed. “It’s really that simple. If you want Quare to be a place for everybody, then you have to accept everybody who’s here, whether or not they wear harem pants or wash their hair.”

  I paused to smooth my hands over my skirt. The words flooded my mouth so fast that I could hardly speak quickly enough to get them all out.

  “Wearing nice clothes isn’t shell speak. Shell speak is judging people for what they’re wearing. It’s totally counterproductive to subtly prioritize dressing without care to rebel against the rest of the world, where dressing well is prioritized, because you’re just flipping the pressure. Not caring what you look like in no way makes you superior. You’re not better than I am because you’re too pious to put on something that looks like you put any effort into it at all. That’s not what a radically inclusive community looks like.”

  My knees were shaking so much that I could barely stand still. My stomach was fluttering all over the place. Instead of sitting back down in the pew, I snatched my yellow peacoat, swung it around my shoulder like a cape, and strode out of the meetinghouse, my suede boots clicking on the wooden floor with each step. I pushed open the heavy doors and stepped outside, letting the door slam shut with an angry boom behind me. I was still royally pissed, but now I was filled with adrenaline. I felt like a badass, but a sort of melancholy badass.

  It’s hard for me to explain to you why I was so agitated and antsy. What Juna had said using her stupid “I” statements and nonviolent communication technique was infuriating. And how she’d clearly judged me as inferior because I wasn’t exactly like her, how they’d all stared at me and politely averted their eyes, made me irate. But even though each of those things was making me angry, neither of them was really the reason. It was something larger than the sum of its parts. I felt vindicated, sure, but also cheap somehow—not as good as I thought I’d feel on the cusp of my outburst. I’m just guessing here, but maybe it was because I felt that somehow making such a concerted effort not to fit in was actually, well, not letting me fit in. Sounds obvious, I know, but it still hurt. It’s like this: my prior vision of myself was of someone mysterious, the Elegant One who floats in her own orbit. But after Juna’s comments, it seemed more like I was just the Shallow One—the one everyone scorns.

  I was in such a bad, desperate mood that I felt like crying. Outside the meetinghouse, I walked over to a patch of newly sprouted wildflowers and sat down. And I did cry, a little bit. I wanted to go home, not back to my cabin or back to Daddy’s shack, but to West Seventy-Ninth Street. The people with insipid smiles on their faces in the meetinghouse are not my people. You and India and Cora are my people. I haven’t been around my people in a long time.

  Then came anger at more people than just the Quares. I was furious at myself for wanting t
o come here at all, just to impress stupid Elijah, who writes me three sentences on a postcard and won’t even say for sure whether or not he’s coming to Quare at some point; furious at Mum and Daddy for LETTING me leave Bowen, when any psychologist could easily tell that I was just trying to escape my crumbling home life, or whatever; furious at Quare for accepting me when they knew I wouldn’t fit in here; furious at India and Cora for getting to stay at Bowen … even furious at you, if I’m being perfectly honest, for graduating and going to college.

  So I was sitting in the wildflowers, quietly steaming and crying into my black stockings, when someone came and sat down next to me. I didn’t look up, just felt the presence of the body beside me.

  But then my curiosity got the better of me, and I lifted my head.

  It was Dean, in high-waisted mom jeans and a flannel button-down. She didn’t say anything, just sat down next to me, her knees bent up.

  Of course, I was a sniffling mess, so I sucked the snot back into my nose and wiped my eyes with the sleeves of my peacoat. She didn’t say anything for a while.

  “How are you?” she finally asked.

  I grunted noncommittally, because I didn’t trust my voice.

  “Meeting for worship was hard for me at first too,” she said. “I was raised Presbyterian. The preacher talks to you, and then you get to go home. Being your own deliverance is tough. A lot of things come up.”

  “It’s not that,” I said. “It’s what Juna said.”

  Dean was silent for a few seconds. “Was it?” she asked.

  “What do you mean? That’s what I was responding to in there.”

  She nodded slowly. “So Juna was talking about you,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know?”

  I threw up my hands in frustration, not even caring that I was showing a very déclassé side of myself to Lighthouse Dean. “Of course she was talking about me,” I said. “I’m the only one who wears … what she said. And I always see her giving me these looks of pity, like, ‘Isn’t it sad that you think you need to wear nice clothes to be accepted?’ Not that other people aren’t constantly judging me also.”

  “How do you know?”

  Was she serious?

  “It’s the way they look at me. The way they don’t talk to me unless they have to, and the way they raise their eyebrows when I walk by.”

  Dean nodded some more.

  “So you’re making every effort to get to know them, too,” she said, “and it’s failing because they won’t give you the time of day. I see. That makes perfect sense.”

  My mouth opened. She was starting to sound like … you, to be perfectly honest.

  “Flora, why are you at Quare?” Dean asked.

  I couldn’t tell her the truth. I just couldn’t. I felt like the biggest fool in the universe, crying into the flowers about being at this ridiculous place—a place I’d come for the cool little baby bird I’m in love with.

  “I … well …” I started to say.

  “Don’t worry about it.” Dean laid her arm lightly against mine, sending an electric shock through my body. “All I’m saying is that you have to give them a chance if you want them to give you one. It goes both ways. Decide to like them, and they’ll decide to like you.”

  My heart was still pounding, but now it was with mortification. I still thought I’d been wronged, of course, but now it didn’t seem so black and white.

  “You’re really not that different than they are,” Dean said.

  I scoffed openly.

  “Really,” she said. “When you think of yourself as so different, you become so different. All you’ll be able to think about are the ways that you’re an outcast.”

  I took a few deep breaths.

  “What if I like being different?” I finally asked.

  “Well, then you have to accept the consequences,” she answered, but not in a mean way. In a firm and gentle way.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Okay,” she said.

  A pause.

  “Look,” Dean said, pointing at the sky, “the sun’s finally out.”

  It did feel a bit warmer, but I was still wiggling my half-frozen toes around. Those boots I got on Madison Avenue weren’t exactly warm (though they are adorable, and I stand by—and in—them).

  “Take my socks,” Dean offered. She shook off her mud-caked farm boots and then stripped off her deliciously thick wool socks. Her feet were pale and shocked looking, as though her skin itself were squinting in the sunlight.

  I accepted the socks. They were still warm from her feet, soft and fluffy and glorious. I jokingly offered her to trade, but of course she didn’t take my stockings.

  I stuffed my boots back on, not caring that they looked ridiculous over the socks. She sat with me until the meeting was over and people streamed out. Lucy and Fern shot us a suspicious look, but I didn’t care.

  O Dean! O lighthouse!

  Love,

  Flora

  To: Cora Shimizu-Stein

  From: India Katz-Rosen

  Subject: weird experience

  November 3, 9:02 p.m.

  Hey, babe,

  I’m emailing because my mom confiscated my phone. She says I have to do well on my math test tomorrow or no more shopping. She’s actually camped out on the bench outside my room right now to make sure I’m studying, but she can’t tell from where she is that I’m emailing you and not Dr. Bergman.

  ANYWAY, the weirdest thing happened to me this afternoon. Remember how I said the debate team was going up to Columbia for an invitational? Well, we went—we lost big-time; what else is new—and then Stacy, Onitra, Vivienne, and I went to that café in the student center. Alfred Hall, or something like that. You know, the glass building on Broadway and 115th?

  Well, we got our muffins and coffee, and were looking for a place to sit—the place was absolutely packed with students and professors—when whom do we see but Elijah Huck?

  Of course you remember Elijah the history Tutor. Flora wouldn’t shut up about him last year, especially because he was actually HER Tutor and they met one-on-one all those times to talk about her essays on St. Francis of Assisi or whatever. I mean, I guess he’s kind of cute (actually, I think he looks like a baby bird: it must be the beaky nose, feathery blond hair, and round glasses), especially for Bowen, but in the real world, he’s kind of meh. I was actually surprised at how meek he looked surrounded by guys instead of just Bowen girls.

  Anyway, as I brushed by his table with the girls, he looked up at me. I swear, we must have made eye contact for about fifteen solid seconds, until I finally just eked by him and made my way to another table. But the look he gave me—it was so bizarre, like he was trying to suck my soul out of my eyes or something. We’ve never spoken, obviously, and I don’t even know if he knows I go to Bowen. Besides, didn’t he quit or something? This year, all the Tutors are women, I think. But anyway, it was bizarre as fuck.

  Okay, I should probably go study for math before my mom comes in here.

  Oh yeah, also, hi, Flora. I know you still periodically check my Bowen email (God, can you believe some friends DON’T share passwords?) for Bowen gossip and will probably read this when you’re home for Thanksgiving break. Sorry I called Elijah a meek baby bird. But you can’t really deny that that’s EXACTLY what he looks like.

  xx!!!

  Letter from Lael

  Flora Goldwasser

  Pigeonhole 44

  The Quare Academy

  2 Quare Road

  Main Stream, NY 12497

  November 7

  Dear Flora,

  Dean sounds like my cup of tea. She’ll do in my stead. Plus, she has a point about feeling different from everyone else. I think you have this romantic idea of yourself as a Grace-Kelly-dress-clad outcast—an image no doubt fueled by Elijah, or whatever, and his creepy yet adoring gaze—but remember, Flora: all that is just your shell.

  L
MAO.

  I also want to raise the question of your true motives for being at Quare. I mean, yeah, you’re there primarily because of Elijah—that much is clear—but what if something in your subconscious wanted you to go there for other reasons too? What if what you’re telling India and Cora—about Bowen being stifling, about wanting to prove to yourself that you can stick this out—is actually, well, kind of THE REAL REASON? After all, how hard would it have been to simply change your plans and just return to Bowen after finding out that he wouldn’t be going to Quare this year?

  Maybe it’s crazy. But all the stuff you’re trying to prove to Elijah—that you’re an adventurous and wild and up-for-anything type of gal—what if you’re actually trying to prove it to YOURSELF?

  My point is, you don’t have to have a plan for how Elijah reacts to your being at Quare. You’re there, and the more I hear about it, the more I’m sold that it’s kind of exactly where you need to be right now. You’re not going anywhere. Not on my watch, anyway.

  Also, I’m not sure if you knew this, but Mum moved a few weeks ago. Not far, though. Just a few blocks south to be closer to Washington Square Park (because we both know how much she thinks she loves nature). I wrote her new address on the back of this paper. Ignore the psych notes. We’re learning about confirmation bias. Go figure.

  What do you want for your birthday, by the way? I know you said that birthdays aren’t celebrated at Quare, which I suppose makes sense from a philosophical standpoint, but it’s still depressing. So if none of your friends there are giving you anything, my gift had better be top-notch—better than the typewriter last year, even.

  From,

  Lael

  Flora Goldwasser

  Women’s Literature

  November 8

  Short response: Toni Morrison’s Beloved

  At Sweet Home, Sethe is milked as though she is a cow; this abuse contorts her both emotionally and physically as she becomes stamped and imprinted inside and out. After being raped, Sethe thinks to herself, “I am full of … two boys with mossy teeth, one sucking on my breast the other holding me down, their book-reading teacher watching and writing it up” (83). Morrison paints the boys as carnal and carnivorous, and they leave an emotional imprint, one that stays with Sethe two decades after the fact and continues to mutilate and distort her body. Being milked brings a literal change in shape, one that is deflated and sucked out, and so it is somewhat paradoxical that Sethe says that she is “full of” the experience. Morrison’s play on words reveals that Sethe harbors a poignant memory that lingers long after her abuse. In effect, Sethe is still “full of” being emptied—literally and figuratively.