Everything Must Go
Page 14
COMMENTS
Fascinating stuff, Flora. You’re suggesting that Sethe’s rape forces her very shape to change, and I think you’re on to something. When something is taken out of Sethe—as you say, she’s “milked as though she is a cow”—she in fact becomes “full” in a way that seems to defy logic. What are other ways in which violation—the little thefts to which women-bodies, particularly those marked for racial violence, are constantly subject—actually fill us up? And with what tools, feelings, and thoughts do they stuff us? To whom do these thoughts and feelings actually belong?
India Katz-Rosen
1025 Fifth Avenue, Apt. 9C
New York, NY 10028
November 11
India dear,
We’re swimming in apples up here. All the trees are bursting with them, and they’re incorporated into every dish in every meal. Apple pancakes, applesauce, apple casserole, apple pie, apple and quinoa salad, apple and kale stir-fry, apple-infused potatoes, apple fritters, apple muffins, seitan with apples, apple slaw—you get the picture. Some people are talking about bobbing for apples, but the thought of sticking my head in a barrel that everyone else’s heads have also been in makes me want to dry heave.
But you’d be proud of how far I’ve come. I’ve even dismantled my mosquito net. Mostly it’s because there are no mosquitoes past September, but it’s also because I’ve made peace with the fact that there are bugs in the world, and they will do what they do. It’s very Quare of me, actually.
I told Dean about the itching, by the way. We meet every other week for her to check on my progress. She’s always swaddled in an enormous felt green coat with random squares of yellow and white felt sewn onto it. It’s a great coat.
She never runs out of things to talk about (her favorite talk shows, the vintage bicycle she’s repairing, the healing properties of various herbs), but I stay quiet when she asks about me—unless, of course, she threatens to serenade me with a private concert unless I say something, and that’s when I start bringing up things like my relentless itching.
Dean offered to make me a balm, for which I was really grateful. It was really goopy and messy, but, boy, did it work. I rubbed it all over my body after showering, swung myself around naked in the cabin when I was alone (and had closed the makeshift curtains) to dry it a bit, and then put on clothes. In two days the only evidence of my itching are the ribbons of skin on the floor of our hovel.
Oh, also, I submitted my review to Dean a few days ago, but I haven’t heard anything yet.
Cross your fingers that she approves!
Better go. It’s time for my dinner prep shift. What are we making, you might ask? Applesauce and tofu cakes.
Also, question: Do you think it’s too much to wear my 1920s vintage cloche hat—the flowery one that secures under the chin—to pick apples on Sunday? There are some kids from Main Stream coming for the fall festival in a few days, and I don’t want to scare them.
“Love and other indoor sports,”
Flora
To: All-staff
From: Wink DelDuca
Subject: Miss Tulip
November 11, 7:08 p.m.
Nymphettes,
Yesterday I got to wondering if there isn’t something we can do about Miss Tulip’s disappearance. Is Miss T in danger? We can’t know for sure. I’d love to be able to make MISSING posters with her face, but obviously, we can’t do that: Miss Tulip doesn’t show her face, and it would be hard to make MISSING posters with her headless body—just her milky white neck, her tousled curls … but I digress.
But that gave me an idea. What does everyone think about screening photos from Miss Tulip’s all-time great shots onto T-shirts? They’ll look great over slacks. I took the liberty of asking Thee, and she’s on board.
We’ll be voting on which ones should be made into shirts. Come to Wednesday night’s Google Hangouts with your favorite in mind.
Here are the ones I’m plugging for:
http://www.misstulipblog.com/to-kill-a-mockingbird-schoolteacher-dress.html
http://www.misstulipblog.com/jackie-kennedy-all-pink-everything.html
http://www.misstulipblog.com/green-and-white-gingham-culottes.html
http://www.misstulipblog.com/knit-green-dress-big-gold-buttons.html
;)
Wink
Editor in Chief, Nymphette magazine
Nymphette is an online feminist arts & culture magazine for teenagers.
Each month, we choose a theme, and then you send us your writing, photography, and artwork.
Lael Goldwasser
Harvard College
2609 Harvard Yard Mail Center
Cambridge, MA 02138
November 11
Dear Lael,
Okay, okay, fine, maybe you have a point, and Quare is really about me and not Elijah. I’m giving it until the end of the semester anyway, so don’t work yourself up about it. And I really am giving it a fair shot.
Case in point: dish crew was—dare I say it—fun tonight. It helps that Sam shares my shift. Usually there are some people lingering over tea in the dining hall, but by the time we’re done with the dishes, it’s emptied out except for a few students on the couches, doing homework, playing their instruments quietly, or sketching in their journals. That makes it easy for us to sweep and mop the main eating area. I sweep, and Sam mops. He says it’s a good way for him to achieve definition in his upper arms. I don’t know how to break it to him that upper-arm definition might not be in the cards—and I won’t break it to him either, because I don’t have any particular desire to mop.
So we were standing there, me getting the dirt out of the way and Sam moving the sudsy mop all around, doing a pretty terrible job as always because we’re both weak, lazy, and chatty.
I told him I was glad he’d finally made contact with Marigold, whom he’s in love with. They’ve been staying up really late singing through the whole Beatles repertoire, and even though I’ve felt the tiniest bit left out, I wasn’t about to tell Sam that.
He waved the mop ineffectually over the floor. “The power of song,” he said. “If you see me with a guitar, the myopia becomes charming.”
I quietly conceded his point.
“You seem down,” he said.
“What?”
“You always do.”
I always seem down?
“Seriously,” he said. “You strike me as a sufferer.”
“Thanks?”
“It’s a compliment.” He swung the mop haphazardly. “I feel like I couldn’t ever be friends with someone who isn’t at least a little bit tormented.”
“What do you think I’m tormented by?”
“Irrelevant.” He wagged the mop at me. “But you’re definitely suffering.”
After that, Sam was whisked away by Pearl to sort the compost, and he came back shaken and pale.
“I just spent half an hour knee deep in moldy lettuce and black eggshells,” he said. He had to sit down for a minute to recover.
I shuddered. “Thank God Pearl knows I’m not cut out for compost,” I said. “You’ve got to assert yourself, Sam.”
“I think it builds character actually,” he said. “All the complaining is just to entertain you.”
On my way back home from the library last night, I walked by Marigold and Sam singing again in Marigold’s hovel, on the floor, the door wide open. They were sitting cross-legged in front of the burning woodstove, facing each other, Sam with his guitar and Marigold singing and smiling at him in her daisy crown. If Sam were wearing slightly nicer jeans and ditched the square glasses, they would have looked like an Anthropolgie ad. I didn’t want them to see my watching them, so I ducked my head and ran into my own cabin, where Juna was waiting to softly chide me for my head scarf collection having spilled over onto her side of the dresser.
Sorry for the self-pity. I promise I’m done now. Write me back with your own woes!!!
Lo
ve,
Me
To: Flora Goldwasser
From: Sam Chabot
Subject: TG
November 15, 11:12 p.m.
I forgot to ask—are you going home for Thanksgiving?
To: Sam Chabot
From: Flora Goldwasser
Subject: Re: TG
November 15, 11:33 p.m.
Yes. I am half-dreading it and half-looking forward to finally being in a house with central heating and a cable connection.
To: Flora Goldwasser
From: Sam Chabot
Subject: Re: TG
November 15, 11:34 p.m.
Damn. I was going to ask if you wanted to stay on campus with me and have a Degrassi marathon.
To: Sam Chabot
From: Flora Goldwasser
Subject: Re: TG
November 15, 11:35 p.m.
Just when I start to forget you’re Canadian …
QUARE TIMES
The Quare Academy Student News Collaboration
November 22
SOCIETY BY SAM
By Sam Chabot
This week, a forgotten dinner prep shift turned sour when AS, the absentee in question, was seen at the beehives instead of in the teep. Sources confirm that AS became ornery when asked to join his cooking crew; he refused to take off his beekeeping outfit, insisting that it made him “feel like Queen Latifah in The Secret Life of Bees.”
ALUM OF THE ISSUE: ELIJAH HUCK
By Juna Díaz
Ever since he graduated from Quare two years ago, Elijah Huck has been shaking up the photography world, first as an unofficial documentarian of the hipster élite at Columbia University and beyond, and next—and most poignantly—the creator of the blog “Miss Tulip,” which has been reviewed in indie mags across the country.
Although Huck was unavailable for an interview, Miriam Row, Headmistress, informed the Quare Times that plans are in the works for Huck to visit campus for a three-hour photography workshop in December.
“Everyone is talking about the possibility of his visiting,” said Marigold Chen. “It’s cool that we have a local god at our disposal like this. Even if he doesn’t end up coming, it’s cool that he’s a Quare.”
To: All-staff
From: Theodora Sweet
Subject: tees, etc.
November 22, 3:09 p.m.
Nymphettes,
I’ve been getting some great feedback for the tee designs I’ve showed some people. You’d be shocked at the Miss Tulip following in the Stanford freshman class!
So I finalized the designs and sent them off to the manufacturer. They should be ready in a couple of weeks. I’ll keep you posted.
Happy Thanksgiving, all!
Thee
To: Elijah Huck
From: Dustin Crane
Subject: This afternoon
November 29, 7:33 p.m.
Dude,
I know we haven’t hung out in ages—like, not since we were in high school—so let’s definitely do that at some point. I got all these cool vapes from work, and if memory serves (spring break of 2008, fuck yeah), that is very much up your alley.
Crazy shit this afternoon. I got home at four to take my sister to the dentist, and I swear I was about to swing by next door to see if you were there—like, literally my hand was on the knob—when this girl ran up out of nowhere and just, like, perched on your top step. She was wearing this long pink coat that was, like, the texture of stucco and one of those pink Jackie Kennedy circle hats or some shit in, like, the exact same color. And big black sunglasses. Is this ringing any bells??
We sort of, like, made eye contact through her glasses—like I said, I was on my way out—and she was all, “Oh, do you know if Elijah Huck still lives here?” and inside my head I was like, Uhhh, Elijah is probably trying to shake this chick, but instead I was like, “Yeah, he does, he’ll be home in a few hours.” She just stared at me for, like, a minute and then kind of, like, scurried away.
So if you don’t know who she is or are trying to shake her for some reason, she definitely knows where you live now. Sorry ‘bout that. Are you still a virgin, by the way? If so, my sister is single.
OK, peace out,
Dusty
To: Lael Goldwasser
From: Flora Goldwasser
Subject: Mum
November 29, 11:41 p.m.
Dear Lael,
Let me start off by saying that I don’t blame you in the slightest for spending Thanksgiving in Cambridge. Mum’s was miserable.
I took the train into Manhattan and waited for Mum outside Grand Central, on Lex. It was freezing, and she was late. When I finally saw her rushing toward me in a heavy cashmere sweater, waving frantically, I staggered toward her with my heavy suitcase. We took a taxi to her place.
Mum has redecorated. She has pictures of impoverished, Great-Depression-era Appalachia all over her walls (don’t ask me why): landscapes of big hollers and mountains, people with coal-smeared faces. The kitchen, which we both know she doesn’t use, is teeming with pots and pans, some dirty, others clean.
“You’re cooking now?” I asked her.
“Just a little bit,” Mum said, rushing into the kitchen to open the oven. She peered inside as though this was how she usually operated (ha!). “My friend Nell is helping me.”
Her friend Nell? Do you know of a Nell? Because I didn’t.
“Who’s Nell?” I asked.
“She’s just a friend,” Mum said, her head still buried in the oven. “She’s an editor at, um, a big publishing company—I can’t remember the name of it right now, but she can tell you all about it over dinner tonight.”
Dinner. Tonight. I had somehow assumed that we’d go the usual route of Indian takeout and a Katharine Hepburn classic like Adam’s Rib.
“You invited her over for dinner tonight?” I tried to hide my dismay, but it was hard. I was tired. I didn’t want Friend Nell. I wanted naan and Adam’s Rib.
“She’s the one who gave me the recipe, so I wanted to have her over.” Mum looked pained. “I’m sorry if you wanted it to be just the two of us.”
It wasn’t worth it to argue, so I said I was just tired from the crush of work right before break.
“Nell will be eager to hear about all your classes,” Mum enthused. “She’s an avid reader.”
Funny that MUM didn’t seem to be interested in any of my classes. She’d asked me barely two questions about Quare. It’s to be expected, I guess, but still, you know how it rankles.
I went to change my clothes, and I guess I was so tired that I fell asleep on the bed in the guest bedroom, which is what I’ll continue to call “my” bedroom until Mum makes any effort to make me feel welcome. The next thing I knew, someone was pounding on the front door.
“Nell is here!” Mum exclaimed, clapping her hands together like Katharine Hepburn herself had arrived. I staggered up and dragged myself into a seated position on my bed.
Mum opened the door to reveal a fantastically tall woman with thick hips and a long crooked nose. Her black hair was streaked with gray. By her side, barely grazing her knee, was a small boy. I stared.
“You brought Victor!” Again, the handclap. “Flora, come here and meet Nell and her son, Victor.”
I hopped off my bed and made my way to the door. I shook her hand awkwardly. It was big, chapped, and dry. Then Nell pushed Victor forward, and I tried to shake his hand too, but it was tiny and limp. Victor buried his face in Nell’s baggy pants and tried to blow a raspberry, only the fabric of her pants got caught in his mouth and he ended up gagging a little.
Mum ushered everyone into the kitchen. We actually sat at the table, a first. The pot roast she’d m
ade was dry, but Nell quickly assured Mum that it was still edible—and besides, she was still learning.
“I’ll come over next week and we’ll do potatoes,” said Nell, poking at the (undercooked) baked potato on her plate.
“Oh, will you? I would so appreciate it,” Mum gushed. “Flora, isn’t the food good?”
Obviously, I’ve been a vegetarian since I was ten, so I was just like, “Mum. It’s murder.”
She just blew out air through her nose.
There was a conversation, but I wasn’t participating. I gathered that Nell had adopted Victor from Vietnam a few years before, and he was still adjusting to life in America. I also gathered that it was just the two of them—Nell and Victor, no life partner of any kind. Nell leaned her elbows on the table, didn’t put her napkin in her lap, and belched liberally.
After dinner, Mum reached into the oven to pull out a burned pie. “Who wants dessert?” she asked, placing the pie on the table. Nell peered down on the pie, which was small and scalded looking. “Honey, did you forget about it or something?”
HONEY?
Nell reached for the knife and cut into the pie. Cherry filling oozed out. Mum knows I love cherry pie, so I was just about to thank her when Nell said, “Victor, look! Aunt Emma made cherry, just for you!”
AUNT EMMA? JUST FOR YOU?
Mum nodded bashfully, and I said nothing. I didn’t have any pie. I just sat fuming, my legs tucked in front of me to form a barrier between me and Nell.
After dessert, Mum made tea. “Would you mind playing with Victor while Nell and I talk in here?” she asked. “He likes to look through my photography books under the coffee table.”