by Iman Verjee
‘You,’ he looks at me tentatively and I see the worry in his eyes. ‘I wanted to ask you—you haven’t told anyone about,’ he stops again, lowers his voice to barely a whisper. ‘Us?’
‘Of course not.’ I shake my head vehemently. ‘You know I wouldn’t do that. You asked me not to.’
‘Good.’ He gives me a small kiss but he is distracted. He turns away, lost in thought. ‘Because you know, people just won’t understand.’
‘No,’ I reply, marveling at how special our relationship is; how the secrecy makes it all the more exciting. ‘I guess they won’t.’
4
St Albert. May 1992
The blood comes late and with the end of spring. The rain looks blue through the tinted window above the bathtub. I always forget to draw the curtains and I don’t do it now because I am too busy staring down at my stained underwear. What an ordinary brown. I had hoped my insides would be beautiful; wet, shiny and ruby red like my mother’s lips. This brownish, chipped stain doesn’t make me feel like a woman. I rub my fingers against it and then hold them to my nose. I like how it smells; like something old, full of the women who have come before me and those who are still waiting.
I call out for Bubbie because she is the only one home. My mother is at one of the neighbor’s houses, after promising to help them prune their roses, and I’m glad I don’t have to share this with her. I stretch toward the door knob, pushing it open and settling back when I hear the quiet shuffling of her feet. I feel wings of nervous excitement pound against my chest and I can’t help but smile widely as my grandmother peers through the door. Her gray hair falls loose and surprisingly thick over her thin shoulders.
‘Come in,’ I mouth the words, so used to her silence that I sometimes stop talking around her. I point giddily with my hands and when she comes closer, I thrust my finger downward. ‘Look what’s happened.’
Bubbie stares at me through her curtain of silver and her mouth twitches and her eyes jerk up to meet mine. My heart vibrates in silent anticipation. Welcome, Frances! You’re finally here. Instead, she begins to cry; slumping against the sink and holding her head in her hands.
‘Bubbie!’ I am alarmed, thinking that perhaps something has gone wrong—that this isn’t what I thought it was.
She grabs my cheek and turns it sharply upward. She says something and, at first, I am too distracted by the foreign sound of her voice—reedy and unsure—that I don’t hear what she says.
‘You tell your father about this, sweetheart, you hear?’ She knocks me gently on the chin. ‘The pads are under the sink.’
My grandmother, talking for the first time in three years; her words are rusty and seem to belong to the past. They bounce uncomfortably off her tongue. She makes a move to say more and I lean forward, but then she is backing quickly out, anxious eyes darting everywhere, terrified of the ghostly reverberation of her words.
When I emerge fifteen minutes later with thick cotton between my legs and an ache for her to refer to me so affectionately once more, I find that her voice has receded into the pinkish depths of her throat and I know it’s never coming back.
I decide not to follow Bubbie’s advice, so my first few days of womanhood pass in a whirlwind of secret-keeping; a memory that is entirely my own. To my parents, I am still their little girl, but away from them, in school, I grow and swell and burst open. I love feeling the blood against me; it’s warm and thick and sometimes it pushes forward with such intensity that I have to cross my legs in an effort to contain it. It transforms me from freckled-nose Frances into someone resembling my mother. I begin to walk like her, hips swaying, and sit like her, one leg crossed over the other. I catch people staring at me the way they look at her; with a mixture of awe and desperation in their eyes. I steal her sunglasses and wear them during lunch, sprawling my new body over the sweet-smelling grass. Love notes have started to slip into my locker, you are a red-headed goddess; be mine, Frances McDermott; you have sexy legs. Boys whistle as I walk by and even girls, wanting to benefit from my new position, shyly offer up gifts of lipsticks and chocolates.
I fall in love with myself in front of the mirror, brushing my hair and smiling. You’re beautiful, you know that? Almost overnight, my features cross the line from awkward to pretty and my body settles into an easy gracefulness that people seem to admire.
One lazy lunchtime, I am lying on the school quad, feeling the sun burn through my skin. It plays games behind my eyes, forming confusing red images that streak and tease the insides of my lids and, no matter how hard I try, I cannot figure out what they’re supposed to be.
‘Hello.’
A shadow comes across my face and my eyes flicker open. I hold up my palm to shield my gaze from the light and I see a big smile and a head of dark, curly hair.
‘Hi.’
‘I’m Tom.’ The boy falls down next to me. He tries to cross his legs but they are too long so he ends up sprawling them in front of him. I know who he is; Tom Porter, the over-confident and charming senior that every girl has her eye on. What I don’t know is why he is talking to me.
‘Frances,’ I say.
‘Nice shades.’ The way he is grinning at me makes my body stir pleasantly. It reminds me of someone else.
‘Thanks.’ From the corner of my eye, I see Kylie coming down the path and I sit up, leaning closer to Tom, wanting her to see me. ‘You can borrow them anytime.’
He laughs warmly and, as I hoped, Kylie’s ears prick at the sound and her eyes shoot toward us. For a moment, our gazes meet and I smile in triumph before turning back to Tom. I know that she has liked him for a long time. We spent countless nights talking about the way his hair fell perfectly to the side in a thick wave. The length of his body and how it made everyone and everything around him seem small and insignificant. Rather, Kylie did and I listened, wondering if she felt the same way about him—the heady, painful joy that I had only recently discovered myself. I am glad I have this opportunity to hurt her, after what she has done to me.
‘How come I’ve never seen you around before?’ he asks, leaning back on his elbows and tilting his face up to mine.
‘Maybe you weren’t looking.’
He laughs again and Kylie rushes down the path, her pace angry. We lapse into silence after that. Now that there is no longer someone to put a show on for, I have lost interest. So I settle back down and close my eyes. I can feel him watching me closely.
‘What are you doing on Saturday?’ he asks.
‘I don’t know. Why?’
‘Do you want to come to a party with me?’ There is a sliver of doubt in his voice and it is pleasing to think that he is nervous around me. I stare at him through the dark lenses for a long time. A part of me wants to say yes. To hold his arm and go to this party. To feel everyone’s eyes on me and have them take notice and be envious of what I have. But it also feels like a betrayal. I know my father won’t like it and the thought of him being angry with me makes me shake my head.
‘I’m sorry, I’m busy.’
‘You just said you weren’t sure what you were doing.’ There is a whiny note to his voice that irritates me. I shrug, getting up and dusting the grass off my skirt. His eyes linger for a second too long and a hotness starts to spread down to my knees. ‘I just remembered I have some family stuff going on. Sorry.’ I throw the bag over my shoulder. ‘See you around, Tom.’
I feel his eyes bearing into my back as I walk away from him. My body takes on a form and gait of its own; straightening up and sliding into an unabashed confidence I have never had. I have never felt more powerful.
When I get home, I find Tom sitting at the dining table with my mother. He gives me a wink as I come through the front door.
‘I was just telling your mother about the party on Saturday night,’ he tells me.
‘Sounds like fun, darling,’ my mother says, blowing a cloud of smoke in front of her eyes. She reaches her arm out to stub her cigarette in the ashtray and Tom’s eyes follow her
movements; keenly watch the fingers twist the butt around and around to make sure it is completely out; see the way they turn up in gleeful surprise to the curve of her chest, suddenly exposed because a draft of wind comes through the open window and blows her hair back.
‘Yes,’ I say, wanting him to look at me that way instead. ‘Yes, it does sound like fun. Of course I’ll go with you, Tom.’
‘Really?’ At first, he sounds doubtful, but then he clears his throat and his face is shining with a smile again. It really is a lovely grin. ‘I’ll pick you up at eight then.’ He stands up and straightens out his polo shirt. ‘Great to meet you, Mrs. McDermott.’
‘Likewise.’ After her cigarette, her voice is husky and slow. If I felt powerful before in front of Tom, now I am just a little girl thrown into shadow by this startling woman blinking her long lashes expertly. I don’t look at her when he leaves and when she says to me, ‘Lovely boy, isn’t he?’ I sneer at the ground.
‘Don’t you think he’s a bit young for you?’ and then I turn and stalk out before she has a chance to answer.
When my father comes home, he is angry.
‘I don’t want a boy like that with my daughter. For God’s sake, Marienne.’ I watch him from the top of the stairs, as he paces angrily back and forth, pushing his hands through his hair, pausing to stare at her. ‘What were you thinking?’
‘It’s about time she started making some new friends.’ My mother stands calmly in front of him, unaffected by his anger. ‘I’m just doing what I think is best for our daughter.’
‘So you’re letting her go to some party with some…’ He throws his hands up in the air, waves them around, lost for words. ‘Some cocky sixteen-year-old?’
‘He seems like a sweet boy,’ she replies. ‘Besides, there’ll be a chaperone there.’
‘I don’t have to go,’ I interject from my position, staring down at them. I don’t want to upset him.
‘You’re going,’ she calls up firmly, turning back to my father. ‘She’s going, James,’ she repeats, placing a hand on his upper arm before turning to come up the stairs. When she passes me, she reaches out to stroke my hair but I move away from her. He stares up at me for a long time, something tight in his jaw, and when he comes up, he goes by me without a word and slams the door so that I can’t hear them anymore.
My mother finds out about my period when I leave a mark of red on the cream chair.
‘Honey?’
I turn to look from the chair to her hopeful face and I feel happy that I get to ruin this moment for her.
‘I already know.’
‘You know?’ She is visibly shocked; she looks at me as if she can’t really see me; as if I don’t belong to her.
‘I’ve had it for four days now.’
‘How come you never told me?’ she asks. ‘How did you even know what to do?’
‘You weren’t home,’ I shrug. ‘So I told Bubbie and she helped me. It’s not a big deal.’
‘Bubbie?’ My mother’s face crosses with confusion. She turns to my grandmother, who is sitting in her rocking chair by the T.V., staring at the blank screen. When she notices us watching, she turns. ‘How did Bubbie help?’
I want to tell her but there is a look in my grandmother’s eyes, a slight shake of her head, that stops me.
‘Elsie?’ My mother calls to my grandmother but is met with a resolute silence. Her old back turns to us once again. ‘Did she talk to you?’ she asks me.
‘No.’
‘Frances, if she did, you have to tell me.’
‘Look, I figured it out myself. It wasn’t hard.’
My mother walks to the sink and takes a dish towel that is neatly folded on the drying rack and puts it under the tap. She stays there for longer than necessary, allowing the water to run down her arms and splash against the metal sides of the basin. Then she wrings out the towel and dabs it gently at the chair.
‘You should have said something to me,’ she says finally.
‘Sorry.’ I resist the urge to smirk at her. After the incident with Tom, I am angrier with her than ever. Last night, my father had sat in the chair at my desk, not moving or talking, just straight and serious, staring at his own reflection. I was too self-conscious to ask him to come any closer; too afraid of being rejected. After thirty minutes, he stirred and I sat up straight.
‘I guess you don’t need me anymore,’ he said and left, even though my mother wasn’t due back home for another three hours.
Now, she stands close to me, rubbing the seat too hard. ‘These things—they’re important to talk about.’ She pauses, falters slightly. Then she looks at me and blinks hard. ‘I’m your mother, Frances.’
‘I’ll remember that next time,’ I say.
‘Good.’ She drops the towel onto the chair, leaving it to soak into the material which I know will only make the stain darker. She holds out her arms and I have no choice but to walk into them. ‘I’m really glad, sweetheart,’ she says. She sighs into my ear and I can feel her smiling against it. Maybe she thinks things will change between us now—that it will go back to how it used to be—but if there is one person my new state has made me dislike, it is my mother. I become aware of how beautiful she is; the perfect angles of her face and the wonderful slopes of her body—how different she is from my freckled paleness. I see the way she strokes my father’s thigh and whispers in his ear, her full lips grazing his skin. When she tells him my secret, I hate her. When she says, maybe she’s too old for story time now, I am sure she is punishing me for not telling her. When he stops coming, I am convinced I will die.
Tom picks me up in his father’s sky-blue Chevrolet. I feel my father watching me as I rush toward the door in my new white dress and it makes me smile.
‘Don’t be late,’ he calls out to me. His voice is stern and strong and it’s all I can do to keep from shutting the door and locking Tom out.
Tom has sprayed the inside of his car with cologne and he apologizes every time I sneeze. The party is at Ian Davy’s house. His parents are out of town and the chaperones are his eighteen-year-old cousins. Tom grins at me from the side of his face. ‘Do you think your mother bought it?’
‘I’m here, aren’t I?’ I answer and his smile quivers, unsure of what my tone means. So I smile reassuringly at him and he turns back to driving.
‘I feel bad lying to her about it, though.’ He squints through the darkness in front of us. ‘But I’m glad you came.’
We drive the rest of the way mainly in silence and join the party in the backyard with a swimming pool and the full moon. A tide of girls greets me as I come through the back door. Frances, let me get you a drink. Frances, that dress is amazing. Frances, you’re so lucky you came with Tom, girls I have never met before, those ones who have previously snickered behind my back, are now all vying for my attention. It feels a little uncomfortable, after all these months spent being unnoticed, to suddenly being liked; to be wanted by almost everyone. I see Kylie and her friend standing in a corner. They look at me then turn to each other in whispers and I shift my gaze from them and don’t look back for the rest of the night.
I notice that the pool is in the shape of a whale and that a barbeque pit sits right at the tip of its tail, where most of the boys and Ian’s older cousins are standing. The garden is surrounded by a fence covered in thick vines of purple flowers that curl upward and make me feel as if I am in a soft, closed off world, away from everything outside.
Tom hands me my first drink and I choke on it. I have my second and the hot liquid forces my eyes and throat to close. After my third one, my world descends into a tornado of bliss and by the fourth, everything has sunk into a haze except the solid feel of Tom’s hand through the thin material of my dress. Someone shows me how to smoke a cigarette and then teaches me how to get rid of the smell by running perfume-laced fingertips through my hair. Voices blend together and stretch out around me but Tom’s voice is steady and sure in my ear. Come with me, Frances. He joins our fingers t
ogether and leads me through the house. Past the glass coffee tables and the white couches in the living room. The dining area with its long mahogany table and eight chairs, even though Ian is an only child. I wonder if they have dinners here with those same cousins outside; if they have a large, extended family that comes over every Sunday for barbequing and smoking. I wonder if he is as lonely as I am. Through the kitchen with its French windows and spacious island, yellow daises in a black vase sitting on its top.
We climb the stairs into Ian’s room and I don’t have time to breathe before Tom’s mouth is on mine. I feel his tongue pressing against the roof of my mouth, the sides of it, forcing and unkind. His breath isn’t soft but labored and erratic. He sounds like a stupid animal. My name escapes his lips but it doesn’t come out right because he doesn’t love me. He takes my hand and puts it to his trousers, breathing through his teeth. A part of me is excited by this, but mostly, I just want him to stop and I try to pull away, but his fingers keep my head locked where it is. His hand finds its way to the band of the elasticated underwear I stole from my mother and I try to stop him but it’s too late. I feel his fingers pushing up inside me; his legs are forcing mine apart. Get off, get off. I bite into his shoulder and he shouts before shoving me away. The hole is beginning to rip my stomach to shreds, screaming out his name. Tom tries to reach for me again but I snap at his fingers, my teeth grazing his skin.
‘You’re fucking crazy,’ he says and he is gone. I fall to the floor, hugging my knees to my chest.
You’re the only one that I want.
Tom drops me home and hands me a breath mint without looking at me.
‘I don’t want your mother thinking I’m a bad influence.’
I slam the door, running up the porch steps as I hear him drive away. My father is waiting up for me, sitting in almost complete darkness. The only source of light comes from the houses opposite and from passing cars that shine triangles of gold through the spaces in our curtains. They stroke his throat, caressing his perfect, pear-shaped Adam’s apple, my favorite part of him.