ANTHROPOLOGICAL
OBSERVATION #23:
Classical comedies usually culminate in marriage. For the American adolescent, the social dramedy usually culminates at a dance.
I watched Jimmy disappear into the sweaty crowd. I held the paper flower he’d given me.
ANTHROPOLOGIST’S NOTE:
Gifts of contrition are important parts of apology rituals in many cultures. For instance, for a ritual apology in Fiji, the apologizer may offer tabua, or sperm whale teeth, as a rare and precious gift.
ADDITIONAL NOTE:
Margaret Mead once said, “Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.” This quotation had always sort of depressed me. Tonight it was oddly reassuring.
When the next song began, I rose from my seat and found my friends on the dance floor. I tried to pin the flower to my strap, but it wouldn’t stay put while I danced.
NOTE TO THE ANTHROPOLOGIST’S MOTHER IF SHE EVER READS THIS:
I knew these discount dresses were a terrible idea! Even with this non-terrible one chosen by Margo and me and Berneatha, the straps would not stick to my skinny shoulders, and now that I was dancing like crazy (dancing in a way that would make you, Mom, beam with pride, if you could actually see me from where all the older people are hanging out on the other side of the Elks’ Lodge), I couldn’t keep the darn thing up. Every five seconds, I found myself hiking the dress up so my bird-chest nipples didn’t spring greetings onto the world.
Despite the dress, I admit: I was having fun. Just then, someone grabbed my elbow. I turned. “Paul?”
“Hey, I’ve been trying to catch you all night. You’ve been breaking it down out here.” He smiled and his eyes crinkled in that eager-to-please way he had. My hands went cold, and my heart started popping like a popcorn popper.
“Listen, do you wanna step outside so that we can hear a little better?” he asked.
I paused, unsure of myself, but then looked at Margo, motioning toward Paul. She nodded, shooing me on, never breaking rhythm. Adjusting my dress once more, I followed him outside.
The air in the Elks’ Lodge parking lot was cool compared to inside. We could still hear the dull thump of speakers. The sweat on my shoulders made me shiver.
“Here,” Paul offered. “Do you want my jacket?”
I took it. Paul’s jacket smelled of coffee and a strong men’s cologne that he must’ve borrowed from his dad. As I draped it over my damp shoulders, I imagined myself as a character in a movie — this was the moment when the guy gives the girl his jacket, the pre-romantic moment. Then, just as quickly, I reminded myself not to be ridiculous.
“Nice night,” Paul observed, propping one foot up on a low wall by the walkway. He gestured toward the full orange moon. I looked at the orange glow hovering over the Melva supermarket, and then at Paul. He’d tried to tame his curly hair with some sort of gel. Now it clung in stiff half waves on his head. It looked terrible, but I appreciated the effort. He had on tuxedo pants but was wearing an old R.E.M. T-shirt instead of a tuxedo shirt — probably something from his older brother — and Chucks instead of dress shoes.
I realized that I wanted to touch Paul — an arm, a hand, anything — more than I’d ever wanted to touch anyone else in my life. I wanted to feel the weight of his breath moving up and down in his chest and — oh, God! Stop it!
Paul coughed. “Umm —” He cleared his throat and coughed again. “So the day we went for bagels, I was going to tell you something else, along with the dumb little anthropology paper. And then I was going to try to tell you again the other day too, when we got ice cream. But for some reason I didn’t do it then either.”
He looked at me full-on with his kind brown eyes. Nervously I jerked at my dress and did a nipple check.
“I was going to tell you then that Susannah and I broke up.”
“I heard afterward,” I said. “I’m really sorry.”
Confession: I was not sorry at all.
“No, it’s okay. We didn’t get along that well anyway…. So I was also going to ask if you needed a Livermush escort. But you never let me ask. And then I felt bad about the list, and I told myself it’s probably too late anyway….”
I felt that annoying flush creeping up my neck and onto my face. That’s what he’d been starting to say? Impossible. “As friends, right? Well, we’ve known each other a long time, I guess. Sorry for cutting you off that day. I was … well, what you said about me being hypercritical, well … I think there’s some truth to it. And it hurt my feelings a little because it seemed true…. Sorry, side note. Friends?”
He kicked the wall his foot had been resting on nervously. A bit of cement dust wafted to the sidewalk.
“Um, well, friends would have been okay too, I guess. But I was going to ask you, umm, like … as a date-date. Wow, this is sounding corny. See? You’re not the only one who sometimes hangs back … who needs a little push.”
“To do what?” I asked.
Just then, there were voices at the door. Missy Wheeler emerged, walking beside, of all people, Chuck Healey. Chuck Healey! And he looked, well, almost cute in his tux tonight, I had to admit. Missy saw us and waved, looking a little embarrassed.
“Hey, y’all,” she called. “Just getting some fresh air.”
Paul and I watched them walk out of our line of sight. Paul nudged me and winked.
“I told you he was a good guy,” Paul said, smiling. “Your pal Missy thinks so.”
“Yeah,” I replied, grinning. Daisuke/Chuck was A-OK — at least no weirder than the rest of us. “Anyway, you were saying?”
“I dunno. I get nervous about things and back away, I guess. Like with you.”
“Like that night? Like when you needed to feed Barker suddenly?” I asked, thinking of the terrifically embarrassing, formerly unmentionable moment of the Almost-Kiss.
He tilted his head, smiling. “Yeah. Like that. Dumb,” he said, studying me in a way that made my throat feel like it was closing off and I could get no more air. “And what I’d actually meant to do was …”
He trailed off then and looked down, and I could see even in the streetlight that the rims of his ears had turned bright red. He became preoccupied with a small stone on the sidewalk, kicking it back and forth between his toes. Almost, almost, I thought — but this time I didn’t feel embarrassed. Just patient.
“A date-date doesn’t sound corny,” I said. “Am I one of your fads?”
He laughed. “No, no … and I’m serious about at least seventy percent of those fads anyway. I’m evolving into a more stick-with-it type guy.” He smiled at me.
I smiled back at him. At that moment, that Magic Moment, I felt my stegosaurus shoulder blades blend into my back, and my worried, woolly-worm eyebrows relax into gentle commas, and my skinny frog arms and legs almost look pretty there in the moonlight…. And my best possible, self-chosen discount dress, well, it was all right — even ironically cool.
“I may have evolved myself,” I said. “I may be destined to be something other than an anthropologist anyway…. Something else …”
“Does that happen? Do die-hard anthropologists change their stripes?”
I shrugged. “Maybe I’m just in the process of becoming a better anthropologist…. Regardless, I’m becoming a Woman of Action. Let’s go dance.”
“Not yet. First I want you to read this,” Paul said.
He handed me a folded sheet of paper. Here it is, in its entirety:
After I read the entire list, I kept staring at the paper in my hand. I shivered, but I wasn’t cold. It was weird to read all these things, to see that Paul had been noticing them the whole time. It felt like he knew me. I looked up at him. I like-liked him too.
He had smiley brown eyes. Something about the way his face was tilted made me a little short of breath. It occurred to me that he finally might kiss me.
ANTHROPOLOGIST’S NOTE:
The field is in disagreement about the origins of kissing — w
hether it is a learned or instinctive behavior. It might be related to the grooming behavior that we see in other animals (dogs licking, etc.) or to mothers chewing food up for their children. True, neither of these options sounds very romantic.
ADDITIONAL NOTE:
Kissing also allows for prospective mates to smell each other’s pheromones. Supposedly we are more attracted to people whose genetic makeup is dissimilar from our own. Evolutionarily this is supposed to lead to offspring with greater disease resistance.
I suddenly had the desperate need to cough. His face was very near mine, and I couldn’t hold it in. I coughed. Our foreheads hit.
“Ouch,” he said.
“Sorry!” I said.
Ordinarily I would have been excruciatingly embarrassed by this — so much so that I would have made an excuse and fled. Instead we both stood there, looking with amusement at each other. We were alone at the side of the Elks’ Lodge. I could hear the happy shouting of our classmates from inside, the faint bass thump of the music.
“Take two,” he said.
Then Paul’s face was close to mine again, and he was kissing me. His mouth was slow and soft and kind, and we only bumped noses once (it wasn’t even painful), and when our teeth clicked, I stifled a private giggle, and the whole beautifully awkward transaction went on and on and on, and I felt the long-held tension between us release like the hiss of air from a balloon, and I learned the sweet, specific taste of his fruit-punch mouth.
(I would have imagined the kiss scene for my movie heroine in just the same way — perfectly imperfect, gloriously clumsy.)
We pulled back from each other and stared. Then I burst out laughing.
“What?” asked Paul. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m just happy.”
ANTHROPOLOGIST’S NOTE:
And that, more than the Miss Livermush Pageant, more than the dance, more than any specific birthday or the prom, was the coming-of-age moment I’d been waiting for. And I had no criticisms. I wouldn’t have wished it any other way. I didn’t want to rewrite a word.
ADDITIONAL NOTE TO MARK ALDENDERFER, PH.D.:
Although this format may be unconventional, I’m hopeful that you and the Current Anthropology editorial board might see something here in my observations worthy of publication in your journal. And I’m always open to further research. I’m learning to be a better anthropologist every day.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Big thanks to my agent, Miriam Altshuler, for finding this manuscript a home, and to my editor, Cheryl Klein, for her help shaping my hopeful jumble into a real book. I couldn’t have asked for more insightful readers. More generally, a heartfelt thanks to all those who’ve encouraged my writing endeavors — fiction, poetry, or otherwise — along the way: in particular, thank you, UNC–Chapel Hill Creative Writing Program, especially Michael McFee; thank you, Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, especially Mary Jo Salter and Dave Smith; thank you, Corporation of Yaddo; thank you, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. A huge thank-you to the ever-charming David Prude for his excellent photography. I’d also like to acknowledge the Sarah Vowell segment on the This American Life episode entitled “What You Lookin’ At?” to which Paul refers when discussing the pinkness of goth. (And if you aren’t already a listener, I should add that This American Life is a great radio show. You should go listen as soon as you finish reading this page.)
Shout out to Shelby High School and the Shelby High School class of 1998. Shout out to Shelby, North Carolina. Love and gratitude to my hometown girls, Leigh Ann and Rebecca, and to my bff since high school days, Mary Lattimore, who is still one of the most incredible people I’ve ever had the privilege to know. Love and thanks to my remarkable siblings for being the best in the world: to my clever and hilarious brother Alex, for his title brainstorming help and steadfast enthusiasm; to my wonderful brother Lane, for always supporting me and keeping me hip to what the DJs are playing; to my best sister, Adie, for bringing me extra sweetness and light when I need it. Pearson siblings, you rock the party that rocks the party. And of course, most of all, thank you, Mom and Dad, for having been (and continuing to be) my tireless champions since day one. And thank you, Nana and Grandaddy. You’re the best. Finally, love and thanks to my brilliant, patient husband, Matthew Smith, for everything, everything, everything.
About the Author
JOANNA PEARSON grew up in the actual Livermush Capital of the World – Shelby, North Carolina – but thankfully she never had to compete in a Miss Livermush pageant! She received both her medical degree and a Master’s in Fine Arts from Johns Hopkins University, and is currently completing her residency in psychiatry in Baltimore, Maryland. Her poetry and essays have appeared in the New York Times “Modern Love” column, the Journal of the American Medical Association, StorySouth, and the Bellevue Literary Review, among other publications. Please visit her website at www.joannapearson.com.
Copyright
Text copyright © 2011 by Joanna Pearson
Cover art & design © 2011 by Phil Falco
Photography by Kenneth C. Zirkel
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Pearson, Joanna.
The rites and wrongs of Janice Wills / Joanna Pearson. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-545-19773-1
1. Coming of age — Fiction. 2. Anthropology — Fiction. 3. Interpersonal relations — Fiction. 4. High schools — Fiction. 5. Schools — Fiction. 6. Family life — North Carolina — Fiction. 7. North Carolina — Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.P323135Rit 2011
[Fic] — dc22
2010029348
First edition, July 2011
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eISBN: 978-0-545-38894-8
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