Invisible Girl

by Mary Hanlon Stone

  “Ahnt, ahnt, ahnt,” Leslie imitates me, then looks at Annie. “I love the way she talks.”

  I look guilelessly past Eva and latch onto the last girl. “And the best for last?”

  This earns me a big smile from a girl who is like a sleepy peach. She should be pretty with her light brown hair, green eyes and perfect skin, but she isn’t. Maybe her older sister is a knockout or her mom was at her age.

  “Hi, I’m Emily,” she says and looks almost embarrassed to be the center of attention, even for a second. Her shoulders slope so at first I think she’s humiliated by her lack of development like I am. Then she swats a mosquito and I see two perfectly acceptable breasts jiggle.

  Annie claps her hands together. “Here, here, here. Having made all the introductions with my eastern seaboard cousin, who’s got the goods?”

  The goods? Like goodies?

  I try to keep the wrinkles out of my forehead and look just as casual as the other girls while Eva fumbles in her backpack. If it’s cookies, I hope they’re chocolate.

  Eva pulls out a silver case, and for a moment I see my mother’s red flashing nails and silver bangles pulling out a long Virginia Slim.

  Eva pulls out a shorter cigarette. “Marlboro Light?” she says, tipping the case toward me.

  “Ah, sure,” I say. “Thanks.” I reach out and take a cigarette, for the first time in my life touching one that isn’t smashed in the bottom of an ashtray that I’m cleaning.

  “Brand okay?” Eva says, keeping an eye on me as she tosses another cigarette to Leslie.

  My “Um, fine” is muffled by Annie’s scratching through Eva’s backpack for a lighter. Eva sits back, pleased with the obvious display of Annie’s comfort and familiarity with her possessions.

  While Annie rummages, Eva focuses back on me. I feel her eyes like two scalpels on me, eager to cut back my fragile layers and show everyone how dirty I am inside. “Cute outfit,” she says. Her tone is neutral on the surface, but her eyes are scornful and mocking. I can tell she’s disappointed when none of the other girls turn to stare at my pathetic red-and-gray-striped shirt.

  “Finally,” Annie says, pulling out Eva’s lighter. She expertly flicks the lighter, holding it to the end of her cigarette until it glows like a dark red firefly. She tosses Eva the lighter. Eva sticks her cigarette in the side of her mouth and ignites her lighter, but instead of lighting her own cigarette first, she holds the lighter up to me. Her nails are short and manicured with a dark brown polish.

  For a moment, I watch the tiny flame arch against the black night. It reminds me of the candles at church and guilt flickers in my stomach. I’ve got two seconds to decide if this is a sin and if so, of what magnitude.

  I know it’s not one of the commandments and I know it’s not listed anywhere I’ve read. I tuck my cigarette in the corner of my mouth and lean close to the flame Eva holds in front of my face, breathing in the way I watched Annie do it. Smoke curls into my throat. I desperately need to cough, but I can tell that Eva is praying I will.

  I hold the smoke in as it scorches the pale pink lining of my windpipe. I picture the roof of my mouth blackened with ripples of cancer breaking the surface in little white pustules. Tears spring to my eyes that I hope are swallowed by the darkness. I’ll die before I let myself cough. I stare at Eva and slowly let the smoke out through the small O of my mouth. As if bored, she turns away from me.

  We smoke quietly for a while as if we’ve all put in a long day in construction and it’s time for a well-deserved break. Annie leans her head back and exhales gray puffs that thin out as they climb to the trees. Our flashlight campfire glows. The wind ruffles my hair and the moon is almost full with streaks of clouds over it. It is a perfect setting to bring back Martha Washington in a séance, but I don’t suggest it because I’m sure it’s too babyish.

  Eva lights a new cigarette off of her old one and leans forward. “Who’s up for T or D?”

  “Yesss!” Annie cries. “Leslie’s first.”

  “Why do I have to go first?”

  “Because you went to the bridge with Ben last night.”

  “Really?” Emily heaves. “Oh, she’s definitely first.”

  Leslie hides her face behind her hands, but by the way she’s laughing, I know she’s excited to go first.

  “Truth or dare,” Annie barks.

  Leslie says, “Truth” immediately. Apparently giving the choice is just a formality. The girls all bend in toward Leslie, ready to devour her words.

  “How far did you go with Ben last night?” Annie asks.

  Leslie groans as though this was the one question she’d hoped they wouldn’t ask.

  I realize that I’m nervous about what I’m about to hear, afraid I won’t be able to offer reciprocal experiences of my own.

  “Well,” Leslie says, running her hand through her hair. “I let him . . .” She buries her head, then wiggles her first and middle finger.

  The other girls scream. My stomach tightens. Even though I’ve been stuck in Catholic school, I’ve known about the time-honored sign for showing that a guy put his hand in your pants since sixth grade. I’ve just never known anyone who personally participated.

  I look at Leslie to see if I would have guessed, just by looking at her, that this is a girl who did this.

  I force an expression of casual interest on my face and then notice in alarm that my cigarette ash has become abnormally long. I tap it off violently, and then hope no one notices as I stub it out clumsily in the dirt.

  I pray I’m not up next.

  “How about our little Bostonian,” Eva yells, fake-friendly. “T or D?”

  The other girls shift to get a better look at me. Leslie looks slightly miffed that more inquiry wasn’t made into her bold venture into womanhood.

  I’m dying. “Truth,” I say, as I know there’s only one choice.

  I can taste the bitter nicotine on my tongue and the insides of my cheeks. I wonder if there’s a slight scum of smoke on my teeth.

  “How far have you gone?” Eva demands.

  I look quickly at Annie as if she might say, “Hey, guys, this is between my cousin and me,” but she’s leaning forward, an eager wolf like the rest of them.

  I’m desperate to come up with the correct answer. I have no idea if Leslie is the norm or the deviation. Is she the first of them to do it or the last? Is it worse to appear inexperienced or a slut? Not that they seem to consider Leslie a slut, but maybe her allowing a guy to put his hand in her pants is excused precisely because of the magnitude of her bosom, as if its primitive cry could not be denied.

  I feel a slight sweat on my upper lip and want to wipe it, but I don’t want to let them see me wiping it. At the last second I blurt, “Just feeling up,” because I fear Eva may ask me specifics about the experience of fingering.

  Eva rakes her eyes over my minuscule breasts, then says, laughing, “That must have been quick.” Everyone laughs, even Annie, and I hate them all so much I want to raise a stick and puncture the very breasts that give them the arrogance to laugh at mine.

  Instead, I force a half smile on my face, its frozen curve growing hard as I wait for the laughter to ebb and it to be someone else’s turn.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The whole Sullivan family now knows I don’t have a bathing suit. Annie came bounding into my room this morning and said we were going to the club today. I told her that I “forgot” my bathing suit and she immediately screamed, “Omigod! She comes to L.A. with no bathing suit. Omigod!”

  Her brothers were just stumbling out of their rooms to go to breakfast and she did a “Maaaaaw” right in one of their faces and repeated the whole thing even louder.

  Hearing this, Aunt Sarah began scrambling in their attic and has come into my room with one of Annie’s old suits she’d been meaning to donate. They both stand there as if they are expecting me to strip and try it on right in front of them.

  I force myself to act excited and thank her for the suit. I tell her I�
�m sure it will be perfect and that I’ll just put it on at the club.

  I’m really thinking that maybe I’ll get hit by a car on the way and never have to do it. I have no intention of meeting any more of Annie’s terrifying friends with their aggressive puberty and vast sexual experience. After my turn last night, Annie disclosed that she had let her tennis instructor, John Keswick III, do the finger thing.

  We never got to Eva’s sexual history. After the “omigods” and “no ways” about Annie and a discussion about when (a week ago), where (his parents’ house) and if they would hook up again (yes!), Eva looked at her watch and said she had to get home by nine thirty because her parents were coming in from Europe.

  Today, everyone’s meeting at their club at ten. Annie tells me she can’t wait for me to meet “the guys” and John Keswick III. John is seventeen and Annie says everyone mostly calls him JKIII because he’s one of those “the thirds.” He’s not a real tennis instructor. He just helps out in the summer because he’s like number one on the school tennis team and the club pro loves him. Annie said her parents would kill her if they found out she was going out with him.

  I wish I didn’t have to meet him. I’ve never spoken to a seventeen-year-old boy in my life, much less one who has put his hands all over my sort-of cousin. What if he asks me questions about Boston like Eva did? What if he knows that I know what he did? Even worse, what if he sees me in a bathing suit and says, “Hey, is your cousin, like, twelve?”

  I could totally die.

  I wish I required immediate hospitalization for something. I stopped thinking God was good when my mom threw me down the stairs and gave me a concussion when I was ten. He could really make a comeback now if he’d just strike me ill. Nothing major, just like appendicitis or tonsillitis, so the doctor, who would have white hair and a TV-dad face, could tell Aunt Sarah, “I’m sorry, but this young lady isn’t going to be doing any swimming for a long, long time.”

  I’m considering saying I’m sick when Annie says, “Let’s go!” and races downstairs into the kitchen. I follow her because I don’t know what else to do. She grabs two glasses and pours us orange juice. I’m hoping maybe Aunt Sarah will come down and we’ll have a long, leisurely breakfast, but Annie downs her juice in about thirty seconds and says, “Let’s start diets and not eat anything else today.”

  Despite the rumble of hunger in my stomach and my commitment to eating my way into boobs, there’s no way I’m going to ask for anything, even though I saw her brothers eating Pop-Tarts, which we never had at home because my mom always said they were too expensive.

  We go into Annie’s garage and she hops on a beautiful blue bike, motioning to an equally perfect red one beside it. “You can ride my old one,” she says.

  We pedal off down her street and I don’t ask why she needed a new bike, as I am for the moment thrilled with the smooth glide of the wheels and the brilliant flowers that flicker by us like jumbled jewels. It doesn’t even matter that I can’t sit on the seat while my feet are on the pedals.

  After twenty minutes we pull up the wide driveway of the Bennington Country Club. It looks like a judge’s mansion because it has big white pillars and black shutters. We park our bikes at the bike rack and lock them while Annie says, “I can’t wait ’til I get my license. A couple years from now I’ll be cruising up here in a convertible.”

  We carry our backpacks to the side gate where the pool is and Annie signs us in. The pool is enormous and shimmering. Half the lanes are blocked off with lines of black buoys for serious swimmers. A huge sundeck is to our left. Beneath it is a snack bar with little tables and a counter with stools. To our right is the ladies’ locker room. My backpack is heavy against my shoulder. Inside it is a rolled-up towel and in the middle of the towel is the bathing suit, huddled like a sleeping snake.

  Annie hurries into the locker room. I follow her, my feet heavy as if my tennis shoes were made of wet concrete. She tosses her backpack onto a wooden bench. “You can use my locker for your stuff,” she says. She pulls off her shirt and I feel a strange panic at the sight of her womanly breasts inside a white bra.

  I scoot toward the stall ahead of us and say over my shoulder, “I just have to pee.”

  Inside the stall I feel so much pressure I could burst. I open my backpack and take out the towel. I hadn’t really even looked at the bathing suit at the house. I just rolled it up in the towel as if it would bite me if I held it too long. I pull out the top with a shaking hand. It’s a blue band with black flowers. A whisper of relief caresses me—at least there are no cups, which would lie empty until a wayward arm or leg in the pool knocked into one of them and crushed it.

  I pull off my shirt and my training bra. I hook the bathing suit top in the front and slide it around to the back. Next, I step out of my shorts and underwear and put on the bottoms. Annie shouts, “Hurry up” through the door. I stuff my shorts and top into the backpack, and then open the door and hurry to the locker, afraid to make eye contact with Annie, who stands like a beach beauty right out of The O.C. in her orange-and-green bikini.

  “Let’s go,” she says, grabbing my arm, and as we rush into the sun, I catch a glimpse of us in the mirror, a tall blur of tan, blond, orange and green, followed by a short blend of olive, black, blue and purple.

  I blink in the sunlight. “They’re up on the sundeck,” she says, and I follow her smooth back with the indented waist up redwood stairs. Music blasts from someone’s iPod dock as we reach the top. Warm coconut oil mingles with the scent of some woman’s coffee and cigarette. Ahead of me, at the far end of the sundeck, is a wall of guys.

  Panic beats like a bird trapped in my chest. We walk closer. Annie tosses her head and her hair flashes like gold. We’re so close now I can hear the low hum of the guys’ voices and I think I can smell their guy sweat.

  I really need to get out of here, but there is absolutely no escape. Annie is jittery—I feel an invisible substance that jumps from the guys to her and back again. Half-naked bodies are pressing all around me. I can’t breathe. I feel small but on display, something so grossly inadequate that everyone will be compelled to look only to drop their eyes, shiver, and wish they hadn’t looked in the first place.

  My breath stops. Black rises in front of me. I’m about to faint, but at the last second I crawl up inside my head and beg for my words to save me. Stentorian storms through my brain as blasts of male laughter hit my ears. I can breathe again. I can even let the words disappear and look around me at the girls lying on their beach towels.

  Waves of calm take the tightness out of my chest. I’m a witness, not a participant. I’m Nancy Drew getting information for the case she’s trying to solve. None of these people are people I have to know. Just a collection of faces and names whose words will become part of my report to my father, Carson Drew.

  I look over at the wall of guys without fear and my eyes land on a strip of tight tanned stomach over a pair of blue bathing trunks. For a second, blood beats into my face, and then I remember I’m safe from this hot flesh with my Warrior Words, marching in my mind, while I just observe. When lascivious and turgid pounce into my thoughts, I even smile slightly, thinking of the books with bosoms on them I found under my mother’s side of the bed, and all the words I learned from them.

  “That’s John Keswick III,” Annie whispers, following my gaze and I look up from the blue bathing trunks to a muscular torso and the face of a movie star. He smiles, flashing perfect white teeth. He’s very tan with thick sandy brown hair, a man’s jaw and bright blue eyes.

  “Hey,” he says, dropping the hand with his iPhone as we walk closer, but he’s not looking at both of us. He only sees Annie.

  I peek at her, a stolen sideways glance. She grows in luster beside me. Beams of light glint from her hair. A fuzzy force field of hormones whirls around her body. Words from a National Geographic documentary we watched in social studies pop into my head: When the Yanamamo female is ready for marriage, she is dressed in rich tribal colo
rs and brought to a neighboring clan for inspection.

  “Am I getting a lesson today?” she asks JKIII. “I think I forgot my racket.”

  Giggling rises from the towels spread on the deck, and I look down and focus on the girls spread out in front of me. Leslie and Emily are slathered in suntan oil and hunched over a Facebook message on Leslie’s BlackBerry. Eva has a hat on and probably lots of sunscreen because of her fair skin. She’s not even aware of the other two girls, but in her own world, texting on her iPhone.

  That’s something that you don’t see in my neighborhood in Boston. Even though most kids have cell phones by the end of eighth grade, no one has a BlackBerry or an iPhone because they’re way too expensive. Most kids have one or two old Dell computers at home and have to wait for other sibs to do term papers and homework before they can check their Facebooks.

  I, of course, don’t have any kind of phone since when I suggested to my mom that we both get one, she said that if God had wanted her to be a prisoner of technology, she would have been born with a metal chip in her head.

  I never even brought up getting Facebook, even though we have a computer on the desk in the living room that my dad uses for law school, because the whole point of that is having friends to keep up with.

  Leslie says to me, “Throw your towel down here,” and slides hers over to make room.

  The direct contact wrenches me completely out of my safe observation surrounded by Warrior Words. I’m back, underdeveloped and exposed, on a sundeck in Los Angeles with kids who send sexual signals to each other so strong I can almost smell them. Hurriedly, I unroll my towel next to hers and lie down on my stomach so no one will notice my chest.

  Leslie sits up holding a bottle of suntan lotion. “Do you want me to do your back?” she asks. “Emily already did mine.”

  I nod, caught off guard in this world of reciprocal female acts. She rubs the cream over my back. Her hands are strong and warm. The sun feels good. “You should undo your strap,” she tells me. “You’ll get a mark.”