Touch

by Francine Prose

  Joan says, “What about that girl singer, what’s her name, shaving her head and getting all those tattoos? Isn’t that appalling?”

  Silence. Not even Josh Darling is taking the bait. So Joan turns on the radio and talks along with the news, giving us her fascinating views on every foreign and domestic situation. I’ve learned to screen out Joan’s voice. I don’t want to form my opinions about the world just so they’re the opposite of Joan’s. I slump down in the backseat and put my hands over my ears.

  “Maisie?” Joan’s been watching me in her rearview mirror and making exaggerated motions when she talks so I can read her lips in case I happen to be deaf or can’t hear her over the radio, which in fact I hardly can.

  “What’s the matter now?” Joan’s not only the thought police, she’s the gesture police.

  I take my hands down from my ears. “Nothing,” I say. “Just thinking.”

  A contradiction, obviously. Something is the matter: I’m thinking ahead—to school. I’m wondering what new hell is waiting for me when I arrive.

  I can’t believe it’s only been a few months since the whole thing erupted. How amazing that, in such a short time, I seem to have developed all new magic powers. I’ve become Magic Ice Cube Girl. Everyone freezes when they see me. In fact they make a big drama of freezing, like kids playing Statues or Simon Sez or some other baby game no one’s played for years. Then they do these big stagey double takes and sneer at me and go back to whatever they were doing or saying before they saw me.

  It’s almost like something they have to do, even the ones who have mixed feelings about my so-called case, even the girls whose moms—Joan’s friends—have been told they’re supposed to support me. Giving me the freeze-out is almost like a ritual they’re required to perform. When they see me, they’re like people touching a rabbit’s foot or some other lucky charm. I’ve become their lucky charm. Or maybe their unlucky charm. I’m the one everyone hates, I’m the one who makes the rest of them feel closer to each other. Even the nerdiest kids give me poisonous looks, trying to hide their joy because I’ve taken their place at the absolute bottom of the ladder of social success. I know that they feel really good about that. So at least I make someone happy.

  Among the halfway sensible things that Doctor Atwood says is that I shouldn’t pity myself, that this part of my life won’t last forever. My dad and Joan are looking into private schools in the area, so maybe I can start over with all new kids who don’t think they know everything about me. But I’d probably have to leave the state to really be able to start over and besides, there’s only one private school in the area. It’s mostly for faculty kids from the local Ivy League college. I couldn’t get in there anyway. My grades aren’t that great, and I don’t have any special talents.

  And I certainly couldn’t get in now. I mean, hey, I’m just the student everyone wants—the girl who’s suing her former school. So I’m not likely to transfer soon, unless Dad and Joan ship me off to some super-expensive boarding school

  Homeschooling is not an option. At least Joan and I agree on that. So for the time being—as Doctor Atwood keeps emphasizing—for the time being, Joan drives me, every morning, straight into the heart of the nightmare that school has become.

  Three months might not sound like all that long, but the last three months seem to have taken forever. I’ve learned a lot in that time—for example, I know what it must have been like for the first person who came down with the bubonic plague, or a leper in the Dark Ages. When I walk down the halls at school, I should probably ring a bell, the way sick people had to go around warning everyone out of their way. Except that I don’t need to ring a bell. Everyone knows I’m coming, and they move aside and make way, except for the occasional shove, the accidental elbow that comes scarily near my breasts. I’ve learned to keep my arms crossed.

  Practically every day, Joan tells me that if kids are mean to me, or if I experience bullylike behavior, I should tell her immediately, and she’ll tell the school administration. And if they don’t take immediate action, it will strengthen our case against them.

  Everything should be documented, says Joan. Everything is evidence, proof for our side. Of course, it is being documented—stored up in my mind. But my only satisfaction comes from not weakening or telling Joan a single bad thing that happens.

  This morning, when I walk into school, I have the definite sense that something has changed. Nothing’s better, of course, just different. I can sense it in the way that other kids look at me, in the charged excitement I can feel in the air. It’s as if they all know a secret about me, and it’s taking all their willpower not to let me in on the secret.

  As I’m going up the stairs on my way to homeroom, I hear someone say, “Maisie, are you okay? Don’t you need to go to the bathroom?

  That’s how I know that it—whatever it is—is waiting for me in the bathroom. Are the kids planning to beat me up? I don’t think they’d do that. There aren’t a lot of fights in my school. The parents go nuts about stuff like that. Most of them want their kids to go to college. Fights don’t look good on our record, and there’s some kind of zero-tolerance policy. Automatic suspension.

  Maybe some kids have drawn or written something nasty about me on the bathroom walls or stalls. That’s a pretty common form of communication. Bathroom graffiti is sort of like the school newspaper, except that more kids read it than read the school paper, and the only stories that get reported are about which girl is a ho and what couple had sex at which party. It’s strange how everyone believes what they read on the bathroom walls, even though—only now it occurs to me—it might be completely untrue.

  Well, whatever is waiting for me in the girls’ bathroom—the beating or the nasty graffiti—neither option makes me eager to go find out. On the other hand, some part of me wants to see, so at least I won’t be in the humiliating position of having the whole school know something about me that I don’t know. I imagine the kids spying on me and vying for the privilege of being the first one to see the look on my face when I come out of the bathroom.

  I decide to get through the day without going to the bathroom at all, but the whole thing makes me so nervous that I really have to pee by the end of English class. I spend the last ten minutes of class crossing and uncrossing my legs and wondering if peeing in my jeans would put me in a better or worse situation than I am in already. Worse, no doubt about it. I hold out through one more class period. Then I can’t take it anymore. In the middle of social studies class, I raise my hand—with everyone watching—and get a hall pass and leave the room.

  I could swear that even the hall monitors know what’s going on. But they pretend not to see me, and no one even asks to see my pass.

  I convince myself that no one’s planning to bash my head in. People have better things to do than hang around the smelly bathroom, waiting for me to walk in. It probably is just something written on the wall. So what? What do I care? Sticks and stones, et cetera.

  I inch open the door, just in case someone is there. Just as I’d thought, the bathroom is empty.

  I see the drawing scrawled on the tiles, and for a half second I’m relieved. It’s going to make me feel like crap, but at least it won’t (physically) hurt. It takes me another moment to comprehend how big the drawing is. It’s huge, it’s monumental, it’s more like a mural. It takes up the entire wall between the sinks and the stalls. Why didn’t someone report this? Why hasn’t some friendly janitor come in to remove it?

  The first thing I see is the word Maisie. It gives me the chills to think that someone was thinking about me as he or she (probably she) scrawled my name. Above my name is a figure that I guess is meant to be me. She’s naked, though it’s hard to tell, because she’s just a stick figure with a head and two humongous naked boobs. Oh, and a stick arm that extends straight out from her stick body, holding bunches of money, bills marked with dollar signs.

  A balloon mushrooms out of the ugly face, supposedly mine. And inside the ba
lloon are more letters, which say, How much?

  For a split-second I think I might actually throw up. At first I’m just embarrassed, but then anger gets all mixed in with shame. I reach into my backpack for the little digital camera Joan gave me and instructed me to use in case I needed to document some new incident of harassment. She never really specified what sort of incident that might be, but this is one, and I know it. I take a picture of the drawing, then another, then another. Then I put the camera away and go into a stall.

  Joan is waiting for me in the Volvo, parked where everybody can see. I’ve begged her to wait for me around the corner, but she won’t. She says she likes watching kids play in the school yard. But I think she really wants to have everyone admire her car. Which just proves how out of it Joan is. She thinks a high school kid’s dream car is the Swedish Sitcom Mom van that goes from zero to sixty in ten minutes.

  Not that Joan would ever take it up to sixty. Or anyway, not with me and Josh on board. Who knows what she does when she’s alone, speeding around on the back roads and listening to Fleetwood Mac with the volume blasting.

  “How was school?” Joan sings out as I approach the car.

  “Crap mostly,” I say.

  “Please don’t say crap every other word.”

  “Please don’t correct me before I say two words.”

  “You said two words. Oh, dear. Maisie, would you mind terribly getting in back? We have to pick up Josh, you know.”

  “Sure.” What was I thinking? I get in back, which is fine. The farther away from Joan, the better.

  I can’t believe that I’m the one who starts the conversation. But the snapshot I took in the girls’ bathroom feels like it’s burning a hole in my backpack.

  “How’s the case going?” I say. “Have you talked to Cynthia?”

  “Slowly,” says Joan. “But it’s going. According to Cynthia, the school should be doing something more. A hostile atmosphere exists, and it’s the worst possible thing for your education. That’s why Cynthia feels we have a solid case when we charge that you’re being denied your right to an equal education.”

  “Whatever,” I say. “I need to change schools.”

  “I know that,” says Joan. “And you will. But let’s sit tight for the moment.”

  “How much money could we make from the case?” I ask. “If we win.”

  “Honestly, I don’t know,” says Joan. “Fifty thousand, maybe. There haven’t been that many cases like ours. And there’s a chance we could lose. But it’s not about the money. It’s really not about that. It’s about principle, about treating women with respect, about our right to control what happens with our bodies. You know that, Maisie, don’t you?”

  “What will we do with it?”

  “With what?”

  “The money. If we win.”

  “We’ve talked about this,” Joan says. “It’s for you, of course. Tuition. The very best boarding school. Anywhere you want. And, of course, somewhere where you can get in.”

  Wicked Witch, I think.

  “Your dad and Josh and I will really hate to lose you. We’ll miss you so, just like we did when you went to Wisconsin. What a mistake that was!”

  “Tell me about it,” I say.

  “But I promise you, we’ll find somewhere you feel safe, somewhere cool.”

  I doubt I’d like any school that Joan thought was cool. But the so-called cool boarding school has to be better than living with Dad and Joan and going to a school where everybody hates me.

  I say, “I’ve got something to show you.”

  Even Joan is smart enough to hear the seriousness in my voice.

  “Can it wait till we get home?” she says.

  “I don’t want Josh to see it,” I say.

  “Oops. Good thinking,” says Joan. “What a thoughtful, caring older sister you are!”

  Joan drives for a few blocks, then parks on a quiet street of neat lawns and colonial houses.

  I hand Joan the camera.

  “Press the button,” I say.

  Joan squints at the screen, then shuts her eyes and shakes her head.

  “Oh, you poor dear,” she says. “This is exactly the sort of thing that needs to stop right now. Right now! Meanwhile, it’s evidence. The school needs to put its foot down. Like I say, this isn’t about the money, Maisie. This is about justice.”

  The next day, Joan prints out two copies of the photo. She gives one to Cynthia and hands me the other copy in an envelope when she drops me off at Doctor Atwood’s office.

  I open the envelope, and my stomach lurches.

  “What are you giving me this for?” I can’t believe she’s made me look at it again.

  ‘“Mention it to Doctor Atwood,” Joan says. “Just mention it, Maisie. See what feelings it brings up.”

  “I know what feelings it brings up,” I say. “Misery. Nausea. Rage.”

  Joan pretends not to have heard me. “That’s what therapy’s for. I think Alana should see what you had to see. I think she needs to know that.”

  “Shouldn’t that be my choice?” I ask.

  “Of course,” says Joan. “Of course it’s your choice. But I think she needs to know what you’re going through. And one picture is worth…you know.”

  I don’t want Doctor Atwood to see it. Maybe I don’t want to talk about how much it hurt my feelings. Suddenly, I’m panicked about bringing the envelope in with me, and her asking me what’s inside, and having to tell her the truth. I wish I could ditch it, but where?

  There’s a little foyer just outside Doctor Atwood’s office. But I can’t leave the envelope there. You leave by a different door. I can just imagine Phlegm Man opening the envelope and getting an eyeful. I have to bring the photo into the office with me. It feels weird to be carrying an envelope in which there’s a cartoon of me, done by someone who hates me, showing me as a tiny head with stick arms and legs and a giant pair of boobs.

  The thought of it makes me so mad that I want to help Joan win this case. I want the school to pay.

  I spend the first twenty minutes of the session looking at my watch.

  “How’s school?” Doctor Atwood asks.

  “Fine,” I say.

  Then there’s a ten-minute silence, for which Dad and Joan are paying.

  At the end of it, Doctor Atwood says, “Are you going to tell me what’s in the envelope?”

  “Nothing,” I say. “It’s a paper I have to hand in for school. I thought I’d check it over while I was waiting for you.”

  Doctor Atwood looks at me. I hope the expression on her face doesn’t mean she’s learned to tell when I’m lying.

  “About what?” she says. “What’s the paper about?”

  “The Scarlet Letter,” I say.

  “How appropriate,” she says.

  “Outrageous, right?” I say. “How typically insensitive to make me sit in a class where the kids are discussing that book, of all the books in the world.” I’m so offended by the thought—because now I’m the shunned Hester Prynne, the one the whole community thinks is a slut and maybe even a witch—that I almost forget I’m lying. It takes me a moment to remember that we’re actually not reading it for school. I read it last year, in Wisconsin, when it was still safe to read a story like that and not take it personally.

  I’d rather think of The Scarlet Letter—as I recall, Hester was a lot better than people gave her credit for, and in fact she was a really good person who just made one mistake—than think about the photo inside the envelope: supposedly my head and my boobs, and definitely my name, on the wall of the girls’ bathroom. I don’t want Doctor Atwood to ask how it makes me feel, as if the answer isn’t so obvious she could figure it out herself. Though maybe I would like to ask her what she thinks of a stepmother—an adult—who gives her stepdaughter a copy of a nasty drawing of herself and tells her to show it to someone. Even her shrink.

  “Actually,” Doctor Atwood says, “it’s the perfect book for a person in your situation to read
. It makes you realize how often the whole community can be wrong, and how crucial it is for the individual to believe in herself and her basic goodness and—”

  I say, “Can I ask you something?”

  “Within limits.” Doctor Atwood gets annoyed when I interrupt her.

  “What would you call someone who believes that if she drives a certain kind of car, the whole world will worship her and want to be her and want to drive the same car she drives?”

  “An American,” says Doctor Atwood.

  “Ha-ha,” I say. “Very funny.” Which it is, sort of.

  Then she asks, fake-casually, “What kind of car?”

  “A Volvo SUV,” I say.

  “I see,” says Doctor Atwood. She thinks, then says, “Maisie, I’m not sure that it’s going to be productive for you to ask me to judge your stepmother. I’m on your side, as you know, and I’ll do anything to help you get along better with Joan, but—”

  “Okay, okay,” I say. “Forget Joan. New question. What do you call a person who thinks she’s the only human being in the world and doesn’t care what anyone else thinks or who they really are, and she just wants everyone to be like her?”

  Doctor Atwood is all smiles today. This one is an I-give-up smile. She knows I’m still talking about Joan. “Technically speaking, I suppose you’d call a person like that a narcissist. You know who Narcissus was, don’t you, Maisie?”

  “Sort of,” I lied.

  “Better brush up on your Greek myths, dear.”

  “Wait a second. I like Greek myths. Okay. Wait. Wasn’t he one of those people who got turned into a plant?”

  “A flower, actually,” says Doctor Atwood. “And why?”