The Most Dangerous Thing

by Leanne Lieberman

  I sit down at the kitchen table with my homework. I work through a few math problems and then glance at my writing journal. The due date for the poetry assignment is coming up. Mrs. Lee says if we’re stuck we should look back through our free-writes, which I’d rather not do. And Sofia wants me to write a vagina monologue. I grimace and flip back to the page where I wrote about the dangers of sex ed.

  I reread the lines, adding a few ideas and crossing out some words. What if the most dangerous part of sex isn’t pregnancies or possible infection? What if the most dangerous thing is ourselves? Our own desires? No one talks about these. We pretend girls don’t have them. But what if we did? What if we talked about the dangers of sex, but also the

  I get stuck thinking of a word. Pleasure? Sounds like please her, her pleas, sure. I tap a line of dots across the page with my pen. Then I cross out pleasure. It sounds too much like something you’d read in a dorky women’s magazine. What if we talked about the dangers of sex for girls, but also the bliss? I put down my pen and look at bliss written on my page. I don’t hate it. Then I write, Bliss from a kiss, your hands promise more. But a kiss is also an abyss, your hands. Is a kiss bliss?

  I put down my pen and reread these lines. I could maybe send these to Sofia, if I worked on them more. I think she’d like them. Dr. Spenser would probably like to read them too.

  Abby and her friends get an in-school suspension, the most annoying punishment. You don’t get to stay home, and you have to bug all your teachers for assignments so you don’t get behind. Not that Abby cares about falling behind or bothers to do any work. She spends her suspension blogging about the play and trying to get Bitch and Ms. to pick up her story. She calls the local TV station, and they interview her while she’s on suspension, which, as my mother says, is true chutzpah. She doesn’t make the six o’clock news, which was her goal, but she does get a small article in The Sun, which invites people to write in their opinions. Abby is horrified when almost all the people who write in side with the administration. That kind of play has no place at school, writes one indignant person. Abby is so angry she designs a cunt T-shirt, but Mom and Dad finally step in before she has it printed. “People will think it’s a swearword and nothing else,” Mom reasons.

  Abby tries to get in the news again, but she’s already last week’s story. Parents not allowing their teenage daughters to wear a T-shirt with the word cunt across the front is not news. Abby refuses to go to school. “I am so angry,” she says, “at everyone!”

  She fills the house with so much anger and frustration that I almost feel like moving in with Zeyda to get away from her. She takes over our whole rec room with her friends, her noise and her vagina songs. By the weekend her passion and anger fizzle out, and she’s in the tent binge-watching episodes of Glee, pages of her monologues and protest letters scattered around her. Fen is out of town with his father, biking on one of the Gulf Islands, so there’s no Saturday-morning bike ride, and Sofia is busy working on an art project. Passover begins Tuesday night, so Mom asks me to help her do some cleaning. I think she means light dusting or sweeping, and I agree to help until I realize “cleaning” means ripping apart the kitchen in a maniacal search for any kind of bread, cake, cookies, pasta, crackers or flour and packing it up in boxes to rid the house of any chametz—foods not kosher for Passover.

  I wander around the house for a while, then try to do some writing, but I have nothing to say. I feel like crawling into my bed or hiding out in my closet for the weekend, but then I’ll never get out Monday morning. I write a text to Dr. Spenser—When did you say I’ll feel better?—but I don’t send it. I need to go somewhere or do something different. I find Dad in the yard and beg him to take me biking somewhere outside the city. When he sees Mom pulling all the dishes out of the cupboards to wipe the shelves clean, he agrees. By the time Dad has the bikes loaded onto the car, the kitchen looks like a bomb has gone off in it.

  Instead of driving east or south, Dad decides to drive us to West Vancouver. Traffic is slow over the Lions Gate Bridge, and I’m doubtful about biking any of the hilly, narrow roads along the coast, but when we finally start biking the lower level of Marine Drive, going toward Horseshoe Bay, I forget my earlier impatience, and my head starts to clear. On my left the sun glints off the ocean. Islands dot the horizon, with the mountains gleaming in the background, their snowcapped tops like icing. For once I don’t lose myself in my burning quads and racing breath—I can’t stop looking around, can’t stop breathing in all the beauty.

  When we get to Horseshoe Bay, Dad and I sit on a park bench by the water and watch the ferries come in. We sip from our water bottles and eat the nut mix Dad brought.

  “What a beautiful ride,” I say.

  Dad grins. “I thought you’d like it.”

  I take off my helmet and run my fingers through my sweaty hair. “Thank you for getting me away from Mom and Abby.” Thank you for getting me away from the fog.

  Dad laughs and shakes his head. “They both have a lot of passion.”

  I grimace. “I wish Abby could be passionate in a less embarrassing way.”

  Dad stretches his arms above his head. “Oh, she’s just fighting for what she believes in.”

  “More attention for Abby?”

  “That’s not fair,” Dad says. “Your sister is passionate about getting respect for women’s bodies. That’s a noble pursuit.”

  I give Dad my you’re kidding look.

  Dad sighs. “No, really. Remember last year when Abby found the afikoman at the Seder?”

  I nod. Every year the Seder leader hides a piece of matzah, called the afikoman, for the kids to find and exchange for money. Last year, instead of giving the kids the money, Dad decided he would make a donation to a charity instead. When Abby found the matzah, she asked Dad to donate to a women’s shelter.

  Dad continues, “So I wrote a check to the shelter. Then about two weeks later, they called to personally thank me. They insisted on telling me exactly how my money had been spent and how my donation was helping rescue women from abusive situations. I wanted to put your sister on the phone instead, but she wasn’t home.”

  I’m not sure why Dad is telling me this long story, but I keep listening.

  “Anyway,” Dad says, “they weren’t calling only to thank me, but to ask for more money to help other women. They were very descriptive about the abuses women were suffering, and very persuasive. They said things like, Mr. Mizner, there are women right now being abused and you can help them. They told me about a woman who came to them with a broken arm. She couldn’t hold her toddler. They said, We’re helping her because of you.”

  “Did you give them more money?” I ask.

  Dad nods. “I send a monthly amount now. I couldn’t listen without being moved. And so when your sister wants to talk about women, and their bodies”—I squirm hearing Dad say this—“I feel I should support her.”

  “Wow,” I say.

  “Yeah,” Dad says. “Your sister made change happen through our family.”

  “I still don’t know why she can’t write letters to the editor or something less embarrassing.”

  Dad grins. “Putting on a play, even an embarrassing one, is a good way to educate a lot of people. Besides, we all have to fight the good fight our own way.”

  “We do?” I say.

  “Sure. The play is Abby’s way of doing tikkun olam. Working at the hospice is mine.”

  Tikkun olam means “repairing the earth” or “fixing the world.” It’s weird to hear Dad using Hebrew. He almost never does. Even when he sings along at shul or at Friday-night dinner, he keeps his voice low, a sort of under-the-covers singing.

  “Is that what you’re doing at the hospice?” I ask.

  “Yes. When your mom decided to join her new shul, she asked if I would add something Jewish to my life too. Your mom likes to be Jewish through prayer and song and ritual, but that’s not my thing. So I chose the hospice.”

  “I don’t get it. Wha
t does the hospice have to do with being Jewish?”

  “Visiting the sick is one of the highest commandments,” Dad says.

  “Oh, right.” The commandments are the list of things Jews are supposed to do. It starts with the basic ten—don’t kill, honor your parents, et cetera—and then there are another 603. “Do you like going to the hospice?” I ask Dad.

  Dad rubs his sweaty beard and then sips his water before answering. “Well, at first I dreaded it, but now I’m more used to it. I still feel uncomfortable knowing those people are dying, but I feel like I make a small difference.”

  I think for a moment, watching the seagulls wheel out over the sea, squawking to each other. “You think Abby’s play is a form of activism?”

  “Yeah, I do. She’s trying to fix the world. You know, there’s a long history of Jewish activism. I think it’s as important as praying or learning the Torah.”

  I nod. When Dad calls Abby’s play activism, it makes it seem less crazy.

  Dad squeezes my shoulder. “What about you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, what’s your passion?”

  I shrug. This reminds me of Dr. Spenser telling me I need to be involved in my life. I could say riding my bike is my passion. Once I would have said making money so I could be rich enough to escape into my own fortress. Now I’m just trying to hold things together. I say, “I don’t know. I have this ongoing project with Dr. Spenser.”

  Dad squeezes my shoulder again. “Well, that’s where you are right now, but it doesn’t mean you’ll always be there. Sometimes getting out of yourself helps.”

  I look away, feeling uncomfortable. Dad and I have never talked about what I call The Day the Fog Won.

  Dad stands up and clips on his bike helmet. “You’re still being helpful, like the way you visit Zeyda and help Mom with her Seder.”

  I shudder. “Please don’t remind me of the Seder.”

  Dad grins. “Oh, come on. I’m sure it’ll be fun.”

  I shudder again.

  We get back on our bikes and start for home, the sun lower in the sky now. I think about Dad feeding patients in the hospice and Mom planning her Seder and Abby working on her play. They each have their own thing. Dad wants to know what my thing is going to be. Maybe after I go to business school and get a great job, I’ll be rich enough to donate a lot of money to whatever charity I think is best. Maybe something to do with population control or shoes for poor people. Maybe, but it doesn’t feel like this is going to be enough.

  By the time we get home, Mom has put the kitchen back together but has taped a Do Not Open sign on the newly cleaned cupboards where the Passover food waits to be eaten. She’s relegated the flour, crackers, rice and other carbs to a box in the laundry room.

  “What if I’m hungry for crackers before Passover starts? Does this mean I have to snack in the laundry room?” I pour myself a glass of water. My legs ache, but otherwise I feel better.

  Mom lifts her head up from where she’s lying on the couch, visibly exhausted. “Technically, that food doesn’t belong to us anymore.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I sold it,” she says.

  “I’m sorry, you what?”

  “I sold it to the Dixons. You know, next door.”

  “Yes, I know who the Dixons are, but I don’t know why the Dixons would buy our carbs.”

  “Aha.” Mom sits up. “They’re not just carbs. They’re chametz. It’s a tradition, Sydney, to sell your chametz to someone not Jewish for the duration of Passover.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “How much is our box of half-used chametz worth?” I overemphasize the guttural ch sound.

  “A dollar.”

  I drink my water. “Can’t you get a better price?”

  Mom lies back down and closes her eyes. “It’s symbolic. You’re still going to make the tsimmes for me, right?”

  “Tsimmes. Yes. I’m on it.” Tsimmes is a sweet baked dish made with carrots and prunes, but I found a new recipe with sweet potatoes, pears and pecans that sounds much better. I turn back to Mom. “What if the Dixons want to sell the food back to you for more than a dollar? What if they decide the food is actually worth ten dollars, or twenty, or if they eat all those fancy crackers from Costco? Or, worse, what if they decide to give it all away?”

  “Syd,” Mom says, her eyes closed.

  “What?”

  “Please go away.”

  I shrug, grab a banana and head downstairs.

  Abby is still lying in front of the TV, flicking channels, her hair unwashed. She’s not even wearing a colorful scarf. I understand how she feels.

  “Do you want to play Scrabble?” I ask her. Abby ignores me. “How about Wii?” She closes her eyes. “Monopoly? Ping-Pong?”

  She groans. “We don’t have a Ping-Pong table.”

  “I’ll let you do my hair,” I say.

  Abby gives me the finger.

  “I was thinking about your play,” I say, sitting down on the cushion next to her.

  Abby shoves me away from her. “You’re sweaty. Move over.”

  I roll off the cushion and stretch my hamstrings. “Maybe you could put on the play somewhere else, not at school.”

  “The play is dead,” she says, eyes straight ahead.

  “Did the other girls quit?” I ask.

  “No.”

  “Then why is it dead?”

  “It just is. If it’s not at school, then kids won’t see it.”

  She has a point. I get up and take a shower.

  Mom doesn’t want anyone eating or cooking in the newly cleaned kitchen, so we go out for Indian food at a nearby restaurant. After dinner Mom and Dad decide to go to a movie and leave Abby and me to walk home. On the way back we pass the newly renovated Fox Cabaret. Until recently it was a porn theater. Abby points to the new sign. “No more skanky movies. They have live music now.” She adds, “Did you know they had to send people in hazmat suits to clean the place out?”

  “Gross,” I say.

  Back at home, Abby retreats to her room and I plunk myself in the rec-room tent. Abby’s left a mess—dirty dishes, pens and books, and a huge file folder of vagina-related writing and planning—scattered across the cushions. I sort through the pages, trying to tidy them up. Underneath the papers is the original play by Eve Ensler, a slim book with a pink V on the cover. I pick it up warily, then read the introduction, which is about how women don’t talk about their vaginas, and Eve Ensler’s desire to create a community of women who do. Then I relax into the book. I read the section about the woman who hasn’t gone “down there” since 1953, when it betrayed her. I read about rape and giving birth and the letters of the word cunt. Then I flip through the monologues Abby and her friends have written: Abby’s cunt monologue, the one about suffering through your period, Sunita’s “I Am A Sexual Being,” the piece by the boy who wants to be a girl, and an anonymous section called “If My Vagina Could Dance”—which I feel responsible for.

  If my vagina could dance, it would do a serious tango, all tension and little release. If my vagina could dance, it would be like a Pina Bausch number, all huddled up inside of itself. If my vagina could dance, it would do a kickboxing routine set to Ride of the Valkyries and destroy menstruation forever.

  If my vagina could dance…I don’t know how I would finish that sentence.

  I scan the monologue titles again. I’ve heard about most of them from Abby and her friends, except one at the end. It’s written by a girl who identifies herself only as C.

  Once I had sex and I didn’t want to. I guess you’d call it date rape. I left a party with this boy I thought was cute. I didn’t know him very well. He was older and had a car. We started driving, and we went somewhere I didn’t know, somewhere without a lot of people or houses. He told me he wanted to have sex with me, and I said I didn’t want to, but he kept asking and asking and being more demanding and grasping my arms harder and harder. I asked him to take me home, and he
said he would, after we did it. And so I let him, because I didn’t know where I was and I didn’t want to miss my curfew. I didn’t want to have to call my parents and try and explain. Also, I didn’t want to be bruised. I didn’t want to be forced.

  I guess you could call it rape. I try not to.

  I never told anyone it happened because what difference would it make? And even if it wasn’t my fault, I know I shouldn’t have gone in the car.

  Maybe talking about vaginas is important, so girls will feel empowered, so they won’t make stupid mistakes and be flattered by older boys with cars. Maybe if we can talk about our bodies, we’ll have power over them. Maybe.

  I put the folder down and lie still for a moment. Abby’s always going on about bad things happening to girls and women, but I never think about it happening to people at our school, to people we know. I’ve always thought Abby’s play was about her desire to shock people, so she could say cunt in public and have people think she was cool. I leave Abby’s papers in the tent and wander into the backyard.

  I decide to get back on my bike. It’s too beautiful an evening to stay inside, and there are so many ideas in my head I can’t keep them straight. I head downhill toward the bike path around the inner harbor. I coast past the science center toward Yaletown, cruising by rollerbladers and slow walkers, thinking about C, whoever she is, and her monologue.

  All Abby’s talk about women and their bodies made Dad give a donation to a women’s shelter. And me? The girl in C’s monologue could be me, could be any girl. And what am I doing? Nothing. Dad asked me what my passion was. I don’t have one yet. The earth needs repairing, and Abby’s talking about it all the time, but she’s also making change happen. Maybe not earth-shattering change, but change all the same. And me? I’m letting girls like C pile up in my head. A deep chill runs through me.