Elegies for Uncanny Girls

by Jennifer Colville

  It was only last week that she’d stolen the silverware from the cafeteria. By accident. Molly’s mother had given her money for hot lunch, and she was excited to stand in line with Cindy and the kids who carried bills folded into Velcro wallets, kids who didn’t have to bring out sandwiches molded into cup shapes around their apples, or bags of oily peanuts. But when lunch was over she didn’t know where to put her tray. She tried to set it in a window where a woman was washing dishes, but the woman leaned out and said, “No, no!” and this made her back into an older boy who said, “Watch it!”

  Molly slipped her tray onto a folding chair and when she was out on the playground, waiting for Cindy, she realized she still had her spoon and fork in her hand. She whirled around. In front of Cindy she’d already done such stupid things. She’d once laughed so hard she spit Coke all over the white wallpaper with poppies in Cindy’s foyer. She sometimes forgot to wear things like socks or underwear, which Cindy had discovered one day when they were changing into bathing suits. And though Cindy often patted her back and said, “Oh, Molly,” had even heroically taken the blame for the spit Coke, Molly still felt ashamed.

  “You’re so weird sometimes,” Molly said aloud and startled by her voice, ran to a hidden space at the far edge of the schoolyard and buried the silverware in a thick patch of grass.

  The evening of that same day, Molly wanted to tell her mother about the silverware, as her mother bent over to kiss her, and her breath came down into her own. But she hadn’t. Instead, she had a nightmare that Jason Monroe, the boy she secretly hated, fell down in the grass and stood up with the fork wedged into his forehead.

  The day after Audra’s visit and Molly’s standoff with her mom, Molly stood in the hot-lunch line. Again. At breakfast neither she nor her mother had apologized, but her mother had pressed a dollar bill into her hand, a gift to show that her mom was the good one, willing to make concessions.

  At lunch, Cindy was sitting with Jeani, and Molly took the only space available, at a table of older boys and Jason Monroe.

  “Looks like Cindy has a new best friend,” Jason said. Jason Monroe had called her slow, and fatface. He’d told her that her father, who coached their soccer team, was a loser because he gave everyone a chance to play every position. Molly smiled at Jason Monroe. Her mother had told her to kill her enemies with kindness and in fact Jason Monroe would die in high school, along with two other boys, their car flipping four times before skidding off a highway and into a ravine.

  After lunch, the stack of plastic lunch trays was back in its regular place. Molly returned her tray and walked along the rows of lunch tables. Here, clusters of friends formed in packs, and Cindy slipped her arm slowly around Jeani’s shoulder. Molly kept walking, out through the glass doors leading to the playground, out and over the basketball courts, across the soccer field, until she was nearly at the edge of the playground and saw movement, a figure behind the well of trees. She rushed forward, wanting to surprise Audra, but as her pace quickened her grip tightened around something smooth and cool, her thumb pressed in, and her finger curled up over tines. And then there was Audra at the base of a tree, smiling and holding up last week’s fork and spoon.

  After that, Audra appeared only two more times that Molly could remember.

  Once, after school, Molly passed through the sandbox and saw Audra walking across the top bars of the jungle gym, up against the blue sky as if she were walking along a train track with widely spaced rungs, extended across a bridge, over water. Boys had gathered below her and they held their breath, or some, like Jason Monroe, jeered at her, waited for her to fall. But Audra walked fast and smooth. The wind came up under her hair and raised it all in one piece like a tilting metal bell. Thin transparent strings were holding her up. She didn’t need to concentrate. When she reached the last rung, she stepped gingerly into the air, but leaned back so her calves, butt, back, and head hit the last rung, boom, boom, boom, all the way down. Her feet took forever to reach the sand, and she landed in a crouching position, her hair flipped over her face.

  Molly ran up and placed a hand on her shoulder. She thought of the horror movie she’d seen at Cindy’s house—of the girl whose face ballooned on her head and spun on its axis. But when Audra raised her head her face was miraculously clear, her eyes a hard bright blue. She smiled at Molly and her cheeks were almost rosy.

  Later that week, Molly searched for Cindy after school. Their mothers, unaware of the girls’ secrets, had arranged a play date. Molly found Cindy leaning against the cement play tunnel fully armored, and with sidekick Jeani. Cindy wore her jeans with the swan on the small pocket; her lips were slick with watermelon lip gloss, and the beautiful barrette woven with lavender ribbons floated against her hair.

  “You’re supposed to come home with me,” Molly said.

  “My mom and dad are getting a divorce.”

  “Oh,” Molly said.

  Cindy leaned in toward Molly and for a second, Molly felt her fear, and knew the sun was melting and making things unrecognizable. She understood her armor, how the feathery hair gear lifted her up above the school buildings and neighborhoods, up above her parents, although not high enough. She knew how outfits held her together though not forever and entirely. Cindy was slipping from between her seams.

  Molly held out her hand but Cindy stepped back.

  “I won’t come if she comes,” she said, pointing to Audra, who had appeared, soundlessly, at Molly’s side.

  “It’s because I’m a freak,” Audra said, whispering in Molly’s ear. Turning to Cindy she said, “But then again, only bad girls have parents who get divorced.”

  Audra skipped in front of Molly all the way home.

  This time, when they arrived, Molly’s mother had set a nice trap.

  “Come in,” she said. “Don’t you girls want to make some cookies?” She gripped and raised a bag of chocolate chips in her hand and held it up, smiling.

  “No,” Audra said, “I want to play with her things.”

  Molly avoided looking at her mother, for whom this was a “gotcha” moment. She knew it wasn’t polite to say “no” to an adult, and that it was worse to say “her,” as if it didn’t really matter who Molly was, as if she could have been any girl, as long as she had “things.”

  “Where do your parents live, Audra?”

  “No one cares that I’m here,” Audra said.

  “But that’s not what I asked,” said Molly’s mother.

  Audra shrugged. She pulled Molly’s hand and skipped down the hall. She whispered, “Adults ask me about my parents, but they don’t really care because I’m not that cute.” Audra turned her head toward Molly’s mother and batted her eyes—but like a malfunctioning doll’s, one of her eyes stuck open and the other batted too fast.

  In the bedroom they climbed to the top bunk and Audra resumed her assessment of Molly’s possessions. She ran her fingers across Molly’s animals, and made her way to her only doll: plump, pinafored Alice in Wonderland. She unsnapped the button at the back of her dress. She took the clothes off slowly and asked, “Is there anything inside?”

  She popped off a leg and shook Alice. Then Audra moved both hands over her, took her hair in her fist, gently popped off her arms, her legs, her head, as if she were only folding her up and she would spring back to life, renewed and different and more alive.

  “You never know a person until you look inside,” she said in a voice like Molly’s mom’s.

  She turned to Fuzzy next, upside-down-in-the-corner Fuzzy, the one who would never learn. She wiggled her finger inside the small patch on his head where the webbing was revealed, the fur worn away.

  Molly grabbed hold of Fuzzy’s legs and yanked. When Fuzzy broke free she heard a pop. Audra’s right eye started blinking fast again. Audra held up her hand and said, “Wait, I’ll be nice.”

  But Molly was backing down the stairs of her bunk.

  She was out in the hallway, and then moving through the kitchen. She walked to the ba
ckyard, through abandoned garden projects and around through the alley to the front yard, where her mom had been painting a bench. She went back through the house, picking up her pace, and into her parents’ bedroom. She yelled into the bathroom, flipped back the shower curtain. She circled the house one more time but her mother, who was always everywhere and on top of her, was gone.

  Back in the hallway, Molly closed her eyes. She whispered, “I’m sorry for the secrets,” and then her mother reappeared, standing at the other end.

  She cried, “No!” and launched forward into Molly’s bedroom.

  Inside Molly’s bedroom, Cindy and Jeani had also appeared. Along with her mother they stood staring, open mouthed, at the bunk bed. Audra stood on the top bunk. Her back to them, the dirty heels of her tennis shoes dipped over the edge of the mattress. Then she was falling—her body perfectly straight, as if she were playing “light as a feather, stiff as a board,” the game of slumber parties, in which a girl lies down in the dark, squeezes her muscles tightly, and trusts her friends’ fingers to lift and hold her. And at first Audra seemed held. She descended in slow motion, a combination of falling and floating, until she landed, boom, in the circle of their feet.

  And then Molly rejoined her mother, and rejoined Cindy. She even joined Jeani who was just Molly’s height, and who Molly was beginning to notice had an interesting sense of style. Together it was none of them bending down to touch Audra. It was none of them telling her to stay still in case there were broken bones. It was none of them stopping her when she sat up, eyes wide open, and said matter-of-factly, “I’m leaving now.”

  It was all of them watching as Audra turned to Molly in passing and said, “You’re not such a good girl, you know.”

  And then she was almost gone.

  Molly thought of Audra every time her mother brought up Cindy. For a while this happened about twice a week. Cindy and her mom had moved from their house to an apartment, Cindy had switched schools, yet Molly’s and Cindy’s moms’ friendship had grown stronger. There were long conversations on the telephone in which her mom would say, “Oh, that sounds terrible, a nightmare! I’m so sorry for you, Helen, it’s just so unfair.” And after each call Molly’s mom would look strangely satisfied, and Molly knew she could expect an argument.

  “I’d like you to call Cindy,” her mother would say. And Molly, who was deep in a new friendship with Jeani, always said no.

  “You have something to learn about friendship,” her mother said one day, after a fresh refusal. And Molly said, “Your only friends are people you can take pity on,” the words hot, bright, and only half hers. They were also Audra’s, who had remained partially inside of her and was spinning, a blur of arms and legs, a tiny tornado, rising up out of her stomach and making Molly dizzy, as if she herself were spinning, being lifted and carried, she didn’t know where.

  Details

  We’re driving up the side of his mountain in his red BMW. He’s wearing flip-flops and I’m not sure they’re right for the occasion. He’s supposed to seduce me, and I’m supposed to be seducible, but it’s a plan I don’t like to admit, and it’s less important than the feeling of the tropical drink, and rising up through hills away from Los Angeles. I’m rising, to look through the window he has for a wall, to sit inside a house with low-lit lamps, guitar music, and magazines he’s told me are smart.

  He pours us wine from a box.

  “I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time,” he says.

  “Oh, right, this,” I say, pretending I know.

  He moves onto the couch, beckons me over, and switches to a jungle-cat way of moving I guess he picked up in the acting classes he’s told me about.

  “You make me shy,” he says, and I say, “I’m shy too,” although I don’t think he needs it. He crouches toward me with his wide shoulders, and I think, stop, but instead point to a framed print of a girl by a well with a cracked pitcher and a halo of mussed-up hair. She looks younger than me, and I don’t like her here, in this space where I’m trying to be my full twenty-three years, a smart young woman, if not yet an intellectual equal.

  But he kisses me and I forget.

  I also forget to be happy that he’s kissing me.

  I forget that I’ve actually made it, because the kiss feels weird, and I wonder if it’s because I’m not paying attention. I try to feel the drink feeling, the rising, the way he put his hand on my back in the blue glow of the restaurant. Instead, I think that size is at least important when it comes to tongues, because his is large and fills my mouth and I think, if I just had a little pocket of air, some room for atmosphere.

  But it’s hard to say this to your professor. Especially when you’re about to graduate with a liberal arts degree, don’t know what you’re doing next, except that you’d like to do what he does, though with less bitterness. It’s hard when you’re good at living inside your internal world, and when for the last three months most of that world has been wondering, gathering hints, and inventing around the possibility of him. Now, you have to match your internal idea of him to the suddenness of the external, such things as the jungle cat, smell of alcohol, and tongue. And there is a gap, a wide gap, that must be filled with images of lingering in this beautiful house and spotting the peacocks that sit in the trees.

  He’s told you about the peacocks in conference. How they make strange sounds late at night, and last night he called at twelve o’clock, just to give some feedback on a story, and his voice sounded thick and lonely and you didn’t really know why, but you could imagine.

  He stops and everything gets quiet. He tilts his head and says, “Listen, do you hear the peacocks?”

  It’s a small gargling sound, like someone drowning on purpose. He bounces off the couch, stands with his feet apart, tilts his head back, and imitates the call. I remember how he told me that all great writers are addicts, how he hints about his “brain pills,” does five Diet Pepsis a day, coffee, but not mixed with sugar. I don’t know if this means he’s a true writer or vulnerable to peer pressure. And when he swoops me up in both of his arms, like a baby? or a bride?, I think, OK, let’s just go with it. I think it’s part of getting to love.

  He carries me into the bathroom and lets me use his toothbrush.

  I add it to the list of things we’ve shared. A list of things that so far have allowed us to be both connected and separate. A ballpoint pen, opinions on movies, two straws in the same large drink. I start to feel brave from the accumulation and say, “I’ve never had sex.”

  He moves out from behind me and takes his hand off my shoulder. “Well, that’s”—he pauses—“something.” I feel the momentum of my list thud. He slaps one hand down on the counter and looks at me flat, without the jungle-cat gaze, and says he’s surprised. He walks around the room more stiffly now, and moves his arms so it looks like he’s trying to shake his muscles out. He says, “I’m proud of you,” and I say, “I’m not.” Then he goes into a private place I haven’t seen before, lifts up and whispers, “So that’s why.”

  “Why what?”

  “That’s why you came up here.”

  I would like to add, “And you invited me,” but he’s coming toward me again, faster and more romantic. He lifts my hand and kisses one of my fingers, and I think this is the way he talks about stories, that once he’s discovered the conflict, the resolution should be inevitable. He leads me toward his big window, and looks out. His eyes seem to focus on one tiny light in the LA skyline. When I look there are too many to focus only on one—all shaking and shimmering like a disco runway, or disembodied evening dresses. I wonder if he’s been trying to piece me together by noting my bulky denim jacket, my soft short dress, tiny earrings, but red. He must know I’m dressed in contradictions not because I’m sophisticated or playing games, but because I’m unsure. He thinks that he can be my resolution.

  He bounds over the bed and pushes a button on his answering machine, he puts on a deep whispery voice, comes and slides his hands from my shoulders to my
hips, squats, touches the backs of my knees, then my ankles so he’s got the breadth of me, pops back up, lifts me, puts me into bed with my dress still on, lies on top of me and says, “We’ll go slow.”

  I can go slow without him.

  I try to think about my dress and how in the restaurant it felt tight against my ribs and opened at the bottom, how I felt excited in front of the aquariums, like I was in an unknown element, wasn’t sure where I was swimming, but could see enough details—the plastic pineapple lights, the blue and yellow flanks of fish, and now, wait, his leopardprint underwear? I think about how my friends would relish this detail and I start to feel the first piece of a story. I wonder how it might build and fill and change in everyone’s ears. I wonder what my friend Alice will hear, who looked at me straight and said, “Don’t do it, Melissa.”

  He has all his clothes off.

  I ask, “What about my dress?”

  “Leave it on.”

  “Why?”

  “It will protect you from me.”

  But I don’t need to be protected, I think. I’ve been accumulating—adding details. Growing means opening and I’ve been opening to him and having to incorporate new information into my original idea of him, and I would like to see this experience as an incorporable piece. I say, “I want to feel close to you.” But he isn’t listening. He’s bending my knees.

  He says, “I like a little obstacle.”

  And he pushes in and his head has dropped off to the side and I feel stupid just lying there, so I try to join by adding observations. “This sort of feels like riding a horse,” I say, and he says, “Yes.” I say, “I feel like one of those things that quarterbacks run into,” and he says, “Yessss,” and he’s going fast and he’s heavy and his eyes are closed and I see that’s so he doesn’t have to look at me. I ask, “Could we take a break?” and my voice sounds funny, like a chipped-off part of it, and it hurts, but he said it might hurt. Right after he pushed in.

  I try to be a sport. I remember the time my dad said I was a wimp because I wouldn’t let him pull my tooth out. I try to think of it like getting a loose tooth pulled. I’ll buck up; I have to learn sometime. But then I remember that I didn’t let my dad pull my tooth. I walked around for weeks with it dangling, and when it finally fell out I tied a ribbon around it and kept it in my jewelry box. I feel myself concentrating like that tooth is in my stomach.