Ordinary Girls

by Blair Thornburgh

  “Yeah. Like your writing and stuff. And the fact that you were someone who just wrote for fun. And I remember thinking my friends were kind of assholes.”

  “Even then?”

  “It’s not like it’s hard to notice,” Tate said.

  That was a fair point.

  “I’m not trying to be like, Oh, they just peer pressured me, because I’m sure I was being an asshole, too. I can’t deny that stuff. I don’t know. It was dumb. I probably can’t say it didn’t mean anything without sounding like I’m full of shit, right?”

  “No,” I said truthfully.

  “Yeah, well . . . that’s kind of it, right? I’m an asshole. So the idea that someone like you would actually want to spend time with me . . . I don’t know. It kinda blew my mind.”

  “Someone like me?” I said. “What do you mean?”

  “Someone smart,” he said. “Someone interesting. I dunno. I think it might be kinda better to hook up with someone like that than someone . . . I dunno.”

  My cheeks went hot. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

  Tate looked at the ground.

  I wanted to believe him. In fact, I think I did believe him. “No,” I said. “No. It’s just . . .” I hugged my arms to myself. “I mean, me? Seriously? Look at me.”

  Tate lifted his shoulders. “Sure. What do you mean?”

  “I mean . . . look at me.” I had to get this across. I couldn’t believe it wasn’t landing. “Look at you.”

  “Maybe I didn’t tell them for the same reason you didn’t. I knew they, like, wouldn’t get it. And you didn’t tell any of your friends, did you?”

  “You mean my sister,” I said.

  “Sure.”

  I stood silent a moment.

  “No,” I said. “I didn’t. But that was different. I thought I’d . . . I don’t know. Jinx it or something.”

  “Yeah,” Tate said. “Same.”

  He looked at the couch next to him.

  “Do you want to stop standing up?”

  “You mean sit down?” I said.

  “Sure.”

  I sat down, with my hands tucked between my knees. Tate leaned forward.

  “So . . . now what?”

  I felt wildly out of control. My mind could hardly seize on a single idea long enough to articulate it into thought.

  My soul is all but out of me.

  “This is going to sound stupid,” I said.

  “From you?” Tate said. “Bullshit.”

  I smiled. “Okay. Do you remember that poem we read in English class?”

  “The one about the fly buzzing?”

  “No,” I said. “Not a death poem. The one about holding the world close enough.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Tate said. “That one was okay.”

  “What did you think it was about?”

  “I dunno,” he said. “The woods?” He widened his eyes. “Wait, no. That’s too easy. I guess it’s about . . .” He squinted. “Being alive, maybe. Is that too dumb an answer?”

  “No,” I said. “No, I think that’s exactly what it’s about.”

  “Why do you ask?” Tate said. “Are you stealth-tutoring me?”

  “No,” I said again. I took a quick breath. “It made me think of you. The poem. I’m not fully sure why. But it did.”

  “Yeah?” Tate’s whole face brightened. “No kidding.”

  “I’m not kidding,” I said. “‘Oh world, I cannot hold thee close enough.’”

  “Oh. Damn.”

  Then he laughed, and for the barest second my heart fell.

  “No one has ever said that hooking up with me made them recite poetry.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “It’s awesome,” he said.

  I smiled again. Tate smiled, too.

  “So, like, are we ever going to have a conversation that doesn’t involve English class?”

  “Are we ever going to have a conversation that doesn’t involve basketball?”

  Tate’s smile broke into a grin. “Yeah, but, like, that’s different. Basketball is, like, the heartbeat of our city.”

  “A metaphor.”

  “Damn, Peach. Did you just take the game and English it?”

  I shrugged.

  “You’re good,” he said.

  “I try.”

  He sat forward even more, craning his neck to the dining room door, then toward the back door.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Checking to see if anyone’s here,” he said. “Is anyone here?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  He turned his head and kissed me, right in the middle of the kitchen, and, I have to tell you, every part of it was glorious.

  Oh world, I thought. Oh, world, oh, world, oh, world.

  From the windowsill, Kit gave a lusty mrowl.

  That night, it thundered over 5142 Haven Lane. I woke with a start at a crack of lightning, though I couldn’t tell what time it was since the electricity had already skittered out in terror. All I could tell was that the sky was black, the house was dark, and the air was cool and fresh.

  I turned over, and onto Doug, but the thunder was too loud, or I was too awake now. So I rose and pushed off my sheets and padded downstairs, to the landing, down to the first floor, to the front porch overlooking the garden.

  “Hey.”

  I jumped. Ginny was already there, stretched on the chaise with the striped cushions.

  “Wanna sit?”

  There was a picture of the two of us on that chaise, in our matching bathing suits, eating ice cream from plastic cups using those little wooden paddles. We would not both fit there together now; there was no way. But Ginny patted the space next to her, and when I got in close to her, it was not as uncomfortable as I had thought.

  She dropped her head onto my shoulder. Wind whipped over us, pushing her hair practically between my eyelids. There is a way you get to be familiar with the smells of people you are around, or maybe it is simply being sisters that does it. In either case, Ginny’s hair smelled like pineapple shampoo, a little too strong, so specific I could practically see the crusting bottle in her bathtub.

  “It’s cool to be out here,” she said. “It feels magical. You can experience the storm without actually being in it.”

  “Who says experience the storm?” I said. “As in, ‘experience the storm on one of our exclusive tours. Call today and reserve your tickets’?”

  Ginny cackled. “I would ask you what that’s from, but this time, I am going to assume you made it up yourself.”

  “I did.”

  Outside the frame of the porch pillars, the wind was ripping through branches, the yew tree dropping sticky red buds onto the flagstones. A distant flash lit up a swath of clouds. Ginny tucked her arms up into her sleeves.

  “Can I tell you a secret, Plum?” She was staring straight ahead. “Drowning is terrifying.”

  Thunder cracked.

  “I’m sure,” I said slowly.

  “I know what you want to ask,” she went on. “And I can’t even tell you. I don’t think it was on purpose, and if I don’t think it was on purpose then it probably wasn’t. But I also didn’t not do it. I don’t know if that makes sense. I just wanted to be nowhere. I wanted to stop having to make choices.” She drew in a breath. “The doctors asked, Mom asked, the health insurance people even asked so they’d know how to bill it properly when they send me to a psychiatrist. But I honestly don’t know. Isn’t that fucked-up?”

  I looked at my sister. My sister who was so much like me it hurt not to understand something about her, even something she couldn’t understand herself.

  “Well, don’t fall all over yourself to help me out, Plummy,” she said drily.

  “I’m sorry.” My mouth felt sandy. “You’re going to a psychiatrist?”

  “I think so.”

  “Aren’t you scared?”

  “Plum, I’m scared of everything.” Ginny pulled her arms farther into he
r sleeves. “I can hardly see how a specialized doctor would be any better or worse than the rest of it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yes, well, so there.” Ginny lifted her chin. “One day I will be untroublèd.”

  There were tears going down her cheeks.

  “I’m just tired of being freaked out all the time,” she whispered. “I’m tired of it. I’m sick of it.”

  I couldn’t get to her hand, so I reached out and squeezed her foot. “I know.”

  The rain kept on, and the wind swept so hard it felt like a physical thing pressing over us, rattling the windowpanes. My mind went to Tate, and that afternoon, and for once I did not try to seal it away for safekeeping. Actually, I found I wanted to tell Ginny.

  “I have a secret, too,” I said.

  Ginny tipped her head. “Oh?”

  “Yes. And to be honest, it has been tearing me up inside. But you can’t laugh.”

  “Okay,” Ginny said, and laughed, like I knew she would. “Did you do something else bad at school? Oh my God, did you smoke a cigarette? Has Mom led you down the path of iniquity? Are your lungs already black?” She grabbed my chin and forced my jaws apart.

  “Ginny!” I shoved her off.

  “I’m just saying,” she said mildly. “Remember in health class when they showed us the healthy lung and the smoking lung? And how the smoking lung was all shrively like popcorn you leave in the microwave too long?”

  “I’m not smoking,” I said. “It’s something else.”

  “What?”

  I told her.

  “Tate Kurokawa?!” Ginny crowed. “No way.”

  I buried my face in my knees. I had made a grave misjudgment.

  “Plum!”

  “He’s very nice,” I said into my pajama pants. “In my defense. Once you get to know him.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I moved my head so my chin was on top of my knees. “I don’t know. I thought you’d judge me.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because you judge everything,” I said.

  Ginny considered. “Fair. But you do that just as much as I do. So if you found some reason to deem him acceptable, I could come around on it.”

  “You would not have.”

  “He is very attractive,” Ginny said.

  “I know,” I said, at the risk of sounding immodest. “I really like kissing him.”

  Ginny narrowed her eyes and bit her lip, thinking. “Yes. It all makes perfect sense.” She tapped the side of her nose. “He’s your Gilbert Blythe.”

  “He’s going to rescue me from under a bridge?”

  “He’s annoying,” Ginny said, “but handsome, and with many redeeming qualities, and he will buy you a dress with puffed sleeves.”

  She lay back on the chaise.

  “I’m happy for you, Plum,” she said, after a moment. “I think this is the first thing I’ve been happy about in weeks.”

  I tucked my legs up under myself. “Good.”

  The wind gusted mightily. From upstairs, there came a tremendous bang, and a tinkling sound like glass breaking. Then dogs barking. Ginny and I looked at each other, then leaped to our feet and scrambled inside, lighting up Ginny’s phone as a flashlight.

  Upstairs, on the landing, Mom crouched on the Oriental rug. The doors to the office had cracked apart and blown open, and every pane had split and shattered.

  “Don’t come closer,” Mom warned, waving a hand. She was futilely pushing her sagging pajama sleeves up to her elbows and picking up fragments. “You’ll cut yourself open.”

  “Mother!” Ginny said. “You can’t just . . . handle those! Cripes. Are you even wearing shoes?”

  Mom squinted against our phone flashlight. “I’m not stupid, Ginny.” She stuck out a foot, slippered in one of those foam mesh shoes with the rhinestone flowers on top.

  “Those aren’t enough,” Ginny said.

  “Maybe I should get the vacuum,” I offered. From inside Mom’s bedroom door, Gizmo and Doug sent up yips of distress.

  “No, you’re right.” Mom straightened up. “I can’t see anything.”

  She looked at the doors.

  “I guess I should’ve . . .” She folded her arms. “Christ. It’s a mess in there.”

  “Maybe because you’ve never cleaned it. Or even gone in there,” Ginny said.

  Mom glared. “I don’t see you offering to help.”

  “I didn’t know I was allowed!”

  “You’re not not allowed,” Mom said.

  “Then why don’t we ever go in there?” I asked.

  Mom stared at both of us. Then, gingerly, she stepped past the glass and over the threshold.

  Within it smelled old—not musty, but dignified, if such a smell is possible. Organized it was not—naturally. It was still dark—Ginny uselessly yanked a lamp’s pull cord—but my eyes were adjusting enough to see. There was something more than careless about the way the study was stacked with papers, books, manila folders, expanding files. It was some kind of conscious disorganization, less neglect and more intentional jumble. In the corner was what looked like a wooden stool, pale, with no finish, which Ginny sprang toward.

  “Dusty,” she said. “Gross.”

  “What did you expect?” I said.

  She ignored me and picked it up, surveying.

  “I’m going to put finish on it. It needs it.”

  “What? How would you know?”

  “I don’t. But I could figure it out. I’ve watched an awful lot of Home and Garden Television.” She set the stool back down. “Yes, actually, I think that’s brilliant. I would like to know how to do something practical with my hands. It seems . . . fulfilling.”

  “Weren’t you the one afraid of becoming a coal miner?” I said.

  Ginny tossed her head. “That was a long time ago, Plum.”

  It had been seven months. But, also, it had been a long time.

  I turned my attention to the desk, where, beneath a stack of receipts and invoices and God knows what else, a bright corner of paper peeked out. I pushed away the other layers and immediately recognized it. In careful, preschool letters, the top read PLUM’s MAGAZINE FOR KIDS, with each S turned charmingly backward. Inside there was a notional amount of content—scribbled humanoid circles, something that was probably a cat, a sun with angular rays spiking out in all directions. But it was the back cover that was most striking.

  The lettering wasn’t our mother’s—she wrote in a script-print hybrid with lots of flourish. This was tighter, more straightforward, but certainly adult.

  Children of every age and reading level will appreciate this fine work of magazine journalism by a brilliant new talent in the media world. List price $2.00.

  You simply couldn’t know how finding that made me feel—or maybe you could. I held it to my heart.

  Lightning flashed, and I saw Mom looking away from a bookcase.

  “It gets such good light in here,” Mom said. “It’s a shame we don’t . . .”

  “You should have it,” I said. “Make it an art studio.”

  Mom gaped.

  “I don’t—”

  “We don’t mind. Right, Gin?”

  Ginny looked up from Beginner’s Woodworking. “Absolutely not. In fact, I think it’s a fine idea.”

  Mom pursed her lips, arms folded. “We’ll see.”

  Thunder rolled, more distant now.

  “Finally.” Ginny slammed her book shut. “This has been the longest storm of my life.”

  Six

  You are indeed the finest comic writer of the present age.

  —Jane Austen, in a letter to her sister

  And yet there still remained the issue of Ginny’s probation, and my own suspension. An explanation had to be made, and, perhaps not coincidentally, the explanation fell to me. Because, yes, I had been explaining everything, this whole time, in notebooks, furtively, secretly—ashamedly, even, at times, given my own inescapable naïveté.

  But I
could not have resisted writing it, and then I became glad of it.

  There was, of course, no smoking gun, and no previous record of academic dishonesty, and, when pressed, Charlotte prevaricated. My written account attested a plausible timeline of innocence, and so Ginny was absolved; what became of Charlotte I could not tell you.

  You may have surmised the end effect of this story. However unintentionally humorous and stupidly youthful-sounding my account—

  But Ginny told me that there is no way I am ever unintentionally funny; it is simply that I’m so good at it that it comes like a reflex. And it should also be remembered, as one can read in the back matter of their books, that Charlotte Brontë and her sisters began writing fantasy stories when they were children. Jane Austen wrote two novels when she was twelve, and also a whole host of letters to her sisters. Mary Shelley was nineteen when she wrote Frankenstein. And Edna St. Vincent Millay was only twenty when she won her first poetry prize.

  I am only fifteen now, it is true. And one day I will be eighteen, and twenty-five, and thirty-five, and fifty, and hopefully older, and hopefully at least that old, and I will think of these days as foolish or inconsequential or only invested with meaning with the benefit of hindsight.

  But I will also not see them as I do now. They will not be raw, fresh, stinging, bloomingly warm as this afternoon when I sit on the windowsill with Kit Marlowe over my feet. I will forget the smell of his fur, the lead paint peeling just so, like an opening mouth, the unabashed clanging of the fat wind chimes that hang beneath me in the garden. So perhaps it is in fact in my best interest to write now, and encapsulate something.

  Rilke, as we learned in subsequent classes on poetry, didn’t think writing young would produce anything. But he was also never a fifteen-year-old girl. He had not been Patience Mortimer Blatchley living through a year that did have, for the record, an awful lot of unexpected meetings and illnesses and long nights of love (although maybe not in the embarrassing sense of love he probably meant, judging by his other poems).

  I had not set out to do a literary project, to make anyone laugh, or to exonerate myself from charges of name-calling, or to testify to my own sister’s innocence in matters of academic integrity, but at this point in the story, that is what happened. And now, having recovered this account, and being inclined to continue it, and feeling that in retrospect I have gained both a keener sense of my own project and the realization that, indeed, some parts of the story of this year were in fact ridiculously funny, especially the parts with the porta potty and the flies and anything involving our mother trying to plan a party, and if there’s any point to this story at all it’s just that things were all right, then bad, then terrible, and now they are better.