Rites Of Passage For Girls
This short story was originally published in "Some Places Worth Leaving" (Tolsun Books, 2020) and feels relevant to these times... (TW)
Age 5: Kindergarten, first day of school. I’m wearing hand-me-down jeans with ironed-on denim patches on the knees. I’m wearing a new top, too; it is ruffled and pink and matches the pink socks my big sister gave me. I kept the socks in the package all summer, waiting to present myself and my pink outfit to my new classmates today.
At school, older girls run across the playground in pairs, holding hands while their ponytails bounce and shine. Their smiles stretch across their faces, revealing rows of white baby teeth that remind me of Chiclets. Some of them have gaps where their adult teeth will grow in. I want shiny and pretty friends like them. The janitor walks by with a mop and winks.
A cluster of 3rd grade boys standing around a classroom door giggle at me as I lean against the hallway wall, my head just below the fire alarm. The boys say I am at the bottom of their list, that the other girls are worth their time, and I am just a flea.
Age 7: Walking home from the bus stop. Buds of the sycamore trees along the sidewalk slowly unfurl, the smell of cut grass carried on the breeze with the scent of lilacs. Black-eyed Susans, California poppies, blue bells, all blooming along a driveway near the bus stop. I still have six blocks to walk and I’m distracted by everything opening around me, inviting me toward it all. I am floating. I dream of the creek I will cross over, curious about what’s stirring in the water below the bridge.
Then the blue car rolls up. Its paint is chipped, a humming sound rattles out from under the hood. The man driving has a bushy mustache and it crawls toward his nose when he smiles at me. The car’s squeaky brakes pierce my ears and then he passes me. I spot more flowers along the sidewalk, turn the corner and I hear the car rattling from behind me; he circled the block.
I turn to see the man again. He isn’t wearing a shirt. His hand moves up his chest, his fingers curling through his thick dark chest hair. His gold wedding band reflects the afternoon sun. He’s smiling again, but it’s a smile that makes me shrink inside. He stops the car and tells me to get in. My gaze falls toward my scuffed shoes with their frayed white laces. My face burns. His smile vanishes and he speeds off as another car approaches. I exhale, walk faster. Just three more blocks until I’m home.
He has circled the block again, approaching me in his long blue car for the third time. There’s a dead bird near the gutter; it’s just a baby, flattened on the pavement with one leg missing and the other twisted out to the side of its broken wing. My mom isn’t home and I don’t want this man to know where I live. I turn left instead of right, circling another block over and over again until the sun shines sideways through the tree branches and I know it’s almost the time of day when Mom gets home from work. I’m afraid he’ll be waiting in my driveway. I wait until I can’t see or hear the car and creep down under the bridge. I run my fingers over the soft head of a cattail, and watch the water bugs and tadpoles until I fall asleep.
Age 10: At the public pool. The heat is ruthless but the tan is worth it. My friend Layla has long golden hair and the boys all watch as she dives into the pool, her hair fanning out like a mermaid’s as she twists and glides under the water. I’m watching her, too. She’s graceful and tall and she has a new neon green two-piece that shows off her tan and brightens her emerald eyes when she comes up for air.
The pool is crowded but I’m baking under the sun so I climb down the ladder and into the chlorinated water. I plug my nose, my head submerges, muffling the sound of a hundred laughing swimmers. My feet meet the floor of the pool and I push myself up for air. There’s no space to swim through the bodies, all of the kids splash and shout and I can’t see Layla anymore. I submerge again, same routine, pushing myself up for a breath.
And then the boys crowd around me; they appeared so quickly. They’re all older, maybe 14. The lifeguards are out of sight and then I feel it, a hand—maybe two—grabbing me hard between my legs. I feel aching and a sharp sting and then the boys swim away, shouting and dunking each other under the water. The space they leave is quickly filled by other kids and I want to let myself sink under them, to stay submerged forever. The stinging grows and I’m afraid everyone saw them do it, afraid of what they’ll say when I get out of the pool.
Layla appears, her long hair dripping, the drops quickly evaporating on the hot pavement as she leans over to greet me. She’s ready to get snow cones; she always orders the blue raspberry that stains her mouth and makes it look like the bottom of the pool. In the changing room, a tinge of fresh blood stains the lining of my rainbow one piece. I wrap the wet suit in a towel, shove it into my pool bag, pull my summer dress back on, and follow Layla into the bright afternoon.
Age 12: At Kmart. Trying on school clothes to be put on layaway until fall. My breasts are just starting to bud, and I adjust the straps of my flowery training bra to hold it firm against my changing body. Mom is in the next dressing room, angry at the mirror, huffing about her fat and wrinkles. She hates her short legs and full belly, always tells the mirror she’s ugly. She marches from the dressing room to find clothes that fit and I’m relieved.
I worry that because everyone says I look like her, that I am fat and ugly, too. I stretch my arms overhead, examining the spot where the soft flesh of my belly curls over my panties. I don’t think I look so bad but maybe I’m wrong. I hear a muffled cough and what sounds like a long sigh. It’s coming from the waiting area and I think it is Mom, wanting me to hurry. I pull on my top, cross one arm over my chest, use my free hand to pull the changing room curtain aside, and peek out. A man—probably 30—is kneeling down, looking up and into the room where I had removed my clothes. He sees that I’ve caught him watching, jumps to his feet, shows me his little pink dick poking out from a nest of black hair before scrambling out of the room, knocking over a rack of plastic clothes hangers that spread out with a loud clattering across the floor.
Age 13: Saturday night slumber party. The girls at Emily’s sleepover showed me how to do it after we gorged on pizza and root beer floats. Emily’s mom is a therapist and she was downstairs, assembling an Ikea bookshelf where she’ll display her books about personality disorders and mood disorders and sleeping disorders in her new office.
First, a girl named Kelly who goes to a different school walks into the bathroom. I hear her hurling, one of those full body projectile barfs, like in 5th grade when I had food poisoning. She walks from the bathroom with watery eyes and bright red cheeks. Emily says it was only her second time, but she’ll get better. Next, my friend Hannah goes in, tying her hair into a bun as she closes the door with her foot. I can barely hear her do it. She flushes the toilet and emerges like she was just casually applying lipgloss in there.
Emily says Hannah’s been doing it since last year, in 7th grade, and she taught all of the other girls. I watch Hannah as she loosens her brown hair from the tie and checks herself out in a full-length mirror. She takes ballet classes and has perfect posture. Emily tells me I’m next, says she’ll hold my hair while I force my fingers into my throat, says I’ll be perfect if I can just lose ten more pounds.
Age 15: At school, sophomore year. I drank three screwdrivers at a party by the river Saturday night and danced around a bonfire with my best friend. I took a hit off a joint and got so dizzy that I threw up near some blackberry bushes and passed out in the dirt. I woke up in the back of Wayne Shetfield’s truck and his cousin was next to me. He had a hand rubbing my boobs under my top and another rubbing his cock. I pushed him away, scrambled out of the truck bed and noticed my pants were unbuttoned; sand and mud ringed the hems.
My friend’s brother drove me home as the sun climbed up over the foothills and reflected off of the river. Now it’s Monday and all of the popular girls keep flipping their hair and rolling their eyes and calling me a slut, saying that I let Wayne and his brother fuck me at the same time. No one will talk to me, except for the boys who stop me in the hallway on the way to my world history class, asking for blowjobs.
