Autobiography of Us (3 page)

“She’s only trying to be helpful,” I murmured.

“We’re not little girls anymore, Rebecca.” She looked at me almost sorrowfully. “I’ll be fifteen this March. Tick-tock.”

“I know that.” I thought about my own mother, the frown she got as she stood behind me in front of the mirror mornings before school, her hands patting at the stray pieces of hair that refused to lie flat. Of course she wanted everything Alex had been complaining about for me: The week before, we’d passed a flyer tacked up on the community board at the club, announcing ballroom-dancing lessons for the fall, Mother telling me briskly not to worry, that we’d figure something out. “It’s just—”

“Just what?” Alex said, her voice dangerously quiet. “You thought everything would stay like this forever?” She gestured in the direction of the canal, and I followed dumbly, searching around us as though the answer might be written in the spiny leaves of the junipers or across the smooth bark of one of the lemon trees.

“Of course not,” I said.

The truth is that I understood very little of what she was saying. Before Alex, what thrills I’d experienced I’d found in my imagination, the result of burying myself in book after book. I depended, I mean, on escape for my various joys. It had never occurred to me that real life might offer the smallest portion of the happiness I found in reading, the ordinary scaffolding of my day-to-day a thing I’d made a habit of burying under a thousand imagined lives, each more inviting than the last. And then she came along and it was as though life were a Christmas tree and I’d discovered the hidden switch, the whole thing lighting up in a blaze of color.

WOULD it surprise you to learn there wasn’t much for girls like us to do in those days? We were bright girls, after all, and not without certain resources. But Pasadena at that time was a different world. At Windridge we studied sewing alongside the humanities; we jotted down Latin declensions in our notebooks beside recipes for chocolate cake or a diagram for a foolproof cross-stitch.
Amo, amas,
we wrote.
Whip egg whites until soft peaks form.
We were expected to do well but not overly so. My own parents gave my report cards no more than a passing glance, Mother saying once that so long as I was minding my manners I could likely keep her up to date on everything myself. “If there’s a problem,” she said, “we’ll get a phone call from Miss So-and-So, isn’t that right?” She smiled at me, showing her dimples. “I don’t expect there will be any problems.”

There
was
a girl two classes ahead of us at Windridge, a Martha Clarkson, whose parents were rumored to have sympathized with Communists after the war; it was believed that because of that she was allowed to do as she pleased, that in the aftermath of that disgrace her mother and father had, for all intents and purposes, defected from parenthood. She certainly looked as though no one was paying her any attention. She wore a large, ill-fitting sweater the color of mustard over her blouse no matter the weather, and her hair always had the wild look of something left to its own devices. The few times I stood close to her in line at the cafeteria or found myself partnered with her in dance class, I saw that her nails were bitten down to the quick, the skin on either side of them bloodied.
Ruined
, my mother called it, shaking her head whenever the Clarksons came up in conversation. “That poor girl,” she sighed.

She would go on to study physics and Latin at Cal State, Martha Clarkson: In the spring of her senior year, the news went around that she’d been accepted to law school at Pomona. Ruined, in other words. I remember squinting in the bright sun to find her onstage at Windridge graduation, her hair cut by then in a blunt bob that did her squarish face no favors, her thick, black-framed glasses disguising what I had once observed during dancing were surprisingly blue eyes. She was a tall girl, taller even than I was. I shot up during the summer before tenth grade, a betrayal I counted among my body’s greatest. It must have been in part because of that that I registered Martha Clarkson so acutely that morning, the way her head stuck out above all the rest of the girls in her row.
Queenie,
my father called me in moments of affection, and I might have thought of that as I watched Martha Clarkson cross the stage to accept her certificate, the fact that she did indeed look regal in her own way. But what I thought instead as I sat there drawing circles in the grass with my toe, already bored, was that she must have felt burdened by her height the way I did, that she must have found it excruciating. It must, I told myself as everyone stood to applaud, have been part of what had spurred her on to Cal, to physics and Latin, that sense that she didn’t belong. That she was only ever playing the part of a girl like all the rest.

* * *

I would not be a Martha Clarkson: My mother would never have allowed it. But the day Mr. Percy brought the frogs into the classroom that first spring after Alex arrived, I stood my ground next to her, more than half the other girls in the room crying out for infirmary passes, complaining of headaches, dizziness, nausea.

“Shoot me.” Alex pulled on her gloves, snapping them over her wrists. “I mean it. If I ever turn into a fainting violet or whatever, go ahead and pull the trigger.” She sniffed. “I, for one, happen to find the smell of formaldehyde bracing.”

I glanced around the room. Besides us, just four girls remained. “They say biology’s the key to everything.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, they do, do they?”

We found the station assigned to us and sat down in front of the metal tray containing our frog, the sides of the tray shallow, cold to the touch.

Alex slid the cover off. “For Pete’s sake!” She sat back heavily on her stool. “No one said it would look so pathetic.”

“I think he looks peaceful.”

“Never knew what hit him, poor bastard.”

“They’re raised for this,” I said doubtfully. “I think.”

We stared down at the damp grayish body, the small flipperlike feet spread wide, the skin dull against the metal. “Bred for death,” she said drily. “Much better, thanks.”

At the head of the room, Mr. Percy cleared his throat. “You’ll see that the diagram provided at each station outlines each step in detail,” he said. “I’ll be here if there are any questions. And to all you brave souls strong enough to endure, my undying gratitude.” He was kind, Mr. Percy, younger than most of our teachers, and one of just two men at Windridge. The other, Mr. Watkins, was ancient and hard of hearing, and everyone made fun of him behind his back.

Alex gave herself a shake and picked up the knife. “Alas, poor Froggy,” she said loudly. “I knew ye not.” I watched as she reached down into the tray, her fingers enormous in those gloves. There was a clatter as the knife dropped—“Christ!”—Alex’s face when her head came up this time ashen. “It’s rubbery. Slick too. And in case you were thinking the knife would just go in, it doesn’t. It
resists.
”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mr. Percy rise halfway out of his chair.

I picked the knife up from the tray and nudged the lab notebook her way. “You take notes.”

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Fine?” I could see her struggling. “I give you five minutes, and then let’s see who’s fine
,
” she grumbled, but she flipped the notebook open and turned to a clean page.

I lowered my head and began to cut.

* * *

How do I explain? I’d planned on blustering my way through; I considered myself not unaccustomed to the ugliness of death. The lizards that hid in the cracks of our garden wall sometimes died in among my mother’s roses, and it was my job to collect and carry them to the bin, their bodies hitting the bottom with a sickening thud. I’d thought this would be only a little worse. But no sooner had I pulled the gray flaps of the frog’s stomach apart than everything disappeared. The room went quiet. Silent, really, the silence turning everything around me unfocused, the edges of the room softened as though painted over in watercolor. The frog’s skin proved thin as onionskin, easily removed; I pulled the yellow ropes of fat along the belly through the incision and laid them flat against the tray; I took out the liver, dark and flat as a dried plum between my tweezers; I probed the gallbladder and picked out the kidneys, which lifted away from the flesh like a pair of dry seeds; I sliced out the ugly little heart, the tissue gleaming a deep, gelatinous scarlet. Somewhere to my left, Alex groaned, and I lowered my face over the tray until everything disappeared again but the heart.

“Look,” I breathed, but she buried her face in her hands.

“
You
look.”

I pulled my chair in closer and bent down over the tray. I had that exquisite sense of focus that came from being lost in one of my books, my universe narrowing itself to a single point. I unwrapped the wet skein of the intestines and pulled them taut against my palm; I turned the kidneys onto a separate tray with the forceps. I flipped the blackish liver over onto the glass slide and felt the give of it under my gloved finger, dense and resistant as meat. I drew the head of the microscope down and examined the oily honeycomb of cells under the lens, the pattern a delicate feathering, I thought, not unlike the one waves leave along the sand.

“Fine work.” Mr. Percy stood over me. “Fine work indeed.” He pushed his glasses up his nose. “Wonderful to see you girls get involved. There are any number of—
hrrmph—
opportunities here at Windridge, you know. Excellent resources.” He stood, arms crossed across his chest now, as though waiting. “Seems a shame no one ever takes much of an interest.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “I’m enjoying it very much, sir—”

“I was just saying, Mr. Percy,” Alex interrupted, holding the notebook aloft as though it were a fan and she might, at any moment, snap it open and begin to dance, “that biology is more or less the essence of life. Don’t you agree?”

“The what?” He stood there, blinking.

“The key to everything.” She beamed at him. “Isn’t that right?”

“Perhaps.” His glasses had already begun their slow journey back down his nose and he pushed at them again, using his knuckle to edge them into place. “That is, I like to think it’s the most directly applicable of the sciences. A
living
science.” He coughed. “It being all around us and all.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Alex gazed at him.

He reddened. “Yes. Well, then—carry on.” He nodded as though we’d asked his approval and turned back toward his desk.

“We’ll do our best, Mr. Percy,” Alex called after him. He ducked his head—embarrassed, I thought, or flattered. “
I’m
interested
,
” Alex said, turning to me and putting one hand to her chest. “Oh, absolutely, Mr. Percy, I’m so interested I could lie down and kiss your darling biological feet—”

“Hush.” I glanced around the room to make sure no one had overheard.

She smiled broadly, tucking a pencil behind her ear. “I think it’s adorable.”

“It’s got nothing to do with adorable.”

“Then why are you blushing?”

“I’m not—” but then I stopped. I saw—like one of my heroines, only decidedly less heroic in her misfortune—Martha Clarkson walking down the hallway with a frown of concentration creasing her pale forehead, her skirt sagging, her blouse covered up by that sweater.
Ruined.
“Well,” I said slowly. “Maybe just the tiniest crush.”

“And why not?” She flashed a smile and I feigned absorption in the contents of the tray, feeling a shiver of something equal parts guilt and pleasure. “Not much to look at, is he, but at least he’s got a head on his shoulders. More than anyone can say for those Browning boys.” She picked up the notebook again, looking bored. “Now give me something to write down so we can get out of here already. I’m famished, and as it turns out I don’t care for the smell of death.”

* * *

It can’t have been long after that day in Mr. Percy’s classroom—a week, maybe two—that Alex had the first of her many classes after school. “Elocution,” she said, sticking out her tongue. “Told you.” I’m sure I pretended it was mere coincidence when I found myself walking along East Walnut toward the public library. It was a stately old building, large and full of light. The librarian, a kindly old lady named Mrs. Farmington, was more than happy to point me in the direction of natural sciences.

“It’s for a school project
,
” I told her, as though I needed to explain. I’d never set foot on the second floor, but it was even quieter up there, the sound muffled by thick carpeting and endless shelves of books. I located the section that housed the biology texts easily enough. I must have spent a good three hours there that first day, poring over diagrams and tables, the print often so small I had to bring my face down close to the musty-smelling pages. I went back the very next week. Dance class this time, Alex declared grimly when we said goodbye in front of school. “Tick-tock,” she said. Eventually I worked up the courage to check out a book, then a second, the due date stamped in the back with a satisfying
thwack!

I remember those as some of my happiest hours. To sit at the end of those narrow aisles with the afternoon sun filtering through the windows, the smell of old books heavy in the air, the whine of the overhead light like the honeybees that gathered in my mother’s garden, come June, by the dozens—it was as close as I have ever come to understanding worship. My father was the only regular churchgoer in our family, but on the rare occasions my mother and I joined him, I was always surprised to find how much I liked it. I couldn’t tell you much of anything about Father Timothy’s sermons; I don’t believe I registered more than a handful of words over the years. All I heard as I sat between my parents in the hard-backed pew was the cavernous silence that continued even as he spoke, and the hundreds of small sounds under that sound, the echoes produced by the shuffle of feet moving against the wooden floors or the noise of someone swallowing. The library had that same persistent quiet, a stillness that I’m afraid made it all too easy for me to lose track of time. I often climbed the stairs with every intention of leaving within the hour, only to find myself startled by the click of the lights as Mrs. Farmington turned them off, one by one, signaling it was time to go.