Monday I Love You (3 page)

Where did their mothers find these names? I wondered.

Chloe was standing slightly behind Ashley, as a good handmaiden should. I've read about handmaidens in history. Handmaidens are subservient creatures, ready to do the bidding of the lady of the manor or the queen.

“Hello,” I said. To both of them. And went on washing my hands, uncertain of what was expected of me.

“Don't you think Grace's sweater is super?” Ashley's voice rose. I think she was trying to keep from laughing out loud. Chloe's eyes never left me. She didn't smile. I wondered why Ashley had chosen Chloe as her handmaiden when Chloe wasn't even that good-looking.

Behind me, someone stood in the girls'-room door, foot wedged in the crack to hold it closed. I turned off the water and reached out for some paper toweling. Chloe took my arms in an almost friendly way. Ashley reached out and began to unbutton my sweater.

I hunched my shoulders, hands still wet, and turned to escape. The smell of danger was everywhere.

Ashley ran her hand lovingly down my front, over my breasts, patting them with little love taps.

“Oh, Grace,” Ashley pleaded, “just let us see you. All we want is to see if you're for real.” Her fingers continued to unbutton me, and the one with the foot in the door took my other arm. Her name was Nicole. She was captain of the basketball team.

Luckily I had my blouse with the back zipper on under my sweater.

“Oh shit,” Ashley swore under her breath. “Take off your blouse, dear Grace. Please.” She actually smiled as she eased my sweater off and let it lie in a vast puddle on the cold tile floor. “We only want to see you. We promise not to tell anybody. If you promise not to tell anybody too. It's like a pact, Grace. It's between us girls.”

A leaky tap was the only sound. I thought I heard music. The band was practicing in the gym, probably.

“Let go of me.” My voice sounded so weak, so terrified, I knew it wouldn't stop them. Nothing was going to stop them. They held both my arms tightly as Ashley fumbled at the neck of my blouse. In one deft movement, she ripped it straight down to my waist. A long, hissing sigh, like escaping steam, drowned out the sound of dripping water.

I had on two bras. The one on the bottom was too small, and pale gray from long use. I thought two would make me look smaller. The one on top was my best one. It was black. Lace.

“Well, for God's sake, she's all dressed up,” I heard someone, maybe Chloe, say.

“Yeah, and no place to go.”

“Don't that beat all.”

I felt fingers at my back, trying to undo my bra. Bras.

“No,” I said. “You're not. I won't get you.”

“Cheese it.” Nicole tore herself away to peer out the door. “The cops.” They dropped me and left. Afterward, I remembered how Ashley sauntered, taking her time. Cool. Oh, so cool.

“Ho, Ms. Govoni,” I heard her say.

Nothing to be done about the blouse. I was crying so hard I couldn't see. I had my sweater almost on when Ms. Govoni, the gym teacher, came in.

“Oh, you startled me,” she said. “Just checking. Thought I smelled smoke.” Arms flailing, panic-stricken, I mumbled something.

“Here, let me help.” I felt Ms. Govoni touch me and I screamed, unable to control myself.

“Let me alone!” I shouted.

“Grace. I'm terribly sorry.” She sounded a long way off. “I was only trying to help.”

I fled into one of the stalls, locked myself in and began flushing the toilet, trying to drown out the awful sounds I couldn't stop making. A piece of my blouse hung down outside my sweater. In a rage, I tore it off and scuffed it into a corner.

I couldn't stop crying. The sobs came from my feet. They shook me, preparing the way for more. All of my life I would remember their faces, the feel of their hands. All of my life, I knew they would go on destroying me with their indecency. If I could have killed them at that instant, I would have, gladly.

“Please, Grace.” Between seizures, I heard Ms. Govoni tapping on the stall door. “Let me help. Please.”

I didn't answer. When you're not used to kindness, it's tough to handle. Eventually, I stopped. I don't know how long I stayed in there. At last, when I unlocked the door and came out, Ms. Govoni was waiting.

She handed me a fistful of tissues. I took them and blew. I didn't look at myself in the mirror. I knew that crying, even a small fit of crying, made me look like a piece of Spam—mottled, red, meaty looking. I turned on the cold water and stuck my head under.

“I'm not asking what happened,” Ms. Govoni said after a while. “I know you won't tell me anyway. Not now.” She checked her watch. “I'm through for the morning. Would you like to come out with me and have some coffee?”

I didn't want coffee, but I didn't want to be alone. I couldn't go back to class, looking the way I looked. There was no point in going home. So I said, “Yes, I'd like some coffee.”

“I'll notify your homeroom teacher,” Ms. Govoni said. Her whistle hung outside her sweatshirt. Kids made fun of Ms. Govoni. Her hair was messy, bunched over her ears. They said she looked like a spaniel and liked girls better than boys.

“Mine's the red Subaru wagon, license plate GYM–3,” she said. “Vanity plates.” She smiled at me, and without knowing if I still knew how, I smiled back. “Here are the keys. Wait for me. I won't be a minute.”

I ran through the halls and out into the parking lot, unlocked the car and got in. I stared hard at my lap, thinking it had got a lot fatter since the last time I'd looked at it, wondering how and if I'd be able to go on with my life as if this hadn't happened. Wondering if I'd tell on them, knowing I wouldn't.

I'm telling. Like a six-year-old, I'm telling.

Maybe we could move, go someplace else. Maybe my father'd get a job somewhere else. Lord knows we'd moved plenty in the past. Why couldn't we move one more time?

What would that solve? You take yourself with you, some wise man once said. I was my own baggage, large and cumbersome baggage.

I emptied my head of everything. I'd taught myself to do that when bad things happened. Things I couldn't face, couldn't cope with. I simply thought of nothing.

5

“Which one is you?” Estelle had asked when I showed her the glossy photo of the Gathering of the Schmitt Clan my mother had framed and hung over the livingroom sofa. When I pointed to a dark and scowling child third from the left in the front row, Estelle said, “I'd know you anywhere.”

Why'd you ask then? I wondered.

Nobody warns you about turning five. It seemed I'd started out all right, then when I hit five I turned fat and ugly. They're always full of stuff about watch out for puberty, the teen years are the worst, all that. Nobody says a peep about five. Baby pictures have me smiling, cute as a button, even if my legs are a little stubby and my clothes pull against my waist. Then I went to kindergarten. A whole new world lay out there, one I wasn't sure I could handle.

My mother held my hand. I remember that much. Her other hand held her cosmetics suitcase. The room blared with light; little tables and chairs stood waiting. The room was full of kids in various stages of anxiety. Some of them looked smug. They were the ones who knew how to write their names and even read a little. But their faces wore smug looks just as surely as their feet wore new shoes. The smell of new shoes was very strong in the room. I always associate the smell of new shoes with kindergarten. There was a blackboard and piles of clean erasers. Lots of chalk. We were instructed to sit at one of the little tables and fold our hands and wait for further orders. Wait until the teacher got her act together.

The teacher didn't look a whole lot bigger than the children, I remember. I've thought about that some since and decided they pick kindergarten teachers for their small stature rather than for their ability to lead children through the paths of higher learning.

When they took the roll call and the teacher called out, “Grace? Grace Schmitt?” in an unnecessarily loud voice, I panicked. The name sounded familiar to me but not enough to make me raise my hand. Saying “Here” was out of the question. I remember it seemed like a long morning. Midmorning we had juice and crackers, and the rest was downhill all the way.

I longed for the comfort and security of my own backyard and a bathroom with only one toilet. All those toilets confused me. And, instead of doors, they had little droopy red curtains to shield us from curious eyes. I went into each stall, praying for a door, but all I got was another droopy red curtain. Kids ran in and out, poking their fingers at me, issuing shrieks as they ran that made me think of wild birds. It was very unsettling.

Just as I was getting to like kindergarten, getting used to it and all the strange children and the red curtains, our teacher told us we'd be moving on.

“Just think, children,” she said, clapping her little hands with glee, “in the fall you'll all be first graders. You'll be in school
all day
! Won't that be grand?”

I was dismayed. I wanted to stay put. I was the kind of child who didn't adjust easily, who preferred the familiar to the strange.

“Can't I just stay here? With you?” I whispered. But no one heard me.

Then another, even stranger event occurred: a family reunion.

I'd never been to a family reunion until an invitation came for the Gathering of the Schmitt Clan. My mother made me a new dress for the occasion. It was pink and ruffly and so short my underpants hung out. It did nothing for me.

When we got there, a skinny girl named Cora came up to me and pushed her face into mine. “I'm seven,” said Cora, “and I'm gifted and talented.” I cringed, being neither. “I thought they were going to give you back,” she said in a snippy way. “My mother told me when your mother and father knew you were on the way, they said they'd give you back if you weren't a boy. But I see they didn't.” Then she stuck her tongue out at me and put one finger in the middle of my stomach, just about belly-button level, and stepped on my feet.

Then the kissing began. I was stunned by what Cora had said, but even if I hadn't been, I would've hated all that spit. I felt as if I had spit all over my face. In my ears. Those were the spittiest kisses I can remember. Everybody kissed everybody else because they were related. My aunt Rena, my father's sister, came up to me and said, “Well, well,” as if she didn't like what she saw, and planted a big juicy kiss on me. I backed off fast and landed on my uncle Ted's tassel loafers. Uncle Ted was a truck driver who liked to get out of his work clothes when he went anywhere. He spoke long and knowledgeably about semis and eight-wheelers, and he listed the good diners against the bad. Then Uncle Ted rolled up his sleeves to show me his tattoos. When he'd done with that, he pulled his shirt out of his belt to show off the tattoos on his stomach, and his wife came skimming across the ground, shouting, “Enough! Enough! This is a family gathering!”

As if I could forget.

There was a big, long table filled with food. The Schmitts were famous for their appetities. Our contribution was my mother's famous three bean salad. Her secret was letting it marinate for five days to get the most out of the beans. My father and I circled the table, avoiding my mother's three bean salad. There were so many cold cuts it might've been a deli, and endless bowls of cole slaw and potato salad.

Still they went on kissing. When the feast was over, I went out to the parking lot, found our car and huddled on the backseat to wait. I'll never forget how angry my mother was when at last she figured out where I was.

“Never do that again! Do you hear me?” she said over and over, taking me by the shoulders and shaking me, keeping time to what she was saying. “We thought you'd been abducted. Maybe been run over. We almost called the police. Never, never again do you do that, just disappear like that!” My father stood behind her, silent as the grave, smelling strongly of beer, nodding in agreement to everything she said. How was I to know “abducted” and “kidnapped” meant the same thing? If she'd said kidnapped right off, I never would've worked up that fantasy about being a kidnapped child.

My mother drove home, crouched low over the wheel as if ours was a getaway car and I held the swag. Now and then she'd make little
tsk tsk
noises with her tongue, thinking about what one of the relatives had said. Or worn. Or contributed to the food. Or about my hiding in the backseat. She didn't have much good to say about anybody or anything. But then, these were my father's relatives, Schmitts through and through. Not Parkers. Parkers knew better. Parkers were higher class, she let us know. They would never do anything so common as to hold a family reunion.

Throughout her harangue, my father dozed. Or pretended to.

“I'm not going if they do,” I said from the backseat. “I don't care what happens, I'm not kissing all those strangers ever again. Why should I let people kiss me just because they're my relatives? I'm not doing it,” and I closed my eyes.

To my surprise, my mother cackled delightedly. I heard her even as I drifted off. She didn't often laugh, at me or anyone else. Or
with
me, either. Now, I think, she was doing both. I had won her favor without even trying.

We went over a pothole and the car lurched, waking me. “How come you decided to keep me?” I demanded.

“What? What? What's that you say, Grace?” My mother pretended she didn't know what I meant.

“Cora said you said you were going to give me back if I wasn't a boy,” I said. “How come you changed your mind? Who were you going to give me back
to?
I bet nobody wanted me. Is that it? Nobody wanted me, so you had to keep me after all.”

But my mother said nothing, only put her foot down hard on the gas pedal, and we sailed through the summer dusk, smashing bugs on our windshield left and right, as if she hadn't washed it just before we left home.