It was the last time my legs hit the ground, walking down the stairs to John’s party. The stairs went to his cellar. I had on a navy blue jump suit with a navy blue turtleneck under it. It zipped down the front. I had the figure of a girl going into adolescence but breasts too big, but that is not important, nor was what I was wearing.
I got to the bottom of the stairs. The room had the nervous tension that parties do, at the beginning.
It was a pivotal night because it marked the beginning and the end of something big. That is what this story is about.
People take things for granted. I took for granted the simple experience of feeling. What do you mean, you say? I mean that that was the last night I could feel.
People pair off in parties. The boy I liked was not there, so I went with his friend. We went in the back room and kissed. His was tall and thin, dark hair. I never went too far. I didn’t want to go into the bad girl list. It meant something to me to have lists from which I could separate myself. That was part of why this night stood out in bas relief like the boring art history you had to read about, where the artwork was raised, so it had it’s own name.
I came home from that party. My home looked welcoming until you entered it. It was like one of those movie set homes that have warm facades but are a thin painted surface when you look from the back. I went up to my room in the cold house but it was OK. That is part of the story, how it was OK.
My room was blue . I had a bed spread of blue flowers, raised with an embroidery that was fluffy, so the flowers looked like they bloomed. There was a navy blue ceramic plate on the wall of a Dutch girl that my grandmother brought back from Holland. My grandmother brought me dolls back from all the places she visited. I had a collection in my room. When I got older, they got put in a box They looked cheap when I came home from college to look for them. They were lying all on top of each other like I may have been if I had gone on the bad list.
There were secrets in my attic along with my mother’s wedding dress and old, old books. My mother had TB when she was in college. She told me TB stayed in books, so I was afraid to open them. The attic was hot and cloying like people that are too close to you but you don’t want them to move away either.
My mother was always afraid the TB would come back. When we got sick, she would dress in a cap and a gown and go from room to room looking like an industrial green ghost. I knew there were many bad things associated with sickness that were scarier than the bad things I had buried deep in my subconscious.
I started having phobias. I thought I had to touch things three times to ward off things. I was still a happy child because I made a compartment and put all these things in it like Pandora’s Box. The phobias were like Pandora’s sins which came flying out if she didn’t lock it tightly enough. I locked it tightly. You can be sure of that.
That brings me to the party, I suppose. That was the last night I could feel. I felt the kiss of the boy’s lips on my mouth like melting sugar and butter on the best cinnamon roll. I felt my own body responding. I heard the people in the other room, but I knew I would be OK because I knew when to stop. You see, that was part of feeling, too. You know when to stop.
Several things happened after that. I was like a lighthouse when kids throw rocks at it for fun. It still stands but it becomes shabby and an eye sore. Maybe, they tear it down and put up a new industrial one, that won’t be subject to the elements. Sooner or later, something made of natural material wears out.
It could be a slow erosion or one could topple over dead. For me, it was the former. Are you getting bored yet? I did many things to try to make myself feel. I did many things to destroy the self who could not feel because I hated her. I guess I need to tell you about those.
I had no respect for her. She was the same as everyone. She wore a sweater set if everyone wore one. She wore a buttoned down, navy blue blazer with small gold hoop earrings and Waspy flat shoes.She acted right, too. It was not as if she made a spectacle of herself, quite the contrary.
Long ago, I had given up on the foreign dolls ever going back to their exalted spot on the bookshelf. I knew that girls like me go into the bad girl pile, sooner or later and I did.
One has to want to stay in the good pile or the bad pile will call them. Slowly, I didn’t care if I had on the same clothes or the right shoes. Slowly, I didn’t care if my hair was unkempt.
I changed colleges. I wanted to leave an all girls school and go to a co-ed one. I didn’t join a sorority because all they all looked the same like insects populating so fast that you marvel at the wonders of nature. I was not a sorority girl. I was an insect populating girl who was just fooling everyone.
So, you want to know how it happened that I went into the bad girl pile. I will tell you.
I will be back.