Girl (20 page)

The next day at KBAN Jamaal bugged me that I'd done something kinky because I had scratches all over me. I was wearing my hair down normal but every time I went by the bathroom I would run in and push it up and my neck was all scratched but it still looked so glamorous and sexy I couldn't stop doing it. Then Todd called and he wanted to go see this French movie but he didn't have any money so I took him. And then we had sex in Sweeney Park because Carla was home but then I had to walk to the bus stop by myself and I got home after midnight and my parents yelled at me.

But all that week I kept going into bathrooms and pulling my hair up into a bunch on my head and stray bits would hang over my face and I looked so sexy I could hardly believe it. And it made me mad that I had wasted so much time wearing it down in the most boring of all possible ways. And one night I was trying on different tops and looking at my breasts and sort of talking to Carla in my head, asking her questions, like which way should I pin my hair and would Todd like this blouse or that shirt. And I knew Todd liked my breasts but I pretended that Carla was advising me on what was the sexiest top to wear and if I should go bra-less or show cleavage or just be totally covered and mysterious.

And then Todd called me at work and he was going back to Seattle. I was like, “Todd, you practically live there.” He said, “What do you mean, I
do
live there.” I tried to stay calm and I asked him if I could come with him to the bus station
because he usually took the bus but he said he was getting a ride and he had all these excuses and then I started to cry, silently of course, and I was still going “Uh-huh” and “Yeah” as we talked but the tears were rolling down my face and splatting on my calendar. And he was being so smooth and charming and just so Todd-like and then I sniffled and he knew I was crying. There was a long silence and I just wanted to crawl through the phone line and curl up beside him. But then I apologized and said what a wimp I was and he said, “It's all right, Andrea. Don't worry. Everything is all right.”

It was the last days of summer then and the wind was blowing and the air was full of dust and smoke. And all the fun of summer seemed over, like it was time to get serious again and think about school and worry about things. And Cybil was pissed because in their last two shows Sins had played a total of one song and Fiona was grumbling because Matthew had told her they'd be playing all the time. And then Matthew called me to get Tori's number and he called Todd and tried to get some shows in Seattle. And Rebecca was getting so hot for Doug and saying that she was going to the University of Oregon because that's where he went. They even got me to go out with Trevor again because he had tickets to see this rap group. We went and it was all these black people and a million cops and they searched you and made you walk through all these metal detectors and everyone was totally paranoid. But then the show was really cool and everyone was dancing and standing on their seats. Outside Doug and Trevor were goofing on it and saying, “Af-ree-cah!” and trying to make up raps against some sorority girls they hated from college.

After that Doug drove us to the store and they got a bottle of wine and I got some Cheese Widgets and Rebecca got gum and Trevor paid for it all. Then we went to Sweeney Park and
hung out. And I had made Rebecca promise she wouldn't make out with Doug and leave me alone with Trevor but they did it anyway and Trevor tried to kiss me and I told him I liked him more as a friend and I was getting grass stains on my pants from scooting away from him. And then he started putting down Color Green and saying that
he
was creative and he had suffered more than Todd and he once tried to commit suicide even. Like that would impress me. And he said how guys in bands were all egomaniacs and how easy it was to play music. And I had been so good in the last week at blocking Todd out of my mind but now it all came rushing back, how great it was to be with him, that great feeling of being
free
and having great talks and being a million miles away from mean stupid people like Trevor.

The next day I drove by Hillside on the way to work and all the football players were in their shoulder pads and doing jumping jacks and the sprinklers were on and the faculty parking lot was full of cars. Everyone was getting ready for the new year. And downtown everything was “Back to School” and all the suburban types were invading Kruger's and Metro Mall and all of a sudden I thought very seriously about college. I did not want to turn into Lisa and graduate from high school and the next day be “hanging around the mall or maybe looking for a job.” And on my last day at KBAN Jamaal asked me out and it was embarrassing because I did like him but he was twenty-six and black and it would be too weird and what if my parents found out?

And then on the last weekend of summer Cybil called me and she was going to Monte Carlo with Matthew and Fiona and did I want to come and Carla was going to be there. I did. I piled all my hair up and pinned it with Carla's pins that I kept in a special KBAN envelope. They picked me up and Fiona and Matthew were smoking pot while they drove and
they were drunk too but Cybil wasn't scared so I didn't say anything. At Monte Carlo Nick Pax was in the parking lot with these girls who said how stupid Monte Carlo was. They were from Seattle and they were just laughing at Portland. And then someone was blasting Color Green out of their car stereo and it was their new record. It was out. And then I saw Carla coming across the street and me and Cybil ran to meet her and I thought to myself:
Carla is always alone
. But we were all so happy to see each other and Carla said she liked my hair and we immediately went off by ourselves, away from the parking lot and the stupid Seattle girls.

And then some boys recognized Cybil and they gave us a ride to Tower Records so I could buy the new Color Green tape. We looked at magazines and stuff and Carla told us all the gossip about Buzz Mitchell and his new band, Spank, which Tori started but then got kicked out of. And then we walked back to Monte Carlo, down Broadway by all the shops and department stores and Carla smoked cigarettes and she and Cybil talked and I mostly listened. And I kept looking at the tape and turning it over in my hands and I couldn't wait to go home and turn off all the lights and get in bed and listen to Todd.

Back to school,
what a nightmare. And I was having the worst hair crisis of my life because I loved piling my hair up and nobody cared at Monte Carlo or Color Green shows, but at Hillside High School? It was a terrible decision because if I just wore my hair normal I was giving in to their mediocrity and if I put it up there wouldn't even be anyone to appreciate it and I would get teased and what was the point? And for the last week before school I had worn it up every day because it was so hot and now it felt weird to let it down. And also, as Carla had pointed out, my whole taste in clothes was heading toward a big hair look anyway and it was like the missing link and I looked like an idiot if I wore
my fish dress and saddle shoes and then left my hair hanging off me like a dog. It got so bad that I even contemplated getting a bob just to end the agony but no one was getting bobs now and even Carla was growing hers out. And I was having a total panic so I called Cybil and she said I should shave my head and I was like,
very funny, Cybil
. Then I almost called Carla but she wasn't in high school and I thought it would be too embarrassing to bother her with such suburban stupidness.

But even without calling her, I knew what Carla would do. She'd wear her hair any way she felt like and with Jackie O sunglasses and a scarf and the shortest miniskirt and if anyone said anything to her she would give them her blank stare and they would be totally
faced
! So what did I wear? I wore my plainest black jeans and a T-shirt and my hair down and sunglasses that I was too scared to wear out of Rebecca's car. Cybil wore blue jeans and a button-down shirt and Rebecca was the most daring of us all because at least she wore a dress. And walking across the parking lot that first morning, there were all these
children
getting out of their parents' cars and they looked so small you were afraid you'd step on one. And everyone always said how school is just babysitting until you're old enough to work and for the first time it really seemed true.

At this point the only thing at Hillside I really cared about was Mr. Perry and making sure I got into college. I went right in the first day and said hi to him and got my SAT stuff and he smiled at me like here was a girl with potential. But then Cybil told me at lunch that the all-women's colleges were full of lesbians and I better watch out. And then Greg came and sat with us and he had just come from the parking lot where he had been smoking pot with Matthew. And it was scary because Greg never did drugs and you could see in his eyes how
crazy it was making him and how scared he was. So then after lunch Cybil and Matthew got in a fight about Greg. Matthew said it wasn't his fault and anyway what business was it of hers? But Cybil said it
was
her business and how she wished it wasn't, how the last thing she wanted was to be dependent on a bunch of pothead boys.

After school all the seniors were in the parking lot and there was a party at Forest Park and Greg was still stoned and afraid to go home so Cybil and I took him to the party. It was a beautiful day and there was a keg and we all sat on picnic tables and everyone drank beer. And these boys bugged us to come play Frisbee and we tried and I couldn't even throw it but Cybil of course was a total expert and was whizzing it around and all the boys were so amazed. And we drank some beer and took off our shoes and this one boy tried to talk to me and he said, “You're friend is pretty good at Frisbee.” I said, “Yeah and she's also the biggest rock star in Portland.” The boy nodded and looked at Greg and he didn't have a clue what I was talking about.

And it was weird being a senior because people were getting their last chance to switch their friends or change their image or adjust their look. Like Rebecca was now Miss Alternative Fashion with her horn-rims and her Chinese slippers. Cybil, on the other hand, was getting blander by the second. At least at school. It was like she was trying to disappear. Matthew looked the same, scraggly and with a tattoo, but now he hung around with Betsy Warren and Marjorie. Marjorie had dyed her hair blond and was doing a sort of druggy glam look and even wore fake eyelashes for half a day before Mrs. Katz told her it was “inappropriate.” And Betsy Warren was still doing bong hits all the time and dealing drugs and getting dreadlocks from never washing her hair. And Greg started wearing these super baggy skater shorts
that Cybil gave him. He was still dying his hair and there was now a sophomore boy who dyed his hair all the time and dressed weird and people started calling him “Little Greg.” And then Rebecca got a crush on a junior boy named Tom Petrovich. He was a trendy Monte Carlo type and he was going out with this cute sophomore girl but Rebecca decided she wanted him. So she started asking him out and she had a car and the other girl didn't and she was a senior and the other girl wasn't and she would have sex and the other girl wouldn't and so Rebecca got him pretty easily.

Meanwhile football season was going and everyone said we had such a great team this year and Bobby Wingate was going to be All-State. There was a picture of him in
The Oregonian
as well as an interview in the school paper,
Hillsider
, in which he said that Camden had not shown respect to Hillside and it was their mission to make Camden pay the price this year at Homecoming. And then Nathan Roth came over to me one day and told me he wanted me on
Hillsider
and Mr. Perry had told him to get me and would I come hang out with them and maybe write something if I felt like it? Nathan was one of the brains of our class and he was the new editor of
Hillsider
. So after school me and Cybil went to the newspaper office and when we walked in everybody stared at Cybil. Unlike the boys at the keg party, they knew who she was. They remembered her shaved head and her fights with Mrs. Renault and they knew she was in Sins of Our Fathers with Matthew. And it wasn't like they were against her, they just didn't know how to deal with her exactly and it was awkward and they gave us stuff to proofread and we did it and then we left. And then we went to Taco Time and Cybil said she wasn't really into
Hillsider
but she thought I should do it because it seemed pretty cool and anyway it would look good on my college applications.

·    ·    ·

And it sort of bugged me how people acted around Cybil. Like sometimes I would hear people talking about her and making up rumors and I started to realize that was their revenge. They were boring and Cybil was cool so they tried to isolate her and starve her socially. And the next morning I put my hair up and wore my fish dress and I made a pact with myself that I would wear my coolest clothes and shoes every day for a week to show my solidarity with Cybil. Of course at school everybody had to say something and tease me but not too much because I was a senior. And when Nathan saw me he looked at my hair but then he said he was sorry that everyone gave us a weird vibe and he still wanted me to work on
Hillsider
and Cybil too. I didn't have anything else to do so I went there after school and sat off to one side and proofread some other things and it was pretty weird because I was so dressed up and everyone else was in jeans and sweaters and trying to look newspaper-ish and literary but they played cool tapes so it was okay. And then Nathan read me his editorial about distributing condoms in school and he wanted to know what I thought and I said it seemed sort of boring. He nodded and I said it might still be good, what did I know? But he said I was right and he went to rewrite it and I could hear people whispering about me and I was sorry I said anything.