Big Girl Small

by Rachel Dewoskin

  I had been twelve when they died, but knew about it then because Chad was in high school at the same time they were, and anyway it was on the news. Mindy was driving, and it was hailing and they skidded around an icy curve and crashed into the half-frozen river. Chad told me he heard that by the time the divers and paramedics got there, the car had sunk and they had to get under the ice, and they couldn’t find the car, and the girls drowned. I remember he was crying when he told me, and he kept saying maybe if it hadn’t been so cold, or if the car had spun out of control somewhere else, or if they’d been found sooner, or if it had been a four-wheel-drive car, or if any small detail had been different—then maybe they’d still be alive. Chad cried again later, too, while we were all watching the 11:00 news. He hadn’t known them personally, but every kid in the city cried, because it could have been any of us, and because on some level we knew that their parents’ lives were over, and because our parents were so upset that no one even knew how to pretend it was going to be okay. There’s nothing okay about two teenagers being dead forever. In the photo next to the plaque on the wall at D’Arts, Mindy and Sam are on the lawn, smiling into the camera like they’re immortal. Of course. Because they’re young. I don’t know who made up that saying about “youth is wasted on the young,” but I don’t agree. It isn’t wasted on me, for example, because I’m enjoying it, and because I can feel it going by.

  And this is really shallow, but I was still looking at their picture when Kyle walked by with Kim Barksper and they left, and I could hear myself wishing I were dead and then I reminded myself that some people actually were dead and I promised never to have another thought like that again. And every time those thoughts bubble up, even now, I think of Chad crying when those girls died, and how my mom sat there silently, with her arm around him, letting him cry and not even saying anything to make it better, and I know that what happened to me is different, because maybe it won’t be eternal.

  Kyle left rehearsal early the next day with Chris and Alan, and on Wednesday, we didn’t talk at all. So it was never going to happen again, had been a fluke, or so terrible that he not only didn’t want to be in love with me, he never even wanted to say hello to me again for the rest of our lives.

  The days were a miserable, thick slog, until Thursday, when, after rehearsal, he nonchalantly was like, “You want a ride?” I wished I were the kind of person who could have been like, “I’d love one, but I have other plans,” but I’m not and I couldn’t; I said yes, called the Grill, and left a message saying I’d be a little late, because I was hanging out with a friend.

  Then I went back to Kyle’s cold, silent palace. This time we didn’t even get popcorn or fake that we were going to watch HBO, just climbed onto the bed. I noticed that the framed picture of the girl was gone. His camera was sitting on the nightstand instead. When he got up to go pee, I crawled across the bed to look at his tidy desk. There was something weird about an oasis of clean in his room. The dated mini-DVDs were still stacked immaculately. To the right, on a shelf above the desk, was one by itself, labeled “Claire.” It was the only one with anything other than dates on it. I heard Kyle coming back down the hall toward his room and I leapt to the other side of the bed and pretended to have been staring out the window.

  He came and sat on the bed next to me, put an arm over my shoulder, and leaned in to kiss me. This time the kissing was quite soft, his mouth sleepy like the rest of him, but he also pushed me down onto the bed, and I thought how odd the contrast was between his kissing and his, I don’t know what, pushing. It kind of made me think maybe there was a fight happening between his personality and his body, because even though his mouth was kind of soft, the rest of him was pressing against me so hard it hurt. I peeked to see what he was doing or thinking, but his eyes were closed, so I closed mine, too. Then he jerked up suddenly and took his T-shirt off. One of his knees was between my legs, and he used it to push them apart and then he lay down on top of me and put his hand first under my shirt and then under the striped skirt I was wearing, and then he took both off and suddenly I was naked for the second time in Kyle Malanack’s bed, and I kept thinking, “It’s the second time, which makes it even more real. Enjoy this, absorb this—this is actually happening,” but I couldn’t enjoy it, because even then I knew it was too good to be true and there must be something weird and wrong. It was more uncomfortable even than the first time. And here’s the funny thing: when he put it in and it hurt and I put my hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t say “ow” or something unsexy, he took my hand off my mouth, and even as he was going faster and then doing his creepy slumping thing, he was like, “Is that okay? Are you okay?” and I was glad the lights were on. I said I was fine.

  And that’s when he rolled off me and flicked the light switch next to his bed. The room was dark, and we were lying there silently for a minute, and then I was like, “Kyle?” and there was no answer, and I realized he was asleep. So maybe he was actually just really sleepy all the time. Because I don’t think I’ve ever fallen asleep that instantaneously, especially at a moment like that. So I lay there, bionically awake, watching his clock click its red digits, wondering whether it was weird that right when I thought how glad I was for the light, he had decided to turn the lamp off. And then I forced myself not to be a superstitious idiot, and shifted my mind back to the fact that I actually, formally wasn’t a virgin anymore. I mean, the first time was so quick and surprising that I wasn’t sure it had counted, but now we’d done it twice and even though the second time had been quick too, there was no doubt that the boy I had lost it to was Kyle Malanack. And even though it was as dark as a cave in his room and he was sleeping and I felt a little scared, I still knew if I’d been able to choose anyone in the entire universe, it would have been him. And I had faith that it would feel good later, once I wasn’t such a virgin anymore. I mean, I had hated kissing the first time I’d kissed a guy, and now I liked that. I hoped that sex would get fun, the same way kissing had, although I wasn’t sure how many practice sessions that would take, and I was kind of worried either way. I mean, I didn’t really want to have sex with Kyle all the time if it was going to be like this, but I also didn’t want not to, if that would mean we weren’t in love. Maybe we’d be more comfortable with each other soon, and we’d be able to talk about things, although I hadn’t even asked him why he hadn’t called me. I mean, it had only been a week, and it wasn’t like we’d said we were boy- and girlfriend. I didn’t want to push it. But when I woke him up forty-five minutes later (after I’d gotten dressed and climbed up onto his sink to wash my face and put on new lipstick and use his toothbrush to brush my teeth) and asked him if he’d drive me home, he was all cute and groggy. He said sure, of course, and stretched out and then sat up. He apologized for “falling asleep like that” and asked me if I would be willing to do him a favor.

  I’m tempted to lie about what I said, because it’s so sickening and stupid and revealing, but today I confessed it to Bill at the Manor Motel, word for word. And he just nodded like, okay, that’s what some people say, even when they don’t know what the favor is going to be. So I’ll admit it here, too. What I said was, “Anything. I’ll do anything for you.”

  10 I smoked pot again at a party the Friday after Thanksgiving, this time with a bunch of people on the deck at Kim and Kelly Barksper’s house. Which is funny, because if I were someone other than me, and didn’t know the story from the inside out, I can see how I’d be like, wow, she started smoking pot and having sex, no wonder her life fell apart! But it wasn’t like that—I mean, I smoked twice, and it never had any effect, and the sex was supposed to be because I was in love, so it was just a coincidence. This is one of the reasons that adults are stupid. Because they create these nonsense propaganda narratives out of what’s actually just our lives when we’re teenagers.

  Mainly, I was obsessed with whether people could tell I wasn’t a virgin anymore. Molly and Goth Sarah definitely suspected something was up, and the truth is, I wanted
to tell them, was even planning to, but how could I? I mean, every time they saw Kyle and me near each other, he was ignoring me—like at rehearsal on the days when he didn’t drive me home, or left with Kim, or at the twins’ party, when he was sitting with Kim, which killed me, wearing gray cargo pants and a crisp blue T-shirt that showed under his unbuttoned coat. His hair was longer than usual and he had pulled a gray winter cap over it, so there were curls sticking out the bottom of the cap. I thought of the curls at the nape of his neck, and felt incredulous that as far as Goth Sarah and Molly knew, he had driven me home twice and that was it. If I had told them we’d done it, they would have died of shock, although they also would have forced me to face the truth, which was that his not calling or paying attention to me in public wasn’t actually okay.

  Elizabeth Wood was with him and Kim at the Barkspers’ party; she was talking about “her career”—I could tell by how her perfect, kewpie doll face moved. I turned to Goth Sarah to be like, “Look, Elizabeth is demonstrating her passion for acting,” and Sarah laughed as if it were funnier than it was, which made me feel mean and slightly better for about two seconds, before I just felt mean and therefore even worse. Kim and Kyle were listening to Elizabeth’s monologue. I was hoping for a way to go over and join in, but I couldn’t bring myself to. I kept thinking of Kyle in his room, all sleepy, with just me there. But no one seemed to notice anything different about me—or him, obviously—and this made me feel like it hadn’t even happened.

  Even though I had hated Ginger’s smoking seminar in my backyard, I was grateful for it at Kim and Kelly’s, because now I had actually smoked once before and didn’t look like a total loser. This time I held the smoke in my mouth again, and it had no effect again. I think Molly was kind of surprised to see me try it. She turned the pipe down, unapologetically, casually, the way she wore her karate suit, or took classes with her dad on the weekends, and as usual, no one judged her. Goth Sarah puffed like a pro, although she took only one hit, maybe because she was driving. I wondered if she had smoked before, or if she was good at faking it. Kyle didn’t smoke; whenever the pipe came to him, he passed it to Kim. But I must have seen him refill a milk glass with whiskey at least five times.

  In fact, it was at Kim and Kelly’s that it occurred to me how much he drank. He drank a lot. But he wasn’t a loud drunk; he just got quieter and quieter. Chris Arpent did the loud drunk thing for him, maybe, for all of us. Chris stood on the deck that night, shouting about how it makes no sense to call it “going commando” when guys wear no underpants. I have to admit, he was kind of hilarious, standing with his body in a commando pose, one arm stretched out in front of him, miming that he was holding a gun, and then turning to the guy behind him, like, “Dude, where’s your underwear? What? I’m a commando too, and I’m not free-balling all over the battlefield.”

  I was laughing until Goth Sarah leaned over to me. “He didn’t think of that himself, you know. It’s from—”

  “Well, it’s pretty funny anyway.”

  “Do you want to go soon?” she asked, and even though I didn’t, because I didn’t want to create the possibility of Kyle’s leaving with someone else, I said, “Sure.” I’m not the kind of friend who makes you stay at a party if you’re having a horrible time. My friend Stacy, at Huron, was like that. Whenever we went anywhere, I knew if I was leaving with her then I might be trapped for like ten years in a place I hated if she was having too much fun to want to leave with me, or liked some guy and wanted to wait and see if he would leave with her instead. In which case I would have to call Chad or my parents to come get me. And she was totally the type to get super drunk at a party and leave with some guy, and leave her car there, even if she was my ride.

  Molly had to babysit for her little sister, Susanna, in the morning, so she couldn’t sleep at Sarah’s. I said good-bye to her, and she used it as an excuse to get up and walk over to where Chris was sitting. Inspired, I went over to Kim, pretending I wanted to thank her, but actually to warn Kyle I was leaving—in case he wanted to stop me.

  “So, Kim, thanks for having us,” I said. And I said it right during a huge lull that no one was expecting in the conversation on the deck, so everyone heard it and it was really stupid, but then Chris started laughing and laughing. And then everyone started laughing, so I pretended I’d meant it as whatever joke they thought it was, and Sarah and I left. Kyle didn’t say anything, and I couldn’t tell if he’d been laughing or not. “Yeah, Kim,” Chris said, “thanks for having me.” I didn’t get it, but they were all high, so maybe every stupid thing seemed funny. Kyle smiled at me, gave a little wave as I left.

  At Sarah’s, we let ourselves in and ate some grilled shrimp we found in the fridge. When we were finished with our snack, we went downstairs, and I got Sarah’s desk chair and pulled it into the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. When I got back to her room, she had already folded out her metal trundle bed and raised it up so the two beds were side by side. And once I had climbed up onto my side and we were lying there on her matching twin pale yellow sheets, she was all of a sudden like, “It’s totally not worth it, worrying about him so much all the time.”

  “I don’t worry about him all the time,” I said. “I mean, I’m not even sure if I like him that much,” I said.

  “You can tell me. I mean, did anything happen that day he drove you home?”

  I couldn’t bring myself to say no, but couldn’t manage the truth, either.

  “You know, we hung out for a while, that was all.”

  “Hung out? What am I, your grandmother? Did you guys hook up?”

  “Maybe a little.”

  She screamed with glee. “You did?! You hooked up with Kyle Malanack!? You are kidding me! Are you excited? Horrified? Glad? Angry? Have you guys talked about it?”

  This was like dipping my toes in the swimming pool and knowing immediately that they would have to be amputated. The water was much too cold. I can’t overstate how much I regretted having admitted anything at all, and I frantically backtracked.

  “I mean, I don’t know if it counts. We just kind of held hands or whatever.”

  “Held hands? What, in the car?”

  “I don’t know if it was even holding hands, really. I mean, he kind of brushed my hand as I got out.”

  “Oh,” Sarah said. She must have been so weirded out. I feel bad, even now.

  “Hey, Sarah?”

  “Yeah?”

  “When have you smoked pot before?”

  “With Eliot, twice, why? When have you?”

  “Just that one time when Ginger came over to my house after school.”

  There was an unpleasant moment of silence, while we both remembered how rude I’d been not to include Sarah. I was sorry I’d brought it up, but also relieved that the conversation had moved away from Kyle.

  “How was that, by the way?”

  “Smoking? It sucked.”

  “I meant Ginger coming over.”

  I turned over in the bed and pulled the covers up to my shoulders, stuck one foot out—the right one. I like to sleep this way; it keeps my body temperature exactly right and makes me feel like there’s a possibility of escaping the sheets.

  “It was just okay. She’s kind of weird, I think.”

  “Yeah, no shit.”

  We were quiet again.

  “Judy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “I don’t know—it’s just, I feel like you don’t really —”

  “I’m just incredibly tired.” I faked a huge yawn that became real halfway through. Needless to say, I wish I had confided more in her when I had the chance.

  Sunday took ten years. I went home to our silent house and read and spent an hour picking two pictures to upload to Facebook, imagining that Kyle might see them. One was a picture I’d taken myself, of me holding the camera out and kind of smirking; the other was from the Halloween party—Molly
had taken it of me and Sarah sitting on her bed in our sexy witch costumes. I couldn’t wait for Monday, to see our fetal cat or sit in American lit, to catch a live glimpse of Kyle anywhere. I had made up my mind to talk to him, and this felt like a plan. Maybe it would go okay. Maybe we would be weekday boyfriend-girlfriend. I even thought I could live with that. Sunday night, I reread Charlotte’s Web, one of my favorite books, but even though I love that story, it seemed unbearably childish and optimistic now. I had the feeling, while I was reading it, that I had floated up above myself and was watching Judy read the book, but I wasn’t me anymore. Maybe that’s what they mean by growing up; it was like there were two of me, one the same me I’d always been, and the other one suddenly too old for her.

  Monday came but Kyle never approached me. I was wearing my black corduroy miniskirt and boots, and I tried to say brilliant things about The Crucible in American lit, but my words betrayed me and came out garbled. Kyle was across the room, in track pants and a white T-shirt, looking at the blackboard. I noticed he was wearing new sneakers, wondered if he’d gone to buy them with his mom, or by himself. When I spoke, he barely turned around, but then neither did anyone else. I mean, we had all stopped being that curious about each other, unless there was real gossip. I want to say that I felt like my heart was breaking that day, but since I now know what that actually feels like, I’ll just say that I felt very bad. After a run through of the moronic bilingual song “Where Do People Go When They Run Away,” I found myself standing onstage next to him. ¿Dime, donde van? Tell me, where do they go? And what do they say to each other? Do they sit in the theater all day like sad old men?

  “Um,” I said, hating myself for being pathetic, and wishing, wishing I were tall, that he didn’t have to bend down to make eye contact with me. But I didn’t even need to wish that, it turned out, because he looked straight out, over me, even after I asked, “So what’s happening?”