Big Girl Small

by Rachel Dewoskin

  “Nothing, why?” he said, still not looking at me. I walked off backstage.

  Two more weeks passed. It was as if we had never met. I began to wonder whether I had imagined our encounter. I went through the school days in a numb haze, stopped raising my hand, even in American lit. I ate lunches off campus, alone. In the evenings, I labeled papier-mâché globes with Sam, couldn’t bear to leave the house except for school and rehearsal. I didn’t call Sarah or Molly, didn’t want to tell them anything, didn’t want anyone to know. I slept one entire weekend, told my parents I was sick, which was true. The next one I spent at the Grill, “studying” for finals, avoiding Sarah, even though she called a million times and I missed her. I practiced in the mirror how I would tell Sarah when she got back from South Africa over Christmas break. I would act like I had thought it through over the vacation and could now explain—or that I had gotten over it. Maybe, I thought, I would actually have gotten over it, and I would be able to laugh about it with Molly and Sarah. It seemed doubtful.

  Christmas break came. Time kept moving the relentless way it does. That used to scare me, I have to say, and it still does. I used to think, all the time, that even if I sat under my parents’ dining room table and did nothing and spoke to no one, time would still move, and I would still grow up. It’s hard to explain, especially the part about the dining room table, but that’s always how I thought about being unable to control the slipping away of my own hours. Before school even got out, Kyle’s family went to St. Bart’s; I knew from his Facebook page and chatter at school. Molly went to Atlanta, and Sarah went to South Africa. We all had to be back the second week because, like I said, you weren’t even really allowed to travel if you went to Darcy, because rehearsals started up the second week of break.

  I spent the entire agonizingly long week and a half at the Grill with my parents, who didn’t take any time off, including Christmas Day, because they liked to make hams and turkeys for their regulars, who I guess were so old they didn’t have friends left, or couldn’t travel to see their families, or whatever. Or students who couldn’t afford to go home. I usually loved Christmas dinner at the Grill. Everyone had the same food, so it felt like a huge family holiday, even though some of the people were strangers and we were all eating in a diner. My parents loved it too; they were always in great moods, even though it was a spine-cracking amount of work, cooking fancy food for that many people.

  It snowed seven of the nine days, until the Huron River’s edges froze into jagged patterns of ice and a wall of white rose outside our windows, taller than I was.

  When we got back to rehearsal in January, it was still six days until school started. Everyone was giddy because we hadn’t seen each other in a week. Most of the juniors had crazy tans, some fake and others real. Everyone was talking about where they’d been, what they’d done over the break. Kyle was wearing a white polo shirt and had one of the real tans. It made him look preppier than usual, more like a game show host than his usual bedraggled director self, but it also looked on him like he hadn’t had to work to get it, had just been playing or doing his thing, and the sun had attached itself to him like we all wanted to. He was in an especially joyful mood, bounding around like a puppy, with his teeth electric white next to his tan. Everyone was in the best moods ever, and I felt left out, totally alone. My happy days at Darcy were over.

  It’s not like Kyle was rude; I mean, he was very friendly to me those first days back, said hi, said, “Great job, Judy,” one day after a full run-through. But he didn’t call me and I didn’t call him. I wanted to, even just to make the point that I didn’t think girls should have to wait for boys to call us. But I couldn’t bring myself to make that point with Kyle. So it had been over a month since I’d been to his house, and when I saw his name flash across my cell phone screen, I almost had a heart attack.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, what’s up?”

  “Not much.” My heart was a jungle drum. I wondered if he could hear it pounding in the background, like traffic, if the sound would drown out my voice.

  “Um,” he said, “I was wondering if you want to come over for a little bit.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, “whenever. How ’bout now?”

  “Oh. Okay,” I said. I already had my jacket on and was out the door.

  I took the bus to his house, where he met me at the front door. The place, as always, was totally silent and this time pretty dark. He looked different from the way he was at school; his tan seemed yellow and faded, and his affect was moodier, weirder. I saw as we walked by the kitchen that there was a plate of dinner on the table, wrapped. Seeing it made me feel sad for Kyle, so I asked, “How’re things,” meaning I really missed you and please make up some excuse for why we haven’t seen each other since before break, but he looked at me and said, “Good,” which I took to mean that he hadn’t missed me. But I pretended at the time to think he had anyway, that he hadn’t been able to admit it for some deep reason I couldn’t guess at. I had to believe this so I could justify what happened next, which is that we went to his room. But this time he took a long time getting to the sex part.

  We listened to music for a while, and watched some TV. I asked about his trip and he said it was fine.

  “Just fine?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It wasn’t great?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t really like hanging out with my parents, you know?”

  I thought about this, about how much I did like hanging out with my parents. So much that I kind of took it for granted, thought everyone liked their parents and people who said they didn’t were just pretending, since it’s not that cool to adore your mom and dad. But the way he said it was very matter-of-fact, and I knew it was true. I mean, he hated it every time they even came up. He never told me that, but I could tell.

  This was no exception, because that’s the moment when he was like, “Do you want to . . . ?” and then he kind of gestured toward the bed, and I was surprised, because he hadn’t asked that the first two times, and it seems like the kind of thing you ask the first two times and maybe not the third time. But maybe he needed a way to change the subject, and it would have seemed weird to start kissing me while we were still talking about his vacation or his parents or whatever.

  So I shrugged and nodded, and I kind of leaned into him, because we were both on the couch already. And we started kissing, and it was the best time yet—maybe because he had asked. Or because it had been so long and I had thought we would definitely never even talk again, let alone kiss on his couch. Or maybe just because we had already kissed twice before and I knew more what to expect. Then he unbuttoned my shirt and pulled his T-shirt over his head. We slid our pants off, and I grabbed a blanket from the back of the couch and draped it over us, which made me feel safer, somehow. We did it on the couch, with him on top of me just like the other two times, but this time it felt pretty good, and I moved a little bit under him, even arched my back up, and as soon as I did that he collapsed on top of me. He didn’t say sorry that time, though, and I was suddenly like, “Why did you call me?” even though I should have asked that before I went to his room. Or to his house. Or never asked it at all. Or asked the opposite, why he hadn’t called me all those days he hadn’t.

  “Why not?” he asked. He had his sleepy voice back on.

  “Was it just because you wanted to—”

  “To what?”

  I couldn’t get the words out. Even now, I can’t decide what they would have been—have sex ? Ew. Fuck? Of course not. Do it ? Hook up? Make love? I mean, oh my god. Why has nobody in the history of humankind been able to work this problem out? Isn’t there some way of saying it that isn’t completely gum-cracking and immature, disgustingly vulgar or like what my parents probably whispered to each other in the hairy seventies?

  “ To—to—you know . . .”

  He sat up and shrugged, pulled his sweatpants on without putting any boxe
rs on underneath or anything. In spite of the awkwardness and my attention being mostly elsewhere, I had the thought that this was both gross and something girls wouldn’t do. I turned away from him on the bed and, keeping the covers over me, pulled my own clothes back on, underpants first.

  “Can I ask you something else?” I asked.

  He shrugged again, and I felt kind of angry.

  “Does that mean I can’t ask you anything? Or that I can?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “What was the favor you said you wanted me to do?”

  “It’s kind of a long story.”

  “I’ve got nothing but time.”

  “I want you to make a tape of me.”

  A little flutter of something went through me, but I didn’t know if it was excitement or fear. “A tape?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What kind of tape?”

  “I just want to say something to my parents, and I need someone else to tape it.”

  “Why not Alan or Chris?”

  At this, he tensed up and shrugged. “I don’t want them to do it,” he said.

  “Are you going to kill yourself ?”

  He laughed. “Do I strike you as suicidal?”

  “Sometimes the warning signs are tough to read.”

  “You’re a good reader,” he said.

  My heart vaulted into my throat. “Is that why you like me?”

  “It’s why Ms. Doman likes you.”

  “And you?”

  “I think you’re nice.”

  “I’m not that nice, really.”

  “I think you are.”

  “But why me? I mean, lots of people are nice.”

  “Just because.”

  “That’s all the favor is?”

  “What did you think it was?”

  “I had no idea.”

  “Yeah. I have something I need to say to my mom and dad, that’s all.”

  So maybe he loved me, trusted me, knew we were both smarter than anyone else in the school, knew I wasn’t shallow, something. Something deep. I still think that’s sort of what he meant.

  “Can I ask you one more thing?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you just want to have sex, or did you want to do it with me?”

  I meant this to be just a question, but it came out like a bullet, and he was mad. Maybe I would have been mad too, if someone had asked me that while I was all commando in my sweatpants right after having sex with that person.

  “What do you think?” Kyle asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “If I’d just wanted sex—” He stopped.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  Was he going to say, “Why would it have been with you?” I mean, it would have been true, and a good point. He could have slept with anyone he wanted to, why on earth, if he just wanted sex, would he keep calling me?

  He stood up, went and got his camera. He clicked a new mini-DVD in before handing it to me. He turned it on, opened the lens cap.

  “I’m gonna sit here,” he said, and patted his desk chair before sitting in it. “Maybe you could stand and film me?”

  “Okay,” I said. He came back over and bent down over me to show me how to push record. I could smell his hair and his skin when he leaned down—a mixture of soap and sweat and lovely, tousled boy smell. I inhaled for as long as I could before he returned to the desk chair. He looked serious, the way he looked in Fool for Love right before he grabbed Elizabeth Wood and started kissing her.

  “Is it recording?” he asked me.

  I nodded, didn’t say anything in case he didn’t want my voice on the video.

  He cleared his throat, looked down, and then looked up again, right into the camera. I tried to hold it steady, keep his sweet face right in the middle of the screen.

  “Mom and Dad.”

  Kyle swiveled the chair around until he was facing his desk, and then he picked the letter off his desk in a very deliberate and dramatic way. He turned back to the camera, and he opened the letter. Why had he sealed his own letter to his parents?

  He looked up from the page. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m really sorry.”

  His eyes started to close a little bit, and I blinked too, thinking, “Oh my god, he’s going to cry.” But instead, or maybe to keep from crying, he looked up at me and said, “Okay, turn it off,” so I pushed the red button and the camera stopped recording.

  “Are we done?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “Thanks.”

  Then we sat for a moment.

  “Are you going to tell me what that was about?” I asked.

  “Not right now. You wanna go get something to eat?”

  “Can you tell me why you tape everything all the time, at least?”

  He shrugged, went to get his sneakers, and started to put them on. I thought he wasn’t going to answer me at all, but then, as he was tying his second shoe, he looked up. “That way I can keep things, you know? I mean, have them even when they’re whatever—over, or gone.”

  I didn’t respond, because I knew he had gone on an icy, fragile limb to say that to me, and I didn’t think I could honor it properly, or get the answer right. I wanted him to keep telling me everything, especially now that I thought he might be sad. We put our parkas on and drove downtown in silence, the windshield wipers squeaking snow off the glass. Then we sat at the Brown Jug, where the windows were foggy with cold from outside and he ate cheese fries and drank Coke. I had hot chocolate. We were very quiet. I don’t know why he was, but I couldn’t think of what to say. I wanted to go back to the conversation in his room.

  I was finally like, “So, Runaways is opening crazy soon,” and he nodded. “Too bad rehearsals have been going so badly,” I said.

  “Well, you know what they say,” he said, meaning that bad rehearsals mean good performances or whatever.

  I couldn’t stand it, felt like we were in a bad TV movie, and since we were clearly never going to see each other again, I decided to cut to some central questions.

  “Would you take me to the cast party?”

  Kyle looked genuinely baffled. “What?”

  “Would you take me to the cast party?”

  “What cast party?”

  “The one for Runaways.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, would you go with me to the cast party?”

  “I didn’t even know there was a cast party. The show hasn’t happened yet.”

  “I mean, you know, hypothetically. If there were a cast party, would you take me?”

  “Sure.”

  I couldn’t control myself. “Sure because it’s hypothetical? Or sure like, when it happens, we can go.”

  “No one really takes anyone to a cast party. We all just go.”

  “But I mean, would you go with me even if it meant people seeing us together?”

  He shrugged. “Sure. We’re out now, aren’t we?”

  We sat in silence again, shame lapping up against me, threatening to drag me under and drown me.

  “Let’s pay,” I said. “I want to show you something.”

  So we got the check and he was like, “Let me get this,” and I was like, “No, no, we should split it,” but he didn’t listen and paid for it, and I thought this made it more like a real date. And then we walked across the street to Judy’s Grill, where my parents were behind the counter, laughing with some customer. As soon as the door opened, they looked over at me, surprise registering on their faces before they tamed it, but I saw how on my mom’s face it stayed hope, or delight or something, and then turned to fear. My dad went right back to the business of pouring coffee for someone after saying, “Hi, Judy,” but my mom can’t hide anything from me. She tries really hard, but her voice was high-pitched and squeaky when she said, “Hey, sweetie! Come in, we’ll feed you.” My mom never says “hey”—she just said it because I came in with the most beautiful boy anyone had ever seen, and even
though she wanted it to be true as much as I did, she already knew it wasn’t, couldn’t be.

  “ ’S okay, Mom, we just ate. I just wanted to introduce you guys to Kyle.” I didn’t say friend, because I wanted to leave open the possibility that he was my boyfriend. I didn’t say boyfriend, obviously, because he wasn’t my boyfriend.

  But Kyle stuck a hand over the counter and smiled his big, trustworthy smile, all those straight teeth consoling my parents. “Hi,” he said. “It’s great to meet you, Mrs. Lohden, Mr. Lohden.”

  “Call us Peggy and Max,” my mom said. “Can we fix you something?”

  “No, thank you,” he said. “I actually have to be getting home, just wanted to drop Judy off. See you at school,” he said to me, and bolted.

  But I thought he’d kind of passed that test, too. I mean, he’d met my parents at least, had seen what it looked like to love me, and now they knew who he was. I felt like it made him accountable.

  I went into the kitchen and helped Sam label cardboard Earths. My mom came in and asked, “Are you and Kyle dating?”

  “Dating?” I wondered what that even meant.

  “You know, are you having a romance.”

  “Ugh, Mom.”

  “Are you?”

  I looked her right in the eye. “Yes,” I said.

  I was as proud as I’ve ever been about anything, even felt defiant for some reason. But then my mom was so quiet I finally had to be like, “What, Mom?”

  She shrugged. “Nothing,” she said, “as long as he’s kind to you.”

  “Why wouldn’t he be?” I asked. I thought of the video he’d asked me to make, of how much he trusted me, how he’d already started telling me whatever his worst secret was. But my mom and I just stared at each other for a few minutes, fighting, neither of us willing to say the words.

  My dad brought me a Greek salad and chicken noodle soup and fries, and I sat at the especially high red stool all the way at the end of the counter, waiting for Sam to come and sit with me. A friendly-looking fat guy came in in the meantime and sat down next to me on the stool I’d been saving for Sam. He smiled a big, overcompensating smile and said, “Good things come in small packages,” like I needed to be comforted by him. Like I’d never heard that one before. Like, I don’t know, he knew me, was allowed to talk to me. Why is it that everyone in the world feels like they’re allowed to talk about my body—to me? I thought of saying, “Oh? Not huge packages? In that case, maybe you should hold off on the fries,” but I could see my dad throwing me our knowing grin from behind the counter.