by Robin Brande
“You just need practice.”
“My arms get tired. I can’t do it right.”
My mother unwound my braid. “Try. You’re right—you should learn to do it for yourself.”
I’m so stupid. I should have paid attention to that.
For the next month we had this incredible girl time—staying up late every night, curled up under the afghan on the couch, eating popcorn and watching old movies on cable, gossiping about my life. If my father came in she shooed him out—“Lizzie and I are talking.”
I swear I didn’t get it. I honestly thought my mother wanted to be with me. You don’t like to think about your parents’ sex life anyway, so you certainly don’t want think about them avoiding it.
But that night, the night I came home from the prom, I finally got it: My mother had turned me into a human chastity belt.
And now I had no one left to tell.
Not my best friend—she had betrayed me. Not the boy I loved—he was taken. My mother was taken, too.
See what I mean? I should have stayed in bed that day.
Acts
There’s this story in the Book of Acts about a husband and wife who tell the Apostle Peter they’re going to sell a piece of land and give all the proceeds to the church. So far so good.
Now, what you have to understand about Peter is that he’s not a gentle, forgiving man like Jesus was. He was one of Jesus’s disciples, he saw what they did to his Lord, and frankly, he’s pretty pissed. Now he’s going to build the new Christian religion, and if he has to, he’s going to kick some butt.
So this couple, Ananias and his wife Sapphira, sell their land and make a nice juicy profit, and suddenly they’re not feeling so generous. What would it hurt, they ask each other, if they just kept a little bit for themselves? Treat it like a commission. Who’s to know?
Well, Peter’s to know, you dopes. Remember? Direct hotline to God.
But Peter plays it cool.
“Thank you, good Ananias, for this abundant offering. God will be so pleased. By the way, was this all the money you got for the land?”
“You bet it was.”
Peter’s eyes darken. He stretches out his finger. Thunder echoes in the distance. “Liar! Greedy! Wicked! God didn’t ask you to make this gift, but once you offered, how could you try to cheat Him?”
The sky crackles with lightning and Peter’s eyes glow like he’s ablaze, and Ananias is so freaked out he has a heart attack and dies right there at the apostle’s feet.
One down.
Soon Sapphira shows up. “Have you seen Ananias?”
“Good day, madam,” says Peter. “I was just thanking your husband for your generous gift. But I forgot to ask him—what this the whole price you received for the land?”
“Oh yes. Absolutely.”
“Liar! (Crack! Boom!) Do you hear those footsteps at the door? Those are the men who just carried out your husband’s corpse, and now they’re here to get yours!”
And down Sapphira goes, dead before she hits the ground.
Wow. Good stuff.
The point is, you have to be careful what you promise God. Once you’ve made a pledge, you’d better be sure to carry it out. As Peter said, you can lie to men, but you can’t lie to God.
Which was what I kept thinking about Posie.
Why did she have to lie? Maybe God didn’t ask her to be a virgin, but once she promised that, shouldn’t she carry it out?
And what about me? I know it wasn’t as important, but didn’t she make that promise to me, too, in a way?
When I first found out Posie was a virgin it was like being lost in a strange country and finally hearing someone speak your native language.
“You aren’t,” I said.
“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You’re so . . . popular.”
“So? You think I’m going to give it away to any of these boys?”
We were hanging out in Posie’s bedroom, early in our friendship, me lying on one of her twin beds, her on the other. I love being in Posie’s room. It’s Girl Heaven—perfume and makeup and clothes everywhere, scarves and shoes and dresses and exotic robes and costumes she’s borrowed from the Drama department, all spilling out of her closet like blood from an open artery. On the walls are movie posters and framed photos and programs from her plays. There’s a full-length mirror on the back of her bedroom door, another one on the closet, and a smaller one over the desk where she stores all her makeup and brushes and hair accessories, and the whole space serves as a giant dressing room (that just happens to have a few beds), just like a Broadway star might have backstage.
Posie had three arguments for virginity:
“First, pregnancy. I couldn’t put myself or my mother through that humiliation.”
“There’s birth control,” I pointed out.
“I won’t need it. Second, I think it’s immoral. The Pope says you should wait until you’re married, and I agree.”
Of course, that was back when Posie still believed in the Catholic church. But we’ll get to that.
“Third,” she concluded, “I want to have something special to give my husband. I don’t want to waste it on someone unless I’m sure he’s the man I’m going to marry.”
“Wow. I thought for sure you would have done it already.”
“Nope. A little fooling around here and there, but nothing big. What about you?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? Not even—”
“Nothing. Ever. Not even a kiss.”
“How is that possible?” she asked. “You’re adorable.”
“Well, thanks,” I said, trying not to act too pleased. “But I guess I’ve always wanted to wait, too. My parents were both virgins when they got married, and I like the idea of it.” I hesitated for a moment before deciding to tell her the truth. “Plus, I’m deathly afraid of guys.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I guess I always think they’ll want something from me.”
“Like sex?”
“Yes.”
“They probably will,” Posie said. “But they’re not that hard to handle. You make it clear what your limits are, and if they don’t respect them, they’re history.”
“That really works?”
“It has for me.”
Liar! (Crack! Boom! Lightning!) Was I the only one anymore who cared about telling the truth?
Suffer the Little Children
[1]
Two days went by, Sunday and Monday. No church, no school, no light of day. Just the three of us, my father and little brother and I, zombies captive in our home, phone ringing, no one answering, just us and our misery and pain.
Posie finally couldn’t take it anymore.
“You will come out of there this instance!” she ordered. She stood at our front door, hands on her hips. “You look awful, Lizzie—just awful. When’s the last time you bathed?”
It was late Monday afternoon and I was still in my pajamas. I hadn’t eaten for two days. I hadn’t brushed my teeth.
“Go away.” I started to close the door.
Tears sprang into Posie’s eyes. “Is this about Jason? Nothing happened. You have to believe me.”
I could barely look at her, I was so angry. “Posie, I was there.”
“You’re doing all of this over a guy?”
“It’s not a guy, it’s you! You betrayed me.”
Posie dragged me out of the house. I stood on our porch shivering even though the day was warm.
“Would you listen to me? What is the matter with you?”
I burst into tears.
Posie hugged me to her. “Honey, you look sick. You need a shower. You need to clean up.”
“My mother left us!” I cried.
Posie gaped at me. “What?”
“Saturday night. While I was at the prom!”
“Oh, my God.”
“What am I going to do?”
Posie guided me to a more
secluded spot at the side of the house, behind some bushes. “What’s going on?”
“She’s having an affair.”
“Oh, my God.”
“She didn’t even leave me a note.”
“This is the worst thing I’ve ever heard. Honey, I am so sorry.” She hugged me again, hard. I know I stank. She’s a true friend.
“Look,” she said, “I know it doesn’t matter right now, but I’m telling you the truth—nothing happened with Jason. We’re just friends. We’ve messed around a few times. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just for fun.”
Despite everything else, I really wanted to know. “Mess around how?”
“Just kissing and playing around. Nothing big. You know I wouldn’t do anything serious with him. He’s a scoundrel.”
“You guys were all over each other.”
“I know. I’m sorry it looked that way. I got caught up in the moment. It was a big mistake. But Jason and I are just friends. I promise you.”
“It doesn’t make any difference,” I said. “He doesn’t like me anyway.”
“He does. As a friend. We’re all friends.”
“But I love him.”
“Honey—”
It was almost like hearing my mother call me that. The tears broke out fresh. I was so unbearably miserable.
“How could she just leave you?” Posie wanted to know. “She’s a rotten mother. I’m sorry, but that’s a fact.”
“She hasn’t even called,” I said. “I’ve been checking Caller ID.”
Posie shook her head in disgust. “Why wouldn’t she at least call? To see if you’re all right? I don’t get it. I always thought she was nice.”
“Me, too.”
Posie is nothing if not efficient in a crisis. “Put on your clothes. You’re coming to stay with me.”
“I can’t. My father’s a mess, and someone has to take care of Mikey. Poor little guy.”
“Lizzie, really, I had no idea this was going on. You should have called me. I would have come right over.”
“There was nothing you could do. Besides,” I added with a weepy smile, “I’ve been hating your guts.”
“I don’t blame you. But that’s over. Come on. You’re coming to my house—at least for a while. You can take a shower. My mom will feed you. You can bring something home for Mikey.”
“You swear nothing happened?”
“Of course I swear. You think I’m going to waste it on him?”
“I would.”
“Then you’re worse off than I thought. Go get dressed. We’re leaving.”
[2]
There’s a line in the Book of Matthew that people always misunderstand.
A group of children is hawking Jesus, hanging around him, tugging at him and bugging him, waiting for him to bless them. And the disciples have probably already had it up to here with the blind and the lame and the lepers following them around all day, begging Jesus to spit on some mud to put on their eyes or say the magic words “Take up your mat and walk!” or even let his shadow pass over them so he can heal them. And Jesus is always a good sport about that—it’s one of the things he’s there for, after all—but the disciples get a little testy sometimes, especially when it looks like there isn’t going to be enough food to go around, or the crowd’s pushing and shoving, or when someone JUST WON’T TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER.
So these kids are basically getting on the disciples’ last nerve, and the disciples try to run them off.
But Jesus smiles in his beatific way and says, “Suffer the little children to come unto me.”
And that’s the part people misunderstand. I once heard a mother in a movie scream out, “Suffer the little children? Suffer your children—not mine!”
She didn’t get it at all.
What Jesus meant was endure it. Tolerate it. Get over yourself. Relax and let the children come to me.
I suffered to go to Posie’s. I suffered to take a shower, to put on one of her thick terry cloth robes, to let her mother order takeout from the Vietnamese restaurant up the street. I suffered to stop crying and feeling so miserable for myself. I ate fried tofu with greens and vermicelli. I brushed my teeth with a new toothbrush Mrs. Sherbern claimed she’d been saving for a special occasion, and this was it. Then I sat in Posie’s room, relaxing on the guest bed with the blue flowered bedspread, drinking in the healing properties of a room that looked like it had survived attack by clothing bomb.
Posie, on the other hand, was far from relaxed.
“It makes me sick,” she fairly spat. She sat on her unmade bed fuming over the morning newspaper that her mother had wisely hidden from her until that evening.
“So stop reading,” I said.
“I have to know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Posie slapped down the newspaper in disgust. “Do you understand how truly demonic this whole thing is?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t understand how we look at our priests. They’re miniature gods. They’re like the voice of the Almighty. And for someone like that to—to—”
I stopped her before she could go off again. These tirades never seemed to make Posie feel any better. “You’ve got to stop reading about it. There’s nothing you can do.”
Posie picked up the paper again and read on, shaking her head all the while.
“Oh, my God, it’s disgusting. This is the worst one I’ve seen.”
“You always say that.”
“That’s because they keep getting worse!”
“Posie, put the paper down. Why do you keep torturing yourself?”
“Because every Catholic should know what’s been going on!”
“Well, now they all do.”
“But they still go to church. They still give money to all these—” She waved her hand in the air, at a loss for the perfect word without resorting to cursing. Posie is always careful with her mouth.
“Look at my mother,” she shouted loudly enough for the offender to hear over her TV program. “She’ll never stop giving to the church. And where does she think her money goes? To silence the victims! To pay for all these crimes!”
Posie paused to see if her message had any effect. The TV blared on.
“Posie—” I tried.
“She says it’s her sacred duty, no matter what a few priests did. A few priests! They’re all doing it! I think they’ve always done it. Why not? Little boys as far as the eye can see, free for the taking—”
“Stop.”
“I swear to God I’ll never step foot in another church again.”
“Can we talk about something else?” I pleaded. “For example, the fact that I’m motherless?”
“I know, and we will, but I just can’t stop hoping there’s a special hell for all of them. Where they get raped over and over—”
“Posie, my mother has a lover.”
“I know, but—” She growled and threw the newspaper across the room, knocking over one of the perfume bottles on her desk. “I’m sorry. You’re right. But can I just say one more thing?”
I groaned. “One more.”
“I hope they suffer. I hope they all die miserable, excruciating, agonizing, hideous deaths. With their skin peeling off and needles in their eyeballs—”
“Posie! Stop. I mean it. Look, cheer yourself up. What does your hero say this time?”
Posie’s shoulders slumped. The air went out of her outrage. I knew this would work—it always did. My problems could wait a few more minutes. It was Posie’s turn to need comfort.
She retrieved the newspaper and righted the perfume bottle. Then she scanned the article for the quote.
“Here. ‘Plaintiffs’ attorney Angela Peligro—’” Posie paused for a moment. “God, I love her. “‘—Angela Peligro recently settled another lawsuit against the Archdiocese for an undisclosed amount, rumored to be in excess of $13 million.’ Good for her!”
“Outstanding,” I agreed.
“‘Ms. Peligro called it
“meager compensation for the ruination of these young men’s lives, but at least it got the Church’s attention.”’”
“Pretty tame for Angela,” I noted. The last quote I’d seen said something about a “policy of privilege and perversion.” Nice alliteration.
“Wait,” Posie said. “One more. ‘These boys cried out for help,’ Angela Peligro said, ‘but were shamed into silence. This ends now, today. The Church will hear them and every boy like them from this day forward, or the Church will cease to exist.’ Yes!”
“Posie, what am I going to do about my mother?”
She set down the newspaper once and for all and gave me her full attention.
“Simple,” Posie said. “Make her suffer.”
Looks Normal Enough
[1]
My mother finally deigned to call us on Thursday, five days after she left.
I can understand how busy you must get when you’re having sex all the time. Things just pile up.
Mikey was thrilled, as if she’d gone out of town on a business trip and was simply checking in. He babbled at her for ten minutes about his last soccer game and his friend Cort’s pet rat and whatever else seems earth-shaking to an eight-year-old before finally handing me the phone.
“Lizzie!” my mother said breathlessly, like she was talking to me from her exercise bike. “How are you, sweetie?”
“Fine,” I snapped.
“When can I see you?”
“What for?”
That seemed to surprise her. She took a second before answering. “I miss you.”
“Oh, really.”
“Lizzie, don’t be that way.”
“Be what way, Mother? You didn’t even tell me you were leaving!”
“Honey . . . I thought you knew.”
“How would I know?”
I gripped the phone hard. I was getting angrier by the second. Mikey shot me a worried look, as if to say, Please don’t mess this up!
Your mother already left you, I could have told him. There’s not much left to ruin.
“You must have known how unhappy things were,” my mother tried.
“I didn’t know anything. I had no idea. I came home—from my prom, Mother—and you were just gone. No note, no nothing. How do you think that was?”
