by Annie Choi
One afternoon Christy broke down in tears. Her mom had forbid her to French Jim, a boyfriend she had just met at the Fallbrook Mall (one who had just turned seventeen). All of our friends offered our sympathies and advice, but since I had never even talked to a boy, much less Frenched one real hard, all I could do was hairspray her bangs and make her a mix tape. One afternoon, in a solemn ceremony, Christy offered me a soda can tab, explaining that she had snuck out of the house and finally Frenched Jim for eight hours at a super-secret location (probably his truck), and it would mean a lot to her if I wore it as a sign of our sisterhood. I was touched. I wore it until my mother asked why I was wearing trash and made me take it off. But I kept it in my locker so I could wear it at school. I secretly hoped that everyone would assume I had a marathon make-out session with a sixteen-year-old.
All the seventh-grade girls seemed to get their first periods around the same time. Girls in the locker rooms and bathrooms would ask each other for a tampon or a pad, and then launch into a heated tampon-versus-pad discussion, which segued into conversations about boys—Do you really think he likes me, as in like-like me? When it came to feminine products, I’d smile and pretend I knew what I was talking about. I was a staunch pad supporter because I didn’t know how to use a tampon, even though Christy explained it to me several times and even drew diagrams, which I squirreled away in my nightstand for when I’d need them. I figured I’d support the feminine product that mystified me less.
“Oh my God, I totally use Always Ultra with Wings, too. The Dri-Weave like totally works.”
Everything I knew about being a woman, I learned from Christy or commercials. Christy knew I hadn’t gotten my first period, but she didn’t care. I don’t think anyone in school actually cared, except for me. Christy helped me create the illusion of womanhood by talking periods with me and I was grateful. I believed that menstruation was a requirement to fit in, just like MC Hammer pants and high-top sneakers.
The rungs of my junior high’s social ladder were made of feminine products. Just by asking Laura Paris if you could have a tampon, you established three things:
You were a woman.
You knew that Laura was a tampon supporter.
You were personal enough with Laura to ask for a tampon.
If Laura presented you with a tampon, you established three things:
You were a woman.
You were like totally cool.
She would one day ask you for a tampon, thereby forging a relationship between two mature women in which you could do womanly things together, like drink coffee and talk about how annoying men are.
Sometimes I’d ask a fellow woman for a pad, just to gain some menstrual cred. Then I’d stow it in my locker, hoping that one day I’d use it. I was worried. What if they found out I wasn’t a woman at all? What if I never became a woman? What if I had to pretend to feel bloated and get cramps for the rest of my life? How would I get out of gym class?
Because my ovaries were in a deep coma and possibly dead, I was short, skinny, and flat in eighth grade. If I turned to the side, I’d disappear almost completely. The boys began snapping bra straps, and girls would giggle in response, happy that they were getting attention from the opposite sex, even if it was childish and perhaps a little painful. I was paralyzed with fear. I had no bra to snap. I began wearing white undershirts and folding them up so that they looked like sports bras. Perhaps I could fool them. The day Jon Thomas grasped for my back, he took a handful of tank top. He thought he had missed. I was relieved to tears.
When we reached ninth grade, Christy and I went to separate high schools. I would have to face womanhood without my woman. Every single girl in high school wore a bra and they all needed one—even the small, skinny girls (who were still significantly taller and heavier than me). In the locker room, women openly mentioned their unmentionables, oh did you get a new bra? Yeah totally I got it from Victoria’s Secret. Oh my God it is so cute! Before and after track-and-field practice, I made sure that no one would discover that I didn’t wear a bra and didn’t even need one. I would change in the bathroom stalls or wait until women had left the locker room. I was late to practice most of the time and as a result, my coach made me run extra laps around the track. Still, jogging an extra mile didn’t take nearly as much energy as pretending to be a woman.
But soon I became desperate. I was fourteen years old, with no hair, rack, or rear in sight. Anyone could confuse my back for my chest. I had the body of a nine-year-old boy. It was time for serious measures.
I had always pictured a moment where I would walk with my mother around a lake and tell her how I had become a woman. Everything would be beautiful and soft. There’d be a lot of ducks. We’d be wearing flowing white dresses and she’d give me a hug and a box of Tampax.
Since our family didn’t live near a lake and I hadn’t gotten my period, my fantasy of connecting with my mother over plastic applicators dissipated. I sighed and walked into the kitchen. She was rinsing rice, and I watched her pour out the white, cloudy water into the sink.
“Mom, I’m not a woman yet.”
“What?”
“I haven’t gotten my period yet.”
“Anne, you worry too much. Why you want period?”
“Everyone else has it. I should have it, too.”
“I tell you, when you get period, you not want it.”
“But I want it. And I don’t have it. There must be something wrong with me. Like I’m missing a tube or I have no eggs or something. Maybe I should see a doctor.”
“You know Mommy got period late so you get late too. Anne, you normal, only crazy. Maybe you can see acupuncture.”
“No, no needles, I can’t do it. OK, fine, can I at least buy a bra?”
“Why you want bra? You have no breast!”
I must’ve looked wounded because an hour later we arrived at the Promenade Mall. We walked into Robinson’s “intimates” department, where I spied an eleven-year-old woman picking bras off the B-cup rack. She held up a white lacy one and showed her mother, who seemed to approve. I wished the entire store were empty so I could be alone in my embarrassment; there were hundreds of bras in every shape and color and I was sure none of them would fit me.
“Excuse me! Excuse me! Hello!”
I whipped my head around and saw my mother shuffling up to a store clerk.
“Yes, how may I help you?”
“Where I can find bra—very small? For my daughter…Anne, where you are? Anne!”
I ducked down behind a rack of nightgowns and robes and hoped the entire world would go boom. Nuclear fallout was a more merciful way to die than embarrassment.
“Jockey makes a nice set of training bras. All cotton and very plain.”
“Oh good, good, my daughter like plain. But has to be small.”
I buried my face in a robe and wondered if I could hang myself with the sash.
“Yes, we have them and they’re on sale. You can look over there.”
I poked my head out from the rack and saw the clerk point. I followed the direction of her finger and saw gigantic red sign that said “PRICE BLOWOUT! AAA-AA CUPS ON SALE! EXTRA 10% TAKEN OFF AT REGISTER.” All it needed was sirens and a flashing neon arrow. I gasped and my mother spotted me and dragged me to the rack. I looked around nervously, hoping I wouldn’t see anyone from school. She held up a pink cotton bra.
“How about this?”
“OK-sure-looks-good-I’ll-try-it-on-bye!” I grabbed the bra and sprinted to the dressing room.
My mother passed me a hundred bras underneath the dressing room door and I refused to show her how they fit. Because they didn’t. I cursed my ovaries and then pleaded with them: I hate you, you’re ruining my life, no wait, I don’t mean that, please wake up, please don’t do this to me.
“Anne, you take too long. How about this?” She passed over another bra.
“No it doesn’t fit. Give me the size down.”
“OK Mommy go look.“
&nb
sp; In the dressing room mirror, I stared at the baggy, white bra. The elastic around my chest was loose and the straps kept sliding off my shoulders. There was no underwire and lace, unlike the bras my mother or girls at school wore.
“Anne, it smallest. Maybe I ask lady if they have more in back.”
I winced. I pictured my mother talking to the clerk. They’d talk about how inadequate my boobs were and laugh. Then the lady would go into the backroom, which was filled to the ceiling with a million bras, and discover that they didn’t carry bras that small, but that maybe I should check out Toys “R” Us because she heard Playskool made My First Bra.
“No, no, no, Mom, it’s OK. This one fits.”
I grabbed one, hoping that one day I could fill it out, and threw it at my mother. I escaped to the cosmetics counter and sniffed perfumes while my mother paid at the counter.
My first bra was made of white cotton and because the straps were too long, I had to tie knots in them so they wouldn’t slip off my narrow shoulders. The clasp was in front and it rubbed against the skin on my sternum, making me bleed. As uncomfortable as my bra was, it was still a bra. It made me feel like half of a woman, which was better than being just a girl. My bra’s cups, which were really more like tablespoons, remained unfilled for the next three years.
Puberty finally hit me at Karen Crocker’s house. We had just started our last semester of high school and we were studying together. I went to the bathroom and discovered dark spots on my underwear. At first I was suspicious, as if somehow I was wearing someone else’s underwear. Then, after I realized that the underwear and the blood were both actually mine, I felt surprised. I’d imagined that I’d know when I was about to get my period—that for four to five days before I’d retain water, have painful cramps, get easily fatigued and irritable, and feel tenderness in the breasts (which I didn’t have)—that was what the Midol commercials had promised me. But I felt pretty good that day, not even a backache. Then, my surprise turned quickly into annoyance. I had ruined a perfectly good pair of underpants and even though I had been waiting for my period for the last four or five years, I was completely unprepared. Still sitting on the toilet, I reached over to open the medicine cabinet and the drawers under the sink. Nothing. I groaned. I yelled for Karen through the bathroom door.
“What’s up? Is there no toilet paper? Did you check under the sink?”
“No, I need something else.”
“What?”
“You know, something else.” I heard her laugh through the bathroom door.
“Come on, Karen.”
“OK, it’s not a big deal, which kind do you need?”
“A pad.”
A minute later I heard a knock on the door.
“OK I got one. Open the door.”
“I can’t open the door. I’m on the toilet.” I heard a stifled laugh. Then I saw a small pink package being shoved underneath the door.
I had expected to feel overwhelming relief after getting my first period, but I didn’t. If anything I felt a little embarrassed, but for the most part, I felt exactly the same as before. Except now I was wearing something that felt like a diaper. So much for being a woman.
I drove home later that evening and walked into my mother’s bedroom. She was watching the Korean news.
“Hi, how you are? You hungry?” She said this to the TV, where a very stern man was delivering some very stern news.
“I got my period. Cool, right?”
Her eyes remained locked on the TV.
“Mom, pay attention, I got my period.”
Nothing.
“MOM!”
“OK, OK I just kidding Anne! It joke! Of course it cool. You worry so much, but Mommy knew you get soon. But now you think ‘Why I want period? I get cramp and fat and I feel terrible.’” She puffed out her cheeks and rubbed her belly. I laughed; it was the same motions she used to make fun of my overweight brother.
“But it’s a good thing.”
“Good, yes, tomorrow Mommy go to Costco and buy pad. Maybe I get chocolate, too.” She smiled, turned back to the TV, and waved me away. I guess this was the closest to flowing white dresses and ducks we would get, which was fine with me.
The next day I told my coach I couldn’t run because I had “cramps,” which was not only a code word for bleeding, but also a lie many girls used to get out of practice. He looked wary.
“Really? You’ve never skipped practice because of cramps.”
“But they’ve never been this bad before.”
I went back to the locker room and packed up my gym bag. A teammate asked why I was leaving. I explained that I was riding the crimson wave and my Aunt Flo had come to town, and wasn’t that just a bloody shame?
HOLY CRAP
“Anne? Come here, help Mommy!”
“I’m in the bathroom!”
“NO, come now!”
“I said, I’m in the bathroom. Let me just finish.”
“What you do in bathroom?”
“I’m throwing a big party. What do you think I’m doing?”
“You hurry! Come quick!”
I threw aside my book and grumbled. My mother has an uncanny ability to interrupt my father, brother, and me during our most private moments. I can imagine her waiting until we get settled on the toilet before bellowing orders through the bathroom door: Take out the trash. Wash the car. Put the dishes away. And no matter how mundane the task, it always sounds like an emergency, as if the fate of modern civilization rests on my separating the darks from the whites. I must admit, it’s a very clever strategy—we’re literally caught with our pants down and willing to say yes to anything just to stop her hollering through the bathroom door.
“Ayoo, what take so long?”
“Can you just hold on for a minute?”
“Why you not help Mommy? Why you not love you mommy? How I raise such daughter?”
I flushed the toilet, quickly washed my hands, and scurried into the kitchen.
“You spend so much time in bathroom! Maybe I move you bed there!” She laughed and I rolled my eyes. My mother pointed to the wet spots on my jeans where I had dried my hands. She sighed. “Why you not use towel?”
“Because you told me to hurry! What do you want? What’s up?” I tapped my foot impatiently.
My mother pointed to a box neatly wrapped in brown butcher paper. It was large and flat—the kind of box used to ship framed paintings. We only had one painting hanging in the house and I think it was there when we moved in. It was probably a mirror. My mother liked mirrors, and we certainly didn’t need another one.
“Help me open.”
“You got me out of the bathroom to help you open this? You couldn’t wait for another five minutes?”
“Just help you mommy. It surprise.”
“Surprise for me?”
I raised one eyebrow suspiciously. She had given me a surprise a few weeks earlier—a set of SAT preparation books and a weighty pack of vocabulary flash cards. I had explained rather irately that a car was a more suitable surprise for a fifteen-year-old.
“No, this surprise for everyone.”
Together we ripped the brown paper off and opened the box. Inside there was an unruly mound of bubble wrap, and I immediately pulled some out and marched on top of it. The snap of fire-crackers echoed off the kitchen walls.
“ANNE!”
“Oh come on, it’s fun, try it.” I threw some at her feet, which she kicked aside.
“Why you always bother Mommy?”
I spied a corner of a wooden picture frame inside the box. “What is it?”
“A picture.”
“Well, duh, but of what?”
“Someone special.”
“Of me?”
My mother scoffed and we lifted the frame out of the box. The picture was rolled up in white bandages like a mummy. I started unwinding it carefully. Maybe it was a picture of our family, though we never took a group portrait. Maybe it was a painting by a family friend. Fin
ally I just ripped the bandages off.
I gasped. I stared. And the face of Pope John Paul II stared back at me.
“OH. MY. GOD.”
The Pope wore gleaming white floor-length robes with a short cape tied around his shoulders. A gold chain with a cross shone on his chest, and covering the top of his balding head was a small white disk of cloth. Facing the camera, he stretched out his arms with palms turned up, as if he were waiting for a hug. The Pope seemed ghostly, a pale figure standing in front of a dark and empty background. His sunken eyes gazed steadily ahead and he looked eerily peaceful and solemn, as if he were waiting for good news that he already knew about. But the most noticeable characteristic about the Pope was the size. The picture was three feet wide and over three feet tall—a massive, monolithic, full-body shot of the pontiff that floated in a sea of bubble wrap on our kitchen floor.
“Oh no, what have you done? Where did you get this?”
“From church.”
“You have to give it back. I can’t believe this. It’s so big. I mean, look how big this is.” I stood next to it so my mother could see that the top of the picture came up to my waist.
“Anne, I tell you, it not big, you short.”
“No way. It’s like a hundred feet tall.”
“It POPE. Be nice.”
“But why does it have to be so big?”
“Shh, Anne, shhhh.”
“What, you think he hears me?”
The glossy Pope was framed with a matte border that, upon closer inspection, was not matte at all, but white silk with a faint floral pattern. The frame itself was dark, polished wood, about five inches thick, and a plate of heavy glass protected the photograph. It was a nice frame, of solid construction. Immediately I thought of other pictures that could replace John Paul II, maybe Kurt Cobain or even a pleasant landscape. I examined the back and sadly discovered that the photograph was sealed inside the frame, a transparent vault that captured one man in one pose for the rest of my life. My mother pulled out a tape measure and noted the dimensions. She looked up from the photograph and scanned the empty walls in the kitchen.
