More Than One Way to Be a Girl

by Dyan Sheldon

  “What city?”

  “Reykjavik.”

  “What?” It sounded like some kind of weird cheese. Probably mouldy.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Zi.” Loretta sighed. “What city do you think? We’re a lot closer to New York than we are to Barcelona.”

  “Really? Are you serious?” New York! Even though we weren’t exactly thousands of miles away, New York wasn’t somewhere we went very often. If ever. I was so excited I nearly knocked over the nail polish. “We’re going to New York on the weekend?” And then I pictured being in the car with her parents, and then walking around the city with them. Don’t get me wrong, I like Loretta’s parents a lot, but they can be a challenge. (They are related to her, after all!) I had a flash of hours and hours of her father going on and on about every incomprehensible topic he could come up with until even my eyebrows were numb and her mother telling me (over and over) how I had to eat more or a good wind would break me in two. (There’s no chance Loretta was adopted, she’s so much like them you’d think she’d been cloned.) “You mean with Stew and Odelia?”

  “They can come if they want to, but I was thinking it would be just you and me.”

  “Just us? Seriously?” Usually, there was no way my parents would let me go into New York without an adult, just to wander around and possibly get into some kind of trouble. But this was different. This was for school. My parents would’ve let me kayak to Connecticut if I was doing it for school.

  “Completely seriously. I want to check a couple of things at the Women’s History Museum. And I figured you’d want to come, too. They’re bound to have a lot of material on pioneer women.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and I don’t mean about going to New York by ourselves (incredible as that was). It was the museum part that threw me. I knew things like paintings and aeroplanes and bottles have their own museums but when did women get one?

  “What’s in it?” I asked. “Quilts and corsets and knitting needles? Cosmetics through the ages?”

  “I’m going to assume you’re joking, ZiZi,” said Loretta. “Don’t disillusion me.”

  I said of course I was joking. And didn’t add, “But not about the cosmetics.”

  “It just so happens that they have some fantastic exhibits and photographs. They also have a terrific library, including original papers and documents.”

  Would the excitement never end?

  “You think we’ll have time to do anything besides the museum?”

  “Like what?”

  You see what I’m up against here, right? I mean, only Loretta would have to ask what else you could do in New York besides visit a museum. If you gave her ten minutes in a department store to choose anything she wanted, the only thing she’d walk out with would be a pair of wellies.

  “Manhattan may not be a gaseous planet or anything awesomely exciting like that, Lo, but there is a rumour that it’s a pretty fascinating city. People come from all over the world to walk its streets and see its lights. I was thinking maybe we could just do a little exploring. Have a meal. Check out a couple of stores. You know, things that normal people do.”

  “We’ll see what we can fit in,” said Loretta. “But for definite we’ll have supper there. I read about this incredible vegan restaurant I want to try.”

  Of course she did. That’s what the Big Apple’s known for: tofu.

  “Well? What do you say?” asked Loretta. “You in?”

  Like there was even a chance as big as a blackhead that I’d say no, right? Not that I really needed to do any more research. I’d got tons of information already and was pretty set. Plus, I’d seen enough TV shows and movies, and I’d even read Little House on the Prairie in middle school, so I knew a lot about female pioneers. Make your own soap, kill your own chicken, shoot your own gun. But the only times I’d ever been to New York were once on a class trip (to look at dinosaur bones and stuff like that), and twice with my parents and their other children (once to a Broadway musical and once to the Rockefeller Center at Christmas). Going without either my fourth-grade class or my family was an opportunity not to be missed. I didn’t care if she was planning to spend the day with her nose in a book, I’d still rather go to New York with just Loretta than walk on the moon (even if she’d probably rather walk on the moon).

  “Are you kidding? Of course I’m in.”

  To Loretta this was a chance to read some suffragette’s diary (chained myself to railings, got arrested, that kind of thing), but for me it was a chance for Fate to open her arms and embrace me. New York is the kind of place where a girl with potential can be discovered just walking down the street (you wouldn’t believe how many famous models were spotted by agencies when they were just going about their normal teenage lives). Being discovered before my parents sent me off to college was my dream. You could bet your last lip gloss that was something that was never going to happen in Howards Walk – which is the kind of place where a trunk full of magazines from 1900 might be discovered, but not the next face of Clairol. And if I was discovered, I wouldn’t have to spend four more years in school. Not even my parents could argue with Clairol.

  Loretta

  None so blind as she who will not see

  I didn’t begin with the idea of taking ZiZi with me to the Women’s History Museum. Initially, the only person I was thinking about was myself. I’d always wanted to visit it, and now I had the perfect reason for going; there would be information there that I couldn’t get anywhere else. As soon as I decided to go, I knew that I wanted ZiZi to see it, too. ZiZi, of course, has as much interest in museums – no matter what’s in them – as she has in the internal combustion engine. Possibly less; she does like riding in cars. Which means that if the museum weren’t in New York City my chances of convincing her to accompany me would have been less than zero. Fortunately, it is in New York; there was no convincing necessary.

  I knew even before we left Howards Walk that it was possible that I had unrealistic expectations of ZiZi. As I said, she’s not a museumophile no matter how much you stretch your imagination, but I sincerely believed that seeing the Women’s History Museum would be good for her. That it would open her big blue eyes. That it might even change her life – or at least her attitude. After all, we’d only had the enlightened Ms Wallenstein for this year so it wasn’t exactly ZiZi’s fault that she thought that all the great thinkers, innovators, philosophers, artists, writers, leaders, etcetera of the world have always been men. As if women had done nothing for millennia but change diapers and make soup. The sad fact – as they say – is that history is written by the winners, and throughout the centuries, the winners usually have that Y chromosome. Even though the Y chromosome was discovered by a woman. File under the heading: Truly ironic.

  That’s why I thought getting ZiZi to the museum was important. Not only is Nettie Stevens, the geneticist who first linked the Y chromosome to sex determination, there – in spirit if not in body – hundreds of other women are there, too. For the first time, ZiZi would see for herself all the women who had gone against convention, society and all those Y chromosomes to be their own people – and change the world.

  Of course, before ZiZi could have her eureka moment about women, we had to get to the city. And because ZiZi was involved, we almost missed the train.

  I wanted to get an early start in order to have the most time possible in the museum. It’s not the kind of place you want to rush through. That is, it’s not the kind of place I want to rush through. It should be studied; absorbed; savoured. The trouble was it was a Saturday. My parents were both working and couldn’t take us to the station, and ZiZi’s parents would only complain about being treated like a taxi service and not being able to sleep late on a day off if we’d asked them to drive us. We agreed to walk into town, and save the parental ride for our return.

  I got up as soon as my alarm went off, dressed, had some breakfast, made lunch, packed a day bag and was at ZiZi’s even earlier than we’d agreed – which is the
only way you stand a chance of getting anywhere on time with her. Because I didn’t want to wake her parents, I texted her that I was outside. ZiZi came to the door; she wasn’t ready. It’s a wonder I didn’t faint from the shock.

  She just stood there for a few seconds, eyeing me as if I had on socks with sandals, which, apparently, is a felony in the world of fashion. “Is that what you’re wearing?” This wasn’t a question or a statement; it was a disappointment.

  No, of course it wasn’t what I was wearing. I had a ballgown and heels in my backpack.

  “It is what I have on, ZiZi.”

  “And I have on a robe, but it’s not what I’m wearing.” She was still looking at me as if I was a dress-sense criminal. “I just thought you might make a little effort to go to one of the fashion capitals of the world.”

  And I would do that why?

  “We’re not going to the Easter Parade. We’re going to a museum.” I held up my phone so she could see the time. “You better get moving. The next train’s at twenty-five past, and, if we miss that, there’s an hour till the next one.”

  “I’m nearly ready.” She waved me in. “There’s coffee in the kitchen. Why don’t you have a cup while I finish getting dressed.”

  I marched past her. “Hurry.”

  Ten minutes later, I was tapping on the bathroom door. I had to whisper so as not to wake everyone else in the house, but I whispered urgently. “For God’s sake, what’s taking you so long?”

  “I wanted to finish reading War and Peace before we go.”

  “ZiZi!”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Ten minutes later I was back at the bathroom door. “ZiZi! For God’s sake, the idea was to leave early this morning. Not early tomorrow morning. Why can’t you do this on the train?”

  “Because train toilets are small and part of a speeding vehicle, that’s why. I’d be lucky not to blind myself. Go wait outside. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  I went outside and sat on the bumper of Mrs Abruzzio’s car. I had a book with me – experts recommend having something to read while waiting for ZiZi – but I was too agitated about not making the train to concentrate on it. I spent the wait – which was longer than a minute by at least another ten – staring at the house, willing ZiZi to come out, and checking my phone to make sure that time hadn’t come to a dead stop. When she did finally emerge, I nearly fell off the car. She had a wheelie case and was dressed for a party, probably in a penthouse with lots of famous people.

  “Look at you!” I may have wailed slightly. “I’m not going to mention the dress.” We would’ve been there bickering for another hour if I’d mentioned that her dress was never made to see daylight. “But those shoes! Are you insane? You can’t walk around all day in those.” They were the twenty-first-century equivalent of foot-binding. “They’re practically stilts.”

  ZiZi groaned. “You’re exaggerating again, Loretta. They’re nothing like stilts.” It was astounding that she could stand on one leg and swing out the other foot without falling. She should have been a gymnast. Or a ballerina. “Stilts don’t have bows.” Apparently unaffected by the laws of balance and movement – and with an impressive burst of speed – she swept past me and started down the street.

  I fell in beside her. “We’re never going to make the train.” She was already slowing down. “Not with an average speed of three yards an hour.”

  “You’re always so damn negative.” ZiZi sighed loudly, to remind me that she’d said that almost as often as she’d said that I exaggerate. “How many times do I have to tell you, Lo? Things always work out okay. You just have to believe that they will.”

  I would have argued with that; I read papers and watch the news, I know it isn’t true. But that’s in the real world, not in the world of Giselle Abruzzio – which exists in a parallel, and much better, universe. Which explains why, before I could even open my mouth to disagree, a car pulled up in front of us. A smiling boy leaned his head out the window. It wasn’t a head I recognized. “Yo! ZiZi! You need a ride?”

  “Who is that?” I grabbed her elbow. “Do you know him?” The mere fact that he knew her name was no guarantee.

  “Of course I know him.” She shook me off, smiling straight ahead. “That’s Jeremiah Hakilah. He’s in my French class.” To him she said, “We’re going to the train, and we’d love a ride. But we don’t want to put you out.”

  “I’m heading into town anyway.” The passenger door opened. “Hop in!”

  “Oh ye of little faith,” whispered ZiZi – and then she climbed in next to Jeremiah. I got in the back with the burger boxes and the sweat socks.

  You could tell that Jeremiah Hakilah was pretty happy to have ZiZi sitting beside him. He kept grinning at her when he should have had his eyes on the road, and he talked when he should have been concentrating on steering. That aside, if there’d been a minimum speed limit, he’d have been under it. I leaned forward so my head was between them. “What time’s the train again, ZiZi?” I asked.

  “I totally didn’t get that piece we had to translate last week,” said Jeremiah. “Was the guy who wrote it on drugs, or what? It really did my head in.”

  “Mine, too,” said ZiZi. “After a while I just gave up and let the internet do it for me.”

  Jeremiah slapped the steering wheel. “Me, too!”

  A meeting of minds.

  The train was in the platform and the last passengers were boarding when we finally pulled up in front of the station. Very slowly. It was all I could do not to jump out the window.

  “Uh-oh,” laughed ZiZi. “We better hurry. Thanks for the ride.”

  “Yeah.” I opened my door. “Thanks for the ride.”

  “You’re welcome.” Jeremiah waved. “Now run!”

  It defied all the laws of physics but she did run – up metal stairs – in those stupid shoes. Yet another example of the Giselle Abruzzio parallel universe.

  “We’re not going to make it,” I said as we staggered onto the platform. I could see that the conductor was about to shut the doors. “I told you we weren’t going to make it.”

  ZiZi raised one arm. “Wait, please, sir!” she called. “Please wait!”

  Her voice has the effect on men that high frequency whistles have on dogs. The conductor looked over.

  ZiZi smiled and waved. “We’re coming! Please wait!”

  The conductor waited and we hurried on board.

  “Whew!” ZiZi laughed as we sat down. “That was close.”

  “Oh, do you think so? You mean because, if we’d been a minute later, you’d have been waving the train goodbye, not Jeremiah What’shisname?”

  “Hakilah,” said ZiZi.

  I leaned back in my seat. “You know, I really can’t believe that, just this once, you couldn’t get up, get dressed and be ready to go on time. If we’d missed this train, we would’ve lost most of the morning.”

  “I was as fast as I could be.”

  “Yeah right. You could’ve painted an SUV in the time it took you to do your make-up.”

  “Only a toy one. And anyway, I don’t see why you’re making a federal case out of it. Maybe you didn’t notice, Loretta, but we didn’t miss the train.” She gestured to the trees and houses flashing past the windows. “Here we are! Safe and sound, and New York bound!”

  “We made it by mere seconds, ZiZi. If the conductor had closed the doors—”

  “But he didn’t. He saw us and waited.”

  “You mean he saw you.”

  “We’re together, Lo.” Her voice was taut with patience. “If he saw me, he saw you.”

  “He didn’t help me on board.”

  “You don’t need help. All you have is that miniature backpack.”

  “Because all I brought is my iPad – so I can take notes – my phone and my lunch. What do you have in there? We’re not staying for a week but you’re practically dragging a trunk with you.”

  “God, there you go again with the exaggerating. It’s n
othing like a trunk. It’s not even a suitcase really. It’s more like a really large handbag. We’re going to be out all day, remember. I have to bring everything I might need.”

  “For what? Ending up on a desert island instead of in the city?”

  “For if something unexpected happens.”

  She had a change of clothes in case of an emergency – an unspecified emergency. Change of shoes, for the same reason. Make-up. Hairbrush. Phone charger. Toothbrush. Water. Breath mints. Extra eyelashes in case a sandstorm blew off the ones she was wearing.

  “You don’t think that’s a little excessive?” I argued. “You couldn’t even get your bag up on the rack by yourself. What if that man hadn’t helped you?”

  “Loretta…” She patted my shoulder. “That’s what you don’t seem to get. There’s always some man who’ll offer to help. That’s the beauty of being a girl.”

  My sigh probably registered as an Earth tremor in Utah. “You mean that’s the beauty of being a girl like you.”

  ZiZi

  Despite everything, I stay cheerful and optimistic

  For once, Loretta hadn’t planned for everything.

  It was a sunny Spring day when we left Howards Walk, but it started raining while we were on the train. What a weather expert would call unexpected showers. I figured they’d stop by the time we got to the city. I really wanted them to, and not just because I didn’t want to get wet. My New York fantasy was that, when we came out of the station, we would walk right into a shoot for a commercial, and that the director would take one look at me and shout, “That’s her! That’s the girl I’ve been looking for!” (You have to admit that, even if it was improbable or at least unlikely, it wasn’t totally impossible. Stuff like that happens all the time.) What we walked into was a deluge, like God was planning to flood the Earth again (but hadn’t told anybody his plans this time). I watched my dreams run down the sewer with the rain.

  We’d bought MetroCards so we could use the subway and buses, but we didn’t have an umbrella. Loretta had a jacket (because the weather forecast had mentioned dropping temperatures), but I didn’t even have that. I thought I’d packed everything I might possibly need (back-up clothes, shoes, make-up and all that stuff, plus a small hairdryer, because you never can tell when something like that will come in handy). Unfortunately, neither I nor the weather bureau had thought it might rain. And walking in a cloudburst was not an option, not for me. My shoes would disintegrate. God knows what would have happened to my dress.