Myrtle of Willendorf

by Myrtle of Willendorf (retail) (epub)

  I’ve known Mountain Dew to soothe an upset stomach, but the beans, glistening in their red-brown sauce and filling the room with their thick aroma, made me queasy all over again.

  Goat pushed his foot against the kitchen chair beside him, so it slid out from the table.

  “Hm,” he said, which I understood to mean, “Won’t you join me?”

  It would have been awkward to refuse. I sat down, balancing the trash on my knees.

  Goat was dressed today. He had on a turquoise T-shirt and cutoff jeans. No shoes, though. I stared down at his ten tanned toes. He had shiny blond hairs on the biggest ones. His toenails were immaculate, cut straight across with surgical precision.

  He saw me looking, and bent his knee so that his right foot was up on the seat of his chair. I looked up.

  “Just making sure they’re not hooves,” I said.

  Goat’s eyes bathed me in sapphire light, but he didn’t speak, just sat regarding the nympho-psycho-lesbo at his table.

  “Enjoying your beans?” I asked. They were my beans. Jada didn’t keep such offensive stuff in the house. Sure, they were high in fiber, but that sauce they came in—practically nothing but high-fructose corn syrup.

  Goat nodded.

  “They’re good on Italian bread,” I said, “with Canadian bacon.”

  Italian bread, that was good for an upset stomach. I visualized Italian bread, the crunchy crust, the fluffy white middle.

  “Yeah,” said Goat, “beans rule. They’re good to take camping.”

  “Dried?”

  “Huh?”

  “When you go camping, do you take dried beans, or canned?”

  “Dried. They’re lighter.”

  You’re doing fine, I told myself. Draw him out; ask him about his interests.

  “Do bears like them?”

  “Bears?”

  “Dried beans. I mean, I know bears will take campers’ food, but they might not even think of beans as food, especially if they’re dried and the bears can’t smell them. Of course, I’ve heard that they’ll eat dry macaroni, so …”

  I cut myself off. Give the guy a chance to answer, at least.

  Goat shrugged. “Don’t know,” he said. “The bears around here aren’t very aggressive. Out west is where they’d steal your food.”

  This was turning into a regular conversation. It was something, the way we got on so well together.

  “How about raccoons?” I asked.

  That got Goat excited. He scootched up and leaned over his bean bowl. “Oh, they’re little bandits!” he said. “They’ll open your pack right up and take whatever’s in it.”

  Goat grinned at the cheek of those rascally bastards. It made his jaw muscles flex.

  “Bandits,” I said, wittily. We were sharing a moment, Goat and I. Clearly, we were kindred spirits.

  He stood up and looked past me. “Hey, Jade,” he said.

  “G’mornin’,” said Jada. She came in and leaned against Goat. He put his hand on her waist and nuzzled her hair.

  “Mmmorning,” he murmured.

  I shouted, “I’ve heard they wash their food to make it soft because they don’t have any saliva glands.”

  Jada interrupted her snuggle and looked at me. “What are you talking about?” she said.

  “Raccoons.”

  Jada kept staring.

  I had never removed last night’s makeup. I rubbed my finger under my right eye. It came away smudged with Royal Twilight. I looked down at my shaggy gray robe and checked behind me for a wide, ringed tail.

  “You can use cold cream to get rid of that,” said Jada, “but it stings if it gets in your eyes, so I like to use baby oil. Just put a little on a cotton ball, but remember always to use a gentle downward motion; otherwise you’re just pushing all that makeup and oil right back into your pores.”

  She took a step toward me, and I had the crazy idea that she was going to spit on a tissue and wipe my face with it. I stood up and backed away. Then, since, of course, Jada was planning on doing no such thing, I had to make my retreat look casual. I sidled toward the door.

  “I was just on my way to take out the trash,” I told them.

  As if they cared. They were kissing; little squeaky pecks on lips, cheeks, ears, foreheads.

  I went outside.

  When I came back in, there was no sign of Jada or Goat but the bean residue in the bowl on the table. I climbed back up the stairs.

  I paused at the top. A llama had passed this way, followed by a Goat. They had turned right and were now behind Jada’s closed door.

  I turned left, into the bathroom. Hadn’t Jada implicitly given me permission to use her baby oil and cotton balls? I thought so. So she certainly wouldn’t mind my using her bubble bath and rosebud-shaped scented soaps.

  She had an inflatable pillow with a suction cup on the back to make it stick to the side of the tub. I took it out and blew it up. It came with a loofah mitt, which looked new. No sense in letting it go to waste. I unwrapped it and dropped it into the bathtub.

  Jada’s shampoo was in the soap dish. It was a special formula—fifteen dollars a bottle—made for curly hair. Mine is straight, but I was feeling reckless. I lathered up.

  The shampoo bubbles were different from the bubble-bath bubbles, white and foamier. The bubble-bath bubbles were big and colorful. I made a sculpture: tiny shampoo bubbles piled on top of larger bubble-bath bubbles, piled on top of the big balloons of my breasts floating half in, half out of the water.

  I liked the repeated round shapes. That would be something fun to draw. I could call it “Still Life with Boobs.”

  I filled the loofah mitt with water and poured it over my masterpiece, rinsing it away.

  I loofahed my arms and shoulders. It felt great. I hummed to myself as I scrubbed my neck and chest. In the water, my skin looked as white as the bathroom tile; breaking the surface, it flushed and gleamed in the steam.

  I took off the mitt and massaged the rosebud soap into thick pink suds. I spread the suds across my tummy and up my sides, like frosting on the world’s biggest strawberry cake.

  When I leaned back on the bath pillow, most of the soap was submerged. It detached and floated on the surface for a while before it dissolved.

  I looked past my boobs, over my stomach, and out to my thighs in the distance beyond. There wasn’t a sharp angle or a jutting bone for miles.

  Everything was soft, curved, round.

  “Round,” I said. You had to make your lips into a circle to say it.

  “Rowwwnd,” I enunciated.

  I said it under water. “Rowwwnd-blub.”

  The special shampoo instructions said, “Lather, rinse, repeat.” I repeated.

  I didn’t get out until the water was cold and the bubbles had all gone flat.

  Nasal Discharge

  Horton’s was closed on Sundays, but Sam usually came in around 2:00 to do paperwork and spiff the place up.

  I went around to the back door and peeked in the window. Sam was polishing the stainless steel milk cooler and boogying to some synthesized music. I let myself in.

  “Bananarama!” Sam said when he saw me. “These ladies were the Supremes of the 1980s.”

  I hoisted myself onto a stool and leaned my head on my arms at the counter.

  Sam turned the music down. “Guess how many people came to the opening last night, Myr. Two hundred! Maybe more. That’s an estimate based on the guest book, but of course not everybody signs it, so I rounded up, but, still, I’m trying to be conservative.”

  “Yeah, Sam, that’s exactly how I’d describe you: conservative.”

  “Conservative? Moi? Au contraire. I exist on the radical fringe of the art world. I fraternize with—” Sam looked around as though to make sure we were truly alone, then whispered, “—Marxists!”

  He smiled and looked past me. I followed his gaze to the glossy yellow tag affixed to the pedestal beneath “Opiate of the Masses.” SOLD, it said.

  “Sam!” I said in
a whiskey-and-cigarettes voice, “you have got to tell me about this monstrous needle.” I sounded just like the lady of the fuchsia halter top. “Who was she, anyway?”

  “Lauren Toth. She’s an old friend. You might have seen her around campus. She’s chair of the Women’s Studies Department.”

  “Did she buy the sculpture?”

  “No, someone from the Economics Department beat her to it. By the way, she loved your drawing.”

  “Satyrsfaction” was just where I’d left it. I averted my eyes. I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to talk about it.

  Sam explained, “I wanted to introduce you to Lauren, but I didn’t see you around. Did you leave early?”

  I grabbed a napkin from the dispenser. My eyes were watering. My nose was running.

  “Uh-oh. What’d I miss?” asked Sam.

  “Jada and Goat’s friends,” I said. “Seth and Julie. They saw the drawing I made, and they said … they said …”

  Sam handed me a wad of napkins. I blew my nose.

  “They said I was a nympho-psycho-lesbo.”

  Good ol’ Sam. He kept a straight face. “That’s ridiculous,” he told me. “You’re not a lesbo.”

  I laughed and got nasal discharge on my face. Sam gallantly pretended not to notice. I used up another handful of napkins.

  “You know what I’d like?” Sam asked brightly. “A pot of my special Mulberry Street Blend tea. Care to join me?”

  “Thanks, Sam.”

  Mulberry Street was an herbal blend of chamomile, peppermint, and a secret ingredient––mulberries, I guess. Sam handed me a mug, and I inhaled the spicy steam.

  Sam said, “What those guys said isn’t so bad. They could have called you a lot worse than ‘lesbo.’”

  “Like, f’rinstance, ‘nympho-psycho?” I asked.

  Sam smiled. “Well, yeah, that’s worse. But people like Seth and Julie think ‘lesbo’ is the worst insult in the world.”

  I thought so too, but I didn’t want Sam to think I was a heterosexist pig.

  Sam raised his mug and said, “Congratulations, Myr. You’re part of a grand tradition of individuals who threaten the status quo and are thus branded dykes and faggots!”

  “Sam, the language.”

  Sam colored up till he matched his salmon polo shirt. He picked up the teapot and freshened my mug of Mulberry Street Blend. “Sorry.”

  “That’s okay. You sound like this girl I knew in high school.”

  “Really? Who?”

  “Her name was Margie Martin. People thought we were a couple.”

  Class Couple

  “A couple o’ what?” said Sam. He tapped the ash off an imaginary cigar and waggled his eyebrows.

  “A couple of dykes!” I answered, louder than I had to. I hopped off the stool and paced around. “She didn’t care if people thought we were lesbians. She used to say that all women were lesbians because the life force was female and so, if you loved life, you loved women.”

  “Can’t argue with that kind of logic,” said Sam.

  “We didn’t have boyfriends. We didn’t wear makeup. Margie didn’t even shave her legs.”

  I didn’t either, but since I always wore jeans, no one knew. Margie favored long swirly skirts that wafted around and exposed her fuzzy shins.

  “We sat together all the time,” I explained. “We wrote each other notes. At our school that was like wearing pink triangles and waving rainbow flags.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  It was true. I remembered one of the more spirited discussions in our senior history class which proved it.

  “Antony and Cleopatra,” said a classmate, and Mrs. Vinton wrote it on the board.

  “Good answer. Any others?” she said.

  “Romeo and Juliet,” someone offered.

  “Well, they’re fictional, but okay. Who else?”

  “Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier.”

  “Excellent example. Come on, you can think of some more. Who have been the most romantic couples in history?”

  Tug Dougherty answered, “Margie and Myrtle.” His minions whooped and guffawed.

  Mrs. Vinton frowned. “Let’s confine our discussion to historical figures.”

  I’d been doodling a design of leaves and flowers around the border of my paper. I couldn’t think of a reason to participate in this discussion, so I kept drawing.

  I didn’t look at Margie, but I heard her chair slide back when she stood up.

  “Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok.”

  “Um, Margie …” said the teacher.

  “These are the most romantic couples I know, Mrs. Vinton. I’m only trying to answer the question.”

  “Margie, sit down.” Mrs. Vinton’s voice had an edge of impatience now.

  “Why? You asked us to come up with a list of romantic couples. I’m listing them. Rita Mae Brown and Martina Navratilova. Margaret Wise Brown and Blanche Oelrichs.”

  “Margie, shut up!” I’d thought I was whispering, but my voice wasn’t too low for Tug’s keen ears.

  “Woooo, lovers’ quarrel,” he hooted.

  “That’s enough! All of you!” Mrs. Vinton tried, and failed, to regain control of the class.

  “It’s scary, isn’t it, Tug?” asked Margie. Her voice had that ceremonial formality. Within The Den it was a little silly, but here in history class, it was kind of spooky. “Pretty frightening to think that women might enjoy each other more than they would you. You’d rather joke about it than consider the awesome power of women loving women.”

  Though Tug was not a member of the debate team, he nevertheless was ready with a pointed reply. “Friggin’ dykes,” he said.

  My doodled border looked splendid. The margin was burgeoning with flowers and leaves, fruits and tendrils.

  Mrs. Vinton said, “Tug, you’re pushing it. Margie, please. Sit down.” She did a little deep breathing, then addressed the class. “You have twenty minutes to start on your homework. The rest of the period is study hall. I want you to read chapter twelve. In silence.”

  “I am serious,” I told Sam.

  I drank some more tea, and the herbal blend suddenly seemed insipid. I needed caffeine. I was tired, so tired I wanted to go to bed and sleep till morning. Maybe longer.

  “And who the hell was Margaret Wise Brown?”

  “Pardon?” said Sam.

  “According to my old school chum, she was some famous lesbian. But I’ve never heard of her.”

  “Yeah, you have,” said Sam. His eyes were actually gleaming. “She probably put you to bed every night when you were little.”

  I was really not in the mood for Sam’s zany madcap humor. “Never mind. I’m sorry I asked,” I said.

  “No, really,” Sam said, his face alight with reverence. “She wrote children’s books. They’re classics. You must have seen them. The Runaway Bunny? Goodnight Moon?”

  Again with the moon. No wonder Margie liked her.

  Sam quoted from memory. “Goodnight bears.”

  I yawned. I couldn’t help it.

  “Goodnight chairs.”

  I laid my head down on the counter. The memory of that history class was still playing behind my eyelids. I watched it.

  Refuge, Safety, Haven

  I disappeared from class as soon as the bell rang. Margie caught up to me in the hallway and said, “I’m disappointed. I don’t think you demonstrated sisterhood with me in there.”

  I kept walking. People are surprised by how quickly I can walk. I’m not long-legged, I’m not athletic, but I can really move when I’ve got someplace to go. Or someone to get away from. But Margie kept pace. She is long-legged.

  “I mean, I didn’t expect you to argue with Tug, but did you have to tell me to shut up?” she said.

  I bolted, head down, a boulder rolling down the halls of Seneca High School.

  Margie said, “That’s the way of the patriarchy: divide and conquer. Women submit to hierarchical structu
res only once they cease to depend on and trust one another. Standing up to oppression requires that we support each other.” She paused, then added, “That means not telling me to shut up in front of a room full of people.”

  Up ahead—refuge, safety, haven: the school library. “I’m going in here,” I said. “I’ve got study hall.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  I stopped in front of the library doors. “No. You can’t come with me. You’re always with me. People think we’re always together. It’s embarrassing.”

  “How can it be embarrassing? We’re supposed to do things together. We’re friends.”

  What was I going to tell her? That I wanted to see less of her because Tug, whose opinion I so valued, thought we might be lesbians? I was tired of the Goddess, weary of lunar metaphors, sick to death of the sacred symbolism of the menstrual cycle.

  “It’s not just that,” I said. “It’s all the witchy stuff. It’s bizarre. People think we’re freaks.”

  “No, they don’t. Look at Bobbie,” said Margie. Bobbie, by this time, had been a member of the homecoming court and had convinced the hospitality committee to have meatless Not Dogs available at the concession stand for the football games.

  “Bobbie’s not like us,” I said. “She has other friends and activities. You may have noticed she’s missed a few coven meetings lately?” She’d missed, maybe, the last ten.

  “Bobbie is exploring her selfhood,” said the magnanimous Margie.

  “Yes, and I’m sure the Goddess is tremendously honored by that, but, you know, Bobbie somehow manages to honor the Goddess without standing up and listing famous lesbian couples of history and embarrassing her friends,” I said.

  “I embarrassed you?” asked Margie. “Tug’s the one who called us a couple. I was disarming him. If we celebrate homosexuality instead of condemning it, his barb has no sting.”

  It stung. It was still stinging! Why couldn’t she see that?

  I tried to keep my voice quiet. “People think we’re lesbians, Margie. Doesn’t that bother you?”

  “No, it doesn’t. I want to transcend the narrow gender and sexual roles defined by the patriarchy. I refuse to be labeled gay or straight.”