“Well, I’d very much like to be labeled straight, but it seems the only label ever applied to me is ‘Margie’s fat friend.’”
“In ancient times,” said Margie, “there wasn’t such emphasis on whether people were gay or straight. Sexual union was an homage to the Goddess. That’s what I strive for. I’ve kept myself pure in her honor.”
I forgot to keep my voice quiet. “That’s great!” I shouted. “Maybe you can be the guest speaker at the next Seneca High Spiritual Youth for Abstinence meeting. I bet they’ve never had a pagan presenter before.”
“Good idea,” said Margie, but she hadn’t been listening. She was off again. “I’m thinking we could have a ceremony about that, about how the Goddess is the ultimate source of love, so loving women—not just as lovers, but as sisters and friends, too, you know—honors the Goddess and honors ourselves. We could bring in photographs or drawings of women we admire, and cast a spell …”
Margie went on blithely, as if she hadn’t just humiliated me, as if she were back in The Den, as if I gave a bloody menstrual rag about anything she had to say right now.
I cut her off. “Margie, you can’t cast a spell. You’re not a witch. You’re not a priestess. You’re a weird teenager who burns a lot of candles. If there ever was a Goddess religion, it’s been dead for thousands of years. You can’t bring it back by making charms in your basement.”
Margie had been styling herself a latter-day witch and Goddess worshipper for so long that I thought she had no other persona. Her formal speech, her stately gait, her incessant references to ancient ways were simply part of who she was. Watching all those affectations fall away was like watching Margie dissolve.
She hung her head and slouched against the wall. Her voice sounded reedy when she said, “I thought you liked the coven. You don’t have to come anymore if you don’t want to.”
I didn’t. I never returned to The Den. I stopped taking my lunch to the auditorium. I graduated without benefit of a coven benediction, and went to college 100 miles away from Seneca High School and 500 miles away from the ivy-encrusted institution where Margie matriculated.
But early freshman year (frosh year, as Margie called it, in her effort to avoid sexist language), Margie sent me a postcard. After that there were e-mails, a handmade Halloween card, and more postcards, two or three a semester.
“Hello,” they said. Or they’d give news about the weather or what classes she was taking. They said nothing spiritual or mystical or menstrual.
“Here you go,” said Sam, placing another napkin dispenser beside the one I’d emptied. I helped myself to some more napkins. My eyes and nose wouldn’t stop leaking.
“I’m okay,” I told him, “just tired.”
I’d only had my head down for a minute. Maybe I’d just go home and take a nice little sixteen-hour nap.
I thanked Sam for the tea and trudged out, my pockets bulging with snot-soggy napkins.
Two by Two
It’s not like the bookshop was out of my way. I had to go within two blocks of it to get back to the sublet anyhow.
The front of the store was crowded with alumni busily acquiring keychains, sweatshirts, and coasters in school colors, but the back of the store, where the books were, was deserted. The kids’ books were in a display case shaped like Noah’s ark, with stuffed animals on the shelves, two by two.
There were bears, cats, ducks, elephants. Either I was reading too much into this or someone had arranged the toys in alphabetical order. Luckily, they’d done the same with the books, so it wasn’t hard to find Brown, Margaret Wise.
I ran my fingers over the spine of Goodnight Moon and took down a copy of The Runaway Bunny. The first page showed a black and white drawing of a big rabbit chasing a little one. He was running away, and she vowed to run after him.
That little bunny did everything he could to get away from his mother, but she always stayed with him. If he turned himself into a fish, she turned herself into a fisherman. If he turned himself into a sailboat, she turned herself into the wind.
What was it with her? She just wouldn’t let up. Couldn’t she tell that the little bunny didn’t want anything to do with her anymore?
What was I missing here? When I had asked Sam about Margaret Wise Brown, he nearly burst into song with his enthusiasm, but I just didn’t get it.
I sat down on the floor with The Runaway Bunny and flipped the pages back to front.
Oh, I got it. It had to be the little bunny’s blue-striped pajamas. I had never seen Sam in his intimate apparel, but as surely as I knew the taste of Butter Battle Batter Griddle Cakes, I knew Sam would covet those pajamas.
Toward the end of the book, the little bunny was cuddling up in his mother’s lap after another thwarted attempt to run away. He was wearing snazzy blue-on-blue striped pajamas. He and his mother were rocking, nose to nose, by the fireplace.
He didn’t really want to run away from her. He just wanted to assert his independence a little.
It was nice to know she would always be there for him, even if he turned himself into a fish. Or a bird, or a rock, or a sailboat.
Even if he made fun of her religion. Even if he told her to shut up in front of all the other bunnies. Even if he never answered her e-mail or postcards.
That mother bunny was always there, a steady presence. She loved him. Unconditionally.
“Excuse me.”
I snapped the book shut.
“Sorry, ma’am, but we’re closing. We’re only open till four o’clock on Sundays.”
The clerk wasn’t any younger than I was, but I wasn’t really surprised he called me ma’am. I’d been addressed that way since I was fourteen. It was the hips. Or maybe the chins.
“Ma’am?” said the clerk. I wondered if he was the one who had alphabetized the animals. He bent slightly and held out a hand.
Oh, come on! One minute I was “ma’am,” the next I was a suspected shoplifter? I gave him a sarcastic smile and handed over The Runaway Bunny.
He put the book in his other hand and still held one out to me. “We’re closing,” he said again.
That was sweet––no lever, no pulley system. He thought he could just extend his hand and help me up.
He weighed about as much as my left arm. If I accepted his offer, he would crumple right down to the floor before I budged an inch. The image cheered me, and I grasped his hand.
Up I went. His bony little fingers pressed into the back of my hand and pulled me into a standing postion.
He offered me The Runaway Bunny. “The cashier is open for five more minutes, if you want to get that,” he said.
I did.
Gusto
I went back to the sublet, up the back steps, across the porch, and into the kitchen.
Jada was there, spooning unsweetened yogurt into the blender.
“Hi, Myr, look. I got blueberries. Take one.”
She held the box out to me, and I took a couple. They were good. She shook about half the berries into the blender and put on the lid.
“Hey, Goat,” Jada shouted at the ceiling, “want a smooth-ie?”
Silence.
“He must still be sleeping,” she said.
It was almost 4:30 in the afternoon.
“What’s that?” asked Jada, gesturing at the bag from the campus bookstore.
I slipped the book out onto the table. “It’s a kid’s book, a classic.”
“The Runaway Bunny. Hmm. What’s it about?”
It’s about me and Margie, I thought. “Rabbits,” I said.
Jada looked as if she might ask me why I had a picture book about rabbits, if it were a subject worth pursuing.
Instead she asked, “You want a smoothie?”
“Sure, thanks.”
Jada blended and poured, and pretty soon we were seated companionably at the kitchen table with our glasses. I took a sip. It was disgusting, thick and bitter, with strands of berry skin running through it. Jada drank hers with gusto.
/> “You know, you let things get to you too much,” she said.
“Yeah, I’ve heard that.”
“Last night at Horton’s, I came out of the bathroom, and I’m like, ‘Where’s Myr?’ and they’re like, ‘She left,’ and I’m like, ‘Why?’ and they told me.” Jada gulped some smoothie. “I’m like, ‘I can’t believe she left.’”
“Yeah, well, I can’t believe how rude your friends are.”
“They didn’t mean anything by it. You should have stayed. We had a great time. There was this one professor there wearing a pink halter top and, like, five-inch heels. She told the raunchiest jokes.”
“So I’m supposed to stay and pal around with your friends who think I’m a nympho-psycho-lesbo?”
“Well”––Jada interrupted herself to take a drink––“I’m sorry, but you kind of asked for it. I mean, you draw Goat like he’s some kind of sex-crazed animal. What are they supposed to think?”
I wondered if smoothie would stick to llama fur. “You know what?” I said. “I don’t care what they think. So what if I am a psychotic nymphomaniac lesbian? It’s none of their business!”
I didn’t care for Jada’s superior little smirk when she said, “Then why’d you leave?”
I stood up, crashing my chair into the wall behind me. “Because,” I screamed, “I am so sick of it! It’s like nothing matters but the size of my ass. Isn’t that what they were saying? How ridiculous it is for someone so fat to draw such an erotic picture?” On “fat” and “picture” I stamped my feet, causing the smoothies to tremble in their glasses.
Jada didn’t tremble. She looked at me with her wide, mild eyes and spoke with exaggerated clarity, as if addressing a slow learner. “Myr, they were kidding.”
They weren’t kidding. But I shouldn’t have left. I should have placed my intimidating girth between them and “Satyrsfaction” and challenged them to draw something better. That paper of theirs used photos and clip art, but no original illustrations. I was sure neither of them could draw water from a faucet.
“You have to admit,” Jada added, “it was pretty funny. I mean, who would have believed you had a thing for Goat? You’re really not his type.”
I took a sip of smoothie and remembered why I hated it. It tasted like sludge.
“Jada,” I said, “are you mad at me for drawing that picture? I understand if you are. Goat is your boyfriend.”
Jada let loose the laugh she had been holding in. “Myr! You’re not exactly a threat!”
Blue Moon
Jada’s mirror saw it all: brown hair, brown eyes, one big brown eyebrow, one dimple, two chins, no visible collarbones, a monolithic middle, and thighs like the standing stones at Avebury.
Canvas sneakers, faded jeans, stained T-shirt, industrial-strength bra, and cotton panties were all in a heap, off to the side. Honest Abe, creased and spindled, nestled in a pocket. Margie’s postcard. The postmark was a week old.
I didn’t expect Jada and Goat back any time soon. They were out with Seth and Julie.
It had taken a thorough excavation of my closet, but I’d finally found what I needed: a jar of blue finger paint. Pardon me, woad finger paint.
Margie had once suggested painting ourselves woad (that is to say, blue) in what she swore was an ancient rite of strength-claiming. Other coven business had forestalled the plan, and it was never carried out. We had all gotten jars of woad, though. I wondered if Margie and Bobbie still had theirs. Sheila, I was sure, had long since given hers to Jilly.
I held the jar in the beam of late-afternoon sunshine streaming in the window. When I swirled the container, the paint sloshed up the sides of the glass and dripped down slowly. It was just the color of the ocean waves in The Runaway Bunny.
I unscrewed the lid from the paint jar and dipped my finger into the paint. It was thick and smooth and cold, like cerulean pudding.
I put a blue dot on my nose and outlined my eyes with more paint. I put a big blue circle in the middle of my forehead, and a smaller circle on my chin (the first one). I checked my reflection. Jada was right. Makeup really did change my look.
With slippery blue fingers, I covered my legs and thighs with flowers and geometric patterns. My belly and breasts became a vast seascape, with a blue moon on my sternum shining a path to my navel.
My arms and shoulders matched my thighs, festooned with stars, circles, and spirals, as well as flowers of every description.
I looked into the mirror, twisting side to side to better see my whole canvas.
I knelt on the floor in front of the mirror. Jada’s carpet took on some circles and stars when I did that, but at the time I didn’t notice. I was looking at my reflection.
“Hi,” I said, “I recognize you.”
I reached out and pressed the glass. My reflection, of course, did the same thing.
“Don’t go away. I’ll be right back,” I told her. I left and was back a minute later with my big sketch pad, an easel board, some brushes, and a jar of water.
I swished a paintbrush through the water, then dipped it into the paint.
Hours later, I shuffled back to my room, carrying my stuff and being careful not to let the wet paper touch my body.
I put my comfy terry cloth robe on over my woad-coated skin. I set my new painting on the desk to dry. I took a piece of mat board from under my bed and placed a new blade in my knife. I measured, marked, remeasured, and cut.
Sam had barely unlocked the door when I burst into Horton’s the next morning, lugging my portfolio.
“I’ll trade you,” I said to him. “Give me back ‘Satyrsfaction,’ and I’ll hang up what’s in the bag in its place.”
“Who are you? Monty Hall?”
“Who’s that?”
“Never mind. Why don’t I get to keep ‘Satyrsfaction’?”
“I’m giving it to Jada.”
Sam looked incredulous.
“I am.”
“Why?”
I shrugged. “She’s my roommate.”
Sam put his hand on his chin and looked at “Satyrsfaction.” He tilted his head to the right, then to the left. “You know, you could still sell it,” he said finally.
I patted my portfolio. “I have something else for the show,” I said, “something better.”
“Better than ‘Satyrsfaction’?” Sam said. “You must have smuggled in a Picasso, a Cassatt, a Renoir, a Geisel!”
“Oh, you old flatterer,” I said. “Okay, take a look.”
I unzipped my portfolio and revealed my painting. As soon as it was dry, I’d mounted it and brought it over to Horton’s.
Sam looked from the painting to me and back to the painting. “Holy Who-ville,” he whispered.
“Thanks, Sam,” I giggled. I knew he meant it as a compliment.
“So, do we have a deal?” I asked him.
“Hmm? Oh, yeah. Yes. Take it. Here.” Sam took “Satyrsfaction” gently but firmly from its wire. I put my new painting in its place.
Myrtle of Willendorf
WOMEN’S STUDIES OFFICE
TO DISPLAY SOPHOMORE’S ART
Visitors to the Women’s Studies suite in Walker Hall will now be greeted by the art of sophomore Myrtle Parcittadino, whose watercolor painting “Myrtle of Willendorf” was recently purchased for $500.00.
Reaction to the purchase has been mixed. Women’s Studies senior Beth Hughes says, “I’m not sure hanging a picture of a big naked woman in the Women’s Studies office promotes the kind of image we want the department to have.”
Women’s Studies Department chair Lauren Toth supports the department’s selection. She says, “Parcittadino’s art threatens our preconceived notions of beauty, emphasizing the diversity of that which we call female.”
Toth saw the painting at Horton’s Omelette Shoppe and Gallery on Campus Street, where it was a late entry into the current show.
“I’ve known Myr for almost a year now, and I can tell she has heart, wit, and immense talent,” says Horton’s propr
ietor, Samuel Horton.
Parcittadino herself has little to say about the controversial piece. “It is sort of a self-portrait,” she says. The title, says Parcittadino, is a reference to the Willendorf Venus.
Discovered in Willendorf, Austria, it is one of several mysterious carvings thought to be artifacts of a pagan society that flourished thousands of years ago.
The painting can be seen at Horton’s until the end of the summer term, when it will go into the Women’s Studies office, 110 Walker Hall.
Photo caption: Myrtle Parcittadino poses next to her self-portrait, “Myrtle of Willendorf.”
Dear Margie,
Thanks for your postcard. I know I haven’t been the greatest pen pal of all time, but I’m turning over a new leaf. From now on, I promise to write or e-mail you regularly, I swear to Goddess!
Remember our coven? I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, as you can probably tell from the enclosed clipping.
Are you going home for Labor Day weekend? Maybe we can get together. I’d like to see you.
Your friend,
Myr
About the Author
Rebecca O’Connell lives in Pittsburgh, PA where she works as a librarian. Myrtle of Willendorf is her first novel.
About the Book
Paramecia mate. That wasn’t fair. I was the only living creature on the face of the Earth who didn’t get to pair off and mate. I was below protozoa on the scale of social evolution. I was literally less romantically adept than pond scum.
College isn’t much more fun for Myrtle than high school was. At least in high school she had her weird friend Margie, who wasn’t going to win any popularity contests or beauty pageants either. Now an art student at college , Myrtle has only food and her long neck and her dancer’s body and her healthy eating habits, is no help at all. Over the course of a few painful weeks in summer, Myrtle finds a path, discovering, through her painting and a prehistoric stone figure known as the Venus of Willendorf, a new sense of self and a different king of beauty.
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