Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls

by T Kira Madden

  Daphne and I start drinking first thing in the morning, to dull out the throbs. We skip school and sit on my back patio and smoke—tell stories about her first boyfriend (Glenn), my first drum set (a red Pearl), her first road trip (Kalamazoo), my favorite nostalgic smells (strawberry gas mask, hotel sheets, Vegas casinos, pine). We only sit down with the past.

  I think before I was born, before this life, I was an artist, she says.

  I dab out my cigarette.

  Once, I was a horse.

  I’M STILL HERE

  It took my mother ten minutes with a chain saw to get us out of the house. Now she, my Grandma Sitchie, and I are sitting in the lobby of a Marriott, playing cards on the carpet.

  Who are you? my grandma says, and what have you done with my curlers?

  The hotel rooms surround us in a circle going up and up. Families have set up lawn chairs, mattresses, radios on every floor; they read magazines, leaning into the light. One TV works down here in the lobby, and swarms of people fight over which channel, which star. Right now, it’s disaster coverage—Katrina, Ophelia, Rita, Wilma—the reason we’re all here.

  I’m your granddaughter, I say.

  My granddaughter’s sweet, she says, seven years old with a bad haircut. I could show you a picture.

  I’m still here, I say, shuffling the cards.

  Did you know Katharine Hepburn was a dyke? says grandma.

  I need some quiet, says my mother. She stands up, moves to the other side of the lobby with a paperback and her mug of tea.

  Want to see a magic trick? I say.

  Want to get some wine, she says. No magic tricks.

  My grandma stands up and walks fifteen feet to the bar in the center of the lobby. It’s crowded over there. She orders a glass of merlot, looks at me, Whaddya want? What’s her face?

  I’m okay, I say.

  When I became official with Stratton, I swore I’d get clean. I haven’t touched a bottle; I haven’t rolled a joint; I threw away my cigarettes, every last stash. Last week, I lost my virginity to him. We were in his dorm room at the University of Miami, his roommate gone for the weekend, a single candle lit. Usher’s “Nice and Slow” played on repeat, and we kept most of our clothes on. As soon as he pushed his way inside me, I flipped over onto my stomach; I wanted to feel like an animal. I can wear pastel polo shirts and chew Winterfresh gum and learn bedtime prayers and bring his mother tulips, but in that moment I could not put myself away, not once I felt that kind of pain. Blood dripped onto the sheets. Pull my fucking hair, I said.

  Stratton kept rocking, gently. He pressed his hands over my back tattoo to cover it, I’m sorry, he said, I can’t with the old you.

  My grandma sits back down in her floral, upholstered chair. She has a glass of merlot in each hand. She crosses her ankles. I’m gonna meet myself a fella tonight, she says. What’s your face again? There are so many ways to lose a person. Of all things, this is what I know best.

  Every airport is closed. On the one lobby TV, we watch dots of people bobbing through the rushing waters of New Orleans. It’s been the worst hurricane season in history—so many dead, an entire alphabet of storm names—and most of the south will remain without power. I stay up all night and sit by the glow of the TV, trying to find something else. I bite into Sour Punch Straws to keep myself from finding a smoke.

  A girl from middle school is here, wrapped in a blanket. Her name is Morgan. The roof of her home caved in, and she’s been here four days.

  So what have you been doing since the Craptop years? she asks. What’s new?

  I flip through the channels. I make up lies.

  Going to college on equestrian scholarship.

  Where? she asks.

  North, I say. I hadn’t considered the question.

  My grandma is curled up on a bench in the lobby with a homeless man. He told her he would get her out of this hotel, this town. He took one look at her earrings and held on.

  What else? asks Morgan. She is braiding and rebraiding a piece of her hair, pulling at it, twisting it. Dogs bark through the shadows of the halls.

  I have a boyfriend, I say. He’s gonna marry me.

  When do you think you’ll get out of here? asks Morgan.

  I told you, for college.

  This lobby, she says. Where’s your home?

  ANOTHER WORD FOR CREEP

  Hey neighbor! she writes. I hear you’re from Boca! Me too! Small world, huh?

  I’m twenty years old, single with an Adderall addiction, a fashion design student in New York City. It’s seven in the morning, October, and I’m drinking coffee out of a mug when Lennox Price’s name shows up on my screen, in my inbox, calling me Neighbor. I read on.

  Well, I recently moved here for a guy but we broke up, and then I met this dope chick named Leah who said she dormed with you or something and I told her where I was from and she was like, another Boca girl! Sweet! You two should be friends! So, what do you think, neighbor? Hang sometime?

  I stare at the screen. I light a Camel. I look up recent pictures of Lennox Price. When did she move to New York? She looks the same as she used to on Myspace, though she’s platinum blonde now, with a diamond Monroe piercing to look more like Marilyn. She poses with the boyfriend—a comedian, I recognize him from his late-night specials—the square jaw, a scar across his cheek. The two of them look happy, beautiful, symmetrical in their power. In some photos, Lennox uses a book to cover her face from photographers, but I can tell by her eyebrows that she’s smiling. I call Clarissa, to whom I haven’t spoken in years.

  You won’t believe this, I say to her voicemail. Remember Lennox Price?

  My mother picks me up from the Fort Lauderdale airport two days before Christmas. I feel more mature in my college clothes, New York clothes, wearing a black turtleneck and emerald, tweed pants.

  Aren’t you hot? my mother says. Aren’t you dying?

  I’d rather sweat to death than dress like Jimmy Buffett, I say.

  How’s my college girl? she says. My Project Runway girl?

  Same old, I say. Dog piss freezes up there.

  My mother’s spray tan is wet; she looks like she’s been smeared all over with syrup. She and my father, who now split their time between Florida and New York, recently employed a woman named Elna to come over to the house and assemble a pop-up tanning tent in front of the living room TVs. My parents take turns standing in the structure, naked save for goggles, while Elna has them spread their fingers, their toes, spraying their bodies with bronze. The two of them have never been happier.

  We drive straight from the airport to Best Buy. We need to pick out some Christmas and Hanukkah gifts, says my mother. Choose some cool electronics—I don’t know electronics—and we’ll hand them out. Doesn’t matter who gets what, just choose some nice shit.

  I pick up cameras, iPods, DVD players, USB drives. They clatter in my blue basket. I silently assign who will get what, based on how I currently rank everyone in my family, and who voted for John McCain.

  On the way back to the car I say, I think these gifts are good.

  Good, says my mother. Good, I thought so. Expensive enough.

  Also, I think I’m in love, I say.

  David? she says. Still? He’s no good for you, baby. He’s really such a pussy. He’s really a scumbag shit-mouthed mooch of whiney white garbage. And a liar face.

  Not David, I say.

  Stratton again?

  It’s a girl, I say, as my mother pops open the trunk. Girl, the word shapes my mouth in a new way—tongue to teeth. I feel like I’m playing the role of a daughter testing her mother, a daughter grinding her way through a rebellious stage, pushing buttons—Girl—just to see how far it can go. Her name’s Lennox. We’ve been friends since high school. It’s actually very sweet.

  My mother pulls the bags from my arms one by one, loads them into the trunk of our car. She lines them up in neat rows. Pats the plastic flat. She smooths her shirt. Takes her sunglasses off to wipe the steam, squin
ts dramatically at the sun, places the glasses back on her face.

  What do you want for dinner? she asks. Anything you’ve missed?

  It’s true—I’m from Boca! I type back. Parkland, really. I try so hard to forget. How funny that we don’t know each other! I include my phone number. I hit Send before I can change my mind.

  Hours later, Lennox responds. How about tomorrow? Natural History Museum? I’ve never been.

  Great, I type. There’s a new show at the planetarium. And the whale—the whale is really something.

  It’s not that I never thought about it. Girls. Women. It’s that I thought about it too much.

  I wait for Lennox in a café near the museum. I run my fingers through my hair to smooth it; I straighten my tie. Lately I’ve been going to an evening writing class in Midtown, where a woman with a shaved head has been instructing us to keep a journal. In the café, I pretend to write in this journal to look busy, scholarly, like I have something important on my mind, but I am only writing Lennox’s name in rows.

  I’m so focused on the loop of my L’s that I miss Lennox walking through the door. She just appears, across from me, every detail of her, breathing. She’s twenty minutes late. I’m sorry, she says. Those are the first words she ever says to me. But I think I just saw James Franco outside. He winked!

  I laugh, covering my teeth. I say, It’s nice to meet you, and, tell me more about James Franco! because I want to be this friend; I want to be the kind of person who is there for Lennox Price. Her cheeks are a deeper pink in person. Her teeth, sharper. She’s wearing the same leather belt she wore in 2005 in photos from her BFF Kelly’s graduation party. I wonder where Kelly is now.

  So talk to me, I say. What’s your story?

  An hour later, Lennox Price and I recline our chairs and stare up and into the galaxy. Meteors corkscrew overhead; they look like giant cookies. We laugh as Whoopi Goldberg’s voice booms through the auditorium, telling us how small we are, reminding us that we will all burn out into dust. At the end of the show, a child approaches Lennox—You look like a fake! Like a doll! So pretty—before the child’s mother yanks her by the arm. Lennox smiles at me in the dark.

  You get that a lot? The attention?

  All the time, she says.

  We spend Christmas in the Florida Keys. My parents and I drive with the top down, wind blasting, a turquoise wall snaking us all the way down past trailer homes, roadside coolers of bleeding fish, rusting statues of dolphins. We stop at the Shell Man, where a fisherman tries to sell us hermit crabs, conch shells that will bring us straight to Jesus if we listen carefully enough. My parents squeeze each other’s hands the whole drive, singing their favorite songs—I believe in miracles. Where you from? You sexy thing; they make out at every stop sign. They’re like teenagers—this sober version of them, these final years of my father’s life—as if they’ve just been reunited after a lame summer apart. As if that’s all they had missed of each other.

  My brothers and their partners meet us down there, at the resort. Shawn’s wife, Maya, is a fitness instructor. She runs me up and down the beach, a stopwatch in her hand. She counts my pushups and puts money wagers on each set I complete. She promises extra food and alcohol if I finish another circuit. This has always been our bonding.

  Maya wants me to practice wellness. When she tells me I could have a life full of sweat and centeredness and rippling ribbons of muscle, I believe her. She has always wanted what’s best for me. She checks in, long distance. Reminds my brothers of my birthday. Before she ever met me, she sent those Sour Patch candies to Florida—she’s your sister. It’s time you get to know each other. Maya’s kind like that.

  That evening, we sit by the swimming pool. I jogged one mile today, and I’ve wrapped my ankles in ace bandages in order to feel more accomplished, like an athlete. Tiki torches blaze behind our heads. A man splays his fingers across a classical guitar while steel drums hammer behind him. He sings about margaritas and lost dogs. He sways and spins in slow circles as he sings, tangling and untangling the mic cord as he goes.

  I have to tell you something, I say to Maya. I don’t know who else to tell.

  We’re slurping down blue drinks. BINGO plates slick with other peoples’ tanning oil rest on our laps.

  What’s up, buttercup?

  I’m involved in something, I say. I mean, with someone.

  David? That guy is such an asshole. Don’t tell your brothers if you’re back with him.

  There’s a girl. Her name is Lennox. She’s so beautiful, Maya, you wouldn’t believe. Her nails are these perfect little squares and she took care of me after the accident last month. She’s also super in shape; you’d be impressed.

  Involved?

  I’m feeling a lot of things about it.

  Well, it’s okay, she says. We all have experiences like this at some point. That’s college.

  I think it’s more.

  Listen, she says. I wouldn’t go telling anyone about this just yet.

  How come?

  Let’s see if it sticks before we cross that bridge, okay?

  It’s sticking.

  Let’s just see before you say anything. You can’t unsay something like that.

  Or, perhaps, I never had the context to think about it—girls—in the right ways. I wanted to be them. I wanted them to like me. I wanted to smell like them and dress like them and know what girl tastes like, know how to walk pretty and line my eyes so they would look more open and shave the girl parts of my body and once, the first night I met that butch writing instructor, I wanted to run my hands all over the shaved parts of her neck. I wanted to tip the woman at a café more because she held that smile a beat too long. I wanted to have sleepovers with that middle school science teacher—SUCH a dyke—I wanted to try on her slacks, stand in front of her closet mirror while both of us fussed with the belt, the pleats; I wanted her to tell me I looked good, hot, handsome even, maybe wink at me, slyly, in the middle of class—our secret; but believe me—girls—I never knew how much more I wanted them.

  Lennox Price eats junk food. Jars of peanut butter by the spoonful, chicken fries, bright, shiny taffies. She is also an online life coach. Other things that surprise me about Lennox Price: She does not speak to her family—not even your brothers? / Never. They’re all still in Sweden. She likes to get high in the small, dank bathrooms of East Village bars. She has never been on a vacation that a man hasn’t paid for, and her real name is Louisa—but don’t say that shit in public, okay?

  We’re eating spaghetti on the Upper East Side. She uses a fork and spoon to twist the pasta in perfect form. I use the chopsticks I carry in my purse, and try so hard to be neat, tidy. No slips.

  My last breakup was so bad, she says.

  With the comedian?

  Mmhmm. We had a cat together. Little bitty thing. She looked like a baby koala, so I changed her name to Koko. She was a koala or a moose, depending on the day.

  I say, Those are very different things.

  It was bad. I miss Koko. I miss living in the Village, rent-free. Stars are tough to date, all that ego—you know?

  Oh, sure, I go. Of course.

  We’re trying joint custody with Koko, but I guess that doesn’t matter. What matters is I think I might, maybe, sort of, be done with men for good, you know? On to the next.

  She reaches to click her glass against mine.

  I don’t think I understand.

  I mean I’ve marched in a Pride parade before, in Florida. I marched with bisexuals.

  I stuff my mouth with pasta. I nod into my bowl.

  Are you not …? she says, leaning back.

  No. No, I don’t think.

  No offense, she says, but you seem really gay. Like really, really gay.

  I’ve thought of it before, I say. I mean it’s not like I’ve never—or anything.

  I could tell.

  I mean I think I’ve even loved a girl before, maybe once. Paula. Back in Florida. She doesn’t really know who I am,
though.

  I could tell.

  November. Lennox’s face under the blue glow of a bar on Graham Avenue. She looks like a drawing of herself in this deep swell of light. Every waiter and bartender, every bad date, eyeing all of Lennox Price, the pale halo of electric blue hair, her high leather boots. She kicks them up and on the bar to show me the stitching, something Lennox Price can do without pause. Her bangs are growing out, caught up in her eyelashes, twitching as she blinks.

  You should touch me more, she says. What’s the shy about?

  I’m just a very serious person, I say. That’s all. I lean into my elbow, looking at her.

  You always look like you’re about to cry. Do you know that?

  I usually am about to cry, I say.

  Put your arm around me if you want.

  Okay, I say. I sit up. I move the weight of my arm around her without letting it fully rest on Lennox’s shoulder. I don’t want to burden her with it. I strain to keep it there, in position, a slight hover on her skin. My hand there. There.

  It’s like I want to take a picture of you every second of every day.

  You’re drunk, she says.

  So are you.

  It’s like you love me or something.

  I just get you, I think. Maybe it’s a Florida thing.

  Why’d you leave? she says.

  My dad—I wanted to see him more. I had shit grades but design school let me in. Wonder why, I say, sipping my drink.

  Does the shoe stuff get annoying?

  You have no idea.

  You like it here? I miss the sunshine.

  I’ll never go back, I say. I can be alone here, surrounded by people. Best combination.