I am 13-years-old, and tonight is my first junior high dance. Nothing is more important.
I feel guilty even saying such a thing. The country seems to be falling apart. Nearly two months ago, Mom and I are in the kitchen when we hear the news on the radio. Martin Luther King, Jr. has been assassinated.
"Dear God," Mom presses a hand to her heart. In Denver, even in our quiet, old neighborhood, everything erupts into chaos. One afternoon after school there is a riot, of all places, on Eudora Street. Black kids and white kids are fighting with chains and knives and fists in front of our own front door. It's the first time I ever hear my mother scream. The Tanners, the only African American family on our block, suffer most. Their beautiful home is vandalized again and again. Just this last week, the neighborhood is appalled to see the ugly "N" word smeared across the front of the Tanner home.
These are the things I should be thinking about tonight. But instead I am consumed by my own selfish worries. Not only has it been a terrible year for the country, but it's been a terrible year for me. In the space of one school year, I manage to get braces and zits. But that's not the worst. The worst is that I grow five and a half inches. Now, at five feet eleven inches tall, I tower over every boy and girl in the seventh grade at Blessed Sacrament School - except for Joel Moran who is exactly as tall as I am. And would you believe it? I'm still growing, Dr. Strain says. All the other girls in my class have begun to look, well, womanly. But all my growth has gone into my height - mostly my legs - and there isn't one bump on my entire body. Not one stinking bump. When I slouch to make myself shorter, Mom reprimands me.
"Walk like a queen!" she hammers. "Be proud of your height!"
She nags incessantly, but tonight I want only to look like every other girl in my class. Mom suggests tactfully that a longer dress might add a little proportion to my body. Translated, that means a long dress will cover my long legs which are painfully thin and knobby-kneed. I am not, I tell her, going to be the only girl at the dance with a dress that goes practically to my knees. She sighs in that exasperated way she does when she thinks I'm being unreasonable but finally lets me purchase a little red dress and white fishnet hose - which is all the rage this year.
Now, however, as I stand in front of the mirror in my room, I know my mother is right. My reflection shows that at my first dance all that anybody will see of me is two long fishnet legs walking across the gym floor. Just then, my mother bursts into my room carrying a basket of dirty laundry. She puts it all on the bed and turns to inspect me.
"You look very pretty, Cathy," she smiles.
I fling myself into the chair next to the radiator and watch my mother sort laundry. Mom has only just discovered she's pregnant with her ninth child. She's wearing her faded blue checked pants and an old sweater, and her hair is a little mussed. I can't help but think how pretty she is even when she's sorting dirty socks. Mom is beautiful. She's tall, but not so tall as I am, and slender but not skinny. She has all this thick black hair and cheekbones to die for.
I sigh as I watch her because, you see, I look just like my dad. He's crazy tall, skinny and big boned, and he has what you'd call a prominent nose. On him it's prominent. On a girl like me, it's a big honker. And at this moment, I want desperately to be beautiful like my mother.
Mom hears me sigh and knows exactly what I'm thinking. "You know," she says, right in the middle of turning underwear inside out, "if only you'd have a little confidence in yourself, Cathy, everybody else would, too."
I try hard not to roll my eyes. Where does she come up with this stuff? I don't respond, but she reads the mutiny all over my face. Just as she assumes her martyred expression, I figure the best thing to do is walk the half block to Blessed Sacrament and go to the dance.
This particular evening in late May is gorgeous. I am too nervous, however, to enjoy it. Thankfully, when I arrive, the gym is dark and nobody notices my legs right away. I gratefully hurry to my friends who are sitting in a row of chairs beneath the scoreboard. Karen Blake and Diane Logsdon are just as nervous as I am, but Margaret St. John is already looking defeated. Finally, Sister Francis Xavier, Blessed Sacrament's self-appointed DJ, plops down a record from the approved list, and my first dance has begun.
It's not so bad at first because nobody dances, not even the cute, popular girls like Janelle Whitney and Mary Sue Dunn. By the second dance, though, all those girls are dancing. As the fourth dance starts, Margaret and I are the only girls in our little group who still have not been asked to dance. I am feeling like a genuine wallflower. Absorbed in a non-existent hangnail, I pretend not to care. Out of the corner of my eye, however, I spy Janelle Whitney dancing with Joel Moran. I don't care for Janelle. She's not a very nice person. But I certainly envy her just then. What's it like to be compact and cute and so sure of yourself?
One day, Janelle Whitney comes to school wearing a thin line of white lip gloss on her lower lip. It looks so ridiculous. But the next day, every girl in the seventh grade class wears an identical strip of white gloss on every lower lip. That's how popular Janelle is.
The next few dances are slow dances, and only a few ardent couples, closely watched by Sister Rose Edward, are on the floor. I am talking to Karen and Diane when I glance up to see Joel Moran walking toward our group. None of us can imagine why he would bother with us. When he finally approaches, though, he looks at the floor and says a little gruffly, "Wanna dance?" I look at Karen thinking he must be talking to her. Both she and Diane are staring at me in astonishment.
"Me?" I finally say.
"Yeah, you," he says impatiently. "You wanna or not?"
Somehow I manage to follow him out to the floor in a daze. We don't say a word. He turns to put his arms around my waist, and I place my arms around his shoulders. We shuffle back and forth, and I can hardly believe that I am dancing with Joel Moran, the tallest boy in the seventh grade.
Then a funny thing happens. I'm just getting used to the whole idea when I feel Joel's shoulders shake. I don't get it at first, but then he snorts. When I look up, I see Janelle and Mary Sue laughing behind their hands. Then I understand. It's a joke that Joel is dancing with Cathy Brown, the tallest girl with the skinniest legs in the class.
"Ask Stick Legs to dance!" Janelle probably coaxes him. "It'll be a scream!"
I want to run out of the gym, but I finish the dance. When Joel, trying not to laugh, says, "Wanna do another one?" I say, "I don't think so. You're the worst dancer."
His eyes grow wide, and I see his initial confusion turn to humiliation. Then he begins to giggle like a little boy. I am instantly ashamed. He really is just a little boy - as insecure and afraid as I am.
Finding my jacket, I tell Sister Rose Edward I'm not feeling good and walk out into the cold night. Usually I like cold spring nights. Everything smells clean and new. Tonight, however, I don't feel anything at all. I hurry across Montview Boulevard but walk down Eudora Street slowly.
My parents are in the living room and surprised to see me home early. "Well, here's the bell of the ball!" my dad says too jovially. I run straight to my room and can hear Mom shushing Dad. "What!" he asks in bewilderment. "What did I say?""
If I don't feel anything all the way home, I feel it the moment I throw myself on the bed. I'm glad my brothers and sisters are downstairs and can't hear my sobs. Because that's what they are - big wrenching sobs. I cry so hard my face tingles like it does when the dentist first squirts novocaine into your jaw. I cry so hard I don't even hear Mom come in, but I feel the bed sink next to my stomach, and the next thing I know, her fingers are stroking my hair.
Mom's hands are so familiar and so comforting that I begin to relax, and when the last sob subsides, I tell her the whole story. She cradles my head. I wish I was little enough to crawl into her lap, but my long legs are splayed across the bed like a newborn colt's.
"I can never go to school again," I say vehemently . "How can I ever go back?" The sobbing begins afresh.
Mom shushes me and winds my hair around her fingers. The darkness falls around us, and I hear the distant voices of my brothers playing downstairs and the little hisses of the radiator - the sounds of home.
"You'll go back," Mom murmurs close to my ear, "because you have to go back. Because in a few days, this will be a sad little prank nobody even remembers."
She talks to me for the first time in my life like I am an old, old adult. The day will come, Mom assures me, when I will be comfortable with my height, when I might even be glad of it.
"And the day that Cathy Brown is happy with herself," Mom says softly, "is the day everybody else will know how funny and kind and nice she is. Just like I do."
She tips my chin. "You can be brave tonight. People just across the street have to be much braver - about big, big things. Be brave like them."
She means the Tanner family. I am filled with remorse. Last Monday morning, after the ugly "N" word is smeared across the front of their house, Mr. Tanner patiently scrubs away the angry letters. My siblings and I, on our way to school, pass his house. He pauses from his work to look up.
"Morning, children," he nods soberly. We nod awkwardly in return. I wish I knew how to tell him we are sad and sorry. But I am 13-years-old and unable to articulate my sorrow with any kind of confidence. In that instant, however, I understand Mr. Tanner is a man of great courage. He confronts hatred and anger every day but is never hateful or angry himself.
It's late now, and I release a long, shuddering sigh. Spent from emotion, I am being lulled to sleep. Tomorrow, I will be brave. In the last moment of consciousness, warm against my mother, I wonder if Janelle Whitney ever needs her mother as much as I need mine. Probably Janelle thinks she has a very satisfactory mother.
But I have the best mother of anybody.
I feel guilty even saying such a thing. The country seems to be falling apart. Nearly two months ago, Mom and I are in the kitchen when we hear the news on the radio. Martin Luther King, Jr. has been assassinated.
 |
| Cathy - before the infamous braces |
These are the things I should be thinking about tonight. But instead I am consumed by my own selfish worries. Not only has it been a terrible year for the country, but it's been a terrible year for me. In the space of one school year, I manage to get braces and zits. But that's not the worst. The worst is that I grow five and a half inches. Now, at five feet eleven inches tall, I tower over every boy and girl in the seventh grade at Blessed Sacrament School - except for Joel Moran who is exactly as tall as I am. And would you believe it? I'm still growing, Dr. Strain says. All the other girls in my class have begun to look, well, womanly. But all my growth has gone into my height - mostly my legs - and there isn't one bump on my entire body. Not one stinking bump. When I slouch to make myself shorter, Mom reprimands me.
"Walk like a queen!" she hammers. "Be proud of your height!"
She nags incessantly, but tonight I want only to look like every other girl in my class. Mom suggests tactfully that a longer dress might add a little proportion to my body. Translated, that means a long dress will cover my long legs which are painfully thin and knobby-kneed. I am not, I tell her, going to be the only girl at the dance with a dress that goes practically to my knees. She sighs in that exasperated way she does when she thinks I'm being unreasonable but finally lets me purchase a little red dress and white fishnet hose - which is all the rage this year.
Now, however, as I stand in front of the mirror in my room, I know my mother is right. My reflection shows that at my first dance all that anybody will see of me is two long fishnet legs walking across the gym floor. Just then, my mother bursts into my room carrying a basket of dirty laundry. She puts it all on the bed and turns to inspect me.
"You look very pretty, Cathy," she smiles.
I fling myself into the chair next to the radiator and watch my mother sort laundry. Mom has only just discovered she's pregnant with her ninth child. She's wearing her faded blue checked pants and an old sweater, and her hair is a little mussed. I can't help but think how pretty she is even when she's sorting dirty socks. Mom is beautiful. She's tall, but not so tall as I am, and slender but not skinny. She has all this thick black hair and cheekbones to die for.
 |
| Mom |
Mom hears me sigh and knows exactly what I'm thinking. "You know," she says, right in the middle of turning underwear inside out, "if only you'd have a little confidence in yourself, Cathy, everybody else would, too."
I try hard not to roll my eyes. Where does she come up with this stuff? I don't respond, but she reads the mutiny all over my face. Just as she assumes her martyred expression, I figure the best thing to do is walk the half block to Blessed Sacrament and go to the dance.
This particular evening in late May is gorgeous. I am too nervous, however, to enjoy it. Thankfully, when I arrive, the gym is dark and nobody notices my legs right away. I gratefully hurry to my friends who are sitting in a row of chairs beneath the scoreboard. Karen Blake and Diane Logsdon are just as nervous as I am, but Margaret St. John is already looking defeated. Finally, Sister Francis Xavier, Blessed Sacrament's self-appointed DJ, plops down a record from the approved list, and my first dance has begun.
It's not so bad at first because nobody dances, not even the cute, popular girls like Janelle Whitney and Mary Sue Dunn. By the second dance, though, all those girls are dancing. As the fourth dance starts, Margaret and I are the only girls in our little group who still have not been asked to dance. I am feeling like a genuine wallflower. Absorbed in a non-existent hangnail, I pretend not to care. Out of the corner of my eye, however, I spy Janelle Whitney dancing with Joel Moran. I don't care for Janelle. She's not a very nice person. But I certainly envy her just then. What's it like to be compact and cute and so sure of yourself?
One day, Janelle Whitney comes to school wearing a thin line of white lip gloss on her lower lip. It looks so ridiculous. But the next day, every girl in the seventh grade class wears an identical strip of white gloss on every lower lip. That's how popular Janelle is.
The next few dances are slow dances, and only a few ardent couples, closely watched by Sister Rose Edward, are on the floor. I am talking to Karen and Diane when I glance up to see Joel Moran walking toward our group. None of us can imagine why he would bother with us. When he finally approaches, though, he looks at the floor and says a little gruffly, "Wanna dance?" I look at Karen thinking he must be talking to her. Both she and Diane are staring at me in astonishment.
"Me?" I finally say.
"Yeah, you," he says impatiently. "You wanna or not?"
Somehow I manage to follow him out to the floor in a daze. We don't say a word. He turns to put his arms around my waist, and I place my arms around his shoulders. We shuffle back and forth, and I can hardly believe that I am dancing with Joel Moran, the tallest boy in the seventh grade.
Then a funny thing happens. I'm just getting used to the whole idea when I feel Joel's shoulders shake. I don't get it at first, but then he snorts. When I look up, I see Janelle and Mary Sue laughing behind their hands. Then I understand. It's a joke that Joel is dancing with Cathy Brown, the tallest girl with the skinniest legs in the class.
"Ask Stick Legs to dance!" Janelle probably coaxes him. "It'll be a scream!"
I want to run out of the gym, but I finish the dance. When Joel, trying not to laugh, says, "Wanna do another one?" I say, "I don't think so. You're the worst dancer."
His eyes grow wide, and I see his initial confusion turn to humiliation. Then he begins to giggle like a little boy. I am instantly ashamed. He really is just a little boy - as insecure and afraid as I am.
Finding my jacket, I tell Sister Rose Edward I'm not feeling good and walk out into the cold night. Usually I like cold spring nights. Everything smells clean and new. Tonight, however, I don't feel anything at all. I hurry across Montview Boulevard but walk down Eudora Street slowly.
My parents are in the living room and surprised to see me home early. "Well, here's the bell of the ball!" my dad says too jovially. I run straight to my room and can hear Mom shushing Dad. "What!" he asks in bewilderment. "What did I say?""
If I don't feel anything all the way home, I feel it the moment I throw myself on the bed. I'm glad my brothers and sisters are downstairs and can't hear my sobs. Because that's what they are - big wrenching sobs. I cry so hard my face tingles like it does when the dentist first squirts novocaine into your jaw. I cry so hard I don't even hear Mom come in, but I feel the bed sink next to my stomach, and the next thing I know, her fingers are stroking my hair.
Mom's hands are so familiar and so comforting that I begin to relax, and when the last sob subsides, I tell her the whole story. She cradles my head. I wish I was little enough to crawl into her lap, but my long legs are splayed across the bed like a newborn colt's.
"I can never go to school again," I say vehemently . "How can I ever go back?" The sobbing begins afresh.
Mom shushes me and winds my hair around her fingers. The darkness falls around us, and I hear the distant voices of my brothers playing downstairs and the little hisses of the radiator - the sounds of home.
"You'll go back," Mom murmurs close to my ear, "because you have to go back. Because in a few days, this will be a sad little prank nobody even remembers."
She talks to me for the first time in my life like I am an old, old adult. The day will come, Mom assures me, when I will be comfortable with my height, when I might even be glad of it.
"And the day that Cathy Brown is happy with herself," Mom says softly, "is the day everybody else will know how funny and kind and nice she is. Just like I do."
She tips my chin. "You can be brave tonight. People just across the street have to be much braver - about big, big things. Be brave like them."
She means the Tanner family. I am filled with remorse. Last Monday morning, after the ugly "N" word is smeared across the front of their house, Mr. Tanner patiently scrubs away the angry letters. My siblings and I, on our way to school, pass his house. He pauses from his work to look up.
"Morning, children," he nods soberly. We nod awkwardly in return. I wish I knew how to tell him we are sad and sorry. But I am 13-years-old and unable to articulate my sorrow with any kind of confidence. In that instant, however, I understand Mr. Tanner is a man of great courage. He confronts hatred and anger every day but is never hateful or angry himself.
It's late now, and I release a long, shuddering sigh. Spent from emotion, I am being lulled to sleep. Tomorrow, I will be brave. In the last moment of consciousness, warm against my mother, I wonder if Janelle Whitney ever needs her mother as much as I need mine. Probably Janelle thinks she has a very satisfactory mother.
But I have the best mother of anybody.
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