How to Be Brave

 

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For Madeline and Matthew

 

I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing that I wanted to do.

—Georgia O'Keeffe

 

Part One

 

1

This is what it was like:

I didn't want you to come. I didn't want you there.

The day before school, the very first year,

we waited in line for my schedule.

They stared. Those in line around us—

the other girls and their moms,

the ones who were my year,

who were never my friends—

They saw how you were big, planetary, next to them.

Next to me.

The girl in pigtails, someone's sister,

asked:
Is there a baby inside?

Her mother, red now, whispered in her ear.

But the girl didn't mind:

Oh, so she's fat.

The other girls, the ones who were my year

who were never my friends—they laughed at you, quietly.

At me.

Her mother said she was sorry, so sorry,

And you said:
It's fine. It's fine.

But it wasn't.

You squeezed my hand, and then to the girl in pigtails, you said:
I am big, yes. But I am beautiful, too.

And so are you.

Her mother pulled her child away.

She left the line and let us go first.

I didn't say:
You shouldn't have come.

I didn't say:
I don't want you here.

But I also didn't say:
I love you.

Or:
Thank you for being brave.

Later that night, I cried:

I don't want to go. I don't want to face them.

And every year after.

You'd look at me like I was that girl,

and you'd say, as though it were true:

You are possibility and change and beauty.

One day, you will have a life, a beautiful life.

You will shine.

I didn't see it. I couldn't see it,

not in myself,

not in you.

*   *   *

Now, it's not like that anymore.

This is what it's like:

It's quiet in our house. Too quiet. Especially tonight. The day before my first day of senior year.

The A/C hums, the fridge hums, the traffic hums.

I'm standing at my closet door, those old knots churning inside my stomach again.

I don't want to go tomorrow.

I need to talk to her.

Instead, I've done what she always did for me the night before the first day of the school year. I've picked out three complete outfits, hung them on my closet door.

It's a good start, I guess.

Outfit #1: Dark indigo skinny jeans (are they still considered skinny if they're a size 16?), drapey black shirt, long gold chain necklace that Liss gave me, and cheap ballet flats that hurt my feet because they're way too flat and I hate wearing shoes with no socks.

Outfit #2: Black leggings, dark blue drapey knee-length dress (draping is my thing), gold hoop earrings that belonged to my mom, and open-toed black sandals, but that would mean a last-minute half-assed pedicure tonight. A spedicure, if you will.

Outfit #3: A dress my mom bought for me two years ago. The Orange Dress. Well, really more like coral. With embroidered ribbons etched in angular lines that camouflage my flab. Knee-length (not too short/not too long). Three-quarter-length sleeves (to hide the sagging). It's perfectly retro. And just so beautiful. Especially with this utterly uncomfortable pair of canary-colored peep-toe pumps that belonged to my mom.

I begged her for the dress. I made her pay the $125 for it.

I knew my parents didn't have the money, but I couldn't help crying when I saw myself in the mirror. It fit (it's a size 14), and I think she saw how pretty I felt because I did feel pretty for the first time, so she charged it.

But I've never worn it.

The day after, she went into the ER, her heart acting up again. She needed another emergency stent, which meant more dye through her kidneys, which meant dialysis a few weeks later, which meant the beginning of the end of everything.

I never put it on after that.

It's just so bright. So unlike everything else I wear.

I could wear it tomorrow.

I could. And if she were here, she would tell me to.

I really need to talk to her.

It's just so quiet in this house.

*   *   *

My dad's in the living room, in his spot on the farthest end of the old couch, fists clenched tight, watching the muted TV. If he's not at the restaurant, he's there, sitting in the dark, staring at silent, flashing images. Watching the Cubs lose again or counting murders on the news or falling asleep to old John Wayne movies on AMC (no commercials). I sit down next to him.

The worn leather is cold against my calves.

I hear my mother's voice:
John Askeridis came to this country in 1972. He had to borrow money only once. He worked his way up from nothing. A self-made man. He was suave. Refined. A true Greek gentleman.

Now he looks old and worn and lost.

“Give me your hand, Dad.”

He looks at me, his eyebrows furrowed.

“Unclench your hands.” I pull apart his clenched hand, force him to relax. “You know it's not good for you.”
You know it's what she would have done.

He lifts his hand and pulls at my nose. “Don't worry,
koúkla
. You worry too much about me.” He takes me by the wrist, and I sink down into the couch next to him. He wraps his arm around my neck. I'm ten years old again. I'm safe here, with him. We're okay without her.
It's all going to be okay.

“Dad, come on. Get up from the couch. Let's go do something. Let's get out of here, go get dinner or something.”
Let's be brave.

“
Georgiamou
, you go. Go with your friends.” He sighs and turns his gaze back to the TV. “I've nothing to do.”

*   *   *

Monday morning, 6:45
A.M.
Clybourn and Fullerton, waiting for the 74 bus. It's been ten minutes. The sun is already burning hot on my skin. Stupid CTA. Chicago public transit wants to ruin my life.

I check my phone for a bus update. I can't be late on my first day. They'll give me detention. They got so strict at the end of last year. But they wouldn't do it on the first day, would they?

Shit. There I go again. Always expecting the worst.

Her letter is in my bag. I rub the folds of paper between my fingers, close my eyes to imagine my mom's pen running over it, her wrist touching the paper.

I'm trying to think positively. To be brave.

Okay, here goes. Positive Thought #1: I did it. I'm wearing the Orange Dress.

I didn't sleep much last night. I stayed up reading and I dozed off maybe around three
A.M.
When the alarm went off at six, I opened my eyes, and it called out to me. I jumped out from under the sheets and ripped off the price tag.

Today's the day to start all over. Today's the day to start living for her.

My bus arrives. I slide my card through the slot, and the crusty old driver tips his hat to me. “Look at that smile! The sun just got himself a reason to shine, little lady.”

Well, there's Positive Thought #2. Thanks, crusty old man. I needed that.

*   *   *

I get off the bus to the sound of the first warning bell blaring two blocks away. I'm sure the swarming masses of eager freshies (and somewhat less so sophomores and juniors) are already filed like cattle at the front gate, shuffling through the metal detector. Principal Q-tip is probably standing at the gate, champing at the bit to sign us up for detention. Especially for us seniors. I'm nearly knocked over by a couple of guys who are racing down the sidewalk. I refuse to run. Not today. Not in these shoes.

I try my best to stride gracefully across the concrete, to Own This Dress, never mind the beads of sweat pouring down my back.

“Hey,
Ass
-keridis.”

Avery Trenholm and her posse with their Hollister/A&F/PINK ad-shirts, who've never had to work for anything, not a pair of jeans, not a grade (when your mom's a doctor and your dad's an engineer, shit like trigonometry and physics is encoded into your DNA), and certainly not their matching diamond-encrusted lockets.

Avery flips her sleek, straight hair. “Nice dress.” Except she doesn't mean it. She'd never be caught dead in a dress like this. She's wearing these hideous nearly microscopic fringed denim shorts that might fit around my one ankle.

“Yeah.” Chloe, Avery's slender and air-brained bitchy-junior-wannabe sidekick, gives me a once-over and says, “It's so, um, vivid.” I don't know why she has anything to say. We've never exchanged more than two words to each other.

I keep moving forward. The second warning bell rings. Left foot, right foot. Left foot, right foot. Positive thoughts. Positive thoughts. Get to the front door.

Chloe is still examining me, her empty blue eyes moving up and down my body. “It's so bright … like a sun.”

Avery snorts. “Or like a pumpkin.”

Chloe shakes her head. “Oh no, Avery. It's too early for Halloween. It's not even September yet.”

What an idiot. I'm not even sure if she's realized what she just said to me. But Avery does. Avery is glaring at me, a cold smirk etched between those freakishly large dimples.

I'm busting to say something, to do something, but I'm frozen, even as I walk toward the door. I've never stood up to these bitches. I just let them get to me, over and over. Liss tells me I need to stand up for myself. She's better at this stuff. She's good at knowing exactly how to respond at exactly the right time. But I never know what to say.

My mom used to tell me to just stay away from them. She'd say there were thousands of kids in my school, a whole surrounding city to get lost in. But it's not like that. We've all been in the same class forever, most of us from first grade. We picked up a few kids from other feeder schools, but for the most part, we've been stuck together, the same pre-AP group moved into the same AP group. In some other time-space dimension, we were all friends once, chasing one another, the boys snapping our bras and us giggling back. Then we split up into various subgroups: the nerdherd, the hippie wannabes, the emos, and, of course, worst of all: the richy-bitchies. They watched me go from the cute, chubby-cheeked pigtailed six-year-old to the not-so-cute, chubby-cheeked overpermed sixth grader, to the beyond-any-possibility-of-cute, obviously overweight seventeen-year-old. So where did I end up in all of this? With Liss, in No-Woman's-Land. The history is there, and it's hard to ignore.