Donna

  Mrs. Kasofsky pounded her desk with a gavel similar to one a judge would have in a courtroom, and the library grew instantly silent, but when I opened the door and looked back, almost all of the students were laughing at me.

  At least they noticed me, I thought, and continued down the hallway, turning at the corner and walking down another until I reached the door of what I knew was Greg’s classroom. The bell rang, and students began streaming out. They barely took note of me. Greg came out talking with Camelia Lopez, one of the prettier girls in his class. She had shoulder-length raven-black hair and a figure that would put her in contention for Miss Teen USA in a heartbeat. Moreover, there was a mature beauty in her face, with her perfectly straight full lips and high cheekbones.

  Greg laughed at something Camelia had said. She was so close to him that from the rear, they looked attached at the hip. I stepped farther back. Greg shifted the books under his arm and in doing so turned his head just enough to see me. He paused. Camelia saw that he was looking my way, but she didn’t wait. She joined Paulina Guerra so quickly that one would think she couldn’t be alone for even a second.

  “Hey,” Greg said, coming over. “What’s happening?”

  It wasn’t often that he saw me during the school day other than during lunch hour or an occasional moment in the hallway. I looked toward Camelia, who was quickly disappearing around another turn in the hallway.

  “Donna? Anything wrong?”

  I looked at him. He could have asked her, I thought. They looked so perfect together. But he hadn’t.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Yes?”

  “I’ll go to the beach with you Saturday,” I blurted, and then I turned and rushed off as if I had just gotten away with stealing something valuable.

  Had I made a mistake? I had made a decision impulsively, without doing my usual full analysis.

  And in my life, that usually led to regret.

  2

  A half dozen times that night, I started for the phone to call Greg and tell him I had changed my mind. If I went through with it, this would be my first real date, and I was more nervous about it than I had been about anything of late. When I was in tenth grade, to placate my mother more than anything else, I attended a school party. The mothers of some of the other students were clients of hers at the salon, so she knew about it. Actually, she knew more about it than I did.

  The seniors were in charge of the decorations and the theme, and that year, someone had come up with the idea of doing “Old Hollywood.” They concentrated on the period when there were movie stars like Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, James Dean, and Natalie Wood. You could choose whomever you wanted to be and dress in a way to suggest him or her. There were some wigs and older fashions available. Mr. Longo, the high school art teacher, had them in his classroom. A store in Gold Mountain that sold memorabilia rented out old movie posters to decorate the event.

  Many of the senior high school students got into the spirit of the party, to the extent that they began to wear parts or all of their costumes that week. Some wore their wigs. My mother nagged me to dress like a movie star and try to have fun. She was persistent, almost desperate about it. I had no idea whom I would choose. What did attract me was doing the research on old films and stars. In the end, I gave in and selected Vivien Leigh, who had played Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind.

  By the time I was finished reading about it, I could tell my parents every fact about the making of that movie, along with historical information about the Civil War. Once I had given in, my mother was more excited about my attending the party than I was and made sure to get me into the salon so she could do my hair just like Scarlett’s in the movie. She also went on a tear through used-dress stores in San Diego until she located a black gown like the one Scarlet wore at the dance to raise money for the Confederate Army. She was supposed to be in mourning because her husband had been killed in the fighting, but she agreed to dance with Rhett Butler when he outbid everyone for a dance with her.

  To my surprise, when I arrived at the school that night, a senior boy, Billy Benson, had dressed as Rhett Butler, the character played by Clark Gable. Since no other boy had done so, matching us quickly became a subject of amusement at the party.

  Some of the girls made sure I could hear their comments. “If anyone can wipe that virginity off her face, it’s Billy Benson.” “Billy Benson will teach her something she could never get out of a textbook.” “By the time Billy’s finished with her, she’ll stutter for the rest of her life.”

  I didn’t have to overhear their comments to retreat. Billy Benson was one of the boys I’d have least wanted to ask me to dance. He had been in trouble for a variety of offenses most of his high school life, ranging from vandalism to disrupting classes and getting into fights. He had been suspended at least three or four times, and from what I knew, he was on some sort of probation. He and some of the other boys had been outside during most of the party, probably smoking pot, if not something worse.

  The moment he returned to the gym, a chant began, started by his friends but quickly picked up by nearly everyone else: “We want Rhett and Scarlett, Rhett and Scarlett.” I shrank farther back, hoping to disappear, but one of his friends seized my waist from behind and pushed me onto the dance floor. Billy was pushed, too, and we were standing there confronting each other. I couldn’t imagine being more embarrassed.

  Obviously, he didn’t want to dance with me just as much as I didn’t want to dance with him, but to shut up the crowd that had gathered around us, he scooped me up and began a ridiculous imitation of a waltz, swinging me around. I was screaming, afraid I would be thrown and break an arm or a leg. The more he twirled me and the more I screamed, the louder the students’ laughter grew. I couldn’t break out of his grasp. His fingers were pressing me to the bone.

  That was when Greg Rosario first stepped into my life. He came out of nowhere and pulled me away from Billy, who, out of embarrassment, immediately began to threaten him. While they had an exchange of words, mostly derogatory about Mexicans, and drew the attention of our teacher chaperones, I slipped out of the gym and ran from the school.

  I walked all the way home, which was a good three miles. My father and mother were surprised to see me and shocked at how disheveled I looked. I didn’t explain anything. I simply went up to my room and, as quickly as I could, got Scarlett O’Hara’s dress off me. My arms had black-and-blue marks where Billy had held me.

  My mother came to my room and asked about the party, but I refused to talk about it, and she finally gave up and put the dress away in some carton in the garage. We would never talk about it again. We didn’t have to talk. I knew she was very disappointed.

  Greg tried to speak to me the next day, but I wouldn’t come to the phone, and my mother made some excuse. She asked me about him, but I just shook my head. I wasn’t embarrassed as much as I was angry at myself for attending the party in the first place and going along with the make-believe.

  When Greg finally saw me in school and asked how I was, I gave him a quick “I’m fine.” I didn’t even thank him. I wasn’t blaming him, but talking to him and thanking him for rescuing me kept the memory too alive.

  It took me weeks to settle down. I took advantage of my isolation from the other students and avoided any confrontation with Billy or his friends. In time, no one cared anymore. It was then and only then that I became friendlier with Greg. Whenever he did try to start a conversation, he was smart enough not to talk about the dance.

  Now I was about to go on a date with him. Somehow I managed to avoid backing out of it and instead began to think about how I would dress. I knew it always annoyed my mother that clothes were never that important to me. Usually, she had to remind me that I needed to replace undergarments, socks, even shoes. Unlike most of the “normal” girls in school, I did not enjoy malls and department stores. Window-shopping made no sense to me
. When it was summer, they were showing fall fashions and when it was winter, they were showing clothes for the spring and summer. It all seemed to be a great waste of time.

  Of course, I saw how much my mother loved her clothes. Being a hairstylist, she was cognizant of how clothes accented and contributed to a certain look, especially with colors. My hair was almost the same shade as hers, just a little darker. Both of us had hazel eyes with some specks of gold. I had a darker complexion but not as dark as my father’s. Both my mother and I had what my father called the “Irish sniffer,” noses that turned up just enough to make us attractive, although I never thought of myself as such. Whenever the question arose in my mind, I smothered it. It was as if I didn’t want to hear that I was attractive as much as anyone else would hate to hear she wasn’t. I felt threatened by it because I had to live up to it. Pretty girls weren’t wallflowers.

  Tomorrow was promising to be a golden California day with plenty of sunshine and a warm ocean breeze. I was surprised at the panic I fell into when I began to look through what I had to wear. None of my shorts fit me anymore. None of my tops looked sensible for a beach experience, and I was sure they were out of style now anyway. Everything suddenly appeared very dull, too. So out of step in the way I dressed, I would surely attract more attention than I wanted. I didn’t even have a decent pair of sunglasses. Mine looked like they had once belonged to my father.

  I plopped down on the floor and leaned against my bed. Whether I wanted to go with Greg or not, this was simply impossible. I didn’t even have a new bathing suit, not that I expected we’d go swimming. The Pacific could be quite cold this time of the year. Surfers wore wet suits.

  “What are you doing?” my mother asked from my doorway. “Something wrong?”

  “I was asked to go on a picnic on the beach in La Jolla.”

  “Oh?”

  “Greg Rosario asked me, and I said yes too quickly, I think.”

  “Why too quickly?”

  “I don’t have the right things to wear.”

  “Whose fault is that?” she said, as if she had been waiting for years to say it. Maybe she had. I couldn’t blame her. She looked at her watch and took on that let’s-get-down-to-business look she could flash so well. “Put on your shoes and come down. Mark’s is still open in town. I know they have some nice things for someone your age.”

  I had always suspected that my mother, even when she went to buy something for herself or my brother, veered into the teen girl department and looked at the clothes she wished I wanted. I had no doubt she knew just what to buy quickly. Whenever she did my hair, she talked about buying something new for me. My lack of interest discouraged her, but I was never good at pretending to be someone I was not. If the Hollywood party had proved anything, it was that.

  Without waiting for me to say yes, she started away. I slipped into my sneakers and went downstairs. My father and my brother were watching television.

  “Keep your eye on the cash register,” my father joked to me. “She’ll put us in the poorhouse.”

  “If I had all I wanted to spend on her these last fifteen years, I could buy the store and then some,” my mother replied.

  My father laughed and nodded. I caught the way they looked at each other when they thought I had looked away. They were both so happy.

  I was like the prodigal daughter who had finally come home to her sexuality and femininity. I wanted to tell them not to get too excited about any of this. My only goal was to try to avoid unwanted attention.

  Or was it more?

  Go analyze yourself, Donna Ramanez, I told myself. Discover that you really want to please a boy, that despite your wonder-brain, you could finally have something of a normal relationship and explore your own romantic fantasies.

  • • •

  All the way to the store, as if she could read my mind, my mother talked about her earliest dates, how she agonized over her hair and makeup and especially what to wear every time she was asked out. She transitioned easily to her school prom and the high school heartthrob she had captured. She didn’t go into detail, but I had the suspicion that it was with him that she had lost her virginity. Of course, she talked about boyfriends after high school but wrote off every relationship as empty and shortsighted until she met my father.

  My mother wasn’t quite as bad as my father when it came to talking about herself with me or expressing her opinions. However, she often paused, too, anticipating my rational disagreements, factually crushing her theories. But tonight I was just listening, listening and wondering if I would enjoy my life half as much as she seemed to be enjoying hers. Every one of her memories was like another jewel she kept on a charm bracelet. I didn’t even have the bracelet.

  To please her, I tried on far too many things at the store. After a while, even the saleslady looked exhausted, but in the end, my mother bought me three pairs of shorts, three halters, new sandals, socks, two new bathing suits, a beach bag, beach towels, sunscreen, far sexier panties, a new bra, two different pairs of very stylish sunglasses, and two bathing suit cover-ups.

  When I asked why I needed so many of each, she smiled and said, “For the next time, Donna. You don’t want to be wearing the same things all the time, do you?”

  Next time? I wondered. I hadn’t given a thought to a next time or many next times. This was a one-off, almost an experiment to me rather than a date. I had already convinced myself either that I wouldn’t like it or that Greg wouldn’t like being with me when he had to spend so much time alone with me.

  But I said nothing. I helped carry my packages to the car, wondering what I would do now. How would I know which item of clothing was the right one for the first time? When I asked, my mother laughed.

  “You’re asking the wrong person. I doubt there’s anything I do that drives your father more crazy than dressing for a special occasion or even simply going out to dinner. Ordinarily, I try on three or four different outfits, dresses, shoes.”

  “You do?”

  Why wouldn’t she know exactly what to wear for any particular evening? I was totally unaware of what went on in my parents’ bedroom. It struck me that I seemed more like a houseguest than a daughter.

  “What difference does it make if any one of them would work?”

  “Of course it makes a difference. It’s all a matter of how you feel at the time, Donna. Sometimes one color appeals to you more than another at the moment.” She looked at me. “Now, don’t explain it with some psychological information,” she warned. “Some things should remain a mystery, and at the top of that list is what pleases and displeases a woman.”

  I nodded, but for me, it was like listening to someone speak another language. Some things should remain a mystery? Why? How did you know what things should and shouldn’t? And why was some of this special only to women?

  By the time we arrived home, I felt like I had been riding on a merry-go-round. Dazed, I started up to my room with my packages. My father pretended to be terrified of the bills, but I caught him and my mother smiling at each other, even holding hands, as if she had accomplished something close to sending a rocket to the moon. Surely they were putting too much hope into this, I feared. Right now, nothing seemed as threatening to me as disappointing them again.

  It would be even worse than disappointing myself.

  But I had no idea, no way of knowing how inadequate the word disappointing would be when it came to describing my day at the beach.

  3

  Greg always drove his father’s five-year-old green pickup truck. His father didn’t seem to care that his gardening machinery was locked in a cabinet behind the truck’s cab. Other boys might want their own cars, but Greg was proud of his father’s entrepreneurial spirit as the owner of a company with more than twenty employees, and his father was planning on expanding into landscape design and patio construction. Greg liked driving the truck. In the past, most
of the conversations we had were one-sided, with him describing his family. He had two younger sisters, Sofia in fifth grade and Martina in fourth. As if he were warning me about it, he claimed his mother was surely going to have another child.

  “Don’t be surprised to hear my father wants a second son.”

  “Why?”

  “He knows I want to do something with computer technology. A man like my father expects his son to take over his growing business. He drops hints like why else would he do it? It’s everything for the family in my family,” Greg said.

  He waited to see if I would be critical of that, but what it did was put me into deeper thought about myself, my family, and what the future would be. If anything, Greg’s family talk made me feel more inadequate. He wouldn’t believe that. In his mind, I was a true super-girl. He would tell me many times that someday he’d be able to brag that he knew me. With so many of the other students in my school seeing me as freakish, I let him load on the compliments. I never contradicted him.

  I simply said, “We’ll see.”

  That morning of my first date, after modeling for myself before my full-length mirror, I chose the emerald-green one-piece bathing suit, the dark brown sandals, and the pinkish cover-up and tied the matching headband around my pinned-up hair. That was my mother’s suggestion. I put a change of clothes in the beach bag, along with the sunscreen, my mobile phone, and two beach towels. Then I put on a pair of my new sunglasses and gazed at myself in the mirror as if I were looking through a window at another girl, amazed at what I saw.

  Maybe I am pretty, I thought, then turned and hurried out to go down the stairs.

  Mickey was waiting for me. “You’re going to the beach?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Mom says I can’t go because you’re going on a date.”

  “She’s right. No one’s bringing younger brothers or sisters. There wouldn’t be anyone for you.”