To make her feel better, I could have told her that I dared not show my own breasts, nipples pointed toward the floor, to anyone. I hated to even show them to the doctor, though when I was lying down on the examining table it wasn’t so bad; only when standing up could one see the full, hideous effect. I couldn’t tell Ashli this because I was pretending to be Kitty, whose perfectly symmetrical breasts stood at full salute, I was sure.
For most of the afternoon, the messages I answered fit into predictable categories (dieting, boys, razor blades and their various uses). There was also a string of complaints from Canadian readers of the magazine. (Dear Tania: Now, let’s be reasonable here, I didn’t refer to Quebec as a country on purpose.) There were a few more difficult letters (Dear Kitty: Have you ever fantasized about being raped?) but nothing I couldn’t handle. As fast as I answered the messages, more of them flooded in, so I rarely felt a sense of accomplishment. While girls in far-off lands had their genitals trussed like Thanksgiving turkeys, Kitty’s girls had their own urgent problems. (If Matt doesn’t call me, I’LL DIE.) I wasn’t good with questions about boys.
There was no end to these pleas. They came from the heartland, from north and south and east and west. It seemed there was no part of the American landscape that was not soggy with the tears of so many girls. After writing an email that explained the difference between a vulva and a vagina (Your vagina is the passage to your cervix. It provides an opening for menstrual blood. To answer your question, no, you cannot shave a vagina. There is no hair there!), I looked up and noticed that the girl was gone. Relieved, I opened the next message, not expecting something of interest or anything to restore my faith in girl-kind. (Every night after dinner I go into the bathroom and throw up.) Before I could slip into despair, which usually happened every afternoon around three o’clock, Carmen surprised me with a cup of black coffee (FREE FOOD) and an oatmeal cookie (195).
She was wearing a maternity top in a pastel shade; her enormous belly looked like an Easter egg. She sat down across from me, letting out a huff of air, running her fingers through her clipped black hair. “Go on, read me one.” The messages from Kitty’s girls had a car-crash allure.
I looked down at my computer screen. “Dear Kitty, is it always wrong to have sex with your father?”
“You’re making that up. Please, God.” She was unsure and waiting for a sign from me. When I started to laugh, she laughed too, and I felt wicked, like a therapist mocking her patients. Carmen rubbed her belly and said, “We used to want a girl, but now I’m not so sure. You’ve scared me. Girls are scary.”
“Not on the surface,” I said. “Only when you dig deep.”
“That’s even scarier.”
While I had Carmen’s attention, I decided to ask her about the strange girl. I hadn’t mentioned her before, not wanting to seem paranoid. “Did you see that girl sitting over there?” I said, pointing to the empty chair.
“The one with the eyeliner? She’s been coming in a lot lately. Why, was she bothering you?”
“She seems a bit strange, don’t you think?”
Carmen shrugged. “Not particularly. You see the people who come in here.” She paused, and I hoped she was recalling something important about the girl. Instead, she asked if I would cover a shift for her next week while she went to the doctor. I hesitated. I was trying to be good on my diet. Sitting at my normal table wasn’t bad if I blocked out the sights and smells around me and drank my coffee and tea, but behind the counter was another matter.
“Sure,” I said. On some days, Carmen was the only person I spoke to. It was only small talk, but at the right moments, she brought me out of my head. For that, I owed her.
Carmen went back to work, and since I was being good, I took only a small bite of the oatmeal cookie. Two teenage girls at the next table smirked as they watched me. I set the cookie down and decided to work more quickly so I could leave. The best way to work was to dive headlong into the water, feeling my way in the darkness, not letting anything stick to me, just letting the current carry me along: