Stepmother was sitting at the dining room table, rubbing her eyebrows off as she always did. She had had half-brows for as long as Girl could remember—from the top of the arch to the outside corner of her eye was only stubble. Sometimes she wore Band-Aids over the bare half to keep herself from rubbing. Girl wasn’t sure which looked worse.
“Look, Stepmother! I’m a Playboy Bunny!” Girl felt like such a fabulous tongue-in-cheek creation. It was the best costume she had ever had. It was equal to Brother’s roadkill costume last year. And the only skin Girl showed was on her face and her hands—she wished she had black satin gloves. Girl used to have a pair of black gloves that were her grandmother’s, but they were too tight to fit over the terry cloth sleeves. Maybe Girl could find something else in the closet.
“Girl, that is awful!” Stepmother looked at her as if Girl was a skin full of shamefulness. Like a prostitute. A stripper. A real Playboy Bunny. Her eyes were staring at Girl’s silver panties like she had X-ray vision. Like they could burn through the lamé, the terry cloth, even her jeans underneath. She raised her little fist (her hands and feet were so small compared to the mountainous rest of her) and pointed her stubby finger at Girl’s crotch. “Look at your shiny pussy! Judy, you can’t let her wear this!” Stepmother could not stop looking at her shiny pussy. Girl hated the word pussy. She and Brother were not allowed to say pussy. Mother and Stepmother always said it was derogatory, disrespectful, that what Girl had between her legs was a vulva, a vagina. Girl could never ever say or even think the word pussy, so why did Girl now have a pussy full of shame that was drawing her stepmother’s eyes like a tractor beam?
Girl ran upstairs and ripped off the costume and left it on the floor in a heap, launching herself onto that white eyelet comforter she had been so stupidly proud of, stupid little girl. Girl cried into her pillow, cried black mascara rings onto the white lace and she didn’t care, she sobbed loudly, pushing the snot and mucus and shame out of her mouth into her pillow. She wasn’t a dirty girl anymore, she wasn’t a dirty girl, and Stepmother wouldn’t stop looking at her pussy and Girl hated the word pussy and she wasn’t trying to be bad.
Mother came upstairs. “I told her not to say ‘pussy,’” she said. “You can wear the costume. I told her it was ironic and funny and that you weren’t being too sexy.” Mother stroked the back of her head. She didn’t say anything about Stepmother’s laser beam eyes stuck on her pussy, or how dirty her words made Girl feel. It was about vocabulary, then, not eyes like fingers running over her teenaged flesh. Girl couldn’t even bear to look at the rabbit suit. She wanted to burn it. Girl never put it on again. Mother couldn’t understand that words from a lesbian stepmother felt more like words from a man than words from a woman. Stepmother’s whole demeanor had changed since she started lithium, but Girl was the only one who saw it.
you should masturbate
Now seventeen, Girl stood at her bedroom window smoking a cigarette, too lazy to go outside to smoke. From here she could see over the tops of the maple trees to the streetlight at the corner, and if she remembered not to daydream, she could see Stepmother’s car before it turned down the lane. Girl dared herself not to flinch as the car crept closer. How long could she continue to smoke this time? Dread tightened her stomach the moment Stepmother’s car turned toward their house, four blocks away. Two blocks. One block. She dropped her cigarette to the patio stones below and fled far into a book, so Stepmother wouldn’t speak to her if she was lucky. Girl wished she could play chicken longer without flinching. She wished Stepmother worked full-time again, so she wasn’t home so often.
9:10 a.m. and Girl was late for school.
