Trespasses and Small Rebellions

By the first day of grade twelve, I can’t handle living in this shithole town anymore. Summer: a blur of house parties, handsy boys and men, and sleepless nights. I butt my cigarette against the brown brick façade, march into the guidance counsellor’s office and say, “If I can’t finish first term, I quit.” I graduate in January.  

I devour Colleen McColough’s The First Man in Rome and realize I’ve been reading the wrong kind of books. Never before have I considered there is more to life than the quest for true love. Perhaps the answer to my future lies in novels I’ve neglected to read.

In March, two days after my eighteenth birthday, I board my first plane. For three weeks, the Arizona sun bakes my winter pale skin while my friends sit through Miss Smith’s grade twelve English class. Grandpa takes me to Superstition Mountain, a flea market, and the pool hall. As a shuffleboard champion, he shows me how to propel weighted pucks into the scoring zone. 

While I’m away, my older cousin leaves her husband. Relieved, I blurt the secret I’ve shored up since I was sixteen. He’s been cornering me. She goes back to him. He calls my mother and insists I was coming on to him. He says he’s going to kill me. My boss walks me to my car after closing each night because my cousin and her husband live in the trailer court behind the DQ where I work. I’m determined to ditch this redneck town, so I apply for university. I have no clue what that really means. 

In June, I agree to cross the graduation stage. Mom’s lips quiver, but she’s less than thrilled when she sees the woollies and paper-clipped Jesus-sandals exposed beneath the black gown. I assumed it’d be longer. Skipped the fittings. At least I’m here. A week later, I score a pair of black suede elevator stilettos. I ask my older brother to escort me to prom. I lighten with each step that takes me farther from ugly secrets.

The summer before grade eleven, rumours about me scatter like dandelion fluff in a windstorm. I’m sure it’s the boy-I-love’s girlfriend and her sharp-tongued clique. They leave out how pushy some boys from school got with me, making up lies about the rest. I reapply Revlon’s Revolutionary Red. Blot. Pretend I don’t care. 

In the boys’ locker room, Lynn, who’s in grade twelve, pins a douchebag against the wall for talking smut about me. He threatens to shut the douchebag up permanently if he breathes another word. My throat swells, and it’s hard to breathe when someone who was there tells me in the cafeteria. My cheeks burn beneath my heavy foundation. Lynn’s the only person who’s ever tried to protect me. I can’t say I’ve always done the same. 

At home, I sit on my bedroom floor and chain-smoke Du Maurier Kings. I nurse JD straight from the cool square bottle, carving an “x” over my heart. I’m still in love with the boy who pretends not to see me until he gets bored with his screechy, scrawny girlfriend. 

I’ll wind up drowning in my secrets if I don’t get away. Mom says my moving out makes her look bad, but she helps lug a borrowed hide-a-bed into my bachelor suite. My English teacher recommends Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I grow hopeful. Although reality is grim, love overcomes great obstacles, saves lives. I get a raise at work and finally pierce my nose. 

One night, we’re having drinks at my aunt’s when my cousin swears she’s having contractions. I go to her place so I can watch their two-year-old when it’s time to go to the hospital. At their trailer, my cousin waddles down the long hallway to try to sleep. Her husband and I watch a movie in the living room. I’ve known him since I was twelve.  

A commercial, an ad about rape makes me cry. He listens and rubs my shoulder as I tell him about the night before when the boy tried to force himself on me. I had been drunk. His fingers feather across my bare shin, and I flush. I wish I’d worn jeans instead of a skirt. I clench my stomach muscles to stop the burning. He unzips his faded Levi’s and pulls out his cock. He suggests I pet it. Bile fires up my throat. I tuck my hands into my armpits and turn away while he pants, rubbing against my bare thigh over and over and over until he moans. Wordlessly, he gets up, his palm cupping liquid, and walks down the long hallway. 

My cousin, his wife, comes in moments later. “What are you up to?” she asks as she strokes her heaving belly. 

“Just watching a movie.” The glowing screen masks my deceit. I add this to my mountain of shameful secrets.

The summer before grade ten, I guzzle beer by the case, smoke pack after pack of cigarettes, and make out with boys who love to squeeze my big, round titties. Sometimes they get nasty about wanting sex, but I’m waiting for “the one.” I dream there’s a boy out there who’s just for me. One who will love me forever. 

I fill the salad bar on an evening shift at Bonanza when a ghost walks in from my past. He’s in his mid-twenties, but his puffy eyes haven’t changed. His is the face of the shadow that molested my sleep since I was little. The horrid secret that’s been locked away for a decade escapes and forces my mind to relive what happened in my childhood bedroom. I’m afraid to sleep because I know he’s waiting, so I chain-smoke and read Stephen King’s The Bachman Books. 

That Christmas, Mom tells Lynn he can’t move back home until he gets my permission. He swears he’s not angry. The spark of rage that lived in his eyes has been replaced by an empty sadness. He’s suffered my father’s calloused hands enough to understand it’s wrong. He comes home. Maybe sometimes things have to fall apart before they fit together again.

At work, I enter the walk-in freezer. The door slams shut. My manager, Leonard, crinkles his merry eyes and says, “Uh-oh. Now we’ll have to press our bodies together for warmth.” Furious and frightened, I bang on the heavy, metal door until a co-worker rescues me. Months later, just before the Sunday church rush, Leonard ogles at me in the kitchen. He comments on my “jugs” while I slice tomatoes for a platter. My fist connects with his shoulder. Tomato seeds spray his white shirt. “I like ’m a little feisty,” he says, eyes twinkling. I drop the knife and huff off toward the office. My voice wobbles and frees the tears from my eyes. I jut out my chin and tell the higher-ups I’m quitting. Nobody asks why, but I’m ready to tell the truth. I return to the cutting board. Leonard has disappeared, so I continue assembling platters. 

Two weeks later, I get a job at DQ. In spring, I fall for the boy who sits across from me in algebra. Like my grade seven teacher, he’s tall, a bit husky, plays football, and has dark brown eyes. In the dark, his hands and mouth tell me he can’t get enough. When the lights are on, we pretend we’re just friends. He doesn’t want to admit he loves an ugly, fat girl like me. We plan to have sex in July, but I keep my virginity. At the end of June he starts dating a girl with pointy elbows and knobbly knees. Our love tops my tower of secrets.

I make out with a boy for the first time the summer before grade nine. We’re at my cousin’s, but the adults go to the bar. Suspecting this boy and I might kiss, I had rubbed my round breasts with bath oil to make them soft. His mouth tasted like sweet peas and soap. Ten minutes into the kissing, he pulls a condom from his pocket. When I giggle, his blue eyes glow against his reddening face. I want to yell, This isn’t how love is supposed to work. I don’t even like the way you kiss! He goes out for a smoke. I head downstairs to read while I wait for the adults to come home with beer. Judith Krantz’ Princess Daisy  helps me understand that it’s normal to guard secrets. We have to be honest with ourselves in order to understand how we make our decisions.

In October, just before my oldest cousin gets married, I get my first job at Bonanza. I blush when the manager, Leonard, calls me Ravishing Rach. My cheeks blaze as his bright eyes trace my grease-stained, wrap-around uniform. Leonard says things like, “Nice melons,” when I cradle fruit from the walk-in refrigerator against my chest. My stomach gargles tacks. On coffee breaks, he sits next to me and asks questions like, “Do you think there’s anything wrong with fathers bathing with their daughters?” The ash from my cigarette trembles and falls into my potato skins smothered in cottage cheese and Catalina dressing. 

 When I think of telling someone the truth about Leonard, my heart somersaults in my chest. It’s safer to stash this secret with the others. I don’t know how to make him stop, but I have money for nice clothes, makeup, and cigarettes. I finally fit.

The summer before grade eight, Lynn moves to the farm with our father. Mom says I’ve torn our family apart. She stops talking to me. I steal packs of her Player’s Lights from the carton in the porch freezer and gain twenty pounds. I contemplate the easiest way to end my life, but I’m too chicken to try it. Mom’s already been through enough. 

At my new junior high, when we line up for school pictures, Jefferey Sylvester sneers, “What, do you weigh, like two hundred pounds?” The photographer captures Jefferey’s taunt in my eyes. I stop going to the school library because the librarian’s lizard-tongue darts between his teeth like he can taste my breasts. I borrow Danielle Steele’s Palomino and Kaleidoscope from my auntie. I learn that, even if I manage to find love, most fairy tales end in tragedy. On the radio, Bruce Cockburn sings “If a tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear.” I often wonder if I told the truth, would anybody listen?

 I catch glimpses of my brother in the halls. His eyes are sad. He’s usually alone. Once my only friend, we no longer speak. Each peek, each potential word is the sting of iodine on an open wound. How are you? Is he treating you alright? We suffer in a different way now that you are gone. I love you. His auburn locks fade into the throng of students. 

The summer before grade seven, I spend a few weeks at my uncle’s farm. I hardly know my cousins, but they convince me to pierce my ears. Five holes in one lobe and two in the other. I grow five inches taller. My breasts explode from my chest. 

On the first day of grade seven, I backcomb my peroxide-red hair. I circle my eyes in blue liner, brush on blue mascara, and layer blue, pink, and yellow eyeshadow from my Cover Girl compact. In the schoolyard, the other girls narrow their eyes. They are still flat-chested. In class, they pay me more attention. So do the boys. 

In class, my blue lashes flutter as I roll my eyes and say, “God, am I bored.” Mr. B lets me read Gone with the Wind  and The Exorcist  in class. He’s the tallest man I’ve ever seen. He has dark chocolate eyes and muscles everywhere. When Mr. B is disappointed, he furrows his bushy brows and says, “You’re old enough and ugly enough to know better.” He’s right. I try to be my best, get the highest grades, dive for every hard-to-reach volleyball, and plan the most successful Spring Frolic St. Patrick’s Elementary has ever seen. He has no idea I’m in love with him.

At home, there is danger everywhere but mostly inside of us. Mom works now, so it’s mostly me watching my little brother and sister. Over and over, my little brother bugs my big brother until he erupts. We left my father three years ago, but his words and his hands have shaken us like pop bottles. Each of us is ready to explode if someone twists the cap. I escape into schoolwork, sports, Stephen King, and daydreams that Mr. B might rescue me. I think about “spilling the beans” as he’s fond of saying. I whisper the truth to my reflection. I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep my little brother safe. Mr. B confesses he’s leaving at the end of the year, so I bite my tongue. Swallow another secret. 

I have no other options. I make Mom to choose between me and Lynn. I tell her, “If he doesn’t leave, I’ll run away. I’ll be a prostitute if I have to!”

The summer before grade six, I play Truth or Dare with the older kids in the trailer court. When it’s my turn, I pick “dare” because I am not  a coward. Shauna tells me to kiss my brother’s best friend. My private parts tingle when our lips touch. That night when he sleeps over, we horse around like nothing happened. I’m relieved because I’ve got a crush on Mom’s boyfriend, Doug, who smells like the Châtelaine magazines next to the paperbacks at Coles. Mom hates when I spend time with my best-friend/cousin Mickey. But I don’t want to be trapped at home with my siblings. I just want to be a kid.

Most days, I babysit after school. Instead of going to the library to borrow books, Mickey and I buy them at the mall. I read V.C. Andrews’ My Sweet Audrina. A young girl’s parents get her electric shock therapy to erase what boys did to her in the woods. I wonder, how could those boys do such terrible things to a little girl?  Something wriggles and pinches in my belly, but my mind is blank. Mickey trades me for Flowers in the Attic. This book is about children who spend their lives secreted away in their evil grandmother’s attic.

In April, during a slow song at the school dance, Joey Dennis and I win “the spotlight.” He smiles at me and says, “Ladies first.” He is cute, but just a boy. I choose the Hits of ’86 cassette and leave him with the FM94 t-shirt. A few songs later, my body betrays me. In the washroom, I panic. My first period. My friend puts a quarter into the white metal box. It spits out an old-fashioned maxi-pad I pin to my bloodied panties. She lends me her jacket to tie around my waist. I’m upset about picking the cassette. The t-shirt would have covered the shameful stain on my mint-green, stirrup pants. When Joey asks the next day, I’m too embarrassed to tell the truth. I say, “I sat on a ketchup chip.” 

The summer before grade five, fire burns inside of me. I shouldn’t have to go with a stranger who doesn’t want me. Our father didn’t love us before we left. He didn’t even want us around, and still doesn’t. Before the divorce, I was afraid of him. I’m still afraid, but now I know that he is a bad man. At the farm I forget everything but sleeping. 

One day, I refuse to go. Instead, I spend the weekend with Mickey reading Sweet Valley High’s Rags to Riches  aloud. I dream that, like Roger Barret (the poorest kid in Sweet Valley), I’ll discover the secret of my birth and become a billionaire overnight. My trailer court friends and I walk the gravelled roads. I snicker and yell, “Jody, you’re such a dube!” The older girls roll their eyes because, clearly, I don’t know what I’m talking about. It gets easier to forget who I was before I refused to go, especially when my brothers and sisters are gone. Then, I’m an only child. There’s nobody else to worry about.

At school, when we line up for confession, I can’t think of anything new. I always tell Father Gaudet things like, “I fought with my siblings,” or, “I didn’t listen to my mom.” I’m as bored by this as he is. This time, my mouth opens, and I’m surprised to hear my voice. “I had sex.” Then, to make sure this sin is covered, I add, “I also lied. At least three times.” Father yawns and says, “You are absolved of these sins and any that you may still harbour in your heart.” In the gym, my knees sink into the spongy blue exercise mat. I make the sign of the cross over my budding breasts. I pretend to say my ten “Hail Marys” and five “Our Fathers” and wonder what might happen if I actually told the truth.

-Rachel Laverdiere

Rachel Laverdiere writes, pots and teaches in Saskatoon. She is CNF co-editor at Barren Magazine and the creator of Hone & Polish Your Writing. Find Rachel's essays in journals such as Lunch Ticket, The Common, CutBank and Pithead Chapel. In 2020, her CNF was shortlisted for CutBank's Big Sky, Small Prose Flash Contest, made The Wigleaf Top 50 and was nominated for Best of the Net. For more, visit www.rachellaverdiere.com.