A Parallel Life (18 page)

Each afternoon Isabel and I rode our bikes to the beach, and, after swimming, rode back to her house waving away the yellow jackets that followed our wet hair. We played cards, talked, and kissed occasionally. We were practicing for boys. We also burned Little Miss Muffet, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, the Queen of Hearts, and Snow White.

On the day Nick got back, his friend Charlie came over. Nick had changed. He'd put on a little weight, maybe even muscle. He'd been quiet before, interested only in the chemistry lab he'd set up in his bedroom, trying to frighten us with stories about how he was about to make nitroglycerine and blow us up. Now he swaggered and wanted to talk. As he and Charlie and Isabel and I sat in the kitchen eating tuna sandwiches, I watched Nick chew and wondered whether he was good-looking or not. He and Charlie were going to be sophomores at St. Ignatius High in the fall.

“I went on Bourbon Street with my cousins,” he told Charlie as we listened. “They're at Tulane. They knew a guy at the door and they got me in to see a stripper. Her name was Tempest and she took off all her clothes but two little stars on her nipples and a tiny G-string. They said that sometimes she takes off everything and sits on guys' laps.”.

“What do you do to get to see her take off everything?” Charlie asked, pulling off his glasses and rubbing the lenses with the bottom of his T-shirt. His fingers were long and moved constantly like insect antennae.

“What were the stars on her nipples made of?” asked Isabel.

“How the hell do I know?” said Nick. “They were shiny. She had big tits and her skin was really white. She probably sleeps all day.”

“Like a bat,” I said.

Charlie laughed and Nick scowled at him.

“I'd like to see a stripper,” said Isabel.

Later that afternoon Nick pushed open Isabel's door while we were lying together on the bed.

“Don't you know about knocking?” said Isabel.

“I have this present from Aunt Inez that I'm supposed to give you. Besides, you're my sister.”

“Probably another dumb doll.” Isabel took the gift-wrapped box from him. “Thanks.”

“Drop dead,” he said and slammed the door.

“Cinderella,” she said after tearing off the paper. “Wouldn't you know?”

“Poor Cinderella.” I started to laugh and then Isabel laughed too. We rolled around on the floor and held our stomachs when they began to hurt.

They had been smoking cigarettes that night and they had a bottle of rum. Isabel's mother was at a meeting. “We're making Cuba Libres,” said Nick. He and Charlie stood in front of the refrigerator putting ice in a couple of glasses. “That's what everyone at Tulane drinks.”

“Make me and Kate one,” said Isabel.

“No way,” said Nick.

“Aw, don't be so hard on them,” said Charlie.

“They're just kids.” Nick handed Charlie a glass.

“Just one drink,” Isabel said.

“Why not?” said Charlie. “Let them have fun, too.”

Nick frowned and looked from me to Isabel and then back to me. “Do you really want a drink?”

“Sure,” I said. Isabel nodded.

“Okay,” Nick said, “But you have to drink in my room and promise not to tell.”

“We're not going to tell,” said Isabel.

The drinks weren't bad. They were mostly Coke with rum and a little bit of lemon juice. Nick had twin beds in his room. He sat on one and Charlie on the other. Isabel and I sat on the floor beneath a table loaded with glass tubes and vials. Nick and Charlie kept leaning over and whispering while we drank. We finished the first, and Nick made us each a second. When we were about halfway done with those, Nick leaned back on his pillow. “Charlie thinks you two ought to do a striptease for us. Charlie thinks you two are cute.”

“Hey wait!” said Charlie, spitting out some of his drink. “You were the one talking about getting girls to strip.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Nick. “Who cares whose idea it is?” He turned to us. “It's not just taking off your clothes. It's dancing, too.”

“What do we wear?” asked Isabel.

“I don't know,” said Nick. “Get something out of Mother's room. Use your imagination.”

“How much do we have to take off?” I asked. I was a little uneasy about how quickly Isabel seemed willing to
go along, but the idea was intriguing. It seemed to belong with drinking, to be a buoyant and spinning thing to do.

“As much as you want,” said Nick.

My mother had utility white underwear. Isabel's mother had lace and colors, but everything was too big for me. When I put on a black bra, the cups crumpled over my chest.

“Stuff it with something,” Isabel said.

“No. Then when I take it off the stuffing will fall out. That'll look dumb.”

“Are you really going to do this, Kate?” Her question surprised me. I thought she'd been all for it.

“Sure,” I said. Now that I was getting dressed, I wanted to—but not by myself. I took another swallow of the drink and noticed that Isabel's was almost finished.

“Her drawers are going to be too big for you.”

I had on a pair of black panties trimmed with lace. When I let go, they slid down over my hips. My own were cotton with tiny flowers. “I'll use a ribbon and scrunch mine up on the sides to make them littler.” I wanted to ask her how far she would go, but I was feeling bolder than I'd ever felt, adventurous, and I didn't want to give her an excuse to back out.

Isabel had on pink panties and a pink bra. She pulled out a black slip and handed it to me. “You look good in black. Black's sexy.” The slip was silky. It came almost to my ankles. I looked in the mirror and took a lipstick from the dresser and put it on. I smeared some on my cheeks. I drew darker eyebrows. I lined my eyes. I gave my chin a beauty mark. I didn't look like myself at all.

Nick and Charlie had been busy, too. Nick had brought in the phonograph from the living room. They'd turned off the lights except for two gooseneck lamps that shot beams onto a cleared patch of floor.

As soon as Isabel and I got into the room, I felt different. Charlie and Nick sat behind the lights, their faces in shadow. Nick put on a record—Louis Armstrong. “They always strip to trumpets,” he said.

“Let's do it together,” I said. Isabel looked relieved.

Neither of the boys objected to our not going singly. They were probably as surprised by all of this as we were.

When the music began, both Isabel and I giggled. Instead of feeling sexy, I felt dazed. I couldn't remember why I was standing there, but it seemed as if we'd made a pact and had to go through with it. Isabel put her hands up in the air and wiggled her bottom and turned around. I recognized it as part of the hokey-pokey and did it, too. It seemed like a good way to begin. We did a little bit of hula too, although the rhythm wasn't right.

“Take it off,” said Nick. Charlie joined in and they both chanted.

I don't know who went first, but as soon as I'd tossed the slip to the floor, I looked over at Isabel and she was in bra and panties, too. I decided not to watch her anymore. I closed my eyes and listened only to the trumpet. I slid the bra off my shoulders and let it fall down around my hips. I felt like a snake wriggling out of its skin. I sneaked a look through half-shut eyes and saw that the lights had turned my body white. I stared down at my nipples, flat and hard as coins, my feet moving on the scarred wood floor, as distant as stars. I reached for my panties and pulled them down. It was awkward, but I knew it had to be done.

When the overhead light went on, I opened my eyes and saw that we were both naked, stepping up and down on two small islands of abandoned underwear. Isabel's mother stood in the doorway.

She gave us time to get dressed, then came into Isabel's room and sat beside us on the bed. I could tell that she'd been drinking, too. Her breath was sour. Her beautiful hair was messy and her lipstick was almost gone except for a thin outline. She looked at Isabel first, then me, then sighed and fixed her eyes on a spot across the room.

“God wants you to stay pure,” she said. “Girls should be pure.” She looked tired and I could tell right away that she had no heart for this, but that she believed she had to do it. “Boys don't understand that you're really pure inside. If you do things like you did tonight, they'll take advantage of your innocence. You should learn to pray for the strength to resist.”

Neither Isabel nor I looked at each other while she spoke. I turned my eyes down to the bedspread. It was white chenille. I plucked at the tufts and rolled the threads that came out into little balls.

She left us alone and went to her own bedroom. I was supposed to spend the night with Isabel, but as we undressed—for the second time that evening—I felt a pain, like a buzz saw sounds, right behind my forehead. “I have to go home,” I said. “I have a headache.”

“You probably need glasses,” said Isabel. She sat in her pink shortie pj's examining her face in a hand mirror. She hadn't managed to get off all the mascara and her eyes had a smudgy, old-movie star look.

“I'm going home,” I said and began pulling on my T-shirt.

“Just take two aspirin.” She'd put down the mirror and was glaring at me. It wasn't hard to tell that she was annoyed.

I broke the cardinal rule of constant contact the next morning by not calling Isabel as soon as I'd eaten breakfast, but I was ready when her call came. “Come on over after lunch,” she said. “We're not finished.”

Isabel's mother was at work as usual and Nick was off, probably shooting baskets. In the drowsy summer stillness, we dressed Cinderella as Joan, then rattled her along the driveway in her cart and tied her to a stake made from a piece of broken lattice. We were driven by a sense of urgency, a need for haste. We built a pyre higher than any before and stood back while the first young flames sprang up. I looked over them to Isabel and our eyes met. Neither of us could control our smiles and I knew that her heart was pounding, too. The fire raced up to the larger twigs. We backed away as the doll's tunic turned first brown then black and the tiny figure became a torch that burst open to reveal flames licking inside. The blond hair ignited into a joyously bright crown as sparks shot into the air and sappy twigs burst like firecrackers.

“We loved Joan,” I said when it was over and we stood staring down at the charred circle in the grass. “Why did we want to burn her?”

“She asked for it,” said Isabel.

My glee was gone. I felt old, older even than the girls on the beach. As I pedaled home into the breezeless afternoon,
I wanted only to outdistance the smell of smoke that clung to my hair and clothes.

A little later, lying in the tub with a tower of lather on my head, I decided that no matter what my mother said, I'd let my hair grow and grow. I closed my eyes and, for a moment, I could already feel it brushing my shoulders.