The Aqua Net Diaries (6 page)

The Special Ed students (farmers) were an assortment of sweet kids who weren't actually retarded but just a little slow; some who really were retarded; and a few lost causes like Johnnie Coons, the meanest girl I have ever known. We were in sixth grade together at Westview Elementary School and I was assigned to tutor her in reading. I will never forget sitting beside her in Mr. Shank's classroom while the rest of the class quietly read. She pulled out a switchblade and pressed it to my leg and said under her breath, “So help me God, if you teach me one word of reading, I will kill you.” Each day, we sat there and she held the switchblade to my leg and I pretended to teach her to read, and when we graduated and went to Dennis Junior High School, they put her into the Special Ed class.

Somewhere off the pyramid, in a group all their own, were the few exchange students at our high school, usually Japanese girls. There was one boy from Turkey, a quiet, good-looking, dark-haired boy named Serdar O
uz. We took AP History together and even though he never ever spoke, my other classmates and I had the impression that Serdar was very smart.

There was one more group that we hadn't worked in
anywhere: the kids who drifted from group to group—that's where Joey and I fit. We were liked but we also felt like outsiders, because in our eyes we were different, and the only reason we got along so well with everyone was because we adapted to them. We acted like support, like the beams of a building or the stone walls of a foundation, just as the nobles and the priests had so many years ago for the pharaohs and gods in ancient Egypt. We hung out with everybody. But we hung out mostly with each other.

Jennifer with neighborhood playmates

What girls do to each other is beyond description.
No Chinese torture comes close.

—Tori Amos

The problem with you,” Joey said one day at lunch, “is that you want everyone to like you.”

I said, “The problem with
me
?”

He said, “You're wasting your time on the cheerleaders. If you want them to like you, we have to go to the source. Teresa Ripperger. She's the one who decides what they think.”

I said, “I don't care if they like me or not.” And of course we both knew I was lying.

I tried to tell myself I was happy just being liked by some girls and by most of the boys. Wasn't that enough? After all, boys were more interesting and less catty. They didn't get upset if you received more attention than they did or if you were a threat to them in any way, and if they did get upset, they didn't let you know it because they didn't want to be made fun of. I always knew where I stood with boys. Besides, you could talk to boys about interesting things, not just hair and jeans and makeup.

But every time I suited up for gym class or stood in line behind the cheerleaders at lunch or ran into them at parties, I braced myself. I got nervous. I couldn't help it. I wanted them to like me or at least be nice to me.

I stood up to throw my lunch away. Joey said, “I'll wait for you over there.” He pointed to the doors where Tom Dehner was leaning in his letter jacket, strong and manly, talking to Teresa.

I arrived at the trash can at the exact same moment as one of the cheerleaders. (
Does it really matter which one?
I thought, even as I started smiling—the stupid fake, nervous grin I always got around these girls.
Who can tell them apart?
) Her name was Staci or Traci or Tammi or Aimee. She said, “Hey.”

I said, “Hey.”

She shoved her trash into the can and held it open for me so I could do the same.

“Thanks,” I said.

Just then Rob Jarrett walked by and winked at me. “What's up, McJunkin?” he said.

Staci/Traci watched him saunter off without turning her
head. Her eyes followed him right out the door. Some of the other cheerleaders walked up and immediately looked bored. Staci's eyes turned back to me. She said, “That's a cute shirt. Did you get it at Sears?”

The cheerleaders smiled then because everyone knew that was the last place on earth anyone would ever buy cute clothes. Staci might as well have said, “Did you dig that out of a Dumpster or steal it off a homeless person?”

Before I could say anything, she said, “I like your pants, too. I wish I was brave enough to wear pants with patterns, but I'm always worried they'll make my butt look big. I really admire your confidence.”

Which, of course, translated to: “You must be insane or blind because the pants you're wearing make your butt look enormous.”

And then she paraded off, followed by the others. I watched her go, unable to speak or move, and then I saw Joey waving to me. Tom Dehner was gone and so was Teresa. Even Tommy Wissel was gone, which meant we were going to be late for class.

Later that day, before sixth period, Staci was leaving the downstairs central hall bathroom as I was walking in. She fake smiled at me and I fake smiled at her. I shut myself in one of the bathroom stalls and calmed myself down. I breathed as deeply as I could, given that I was in a bathroom. Then I saw it. On the back of the door there was a new entry written in red Magic Marker:
Jennifer McJunkin is a ho-bag.
The ink was still wet.

I thought back to the student handbook I had thrown away my first week of school, trying to remember the punishment for defacing school property. I pulled a purple Magic Marker from my bag and ran it back and forth, fast as I could,
across the writing until it was just a big, messy purple blob. Afterward, I threw the marker in the trash.

I went home that night and put on my stereo head-phones (Fleetwood Mac's
Tusk,
the album I always listened to when I was feeling upset or lonely or blue) and sat in my green beanbag and cried. I couldn't help it. I told myself it wasn't personal, it wasn't just me. Girls were always hateful to other girls. But it felt personal. I was
not
a ho-bag. The sluttiest thing I'd ever done was kiss my ex-boyfriend Brian Yoder, and we hadn't even used our tongues (we'd kept our mouths closed, afraid of getting our braces tangled up).

I decided I wanted to go to boarding school like some of my friends whose parents worked at Earlham with my dad. A lot of the Earlham kids I knew went off to Quaker boarding school for high school—to fine, academic institutions in the Northeast where students no doubt acted like real people and not mean and soulless creatures—but I didn't want to leave my parents or my cats or my dog or my room (which I didn't have to share with anyone else) or Joey. The thought of leaving made me cry even harder. I was such a baby. Here I was, the Great Ho-Bag of the Bathroom Stall, and all I wanted was my mommy.

The next morning I put on plain pants with no pattern and one of my nicest shirts, which I clearly hadn't bought at Sears. At lunch, I avoided Staci. I didn't even look in her direction. When I got up to throw away my food, a good-looking senior named Rod Ogren followed me to the trash can and asked me out for Saturday night. As we made plans to go to the movies, I thought,
Who needs girls?
I decided to wait on boarding school, at least for the time being.

What's Out

OUT
Country music, valley girls, leg warmers, bell-bottom jeans, preppies, pink hair, Izods, mohawk haircuts, Dallas Cowboys, morals, saddle shoes, the Go-Go's, disco mini skirts, knickers, Blondie, the new attendance policy, Converse tennis shoes, long hair, French braids, homework, E.T., herpes, designer jeans, Pac-man, prairie skirts, Mr. T, anything generic, “fer sure,” and punk rockers

What's In

Leather and chains, pierced ears, Prince, baggies, bright colors, being “scared,” bandanas, porno, break dancing, videos, L.A. Raiders, vans, concerts, thin ties, blue-jean jackets, Quiet Riot, Peter Pan boots, Rock-n-Roll, hats, British men, parties, the
Flashdance
look, pinstripe jeans, parachute pants, curly hair, the Nautilus, Ocean Pacific, oriental writing, and sports cars.

Jennifer, her big hair, and her pearls

Only because I'm in love, I'm getting R.'s picture, there's a chance I'll get some hair spray next hour, and the fact that we're not writing in here today has saved you! But you're not forgiven! Especially if R. stops liking me because my hair is flat!

—Jennifer to Laura Lonigro, writing about the impossible

I was determined from the beginning of high school to be known as a fashion plate, as someone off a New York runway. Unfortunately, living in Richmond made this challenging
because our town was, sadly, a good fifty to sixty years behind the times.

There were several places in Richmond to get your hair cut or styled: Le Crazy Horse, Fiesta Hair Fashions, the Golden Shears, the Hair Event, the Hair Hut, the Hair-port, Jenny's Cut and Curl, Top O' the Head, and Wanda's Beauty Salon—“Watch our hands create heads of beauty.” My mother and I went to Ova's Hairum, which was just off the pedestrian shopping area, the Promenade, downtown. As my mom said, the name was too good
not
to go there.