The Language of Women

Ten

This is the beginning of my body. My mother tells me it’s time to go on a diet, and I believe her. I begin to act accordingly. Her words are borne from love, but they are powerful, they take root, they last longer than the pounds do, than my childhood does, but I don’t blame her. My mother is a dietitian, which means she has developed control over her weight, and now she wants to teach me self-control so that I can live a healthy life in a healthy body. She also wants to protect me from a fat body, and the hatred that surrounds fat bodies. Just for a little while she says, “Just a few pounds heavier than I should be.” She says, “Don’t let the boys peek down your shirt, either.” She says, “Be careful when you lean over,” and I am even though I don’t understand why they would want to. Sex is still shrouded in secretive Christian magic. When my older sister gets her first period I’m afraid she will be impregnated from lying in bed with my parents the way we all do on lazy Sundays mornings, under the thick cream comforter, piling on top of each other. My mother still dances in front of the television shaking a blanket every time the characters start kissing, her knees lifting, torso jerking, He has the whole world in his hands the whole world in his hands.

Eleven

I learn what sex is on the school bus from a hooded eighth grader who makes demonstrations with his fingers. The boys on the bus cluster around him like he is their king. A small but powerful pack, they spend the thirty-minute drive shouting “Boobs!” and doodling hairy penises on the frosted back windows. I am still a painfully quiet turtle-like creature. Under my shell I convince myself I am sexless and therefore invisible—no breasts, no vagina, nothing that