Virgin Sister Lover Friend

By Marissa Díaz


Carina decided to be herself and wear her hair like Disney’s coolest middle schooler, Lizzie McGuire. But she’d never tell you that. She was in seventh grade and was far too old (twelve) to admit to watching the Disney Channel or idolizing Lizzie’s animated alter-ego, and her neon-orange platform sandals. When Carina got ready that morning, she wanted to try something different. To express her creativity and spunkiness. The artist’s canvas… was her sleek, dark brown hair. She remembered one of Lizzie’s half-up, half-down hairdos. Up top, Carina sectioned her hair into six even rows and twisted the pieces into loose buns with the ends sticking out in all directions. She affixed each bun with small, plastic butterfly clips in bright colors. 

Lori Roberts, with a striking hourglass shape and a fat ass the boys loudly fantasized about, wasn’t a fan of Carina’s expression of spunk. She said as much in first period, while the class waited for Ms. Duchovny to arrive. In the years that followed, Ms. Duchovny would be the one social studies teacher that none of the students would forget. Because it was her, who taught them about U.S. relations with the Middle East, al-Qaeda, and Osama bin Laden the morning the planes hit the World Trade Center. On September 11th, Lori wondered if the attack would affect her family’s annual Christmas trip to New York City. Nearly a year later, Lori started wondering again. She craned her neck and yelled across the room at Carina.

“What is up with your hair?”

Carina looked up, sure that Lori couldn’t possibly be speaking to her. And yet, she was. She met Lori’s questioning eyes and noticed the rest of the class’s gaze boring into the goddamn butterflies holding this shitstorm of a hairdo together. Finally, she spoke. Her voice cracked.

“I don’t know.”

Shelby, the only Jewish girl in their South Texas middle school, and Carina’s best friend since sixth grade, interjected.

“I think it’s cool,” she said.

Carina’s face went hot. Her stomach dropped. Shelby was conflict-avoidant, but principled. Carina knew Shelby spoke up not because her hair was in fact, “cool,” but because she noticed the way her face dropped when Lori referenced her avant-garde, early 2000s hairdo. She was sure that Shelby herself was wondering what exactly “was up” with her hair. Carina wished she could pull at the butterflies and let her hair down. But that would admit that she, too, knew there was something “up”. And now, she realized, there was. Carina felt a bubbling embarrassment she could only remember aligning with an experience this summer. 

Shelby sent Carina a formal invitation through the mail. It was a light blue, thick, embossed paper, with a pre-postage and pre-addressed return. Shelby was turning thirteen and was inviting a select few to her Bat Mitzvah at Congregation Agudas Achim, with a party hosted at the San Antonio Museum of Art. Carina’s mother, Linda, had never met a Jewish person nor entered a synagogue. She convinced Carina that it was “only right” that her entire family tag along for the adventure. Linda instructed Carina to RSVP for four, instead of for the single person invited. That way, both her parents could come, and so could her little brother. Because Carina would be at the event, there would be no one else to watch him. Carina nodded, RSVPed for four, and dropped the return envelope in the outgoing mail.

Weeks later, Carina received an AOL Instant Message from Shelby:

“This is a little uncomfortable, but my mom wanted me to tell you that our guest list is limited. Unfortunately won’t be able to accommodate four guests. We can only accommodate you.”

Carina’s face turned red hot. She watched the cursor blink loudly at her while she considered her response. Should she reveal that it wasn’t her idea, but instead her mom’s? Should she say that she didn’t want them coming anyway, and that she’s sorry that her parents have no tact or reasonable childcare plans, and feel comfortable inviting themselves to other people’s parties? Should she lie altogether and say that her mother must have accidentally wrote that thinking it was an RSVP for a very close cousin who was getting married in the Texas Hill Country? She wrote back.

“All good. I only meant to include myself.”

“Can’t wait! The theme is our favorite: New York City! The bartender will make us strawberry daiquiris and we can request that DJ play ‘Ice Ice Baby.’”

Carina told her mother about the limited guest list. Linda shrugged off the rebuff as entirely negligible. As if the RSVP incident and the conversation it incited wasn’t the most embarrassing moment Carina had experienced in the actual whole twelve years of her life. She would never put herself in that predicament again. And she hadn’t. Until this morning. When she decided to be Lizzie McGuire for a day. Carina thanked Shelby for complimenting her hair and fought the instinct to take it down. The Disney-do would stay. Now all she had to do was make herself invisible.

***

Carina sat in the back row of Mrs. Leiber’s life science lab. She crossed her arms on the table and balanced her chin on top. The hoodie she borrowed from Shelby was used to cover her hair. Today was the absolute worst day to have the owl pellet dissection lab. Carina hoped to claim veganism, vacate her right to picking apart a piece of shit, to assemble a country mouse’s skeletal system, and instead, be given a worksheet that she could fill out while sitting on the cold, dusty linoleum floor, in the hallway. There was a gentle rap at the door. The principal, Mrs. Martinez, stuck her head into the classroom.

“Mrs. Leiber. We have a new student. He’s just in from the East Coast, so I just knew I had to put him in your class.”

The principal opened up the wooden door and revealed a tall, brawny young man who was no older than twelve. To Carina, however, he looked about what she thought forty-five must look like. He was a creature from the future: tall, fair skin, full lips, and a short curly shape up with razored-in designs along his temple. The students at Hobby Middle School dressed casually. They wore dirty tennis shoes with a medium washed pair of oversized jeans, topped with a faded school t-shirt. This kid wore an outfit: a new, pressed, inky-black shirt emblazoned with the name of a retailer that wouldn’t do business in San Antonio for another ten years. He wore dark-washed jeans that were purposefully distressed and fitted with holes and white paint splotches. He wore bright, clean white sneakers, without creases at the toes.

Mrs. Leiber stood back and looked over her thick, wired, transition lenses to get a good look at him. She touched her forehead. Just beyond her fingertips, was an inch of grey hair that begged to be colored the same synthetic, red-brown box dye, just beneath it. Mrs. Leiber pushed a frizzy chunk of her bob behind her ear. Finally, she got out her question.

“What are you, Arab? Puerto Rican?”

He laughed.

“Mom’s Mexican and dad is Italian/Irish.”

“Where are you from? The city?”

“Nope. Bridge and tunnel.” 

Mrs. Leiber’s voice softened. She took on a tone unfamiliar to the last forty years of seventh graders at Hobby Middle School.

“Oh yeah?”

“New Jersey. You know it?”

“Do I know it? Young man, I am born and bred Tri-State Area. I’m from Greenwich, Connecticut and traveled to the city every weekend with my father. What’s your name?”

He cleared his throat and proudly extended his hand.

“Wesley Gallagher.”

Mrs. Leiber giggled. Her face shone red. It wasn’t often one of her students engaged her in a conversation about her hometown, let alone offered their hand to shake thereafter. She introduced herself.

“Mrs. Leiber.” She gave Wesley’s hand a firm shake, and then looked at the principal. 

“I’ll keep a close eye on this one.” 

The principal carried on. Mrs. Leiber winked at Wesley. Carina groaned without realizing she had done so, out loud and in clear recognition of all of her classmates, and the flirting individuals in question. For the second time that day, a classroom full of people snapped their heads in her direction. Carina grasped at any excuse that would have her.

“I was looking at my test. I got an easy one wrong. My bad.” 

Wesley eyed her. A flicker of delight twinkled in his eye.