November

MODELING TRICKS

To look your best, you must get in the habit of standing tall . . . Someone once told me to stand as if I wore a beautiful jewel that I wanted to show off at my bosom, and I think perhaps it is the best advice I can pass on to you.

I read this out loud to Mom, Betty Cornell’s book in my hands. She smiles, stirring leftover chili at the stove.

Brodie looks up from his homework. “What’s a bosom?”

Indeed, what is a bosom? I probably will never know.

In this next chapter called “Modeling Tricks,” Betty recommends that I sit and stand tall with shoulders back. I should walk with fluid leg movements and boobs thrust forward to greet the world (okay, those last words are mine. If she’d uttered “boobs” back in the 1950s she probably would’ve been burned at the stake).

When I was four years old I started ballet and continued until I was nine. During those years I was most aware of how I carried my body. Still, I never belonged with any of the tall willowy blond girls who looked as if they’d been spun from sugar and would break if touched. I was built more like a brick. Heavy and sturdy. Mom finally let me quit after my kneecap dislocated.

So, at one time I was good at sitting up straight and tiptoeing along. Now . . . not so much. So, all I’ve got to do is reconnect with my inner ballerina.

Practicing posture

Wednesday, November 2

You never see a model slouch, you never see a model with her fanny poked out or her chin resting on her breastbone. A model knows that good posture is basic to a good figure, and that a good carriage goes hand in hand with good posture.

I walk lightly down to the bus stop, sucking in my stomach. I pull myself up into one straight line, even though it hurts my shoulders. Later, in history class, I keep up my good posture. It’s definitely a challenge. Mr. Santiago keeps the room so cold that it forces me to go into hibernation mode. All we do the entire period today is read out of the textbook. He has a talent for making influential breakthroughs and conflicts as boring as counting tiles on the ceiling. I try to stay awake by doodling Ethan’s name in the margins of my notebook.

All of a sudden I hear some girls screaming at each other in Spanish. The commotion seems to come from the hall. I look up from my scribbling. More screaming. Mr. Santiago closes the door and goes on with his lesson.

Later, I find out that the yelling was from two pregnant girls who got in a rather heated fight. There was a lot of name calling and hair pulling, but security personnel intervened before they could do any real damage to each other.

Thursday, November 3

Thanks to an ill-fitting bra, I grab my PE clothes and change my shirt in the bathroom stalls. The Volleyball Girls watch me as I go, their faces annoyingly blank. I wish Kenzie was here, but she’s sick today.

As I walk into the gym I feel everyone’s eyes turn toward me, but not in the Cinderella-arrives-at-the-ball way. It feels more like the pigeon-walks-into-a-room-full-of-peacocks way.

Then I realize I am the only one dressed in ugly PE clothes.

I panic.

Finally, I force myself to take a deep breath and try to imagine what Betty Cornell would do.

So I smile, showing my electric blue braces, shove my shoulders back, and draw myself up to my full height.

“Hey, look guys,” says Carlos Sanchez, “she’s trying to be a model!”

Maybe I am.

Monday, November 7

We’re almost a third of the way through the school year. I don’t feel popular, but I still change up my hair once a week just to keep people guessing. Today, I make my way to algebra concentrating on my legs, imagining Ethan is watching. Betty Cornell explains the best way to stroll like a model.

To walk gracefully one must move the leg in one piece. . . . In that way, the leg moves forward in one sweeping movement, instead of propelling itself by a series of awkward disjointed jerks.

This is actually harder than it sounds in a hallway full of screaming kids all pushing and shoving. Around me everyone is talking:

“He’s such a lying, dirty, perverted scumbag! I can’t believe I actually . . .”

“Did you see the thing in the girl’s bathroom? It looked like pot.”

“Like I told you, Sophie, the French are idiots.”

“I heard somewhere that a dork is what’s between a whale’s legs.”

Suddenly someone crashes into me, and my backpack strap snaps. It’s now hanging off my left shoulder. No! I have to lean over, slouching with my right arm bent around my back to keep my stuff from falling out.

Forget posture—I limp along trying to maintain my dignity.

 . . . . . . .

When Mom picks me up from school, I tell her that I went to see one of Mr. Lawrence’s friends (my old history teacher) to ask why Mr. Lawrence has been absent for so long.

“He said Mr. Lawrence is very sick,” I say, looking down at the ground. “If he comes back it won’t be until after Christmas. That’s all the information I could get out of him.”

I’m starting to wonder now if Mr. Lawrence will come back at all.

 . . . . . . .

I’m reading my Betty Cornell book on my bed. I open the front cover and notice an inscription in careful cursive.

To Le Nore,
From Mama and Daddy
1953

I wonder how old Le Nore was when she held this same book in her hands. What did she look like? Did she ask for it, or was it thrown at her by observant parents who felt bad when they saw that their little girl had no friends? Did the book help her, or did it sit on a shelf for nearly forty years before being dropped off at a donation center?

I wish this book could talk. I bury my nose in its faded words and yellowing pages and breathe in the smell. I’ve always loved to read. Mom and Dad made sure that I brought a book with me wherever I went, the way some parents would insist you bring a jacket.

When I was seven, they gave me a copy of Old Yeller. Eager to hear the happy story of a boy and his dog, I began reading it immediately. Halfway through, in the middle of the night, I realized what would happen to poor Old Yeller. I became an inconsolable, sobbing mess and ran to the basement where Dad was working. I told him that I couldn’t take it. He held me for a long time while I cried, and then told me that the author had forgotten to include a chapter at the end of the book. He sat for an hour with me on his lap and wrote the “final” section to the novel. It described how Old Yeller didn’t really die, that it was a different dog that looked like him but was evil because he ate kittens. Old Yeller lived happily ever after in a just world that (I’d already learned with the death of my sister) was light-years away from reality. That chapter is still taped in the back cover of Old Yeller, and every time I read it I smile.

Tuesday, November 8

“This is an official lockdown. Please go to your lockdown areas in a calm and orderly fashion.”

We all jump at the sound of the principal on the speaker. I put my choir binder down on one of the risers and turn to Anita, the girl who’s standing next to me. She seems a little annoyed.

In Brownsville, so close to the Mexican border, we have “lockdown drills” more often than we do fire drills.

At the border wall

For the last few years a violent drug war has raged between Mexican drug cartels and the Mexican military, leaving tens of thousands dead and missing. Terrible things have spilled over our border: drugs, shootings, kidnappings. Last year our school was on lockdown one afternoon because of a secret FBI drug operation going on down the street. There were even helicopters flying over and agents in our parking lot. Dad was furious when I told him about it and personally complained to the local director of the FBI. He said it was absolutely insane for them to do something like that during school hours.

Cartel battle in Mexico as viewed from Dad’s office

So, as the principal announces this lockdown, I think through the familiar procedure: lock the doors, hide in the classroom, and turn off the lights. Then, all of a sudden a panicked woman’s voice booms through the intercom.

“MANDATORY LOCKDOWN! NOW! NOW! NOW!”

I know right away that this isn’t just a drill. Anita bursts into frightened sobs. I grab her hand. Forget about orderly fashion; we run. We hide in a storage closet in the band room. There are twenty girls in all. Ms. Fletcher, our assistant choir director comes in, her voice quiet, but stern.

“Don’t say anything,” she whispers.

The room is dead silent. No one breathes. When a room full of middle school girls is so quiet that you can hear a pin drop, something is very wrong.

We hear thumps in the distance. Anita lets out a whimper.

All I can think of is my family. Natalia, Dad, Mom, Brodie. I curl up into a fetal position. The worst thing is the silence. The dark. The fact that I have no idea what’s happening. The fact that not even the teachers, the adults in charge, know what’s going on.

We sit for what feels like hours when sirens blare.

Ms. Fletcher peeks through the window.

“Don’t say anything, girls, please stay quiet. Don’t make any noise. Don’t talk.”

Tears begin to cloud my vision. I fold up, hugging my knees close to me.

What does it feel like to die? Will I ever see sunshine again? Will I ever get to tell my family how much I love them?

“Please, don’t move. . . .” Ms. Fletcher murmurs. Her voice is hardly a whisper.

We sit for over an hour, trembling and crying. Then suddenly, the lights go back on. We slowly walk back to our class, dazed by the fluorescent white. We sit back on the risers and learn about how to build a five chord.

“So you see how the notes can be switched around . . .”

Just like it never happened.

It wouldn’t be until we watched the news tonight that we learned the police were chasing an armed robbery suspect through the neighborhood directly across the street from our school. What kind of world do we live in?

Wednesday, November 9

Today Natalia is officially six. The living room is scattered with wrapping paper and string, and Natalia carries around a toy horse in each hand looking like she just might fall over with excitement. It’s always so cool to see the way she smiles when she opens a Wonder Pets DVD.

“How old are you, Natalia?” Dad leans down and kisses her forehead.

“Four,” she says, in the same way that we taught her two years ago. When some things get drilled into her head, they’re stuck for good.

“No, you’re six.”

“Sex . . .”

“How old are you?”

“Four.” She smiles at us, showing her pointy teeth. I still have the scar on my chest where she bit through my dress three years ago. I’d grabbed her to keep her from running into the street.

“No, Natalia, you’re six.”

“Four!” She’s frustrated now. “Madre Santa!” she shouts.

I love it when my little sister swears in Spanish.

Friday, November 11

Many teens seem to walk head first into everything—that is to say, they lead with their chin. This aggressive attitude comes from standing with the head jutted forward, shoulders slumped, and eyes focused on the ground.

This definitely sums up the posture at my school.

I walk (Betty Cornell style) into my science class and see that Ms. Cordova is ready to lecture. I pull out a pencil from my “sling” (which once served as a backpack), and I straighten my spine and stand up as tall as I can. My vertebrae pop and I wince.

All of a sudden, Carlos Sanchez and his buddy Pablo come running in from the hall. Pablo snatches the pencil from my desk, and the two of them begin an epic sword fight behind Ms. Cordova’s back. They spring to and fro, dancing around, attacking each other with the sharpened points. The class cheers them on. I realize that Pablo isn’t going to give back my stolen property, so I march up to him, head high. I nimbly grab the pencil from his hand just as he’s about to make a brave thrust at Carlos Sanchez.

Then, I remember my manners. I look him in the eyes. “Thank you,” I say, and walk back to my seat.

One of the worst faults most of us have is that we do not stand up. Even when we are in a vertical position in relation to the ground, we still tend to sit down. Our rib cages are slumped into our waistline and our shoulders are bent forward. One way to correct this habit is to concentrate on your rib cage.

Some of the other kids begin to stare at me. Slowly, as if intimidated, they sit up straighter and glare at me for making them feel slouchy.

Three cheers for positive peer pressure.

Monday, November 14

“Guess what, Maya.” Kenzie is flushed with excitement. “I got a boyfriend!”

“What?”

“Yep,” she beams.

“Who?” I ask.

“Angel. We were in PE with him in sixth grade.”

“I remember. The slouchy one.” Betty would not approve of Angel’s posture. “Is he nice?” I ask, thinking of my (generally sweet) nerdy crushes. Ethan is both kind and intelligent.

“He’s got a mustache.”

I bite my lip. Come on, be a good friend. “Okay,” I say. “Just, don’t let him do anything to you, all right? You deserve so much better than that.”

“Never,” she promises.

The bus comes to a stop and I stand up. She gives me a quick hug. I force a smile, but I’m not sure how long I can handle this new, bubbly, affectionate Kenzie.

Tuesday, November 15

Today I take the leap. Today I put away the pads. Today I join the legions of tampon-wearing women all over the developed world.

In Brownsville tampons are seen as immoral. So is using birth control. What I don’t understand is that teen pregnancy is generally accepted.

It’s kind of scary using tampons for the first time, but Mom has always been very open with her information. She tells me everything that she had to find out by herself, because her family didn’t talk about these kinds of things.

“When using a pad, place it in the middle,” she’d told me when I started using them. “And for goodness sakes, put the adhesive side down.”

“Don’t ever flush pads down the toilet.”

“And I can’t stress this enough: after you put a tampon in, take the applicator out!”

Growing up listening to horror stories can really mess with your head, but it’s better to know than to have to learn the hard way.

Poor Mom.

Wednesday, November 16

At church, I sit with my friend Liliana, with whom I’ve been close since we moved to Brownsville a little over two years ago. She was my first best friend, before Kenzie. She is the kind of person who works so hard to do the right thing, will watch out for you, and keep you company if you’re feeling lonely. Since we don’t go to the same school, we’d spend as much time as we could together at church, laughing and swapping secrets. But we’ve drifted apart as so many friends do. This doesn’t stop me from wanting to be near her, though.

We sit together and sort through canned goods for a food drive. Ethan, my dashing, darling crush, walks over. My heart almost stops.

He smiles at Liliana.

He laughs and makes jokes—for her.

I try to tell him about my school, but it comes out like nonsense. I make a joke, and he doesn’t laugh. Liliana says the same thing, and he’s practically rolling on the ground.

I sit staring at the floor. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s happening.

At first all I feel is numbness. Then hurt. Loads and loads of hurt.

“What’s wrong?” Mom asks when I get in the car.

“I think Ethan likes Liliana.”

She winces and nods. We’re silent until we get home. Dad is sitting in the living room. “Maya’s having boy troubles,” she blurts. I shoot her a warning look and she gets quiet.

“It’s no big deal. He’s a thirteen-year-old boy.” I try to make it seem like it’s nothing, but make an excuse to run to my room as soon as I can.

A few minutes later Dad comes upstairs and sits on the side of my bed. He tries to make me feel better by telling me “when-I-was-a-kid” stories. I keep my voice light and laugh at all his jokes. I can see that he’s relieved so I kiss him good night.

But when he walks out the door, I cry myself to sleep. The word crush is not ironic. It’s the truth.

Maya’s Popularity Tip

When the guy you’ve adored for two years likes someone else . . . well, I’m not sure on this one . . .

Thursday, November 17

I do my best to hold my head high as I walk to the bus stop. (“It may seem like a little thing, but an ungainly walk can be the ruin of even the most attractive girl,” says Betty). Since I am definitely not the most attractive, I guess I’ll just have to work extra hard on my posture. I don’t have much else going for me. It turns out I’m not the only one having love problems.

“Mornin’,” I say to Kenzie as I sit behind her.

She raises her eyebrows and looks up from her paranormal romance novel. “Okay.”

“So, how’s your new boyfriend?”

She snaps her raspberry gum, “We broke up yesterday.”

“Oh.” I make a sympathetic face, but actually I’m relieved. I missed the old Kenzie.

“He wants me back, though.”

“He has a mustache.”

“I know! What the hell was I thinking going out with him?”

We giggle for a while then get down to our usual discussion about whether or not swear words from the Bible can be used in school assignments. It’s fantastic to have her back again.

 . . . . . . .

It’s the A-Honor-Roll Party during ninth period. It sounds cool because we get to miss class, but it’s just a bunch of nerds who sit around and eat junk food. I pick up a slice of pizza and walk around the room for a little while, unsure of where to sit, reminded yet again that I don’t belong anywhere.

“Yo, Maya, you can sit with us if you really want to,” a choir girl says. Surprised, I join her group. I don’t understand their inside jokes or know the people they are referring to, so I sit quietly and stare down at my plate.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see another girl, alone. Everyone else nearby has scooted away, leaving her with nearly half an empty table. She doesn’t seem to mind though, and eats quietly.

I want to sit with her.

Suddenly, my heart won’t be still. Will I offend the girls I’m with by walking away to sit with someone who’s obviously ranked lower than them on the Popularity Scale?

I take a deep breath.

A deep breath will show you how much you can bring your whole chest area up into the air.

Not what I meant, Betty.

I walk over to her. “Hi there!” I say before I can talk myself out of it. “What’s your name?” The words ring with a confidence that surprises me.

She looks up. “Donna,” she says, as if she’s unsure.

“It’s nice to meet you, Donna.” I smile, waiting for her to ask my name, but she seems kind of shocked. I sit down across from her. “What grade are you in this year?”

“Sixth.”

“That’s cool, how do you like it so far?” I continue. “It’s quite a change from elementary to middle school. But you seem to be coping with it well.”

“Okay.”

“So what’s your favorite subject, Donna?”

She doesn’t pause to think. “English. I love to write.”

“No way, that’s my favorite subject! I love writing, too!”

Her eyes light up as she tells me about her favorite author and recent short stories she’s written. The bell rings and she and I get up.

“What’s your name?” she finally asks, looking up at me.

“Maya,” I say.

She repeats it as if she wants to remember it.

“It was really cool meeting you, Donna,” I say. “See you later!”

I leave for choir practice and watch her disappear in the opposite direction. I think I see her smile.

Monday, November 28

It’s Monday and it’s back to the early-morning routine. I’m forced to wake up, brush my hair, and correct my posture (which has actually gotten pretty good). When we get to school, Kenzie and I head to the library.

“Hey, Maya. Why are you walking funny?”

“I’m not walking funny.”

“Yes, you are.”

“This is how people should walk.”

“No . . .” A look of realization dawns on her face. “I get it! You’re trying to make your boobs look bigger!”

“Am not!”

She does a quick imitation of me with boobs thrust forward and laughs. “Bigger boobs, bigger boobs.”

I sigh. This is what having good posture can do to you.

Tuesday, November 29

Apparently Mom tried to have “The Talk” with Brodie today. He was really upset by something he heard at school, so rather than wait until Dad came home, she took the lead. This rare rite of passage is usually reserved for father/son camping trips, but Dad’s hardly ever home these days. He works crazy hours in his office to finish his next book and hopefully open an escape hatch for our family, one that will get us away from FBI drug busts in the school parking lot.

Mom: Do you have any questions about anything?

Brodie: Am I in trouble?

Mom: No, it’s just that I want to talk to you about life and stuff . . .

Brodie: (plugging ears) I don’t want to know! I don’t want to know! (Bolts from the couch and hides in the bathroom)

Maybe we should just drop the boy off at a farm for a week or two. He’ll learn everything he needs to know.

Wednesday, November 30

Natalia has a horseback riding lesson today. She’s had a few and loves them, despite the fact that when we point to a horse she says, “Cow. Moo.” I decide to tag along.

As we drive out to the ranch, I think over this past month and Betty Cornell’s modeling tips. Here’s the summation of my findings:

• Nobody at school cares about posture.
• I got very few comments about my walk (other than from Kenzie and Carlos Sanchez).
• I don’t feel any more popular this month.
• Therefore, maybe sitting up straight doesn’t really matter?

Mom pulls into the gate and I unbuckle Natalia, who’s bursting with excitement. She’s flapping her hands so hard I’m afraid she might take flight. She smiles her biggest and asks, “Ride? Ride?”

I hug her and she runs in her rose-colored cowboy boots to the stable where she goes to brush the horse, Simon, before putting on her pink helmet. Simon is the color of old socks that have been washed several thousand times. He drools, has no teeth, but he’s gentle with Nat, and that’s what matters.

Natalia and Simon

Mom and the trainer, Miss Stacy, help Natalia lead the horse into the enclosed riding area. I sit outside on one of the rusted lawn chairs and think sad thoughts. I can’t believe this posture thing has amounted to nothing. I’m so distracted that I almost don’t hear the conversation going on next to me.

Miss Stacy is telling Mom about the horse shows where her students compete.

“You know, the reason that kids don’t win,” she says, “is because they’re lazy.”

“How so?” Mom asks.

“They slouch. I’m constantly telling them that they have to sit up straight to win, but they don’t listen.” She watches my little sister circle around the ring. “Natalia has a fantastic stance.”

She’s right. Natalia always stands tall. I watch as she raises her arms and squeals with joy. She sits straight, head held high, showing the world how fantastic she is.

“Posture is everything,” I hear Miss Stacy say.

I smile, and in spite of my dreary attitude, I draw myself up, tummy tucked in, and show off my bosom.

Keep your muscles in trim and your body in line so you need never fear how you look.

Maybe posture isn’t such a waste of time after all.