Heads of the Colored People(16)
My whole body burned that day, but I didn’t cry in front of them. I never cried in front of them. I pretended not to hear the whispers and snickers, and Emily pretended with me. We ate lunch with our mouths quiet and our eyes tapping code. “Don’t feel too bad,” Emily blinked. “Everyone knows Christinia’s a jerk.”
“Easy for you to say, since she never bothers you,” I blinked back.
With her mother’s help, when Emily got home, she would wonder why her only friend was the sweaty black girl with the weird name. Tomorrow, we would pretend it had never happened. Christinia would utter the nickname Sweatima, which would spread like wildfire across the lockers and hallway, under the guise of saying hello. Then she’d move on to bothering Renee or someone else for a while.
? ? ?
Biniam says to get into Pavanamuktasana, Wind-Removing Pose. He is attractive, maybe gay. Some of the white women in the class preen for his attention, showing off or pretending to need help. If he is interested in them, he never lets on. His facial expression, a vague smile, does not change. He treats the new woman perhaps a little more gingerly than the rest of us.
? ? ?
The summer I turned fifteen my body would not stop bleeding. I had “accidents” at school even when I wasn’t on my period, one of which culminated in a crimson stain on the back of my shorts and Christinia pointing and laughing as I walked—as naturally as I could—from our table in the cafeteria to the girls’ bathroom with Emily’s sweatshirt tied around my waist to hide the mess and Emily walking behind me to shield me from anyone else’s view.
My mother asked gently, but with fear in her eyes, “Have you done anything with anyone? Anyone?”
In an algorithm that made sense only to my mother and grandmother, any physical contact with a boy was inherently sexual, and any sexual contact was fecund. Thus hand-holding led to penetration, which led to pregnancy, which sometimes resulted in miscarriages—the only explanations they could imagine for my abnormal bleeding—in the same way that a dream about fish meant someone in the family was pregnant.
“No,” I repeated three times before her face softened, and two times to the female OB-GYN who asked me the same question, once with my mother in the room and once after she asked my mom to step out for a moment.
I was terrified of having a pap smear after reading about them in Seventeen. I couldn’t imagine what investigating a pregnancy entailed.
“I haven’t even held hands with anyone,” I said to the doctor. She had smooth brown skin and long black hair. My visible shame seemed to settle the matter for her; with my virginity established, she could treat me like a person instead of just a body.
When she called my mother back into the room, she said, “Fatima’s a good girl. I think this is related to her diet. It doesn’t seem like the vegetarian thing is sustainable the way she’s doing it. She needs more green leafy vegetables.” Then to me, she said, “Are you eating enough?”
In high school, on a good day, when she decided we were friends, Christinia sat across from me in the cafeteria. Emily flicked her brown hair and exchanged an eye roll with me, but despite the blood incident, I wasn’t anxious around Christinia anymore, though I was still anxious more generally. I had lengthened out into somewhat tall and something like pretty, but I still couldn’t get a date at my school. Christinia had grown from baby fat to a more mature obesity, but she seemed smaller in high school, in the bigger crowd. She sat with me and Emily and some of our friends sporadically; she had so few friends of her own that I almost felt sorry for her. I began to view her as a benign growth with the ability to flare up every now and then but with no real power.
I proceeded to eat my standard lunch of Funyuns and Diet Coke, making each little onion ring last for five bites. I wasn’t exactly vegetarian for health reasons, and despite the gynecologist’s advice, I don’t think I ate a green vegetable until my twenties.
“They say people who become vegetarians young are just hiding eating disorders,” Christinia said, taking a bite of something brown and wet that came on a Styrofoam plate.
“Who says that?” I asked, looking at Emily.
“Medical studies. My mom said.” Christinia slopped a bite of the brown meat and sauce.
“You and your mom might try eating less meat, or just less,” I said, and Emily and I dragged out our laughter, consciously, until it spread across the table to the other girls. I prepared for a confrontation with Christinia, a sequel to our previous fights, but it never came. I winced when I saw the quick flash of pain in her eyes and watched her walk away from the table.
? ? ?
The new woman shows surprising balance when it’s time to transition from Warrior Three to the standing split. She does it with an effortless lift of her right leg.
? ? ?
The summer I turned nineteen, I no longer needed my fingers or a spoon to empty myself after eating. I could not retain big meals. With the hyperhidrosis under control, my body found other ways to purge; it learned how to punish itself.
? ? ?
“Forearm stand,” Biniam says, “but only if it is part of your practice.” He looks toward the new woman. “You can practice Three-Legged Dog or move to a wall so I can spot you.” Some of the women in the class begin to spread their arms in front of them, like cats leaning back for a stretch. I have managed forearm stand once at home, without the aid of the wall, and a few times in Biniam’s class with the wall and his support. I don’t know what has gotten into me today, why I am more competitive than usual. I prep for the pose, pushing my weight into my forearms, tighten my core, lift one leg a foot or two off the ground until it hovers high above, bring the other to join it in the air.