We Run the Tides(5)
On the day of the filming my mother drives Svea, Maria Fabiola, Faith, Julia, and me to the gallery after school. She has brought me a new, freshly pressed uniform, but this embarrasses me, so I don’t change into it. But Maria Fabiola, who spilled mustard on her uniform that day at lunch, says she’d like to use it.
When we get to the gallery, half the furniture has been moved to make way for lights and cameras. My spice cabinet hasn’t been touched. Arlene has ironed her hair so it’s exceptionally straight today, and my dad is wearing his silver tie, his best tie, even though he’s not going to be on camera.
Maria Fabiola takes the hanger with my newly pressed blue uniform skirt and my white middy into the bathroom and changes. When she comes out, I can’t help but stare. The middy, which is loose on me, is tight on her. I usually wear a white T-shirt under my middy but she’s not wearing one. Nor is she wearing a bra.
The director, who isn’t dressed up at all and doesn’t have a director’s chair (a disappointment) tells us it’s time for the establishing shot. We go outside the building and see a camera has been set up. Faith, Julia, Svea, Maria Fabiola, and I are supposed to skip in front of the gallery like we’re heading home from school. It occurs to me that we were instructed to wear our uniforms because this will make it look like the gallery is in an upscale part of town, a part of the city where there are private schools. The reality is that there aren’t any private schools within walking distance of Joseph & Joseph.
We skip in front of the entranceway in one direction. Then we walk back to the starting point and skip again. After the third take the director talks to an assistant and the assistant talks to my dad and then my dad whispers with my mom. I watch their mouths moving but can’t make out what they’re saying. Finally my mom comes over to me and my friends. “This time, girls, let’s try it without the skipping. Oh, and Maria Fabiola, the director doesn’t want everyone looking so similar. Can you put on your uniform sweater?” Maria Fabiola does as instructed and then we walk in front of the gallery two more times.
“And . . . cut!” the director yells. He doesn’t use a megaphone, but still my friends and I find it exciting that he’s using official movie language.
We’re thanked and told this episode of the show won’t air for a few months, but not even this delay can dampen our moods. My mom drives us home, and we’re all hyper, including Svea, who’s happy because my friends are paying attention to her and Faith’s even braiding her pretty hair.
That night in the kitchen I ask my mother what the whispering on set was about. “Oh, that,” my mother says. “I don’t remember.”
“Yes, you do,” I say.
“Well, don’t tell your friends, but the director thought that Maria Fabiola’s appearance was distracting.”
“Distracting?”
“That’s the word he used,” my mother says.
“Huh,” I say, trying to act casual.
That night, I do a two-way call and I inform Julia and Maria Fabiola that the director thought Maria Fabiola was “distracting.” Maria Fabiola starts laughing and I join her. Julia is silent and then tries to act like she’s not the slightest bit jealous.
“Sorry I wasn’t laughing before,” Julia says, “but I was distracted.”
I hear Maria Fabiola’s bracelets jingling and I know she’s running her fingers through her long, long hair.
4
I am at Faith’s house the night her father kills himself. All four of us are there. It’s Faith’s birthday and we go to the Alexandria Theatre on Geary to watch The Breakfast Club. We watch the movie with rapt attention and with glee. When we leave the theater we are delirious. “Don’t you forget about me,” we say to each other over and over again. We want all the boys from the film to pay attention to us. We want to want. We want to love. We want to want love. We are on the precipice of having real boyfriends, of making out with them. We know this. We can feel this urge pulsating through our bodies, but we don’t know what to call it—we won’t call it desire—or how to express it to each other or to ourselves. And so we continue to laugh and sing “Don’t you forget about me” until Faith’s mother arrives at the theater in a ridiculous red raincoat, made more ridiculous by the fact that it’s not raining. She puts her finger to her lips and says, “Shhh.”
Faith’s birthday dinner is at Al’s Place on Clement Street. Faith’s father, who is handsome and at least a dozen years younger than Faith’s mom, joins us after work. He orders a steak and what on TV they call a stiff drink. Faith’s mother orders a diet soft drink, which she sips through a straw, from which she hasn’t successfully removed the paper wrapper. A piece of white paper sticks to her lip for half the meal. When she excuses herself to use the restroom, Faith’s father orders another stiff drink. Faith’s father asks us each a few questions and tries hard to get my name and Julia’s name straight. He remembers Maria Fabiola’s name easily. Everyone remembers Maria Fabiola. Her looks have recently become troublingly arresting. Her body has blossomed more, and this has gifted her face an expression of constant surprise, as though even she can’t believe her good fortune.
We return to Faith’s house after dinner and a sad slice of cake. Faith gives us a tour because Maria Fabiola hasn’t been inside before. “Never?” Julia asks. “I have a lot of after-school activities,” Maria Fabiola replies. She and I have the same number of after-school activities. We started taking ballet together at the Olenska School of Ballet when puberty began to take over our bodies, making us clumsy and laminating our curves with fat. Not that our instructor, Madame Sonya, thinks there’s much hope for us—she often quotes Isadora Duncan, who said that American bodies aren’t made for ballet. Still, while the dance classes haven’t done much for me, they have helped define Maria Fabiola’s figure. In addition to ballet, we go to dancing school every other Wednesday. All of us at Spragg go to ballroom dancing school because that’s where you meet the boys who go to the all-boys’ schools.