Party Dress
Annelise Hillmann
You’re changing, says the doctor, and the teacher, and the saleswoman at Victoria’s Secret.
At the beginning of last school year, you had no hair on your legs, smooth as the headless Barbies’ on your bookshelf. Without warning, hairs pushed to the surface–little sprouts that turned the barren field into a dark forest.
You’re becoming a woman! your mother says with glee.
Though you are mostly relieved your mother is happy for once, some of the changes do please you. What before resembled mosquito bites now clearly resemble breasts, granting you access to an entirely new section in the ladies department, and beyond that, social power.
For the first time, ever, you are noticed.
At school you let your seashell pink bra straps slip below your shirt sleeves and dangle there, brazen. The other girls marvel at this pronouncement of maturity. You are ahead of them by a mile. Your tragic forgettableness, which plagued you since kindergarten, is forgotten. For the first time, your homeroom teacher asks you by name to pass out the worksheets. Until then, you weren’t even sure he knew your name.
Of course this attracts the boys’ attention too, who have been experimenting themselves for years under quilted blankets. The boys linger in the scent of your rose petal deodorant, which you apply reverently after gym class, like Chanel No. 5.
Who were you talking to? says your best friend.
The boys asked me about going to the pool.
Fat chance they’d want to see you in a bathing suit, she says. Look at you.
Your balloon of hope pops.
In the girl’s locker room, as you brush through your hair, you discover two small bumps near your temples. Pimples on your scalp? Your mother didn’t warn you of this, but how could a mother truly warn a daughter?
Lately, you try to sleep, and when you close your eyes, all you see is a bronze statue of a she-wolf suckling two human boys, remembered from a field trip to the history museum last year. You lingered while the group moved on. Alone with the wolf, gazing up at the teats, you thought, doesn’t it hurt to feed like that?
Pain is to be expected, your mother says, Pain now and pain later.
This is not reassuring.
Everyone changes, it’s only natural, says the health teacher in front of a large diagram of the uterus.
You scratch yourself with a pencil where your tender armpits have become itchy and then make a note in your spiral-bound: “hormones.”
No one else in your grade is experiencing the changes yet–or at least, that you can tell. Maybe under their long trousers the boys are mutating, too. Perhaps you see an errant tusk among the class, perhaps it’s your imagination.
Maybe your ex-best-friend, who you haven’t spoken with since the start of school, is experiencing the same. How strange it is to mourn someone not yet dead.
Meanwhile: your mother says it will come soon. She arms you with the necessary provisions. It is like waiting for the first hurricane of the season, thrilling and frightening all at once.
You put up the storm windows, ready the drinking water. Your Maine coon Nosferatu senses the change and lies on your abdomen all night. You descend into the inkiness and dream of womanhood, a foggy labyrinth with many corners around which bull-men might creep.
In the shower you notice that your body hair isn’t just arriving, it’s multiplying. Thick coarse timbers fan you, tip to tail, more hair than you’ve seen on any adult, and impossible to shave fast enough. Nosferatu starts to paw at your arms in camaraderie. Your nails are thicker too, thick and curling like Fritos.
The next morning, as you braid your hair, you spot two downy mounds peeking out from the top of your head. Certainly not pimples.
Perhaps a few well-placed braids could hide, perhaps some sparkly lipgloss will distract. How tragic that fishtails were never your forte.
Now that your bra straps are old news, your ex-best-friend chitters with Kendra and Michelle at the sight of a pad hidden in your pencil case.
Ew, at least we’re not that lame, says Kendra.
Obviously I use tampons, says Michelle, Bet she also shaves her toes.
Your ex-best-friend opens her mouth. And just nods.
This burns more than hot wax. You eat lunch in the bathroom with a wet face. From your mother, a note: So proud xo.
You are becoming a problem.
You can’t fit in the tiny desks at school anymore. They bring you a bigger, woman-sized desk–anything for a lady, says the maintenance man. So there you sit in the back of the classroom, at your big desk, while all your friends pass sticky notes to each other about radio songs or celebrity crushes, idle things you can no longer understand. Kendra pretends to be you and slits her wrists.
Blood.
On your underwear.
In the girls’ bathroom stall.
When you look down to see the blood on your underwear in the girls’ bathroom stall, it doesn’t feel like changing. It feels like death.
It looks like death. How many squares of toilet paper would it take to stop a flood? How many Band-Aids to stem a mortal wound? You almost cry out for the nurse, until you realize that this–this is the change you’ve been awaiting. The diluvian event.
By luck, the blood has not seeped through your jumper. You don’t have to tie a sweatshirt around your waist or rely on another girl’s help. But you do have to waddle to your locker to retrieve the emergency provisions and slink back.
With the first pad in place, you feel like a big baby wearing a big diaper of cotton gauze between your big furry legs. Never have you felt less ladylike.
As you consider yourself in the bathroom mirror, you remember what your mother said, the mirror lies often, you’ll see. You’re just an eleven-year-old girl.
Yet this mirror says you are an eleven-year-old girl with two dark horns and black fur and long serrated nails and teeth that stick out past pink gums.
That night, your mother cooks all your favorites: spaghetti bolognese, dino nuggets, loaded potatoes. And your father brings out the nice napkins. They applaud you when you walk in, as you set down your schoolbag.
You eat together, and it is difficult, with your new nails. You knock the water glass over a few times. Your parents only smile.
They then bring out a cake that says WELCOME TO WOMANHOOD.
Congratulations, dear, says your father.
We are so proud, says your mother.
This is so embarrassing. Your face is red as you blow out the candles. The frosting is melting down the sides. Your ex-best-friend will hear about all of this tomorrow. Except, she won’t.
We have a surprise, says your mother giddily.
Now that you’re a real woman, you’ve got to look the part, says your father.
Your mother opens the hall closet and retrieves a limp thing, fleshy, what could be a deflated costume from Party City.
Put this on, honey, your mother says, I’ve waited so long to give you this.
In the bathroom, you stuff each hairy limb into the suit. You struggle to pull it over your horns and break the zipper on your broad back. Breathless, sausaged, you are a gorilla in a human suit.
Now the mirror shows a woman in black tights with a white polka dot dress that is so familiar–it’s exactly what your mother wears! You can’t breathe through the small nose holes. It is only possible to peer out.
When you emerge some minutes later, your parents cheer, their joy like church bells. Nosferatu scatters, terrified.
You sit back down in your place at the table and try to work the thick vinyl around your fingers to pick up the fork.
Look at our little girl, says your mother to your father.
Look how much she’s changed, says your father to your mother.
You try again with the fork but the noodles are surely evading you. Your mother lays a hand on your squeaky shoulder.
You may not like it now, she says, but you’ll get used to it, dear. We all do.