The Importance of The Innocent: A Portrait of The Modern Girl

Part 1: MOXY

Love / Lust / Sadness / Truth

The Importance of The Innocent:

A Portrait of The Modern Girl

A Short Story

A girl prances towards her seat. Blue and off-white outfit. A peacock. She sits down. The teacher is spouting information, as is her job and her right. America. Freedom. Hardly a problem there. But her process (as it was given to her when she signed the contract) is mired by distracted kids, staring at that female peacock. The teacher asks them to stop, but the girl does not care. She sprawls out, accidentally kicking her books off the desk. Waste of money, these kids. That's how the teacher feels. They think they have the freedom to coast through life. They think they have the right to live the high life. They do not care about her, or what she stands for. She calls out the peacock by name. The pretty bird blushes and apologizes, and the flock around her pretends to distance itself. The teacher hates her job. She knows not why her husband can put up with it all. Maybe he knows something she does not? Maybe it was that pay raise for only certain kinds of teachers, or that change in the system a while back, or the policy shift... That girl won't shut up! Now she's pulling down on her shirt collar, and it's not even clear if there's anything under there. That's it! The peacock wants to fly away with the flock when the bell tolls. Not now!

"Moxy, a word with you."

"Yeah? I need to catch the bus Mrs. Huxley, so please make it quick."

"That can wait young lady, this is important... I ask you to listen to me. From one woman to another."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Have you looked at yourself lately? I mean, have you considered your appearance?"

"Yeah. Sometimes I think I care too much about it."

"Really, is that so? Well, Miss Elliot, you are very explicitly breaking the school dress code right now."

"Heh, really? Are you for real? This is why I'm here after class?"

"Yes, of course I'm serious."

"Ha, well then, how do you figure I'm breaking it?"

"Look at yourself. You wear the lowest-­cut shirt possible, the shortest skirts, just the all­-around skimpiest outfits I've ever seen! That's what I meant by you considering your appearance. Do you think you're pretty?"

"Yes, I do Ma'am."

"I don't think so. You sell yourself. The way you dress, I won't be surprised if you wear a bikini to school someday."

"Well, I was planning on wearing my new lingerie for spirit day. It is indeed pyjama day this year right?"

"Ugh. Why do you do this to yourself, girl? Why do you think this behavior will get you friends? Again, this is a question from a woman to a woman. I want to understand why, Moxy. Why do you make yourself into this immature plaything?"

"Have you ever been the girl everyone looks at in high school? You know, the prom queen type?"

"No, I loved to read and write. Those people never appealed to me."

"Then you will never understand me, Ma'am. If you were never that girl... Never mind, I'm wasting my breath."

"Young lady, don't walk out that door! You need to change into something more respectable for someone who's just turned eighteen."

"Au­-revoir Madame!"

I slam the door shut and angrily strut down the hallway, unbuttoning my shirt a little more. "Merde, what an annoying fille, c'est tres stupid!" I say in my French accent, which intermittently blends with my English. My father is a French businessman and my mother is American, so I was exposed to a bit of both worlds when I was a very little girl, not a teen with the same rich parents, not someone who everyone stares at and lusts over. Oh, back when I was little, life was so good, and oh it was so much less mangled, less of a tangled mess of words which now only work to overlap upon each other like waves, ever-­rambling on like a text, keys slapping on a typewriter or thumbs tapping a glass screen if you want to be specific. It wears me out, all the pain inflicted by time---the time I've spent pouring into myself, like how I pour the liquor. I'm too smart for my own good sometimes, honestly. I can't tell you how many anxiety attacks I've had because of it, how many times I've had to hide it, this mangle of mine.