Pictures of June

Chapter Two

Ma's sitting in the hard-backed chair in the kitchen with her mending, holding her project only an inch or two from her face. When she hears me come in, she smiles at me beautifically through her black cat-eye glasses.

"Hi, Caroline! How's your day been?"

The name makes me cringe; Ma notices. 

"Pop around?" I ask.

"He's in the living room, but it would do you good not to bother him right now."

When Ma is on edge like this I know Pop has been hitting the bottle. I've seen in pictures that Ma was a beautiful woman once but after twenty years together Pop's shrunk her down and worn lines between her eyebrows.

I decide to retreat to my bedroom, but as I walk past the living room doorway, "That you, Caroline?"

I freeze, like maybe he won't make me stay if I turn as still as tree. "Yeah, Pop?"

"C'mere."

I drag my feet to the living room. The records are still scattered across the rug. "Yeah?"

Pop was handsome once, Ma tells me. I can't see it. He reminds me of tree bark - rough and unfinished. His eyes are blue but the whites are milky yellow. He hasn't shaved today. 

"This you?" he barks, sweeping his hand at the scattered records on the floor. "Clean this shit up, Caroline Ann. You expect me to do it for you?"

I can tell I'm getting mad because my hands are shaking. I rein it in. "No, Pop. Sorry."

I go for the door.

"Where in the hell do you think you're going?"

I stop in my tracks. "I thought we were done."

His eyes flash dangerously so I avert mine. "We're done talking when I say we're done talking."

There's a splash of a wine stain on the carpet. I look at that instead of Pop. "Sorry," I mumble.

"God, can't you speak up?" he demands. "You're just like your mother."

I don't say that when I was little Ma did speak up. I don't say that I used to climb into their bed and feel Ma's tears soaking into my scalp on the nights Pop would fly out in a drunken rage. I don't say that the women in this house learn to be a soft-spoken people.

I don't say, I especially don't say, that I'm not really a woman. That there was some mix-up somewhere that gave me a boy's brain in a girl's body. That I am a more soft-spoken person in order to survive.

What I do say is, "Okay, Pop."

He softens microscopically so I take my opportunity and fall to my knees to put the records all away in their crates. I linger on Elvis and ignore the pang in my chest. 

"Like that one, do you?"

"I did," I answer, finishing my tidying an straightening up. There's a long silence while I wait for him to excuse me.

"Where were you?"

"Oh, um. Kitchener. Record shop." I point at The Chordettes that I've set aside on the table. "I broke Ma's."

"Shoulda left the damn thing broken," he chuckles, and I have to actively remind myself not to hate him. "If I have to hear 'Mister Sandman' one more goddamn time I might just flip my lid."

I laugh, but it comes out weak and artificial. Miles pops out from behind a curtain and mewls. Both Pop and I turn to give him the attention he's begging for.

"Mouthy bastard," I grumble. 

"Caroline!" Pop barks, and I nearly jump out of my dungarees. "That's unladylike!"

And I can't help it, I swear - it comes barreling out of me like there's a freight train in my throat. "Well, I'm no chick, Pop!"

His eyes are all dangerous and he tenses like he might haul his drunken ass right out of the armchair and rattle my brain around in my skull. He breathes in and pinches the bridge of his nose between two fingers.

"We've talked about this. Jesus Christ, Caroline." He shakes his head. "I Think your mother and I might have to revisit that electro-whatever therapy concept--"

My blood turns to ice. "No."

"No?" Pop raises a brow. "Then can this silly fantasy. It's sick. If you can't behave, I know they've seen some success with that therapy. I'll be damned if any child of mine falls into one of those sexual perversions."

"Pop--"

"I wasn't done," he adds acidly. "You will finish school and you will marry a good man and--"

"And become a submissive housewife?"

I think I'm close to tears, but I can't tell because my head is hot and throbbing and I'm shaking all over.

"Your mother did, and she's doing just fine. You'll do exactly what I've told you to do or we'll make an appointment with that doctor."

I can feel Ma's eyes on me in my peripheral. And I don't say to Pop that their first ten years of marriage was fight after fight until Ma's energy ran dry and she gave up on him. I don't say that Ma's weekly bridge games with some nice ladies from town don't have any other ladies there and instead it's the plumber from one town over who calls Ma when his own wife goes away to visit her mother. I don't say that Pop's got illegitimate twin daughters that aren't yet three. 

My self-preservation urges me to say, "Okay."

Pop grins, chipped tooth catching the lamplight. "Atta girl. Head on upstairs."

I'm shaking every step. Pop's walked all over me again, and I feel flushed. Miles darts up ahead of me and runs to my bedroom. I push the door open. My room is awfully sterile, since Ma spends all day at home cleaning and mending. The walls are white and the quilt on my bed is green and faded. My record player sits dejectedly and empty since I didn't bring any records upstairs but I don't know what I would even want to listen to right now if I did.

Only in the privacy of my bedroom do I let myself think about Kitty. I know I'll never again in my life find a chick ready to date some boy in a girl's body - Kitty was a rare creature. Nellie introduced us in the fall of '56 since she's one of the only queens at school who doesn't mind much that I'm trying to be a boy. Without Kitty, I've got no one to spill all my stories anymore. No one to sing Elvis to.

Without Kitty I'm going to be awfully lonesome.