The new house smells like mould and cigarette smoke. Sharla from the pet store and some Mennonite ladies came over and cleaned for twelve hours straight. And it still stinks.
Sharla kept on gagging and talking about how dirty the house was, how much it stank. Wrinkling her nose as she scrubbed. My mom made me clean in the same hallway as her for awhile.
I know the house was dirty, but Sharla was rude to go on about it, I thought. Mom had already gone through enough turmoil and didn’t need her predicament pointed out. It’s funny how girls and ladies always do that to each other. We poke each other in the places that hurt the most. . .
But those Mennonite women sure are lovely to be around. They speak only gentle words and never gossip, sometimes they sing together as one while they work. They bring large dishes of food when they come to help out. They all wear their hair back in loose braids, with a thin black veil cascading over their crowns and held on with bobby pins. They all have pretty bushy eyebrows, and under those they have a secret smile in their eyes, and I want to find out where it comes from.
At least nowadays, we don’t have to go to the Pentecostal church anymore. Those folks were always waving their hands in the air, crying and moaning and acting weird. Sometimes they would even get up and dance around in the aisles. I always felt like I had to go down for altar call because I’d been so bad the week before, drinking in Pammy’s basement or french kissing boys.
At camp two summers ago, they had altar calls every night and we’d all go up crying and moaning about our sins. The adults milled around encouraging us to speak in tongues. I thought I did once, but I was really just forcing out some jibber-jabber because of all the pressure. I thought my head was going to explode with all the moaning and emotion going on around me, and I knew I just had to feel bad about something, everything, so that I could be saved from whatever it was.
I never went back there again! Partly because the amount of evangelicalism just didn’t click with me. And partly because a 15-year-old boy named Kelvin chased me around all week, asking to be my boyfriend, and during swim time he always tried to push his hips between my legs like I was his lover. Gross. So much for Christian values.
So yeah, every Sunday we go to the Mennonite church. Sometimes morning and evening. They sing beautiful hymns in four-part harmony, and everyone speaks very kindly and gently to everyone else. There are little plain-dressed babies everywhere and the little girls all have long braids.
I’ve wished ever since I was five that I could be a Mennonite girl, but I would have to wear a covering and Mom says why would I want to do that.
The Mennonites are a lot different from us, and that is what makes them special. The women wear plain dresses, only dresses – well, sometimes pants underneath in winter – and they don’t cut bangs in their hair, and they wear that black covering as a symbol of your protection. They wash each other’s feet on Easter Sunday (gross). Cards and rock’n’roll are the devil, and dancing is forbidden because it’s just like having sex but standing up, pressing your bodies together like that. And also it isn’t modest to let your emotions go passionately and flail around releasing total control.
One of my first memories of Mennonites, after Marjean, is from when I was six years old and my mom was at one of their quilting bees. All the little girls with their long braids were playing together and I was the only one in pants. One of the Mennonite girls told me I was a boy because I wasn’t wearing a dress. She got a spanking for that. Serves her right. I wished so bad I could have long flowing hair and wear those nice dresses and have such a kind mother who baked homemade bread all the time. I still wish that.
But it’s not my lot in life, is it? You are preparing me for some other reality besides bread-baking and baby-raising and head-covering and hair-braiding.
Sometimes I wish there was a church where I felt super comfortable, not on the edge. Then I realize that being a lifetime friend of Jesus is not really a comfortable thing. None of my friends at school understand it, you know? They all think I’m kind of weird, just like I think the Mennonites and Pentecostals are weird.
Along with wishing I could be a real Mennonite girl, I have often wished I wasn’t from a religious family at all – that my parents could be like Pammy’s and fit in with everyone else in this crazy little town. What’s so bad about smoking and drinking? I recently tried a white Russian at Pammy’s – her mom made us each one after school – and it tasted great! And smoking seems like fun, even though it makes your house stink. It must be great to have something to hold in your hand all the time, something to put to your mouth.
Pammy’s parents buy her everything she wants, even a Wizard computer, and they let her watch TV constantly, even in the mornings before school. For me, it’s Little House on the Prairie and The A-Team, that’s it. Plus, Family Night with Disney on Sundays. My parents are such prudes. Mom says Dad used to drink and smoke all the time before he got saved. Now, he never does. And Mom only does at the mine’s annual Christmas party. Then she comes home with sparkly eyes and a big, big smile. I’ve never seen her smile like that. She should drink wine more often.
So it’s true that sometimes I’d rather be secular, if that’s you wanna call it. But then I notice that Pammy never thinks about the deeper things in life. She’s never serious, she never really wants to talk.
There are so many interesting things to talk about, and frankly, you are one of them. What if I didn’t know you? Then I’d never think of you while I was lying in a snow bank looking up at the stars. I’d never feel you alive in my veins, my own blood and bones like little pieces of you, my own heart like your little pump of life energy. It’s kind of exciting.
Also, Pammy never thinks about right and wrong. I mean, I felt a bit guilty about drinking that white Russian, if only because it was something I’d have to hide from my parents. She felt nothing, until after the second one when I made her laugh so hard she peed her pants. She feels nothing when her parents smack her on the face in anger. Just goes about her life, like nothing matters. I don’t know, but it seems to me that maybe unsaved people don’t have as much of a conscience as saved people.
Well, nothing is nothing, I say. And you are you. And I love you. And for some reason, I love Jesus. I wouldn’t tell any of my friends, but really I think Jesus was a cool dude. I just feel him in my heart, you know? He’s been there ever since I called him in, that night when I was only four years old. It’s because of him and you that I even think about right and wrong. Even if I do wrong things, at least I think about it. And Jesus comes right along with me, for the ride.
Mom says we can’t become actual members of the Mennonite church because then we’d have to wear skirts and head coverings all the time. She won’t have it, she says. It’s too un-feminist.
I guess it’s probably for the better. I can’t imagine what Pammy and my other friends would think if I came to school wearing a flowered dress and a head covering. I can’t even imagine myself making that commitment and not being a hypocrite about it. I wouldn’t be able to go to school dances anymore, since Mennonites aren’t allowed to dance. And I definitely wouldn’t be able to drink white Russians, or try smoking.
I don’t fit in very much at school right now; everyone thinks I’m a weirdo because I’m loud mouthed about my opinions and I dress however I want to . . . But I sure wouldn’t fit in with the Mennonites either, even if I did try. They are way too perfect to copy, and I’m already too screwed up to believe I could do it. I have a darkness in me that makes me sit up at night and write poetry and stories, and rant and rave in my head about you and life and all things. Everyone’s right, I am weird. But I seem to enjoy myself, don’t I? I like the things that make me tick and I think my conversations are interesting. I feel very curious about life.
Speaking of curious, a month ago there was a new family that came to church. And I think they’re staying. I couldn’t help but stare. The mother and father walked in, followed by four girls as gorgeous and serene as princesses. Each of them had long, thick hair held back with coloured barrettes. They looked so healthy, and happy, each in a pastel-coloured dress. The one closest to my age was wearing pink. Her sisters wore green, blue, yellow. They looked like walking candy, they were so beautiful. I couldn’t stop turning around and staring. Then, one of them smiled at me. She had brown bushy eyebrows like her three sisters.
I can’t imagine becoming friends with them – but it turns out that their mother was one of the Mennonite women who came to our house to help with the cleaning! She didn’t bring any of her daughters, and I’m glad. What would those girls think of our new stinky house and my scuffed-up blue jeans? What would they think of yucky old Charlie? I bet he would just try to look up their skirts to see their naked innocent legs.
Then, my mom told me we’re invited over to the family’s house for dinner after church next Sunday. I’m so excited to hang out with those girls. I’ll be wearing a dress. I know they won’t have many modern things, or a television. But I bet their mother will have baked bread, and all the girls will know how to sing. They certainly won’t tease me for loving Jesus.
The worst thing about this whole new arrangement is that Bonnie and I have to share a room in the new house. She sleeps on the bottom bunk and I sleep on the top.
I don’t have to explain to you what this means for my sense of privacy and autonomy.
I just learned the word “autonomy” from my mother. I got so excited about becoming friends with those Mennonite sisters – they are just what I thought they would be! beautiful, kind, fun – that my mom gave me this big lecture about holding onto my autonomy, being my own person, and all that junk. I mean, come on! She seems to forget that the entire purpose of being a teenage girl is to socialize with one’s friends. My friends are everything, and that’s still an understatement.
Anyway, my style is definitely cramped because of my sister. Just her humongous cloud of grouchiness poisons the atmosphere. When I accidentally breathe it in, the tenderest parts of my soul shrivel up. She doesn’t have to say anything. In fact, even when she’s lying there reading a book, I feel the heaviness of her never-ending bad mood. What I would do for a sister filled with loving-kindness. She has shown loving-kindness to me a total of twice in my life. But she hangs around with the Christian youth group all the time and is always praying with her friends out loud. I wish every single one of her friends could see her scratching me with her fingernails, and crushing my hopes and dreams with her bitter sarcasm.
It’s not really her fault, though. I’d be mean, too, if I had to do as much around here as she does. After school, I just watch Monkees reruns, do homework, and then go paint or draw in the bedroom. Bonnie slaves away cleaning up the kitchen and getting dinner started. Plus, her own homework. I feel sorry for her, but I can’t bring myself to help. I’d rather pull my toenails out with pliers than do all the work she does.
Well, Keanan’s almost graduated from high school so that might solve the problem. If and when he goes away to college, Mom says me and Bonnie can fight over his room. She always puts things that way: “You two can fight over it.”
Ever since I was nine years old, she’s been telling me, “You and I, young lady, we’re going to lock horns when you’re a teenager!” I don’t know about her, but I’ve never seen myself as much of a sheep, male or female. I’m just a person. I don’t want to butt heads, lock horns, whatever. All I’ve ever wanted is to get along with her and be able to tell her everything.
She does make it pretty difficult, though. For instance, she tells me I’m not allowed to have a boyfriend. Well, what am I supposed to do? The boys love me! I have, like, ten boyfriends a year. I’ve already French-kissed a guy. I can’t keep one for more than a few weeks, though, since I start to get a disgusting feeling in my tummy whenever I see him. It’s the beginning part I like best. Not that I’d really go into detail about all that – but now that she’s told me I’m forbidden to have boyfriends, it removes a whole batch of conversations we could and should be having. Too bad, so sad. I suppose I should just say that to her, but two things stop me: I’m lazy and I’m a coward. Even if she didn’t ground me for the rest of my life, then I’d still have to put up with months of icy silence.
Parents. They’re ridiculous.
Speaking of parents, my dad called the other day. He tries to call a couple of times a month. It’s funny how little I miss him. We don’t have a lot to say on the phone.
“Hey Dad.”
“Hi Ellen! How are you?”
“Fine.”
“What’s new?”
“Nothing much.”
“Did you make the gymnastics team this year?”
“I haven’t been in gymnastics for two years. It’s too expensive.”
“Oh, that’s right! How about your guinea pig? How’s he?”
“Dead.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.”
“You buried him yourself, in the back yard. Before you left.”
Awkward silence. Honestly, I didn’t mean to say it like that.
Then he tells me a bit about where he works, which is way up north, so far north that they have to walk through tunnels to get from their apartments to the mine and to the gym. He’s been working out, he says. I guess there’s nothing else to do up there.
“How would you like it if I came to see you before Christmas?”
“Uh, er . . .”
“I’d invite you here, but I don’t know that you’d want to hang out with a bunch of dirty old miners.”
Right on that.
“I’ll come and see you kids before I go down to my sister’s, okay? Would you like that?”
“Sure, Dad.” Picturing Mom when she sees him again. The week of crying that will follow.
He’s so far away, it’s hard to imagine how I’ll feel myself. I never did hang out with my dad all that much. I’m still coming to the realization that I don’t even miss him, really.
Changes make a big space between before and after. The old life seems like a dream. We were all closer together, and my parents were angry. Now we’re all apart, always moving further apart. Things are quieter in some ways, but also emptier. I can’t remember what it was like to be part of our family. I have foggy memories of yellow light in our kitchen, my parents’ bedroom, all our pets and plants. Most of it is gone. We got rid of Dad’s dog. Now, we live farther away from my school, so I take a bus instead of walking. When I get off, I see my friends hanging around the school steps, same as usual.
I used to pick up Pammy for the walk to school and get a glimpse of “I Dream of Jeanie” on TV from the doorway. Her mother was always sitting in her favourite chair, feet tucked under her bum, smoking a cigarette. Her hair was in curlers. I don’t know when I’ll see that again. I guess never.