Genes III: The Pleasantries

Rosie had to get a suit for a show. She was playing a man, a rich couple’s servant. All the suits in the little storage room they called a costume closet were far too big, swallowing Rosie within its thick fabric, hanging limp on her staggering four foot four frame, the exact same as her wingspan.

They had measured wingspans in science class. Mr. Colombo taught a lesson on genes, that the human evolved from a fish, to gorilla, and eventually to man. Rosie liked the cartoons he used, animals morphing into a guy that looked remarkably like her father. 

Mr. Colombo really liked Gorillas. His desk was littered with primate memorabilia - a stuffed gorilla with a tag poking out of its leg with the Franklin Park Zoo logo. A mug shaped like a gorilla, one of its arms acting as a handle, which Mr. Colombo drank his coffee out of every morning. The smell lingered on him for the rest of the day. A pen modeled after a branch, a rubber gorilla perched at the top. When you pressed on its head, the tip retracted. 

“Now, the average gorilla is four feet seven inches to almost six feet tall, but its arm span is seven foot seven inches to about eight and a half feet. A Silverback is five to six feet tall and a Western Lowland can have an arm span up to eight feet long!” As Mr. Colombo listed out the numbers, he contorted his body, knees slightly bent, arms out, shifting from side to side. Rosie thought he looked more like a bear than a gorilla. 

“How long do you think your wingspan is?”

“Six feet!” 

“Three feet. No, five.” 

“Close, but not quite! Human wingspans actually come very close to your height. Now, everyone, write down how long you think yours is. Then find a partner and together you will measure your height and wingspan. Remember to keep your arms straight as a stick!”

Rosie guessed four feet four inches. A five inch difference isn't too bad, she thought. She wouldn’t mind being five inches taller. 

Rosie needed a suit. Her brother had one, but his was even worse than the ones at school. She had to hold the pants up or they would fall at her ankles, the shirt so long it left her covered and decent even without the bottoms. 

“SuitBarn has some suits for rent. We can go after rehearsal tomorrow.”

“But I want a woman's suit. Suitbarn only has men's suits. I don’t want to look like a man!” 

“Oh, you'll look fine.”
“But I’ll look so ugly!”

“Don’t say that. You look beautiful in whatever you wear.”

“I’ll still look like a boy.”
“A beautiful boy, then.” 

Two years before, there was a blizzard. Rosie had never seen that much snow. She didn’t know there could be that much snow. It came up past her knees, gripping her thighs. She was only four foot two then. 

The first day back to school, the halls were slick, whatever snow that had been tracked in near instantly melting in the overheated building. Rosie shuffled her way to class, hopscotching between patches of dry tile. Blue, white, blue, blue, white. By the time she made it to her classroom, there were only a few kids left out at the lockers, hurriedly stripping their snow gear. Eliza shoved her thick coat into the bottom of her locker, backpack thrown on top, squishing it down even farther before running into class. Peter, Daniel, and Ryan all followed, closing the door behind them and leaving Rosie alone in the hall. She quickly got her hat, gloves, and jacket off. Bending over, she reached for her boots. Hands cold, the cord lock was even harder to press than normal. She pushed in on both sides, fingers straining. Pulled, but it didn't loosen. She sandwiched it between flat palms, pressing, pushing, pulling. It dug into her chapped hands. It didn’t move. Her head started to feel hot, heavy, too much time upside down, eyes level with knees. Palm heel to plastic, she pressed hard, harder. Movement. She wiggled her heel, pushing on the shoe’s sole with her toes, slowly extracting her foot from its tight grasp. The second boot came off faster, Rosie ignoring the raw stinging of her hands. Finally, finally, snow pants off and sneakers on, she rushed into class.

“You’re late. That’s a tardy.” Mrs. Millander didn’t look up from her laptop as she stuck out her hand, waving the little blue slip aimlessly in the air. 

“I’m sorry. I-uh… I couldn't get my boots off.”

“Well, you should have gone quicker then. Late to class means a tardy, for anyone. You know that.” 

“I’m sorry.”

Suitbarn was not nearly as bad as Rosie had expected. It had anything and everything Rosie thought a man could ever want. She counted seven different shades of blue jackets. Horizontal stripes, vertical stripes, plaid. Suits with patterns of dachshunds, golf clubs, skiers. 

The Suitbarn man was old, probably as old as Rosie’s grandparents. He wasn’t much taller than her, five foot two she would have guessed. She had no idea how long his wingspan was, though he had nice, soft hands that he shook Rosie’s with, a firm grip and warm smile. The man didn’t speak much English. He knew the pleasantries like hello and goodbye, but didn’t speak much more than that. 

When Rosie came out of the dressing room, wearing a suit that finally fit, he gestured to step up on the big carpet block half enclosed by mirrors. Rosie looked in and saw infinite reflections staring back. 

“Oh, it looks lovely, Rosie!” her mom exclaimed. “And see, you don’t look like a boy.” 

The man nodded and smiled. Rosie wasn't sure if he knew what they were saying or just trying to appear like he did. She thought it must be a very lonely way to live. Rosie tried to look herself in the eye through the mirror, but kept flitting back and forth between each eye, never getting hold. 

The man came over to her, kneeling down and adjusting the hem of her pant leg. He carefully took two pins from a little metal tin and folded up the bottom so it hit right at the top of Rosie’s sneaker. He looked up at Rosie through the mirror. She caught both eyes, nodded and smiled. 

A pin between his lips, Rosie felt soft, warm knuckles tickle the dimple of her back and a gentle tug at her waistband. She felt knuckles slide further, deeper, scraping against her bottom as a hand unfurled in the seat of her pants. She felt it wriggle around like a spider, or as if it was searching for something lost, something hidden. 

When Mrs. Millander let the class go for recess, all other kids rushed out in unison to their lockers, haphazardly pulling on the clothes they had haphazardly thrown off hours before. Rosie followed behind, a slow echo of the herd. 

Outside, the snow seemed to be even higher than at her house, almost up to her hip. She watched the herd bounding, leaping, diving, disappearing into the whiteness. 

“Mrs. Millander. What should I do?”

“Go play in the snow. It's recess. Do whatever you want.” 

“But I’m not supposed to go off the path.” Rosie gestured with a gloved-hand to the thin shoveled trail parallel to the wall. 

  “Oh um, Nick, come here,” Ms. Millander called out to the closest child. She had to shout so he could hear across the field. He bounded over, displacing swaths of snow with each step. 

“Come play with Rosie.”

Leaning forward to give it more room, Rosie waited as the spidered-hand squirmed. The hand pulled the man, too, his knee knocking over the tin of pins. The spidered-hand jumped out, tending to the pile of rolling metal. 

“Sorry!” he said, looking up at Rosie. “Sorry.”

Her mother grabbed her wrist and pulled her to the dressing room. “Oh my god are you okay? Did he touch you? What did he do? What did he touch?”

“I-”

“You didn’t even want to come here. I should have just listened to you!” Rosie’s mother ripped off the suit jacket, then shirt, then pants, leaving Rosie in only her underwear, the one with the little pink bow at the front. The dressing room was cold. 

She had veered from the path. Building snowmen and tossing a snowball back and forth was not, she thought, entertaining enough for Nick. Rosie wasn’t entertaining enough. 

“We don’t have to go out if you don’t want to,” he said, looking out at the nylon marshmallows bobbing across the field. 

“No. We’re going.”

Step after step after step. Foot after foot. Deeper and deeper into the white depths. She sank down in the center of the field, letting the snow embrace her tired limbs. Nick sank down next to her.

She sat in the car. Her mom was standing outside SuitBarn with two police officers. They stood tall and straight. Rosie could see a gun hanging on each of their hips. She had never seen a gun before. It was smaller than she expected. The policemen were as big as she thought they would be. Big and tall and straight and strong. She couldn't hear what her mom was saying but she waved her hands in the air. 

Rosie watched Mrs. Millander blow her whistle, her cheeks puffed and lips pursed. Rosie tipped forward, trying to extract herself. 

“We should really go back now.” Nick was standing, looking back and forth, watching Rosie trying to squirm herself loose as the class became a herd once more. She leaned all the way back, then rocked her body up as quickly as she could, praying the momentum would be enough to dislodge the snow gripping her, holding her down and stuck and fixed. 

“Uh, go without me. I’ll be there in a second.”

“Are you sure?” 

“Yes. Just go.”

She sat in the car crying. 

“Did he hurt you?” Her dad sat next to her, quiet, waiting. 

The tray in the dashboard needed to be cleaned out. There were five gum wrappers, two of which had old, shriveled pastel green balls in them. There were three pens. She knew none of them had ink, only the blue one still had a cap. Every time, her mom would go through the same cycle. She would be on the phone, talking to the dentist or the school or the vet. She would reach for a pen, uncapping the blue one with her teeth. She would scribble on a napkin or receipt. When no line followed, she would put it back and try again with the next. And try again. Eventually she would end up repeating whatever she had wanted to write down to herself under her breath as the doctor or plumber or mechanic finished what they had to say, then frantically write down whatever she could remember in an empty email. She had 132 in her drafts.

Rosie watched the herd form a fidgety line, done with the cold and anxious to get back inside. Roise watched the lined-herd begin to shuffle in, a procession of snow-flaking stomps and fogged breaths heating gloveless hands. Rosie watched twenty four heads spin around, eyes scanning for the missing calf. 

There was an old hospital bracelet from the day before when Rosie had to get her flu shot. Rosie didn’t mind needles but she did mind nurses. 

“Arm.” The nurse was wearing scrubs with big, laughing Santa faces on them. Rosie wasn’t sure if they were laughing at her or the nurse. 

“Don’t look at the needle,” Rosie’s brother had told her. “And take a big breath as it goes in. It won't hurt.” 

“Rosie. You know recess is over. What are you still doing out here? Get up and come get in line.”

“I-” she tried one last time. No movement. “I can’t get up. I’m sorry”

There were four and two thirds Goldfish. They must have been her brothers. Rosie hated feeling their little bodies break apart against her teeth. Fragile. Hollow. She much preferred Cheez-Its.

“Did he hurt you?” The shot still hurt. She had looked away, had breathed in, had even shut her eyes tight, tighter as it went in. Black and white and blue and grey. Static.   

They called his daughter. He didn’t speak much English. Only the pleasantries. They called his daughter. “He has never done anything like this before.” “It was a misunderstanding.” “I’m so sorry. I’ll be over as soon as I can.” 

“You’re crying. Did he hurt you?” There was a line of dust caught between the windowsill and the glass. Rosie swiped at it with her knuckle, rubbing what came off on the side of the seat. 

 She could only crack her left knuckles. She tried on her right. Pressing, wiggling, pulling. Only her left would ever crack. At rehearsal, Luc waved her over.

“Give me your hand," he said, reaching down and grabbing her right wrist, bringing it up to his waiting hand. “Make a fist.”

“What are you doing?” 

“Just do it.” He closed her fingers, covering her knuckles with his palms, and pressed. A swift succession of cracks popped in the silence.

“Ow! What the heck!” Sharp. Throbbing. 

“What? I’m just cracking your knuckles. Chill out. It doesn’t hurt.”

“Did it hurt? Did he go in your underwear? Or just your pants?” The gun was bigger up close. 

“Answer honey.” A hand on her shoulder, a hand on her back. 

“Where did he touch you?” A tear speckled on the pavement. 

“What did he do?” Throbbing knuckles. 

“What did he do?”

The herd was already in the classroom, sitting quietly at their pens when Rosie got to her locker. Gloves, hat, jacket off. The chord lock was cold and wet in Rosie’s hand, snow still stuck in the crevices. Wedged between the heels of her palms, she pushed. Flesh on plastic on flesh. It slipped out. Flesh on flesh. Elbows digging into thighs, she smushed it between her hands, pushing, pulling. Head thumping, blood pooling behind her eyes. Her breath was loud in her ears, lungs folded and air pushed out. 

Rosie slumped down, cushioned knees hitting blue tile. Sliding off her calves to the floor, she pulled snowpantsed-legs out from under her, the rubber sole of her boot catching on the ground. The locker’s metal was cold against her back. The floor needed to be mopped, puddles spotting the hall. Four locks were hanging loose on their lockers, forgotten, open. The top right corner of a poster had popped off the bulletin board, its missing tack on the ground below, laying straight on its back, needle up. Feet out in front, she brought a leg into her lap, cradling her booted-foot, gripping the edges, pulling, pulling, pulling.