Addie on the Inside Read online

  And this is the part where I should probably count to ten or simply

  sit down and shut up, but when I see Ms. Watkins’ encouraging look

  and the sea of nodding heads, most of them belonging to the girls,

  I can’t take it, I have to say:

  “Why does it matter to me what some pop star does to his girlfriend?

  I’ll tell you why. I’m a girl too, and I don’t want some guy—any guy—

  believing that just because I open my mouth and say what I think

  that I’m asking for strong and crazy hands to be the voice

  that answers.

  And I want to know why you don’t think he’ll hit her like that again, why you don’t think he shouldn’t have hit her like that

  in the first place, why you don’t think everyone should be safe from

  being hit or bitten or choked. Why

  you

  don’t

  think.”

  And Sara Jakes says nothing

  and the bell rings

  and everyone heads for the door

  and Ms. Watkins looks over the top of her glasses

  and nods and says,

  “Good for you, Addie,”

  and I say, “Thank you,”

  and stuff the newspaper

  into my backpack

  and gather up my books

  and wonder why

  I even

  bother.

  Women Who Love Women

  “Women who love women,”

  Becca says.

  “They’re made for each other.”

  “But Ms. Watkins is engaged,”

  says Sara.

  “And Addie has a boyfriend.”

  “So what?”

  Becca says.

  “They’re both feminists.

  “And anyway,”

  says Becca,

  “look at Addie. Just look.”

  “Look at what?”

  Sara says.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She may as well be a boy,”

  says Becca,

  “with that flat chest.”

  “She did start that gay group,”

  Sara says.

  “Why would she do that if—”

  “She wasn’t gay!”

  says Becca.

  “How’s my lipstick?”

  “Totally kissable,”

  Sara says.

  “Oh, but no homo—”

  “Omigod,”

  says Becca,

  “you’re one too.”

  “Omigod,”

  Sara says.

  “Gross me out.”

  Both girls laugh

  while I remain hidden,

  waiting

  for the bathroom door

  to shut and the laughter

  to die away.

  I Just Want to Say

  Thinking that Ms. Watkins is brilliant

  and beautiful and amazing and wanting to be

  just like her and loving the way she dresses

  and how the heel of her right shoe slips off

  when she sits on the edge of her desk and

  crosses her right leg over her left

  and watching her bounce her right leg

  up and down and wondering if it will

  make her shoe fall off

  doesn’t mean

  that I’m

  a lesbian.

  Another Thing I’m Sick of Hearing

  If I started that gay rights group,

  I must be gay.

  So if I start an animal rights group,

  what does that make me?

  A giraffe?

  When Silence Is Silenced

  Unbelievable. Inconceivable.

  That Mr. Kiley would say no

  to the first effort of the Gay

  Straight Alliance. I say:

  Defiance! He may tell us we

  can’t have our Day of Silence

  but silence is a form of free

  speech, I contend,

  and toward that end I will

  be silent on that day to say

  NO! to our unprincipled

  principal’s decision.

  Am I being too hard on him?

  That’s what Mr. Daly says.

  He tells me to be patient,

  one step at a time, there’s

  always next year.

  But why wait? Mr. Kiley says

  he worries about disruption,

  that teachers won’t be able

  to teach, students to learn.

  But there’s already plenty

  of disruption: name-calling,

  gossip, notes being passed,

  words being whispered,

  messages being texted under

  desks and shot through space

  like armed missiles meant

  to destroy. And me?

  Will I be a target, brought down

  for standing up for my beliefs?

  I don’t know. I just know this:

  I will stand up. I will be silent.

  I will let my silence speak.

  Shine

  DuShawn looks down at the ground, snaps

  a rubber band, makes some kind of boy-noise

  when it hits some pebbles and sends them

  flying. He hasn’t answered my question:

  “Would you like me better if I let things go,

  if I didn’t stand up for what I think is right?”

  “I might,” he says when I ask it again, “but then

  you wouldn’t be you, so who knows? Maybe

  you could just, you know, tone it down.”

  “Tone it down?”

  “Tone it down, turn it down, whatever. So

  you want to go somewhere, do something?”

  I kick at the pebbles, say okay, and we go, we do,

  we talk about other things or don’t talk at all,

  and the whole time my mind is racing like

  a mouse in a wheel, spinning my thoughts

  and getting nowhere but worn out.

  Why should I tone it down,

  turn it down, whatever? Is this how it is for girls?

  It’s okay to be smart until you have a boyfriend,

  then you dim your lights so his can shine?

  Or

  is this not a girl/boy thing? Joe told me that Colin

  said the same to him, back when they were through

  being boyfriends because Colin couldn’t cope

  with Joe’s being so “out there.”

  What’s wrong

  with being out there, out there like a star

  shining in the night when that’s the only way

  the star can be seen? You never tell a star:

  Hey.

  Tone it down.

  It’s Just That

  DuShawn tells me later,

  “It’s just that sometimes

  you say things in a way

  that turns people off,

  that makes them not want

  to hear you, makes them want

  to do anything but listen.”

  Oh.

  It’s just

  that.

  Strong

  They say I’m strong,

  and I guess I am.

  At least I dare

  to stand up and speak.

  At least I speak

  when others do not.

  But what is strong?

  Is it being brave?

  Is it knowing

  what you think and feel?

  In my beliefs

  I am strong as steel,

  in my manner

  I am strong as rock.

  But deep inside

  I don’t always know.

  Does not knowing

  mean that I am weak?

  Or am I strong

  when I do not speak,

  but keep silent

  and accept the truth:

  that
I don’t know,

  and that not knowing

  is a kind of strength?

  So Last Year

  “Those shoes have got to go,” Becca tells me

  as if I’d asked, as if she were the Queen of Fashion

  and I a lowly peasant scuffing along in straw

  slippers. “They are so last year, Addie, so not

  what everyone is wearing.” Do I care?

  Later I see this year’s shoes staring at me

  from the window of Awkworth & Ames, making

  their claim on me, shouting, LOOK! HOW COOL!

  And I feel foolish for stopping and staring back,

  wondering, Do I want a pair?

  I never thought about these things before—

  clothes, I mean, the shoes that are in, the shoes

  that are out—but something about Ms. Watkins

  and the way Becca’s words are stuck in my head

  make me question what I wear.

  I don’t even like those shoes. I think they’re

  ugly, if you want to know. “Ugly as sin,” as my

  grandpa used to say. I wouldn’t wear them

  if they were giving them away. So why do I

  continue to stare?

  If I had the right

  shoes, if I had the right

  shirt, if I had the right

  bag, if I had the right

  hair, if I had the right

  hands, if I had the right

  eyes, if I had the right

  nose, if I had the right

  body, if I had the right

  walk, if I had the right

  talk, if I had the right

  phone, if I had the right

  friends, if I had the right

  everything, how would

  I be different from who

  I already am?

  It’s Like That Old Julia Roberts Movie

  The one where Richard Gere takes her shopping in Beverly Hills

  on that street where all the stores look like they’re temples of satin

  and gold and she finds true happiness through clothes. I only know

  this movie because Joe has a thing for Julia Roberts and we once

  sneaked watching it even though it’s R-rated and Joe’s parents have

  rules about such things. Well, okay,

  maybe it’s not exactly like that.

  I’m no Julia Roberts and my grandmother doesn’t look a bit like

  Richard Gere and, believe me, there isn’t a street within a hundred-mile

  radius of Paintbrush Falls like that one in Beverly Hills. But here

  we are, the two of us out at the mall on a Saturday, with Grandma

  urging me to get whatever I want, it’s her goodbye present to me

  because she’s leaving soon and she says my wardrobe needs serious

  help. It’s not that I have a bad sense of style, she says, it’s that

  I have no sense of style and if I leave it up to my mother I’ll end up

  looking more upholstered than clothed.

  Grandma loves clothes, but not in the way the girls at school do.

  Grandma wears clothes as if she’s in a play, and not always playing

  the same part. “This is my Rosalita skirt,” she’ll say, twirling a whirl

  of rhinestones and roses. “My Peggy Sue pumps. My Carmen shawl.

  Today I am so Mustang Sally.”

  “Try it on,” she insists when I resist an outfit that has “me” written

  nowhere near it. “So it isn’t you, or at least not the you that you

  thought you knew. Put it on and see who you become.”

  I do.

  And this outfit that was so not me? Well, it isn’t any more “me”

  when it’s on, but it’s opened my eyes to the way Grandma sees,

  opened a door to the possibility that clothes might just be fun.

  We shop all day, not just at the mall but at the thrift stores too,

  the ones down near the bus station and the diner called Betty & Pauls,

  where they never learned about apostrophes but know a thing or two

  about how to make the perfect milk shake, and Grandma tells me all

  the ideas she has for transforming the limp and the lost we’ve rescued

  from thrift store hangers and bins into treasures I’ll be proud to wear.

  “Don’t think of them as hand-me-downs,” she tells me, “but as hand-me-

  ups!” That’s when it hits me how much I’ll miss her when she moves

  back home, and I have to drink the entire rest of my milk shake at one

  gulp to keep myself from crying.

  We make one more stop. “Do you want them?” Grandma asks as we gaze

  through the window of Awkworth & Ames at The Shoes, enthroned like

  royalty among the rabble of the other merchandise, looking almost smug.

  “I kind of hate them,” I confess. “I kind of hate that I hate them and

  want them at the same time. And they’re so expensive. I don’t know

  how anybody in this town can afford to buy them. Or why they do.”

  Grandma puts her arm around my waist. “Sometimes,” she says, “it just

  feels good to fit in.”

  I take one last look at them and shake my head. I can’t bring myself

  to spend Grandma’s money on something I hate. But I don’t say no

  when she buys me six of the bangles she’s noticed that all the girls

  are wearing. They’re beautiful, and even if it’s only my wrist,

  it might be nice to have one part of me at least

  fit in at last.

  Almost Popular

  I am almost popular for about three minutes

  between first and second period, standing

  in front of some lockers in the seventh-grade

  hall. Four girls, then five, surround me, tell me,

  I love your new look. Where did you get

  that skirt? Awesome bracelets. I’ve got

  almost the same ones. We chatter and giggle,

  a gaggle of girls, six altogether, did I mention

  it was me and five other girls, five popular

  girls, our heads together with me

  at the center?

  It happens in the spring, three minutes

  between first and second period,

  standing in front of some lockers

  in the seventh-grade hall.

  Goodwill

  By third period the gossip has begun:

  Addie buys her clothes from Goodwill.

  Even the right bracelets don’t count,

  it seems, if they’re on the wrong wrist.

  More Important Matters

  I put my mind to more important matters

  than what I wear and who notices. I tell myself

  it doesn’t matter what anyone says. I answer,

  “Nothing,” when my mother asks, “What’s

  the matter?” I don’t understand these girls,

  don’t understand what I am to them or why

  what I wear or say or do matters. I get tired

  of trying to figure it out.

  I put my mind to more important matters.

  Please Understand My Reasons

  PLEASE UNDERSTAND MY REASONS

  FOR NOT SPEAKING TODAY.

  I AM PARTICIPATING IN THE DAY OF SILENCE,

  A NATIONAL YOUTH MOVEMENT

  PROTESTING THE SILENCE FACED

  BY LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENDER

  PEOPLE AND THEIR ALLIES. MY DELIBERATE SILENCE

  ECHOES THAT SILENCE, WHICH IS CAUSED BY

  HARASSMENT, PREJUDICE, AND DISCRIMINATION.

  I BELIEVE THAT ENDING THE SILENCE IS THE FIRST STEP

  TOWARD FIGHTING THESE INJUSTICES. THINK ABOUT

  THE VOICES YOU ARE NOT HEARING TODAY.

  WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO TO END THE SILENCE?


  “Speaking Card” created by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight

  Education Network (GLSEN) for the National Day of Silence

  Skirmish

  Ms. Wyman slaps the card HARD on her desk and snaps,

  “Remove that tape from your mouth at once!” almost

  knocking the breath out of me. I hold my ground,

  shake my head, point to the card, my trembling fingers

  telling her: READ!

  “Ms. Carrrrrrrlllle,” Ms. Wyman purrs. She smiles.

  I do not. “Take. Off. That. TAPE!” The class leans

  in behind us like we’re headline news on CNN:

  DEVELOPING STORY!

  ADDISON CARLE, A SEVENTH-GRADE STUDENT IN A SMALL TOWN

  IN UPSTATE NEW YORK, SHOWED UP IN HOMEROOM THIS MORNING

  WEARING A STRIP OF DUCT TAPE—YES, YOU HEARD THAT RIGHT:

  DUCT TAPE—OVER HER MOUTH WHILE HANDING OUT CARDS

  STATING HER INTENTION TO REMAIN SILENT ALL DAY IN SUPPORT

  OF LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENDER PEOPLE. SHE

  IS AT A STANDOFF WITH HER HOMEROOM (AND MATH) TEACHER,

  MS. ELLEN WYMAN, WHO IS KNOWN FOR, IN HER OWN WORDS,

  “NOT TAKING ANY NONSENSE.”

  “I am not in the mood for your rebelliousness, Ms. Carle.

  I will not take any nonsense, do you hear?”

  I nod, indicating that my hearing is working just fine even if

  my mouth is immobilized by the strip of silver-gray tape

  that is beginning to chafe my lips. But I will NOT back down.

  My eyes let her know this. Her eyes burn in return.

  “Fine,” she says, “we’ll just see what Mr. Kiley has to say,

  shall we?”

  I walk to my seat,

  standing tall.

  The class cheers.

  I bow.

  Victory is mine.