Ugly

Jackie Stowers

We form a circle. T-shirts over damp bathing suits. Wet ponytails lick our backs. We shiver as we pass the portable phone from hand to hand.

“You call him.” “No, it’s your turn.” “No, you.”

You press the buttons slowly, spelling out his name on the dialpad.

S-I-T-L-A-D-Y.

The ringing unfolds into an eager wheeze. He is waiting. He never speaks first.

“Hello, Sitlady?”

“Yes?” His voice is raspy and familiar. It reminds you of withering uncles and second cousins twice-removed, old men growing brittle inside Brooklyn limestones that smell like ash and cat shit.

The number came from Gina, who got it from her older sister, who got it from a cousin who lives in Canarsie. Except Gina says it like her mother says it: “Canawsie.” So that’s how you say it, and how Jessica says it, and Stephanie and Gabby, too. A Brooklynese caw spreading through the circle like a venereal disease.

STD is what you’ll call it when you get one, twelve years from now, from who knows who.

Your gynecologist will tilt his slick, gleaming head, and say, almost fondly, “Now, when I was your age, I liked to slut around, too.”

But you are years away from even kissing a boy. You are scabbed and pimpled, safe in your ugliness when you ask, “Sitlady, do you think I’m a slut?”

Your voice doesn’t falter. You don’t giggle the way the other girls do. They don’t like you, the other girls. You know that. You know they only invite you because they think you’re crazy. Maybe you are crazy. You aren’t afraid to say strange, sexy words to strange men on the phone. You aren’t afraid to make the circle hiss with excitement and shame.

“I’m only eleven,” you say into the phone, “but I’ve already let seventeen different boys touch me.”

Jessica looks at Stephanie and mouths the word, “Gross.”

You turn on the speakerphone function. “Touch you?” Sitlady’s words vibrate through the circle. “Touch you where?”

Gina lunges for the phone and steams into your ear, “What the fuck.” She flicks the speakerphone off again. “My mother is home.”

You imagine Gina’s mom, fake-gold earrings poking through her sculpted frizz. Frowning to discover you all breathless and waiting for something you cannot name.

Sitlady has a name. It’s Frank, but you don’t tell anyone you know that. You don’t tell them that sometimes, you call him when you’re alone. You lie on your back on a rolled-out towel on the bathroom floor and lock the door. Lights out, you confess that you are ugly. That your mom has forbidden you to shave the hair on your legs even though you already wear a bra.

“I like ugly girls,” he purrs.

You never tell anyone what it feels like to hear those words slide into your ear. The way you can feel your stomach all the way down to your feet.

“I bet you’re kinky, too.”

No.

“Come on,” Gina whispers.

Impatience ticks through the circle. Fingernails on floorboards. Tongues against teeth. Everyone is waiting for you.

You aren’t kinky.

You shake your head and slide the phone into the center of the circle.

Sitlady’s words crackle, shrunken and diffuse. “Touch you where?”

Gabby grabs the phone and shouts, “My nose! Seventeen different boys have picked my nose!”

The girls screech with laughter. They kick their heels against the blue shag rug.

You cover your face and pretend to laugh.

Gina clicks off the phone. “Enough.” All obey the cutting command of her eyes. “Let’s go swimming.”

The girls peel off their t-shirts and tramp after Gina. The marble staircase fills with dazzling golden limbs.

You stay behind and walk your warm fingers over Gina’s cool silver cosmetic wands. You look at yourself in her purple-edged mirror, as if the cheap plastic frame might make you beautiful. You know there is power in mirrors.

You whisper his name three times. “Sitlady. Sitlady. Sitlady.”