Atlas and Alice, Issue 18 Beverly said she looked like Caroline Kennedy. “She does, but Cathy is prettier.” Janet said, running her fingertip down my outer ear. “Feel that,” she said to her sister. “It’s still hot.” I turned a little, so they could examine the back of my ear, looked out the window on Suzie’s side. Nothing to see but snow. Beverly couldn’t get over the sight of my ear. “You shouldn’t let him get away with it.” Janet asked me if I was on the rag yet. I didn’t know what she meant. “Auntie Flo,” she said. “The Red Badge of Courage. Your period.” “Oh.” My breasts had started developing when I was eight. My mother, thinking this might mean I’d have the menarche early, had given me a box of pads and told me about periods. It seemed so farfetched, so disgusting, I hoped it wasn’t true. “No.” They hadn’t started theirs either, they said, but they knew about periods. Their big sister’s were awful, hurt as bad as having a baby. But the good thing was, once you started having periods no one could lay a hand on you. The school, your dad, nobody. And not just when you were having your actual period. Any time. No one could touch you. Even when we were on the train I thought what they were telling me was one of those things that should be true but probably wasn’t. “Say,” Janet said, “here’s one I’ll bet you haven’t heard. ‘Why is the little schoolhouse red?’” “I don’t know.” “You’d be red too, if you had six periods a day.” I enjoyed this joke, wished I knew someone I could tell it to. Janet and Beverly had more. A party, as my mother had promised. I didn’t notice when the train turned around. Suzie woke as we were approaching Fargo, said she was thirsty. We were too, we told her. We could use a pop, we all agreed, and where were the treats we were supposed to get? The matron was mean. We hated the Santa train. And we didn’t really go any place, Suzie said. The matron came through the train then, telling us to take everything with us, anything you leave on the train you aren’t getting back, line up by your seat, get off as soon as the train stops. “You could be on TV,” I told Janet as we stood in the aisle. “You’re pretty and you’re funny, funnier than anybody I know, and you’re nice and you know what to say and you’re not shy and you look so cute with your pixie cut. You could be like that lady on Party Line, Verna.” “Verna Newell,” she said softly, smiling.
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