Snow Bickley Pretty Girls Smell Like Cherry Lip-Gloss

I never knew a child to stop the air around her from flowing, but that is what she did. The blonde woman-child made me feel as if I were moving through wet clay. She made me conscious of my movements, no matter how slight and insignificant.

I wanted her to go. I wanted her to go far away so I could breathe again.

But she stayed.

My family was wealthy, my father produced television movies with titles like: “Daddy, May I Sleep With Danger?”, “Devil In A Blue Dress: The Jessica McManon Story”, and “My Poolman, My Lover.” Those soap-opera staples of network television, created for the kind of woman I hoped I’d never be, made us the money to live a lavish lifestyle in Beverly Hills. Every Sunday we would drive to Sherwood Country Club in a champagne-colored BMW with slippery leather seats. Father would play golf, Mother would shop, my older brothers would run off, and I would wander around the women’s locker room. I’d read the brass nameplates fastened to lockers of polished mahogany. My fingers would caress the names of celebrities.

But we aren’t selfish, Father said, oh no. We gave to charities, sponsored children with stomachs bloated with hunger, and now we were going to foster a child. Alphina Isadora, nine years old – my age.

She was introduced to my brothers and me just before dinner. Mother cooked, a rare occasion, sometimes dreaded. We had meatballs (whether they were of Swedish origin, I couldn’t say). Alphina sat with her head resting lazily on her right palm, pushing the meatballs from side to side on her white plate. I watched as she pressed her fork into one, squashing it, her eyes widening.

“Alphina, aren’t you hungry?” my mother asked in her Southern Belle voice.

The little girl looked startled, frightened, like she didn’t realize the rest of us were there. She put her fork down and sat up straight in her chair, blue eyes pointed directly at Mother.

“I don’t eat flesh.” Her face was blank.

I looked down at the substance on my plate, suddenly aware of what it was and felt nauseated. But the way Alphina spoke made me scared for her. I imagined my father rising from his chair, his face red with anger: Don’t you ever speak to an adult like that, his scoldings the usual backdrop to our rare family evenings.

Although my parents appeared taken aback by Alphina’s strange tone, they did nothing. Mother’s face looked tight, she leaned her head to one side and rubbed the back of her neck, “Well then, we’ll just have to fix you something else now, won’t we?”

She made her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Alphina ate greedily. She gulped her creamy milk, wiped the white mustache with the back of her porcelain doll hand and sighed. Then she sat staring at something, maybe it was me, across from her.

She was beautiful, her nose formed in an almost snobbish curve, prim, but wide and beautiful. Her lips were full, pouty pillows, and there was a small crease in the middle of the lower lip. Her chin was delicate, her skin like fine china. I looked at her and thought: strawberries and cream, strawberries and cream.

For a nine-year-old, Alphina was quiet, that night and always, her presence unsettling. She stared with large, walnut-shaped eyes (two blue-gas flames), her lips pressed tightly together. Her face expressionless, eyes alone projecting some sort of feeling that could not be named. Two blue conflagrations always engaged in intense concentration. They looked about the room, drifting from object to object like the connect-a-dot pictures we did at school. When those blue jewels settled on me, I felt heat flush my cheeks as though she were igniting me into flames. I was fascinated with her, as I think we all were.

“May I be excused?” she asked in a delicate voice with a hint of challenge.

The ice cubes in Mother’s gin and tonic clanked against the glass like bells as she swirled it around, “Yes, dear.” My mother watched as Alphina rose from her chair and walked slowly to my bedroom. Mother looked at her the way she looked at women who approached Father at their cocktail parties, the ones who threw their head back when they laughed.

When I finished eating my meal, I peeked in my room. Now it was her room, too. Our beds were adjacent, mine positioned underneath the window with its weeping glass. Now it was our window. My bed was covered in a blue chenille blanket that had swirling dark blue lines on it, like menacing vines. Her blanket was identical, only yellow-as-a-sunflower.

Alphina was in her pink pajamas, little sheep printed on the flannel, her delicate bare feet exposed. A book covered her face; she held it with both hands. Her ankles were crossed so that her pants rode up revealing a light dusting of blonde fuzz on her thin legs. I went over to my bed and sat down, watching her. My eyes traced a thin black line along her profile, the dips and curves of her face, right down to that hollow dip at the base of her throat. She gave no indication of acknowledging my presence. She seemed so immersed in the book, she might not have known I was there, her silence a thick shroud she draped across both our shoulders. She bit her bottom lip, occasionally poked out her pink tongue to lick at its dry terrain.

I struggled to say something to her. Perhaps I should tell her how much I like to read? Does she like sheep? Why was she in her pajamas so early? Did she have any pets at her old house? What happened to her mother to make her come to us? But I didn’t speak, though I started to many times. My small mouth parting, sucking in a breath, holding it, then letting it out in a rush, my unspoken words sailing with it.

I hoisted myself off the bed and went to my dresser, rummaged through the middle drawer for my favorite pajamas. They weren’t there. I left the room, went looking for Mother.

“Mother, where are my kitty pajamas? You know, the blue ones?”

“In the laundry room, in the dirty clothes. Catalina will clean them tomorrow.”

“Can you get them for me?”

“They’re dirty, Constance, you can’t wear dirty clothes. We’re not white trash for chrissake.”

Disappointed, I walked back to my -- our bedroom. Alphina was in the same position, still fidgeting with her lips. I searched my pajama drawer again, but couldn’t find anything I wanted to wear. I wanted my blue kitty pajamas as only a child can want something -- they had feet. I crept into the laundry room and hunted for them in the hamper. They were near the bottom. I pulled them out, triumphant.

I entered our room again, started to get undressed, froze in realization. I made sure Alphina hadn’t seen me lift up my shirt. She hadn’t. I left and went into the bathroom, put my nightclothes on, then returned for approval. The feet made gratifying slapping noises on the wooden floors of the hall, then a sweet sifting sound on the carpet of my room. I did various things, hoping she would look at me. What wonderful night clothes! I wish I had pajamas like that! she might say, smiling. And I would tell her that she could borrow them if she really wanted to, I wouldn’t mind.

But Alphina didn’t look in my direction and I began to feel silly. I feared that she knew I was trying to get her attention. I felt stupid, and after awhile I became aware of a dank odor, found the source was my dirty pajamas. They were also pathetically wrinkled, I tried to smooth them out, finally slipped into bed to cover them up, praying she wouldn’t notice. I couldn’t change, that would be dumb. Perhaps I could at least cover the sordid odor with perfume?

I went for Mother’s bathroom, tiptoeing quietly around her as she lay passed-out on the bed, too many pillows propping her up awkwardly, so that her chin rested on her chest. A refreshed glass balanced precariously on her concave stomach. As she breathed in and out there was a sweet clink-clink-clink. Strands of her blonde hair stuck to her mouth and ruffled slightly with each exhale of gin breath. The television flashed about her perfect body: silver-blue-blackness-silver-blue. Her silk nightgown hugged at her breasts, and I couldn’t help that my eyes paused there.

In her bathroom, I contemplated my reflection: my nose that leaned to the left, my square chin, my long, thin, auburn hair, my ordinary, copper-coin eyes. Something a rat-like boy said at school flashed through my mind: pretty girls smell like cherry lip-gloss. I couldn’t stare any longer and the sadness pressed upon my heart, brought with it a sickening ache I was not prepared for. I grabbed a perfume vile from Mother’s vanity table – her favorite fragrance– and sprayed it. I returned to my room smelling like Laura Ashley vomited on me.

I crawled back into bed. Alphina’s nostrils flared, but her jewel-stone eyes didn’t move.

I looked out our window at the thick, black expanse of sky and the toenail sliver of moon that rose above the trees. I made a wish on the North Star that I would someday have big breasts and would have to wear a bra. I would buy sexy red ones, classy black ones, bras made of white lace, bras with little Valentine hearts on them.

Alphina yawned, placed her book on the night table. She went to the light switch beside the door, turned it off.

I was submerged in darkness.