Laura Adamczyk - Hardly Children

DANNY SHOWERSin the upstairs stall, even though it is cold. She feels closed up inside it, as in a spaceship or submarine. The light is dim, the walls a textured plastic—small, raised bumps that she pretends are diseased skin. At her mother’s, she stays in the bath for hours, topping the tub off with steaming water that weights her head so heavy that she pretends she’s been drugged. She swirls her hair out in the water and pretends she’s a sad woman or a dead girl in a movie. Sometimes she falls asleep and wakes up in the cold water and pretends she’s a crazy woman, shivering uncontrollably. Eventually her mother will tap on the door, open it one shy creak at a time, then come in and sit on the toilet. Danny will add more water and bath syrup and cover herself with the bubbles. I’m bored, her mother will say. Your little sis is sleeping and your older sis is reading and will not be disturbed , and I have no one to talk to. Danny will emerge and sit in her terry robe and listen while her mother asks that she suggest to Danny’s father that she’s been spending a lot of special time with so-and-so from the such-and-such. The hunky one with the big boots, she’ll say. Real big boots. Danny will only pretend to listen. Instead she will think of a boy, a faceless boy who pushes her then kisses her then pushes her again. The shower gets hot at her dad’s house, but the stall’s accordion door doesn’t close all the way, leaving an inch-wide line of light running from ceiling to floor, where cold air streams in. Her stepmother has had an Indian woman visiting, and her conditioner makes Danny’s hair smoother than it’s ever been. She rinses it out and puts more in and thinks how her mother is dumb for not knowing about nice things. Last week, the two girls found Danny again in the locker room after gym when everybody had left, and the soft blonde one with the real breasts beneath her big white T-shirt told her that she should start wearing deodorant.

In the morning and before and after gym, she said.

Yeah, the tall one said, pinching her lips into the corner of her mouth.

Oh, I know, Danny said. I do.

Right, well, any kind is okay, the blonde one said. Baby powder scent is good.

The tall one looks like a dumb Olive Oyl, Danny decides. She is stupid, and Danny’s mother is stupid too. Danny can’t stop running her fingers through her hair, her hands are someone else’s hands, and outside the door, the floorboards shift. Danny turns, and there is a blinking eye in the slit of light. Her stepbrother’s chopped-up laugh rips out of him.

Get out, get out, Danny says.

She holds the accordion door to the frame with her hands.

Dad, she says. Dad . But he is all the way downstairs. She calls for her older sister, her stepbrother pulling against the door, squealing.

Stop it, she cries. She hears a thumping run.

Cut it out, you little shit, her older sister says. The tension on the door disappears, and Danny peeks out into the bathroom, where her sister has her stepbrother pinned against the wall.

Go, go, go, she says.

Danny grabs her towel off the hook, wraps it around her, and rushes out through the bathroom to the loft bed, where she’s stacked her clothes. Her sister has her stepbrother with his arms behind him, his back and torso jerking against her.

You guys are little bitches, he says. Danny picks up her fold of clothes and hugs it to her chest and starts to run back into the bathroom. Her stepbrother wrests free and clamors to her, tugging on the back of her towel.

Stop it, she says. She screams and starts laughing, laughter like being tickled, like someone jamming their fingers into her armpits, about to make her pee, and her stepbrother tugs, and behind him, Danny’s sister tugs back on his T-shirt, stretching it into a point. Danny pushes her clothes against her chest and lets the towel drop, lunging forward and shutting herself up inside the bathroom.

I saw you, her stepbrother says.

Piece of shit, Danny’s sister says on the other side of the door. Get out of here. The floorboards creak, and Danny hears the empty drumming of steps on the stairs.

Are you okay in there? her sister asks. He’s gone, she says.

The floor is wet. Danny’s body is wet. She puts her clothes on.

My private area itches, she whispers.

THE LIVING ROOMis warm and wet, the air dense with mist. Through it all, Danny can see her younger sister curled up in the corner asleep, a Red Vine glistening between her lips, while on the couch beneath a pile of blankets, two shapes squirm and turn, grumbling and grunting like an old man, hungry. Once, in the yard at her mother’s, Danny and her sisters watched a mole move beneath the earth, the ground rising along its path. They had not known what was pushing around down there, and it made Danny sick. When the mole emerged at the edge of the sidewalk, its long, oblong nose twitching and sniffing the air, its fleshy, humanlike hands grappling greedily, she contracted, felt as though a smaller Danny were falling inside herself. She couldn’t tell if it was worse to know what the hidden thing was or not.

Dad.

The blanket shapes shift and freeze.

Dad?

Scram, kiddo, his gangster voice says.

Dad, I was in the shower and—

I hope you used soap this time, he says, and he and Danny’s stepmother laugh.

No, I was going to say that—

You drive a hard bargain, he says, and from beneath the blanket, a handful of bills float to the floor. Danny crumples the money into a wad and shoves it into the back of her jeans.

Go buy yourself something nice, the voice says, and a string of smoke snakes up from beneath the wool.

MARGARET HAS DECIDED THATshe is just going to tell Danny what the older boy who’s maybe a man said to her. He told me that I’m the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen. And I even showed him a picture of Elle. He said she has nothing on me. He told me that I’m special and that he wants to be with me and that maybe the reason you don’t write me letters is because you’re jealous but it’s totally normal to feel jealous when you don’t have a boyfriend and your best friend does. But don’t worry Tommy said that he would drive me down after school next Friday to see you for the weekend and that he would help you find a boyfriend too! It is so awesome. Don’t tell your mom it’s a secret, we’ll call you from a rest stop when we’re an hour away Tommy says.

From the desk in her bedroom, Danny takes out a sheet of loose-leaf and a pencil. Dearest Margaret , she begins.

Thank you so much for your letters. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to respond to your many, many letters. I’ve been very busy with new friends who always want to hang out. Congratulations on your wonderful new boyfriend. He sounds amazing and actually reminds me of your dad. I’m sure Tommy sees all the same wonderful qualities in you that your dad did. I can’t wait to hear all about it during your visit!

SATURDAY DANNY DREAMSshe is flying over her town. She floats above the tree line with God’s view of people walking to the grocery store and driving cars and chucking bread chunks to ducks by the river. Her hair is long and golden, rippling behind her. As she flies, her body inflates, growing large; she floats higher and higher, until she reaches the sun and it whites out her vision. She wakes feeling warm and full of breath.

Downstairs, her mother is doing the dishes and sighing.

I just got off the phone with Margaret’s mom, she says, turning. Have you heard from her lately? Her mother says she didn’t come home after school yesterday.