C. C. Evans is a Southern-based educator who grew up in Florida. Her fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have been published in Cathexis Northwest Press, Visit Florida, Hii Magazine, and Choeofpleirn Press, amongst others. She’s a fan of the comma splice.
Glady’s Girls
Emily was enamored. She was enamored by the way Gladys moved through the hallway, the way she aced exams without studying, the way she seamlessly mastered anything she tried. And the way everyone looked at her. The boys and girls alike. The boys would pine for her, flirting, or just being her friend with the hopes that she’d wake up one day and notice them the way they noticed her. And the girls. The girls all wanted to be her. Wanted her ease and her confidence to call their own.
On the first day of elementary school, Emily watched how the other kids interacted. She took mental notes on what got smiles and what got disdainful looks.
“Gladys? That’s an old lady’s name” Tucker said.
“I know,” said Gladys, confidently. She smiled and shrugged and continued her other conversation.
In the fourth grade, after years of being a tangential storyline in their small class, Gladys started to pay attention to Emily.
“What kind of music do you listen to? I love Third Eye Blind.”
“Yeah, me too,” said Emily. Once she got home she downloaded their songs to listen to for the first time. She felt like a different person listening to the music. She felt like someone with the confidence who thought yeah this band is good, I like this music, and I’m not afraid to say it out loud. Music was fun when you weren’t ashamed of what you liked.
Gladys started inviting Emily over for sleepovers. At night they’d go to Blockbuster to pick out movies to watch. In the mornings they’d put sugar on their cereal. Emily didn’t have sugar at her house.
Gladys had four younger sisters. All girls, her at the helm. With them, at home, she created worlds.
“Reece, come over here,” Gladys would summon, and toddler Reece would waddle over. “Show me your dance.” The four year old would dance a silly dance and they would laugh. Gladys would hug Reece and Reece would beam at her approval.
When they were in middle school, Emily and Gladys roamed the neighborhood, sisters in tow. One boring day they made it all the way to the lake.
“Mary, grab that board. Kayla, help Mary.” Mary and Kayla walked barefoot through the dewy Florida grass and grabbed the eight by eight wooden structure, abandoned on the side of the lake.
“Reece, find me something that can be an oar.”
Reece flitted around the perimeter, scanning the grass until she found a big stick. She ran it over to Gladys.
Gladys got on. “You coming?” she asked Emily. Emily nodded immediately even though her stomach dropped. They climbed onto the thin wooden board and Gladys motioned her sisters to push them out onto the lake. The choir of sisters gave them a loving push to send them on their way. Gladys started to row.
Emily watched as the sisters got smaller. Their brunette heads descended like a staircase as they stood in height order, watching. The smallest one waved. Emily watched the muscles in Gladys’s arms flex as she rowed and rowed. Flexed and flexed. The more she rowed, the calmer she seemed. When they got to the middle of the lake, Gladys let out a delighted yelp.
“Wooooo! We’re queens of the lake!” her face was red, flushed from rowing. Her eyes were wide, excited, liberated.
Emily looked at Gladys, felt her own hands trembling, felt her throat close up, the urge to cry. Instead, she mimicked Gladys.
“Woo! Yeah! Look at us!” she smiled hurriedly, panicked, wondering if Gladys could sense her fear.
Instead, Gladys hugged her. Emily’s eyes closed and her heart slowed. She felt the calm of the lake before her, the gentle breeze moving them ever so slowly.
In high school, Gladys invited Emily to all the parties. She’d borrow her tops and wear her jewelry.
One late night, it was just the two girls and four boys from school. They were cute boys. Everyone was ripping the bong. Emily had only ever smoked some of a bowl before, and even that made her head feel strange and her mind race. Gladys passed her the bong and Emily mimicked the motions Gladys had just gone through. She passed it wordlessly to the boy next to her, as if she’d done this a hundred times. The boys and Gladys continued their conversation. Emily started a new one in her head. Then she started to question if she was participating in the conversion enough. Or too much. She stopped talking. She wondered where she should look. Started to stare at the boy she liked. Started to ignore him. Looked at Gladys who was smiling, started to smile. She felt something wet in her underpants, immediately recognized it as her period coming. She froze. She had no tampons and couldn’t figure out how to signal to Gladys that she needed to talk away from the group. She didn’t want to bleed through her jean shorts. She slumped down in the couch so that her back was on the bottom cushion, groin past the couch’s edge, pressure off her underwear.
She looked ridiculous. No one noticed.
In college it was just Emily, Gladys stayed in their hometown.
Emily started to study anthropology and would spend hours lost in a rabbit hole exploring another culture. She’d make connections and have a-ha moments and experience what it felt like to be giddy from learning.
Although she had never spent much time on anything other than Florida’s flat surfaces, Emily joined the rock-climbing club on a whim. She learned to love the control of the belay, the buddy system, the safety net. She liked noticing the feel of muscles she had never felt before. She felt tingly and thrilled and safe.
One night, Ryan invited her to his house and Emily was shocked. They had only hangout in group settings, at rock-climbing club parties or at the gym, but never one on one. She had a crush on him, but she never knew he had noticed her. Emily instinctually channeled Gladys and coolly said “Yeah, sure.” After showering at home, Emily tried on six different outfits, unpleased with each one. These were clothes that she normally enjoyed wearing, but now she was thinking about how Ryan would see her in them and everything felt off. What would Gladys wear? It was so easy to know. Emily grabbed the wide leg jeans, the small black tank top, and her cool sneakers. She put on a few gold bracelets. Emily usually wore one at a time, but Gladys always layered hers. With her armor on she already felt confident, sure. She spritzed herself with Vera Wang’s purple Princess perfume, which Gladys had turned her on to. The smell soothed her, brought her back.
When Emily arrived at Ryan’s, he nodded at her from the couch, eyes half on the TV screen, as she entered the front door. He was drinking a beer and told her to grab herself one from the fridge. Then she joined him on the couch. Ryan would say something about the surfboarding video they were watching and she’d chime in with totallys and exactlys and I know rights. His statements hung in the air like art on a wall, self-assured and lasting. When he finally took his eyes off the TV screen, he looked right at her for the first time that night and kissed her. He used a lot of tongue and she didn’t like it but tried to act cool. What would Gladys do? Gladys would use more tongue. Emily started to move her tongue around. It felt forced and clunky and she could feel his teeth. He slowly leaned into her until she was laying on her back on the couch. She felt frozen, but Ryan didn’t seem to notice. He moved her limbs just so, positioning her in a way that suited him. Her eyes were open, wide, and she could see the six empty beer bottles on the kitchen counter. She wondered if this was what it was supposed to be like, she wondered if this was really happening at all.
She wondered if Gladys wasn’t a virgin anymore either.
