In this honest, emotionally captivating short story collection, renowned author and National Book Award finalist Julie Anne Peters offers a stunning portrayal of young women as they navigate the hurdles of relationships and sexual identity. From the young lesbian taking her first steps toward coming out to the two strangers who lock eyes across a crowded train, from the transgender teen longing for a sense of self to the girl whose abusive father has turned her to stone, Peters is the master of creating characters whose own vulnerability resonates with readers and stays with them long after the last page is turned. Grl2grl shows the rawness of teenage emotion as young girls become women and begin to discover the intricacies of love, dating and sexuality.
Release date:
October 14, 2009
Publisher:
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Print pages:
164
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She sits alone. In Art, senior seminar, lunch, on the train. She always sits alone. If I was alone I’d find something to do.
Read or work on homework or doodle, fake it, so if I was alone it’d look like I wanted to be alone.
Not her. She sits—slumps—in her seat on the train and stares out the window, down the aisle. She watches me getting on.
I don’t look away. Every day we have this stare down. Ten, twenty seconds. We never talk or say hello. Never, How’s it going?
What’s up? I’m not sure she even knows my name.
I sit with my group, always. Becca says, “Did you hear what happened at Ozzy’s party?”
I have to force myself to listen. Or care. I have to concentrate hard on not looking at her.
“Ozzy and Laura hooked up.”
People talk about her. Guys mostly. They call her a dyke. Girls call her a guy. She isn’t a guy. Or a girl, really. She’s
“questionable.” Gender fluid.
She’s not committing one way or the other, let’s just say. Who says you have to? Why do we have to? If I want to dress like
a guy, so what? I don’t, but if I did…
“They’re together now.”
She wears shapeless clothes—long-sleeved men’s shirts and baggy pants. A loose vest over the shirt occasionally. Scuffed
leather shoes, like Martens, but not label. She’d never wear labels. She defies labels.
I wonder what she’s covering. Or covering up.
My eyes are glued to the back of her head.
She used to have shaggy short hair that looked like someone had taken dull scissors to and hacked off in a rage. This year
she’d come back from summer vacation with orangey platinum streaks, clumps all over her head. Angry, but colorful.
The tiny hoop in her left earlobe and three studs up the rim of her ear are the most feminine things about her. Besides her
lips. Her lips are wide, puffy, unnaturally large, overly ripe lips. And—get this—she wears red lipstick.
Not cherry red or ruby red. More like brutal, nasty red. Not glossy. Matte. Guys make smooching sounds behind her back. Girls
go, Slut.
She’s not a slut, or jock, or stoner. People don’t know what
to label her. You have to be a token, you know, to have a seat on the train.
On a whim, I get up and slide into the seat across and behind her. Becca calls, “Tam,” and I wave her off, like maybe I want
to sit alone for once? Better view. The lips. God, they’re huge. Like a slow-mo close-up, they part and her tongue extends
and circles the outlined oval of her mouth, moistening every millimeter of lip skin. Her head slowly turns and her eyes raise
to meet mine. She fixes on me, suggesting something lewd with her tongue.
I jerk and—CRASH!—the stack of books on my lap falls to the floor, jolting everyone on the train awake. She looks back
over her shoulder, to my group, impassive.
“Where are you going?” Becca asks when I stand up at lunch and lift my tray.
I don’t answer. It’s crazy. I don’t know why I’m doing this. The sight of her sitting alone at the picnic table on the cafeteria
patio when it’s below zero out. What’s that about? No one would think to eat outside today; no one’s even gone out to smoke
at the wall.
A suction, a force, a magnetic pull draws me to the outside door. She startles a little when I slide in the bench across from
her. “Anyone sitting here?” I ask.
She blinks. Doesn’t say anything for a long minute. Then, “Yeah. I’m saving it for Mr. Right.”
That makes me laugh—almost.
She pushes up to leave and I lunge across the table to grab her arm. “I just want to talk to you.”
Her gaze hovers over my hand. It rises slowly to my face. Stare down. I’m not letting go. I’ve gotten this far. She shifts
her eyes over my head. Hold, hold. What’s there? The wall. A dead tree.
Freezing is the operative word here. “Could we go inside?” I ask. “It’s like fifty below. Your lips are blue.”
It’s meant to be a joke, but I’m the only one laughing—inside.
Her head swivels to take in the crowded cafeteria.
“I know a place,” I say, “where we can be alone.”
That gets her attention. I didn’t mean it like that. Did I? She eyes me again, up and down. Slowly, with that mocking sensuality,
she smiles. I release her arm and hug myself in my thin hoodie. If I’d known I was trekking to the Yukon today, I’d have worn
mukluks.
“Why?”
“What?”
She’s smiling at me. Like her face is stuck. Her eyes are surgical probes.
Why? It’s a good question. Why now? The train wreck. That’s why now. The train wreck in India. I saw it on the news. This
passenger train derailed on a bridge and went
plunging into the Krishna River. They didn’t have the actual footage of the event, only the aftermath. The wreckage.
A train wreck in India has nothing to do with me, but I started having nightmares afterward. I’d see the people on the train
riding along all nonchalant, reading their papers or rocking their babies, trusting they were going to be alive an hour later.
Then BAM! The moment of disaster. As people realize what’s happening, their mouths gape open in a silent scream.
It jolts me awake and my heart pounds. A long time has to pass, lying awake in the dark, for that vision to dissipate. In
that blitz of time, the interminable instant before certain death, do people reach out for each other? Do they embrace or
hold hands or hang on to each other? Or do they die alone, not knowing the person sitting next to them? Not even knowing their
name. I mean, they’re going to be spending eternity together. They should say hello.
Always in the vision she’s there. We’re falling.
Our train clatters over the Carbondale Bridge every day.
I meet her eyes and say, “I just want to talk to you. Is that so random?” I don’t say, I want to know you. Who you are. I
don’t say, I want to get behind your facade, throw back your cover and reveal you. I want to see your lips move, watch them
part, understand how they connect to the rest of your person. I want you to know my name.
Between a slight gap in her lips, I see her teeth chatter. Most of all I want to understand this power you have over
me, I think. This… surge. Her inner lips are a bruising shade of purple. Mine must be too. We’re both shivering.
“Come on. You made your point.”
“Which is?” she asks.
Okay, that’s it. This isn’t worth it. This is so not worth it. Stupid train in India, half a world away. My senior year, with
time running out. Forget it, I think. There’s no connection. Freeze if you want. I get up and slide out of the bench.
“Just a minute.”
My charge for the door slows.
She breaks up the rest of her sandwich and tosses it toward the wall. Four or five sparrows flitter down off the tree, hop
over, chitter, vie for choice pickings. Retrieving her backpack from beside her on the bench, she stands and says, “I’m ready.”
Oh, she’s ready. I’m derailed and she’s ready.
I feel a sense of relief, though. A shiver of… excitement.
I only know about the boneyard because the librarian asked a bunch of us to help her cart a set of encyclopedias in there
from the media center during spring cleanup last year. She called it the Britannica Boneyard.
“It’s unlocked,” I say, turning the knob and pushing in the door with my shoulder. What was I going to do if it was
locked? I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I enter and hold the door open for her. “I hope there’s heat in here.”
She passes me. She takes her time, her shoulder brushing mine. There’s heat all right. Her eyes dart around all the bookcases
and cardboard box. . .
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