Little Mermaid Ch. 02

To an 18-year-old, all people over forty look old. The woman on the other side of the desk was no exception. She also looked pitifully ugly, being a skinny 6-foot stick with a flat chest and no hips. Nevertheless, she smiled, and the smile lit up her face. She sounded very sure of herself as she rose and shook Ariel's hand, introducing herself. They sat down with some iced tea in a cozy corner of the office. The woman smiled even wider and said: "So, you're the ugly one." Ariel watched her over the rim of her glass. The woman seemed to have decided to compensate her ugliness with good but boring taste, wearing a cream-colored mohair jersey over a pretty silk blouse, and a pencil skirt that left her spindly legs free from the knees down. The patent leather heels were classy too. But no man would look twice, surely, would he? Nice blond curls and quality make-up did the utmost for her eyes and face, but all this toiling was to no avail, was it? Ariel chuckled by herself at the opening sentence of the woman. Great trick to call her ugly, just like only black people can use the N-word. If it was meant to create a bond, okay, here we go, she thought.

"Well," she said, smiling. "I guess it takes one to know one." The woman grinned and took a sip from her glass.

"I remember being your age," she said. "Flat and thin and absolutely sure my life had already ended before it began. But I must admit that in the business of defeatism, I was just an amateur compared to you, honey." Mom must have told her, Ariel thought.

"I'm just a realist," she said. The woman frowned.

"Ah, yes, the realist excuse," the woman said, "the depressed teenage pessimist's favorite come-back. Let me show you something." She rose and picked up a folder from her desk. Ariel followed her supple, easy movements, elegant, like a dancer, she thought. Sitting down, the woman, what was her name again? Anna, opened the folder and put a picture in front of Ariel. It showed a girl in close-up, half her face disfigured by a huge purple splotch. A second picture landed on the first. It showed a girl with no hair, not on her skull, not on her eyebrows and not around her eyes. The eyes hardly had color, and the girl's upper lip was split by a reddish scar running from her nose down to her disfigured mouth. A third picture had a girl with a glass eye and a mutilated nose. Next came a young, impossibly obese girl, followed by an anorexic skeleton. Ariel looked up; the woman had lost her smile. "Now, let's talk ugly," she said. Ariel surmised what the woman was at; and she knew she was way beside the point. Making her feel pretty because there were real monsters around? If this was how she thought to 'cure' her, she'd better leave. She put down her half-empty glass and rose.

"This is a waste of time," she said. "You really don't have a clue." She turned to walk out of the room but hesitated as the woman called after her.

"You think no boy will ever fuck you," she said. "Well, look at this." Ariel's curiosity won out. She turned around and noticed how the low table was covered in snapshots. Stepping closer, she saw that on each one of them there was a blond girl, kissing or making out with a guy. Inspecting them further, she found out that the girl must be the woman, Anna, even skinnier, but much younger. Some of the photos were pretty raunchy, showing her half-naked; in one she had her face in the crotch of a boy. Almost each picture showed her with a different guy. "I'm not proud of these," the woman said. "College life can get pretty wild with all the booze and the weed and the raging hormones, you know." Ariel said nothing; she just looked, sorting through the pictures. The girl had typical eighties hair, maybe nineties, lots of fake curls; and some of the guys had moustaches--ew. She also had no tits and no ass to speak of, but it didn't seem to bother any of the guys.

"You see," Anna said, leaning forward, "boys don't care about tits or fat round asses, not really. Oh, they love them as a bonus, or to boast about afterwards, or to jerk off to online, but the only thing they really care about is where they can put their dicks. Especially when they get drunk; all they want is a warm, wet hole to put their cocks in and come before they pass out." Ariel looked at the woman, amazed by her choice of words. Looking back to the pictures she wondered if anything was true about what she said. But the pictures seemed real enough, and it was her. Then one more photograph fell on the pile -- bigger than the snapshots, and glossier. It also was more recent, showing the woman, Anna, in a swimsuit. Her arm was around a little girl who looked a lot like her. On her other side was a boy of about ten, grinning and holding a ball. Behind all three of them was a man of about the woman's age, tanned and wide-shouldered, looking very fit. He smiled, leaning against a surfboard.

"That's my family," Anna said, pointing. "Little sweet Annabelle, Glenn, Jr, and Glenn, Sr." Ariel's eyes kept fixed on the man. He looked much like Tim Bradlee, same surfer type, almost the same smile. "You see," the woman went on, draping an arm around Ariel. "There is sex..." She made a vague gesture to the snapshots. She smiled as Ariel looked up. "When you leave for college, next summer, there will be parties and outings, long weekends and trips to the beach. And there will be booze and weed and pills and sex, hard, sweaty sex, and you will be at the center of it all." Ariel slowly shook her head in disbelief. "You will," the woman insisted. "And it'll mean nothing. Oh, it'll be fun, big fun, a time you'll never forget. And it'll seem to mean everything for a short while. And then something will happen that'll change it all..." She took a pause, letting her words dangle in silence. Her eyes sparkled, fixating Ariel's. Then she once again gestured at the snapshots. "So, as I said, there is sex," she repeated. "Lots of raucous sex, and then..." She picked up the family picture. "...and then there is love." The woman seemed lost in the picture. Then she looked up and said: "Please, Ariel, don't leave yet. Please sit down and at least finish your drink." Ariel sat down, picking up her glass.

"When I met Glenn at yet another of these rather sleazy frat parties," Anna began, "I wasn't ready at all. I was prepared to go through all the usual stages -- flirting, dancing and drinking until nothing mattered anymore and the fucking would start, ending in unconsciousness and a huge hangover the next day." She smiled weakly. Ariel tried to compare the words she heard with the woman who said them. She tried to imagine her there, boozing and making out, getting naked and getting fucked. This neatly ugly, nicely dressed, flat-chested, stick-limbed suburban momma... "Then this boy... no, this man appeared," Anna went on. "Glenn, he said his name was. And I was sober in a minute. We left the party and just walked, talking about everything and nothing. All I remember now is this sense of... safety... and his cologne, of course. He was tall and warm and save... alien and yet very close; a grown man, calm and yet... vibrant with energy. All I wanted was to be with him, to crawl into him; and I'd only met him minutes before..." Her voice petered out as her eyes lingered at some distant point. The intimacy of her words embarrassed Ariel.

"He escorted me back to my dorm building," the woman went on. "We kissed at the entrance. Now, I had kissed and tongued and slobbered like a pro all that year, giving head by the dozens, but that one chaste kiss almost made me come." Another short silence, then she said: "Could you believe that?" Anna looked at Ariel with dreamy expectation. Then she chuckled. "Ah, sorry, honey," she said. "What am I telling you? Waaaay too intimate." Ariel looked at her own hands that she'd folded in her lap. Images crowded her mind as she heard the woman rave about her lover. She recognized the warmth, the safety, even the cologne... She knew every sensation the woman alluded to, and her memory put a face on it: tanned, blue-eyed and with a crooked smile. They were sensations she'd resented, memories she'd subdued, and feelings she'd run away from. Tears stung behind her eyes.

***

Being with Von and Barb was like listening to a radio: they talk, you listen. They'd always been the ones who set the agenda, deciding what was and wasn't worthy of their time. Not that there ever was much surprise in the choice or the ranking of their gossip-priorities. Boys came first, in every sense of the concept: popstars, movie stars, and maybe three or four boys at school -- plus the occasional teacher. The second item was make-up and fashion, including a never-ending stream of critique on the way other schoolgirls used them. Then, third, after a long stretch of nothing, came whatever might be the topic of the moment, like a pending party, a broken relationship or a broken nail. Ariel didn't mind. Well, she used not to mind. She used to just sit and listen, bored, usually, amused at times -- or amazed. But today she felt different, hearing the predictable litany of banalities, the superficiality of it all. Today it irritated her. It was the day after she saw the woman, Anna.

"Can't you ever talk about something important?" she asked. The silence was deafening. Two carefully painted mouths hung open. Maybe it was because of the question; more possibly it was because Ariel asked anything at all.

"Are you all right, Ari?" Von asked. She was a big girl, always talking about dieting, and always buying tops and skirts that were a size too small. Ariel knew that Von was very aware of the boys ogling her tits, and today was the first time she felt annoyed by the way the girl played at that, each time a boy passed by.

"I'm fine," Ariel said, shrugging. "But I was talking about you." She'd always hung with the girls, Von and Liz and Barb. Barb wasn't as big as Von, but she had a real 'JLo ass' as she put it. Liz, who wasn't around that day, claimed to have it all, both front and back. 'I'm Liz Kardashian, actually,' she liked to say. Today Ariel wondered for the umpteenth time why on earth she kept hanging with them. They only emphasized how flat and skinny she was. The girls even loved to rub it in, turning it into compliments, of course -- using words like slender, and catwalk-quality. When they really liked to be mean, they cried out how jealous she made them.

She saw how her question embarrassed the girls, and by now she wondered why she'd asked it. Why now? And what was the use?

"Never mind," she said. The two girls exchanged looks.

"Never mind what?" Von asked, pulling at her top. Ariel rose, picked up her books and walked off, leaving the girls to stare after her.

***

"Are you avoiding us, Ari?" Von asked, the day after Ariel had left so suddenly. They were in the hallway where the lockers were. Von was wearing her tightest top, not just emphasizing her boobs, but also a surplus of fat in less desired places. Her exposed belly had a glittering piercing, and the low-riding jeans might have taken her a lot of time to get into. So, this was what boys liked? She looked up into heavily made-up eyes, pondering what the girl said. Had she been avoiding them?

"Not really, why?" Ariel asked, moving past the girl to get to her locker. A hand stopped her.

"Because you left without a word, yesterday," Von went on, moving her gum from left to right as she spoke. "And you seemed angry at us."

"I wasn't," Ariel said, opening her locker, taking out her track gear.

"You were," the girl insisted. "You said we were stupid and superficial, and then you left." Ariel frowned.

"I didn't say that," she then said. "But excuse me, I have to be at track training." She went past Von, wondering why she cared so little what the girl said.

"Ariel," Von yelled behind her back. "Ever since Tim Bradlee fucks you, you've become an arrogant bitch!" She stopped and turned around. Von's face was flushed and contorted into an angry mask. Ariel took a few steps in her direction.

"That... that's not true," she said, keeping her voice down, hoping the girl would too. "I don't... I mean, Tim doesn't..." Von shrugged.

"We all wondered, you know," she said, loud and sarcastic. "Which of the jocks you'd fuck first; if Tim was the first, that is, of course." Ariel felt dizzy. What did the girl mean? And why so loud?

"I don't fuck anybody," she then said; or rather, hissed. "You know very well, so don't lie. Don't be cruel to me." She was aware of people stopping and watching.

It didn't cause Von to lower her voice, on the contrary.

"You always thought we were too ugly and fat for you, didn't you?" she asked, pushing her billowing hip out and spitting the words. "Sitting there, smiling. High and mighty Ariel, the catwalk model." She twisted her voice and shook her head in crude parody. Ariel felt a blush spreading from her throat, and tears burning behind her eyes. She turned around brusquely, fighting her way through curious bystanders. "Yeah!" Von yelled. "Run, skinny bitch!"

***

"But you can't keep calling in sick, honey," her mother said. "You don't run a fever, and you don't want to see a doctor; you just sit in your room. What's going on?" They sat at the breakfast table; Ariel hadn't touched a bite. She just stared at the spoon making circles in her bowl of fruit and soggy cereals. "You can't keep missing school; it's only weeks until your tests," her mother went on, predictably. Ariel shrugged.

"I don't care," she said.

"But I do!" her mother cried out. "And so does your father." Ariel sighed. It was typical how her mother used her father, like a threatening thunderstorm, just beyond the horizon. He'd been the absent boogieman since she remembered, gone in the morning before breakfast, and hardly ever at dinner in the evenings. Even in the weekends he was away with 'friends' playing golf or going to games. Sometimes she wondered why her mother insisted they had a marriage. She remembered once, two years ago that she'd botched up two tests and her parents had been called to school to talk about it. Of course, her mother went alone, but the next day it had been her father who called her into his 'office,' as he called the room he mostly lived in when he was home. No one was permitted to go there, and the place was a mess, filled with dusty piles of papers, boxes and empty bottles. It stank of tobacco and a hint of old sweat. He took a pile of rubbish off the only spare chair and told her to sit. Then he scolded her for being stupid and lazy -- and he told her she would be grounded for a month. She tried to explain what had happened, but he told her to shut up and go to bed.

"Dad doesn't care at all," she said, pushing away the bowl. "Not about me, and not about you." To her amazement her mother didn't deny it. She always did, whenever Ariel doubted the man's commitment to her. It was like a reflex, but not today. Today she started crying. Her mother hardly ever cried; well, not in Ariel's presence at least. Seeing it now made her feel uncomfortable. Her mother had always been the one to turn to, even if it never helped much. Often, she was the only one there who listened anyway, making Ariel feel heard and maybe just a little bit safe. Someone like that shouldn't cry, should she? It ruined the illusion, the fragile but so very necessary illusion. Outside the circle of this kitchen and this pot of herbal tea, there was a real world, and it was cruel and hostile, way beyond her mother's reach or understanding. In the end, her mother was just a petite, round ball of fluff at the heart of a storm. She couldn't even protect her against her father, could she? Seeing her mother cry was the moment Ariel grew up. It was the first moment she realized that not she, but her mother was the child, really, at the mercy of uncontrollable forces. She'd always been like that, Ariel knew now. Abused and abandoned by her husband, mistreated and ridiculed by her teenage daughter, she was totally defenseless in a thankless, incomprehensible world. Ariel felt her eyes tear up as she embraced her mother.

***

The next day she returned to school and ignored whatever was said or whispered around her. She didn't have to avoid Liz or Barb or Von, as they did a thorough job of avoiding her themselves. She sat in class, ran at the track and ate her lunch mostly in solitude. She knew she would soon drop from the gossip list of her fellow students, superimposed by some silly other item.

Tim Bradlee joined her once at lunch, using the medical progress of his knee as an excuse to make conversation.

"Get lost, Tim Bradlee," she hissed, not looking up from her textbook.

"Wow," he said. "What did I do?" Ariel looked up.

"Don't be surprised, asshole," she said. "I'm not one of those big titted whores you're fucking lately. Did you really have to lie about me to everybody?" Tim Bradlee's face turned red. His mouth moved, but there was no sound. "Get lost, Tim," she repeated. "I have to study." He scrambled to his feet.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said. "I never lied about you, never, to anyone. Anyone! And I don't fuck whores," he added. Ariel's heart beat in her throat. She turned her eyes back to her book, trying to create a wall around herself, waiting for him to leave. "Ariel," he said. The wall became a blood-pumping halo, closing in on her. In the end, she was just two hot eyes, burning holes into an unseen page. When she at last looked up, he'd left.

***

Being ugly usually makes you want to cover up and become invisible. Ariel had always done that. Ever since she turned 14 and became aware of her physical misfortune, she'd worn bulky coats over wide sweaters and shapeless pants. The color scheme of her outfits ran from muddy gray to grayish mud. She remembered how her mother kept trying to get her into prettily printed blouses and merry-colored dresses. No birthday or Christmas was free of quarrels because she refused to wear them. After three disastrous visits to the mall with her mother, she'd started ordering her non-descript items online. Even for running she preferred sweatpants and XL t-shirts. She didn't make up her face, nor did she visit a hairstylist very often, and then only to have her bob cut even shorter. Her confrontation with Von and Barb had taught her, though, that things had changed: being invisible didn't protect her anymore, did it?

Beauty was a conspiracy, and it didn't include her. Having the right looks, the proper attitude and the correct lingo really were the rules of a self-appointed minority. Beauty and sexiness, she learned, was convention, and it was all in the eye of the beholder. At school those beholders were a small clique of popular kids that kept each other prisoner of their own cliché's, say, Alice Brown, head cheerleader, and her entourage of curvy blondes; or Lucinda Dell, richest heiress in town, who hardly ever wore an outfit twice. They took their opinions from very narrow and shallow sources, like glossy magazines, TV shows, silly movies and YouTube. And from each other, of course. It was enough to establish a brainless reign over whomever feared the social consequences of not following them. Which included themselves.

After weeks of impotent rage, Ariel persuaded herself of the stupidity of trying to understand, and the even greater stupidity of trying to belong. Visible or invisible, she would never be accepted, so why want it? It was impossible to follow their rules, she would always be an outsider. So, an outsider she'd be. With her own stupid sources, her own stupid rules; any sources, any rules as long as they weren't theirs.

Amongst her stuff she found an old album of some long-forgotten punk band. Maybe it had been her father's, although she had a hard time believing that. Anyway, there was this picture of a girl on it and she was way-over-the-top ugly, from her spiked black hair down to her white-faced clownish make up and her torn fishnet nylons in clunky, black leather workmen shoes. Seeing the picture, Ariel realized that what she could do, was establish her own beyond-ugly standard, way outside the others' silly rules and laws. So, hardly knowing what she did, Ariel took her mother's credit card and visited the salon at the mall to have her hair cut into a riot of spikes, and have it dyed a solid black. Then she asked the beautician to do an extreme goth make-up: lots of gloomy eyeshadow, mascara and dark lipstick. Her nails were painted black, and her face powdered white. She decided against facial piercings, or tattoos. Maybe another time.