Two (c) Nita Walker Boles

Two (c) Nita Walker Boles
Curls Courtesy of Plastic Turtles

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Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Barbara* , the Bain of all New Girls, or How I Was Responsible for a Marriage

The names of everyone mentioned from school in this piece are fictitious,  including the teachers, but the deeds are all too familiar. 

I was still seven when my mother gave me what was to be the last permanent she would ever give me. Mother meticulously sewed, dressed, and groomed us, with whatever means she had, and that included well-set hair. My hair was so white  when I was about 3 that a lady waiting with us for a traffic light to change could not resist  reaching down to finger it, remarking to my mother's horror, "My, her hair bleaches nicely.


But by the time I was seven, although still a blonde, just one area of my head was white and the rest ash colored. Thick and unruly, it never behaved well, so mother bought a Tonette and set to work with the rollers. The problem was, although the baby color was gone, the texture was and always would be the same: fine. It was fine as a delicate spider's web and the effect of the chemicals on those almost microscopic strands of hair was quite stunning.

As mother combed through it after the last rinse, tears welled up in my eyes. "I look like a French Poodle!" I choked.

Mother looked like she might cry, too.."It will wash out in a while," she offered, but her face betrayed her own doubt. I can only imagine how badly she wished she could have known to use bigger rollers.  But it had been some time since my last perm and her expertise dated back as far as the first commercial perms went. I was her third girl, not to mention at least 3 of her sisters, and her own hair that she had seen after since she was old enough. My hair wasn't burnt, just tightly curled.

To make matters worse, on a trip to the mountains I had hit my front tooth when releasing a well pump handle. The tooth was broken off a quarter of the way up, and I avoided smiling and guarded how I held my upper lip to keep the snaggle-tooth from showing. I hoped to avoid calling attention to myself so much that people probably couldn't keep their eyes off me  for trying to understand why I was so odd. 

So on my very first day in  the 4th at grade at Thatcher Elementary, I presented with insanely curly hair.  The teacher,  sweet little Mrs. Andrews,  announced my addition to the class with my exotic first name, Juanita. It was the only first name I had, and I never considered using the middle name, Ruth, because I just didn't know any Ruths to judge whether it would work as well as Tammy or Linda might have for a better first name.  The large freckles strewn across my nose must have made the mop on my head even  more bizarre as my face turned crimson.

As we exited for the playground at recess I walked past a girl with shiny, smooth brown hair who was surrounded by a group of well-dressed friends. "She doesn't  look Mexican," she said as though I was invisible while clearly, since all eyes were on me, they could at least see through me.  I was later to learn from one of the other, less popular girls, that this was Barbara. She and her personality-free Secret Service agents were known widely as The Clique. 

Within a week it was clear that I would have precious few friends among my classmates if she had anything to say about it. What I could not understand was why, if she didn't want to be friends, was it necessary so far as she was concerned,  to be enemies. What I did that made her so determined to ruin my life would always escape me. But for 4 long school years, Barbara made it her objective every single day to have something unkind to say within my earshot.  She seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time on me for someone who so disliked me so much. In doing so, she acquired free rent in my head, where for years after we left Pueblo, into my life as a young adult if I felt socially inept or like I didn't belong she would visit my dreams with her hangers-on.

In spite of her constant interference,  I gradually got to know the other less socially important girls, and joined Girl Scouts where The Clique was subordinate to a lot of recited mottoes and stated purposes. The leaders were some of the few adults apparently not charmed  by Barbara's social connections and  talents in crowd control.  They quickly snuffed any takeover attempts in that venue and redirected  the group toward more purposeful and fulfilling activities. Girl Scouts became the great equalizer and testing ground for trying out new things and showing accomplishment without feeling somehow inferior. Anyone could get a badge, anyone could advance rank, and no one was better than the other.

Still the daily grind at school was a tough one. It irritated Barbara that I could finish my work before her and make better grades than her.  Since our family moved in just before Christmas and Mrs. Lacy discovered quickly that I was a talented artist  she had me use the extra time, sometimes half the day, to paint the faces and costumes on a new set of Santa's  Helpers that would adorn the staircase at Thatcher that year. Using a blowup projector she enlarged a paper Santa's Workshop I had brought as an example when she asked for ideas from the class. Strangely no one else was privileged to work on this project, which lasted several days, and took me out of class as soon as my work was done. I could feel Barbara's eyes on my back as I left the classroom with the Art Teacher. 

On one of the few occasions in which Barbara spoke directly to me she stopped me while we happened to be alone in the hall.  "Hey," she said authoritatively with one hand on her hip, "What  kind of health insurance does your family have?"

Wide eyed and afraid not to answer, I swallowed and said, "Blue Cross".

"Good!" she said, busily straightening her cashmere sweater. She needed to be certain my family was contributing to her well-being, I suppose. "My father sells Blue Cross."

As she walked away with her perfect hair bouncing over her shoulders I said to the back of her head,  "Well my father sells life insurance."  Could she possibly respect that our fathers had a shared dependance on the purchase of insurance, I wondered.I had never thought of discussing what my father did with my classmates, and I wondered what conversation in her (much-bigger-than-mine)  house had pushed her to recruit from her school mates. If I could get in the Way-Back machine I would probably find out that the date was the one following the announcement of Colorado Fuel and Iron's Steel  Mill closing. The ripple effect would  take about 3 years to seriously compromise hundreds of families that were dependent either directly or indirectly on CF&I's success.

I crept back to anonymity since our common thread was unknown by anyone else, and I really didn't want to be a part of The Clique anyway. I wasn't shy but most of my friends were, so I was the one who sought them out, and we were mostly members of the Girl Scout Troop.. I  visited one friends' fishing cabin  high in the  Rockies and attended birthday parties at the homes of others. And one popular and talented girl with blonde hair like mine was just as friendly to me as she was to everyone else. It wasn't so bad being Barbara's most hated classmate.

A couple of months after I arrived, a new girl, Esther, was introduced to the class. I watched in amazement as Barbara repeated the same sizing-up she had done with me, evaluating the usefulness of Esther to her group of well-dressed followers and dismissing her initially as unimportant. Esther was the only Jewish girl in our class. She had strongly ethnic features, and gazed straight at you when she spoke with you. I sensed her loneliness very quickly and reached out to her to be sure she had a friend. For a couple of weeks, Esther was my friend alone, but when Barbara learned that Esther's father was a banker I walked into class to find Esther standing right next to Barbara. Both of them looked straight at me, and I took my seat.

She had joined The Clique immediately when invited, but it wasn't long before we were playing together again  after school. Saturdays she had Sabbath School and could not play, and Sundays I went to church. I was pained that Esther had been so quick to abandon me but glad when she returned. Still Esther had a quality that allowed her to maintain friendships with anyone she chose and the amazing ability to move within several circles. She and I were friends, but not best friends, and she joined Girl Scouts as well. 

After forth grade came fifth, and Mrs Steadmond. Mrs Steadmond had hair that was plastered fast against her head in a severe bun. Her mouth was permanently fixed in a thin, grim line beneath a short, snooty nose and two eyes knit together in the middle by the frown of disapproval she wore solely for me. She would never call on me  in class and kept her attention fixed on the shining social stars. She couldn't find fault with my test scores but she would dismiss writing that I knew was above my own grade level as superfluous. After reading an especially deep book I thought I would ask if she had read it. She listened, a look of annoyance on her face as I attempted to explain  the story line of The Ghetto, a recount of the Warsaw Jewish experience. World War II had ended less than 20 years before, and I had seen the numbers printed on Esther's mother's hand.  When she did not respond, I offered, "I write poetry, Mrs. Steadmond."   She looked at me evenly and said "Oh, a Jack of All Trades and a Master of None."  It was a long year. She really preferred to chat during playground time with Barbara and the Barbettes. I began writing more.

In the sixth grade, my mother had long since stopped trying to perm my hair to control it, so it was wavy and unruly. Mr. Melton was a big, jovial man with a good sense of humor. He did give me credit for a brain, but I cannot remember a single thing he ever said other than to ask me in front of the class if  I had combed my hair with an egg-beater.  Whatever I was doing, it wasn't working for me in the hair department. Barbara's favorite hairdo was a little flip with a bouffant pouf pinned in the back. I described it to my mother and she helped me pin the bouffant under.  As I approached the classroom, Barbara's sycophants had already reported my change of hairstyle to her. She leaned against the door frame watching me through half-shaded eyes and said dryly as I entered, "Nice try, Kiddo."

For the first time I looked right back at her and said,"You know, they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."  She left me alone the rest of that year. Mr. Melton seemed contrite after witnessing our conversation but my mother also had taken special interest in his egg beater remark. It is possible she delivered him an ultimatum he couldn't refuse, because he began to ask me questions directly when he could see I knew the answers rather than wait for my hand to come up. He seemed to make a special effort to treat me just as he would the rest of the class.

When we started Junior High School, the addition of new friends from a broader cross-section of our part of town diluted some of  the effects of Barbara's efforts.  There were several equally popular crowds, and of course all of them, including Barbara's had a Cheerleader for its' showpiece. That cheerleaders and football players went hand in hand had never occurred to me. But across from me in my eighth grade math class sat a tall, friendly football and basketball player, Jeff,  who first introduced himself to me, and then for the majority of the year continuously talked and joked with me.

Completely across the room from us sat Barbara, shooting withering glances my way as I tried to keep the banter quiet to avoid getting in trouble with the teacher. I thought it was just Barbara's way of being superior, not causing a ruckus by not sitting somewhere next to somebody who wanted to talk and  joke. But we were assigned seats by the teacher so I was there through no choice of my own.  Jeff took every opportunity to crack jokes, sometimes at my expense, just audible to everyone around us. There was a lot going on in that corner of the room, but we were just friends having a good time, I thought. It never occurred to me that Jeff might have Boyfriend potential. He was fun like my big brother was fun, and I was going to marry Paul McCartney.

Over the year as Jeff's attention persisted, Barbara became more and more frustrated. She spent her one of her CIA agents to determine whether or not I had romantic inclinations toward Jeff. I told her she was ridiculous, and that we were just friends.  But after class one day the teacher asked whether Jeff and I were a "pair".  When I insisted we were only friends he raised an eyebrow in disbelief and nodded his head.

I left wondering whether it was possible people really thought I liked Jeff and that he liked me when we never saw each other nor really spoke outside of class. I thought about sock hops and whether I could ever remember dancing with Jeff, and I really couldn't.  Barbara had admitted to her friends that I was a "good dancer" once at a sock hop where I never lacked for a partner. They were probably trying to figure out why no one asked them to dance when they were so important and popular.  Since I loved to dance it also never occurred to me that in the social scheme  of things, any one of my dance partners was a Potential Boyfriend. Maybe I had danced with Jeff. It was a big school. Sock Hops lasted a couple of hours. You could dance with a  lot of people in that amount of time if each record was 3 minutes long.

The next day as I walked toward Math class, I could see  a sort of parade of populars trailing behind the tall head of Jeff, but couldn't see who was next to him until the bottleneck formed at the door. Barbara turned with a little smile and stepped into the classroom with a glance back at me.  Jeff sat down silently across from me, never to tell another joke again.  For the rest of the year, Jeff walked Barbara everywhere to class. I would miss the fun a little, but I had other things to worry about.

We were moving after school was out to be near my older brother, who had cancer.   I had told my close friends, and was trying to wrap my head around the concept of leaving Colorado for the Desert Southwest of New Mexico. The Steel Mill had been closed for a year or more and Daddy's business had virtually stopped as the economy of 1962-1963 plummeted. He was going to farm in New Mexico again after some 15 years of making a living in the city.

Our family moved on to Lubbock, Texas after less than a year, and I met and married my husband after high school there. Like my mother, I loved to sew, so I got a little job in the fabric department of one of the more elegant department stores, Hemphill Wells.  When they opened a new store at the mall, they hired a new girl, Jan, to work in the fabric department with me.  We warmed up right away, but she sometimes stood staring at me.  "I just know we've met before," she said.

We went through church, college, sororities, social clubs, and finally high schools.  I went to Lubbock High School, but she went to Centennial, in Pueblo.  My mouth fell open.  What year? What Junior High?  It was staggering to think she could remember me from so many years before. I hadn't changed, apparently, although my hair was now honey brown and well-behaved.  Who did you know, we asked each other. I ran through the list of Choir friends and Girl Scout Friends.  She knew most of them, and I wondered how we had failed to connect at Freed Jr. High with so much in common.

Then she asked if I knew Barbara. I said, yes, we had gone to grade school together and were in the same Girl Scout Troop.  She said Barbara was her best friend. I couldn't suppress the gasp, but I walked back through the past several months of working with Jan to examine any evidence of unkindness. She was always, always nice, I concluded. "Well, are you still in touch?" I asked. When she affirmed that they still wrote I wondered how long our friendship was going to last now.She ran through who had dated who in those years after we left Pueblo, and who was married to who now. Barbara had married Jeff.

I could hardly believe my ears. We were in the eighth grade. Had she held onto him all four years of high school or did they ever see anyone else?  Had I haunted Barbara as some kind of force to be reckoned with when I  managed to thrive despite her seeming desire to crush me like a bug?  Was marrying Jeff, who came from a poor family like mine, a decision that began with taking away something she thought I had?  I was never going to ask Jan.

Jan was getting married. She and her fiance had finished college, and would be moving to a farm homesteaded by his grandparents. It sounded like a wonderful life, and she held my admiration as future wife of the American Farmer gone Agribusiness. We stayed in touch and wrote for several years we added to our little families and worked out the American Dream. Barbara never came up in conversation again. Jan never cooled in her friendship with me, and I quit having dreams about Barbara on a bad day not long afterwards. So far as I know, she and Jeff, my never-even-considered-it boyfriend, are still married.

1 comment:

  1. What a small world. I would've died when I found out who she was!

    P.S My mom gave me my share of perms as well. Perhaps bad hair is just a rite of passage?

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