“I’m strong,” Beatrice said. “You don’t have to worry about me.” Get out, she was thinking. Get out of my room and never come back.
“But I do,” said her mom, clasping her hands earnestly. “I do worry. That’s my job.” She squared her shoulders, like she was getting ready to plow a field or raise a barn. “Do you have any questions?”
“I do not.”
“Anything you want to know?” Her mom made another attempt at a smile. “You can ask me anything.”
How soon can this conversation be over was the only thing Beatrice wanted to know. “I’m fine. Really. No questions.”
“Oh, and I wanted to talk to you about masturbation!”
Oh, no. Beatrice couldn’t stop herself from making a dismayed squeak, which her mother either didn’t hear or decided to ignore.
“You probably know this already, but masturbation is perfectly natural and normal, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. And if you do it, it doesn’t mean you aren’t a virgin, or anything like that. It’s very important that you, um, know what makes you feel good before you’re intimate with someone else. Sex is about pleasure…”
Please stop talking, Beatrice prayed.
“… and you deserve pleasure,” her mom was saying earnestly. “Every woman does. You should be enjoying yourself just as much as the boy. Or, um, the other person.”
“Or people,” said Beatrice, straight-faced.
“Or people! Whatever! I just don’t want you to be in a relationship where sex is something you do for the other person. It can be the most wonderful thing in the world, and you should be exploring. By yourself, before you start with other people. Your body is a wonderland!” her mom had said, and she’d actually tried to wink. “And if you don’t know how to have an orgasm on your own, you aren’t going to be able to share that with your partners.”
Maybe I’m dead already, thought Beatrice, with a kind of faint wonder. Maybe I’m dead and this is hell: my mom quoting John Mayer songs and talking about orgasms.
“I got you some books…” Her mom had handed her A Girl’s Guide to Her Body and The Care and Keeping of You. “And if you have any questions, I’m here.”
“No questions,” Beatrice said, very firmly. “Thank you for this instructive interlude.” Her mom opened her arms, and Beatrice couldn’t back away quickly enough to avoid being hugged, and then finally, finally, her mom had departed, leaving only an indentation on the comforter to show that she’d been there. Beatrice had placed the books in the very bottom of her bottom dresser drawer, underneath the sweaters she never wore, and closed the drawer and told herself she’d never look in there, or even in that direction, again.
“Let’s open our MacBooks to a new Google Doc, please,” said Dr. Argan. “Beatrice, we usually start off on Thursdays with some free writing. Half an hour on the subject of your choice.” The other kids had already started clickety-clacking away, but her face must have looked as blank as her brain felt, because he looked at her kindly, and said, “Tell me who you are. Tell me about your hobbies. Heck, tell me what you did on your summer vacation! Just something so that I can get to know you.”
Great. Beatrice stared at the cursor, which pulsed evilly and refused to form words on its own. She buttoned and unbuttoned the top pearl button on her cardigan and smoothed her hair behind her ears. She thought about telling the story of sixth-grade art class, how the teacher, Ms. Perkins, had shown them how to use wire and papier-maché to make a sculpture, and how, almost the instant she’d started bending the wire in the shape of their dog Lester’s body, Beatrice had felt a magical click in her brain, the sense that this, not math or English or being a lawyer or giving cooking lessons, was what she was made for. Ms. Perkins was short, with curly hair and thin lips and pointy ears, one with seven piercings, including one through the tragus. By the end of the year, to her mom’s amusement and her father’s dismay, Beatrice had stopped wearing jeans and sneakers and began finding an aesthetic of her own, one that involved vintage Laura Ashley and Gunne Sax dresses, delicate gold rings, pearl necklaces and embroidered carpetbags and bouquets of tea roses and baby’s breath.
Beatrice could write about art and fashion. But then she decided there was a different story she could tell.
“Last year a woman was murdered in the house next door to mine,” she typed.