“Your skirt is too short,” says Mrs. Bianchi. “You need to get a new one.”
I hear someone whistle behind me and say, “Ooooooo, Margot’s in trouble!”
I look down at my blue plaid skirt in the midst of ringing laughter. What I want to say is that my mom can’t be bothered to buy me a new skirt and I can’t be bothered to ask her either. What I want to say is that I grew a full five inches this year and there’s no point buying a new plaid skirt for my uniform if I’m going to grow out of it anyway. But I can’t say that, not at St. Ignatius Regional Catholic school, and not at Mrs. Bianchi, with the ruler she raps against her hands to summon our attention and she was rumored to have hit a fourth grader with her palm years before, right in the face. I feel bare and naked as she talks to me, like my dead grandfather, may God rest his soul, who died from slipping in the shower and has gone to Heaven now. I don’t say much, I just nod and mumble that I was sorry before I continue to walk through the hallway to the cafeteria I wouldn’t eat at again after this year, eighth grade.
At lunch after prayer as I’m chewing on my baloney sandwich, Theresa S. announces that I am a slut for wearing a short skirt. “Like that.” I want to respond that Theresa S. is equally a slut then for wearing that skimpy black bikini at Lexi’s birthday party, and that my mom agrees. She scrolled through the Instagram carousel with her finger and pointed out, “Wow, her butt is the size of a dump truck,” and I agreed, though really I was focusing on her puckered duck lips and how Brian, who sat at the table across from us, kissed them. She was the girl to have her first kiss, give her first handjob, have sex before all of us, so maybe she really was a slut. She wasn’t godly like Amanda, who wore mascara to school even though it was against the rules.
All the girls with their bug eyes look at me like, What’s she gonna say?
“Fuck off, Theresa.” I give her the middle finger discreetly enough so the boys don’t see and tell on me.
Kate, a girl with oniony breath, whispers to me, “You can buy a cheaper version of that skirt at TJ Maxx.”
I go to the bathroom and a few minutes later, Godly Amanda slides in. “It wasn’t really nice for you to say that, you know. You really are acting bitchy right now.”
I squeeze at the whitehead between my nose and mouth that is making my upper lip heavy. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I’ll apologize.”
But I don’t apologize. When Godly Amanda goes away, I turn to the mirror, look at my own butt — or ass, as the girls say — and see that it’s flat as a cereal box. I’m ninety pounds — I got weighed in the nurse’s office — and am the only girl to still wear a training bra. This short skirt is all I have going for me. It’s all I’ll ever have, because the world beyond St. Ignatius might as well be on Mars. I remember crying because the boys won’t kiss me and my mom says I’ll find someone eventually, and maybe I’ll find someone if I continue wearing this skirt. I would’ve kept staring at my flat ass if the bell didn’t ring and I had to go back and clean the blue table with a rag cause we can’t afford a real janitor. The girls love to make me do it.
When I get off the bus, after walking through the hordes of leaves, I change out of my scratchy uniform into my at home clothes (a hoodie and sweatpants) and I plop myself onto my pink Paris-themed bedspread. I went to London and Paris when I was eleven years old. After my trip, in the beginning of sixth grade, I told my class to take the Elizabeth Line, not the Heathrow Express, from the airport to London, because the Elizabeth Line was cheaper, and that I also really wanted to go back to London and Paris. They all laughed at me and made it clear wanting anything, anything at all, was as taboo as my short skirt. So was knowing the Bible, which we didn’t read. I would page through Revelation sometimes and wonder how any of this could be real.
So at dinner, when Mom tells me she can’t afford to send me to a Catholic high school, I’m relieved. Switching from public to Catholic school was the worst decision I’ve made, because why would I think people would be less judgemental? No one would go through the bag of my sanitary pads anymore and giggle, and I could wear a skirt as short as I want. Because at public school, everyone is a slut.
Emily Rutz is a third-year English Major and Minors in Professional and Technical Writing and Creative Writing. ER1034711@wcupa.edu.