While that dog book did kill my existential innocence, it did not kill my passion for the written word. Learning to read was my key to the universe’s great expanse, allowing me opportunities to pop into other worlds, other lives, all while escaping the monotony of my own.
I preferred realistic fiction. The Babysitters Club series became an immediate favorite of mine, owing in part to the character development, described in terms of each club member’s signature style. In fact, I blame that series for the intensity by which I pick out my outfits for each and every occasion to this very day. Your vibe attracts your tribe, am I right?
I devoured those books, fifteen formulaic chapters and a happy ending all in one sitting. The series was a gateway to other books about friends and school, lives that I was too shy to live but eager to be a part of. Books were safe; they made me feel seen while helping me to understand how the world worked.
My parents were proud of my habit. “Lizzie’s our reader,” they’d tell their friends. “She’s going to grow up to be a writer,” they’d tell my grandparents. Was I being encouraged, or was I being groomed? At that point in life, it didn’t matter. I was pleased to be pleasing them, especially doing something that I enjoyed. It was a win-win.
They must have bragged to everyone about my voracious reading habits, because one day when I was in third grade, my dad came home with a box of decade-old chapter books. His coworker’s daughter was done with them, and now they were being passed on to me.
They smelled musty and felt grimy, but they were classics. I started with Beverly Cleary’s Socks, empathizing with the feelings of abandonment that the beloved cat felt after his people had a baby. I surmised that I, too, would be the type of teen who would come up with any excuse to get out of gym class, in the style of The Cat Ate My Gymsuit. And then I studied the cover of my first Judy Blume book, noticing that the split level house on the cover of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret resembled the house that I was then calling home.
In the first chapter, Margaret is just moving into that house, and she doesn’t have a swimsuit unpacked to wear when her new neighbor, Nancy, invites her to go swimming. Nancy offers up one of her own suits, at which Margaret initially balks. I empathized with Margaret: isn’t that gross, like sharing underwear? Nancy reassures her that the swimsuit has been washed and thus sharing this item is perfectly acceptable. I agreed that Nancy’s reasoning is sound; I liked that the situation is intimate yet practical. I kept reading.
When Margaret isn’t hanging with her new friends, gossiping about classmates and talking about puberty milestones, she’s questioning if she should adhere to a religion. I immediately saw the parallels between her extended family and mine. Margaret’s parents are an interfaith couple, causing turmoil that caused Margaret’s mother and grandparents to become estranged.
Likewise, something had happened between my dad and his parents that caused them to break off contact with each other just before my parents’ wedding, but it wasn’t an interfaith issue. Everyone in my family was devoutly Catholic. Well, with the exception of my mother’s Lutheran father, but as a kid I was told that he was still Christian, and no one in the family took any issue with his religion. Maybe he was given a pass because of the trauma he experienced as a kid on the German front of World War II. I don’t know, but I do know that the shit would hit the fan when I married Jack, a Methodist. Scandal. But that’s a story for later.
Back when I was eight years old, religious affiliations were much less interesting to me than the puberty plotlines in this Blume book. I knew that bodies changed, somehow, and this book was making me increasingly curious. I’d never really thought about the how before. I was prepared to get details as I read. As an avid reader, I was comfortable with figuring out the context of terms and ideas within the text, gaining comprehension as I went along.
It took me a few chapters to figure out that the term “bust” meant “boobs.” No, I had no idea how the arm exercises and chants of “I must increase my bust” would make them grow. I was even less sure about the “period” they kept mentioning; it didn’t seem to refer to punctuation. And why were they attaching pads to belts? When the book failed to clarify by the halfway point, I asked my mother.
“What’s a period?”
I suppose I thought this simple question would have a simple answer, but my mother’s body language said otherwise. She had been tucking me in, but now she froze, mid-goodnight kiss, as if I’d turned her into stone with my query. Finally, she spat out a reply from her twisted lips. “What makes you ask that?”
I gestured towards the book on my nightstand, and she immediately snatched it up, scrutinizing the cover. “Let’s go into my bedroom,” she said.
I didn’t spend much time in my parents’ floral wallpapered room. I was typically only admitted inside when I was needing to be isolated from Molly with a bout of stomach flu, the green lettuce bucket and a glass of 7-Up waiting for me on the end table. It was awkward to be perched on my mother’s side of the bed with her, sitting upright together in the low evening lighting. I suppose it was just as awkward for her, suddenly needing to usher me into the knowledge of womankind.
She explained how women bled once a month. She made it sound sacred and secretive, somehow related to pregnancy. It was the sign that a girl was becoming an adult, and I silently mused that this must be why Margaret and her friends were so eager to get their periods.
I wondered how many members of The Babysitters Club had gotten their periods. This event that seemed to affect all females had never been mentioned in those stories. My mother clearly didn’t want to answer any questions, though, and I was warned not to talk about this with any of my friends or siblings. It was private.
Then, she asked for my book. She wanted to look through it, to make sure that it was appropriate for me. My cheeks flushed; was there something “bad” about this book? I felt guilty as I handed it over to her. Had I done something wrong? Had I discovered this secret too soon? Or was there more that I wasn’t supposed to know about?
I spent much of that night awake, worrying. I envisioned my mother, appalled as she flipped through Margaret’s story, maybe tossing the book in the trash before I ever reached the end. Before I found out if Margaret would get her period, before I found out what having a period was really like. My mother hadn’t said, and I didn’t feel comfortable asking her, but I was dying to know.
In the morning, I crept down to the kitchen and timidly inquired about my book. My mother nearly shoved it across the kitchen table, telling me it was “fine” for me to read it. I didn’t dare read it in her presence, but I did finish it, reading with new fervor every moment I got alone.
Margaret did indeed finally get her period by the end, to the excitement of both her and her mother. They even cried tears of joy, their bond deepening upon this sacred event.
I considered how my own mother would react, and I decided to play it cool when I got my period. I would involve my mother as little as possible. I didn’t want to make things weird, but it seemed that was my mother’s specialty.