1988 – Nicole

An excerpt from The Only Road Manuscript

How could Mother Nature do this to me? She thought, catching a glimpse of her own silhouette in the window. A fat drop of condensation streaked down the fog covered glass as the school bus bumped and clambered its way down the road. Nicole Bradley had been dreading the first day of school ever since the hair dresser had given her the worst hair cut known to man. Even the most well balanced adult would be stripped of their self-confidence and forced to face their meager and humble insecurities. For this preteen, this was devastating at a catastrophic level.

It was 1988, and she was going into grade seven. To over compensate for her misgivings, Nicole had strategically over stocked her back to school wardrobe with skirts and dresses in every color and length. Her body had betrayed her over the summer. It seemed a cruel joke that puberty had somehow managed to come calling on every other girl in her class, while confining Nicole to the underdeveloped frame of a fourth grader. Nicole had spent the entire summer beneath an oversized t-shirt in hope of concealing what she did not have. Meanwhile, her friends sported two piece bathing suits and outfits that made it hard not to notice their newly blossomed womanly figures. Her lack thereof, was just as obvious and she was insanely aware. Insecurities rendered her breathless. She nearly drowned in the deep turbulent waters of self-consciousness that held her back from splashing around in just a swim suit. On more occasions than she cared to recall, Nicole had been mistaken for a boy. Such blunders crashed against her with an undertow that continually pulled her self-esteem below the surface.

Gender confusion at a hair salon was probably the most tragic scenario possible for any twelve year old and considerably more prevalent for one desperate to come into her own. Nicole stayed true to her unbearably awkward adolescence and wished for nothing more than to appear older. The thought of looking like a younger boy was so inconceivable that her ego had not even considered it for fear she would short circuit.

“You’ll be beating the girls off with a stick.” The hair dresser said, whisking a handheld mirror around Nicole’s shoulders and neck displaying the back of her newly shaved scalp.

At first, Nicole was optimistic, thinking that she had just got the latest, chic style. Images of Pat Benatar and Annie Lennox flashed in her mind as she bobbed her head trying to convince herself that it was not so bad. The entrance chime rang and Nicole’s chair was left in a slow spin when all came into focus. Everything happened at once. The impact of the hairdresser’s words collided with the horrified expression on her mother’s face . For a moment there was no movement and no sound. The mood in the salon shifted. The proud grin of the hairdresser’s soured the instant she realized her disastrous error. Scrambling to lather her hands with styling gel, the hairdresser vigorously jammed her fingers into Nicole’s hair. Intentionally blocking her client’s view with her own body, the hairdresser was determined to spike and shape the obviously masculine do. It was the eighties; hair was all about height, right? It would be more feminine the higher it was, or so the women at the salon had encouraged.

The tears did not come until after Nicole had sat on the bathroom counter at home. With her feet in the sink, she experimented in the mirror with the little hair she had left. It was a mushroom. That was what they had called it, before she and her mother left the Salon, far from impressed. Nicole’s straight strawberry blonde hair seemed more golden now that her skin was visible beneath the extremely short hair around her ears and in the back. The top was much longer in comparison, all three inches of it. With exaggerated sighs, Nicole was trying to make the best of it until her sister charged into the confined room.

“This, I have got to see.” Debra pushed open the door and stood with one hand still perched on the knob and the other on her hip. There, she stared at her little sister, unblinking for what seemed like minutes, before bursting into laughter. “Oh my God, she scalped you, like you needed to look more like a boy.” She left just as abruptly as she had entered but not before adding, “Well, you got the whole butch thing down.”

Nicole did not even bother looking back into the mirror before climbing down from the counter. Behind clenched teeth, she swallowed the warm saliva that often gathers when preparing to cry or throw up. Her eyes welled up and threatened to unload heavy streams of tears. Bravely, she walked down the hall and resisted all emotion until she reached her room and closed the door. Crumpling on the floor in a heap, Nicole pressed her back against the wall that separated her from her sister and the rest of the world. There, all alone, she wept in silence.

That was over a week ago. Nicole had been avoiding her friends ever since. She had clearly given up on the notion that her hair would grow out in seven days, though not from lack of trying on her budget and resources. The fact that beer, egg, and leave-in conditioners were not successful growing agent was a lesson she learned the hard way. Of course, both of these disaster remedies had been suggested by Debra, in her typical matter a fact tone. Once she cried tears of frustration, sadness and rotten odor, Nicole finally relented and relied on hope.

She was hopeful that by the time school started, she would have grown comfortable with her new look, maybe even create ways to style it to give it flare. Hopefulness would not help that she looked like a confused little boy. All that distinguished her from the boys at school was the sea green pencil skirt she was wearing. Not permitted to wear make-up yet, Nicole hoped that her apparel would be enough to avoid the snickers and head tilts of pity. She glared at her spiky reflection in the window of the bus, again, dreading the first day of school. Fortunately, Nicole remained oblivious to the next crisis that lurked just around the corner.

She was slow to descend the very large steep steps of the school bus. Not only because she was reluctant to face her friends, but she was very careful not to stress the limited slit in her skirt. Distracted by this maneuver, she almost didn’t recognized Lindsay as the girl who grabbed her arm and ushered her from the bus. Stopping only after they reached the sheltered insert of the external gymnasium double doors. The massive steel slabs were set into the red bricked wall of the school. Once out of sight Lindsay’s giant blue eyes searched Nicole’s with wild intent.

“I know, I know. It’s really bad isn’t it?” Nicole plucked at strands of hair sporadically; a nervous impulse which had manifested itself into a complex over the past week.

“What? No. This isn’t about your hair, but now that you mention it, WOW!” Her eyes grew even wider which did not seem possible. A big eyed ‘wow’ from Lindsay Petticomb was never good, more sarcastic. Nicole translated this verbal and facial expression as only best friends can. Lindsay had managed to communicate in an instant that Nicole’s hair was shocking, not a great look, but they could be seen walking around together. This gave Nicole a little solace. “When was the last time you saw Frank Fortelli?” Lindsay asked with an interrogating edge.

“Why, is he here?” Nicole started surveying her surroundings with greater panic than she had anticipated.

“No.” Lindsay returned, holding each letter’s sound as if ready to burst into song.

“Good. He moved to go live with his dad.” Nicole said still looking around Lindsay. Once she realized that scouring the yard was pointless, Nicole’s gaze landed back to Lindsay who was still demanding an answer with her wide eyes. Nicole instantly began to blink. Her eyes were dry and irritated just looking at the strain in her friend’s unwavering stare.

“When did you see him last?” This time her words were slow and serious.

“The last day of school.” Nicole said in the same speed and exaggerated clarity. “When he dumped me!” She qualified this with a confused head shake and returned her speech back to normal. “You know this, you were there with me.”

Lindsay let out a deep breath. “I thought so. I just wanted to check.” She paused and pressed her lips together.

“Lindsay!” The suspense was eating at Nicole.

“I heard something.” She shrugged apologetically, “…something that you are not going to like.”

Frank Fortelli was one of those guys that people just liked saying their entire name. He was never just Frank, it was always Frank Fortelli. He was a boy that Nicole used to go with, whatever that meant at the ripe age of twelve. Nicole had always had a boyfriend from as early as grade two, if you could call them that. It never went beyond school. The inhospitable venues of the country did not encourage preteens to hang out, nor did people live close enough to go just visit one another. Nicole almost never spoke on the phone, and on those rare occasions it was always with Lindsay. When she had gone with Frank Fortelli, her interest in boys was limited to being able to talk to them at school and participate in some of their recess activities. She did recall that Frank Fortelli had attempted to hold her hand at Track and Field, an annual event that Nicole looked forward to every year. It was a big deal to her. As a retired tomboy, Nicole had always liked to consider herself an athlete, although her body and her skill level would disagree. This never stopped her from trying. However, her interest in sport drastically outweighed her interest in boys, explaining why she had ignored the subtle advances from Frank Fortelli.

This momentary flashback of a boy she had barely thought about all summer brought a resolve. His reasons for dumping her had never crossed her mind and now the mystery was no longer. She had turned him down and crushed his fragile ego. An enlightening smirk crept across her face with this sudden realization.

Nicole could recall the last day of school and Frank Fortelli catching up with her and Lindsay just before they stepped on their neighboring buses. She could not remember for certain what he had said but, it was clear that he had dumped her. The memory of hiding crying eyes on her way home made her chuckle.

The story Lindsay told her was quite different and socially devastating. Nicole’s reputation was undoubtedly scarred for the rest of her adolescence. Even at twelve, this she knew with certainty. While within the shallow depths of the doorway, Nicole remained protected from judgment and ridicule. For the time being, she looked out at the fake friendly faces, ignorant to her arrival and impervious to her truth. Nicole had only a moment to be insecure about that which she had already been prepared. Dealing with a haircut that was sure to grow in seemed a manageable predicament in hind sight.

Her world had just fallen and as it hung there suspended in the morning sun of the first day of school, its future was doomed. A circulated rumor was not her’s to refute. It had a life of its own. It had pulsated and morphed as it breathed off the lips of Nicole’s bored and stagnated peers throughout the summer. No one was interested in the self- exonerating truth. Her name had been whispered about unknowingly for weeks. Although she had never kissed a boy, Nicole was marked as a slut; a groundless label that would bore a permanent imprint on her flesh, her name and her soul like a repulsive tattoo. Unfairly, the boy who branded her had gone leaving only a rumour about him, Nicole and a blue blanket in his wake.

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