YDN Magazine by Yale Daily News

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INSIDE NONFICTION 4

FIRST PLACE

I Bought a Bra BY JIALU CHEN

A professional bra fitter used to be a standard part of the department store shopping experience. But these days, custom brassieres are tough to find. With the disappearance of this profession, countless women now walk the streets with ill-fitted lingerie. But at Lady Olga’s Lingerie in Hamden, Conn., it is easy to find the perfect bra for any woman, whether she is young, old, pregnant, or a breast cancer survivor.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Ben Brody

MANAGING EDITORS

Anthony Lydgate, Jesse Maiman

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

Sijia Cai, Jacque Feldman, Zara Kessler, Nicole Levy, Naina Saligram, Eileen Shim

DESIGN & PHOTO EDITORS

Ginger Jiang, Loide Marwanga, La Wang, Weiwei Zhang

WEB EDITOR

Rachel Caplan

BUSINESS & DISTRIBUTION MANAGER

Tonia Sun

FICTION EDITOR

Angelica Baker

SECOND PLACE

Want to See the Girl Wrestle? BY LAURA GOTTESDIENER

Laura Gottesdiener wrestled in high school as one of the only girls on her team. She beat one varsity boy in her career. Now, this reporter takes a look at her old sport — the fastest growing sport in the country — and finds a new generation of female athletes taking their athletics to the next level.

POETRY EDITOR

Rosanna Oh

STAFF WRITERS

Molly Hensley-Clancy, Eliana Dockterman, Isabel Farhi, Daniel Friedman, Laura Gottesdiener, Lauren Oyler, Jennifer Parker, Frances Sawyer

ILLUSTRATORS

Maria Haras, Sin Jin The YDN Magazine invites letters to the editor. Please send comments to the editor-in-chief at benjamin.brody@yale.edu. The views and opinions represented in the Magazine’s articles and advertisements do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff. We reserve the right to refuse any ad for any reason and to delete or change any copy we consider objectionable, false, or in poor taste. COVER GRAPHICS BY LOIDE MARWANGA “WANT TO SEE THE GIRL WRESTLE” GRAPHICS BY LOIDE MARWANGA “MIDDLE SCHOOL DANCE” ILLUSTRATION BY SIN JIN “THE SECOND LIFE OF TOM ROWLANDS” ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARIA HARAS “LIVING THE DREAM” BY LA WANG

HONORABLE MENTIONS: NONFICTION

Just Our Luck BY ISAAC ARNSDORF

Back to the Teleprompter BY DIANA STOIANOV

Homecoming BY VICTOR ZAPANA

The Yale Daily News Magazine April 2010

FICTION 10

FIRST PLACE

Middle School Dance BY GREG CHASE

SECOND PLACE

The Secret Life of Tom Rowlands BY JEFFREY ZUCKERMAN

After committing a murder for the mob, a man with a new face tries to navigate his way through a dead man’s old life while making a new one for himself.

KATHERINE ESHEL

As the girls dance in huddled in impenetrable groups, one middle school boy loiters with his friends by the snack table. Munching on Doritos and avoiding eye-contact with the girls, he nervously awaits the three dreaded slow dance songs of the evening.

THIRD PLACE

Living the Dream BY GREG CHASE

He has a house in the suburbs, a faithful wife, a steady paycheck, and kids on the way — a seemingly perfect life. But Annabelle Ferraro and her flaming red dress haunt his dreams. Could it have all been different?

HONORABLE MENTION: FICTION

In Transit

BY TARYN NAKAMURA

A woman at Lady Olga’s Lingerie, having worn the wrong bra size for years, is measured for the best-fitting bra she will ever own.

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

ince I joined the Magazine staff as an associate editor in 2007, I’ve been consistently impressed with what seems to me to be an ever-increasing level of writing in its pages. If that’s the case, that we’re really getting better ad infinitum, then I can’t really think of a better issue to work on as my last than this Wallace Prize issue. The Wallace Prize for fiction and nonfiction is awarded annually in memory of Peter J. Wallace ’64, a former member of the Yale Daily News editorial board. The Prize is endowed by the Peter Wallace Memorial Fund, which was set up with contributions from the Wallace family and Peter’s friends and classmates. This year, more than $4,000 were awarded to a total of nine winners, including four honorable mentions. The top three winners in the fiction category and the top two in nonfiction appear in this issue in their entirety. On behalf of the Magazine’s staff and our panel of judges, I would like to congratulate these winners of the 2010 Wallace Prize. We had far more submissions this year than in any year in recent memory, and the judges noted that choosing winners from among the crates full of strong entries was a formidable task. Without exception, the winners have produced truly astounding writing, and we feel honored to be able to publish it. I would also like to thank those judges: Alfred Guy, Mark Oppenheimer, Margaret Spillane, Brendan Sullivan, Lexa Hillyer, and Leila Sales all graciously donated their time to the task, and they evaluated more than one hundred submissions with wisdom and verve. We hope you enjoy this issue of the Yale Daily News Magazine, and, for those of you who will still be around, make sure to look out for our redesign next year. Best wishes, Ben Brody

The Yale Daily News Magazine April 2010

WALLACE PRIZE WINNER

NONFICTION 1ST PLACE

The average American woman owns six bras. Most are the wrong size. Professional bra fitter Jeniene Ferguson has worked to change this one bra at a time for twenty-six years.

BY JIALU CHEN

omehow I had managed to live approximately nine years with breasts before the day Jeniene Ferguson ushered me into one of the bright white fitting rooms at Lady Olga’s Lingerie and sold me my first well-fitting bra. Jeniene is a professional bra fitter and the owner of Lady Olga’s. Nestled at the base of Sleeping Giant ridge in Hamden, Connecticut and tucked in between a People’s United Bank and a Talbots, Lady Olga’s carries more than four hundred bras. They range in size from 32AA to 52J. I couldn’t see any of these bras when I walked through the front door — a privacy wall shielded them from my gaze. But I could faintly detect their scent — synthetic textile, metal clasps, and fabric-freshening pine. Walking past the wall, I was assaulted with pink on white — white linoleum floor, white fluorescent lighting, and white walls ornamented with pink tulle curtains, pink tissue paper, and a pink trash bag in a trash can painted with pink roses. PHOTOGRAPHY BY KATHERINE ESHEL

April 2010 The Yale Daily News Magazine

That day, Jeniene greeted me with a broad and easy smile. Her 36B bra was ensconced underneath a grey turtleneck, which in turn peeked out from under her long, fiery auburn hair. Jeniene’s energy never faltered, and she kept up an animated patter of conversation, which served to relieve any potentially awkward silences. While she led me to the back fitting room, she peppered our conversation with facts, anecdotes, and tips about bras. Jeniene’s recommended bra washing technique: mix a little soap and water in a basin, swish, and hang. Never use a machine. She once caught her daughter drying two bras in the dryer. “With the towels!” she exclaimed and then added with little irony, “I thought I would kill her.” Jeniene has been fitting bras for so long that she can tell a woman’s bra size as soon as she lifts up her shirt (although she always measures to confirm.) She has seen enough 40Fs try to squeeze themselves into 34DDs that she won’t let any customer assume she has the right bra size. She understands that some women may have a psychological attachment to a certain size, and she recommends that those women cut the tag off in order to forget the number and focus on how the bra feels. Bra fitters were once ubiquitous in America. In the 1930s, every major department store employed fitters who, because they were able to suggest bras that flattered the particular shape of each woman’s breasts, reduced the number of returns and also increased repeat sales. Later, because of rations on supplies during World War II, bra fitters were essential to reducing waste. A woman who wore a bra too large for her or bought a bra she didn’t need because the ones she had at home didn’t fit her was wasting nylon that could have gone to making parachutes for the boys at Iwo Jima. The bra fitters not only suggested particular bras but also worked with seamstresses to alter the bras to achieve a perfect fit. Jeniene’s mother, the Olga of Lady Olga’s, was one of these fitters. One of her first jobs while still in high school was in the lingerie department of a department store and, after a foray into the outerwear department, she returned to become a bra fitter. She had a knack for tracking down just the right bra and just the right seamstress. Fitters like her began to disappear in the 70s as department stores, looking to cut costs, convinced themselves that liberated feminists could help themselves off the rack and didn’t need fitters. Jeniene and Olga thought differently and together, they opened Lady Olga’s in 1984. Jeniene learned on the job from Olga and grew to love the intimate person-to-person contact of selling lingerie. After all, she says, “I can’t fit you with a bra over the phone.” After Olga passed away a few years ago, Jeniene continued to manage Lady Olga’s. She knows the nuances of the styles and sizes of all the brands she carries — Le Mystère, Wacoal, Selena, Anita, Olga, Goddess, Elomi, Fantasy, Elila, Jezebel, and Va Bien. Jeniene doesn’t alter bras anymore because the variety of bra sizes from each company and the quality of construction is such that she can find a bra in her store that fits any customer’s specific breast

shape. She employs three other expert fitters, Carmella, Rose, and Nancy. The four of them combined have over 100 years of bra fitting experience. Jeniene wants every woman who walks out of her store to be comfortable, to have found a good fit, and to feel that their clothes look good.

ome of Lady Olga’s customers are brides. They need longline bras, which extend down to the navel, to smooth out their stomachs underneath their wedding dresses. Nancy said brides are the least fussy customers. “They are usually in seventh heaven anyway.” Others are expectant mothers, like the woman who walked in flustered and uncomfortable because her breasts had swelled so dramatically that her bras no longer fit her and couldn’t support her breasts. She was wearing a slouchy white sweater and New Balance running shoes — she had a little boy at home to chase around and was expecting a girl. Carmella calmly led her to the fitting room. Once she tried on the bra Carmella suggested, she chose not to take it off, and decided she would much rather wear it home. “I feel like I can move again,” she sighed appreciatively. “Don’t forget to come back when you need a nursing bra,” Carmella reminded her. Nancy, Carmella, Rose, and Jeniene all agreed that their most memorable and rewarding customers are the breast cancer survivors. They come into be fitted for prosthesis bras after mastectomies, which remove part or all of the breast. Prostheses don’t merely perform a cosmetic function. Having only one breast, and therefore uneven weight on the two sides of her body, throws a woman off balance. The prosthesis helps because it not only looks like a real breast and feels like a breast, but also weighs as much as a breast. Breast cancer survivors are also the most timid customers. Jeniene said they often enter the store wearing thick turtlenecks and scarves to mask their missing breasts. Nancy said they often can’t stand looking in the mirror and turn to look at the fitter instead. Jeniene’s neighbor came with her husband to be fitted for prosthesis after her mastectomy. “I am ready to get my life back,” she said. Previously, Jeniene’s neighbor hadn’t known Jeniene owned a bra store or that she did mastectomy fittings. Lady Olga’s was recommended by her doctor, as it is recommended by many doctors in the area. Some hospitals nearby also offer mastectomy fittings but Jeniene thinks many women feel more comfortable in Lady Olga’s than in a hospital. “You get the bad news at the hospital and the operation at the hospital and the chemo at the hospital,” Jeniene explained. Women come to Lady Olga’s to escape from the hospital.

Based on the depictions of paintings from the brothels of Pompei, Roman women considered their breasts so private that even prostitutes didn’t remove their bras during sex.

The Yale Daily News Magazine April 2010

he earliest bras appeared around 500 B.C. in Greece. They were no more than a wide band of cloth wrapped around the breasts to offer lift and support. The Romans distinguished themselves from barbarians by the petite, civilized, and contained breasts of their women. Bras as a means of altering the appearance of breasts first originated in order to aid Roman women whose breasts were larger than the petite ideal. The soft leather mamillare squashed the breasts into their chests, and the facia, a set of bandages worn around the breasts, was intended to slow their growth. Based on the depictions of paintings from the brothels of Pompei, Roman women considered their breasts so private that even prostitutes didn’t remove their bras during sex. With the fall of the Roman Empire, bras disappeared and women let their breasts hang freely underneath their clothes. When a desire to shape the breasts reappeared in the fifteenth century, the preferred instrument shifted to the corset, which could mold the breasts into far more unnatural positions than the bra. Under the reign of Henri II in the mid-sixteenth century, women wore a corset supported by a busk — a long spike made of boxwood, ivory, or silver — which was inserted into a front panel to force breasts into a flat, vertical position. In the eighteenth century, busks were replaced with whalebone, which compressed the breasts from below in order to force them upwards and outwards. Then in the early 19th century, wide-set breasts suddenly came into fashion so that the corset began to not only compress and elevate, but also to separate. The first women to bring back the bra were undoubtedly the

1920s flappers. Seeking a straight, flat look antithetical to the curves created by a traditional corset, flappers began wearing tight bandeaus resembling the Roman facia. Then in the 1930s, large breasts came back in style and with them came the padded cup, invented in 1935. In the late 30s, the sharp pointed nipple, with breasts jutting out at an exact right angle from the body, came into vogue. By the 1960s, bras were worn so universally that a group of feminist protesters outside the 1968 Miss American Pageant labeled them “instruments of female torture” and symbolically threw them into a trash can, along with girdles, pots, pans, and Playboy magazines. This action earned them the misnomer of “bra burners” in a New York Post article attempting to compare the discarding of bras with the burning of draft cards, though no bras were actually burned. Since then increased bra comfort brought on by improvements in technology and increased average breast size correlating with the widespread use of birth control (which tends to enlarge the breasts as a side effect) have arguably changed the bra from an instrument of torture to a necessity and even a source of pleasure for women.

he average American woman owns six bras. One of those bras is a strapless bra. Her bra size is 36D, but it will change six times during the course of her life because of pregnancy, aging, surgery and birth control. It is highly likely that she wears the wrong bra, overestimating her band size and underestimating her cup size. Before I met Jeniene, I owned seven bras. One was a strapless.

April 2010 The Yale Daily News Magazine

Three were white, two were nude, one was black, and one was pink. Four were in 34C, two in 36C, and one in 34D. My white H&M 34C and my nude Victoria’s Secret 36C were both padded enough to stop bullets. Both were rarely worn because, in the midst of animated conversation, the white H&M had been known to slide down far enough to reveal a nipple, and because when I lifted my arms up, the band of the nude Victoria’s Secret had been known to rise up onto my breasts and remain there once the arms were returned to a lowered position, leaving significant portions of breast dangling unsupported below. I purchased the white strapless Maidenform 34C during the period when I wore only strapless bras all day, everyday, to avoid the problem of falling straps, a problem I have been having since elementary school. Once upon a time, I experimented with different sizes, thinking that if I hedged my bets I would wear a properly fitting bra at least oneseventh of the time. Somewhere along the line, I gave up and for years I did not purchase a new bra. Apathetic, confused, and resigned to failure in the bra department, I had no idea of the undiscovered potential in my breasts. The first time Jeniene fit me for a bra, she corralled me into the fitting room, pulled the curtain across behind her and gave me my marching orders. Go in there. Alright, now turn around, face me, lift up your shirt. Keep your bra on. She wrapped a tape measure around my chest and measured the band right above my breasts: thirty-five inches. She then wiggled the tape measure down to the peak of my breasts: thirty-eight inches. In an ideal world, my cup size would be 35C, but in reality, bra bands are sold only in even numbers. Jeniene flipped the tape measure back over her neck, wearing it like a doctor’s stethoscope. She strode out of the room and came back with three bras slung over her arm. All were black Le Mystere “Tisha” molded bras. She had noticed that I was wearing a molded bra when she measured me, and she usually fits customers with the type of bras with which they are already familiar. These bras looked both sturdy and feminine. The straps were thicker and wider than those of most bras, but they also thinned out near the cups in a graceful arch. The firm contoured cups of the bra — the hallmark of a molded bra — were as flexible and responsive as a Tempur-pedic mattress. The back of the strap consisted of a strong ribbon of satiny elastic, stitched together in broad overlapping V’s. All the corners and sides of the bra were reinforced with additional fabric. The main piece of the back band consisted of fabric as airy and soft as cotton candy. 92 percent nylon and eight percent Lycra, this bra could not have been created without these two miracle fabrics. Incredibly strong, nylon enables a bra to support the breasts horizontally around the band rather than vertically from the shoulders, redistributing the weight of the breasts (three pounds, on average), evenly spreading the pressure across a woman’s upper torso. First invented in October 1938 by Du Pont Company, nylon was

First invented in October 1938 by Du Pont Company, nylon was developed during World War II for parachutes and flak jackets. In other words, the Le Mystère bra is made of the same material that protected the troops on D-Day from artillery shells.

The Yale Daily News Magazine April 2010

developed during World War II for parachutes and flak jackets. In other words, the Le Mystère bra is made of the same material that protected the troops on D-Day from artillery shells. Besides its strength, nylon is also incredibly light, so a woman wearing it feels almost no additional weight. Nylon also resists wear, dries quickly, doesn’t wrinkle and can be mass-produced cheaply. What this means for the average American woman is that her bra can be pretty and cheap, last for a number of years, wash easily and stay flat against her clothes. Nylon can also be set at very high temperatures, a quality that the bra industry utilizes today; this means that the seamless molded cups found on the Le Mystère bra that Jeniene held out were created through a process similar to the way hand-blown glass is heated, shaped and then cooled. In the 1980s, the Du Pont Company released yet another fabric that would revolutionize bras: Lycra. Also known as spandex or elastane, Lycra can stretch to four or five times its length and then, upon release, instantly return to its original shape. A bra made of fabric blended with as little as two percent Lycra will cling to every curve of a woman’s body. With the combination of Lycra and nylon, it is possible to create a bra that moves with a woman’s every motion. A bra that supports without compressing. A bra that maintains a woman’s natural shape, enhances her beauty and is so

comfortable that it feels like a second skin. Jeniene held the first bra out for me, a 36C. Jeniene doesn’t always expect women to take their bras off in front of her. She is perfectly happy to wait outside for a woman to change. The only important thing is that she be let back into the fitting room to take a look at a bra after a woman has put it on. After all, she says, “I can’t fit you through the curtain.” Having made my way into the fitting room, I concluded that Jeniene was not about to giggle at my breasts, make fun of my small nipples, or gasp in shock at my nudity and so I was able to muster the courage to unhook my bra and change in front of her. Jeniene looked straight at my breasts without even a blush. I may as well have bared an arm or a leg. Jeniene slid the first bra, a 36C, onto my shoulders. “Now bend over,” she instructed, “and shake yourself in.” This is the best way to put a bra on, ensuring that the breast will be properly placed within the cup, nipple secured in the center. Jeniene then snapped the clasps in place in the back, but she knew as soon as she did that the bra wasn’t right. The band rode up on my back, a clear sign that the band was too large. I shook myself into the next bra, a 34C. This technique of putting on a bra was by far the most enjoyable method I had ever attempted. I felt like a chorus girl performing a shimmy. On this bra, the cups didn’t bulge and the band didn’t ride up. However, Jeniene instantly picked up on the line where my breasts protruded out of the bra, the indentation where the cup stuck into my breasts, and the wrinkles where my body strained against the band. She pulled out the 34D. Familiar by now with the routine, I shimmied myself in and straightened out. I looked in the mirror and couldn’t stop looking. The bra fit every contour and every inch of my breast. It cradled my breast. It embraced my breast. Better yet, this bra wasn’t trying to do anything to my breasts. It wasn’t trying to make them bigger or smaller or perkier or higher. It was very simply holding them right where they were most comfortable. Hellooo, breasts. I had never noticed their supple softness, their distinct fleshiness. Never had I noticed their simple seductive curve. I imagined my breasts emerging after a long bath, tinged with the sweet scent of jasmine. I felt the electric shiver of cold nakedness as I would run from that bath into my bed, and the tickle of my soft white cotton sheets against my bare nipples. Somehow, this bra made my whole body look better — happy and energetic. Even my lumpy, somewhat droopy stomach seemed to be lifted. And though I knew that this feeling wouldn’t last — that no bra would write my papers for me, keep me from procrastinating and make it easier to find a job — I allowed myself, for a moment, to bask in the glow of optimism and euphoria exuded by my well-supported breasts. Sometimes, the foundation for confidence comes from within. Sometimes it comes from without.

April 2010 The Yale Daily News Magazine

FICTION MIDDLE SCHOOL DANCE by Greg Chase You are an awkward twelve-year-old boy. Your parents — both of them — drive you to the ocean-themed middle school dance, whose two hours are a grueling ordeal, unless they are, in retrospect, the best hours of your life. WALLACE PRIZE WINNER

FICTION

1ST PLACE

Your parents drop you off at the dance. You’re not sure why they’ve both come. It only takes one parent to drive the car. Sometimes, on long road trips, you recognize the importance of having two parents along — one to drive, and one to hold the map and give directions and passive-aggressively criticize the other. But the drive to school is short, and both parents know it by heart.

The Yale Daily News Magazine April 2010

Since they both come, you have to sit in the backseat. You don’t like sitting in the backseat, because it means that you are only the third most important person in the car, and this does not bode well for your prospects at the dance. You exit the car as your parents say their goodbyes. “See you at eleven,” your mother calls. “Have fun!” “Not too much fun,” your father cautions. Though you don’t get it at the time, you will recognize in later years that your father intends this as a lewd comment. You enter your middle school. It is 8:10 PM. The dance started at 8:00. You are old enough to understand that dances belong in that category of events to which people should arrive “fashionably late,” so you know that you are much too early. Your parents do not understand the concept of “fashionably late,” perhaps because fashion was different in their day, or perhaps because your parents were never fashionable. So you always have arguments with them over what time to arrive, and they say things like, “You want to have as much time at the dance as possible, don’t you?” To which you want to say, in response, that you certainly do not want to have as much time at the dance as possible, but if you were to say this, you would have to explain much more about the nature of middle school dances, and middle school generally, so you always find it easier to remain silent and reach a compromise with your parents wherein you arrive at 8:10 PM. The dance takes place in the large, multi-purpose room where you have school assemblies. You can clearly picture the clusters of students sitting on the floor, most slouching or lying down, while your principal drones on, her arm fat jiggling with each gesture that she makes. But now the floor is cleared, except for its dark green carpet, and the lights are dimmed. The dance is ocean themed. This means nothing, except that someone has cut up blue construction paper into what are presumably wave shapes, and taped them to one of the side walls. In front of the opposite wall, someone has set up a couple of fold-out tables, and placed bowls of snacks on top: potato chips, Doritos, and Chex Mix, plus some coolers of cold soda. Your eyes survey the room as your body moves toward these tables. Dave isn’t here yet, nor is Kristi MacDonald, though you spot Philip. Philip comes over as you munch on chips. “Hey dude,” he says. “How’s it going?” Philip is overweight, and wears an AC/ DC shirt, which stretches too tightly against his flesh. He plays drums, and claims to have intimate knowledge of the underground punk scene. His favorite band is Pearl Jam, though you’re not sure whether they are part of the underground punk scene or not. Philip talks to you about a concert that his older brother is attending tonight. “I totally could have gone,” he says. “I don’t know why I’m even here. They play the lamest music at these things.” Philip is eating Doritos, and the powdered orange fla-

voring accumulates on either side of his mouth as he talks. Dave saunters over and says hello. You are surprised; you hadn’t noticed him arrive. “How long have you been here?” you ask. “Like five minutes,” Dave replies. “I was making the rounds, greeting some people.” Dave opens a Sprite and puts it to his mouth, tilting his head back like they do in Sprite commercials, and you can hear him gulping over the music as he drinks about half the can. Dave is your best friend. You have known each other since kindergarten, and your mom is also friends with his mom, so numerous play dates were arranged between the two of you. In early years, you played with action figures on his living room floor, engaging in elaborate battles between good and evil. These days, you play sports — soccer, or baseball, and sometimes football, though the last of these is difficult to play one-on-one. Dave is better at sports than you are, and regardless of the game, he wins. Last year, he started playing sports for the school — football, basketball in the winter, and track in the spring. You have started playing basketball too, though it would be more accurate to say that you have not started playing, despite your coach’s assurances to your mother that “everyone gets to join in” on middle school sports teams. Dave has recently spent more time at school hanging out with his new friends from the sports teams: Jerry, who plays quarterback, or Mitch, who can jump and touch the net on a ten-foot basket. But you are still his best friend. You know this because, a month ago, he invited Jerry and Mitch to his house to watch the Super Bowl without inviting you, and when you found out about it and confronted him at school, he reassured you by saying, “Don’t worry, man. You’re still my best friend.” Sometimes Philip says that Jerry and Mitch are part of the “Kool Kids Klub.” He thinks this name is cleverer than anyone else does. Still, you know what he means. They and their other friends wear sunglasses in class and talk back to the teachers, and once you saw them all sharing a cigarette in the parking lot after school. Plus, at dances they sing along loudly to the rap songs, having seemingly memorized each one word for word. Your interpretation of middle school dances does not involve much dancing. Dancing is for girls, who dance together in tight circles. There is only one boy in your class who dances regularly. This is partly because he can show off by doing cool moves that everyone else wants to watch, like “the worm,” or “the sprinkler.” It is also partly because he is friends with most of the girls, and they run over and grab his hands and make him dance with them when he is sitting on the side. You and your friends cling to the walls for support, treading around the edges of the room as though the dance floor were covered with molten lava. You spot Kristi MacDonald. She is one of the aforementioned girls dancing in a tight circle. The circle is so tight, in fact, that

You and your friends cling to the walls for support, treading around the edges of the room as though the dance floor were covered with molten lava.

April 2010 The Yale Daily News Magazine

you can’t imagine how anyone could ever approach her to say hi, how one could possibly peel her body away from the other bodies that jostle hers on either side. She is wearing a red tank top and blue jeans. You recognize the blue jeans, because she wears them to school sometimes, and because they are a distinctive pair, in the “pre-ripped” style, with intentional tears on each leg at the knee and upper thigh. There is something flirtatious about this style; it piques your interest in the rips, and thus in the legs beneath them. You eat lots of chips to pass the time. You know your mother would not like this. You also drink lots of soda, which means you have to pee frequently, and going to the bathroom helps to pass the time too. You talk with your friends, but after greetings and some initial conversation, there is not much more to say. It is not as though a great deal has happened since you last saw one another; the school day ended only a few hours earlier. Dave comes and goes, talking to other students, even some girls, and you frequently see him across the room, shaking his body in an exaggerated manner as he laughs, but he doesn’t dance either. The hip-hop music cuts out, and a few mournful chords signal the arrival of the night’s first slow dance. Slow dances are the one exception to the no dancing rule. Everyone hopes to dance during slow dances. The DJ (usually a student from the high school who is getting paid way too much) plays three slow dances in an evening, which always strikes you as far too low a number, since slow dances are clearly the most important parts of the night. Despite their presumed desire to participate in the slow dance, all the girls who have been on the dance floor move, as one, toward the sidelines. They feign disappointment, as though they are interested not in slow dances, but only in dancing in tight, intimidating circles with their friends. Now they sit in tight, equally intimidating circles around the edges of the room. The song playing is “Hero,” by Enrique Iglesias. You hate this song, but that is not important right now. All your attentions are directed toward the search for a dance partner. Ideally, you would dance with Kristi, but you don’t see her, and you would probably settle for anyone. Your eyes search for a lone girl, separate from her friends. You certainly cannot ask a girl to dance within earshot of her friends. This is not something you could ever do. You wish the girls would realize this. You make a slow circle around the perimeter of the room. You are vaguely aware of other guys in front of you, charting a path for you to follow. You don’t intend to ask anyone on your first circuit. This is more of an initial research phase. You finally spot Kristi, but she is huddled with two other girls, not paying any

attention to the dance floor. You wonder what they are discussing. You hope the other girls are not suggesting potential dance partners for Kristi, because you doubt that you would make the list. You make your second lap, with no more luck than on the first. Some people are dancing, but most still are not. Enrique is singing his final, impassioned chorus, and you realize it is too late to ask anyone at this point anyway. You go to the bathroom. Lots of other boys are in there as well. When the fast dances begin again, you regroup with your friends around the snack table. “Did you dance with anyone?” Dave asks. “No, did you?” “Yeah, for sure. I danced with Kim.” Kim is Dave’s ex-girlfriend. Dave has dated girls. He has already dated two and a half girls in your grade. The “half” is Tiffany Wong, whom Dave did not officially date, but he says she counts as half because they once held hands for an entire day during a school field trip. Dave also has experience with kissing. He used to go on dates, real dates, to the movies with Kim (their parents drove them), and when the credits rolled at the end of the movie, they would turn and kiss each other. Dave also says that once she let him touch her right breast, but you are not sure you believe this. “Did you dance with anyone, Phillip?” “No. But I don’t like slow dances anyway.” Even Philip has dated one girl, earlier this year. It wasn’t much of a relationship — they didn’t talk at all between when he asked her out and when he decided to break up with her three weeks later. At which point she responded, “Oh, I thought we were already broken up.” Still, it counts. Dave thinks Kristi MacDonald might like you, though. You and she are in the same math class, with Mr. Maloney. Mr. Maloney is only about thirty, but he is already going bald, and he wears his hair in a comb-over. Also, he comes to class every day smelling like cigarettes. You call him “Mr. Baloney,” and you do an impression of him, where you pretend to smoke a cigarette with one hand, and frantically solve algebraic equations with the other. Dave thinks the impression is sort of dumb, but once you did it in front of Kristi and she thought it was hilarious. Ever since then, you have started doing it discreetly in class, and when Kristi sees you she covers her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. “She’s totally into you, man,” Dave told you a couple weeks ago.

Maybe at some point during the years of repressing your feelings, or visiting doctors, or cursing the gods for their callousness, you might learn something, or grow somehow, instead of just allowing the hours to pass by without touching you, like strangers in a dream.

April 2010 The Yale Daily News Magazine

“Really?” you said. “Do you know that? Have you talked to someone? Who did you talk to?” “Whoa, chill out. I don’t know anything for sure. She just… seems into you.” The snacks in the bowls are nearly gone. Your mouth feels dry from eating so much salt. The conversation between your friends has died, and now you are doing little more than standing near one another. “Well, isn’t this fun?” Philip says. “I wish I’d brought my Disc Man.” No one answers. You check the time on your digital watch. It’s 9:05, and the dance has moved into its last hour. You think about how much time you spend waiting for things to end. This dance is not supposed to be an obligation — it is recreational; it is voluntary — but it is still one of those events where all you do is count down the minutes. School is like this too of course, and so is doing homework, but so too are meals with your family, where all you want is to be excused from the table, and sporting events, where you just want the clock to wind down so you can stop hoping that you might actually get to play. You are twelve, which means that only a small part of your life has passed, but you just hope the remaining parts don’t take so long. The second slow dance happens. You employ the same strategy as with the first one, despite its previous ineffectiveness. More people dance this one, getting increasingly bolder or more desperate as the song approaches its conclusion. You try to stay along the side, but different couples keep coming at you, pushing onto the dance floor, and you find yourself being pushed along with them. You struggle to avoid other people’s bodies, as they sway back and forth in irregular patterns. It is like an obstacle course, with the biggest and most insurmountable obstacle being your own social awkwardness. You see Dave, dancing with a different girl this time. You see Jerry, Dave’s quarterback friend, grinding with his dance partner, and you think vaguely about how this is not what people are supposed to do during slow dances. You see one of the chaperones, a history teacher, come up and pull the grinding couple apart. You don’t see Kristi. You stand in the middle of the dance floor and you cross your arms and you wait for the song to end. Sometimes, you fantasize about something terrible happening to you — the loss of a parent, or a limb. You don’t really want these things to happen, but they might at least be interesting — the kind of event that makes people stop and say, “Look at this guy. Things happen to him.” Maybe at some point during the years of repressing your feelings, or visiting doctors, or cursing the gods for their callousness, you might learn something, or grow somehow, instead of just allowing the hours to pass by without touching you, like strangers in a dream. Things happen to Dave. Not the terrible kind of things, but the good kind: like when he used to kiss Kim, or when he wins races in track and everyone applauds. Sometimes bad things happen to him, too, like when his parents got divorced, or his grandmother forgot who he was, but at least he has the other things. If one were to construct a graph of Dave’s life, you imagine Mr. Maloney explaining, it would be a series of peaks and valleys, a constant oscillation between up and down. Back by the snack table, you know that the dance is almost over, that there will be just one more slow dance to complete

the three-slow-dance rule. Dave tells you he needs to “line up a partner for the last dance,” and moves to the other side of the room. You wonder if he has a specific girl in mind. You imagine that Dave went into this dance with high hopes. After all, it was at the last middle school dance that he started dating Kim. They danced the second and the third slow dance together, and he asked her out in the middle of the third. You watched them with a Sprite in your hand. Kristi MacDonald is coming toward the snack table. You try not to stare at her as she approaches. Her head is down, focused presumably on the snacks. Her hair is in disarray, and she seems to be sweating. It occurs to you that dancing for most of the dance might be quite a workout. You have never thought of this before. “Hey Kristi,” you say as she reaches the table. “Hey, you.” She smiles. “So, uh, what brings you to the snack table?” “I wanted a snack, duh. All that dancing really makes you hungry, you know?” “I know,” you say. You don’t know. Kristi grabs a handful of potato chips. It is mostly just crumbs at this point. “Well,” she says, “maybe I’ll see you later?” “Yeah. Maybe.” Kristi walks away, and a series of “Oooohh” noises are made by the guys around you. “It doesn’t mean anything,” you say. “She just wanted chips.” But, you tell yourself, you have to dance with her during the third slow dance. After all, if you miss this chance, you may not get another one. There is only one more middle school dance scheduled for the year, in the spring, and who knows what will happen between now and then. Almost everyone dances during the third slow dance. If you haven’t danced with anyone during either the first or the second, the third slow dance is critical to ensuring that your night doesn’t end up a total failure. As long as you dance with someone, then you can leave with a sense of accomplishment, and you can later reinterpret your experience as being more positive than it actually was. It is 9:54 PM. Everyone can feel it coming, and then, sure enough, the last slow dance starts. The DJ has chosen “Wonderful Tonight,” by Eric Clapton. You actually consider this to be a fairly decent song, which you take as a good sign. You have been casually but consistently watching Kristi for the past several minutes, so that you don’t lose track of her this time. She is by the back wall of the room, giggling with a friend. You walk towards her, trying to seem confident. Then you pause, trying not to seem overconfident. You stand still for maybe fifteen seconds. You hope she doesn’t see you. Then you continue. Kristi’s friend has turned away for a moment. It is perfect! “Hi, Kristi,” you say. “Do you want to dance with me?” Kristi smiles and replies, “Sure.” She takes your hand and leads you to the dance floor. You think that you are probably supposed to be leading her, in accordance with traditional gender roles, but you decide not to dwell on it too much. You wonder if Kristi is a feminist. Kristi puts her hands on your shoulders. You put your hands on her hips. You are dancing. “You look wonderful tonight,” Eric Clapton says. You consider saying this, too, but decide not

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to. It is always sort of unclear whether or not to talk with your partner during slow dances. You decide to try it out. “So, did you have fun tonight?” you ask. “Yeah, it was really fun. They played really good music. You?” Kristi sounds out of breath. You decide to dance more slowly. “Yeah, I had fun. I, uh, I thought the music was good too.” “I love this song. What a great song for the last dance.” “Yeah, I love it too. I, uh, love Eric Clapton.” “Really, you do?” “Yeah. Only not in a gay way.” Kristi laughs, and moves closer to you. Her breasts are near your chest, and you think you can feel them when she breathes, or maybe this is just your imagination. You stop talking to each other, but you hope that this is a good thing. You look around, over Kristi’s shoulder. As expected, the dance floor is full, and people are even dancing over by the walls. Jerry is dancing with the same girl as before, regular dancing this time, not grinding. Dave is dancing with Kim. Philip is dancing with a tall girl on crutches, holding her waist tightly as she tries not to fall over. You look toward the floor, and watch Kristi’s legs move slowly back and forth. You pull her a bit tighter. You can smell her perfume, though at this point it mostly smells like sweat. Your hands are on her jeans, right around the belt loops, pressing into her lower back. You move them a little lower, and wait to see if she reacts. She doesn’t. You think about moving them even lower, so they are on her butt. You know that this is a risky move. She might like it, or she might think that things are “moving too fast.” Dave has warned you that girls don’t like when things “move too fast.” Then again, it occurs to you that maybe your hands are already on her butt. You are not really clear on the anatomy of where the back ends and the butt begins. You decide to keep your hands still for now. You have an erection. As far as you can tell, it is pressing against Kristi’s body somewhere around her left hip. You are not sure if a girl can tell when she is dancing with a boy and the boy has an erection. On the one hand, it seems like she should be able to feel it. On the other hand, maybe boys’ pants prevent erections from being detected somehow, like maybe there is some sort of special technology involved. You are not sure if this has been invented yet, or if it has been added to pants. Besides, even if Kristi does know that you have an erection, you are not sure if she would be flattered or grossed out. “Wonderful Tonight” is winding down. Kim and Dave are still dancing, but they are not very close together. Philip’s dance partner seems to have sustained an injury and has retreated to the sidelines. You try to grip Kristi’s hips especially hard as the last notes play, as if to say, “How much I like you is proportional to how enthusiastically I am clutching at your sides.”

The song ends, and just as you start to wish it weren’t over, Kristi drops her hands onto your back and pushes you against her. You realize she is hugging you, and you put your arms on her back as well (having long since abandoned the butt touching idea). You smell her hair, because you know that people do this during hugs. It smells like an exotic island, or like the fruit salad your mom makes during the summer. And then the hug is ending too, but as Kristi draws away, she puts her lips to your cheek and kisses it. “See you in school,” she says, holding onto your sides for one more second, and then she recedes into the crowd. You are left alone, touching your cheek. The crowd is pushing out of the building; it is a mass migration. You are swept up along with them, barely aware that your feet are moving. You can still feel the spot where Kristi left her mark—a slight wetness, and a slight warmth. You realize you are walking quickly, more quickly than those around you, and suddenly it feels as though you are leading them, as though everyone has left the dance at your signal. You emerge from the building and the cool air feels wonderful against your skin after two hours inside the sweaty, unventilated multipurpose room. You see Philip and Dave, and Philip says, “Hey man, I saw Kristi kiss you. That was awesome!” and you know that people will be talking about you at school on Monday. Dave says nothing, but you don’t care. This is not about Dave. Dave will not be your friend for much longer anyway. In later years, even after your first official girlfriend kisses you suddenly on the mouth at a Radiohead concert, even after you and your prom date sneak away from the dance to make love in an empty math classroom, even after you take your college girlfriend to the Bahamas for spring break and build her a giant castle out of sand, even after your best friend gets too drunk at your wedding and predicts that you will have the happiest marriage of anyone he knows, even after your daughter stars in her high school play and everyone calls to congratulate her as you and your wife drive her home, even after all of this has gone by, you still think that if you could have chosen one night in your life to last forever, it would be this one. Middle school life will proceed as usual the next day—you will miss an open shot in your basketball game, and you will spend three hours trying to stay awake at your sister’s piano recital. On Monday Kristi will avert her eyes when she sees you in assembly, and two weeks later you will learn that she has started dating someone else. But you don’t know this yet. All you know, as you jog toward your parents’ car, is that you feel older than anyone around you. Both your parents are in the car. Your mom’s eager face turns to look at you as soon as you shut the door. “Well,” she asks, “was it fun?” “Yeah,” you say, “it was.”

You realize you are walking quickly, more quickly than those around you, and suddenly it feels as though you are leading them, as though everyone has left the dance at your signal.

April 2010 The Yale Daily News Magazine

WANT TO SEE THE GIRL WRESTLE? BY LAURA GOTTESDIENER

As star female wrestlers hone their skills against both male and famle opponents, they redefine the physicality and sexuality of the sport. sports Mohawks. Another squad strips its youngmother watching a wrestling tournaest wrestler down to his boxers and throws his ment in Willimantic, Connecticut, WALLACE PRIZE WINNER nudges her daughter with her foot. NONFICTION 2ND PLACE clothes out window, forcing him to run nearly naked into February’s chill. Meanwhile, the offi“Want to see the girl wrestle?” cial in charge of distributing information packets withholds one as she asks, pointing at the doll-fingered Jessica Bennett. “Shit,” the teenage daughter whispers. The two fall silent as he stares at my breasts and instructs me to “smile.” I comply, cocking my head to the side and trying not to appear offended. The Jessica and Gilberto DeJesus square off in the center of the mat. “Wrestle!” the referee calls. Jessica crouches low, elbows tucked official sizes me up. I stretch my grin a tad wider and, moments into her ribcage, the muscles in her thin arms tight and flexed. later, stride away with a copy of the tournament brackets. And everywhere — both on and off the four competition mats — pairs Gilberto shuffles reluctantly, waiting, waiting… “Let’s go Jessica!” the Monteville boys scream for their cap- of boys are struggling to force the other into physical submission. *** tain. Saturday afternoon, Jessica faces Jack McKeever in the 103Suddenly, Jessica drops to one knee, lunges for Gilberto’s near leg and — thud. His body falls hard for a boy just over 100 pounds. pound semifinal round. Right off the whistle, Jack shoots for a As he wriggles to his belly, Jessica hooks one arm under his arm- takedown, dropping to one knee and grasping Jessica’s thigh. I pit and around the nape of his neck, wrenching him to his back. can see every muscle in his body: the tendons on the exterior of Smack! The bleachers explode. Jessica Bennett is one win closer to his calves, the indent where his triceps meet his shoulders, the lats becoming the first female wrestler in Connecticut to compete in exposed by the low cut of his singlet. Immediately, Jessica sprawls hard, slamming her pelvic bones against Jack’s skull. She frees her the state wrestling championship. As Jessica frees her sandy-colored hair from her headgear, leg and swings around his body, clasping her arms around his waist the qualifying tournament rages on, testosterone running high. from behind. The ref raises his hand towards the scoring table: Despite Jessica’s presence, today, boys will be boys. Waterford’s two points Jessica. The crowd, enchanted by the sight of a female team dyed their hair bleach blond, Eminem style. Guilford’s team wrestling in the semifinals, cheers wildly. Her coach Gary Wilcox,

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a former Marine and high school state champion, watches with narrowed eyes. Jack spends most of the last period in control, grinding Jessica’s face into the rubber with the bony edge of his forearm and trying to expose her back to the mat. Jessica closes her eyes lightly as he contorts her rigid body into pretzels, something I’ve noticed she does when enduring pain. I shudder when he bends her shoulder back so far that it looks like it might dislocate. But thanks to the female body’s superior flexibility, he can’t turn her as she did Gilberto. In the last seconds, Jessica breaks free of Jack’s control and gains a reversal to score two more points, winning the match 4-0. The crowd rises to its feet. Coach Wilcox ducks out of the gymnasium with tears in his eyes. The loudspeaker crackles, but the standing ovation is so loud it overwhelms the announcement that Jessica is the first girl in Connecticut to win an invitation to the state wrestling championship.

as I recovered my breath, I began to question every belief about what it means to be a girl. *** Nationwide, 7,000 girls wrestled during the 2008-2009 high school season. Like Jessica, girls in almost every state wrestled on boys’ teams against male opponents. But like me, these girls rarely had the strength or opportunity to be very successful. Although weight classes ensure that competitors are equally sized, male wrestlers still carry far more muscle than females, especially at high weights. New research suggests that the female body might bring its own physiological benefits to the sport — estrogen that increases flexibility, wider pelvic bones that concentrate power in the hips, and a lower center of gravity that increases balance — but few coaches develop gender-specific training regimens. And these physical advantages can’t fight the social issues standing between girls and the mat. When I joined the wrestling team at Milton Academy, I encountered a barrage of skepticism about my abilities, my health, my sexuality — even my appearance. The league banned me from competing on the varsity lineup during dual matches. My doctor at Children’s Hospital accused me of engaging in self-destructive behavior. My younger brother’s friends no longer had crushes on me because “I was a lesbian.” Even the saleswoman at Betsey Johnson was troubled as she tried to sell me a prom dress. “You’re a difficult fit,” she concluded, placing her hands on my thick shoulders and eyeing the bruises on my collarbone with apparent concern. “What are you?” She paused, then ventured hopefully, “a swimmer?” Since I re-immersed myself in the wrestling world six months ago to find out why women’s wrestling is the fastest growing sport in the country, I have repeatedly encountered male wrestlers, coaches, and trainers who question the motivations and legitimacy of these women. I’ve heard that girls wrestle to touch boys, to embarrass boys, to prove themselves to boys. An athletic trainer told me that coed wrestling was little more than “legalized groping.” As long as wrestling includes moves like “the Saturday night ride,” it’s hard to condemn these stereotypes as completely unfounded. Picture “the ride” in a coed match: a boy lying on top of a girl, both their legs spread-eagle, his hands pressed against her chest. I remember unwittingly setting myself up for this move once. Max, my partner, started to run the ride, forcing apart my legs with his knee, rolling his weight onto my torso … He froze. “Why’d you stop?” asked coach Hales. Then, realizing the move Max was about to run, Hales chuckled and walked away. Despite this incident that was more embarrassing than sexual,

I want to tell her that I’m writing because wrestling changed the way I walk around in the world, that I’ve never forgotten the rush of power at the shriek of the first whistle. I think more girls should have the opportunity to experience that sensation.

arlier this winter, Jessica also became the first girl in Connecticut to achieve 100 career wins against varsity boys. I can’t imagine what these wins represent to her because to her 100, I can put up only one: On February 11, 2006, at the Northern New England tournament, I wrestled my one and only winning match against a varsity boy. Blood trickled from my nostrils after my opponent swept my legs out from under me and I face-planted into the mat. My 112-pound opponent, whose hands slid over my sweaty skin and whose name I never knew, struggled to catch up in a match he was losing to a girl. “Stand up!” shouted my coach, Chris Hales. I was crouched like a bullfrog in the starting stance called referee’s position: down on all fours, butt pressed against my heels, arms spread wide. I raised my left leg to stand, and the boy thrust me forward face-first. The pain was dizzying. I stood up. He slammed me down. I stood up. He slammed me down, frantic to pull off a move like I’d managed in the first period when I launched his body over my back with a “fireman’s carry.” I struggled to my feet, staggered out of bounds, and fell down from exhaustion. The mothers in the bleachers watched uneasily. “Short time!” Hales screamed, telling me I had to keep my lead for only a few more seconds. The ref motioned for me to assume referee’s position again. The boy crouched above me, his chest pressed against the curve of my back, his left hand cupping my arm just above my elbow. I shot up – and the whistle screeched. Hales went crazy. I nodded blankly. I had been wrestling for Milton Academy for only a few months, and I never expected to win a match against a varsity boy. At that moment, I was too spent to feel the rush of power that came from that victory. But as soon

April 2010 The Yale Daily News Magazine

I never thought wrestling is a sexual activity. Jessica Bennett and every other female wrestler I’ve spoken to agree. Wrestling is sport, and sex … well, that’s something else entirely. *** Almost 40 years after Title IX, wrestling remains an unconquered frontier for female athletes in most areas of the country. The exception is Napa Valley, California, where coach Jim Lanterman made history in 1998 by hosting the nation’s first girls-only tournament. Today, Northern California is called the Mecca of girls’ wrestling and Lanterman’s tournament, the Asics Napa Valley Classic, is the oldest and one of the most prestigious competitions in the nation. A month after I heard about Lanterman, I landed in the San Francisco International Airport one week before the Classic. Part of me couldn’t believe I actually decided to come here. But a bigger part was obsessed with the idea of finding a whole valley full of Jessica Bennetts: girls who are brave enough to trespass in a man’s world and strong enough to succeed. I had no idea that what I would find had nothing to do with trespassing.

aika Watanabe, Vintage’s assistant coach, looks pissed as she surveys her team. “Why aren’t you dressed?” she demands. Although she stands barely five feet tall — a member of the boy’s team once lost Maika at Safeway because she was standing behind a cereal box on the checkout belt — this multiple-winner of the Classic is not someone to fuck with. And she’s not alone; Maika is just one of the ten All-American Vintage wrestlers. “Because I couldn’t finish my laundry,” whines Jonna Rose Palma, a freshman wearing skinny jeans whom everyone calls JR. Again, first impressions are deceiving; although JR looks like an dopy newbie, she is one of Vintage’s most promising athletes. Captain Taide Guerra-Martinez doesn’t cut her any slack. “JR, just get your gym clothes.” “I can’t,” Jonna Rose replies, “then I’d have to wash them again tonight.” She’s right;

wrestling clothes must be washed every day to avoid contracting ringworm, staph infection, or a host of other skin diseases. “Okay, whatever,” says Taide, giving up to focus on her own training. It is 3:30 on the Wednesday before the tournament, and the Vintage wrestling room is in disarray. Josh Knoell, the varsity 215-pounder, and Steven Arrambide, the varsity 171-pounder, assemble the room for the boys’ match this evening. Bob Muscante, the boys’ head coach, reviews his roster to make sure each varsity boy is on weight. Most aren’t. Jim Lanterman, the grandfather of women’s wrestling in California and the 2008 National Coach of the Year, mops the mats, head down, almost deaf, and oblivious to the chaos around him. Taide leads the girls in a warm-up. Rob Lanterman, who has taken over for his father as the girls’ head coach, instructs me to get out there and show off my own moves. Watching Taide’s flexed quadriceps as she sidesteps in her wrestling stance — thighs parallel to the floor, back hunched forward, elbows tucked into her body — I decide to stay on the sidelines. As the girls circle the mat, I realize I’ve never seen such a diverse host of female wrestlers. JR, a 14-year-old from the Philippines, has stocky legs, a streak of blond in her cropped hair, and a flirtatious charm. Taide, taller and leaner than JR, has dark skin from her Mexican and Incan heritage. Mia Folster, the team’s heavyweight, tops 200 pounds. Mid-size Mercedes Rivera has dark hair, glasses, and pimply skin. Liz Palencia, a pretty redhead with a tiny nose ring stud, attracts a lot of attention from the boys’ team, but they are all scared of her “gangster” boyfriend. Most of these girls look nothing like Jessica Bennett or the few girls I’ve seen back East who compete at 103 or 112 pounds — far below the average weight of a high school girl — where they can best match a boy’s strength. Instead, the 12 girls on the Vintage team represent a range of shapes and sizes. Some newcomers had never played any sports before. “People didn’t think I could do it,” Mercedes admits. “But my parents are proud.” Others like Taide are serious athletes. “A lot of girls feel pain and back off,” she says. “This is where the stereotype that girls can’t wrestle comes from. But you have to wrestle through that.” Taide’s performance at the Queen of the Mat tournament earlier this month

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proved she isn’t just talking a big game. When she injured a muscle in her lower back during the medal round, she fought both her opponent and her own pain to achieve a third place finish. Captaining a team with this diversity of size, experience, and dedication is no easy task, and Thursday’s track workout shows just this problem. After learning that I ran in high school, Taide invites me to join practice, explaining she just needs to grab her sneakers from home. I offer to drive her, and soon we’re cruising the streets of Napa. “Oh shit,” Taide says. “What?” “You needed to turn there.” As I loop around the block, she tries to understand exactly why I’m here. “So are you writing for a newspaper?” she asks. “Well…” I stall. I want to tell her that I’m writing because wrestling changed the way I walk around in the world, that I’ve never forgotten the rush of power at the shriek of the first whistle. I think more girls should have the opportunity to experience that sensation. But I stay quiet; it’s a hard feeling to articulate, and Taide surely understands it better than I ever will. “Oh turn!” Taide yells suddenly, and I cut across a lane of traffic to make the sharp left. “Sorry,” she laughs. “I forgot you don’t know where we’re going.” *** An hour later, I’m bouncing on the balls of my feet at the starting line of Vintage’s track. “One lap, fast as you can,” Maika yells. Taide and I take off. By the 200-meter mark, my head is pounding. I glance back to see that everyone else on the team is far behind. I didn’t expect most of the girls to keep up with Taide, but some are only jogging. When we attempt an Indian run, the problem is even more pronounced. During an Indian run, the team jogs single file with the last person in the line sprinting to the front, continuously pushing the pack forward. We are supposed to stay together, but, for a team with a weight range of under 110 pounds to over 220, running together is harder than it sounds. “Come on Mia!” one of the girls whine. “You have to try!” “I can’t,” the heavyweight pants. As she falls behind, other girls lose motivation too. “Maika’s going to yell at us,” another girl warns. We slow down, trying to stick together as a squad despite our differences in fitness, build, and desire.

wenty minutes south of Napa, Vallejo High School is also preparing for the Classic tournament. “These windows haven’t fogged up yet!” yells head coach Carl Lastrella, even though the wide windowpanes lining the wrestling room are indeed tinged with steam. By the end of practice at 5:45, the whole walls are going to be as foggy as the car window in Titanic’s famous sex scene. Like Vintage, Vallejo was one of the first teams in the country to go coed, and has won multiple team victories at the Classic and the Girls’ California States. This year, their hot shot is senior Mary Jane Fernandez, the runner-up at States last year who is heading to the Classic this weekend to defeat Christine Alcantary, her rival and last year’s 98-pound champion of California. Mary Jane’s petite body ripples with bands of lean muscle. I learn her strength the hard way when she demonstrates her favorite

move, an “arm bar,” on me in the hallway outside the wrestling room. Beads of sweat dot her forehead as she leans over my kneeling body, clenching my straightened arm tight into her chest and jerking my arm towards my head. With each step she takes, shooting pain radiates from my shoulder joint. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she says, worried. I grunt something reassuring and she takes the last step. Pain! My head and shoulders pitch forward into a somersault, my shoulder blades press against the cement, and my legs flail helplessly in the air. After holding me pinned for a second, Mary Jane rushes to rejoin practice. “Shot! Sprawl! Shot! Shot! Shot! Sprawl!” Lastrella paces the mat, weaving around the 15 high schoolers who, on his command, either drop to one knee for a single leg shot or throw their hips to the mat for a sprawl. “Hips straight down!” he yells. That means there’s no cheating on the sprawls; rotating your hips to the side lessens the pain when your pelvis, hips, and thighs slam into the rubber. But Mary Jane doesn’t need the reminder. Her hips hit the mat dead on. “She has outstanding technique,” Lastrella says. Because Mary Jane is the most technically skilled wrestler at Vallejo, I’m not surprised that Lastrella usually chooses her as his demonstration partner. But I also know that his willingness to touch her is anything but practice as usual. Sexual harassment and female athletes has been a loaded issue since 1970 when Little League officials raised concerns about how to deal with girls hit in the chest or groin by baseballs. But wrestling added a new dimension to the controversy because coaches must demonstrate moves on their wrestlers every day. I’ve yet to hear of any sexual harassment lawsuits filed against wrestling coaches, but many shy away from their girls just in case. Vallejo’s former head coach, Mike Minihan, recalls coaching Michelle Domagas during her first practice in 1997. “High crotches are our forte,” he explains. “So I’m demo-ing a high C on her and then I realize: I don’t know this girl. I don’t know her parents.” I can understand his concern; a high crotch, often called a high C, requires grabbing your opponent high on her upper thigh and thrusting your head into her side above the hipbone. Demogas, it turned out, bruised easily, putting Minihan at a greater risk of suspicion as his wrestler walked the halls with black speckled wrists and knees. Just as Minihan worried, people took notice. A P.E. teacher confronted him exclaiming, “Look at her arms!” Whether she suspected misconduct, or simply believed – as a physical education teacher no less – that girls should learn to be physical but not too physical, Minihan disregarded the complaint. Michelle became Vallejo’s first national champion. *** After an hour of drills, Vallejo goes “live,” practicing short bursts of intense wrestling. “Be physical here,” Lastrella commands. Mary Jane’s partner is Tino, a skinny Hispanic boy considerably taller than Mary Jane. But hands down, Mary Jane is faster. “Shit,” Mary Jane mutters, scampering to the sidelines. “Are you bleeding?” Lastrella asks when she returns with a wad of tissue stuffed in her mouth. “Nice job Tino,” Lastrella calls as he walks away. Even though Vallejo’s squad splits on the weekends to go to separate male and female tournaments, Lastrella, who describes

April 2010 The Yale Daily News Magazine

himself as a “draconian coach,” holds every wrestler to the same standards. So when Tino — who has been struggling to keep up with Mary Jane — gives her a bloody nose, that calls for congratulations. Anywhere else on Vallejo’s campus, it would probably call for Tino’s suspension. Not even dieting, or “cutting weight,” merits a double standard at Vallejo. “Why are you wearing that sweatshirt?” Lastrella asks Mary Jane. “To make five,” Mary Jane replies, referring to the five pounds she will cut by Saturday. I’m shocked that her weight is openly discussed; my weight made everyone uncomfortable at Milton. When I first spoke to Hales about wrestling, he awkwardly asked what I weighed. “If you don’t mind my asking,” he added quickly. There was a silence; it was clear we both felt the conversation was vaguely inappropriate but weren’t sure why. I knew the only varsity spot open was at 112 pounds so I lied: “around 110.” I sucked in my stomach in a vain attempt to hide ten pounds. He nodded, but later warned me, “I don’t want to hear about you cutting any weight. I get enough shit around here about the boys cutting.” At Vallejo, however, girls cutting weight is no secret. “Our girls work hard to be at the right weight,” Minihan says. He is no stranger to the effect that unhealthy weight loss can have on adolescent girls; his sister, a professional ballerina, stopped menstruating for four years due to strict dieting. But weight loss is part of the sport, and if girls sign up to wrestle at Vallejo, they should expect no special treatment.

“Turn here!” Josh shouts suddenly. I slam the breaks. “Just kidding,” he says. Anthony rolls down his window to catcall girls walking home. “Okay, now take a right,” Josh instructs. “I mean left — left!” I swerve all over the road. “Watch out,” he calls. “Drunk driver in the PT cruiser.” The guys have moved on from ragging on the girls’ team to ragging on me. “Napa High kids drew a penis on my mom’s car,” Anthony says as we pull up. “It was probably to thank her for last night,” I reply. “OHHHHHH!” the boys scream. “Wait, I don’t get it,” whines Anthony. “Oh,” he realizes. “That’s fucked up.” Josh gives me a high five and, like that, I’m one of the guys again. Just in time, too; if they kept teasing me with the directions I was sure to get in a car accident. “PUSH! PUSH! PUSH! PUSH!” chants Bob Muscante as we shove the rolled-up mats onto the flatbed truck. “PUSH! PUSH! PUSH! PUSH!” I wonder if I should tell him his energy would be better spent pushing, instead of yelling push. After we’ve rolled out the mats in the Vintage gym, set up the snack bar, and duct taped a freshman to a post, the boys take me out to dinner at Denny’s. I zone out as they chatter; I can’t stop thinking about how bizarre this situation is: a subpar boys’ team acting as the road crew for the real stars – the girls. And now that the boys have set the stage, I can’t wait to see the action.

“OHHHHHH!” the boys scream. “Wait, I don’t get it,” whines Anthony. “Oh,” he realizes. “That’s fucked up.” Josh gives me a high five and, like that, I’m one of the guys again.

n Napa Valley the night before the Classic, the girls are free to get some sleep. The Vintage boys, however, have a full night ahead: They have to set up both the main and the auxiliary gymnasiums for the anticipated 500 competitors, coaches, parents, referees, and fans. “You want to go with Maika to pick up the mats?” asks Josh Knoell, who has befriended me and whom Jim Lanterman teasingly calls “my shadow.” He, Anthony, and two freshmen pile into my car. As we drive over to Napa High to borrow mats, the guys joke about the girls’ team. “Taide’s hot,” Anthony pipes up. “Your standards are low,” Josh replies. “Do you think JR could take Taide?” asks one of the freshmen. As the guys debate which girls are hot and which girls would win in a fight, I laugh, remembering Josh posturing in front of his buddies two days ago when I asked what type of girls wrestle. “They’re mostly lesbians,” he said. “Manly girls.” Now he thinks a number of the girls are attractive and respects Taide and JR as serious athletes.

t 8 a.m. on Friday, January 9, 2009, the Vintage gymnasiums buzz with the fresh energy that opens a grueling, two-day tournament. The Vintage team rubs Kenshield Skin Protection, an antibacterial lotion, on exposed skin. Girls roll over the mats to stay loose, their weights marked in bold, black ink on their shoulders. Even the bathroom radiates nervous energy — and hunger. “I didn’t eat anything last night,” one lightweight brags. “I dropped hella weight!” Over 65 coaches argue about the seeding, a debate complicated by the problem of comparing wins against male opponents to wins against female opponents. The bickering pauses when one coach, trying to estimate the number of total competitors, asks, “How many?” “A million!” another shouts. Everyone cheers. Finally they settle the seeds. Mary Jane is second at 98 pounds. Taide is third at 108, and JR, the underdog at 114, is not seeded at all. “But she will be soon,” Rob Lanterman says. “If she stops being stupid.” As a novice, JR gets too eager and shoots too often, aggression that often gets her into trouble. But at the Classic, wrestling no holds barred is the only way for a freshman like JR to claw her way to the top.

The Yale Daily News Magazine April 2010

“She’s a little feisty one!” shouts a man from the crowd as JR attempts shot after shot against her first opponent, Elizabeth Burges. JR isn’t strong enough to lift Elizabeth, but she stays on the offensive throughout the match and wins 3-2. In her next match against Brittanea Terrell, JR again unleashes a fury of energy right off the whistle, crouching in her unusually low stance — butt thrust out, quads parallel with the floor — and fighting scrappily for hand control. The match remains close until the third period when JR seizes on Brittanea’s unprotected forward leg by setting an ankle pick, and then quickly sinking in a half nelson for the pin. The competition at the Classic tournament defies every stereotype of girls as docile and physically submissive. As referee Bob Pugh says, days like today “wear off the Barbie Doll image.” Example: A match is delayed because a wrestler vomits on the mat. No one is fazed. “Two years ago,” says Vintage’s Steven Arrambide as he cleans up the mess, “some chick puked on the mat three times during a match.” But even more than pushing the girls to the limits of their physical capacities, wrestling often pushes them over the edge. “Will a trainer please report to the auxiliary gym — fast!” the loudspeaker cries after Vintage wrestler Liz Palencia breaks her clavicle. “Nothing out of the ordinary,” Rob Lanterman says. “She just landed wrong.” As we speak, a puffy-eyed heavyweight limps by with an ice bag taped to her ankle. Research on women’s athletic injuries is an emerging field yielding disturbing results. Women suffer concussions at a rate 68 percent higher than men. Women are far more likely to suffer “overuse” injuries — shin splints, stress fractures, A.C.L. tears — in endurance sports like running. But there is scarce research on women and traumatic injuries — broken bones, dislocated shoulders — typical of wrestling’s jerky, aggressive motions. Dr. Jokl, a sports medicine specialist at Yale University, explains that women’s muscle firing patterns are less coordinated than men’s,

which might render women more susceptible to joint dislocation under traumatic pressure. The estrogen in a women’s body keeps ligaments lax, which further compounds this stabilization problem. Proper strength training geared towards women’s bodies can help reduce the staggering rate of injuries. However, until more research is conducted, female athletes will suffer from the lack of effective, gender-specific training. But far from the medical table, Taide, wrestling at 108 pounds for Vintage, and Mary Jane, wrestling at 98 pounds for Vallejo, both dominate their opening matches. “She’s tough,” says Mary Jane’s coach Elner Perez. Surveying the competition in the room, he adds, “She has to be.” Being tough at wrestling doesn’t mean these competitors aren’t typical teenage girls. Indeed, off the mats, the tournament is no different from any other event where adolescent girls and boys are together: Sex is on the mind. Yet, just as girls’ wrestling challenges stereotypes about women’s physicality, the flirting often overturns traditional relationships of power. Josh Knoell calls me over to the scoring table to show me a note he received from a wrestler. To the table dude – (###)-###-#### Heart, Kristin He points to her and gives me a quizzical look. “She’s cute,” I offer. “She’s pretty good too,” he replies. A coach from Half Moon Bay chimes in. “You should go watch her wrestle,” he suggests. I have trouble imagining any other place where flirting consists of a boy standing on the sidelines while a girl kicks the shit out of her opponent. It’s rare enough to find a high school girl ballsy enough to give out her number.

n Saturday morning, both Mary Jane and Taide are in the semifinals, but JR has a harder day ahead. After being thrown into the single-elimination consolation rounds by Samantha Ortiz’s “chin whip,” JR must win every one of her

April 2010 The Yale Daily News Magazine

matches or she’s out. Usually JR has a happy-go-lucky smile so wide her neck muscles contract as she tries to display every tooth. But this morning she sits on the bleachers knocking her knees together, stonily focused. After JR barely pulls off a win against Desiree Leon, a heavyweight from Stagg High School approaches JR and Rob Lanterman. “Shoot in lower for the double,” she tells JR. “You’re too high.” “You read my mind,” Rob says. Although the competition is fierce and rivalries like Mary Jane and Christine’s will soon reach their climax, the Classic is a model of good sportsmanship. “I like our little community,” says Rob Lanterman. “Everyone’s mingling. That doesn’t happen with the boys.” To prove his point, Rob turns to a girl walking by named Brittney. He introduces us, explaining that he’s watched Brittney wrestle for years. Then he starts teasing that she throws a football like a girl. “Does she wrestle like a boy?” I ask, trying to get in on the joke. Rob gives me a quizzical look. “Like a wrestler.” *** Taide entered this weekend in the spotlight, and she is crushed when she loses in the semis to Angie Mayes. Swallowing her disappointment, Taide wrestles her way to the consolation final round where she competes against Ashley Presch for third place. It’s a tight match: Ashley quickly takes a 4-0 lead with a front headlock; Taide counters with a throw that pulls her ahead 5-4. The seconds eke by as each wrestler struggles to finish ahead. Finally Taide seals the victory, turning Ashley to her back with one final explosive wrench. Meanwhile, JR continues to rock the consolation rounds, beating Marisa Quisomodo 11-3 with low double-leg shots, just as Stagg’s heavyweight advised. But soon the tables are turned; at the beginning of the third period, an exhausted JR is losing 11-3 to Brianna Grant. Suddenly, I see her face change as she makes the kind of decision that separates top athletes from the rest of us. She tenses her quadriceps muscles, drops low, and drives in hard – harder than I’ve ever seen her shoot. For a moment, the whole match slows down. JR sweeps Brianna’s calves out from under her and Brianna’s body hangs suspended in the air, perfectly parallel with the floor. The moment ends with a crash: Brianna’s body crumpling into the rubber. Before Brianna can regain her senses, JR pounces, sinking in a half nelson for the pin. Bouncing off the mat, JR beams her infectious smile. Two days ago, Jonna Rose Palma was an unknown freshman entering unseeded into the

largest weight class at the tournament. But after six matches and a fourth place overall finish, she has become a rising, national-caliber wrestler. *** Late Saturday afternoon, the Vintage team and I cluster around the center mat, squirming to get a good view of the finals. “I should be up there,” Taide whispers as the competitors line up, flanked by former National and Olympic Team wrestlers holding first place medals reminding the girls what’s at stake. Despite the tinge of sadness in Taide’s tone, she’s in good spirits, telling me about her boyfriend and how she wishes his ab muscles were more toned. “I know,” I say. “We’re in good shape. Why can’t they be?” “Yeah, what if I just got fat?” We all laugh; Taide is going to train her ass off to make the finals next year. And after watching her dedication and humility all week, I bet she’ll succeed. Over the loudspeaker, Rob Lanterman announces the 98-pound finalists Mary Jane Fernandez and Christine Alcantary. I stare at Mary Jane, whose pretty face is serene in front of the hundreds of fans. “Inside I’m so nervous,” she admits later. And with good reason: Mary Jane and Christine have been rivals for years. Today is the third time they have lined up against each other in the finals at the Classic tournament. But as seniors, it will also be their last. The referee blows his whistle and the two circle slowly, fighting for hand control. They are cautious; each knows the other’s strength. Suddenly, Mary Jane dives for Christine’s near leg, careening headfirst without hesitation. With lightning-fast impulses, Christine reacts, slamming her hips against Mary Jane’s skull. The whistle blows, and they reluctantly break their holds. Watching the strength vibrating in Mary Jane and Christine’s lean muscles, I start to understand that my reasons for coming to Napa were flawed. I’d hoped to find a Valley full of Jessica Bennetts, girls who trespassed in a man’s world and beat the boys at their own game. But even while seeming to celebrate Girl Power and third-wave feminism, this attitude perpetrates the myth of the female body’s inferiority. It insists that men continue to define the parameters of athletic excellence. With seconds left in the second period, Mary Jane breaks Christine’s hold, scoring an escape before the two tumble out of bounds. I clap wildly; in a low-scoring match a one-point advantage is critical. The third period begins, and Christine flops into referee’s position. Mary Jane kneels over her, cupping Christine’s elbow with her hand. The whistle sounds and once again it’s one

I can’t help but wonder if their very understanding of sexuality will be changed. For the past year, I’ve tried to keep wrestling and sex completely separate, unwilling to engage the arguments about masculinity and femininity that have kept women away from athletics, especially contact sports, for hundreds of years.

The Yale Daily News Magazine April 2010

girl desperately trying to hold another as the two grow more and more fatigued. Watching this match, I see what makes the Classic so special, why it is so different from watching Jessica Bennett excel in the world of Connecticut wrestling. The Asics Napa Valley Classic is a rare celebration of the female body without qualification, without comparison. From the creation of the tournament 11 years ago, the Classic rejected the idea that wrestling was a man’s sport that a few women just might be strong enough to join. I remember Rob’s quizzical expression when I asked if Brittney wrestled “like a boy.” To the Lantermans and their followers, wrestling is a sport, and women are athletes. It’s simple, but I had to see it to believe it. Of course, what makes the Classic special is also a moment like this: As Christine tries to escape from Mary Jane’s control, she leaves one arm slightly exposed, just far enough from her chest for Mary Jane to catch it, yank it straight and run her favorite move: an arm bar. I remember when she grabbed my left arm in the cement hallway outside Vallejo’s wrestling room, twisted my shoulder forward and began to step one leg over the next towards my head. The pain was so excruciating that I didn’t even realize I was ass to the sky, legs flailing, and pinned. Christine fights, but her head tips forward, then her shoulders, then her back… I jump to my feet as Mary Jane becomes the 98-pound Asics Napa Valley Classic champion.

fter I return to Connecticut, Wayne Harrington, the coach of the Connecticut Women’s Team, calls to inform me he is hosting the first East Coast tournament sanctioned by USAWrestling — the national governing body for wrestling. A few weeks later, I arrive at the Girls’ Northeast Regional tournament hoping for the best. For a first-year tournament, the turnout is pretty good: 57 wrestlers, mostly of elementary or middle school age. Many don’t bother wearing wrestling singlets, and their baggy t-shirts demand constant tugging to keep stomachs and bellybuttons hidden. Scattered siblings and parents lounge on the bleachers, but the room feels quiet compared to the disorienting noise at the Classic. Occasionally Waterford High School’s terrifying coach Satti emits a torrent of guttural commands that feel out of place in a room full of skipping, pre-adolescent girls. I take a seat in the bleachers next to Jessica Bennett and her mother, Kim Bennett. A few weeks ago, Jessica ended her wrestling career by accepting an academic scholarship to Purdue University. She had wanted to continue wrestling, but, out of the handful of colleges with women’s teams, none met her academic standards. Given the choice between pursuing a 2012 Olympic bid and pursuing a veterinarian career, Jessica hung up her wrestling shoes. Jessica explains that she is here to watch the wrestlers who call themselves the “Fab Five,” a group of five eleven-year-olds — Siarra, Olivia, Kiely, Kaely, and Emme — who wrestle for Coach Harrington and who were all recognized last year as All-American wrestlers (elementary school division). Kim Bennett, always poised to elaborate on her daughter’s sparse words, says the Five would be “crushed” if Jessica weren’t here to watch them. As if on cue, the precocious Olivia bounds up the bleachers to offer Jessica a packet of Gushers. Even as Jessica declines, Olivia beams, exposing a gap between her two front teeth. She sports her birthday present, a new pair of wrestling shoes — size 3.5. Meanwhile, the identical twins

Kiely and Kaely show off their gymnastics skills, doing back flips and handstand pushups to warm up. Siarra and Olivia both have wrestling coaches for fathers, and they started wrestling almost as soon they could walk. In first grade, Kiely and Kaely — whose names are almost as hard to differentiate as their faces — joined Siarra and Olivia. When Emme showed up shortly after, the Fab Five was complete: five young, successful athletes growing up along with their sport. *** I wonder sometimes what will happen to the Fab Five as they hit adolescence, middle school, high school. I can’t shake the idea that they will have a very different understanding of their bodies than most American girls have. After watching the Five wrestle against both boys and girls throughout the season — winning most of their matches regardless of their opponent’s sex — I can’t help but wonder if their very understanding of sexuality will be changed. For the past year, I’ve tried to keep wrestling and sex completely separate, unwilling to engage the arguments about masculinity and femininity that have kept women away from athletics, especially contact sports, for hundreds of years. But maybe wrestling does change a woman’s sexuality. Maybe, years from now when precocious Olivia will understand the implications of its name, she will begin to run the “Saturday night ride” on an opponent, knee thrust between legs, chest to chest. Maybe this opponent will be a high school boy, and Olivia’s thoughts will be focused on her technique — spread the legs wide, thighs touching thighs — rather than frozen by any confusion between this hold and genuine intimacy. Or maybe by this time Connecticut will have a girls’ league, and her opponent will be a girl. For Olivia, my bet is that the sex of the wrestler won’t matter any more than it seems to worry her now. The thing that will matter is that Olivia won’t shy away from this move the way Max and I did. As she pries her opponent’s legs apart, she’ll learn that, even in the seemingly most sexual position or circumstance, her body does not have to be sexualized. As she presses hard against her immobilized opponent’s shoulders, she will learn that she owns her body and all its actions, and that she alone dictates when her body’s purpose is sexual. My favorite teacher at Milton Academy used to say that all interactions between men and women boil down to one truth: boys use love to get sex, and girls use sex to get love. I think this reduction is equally sad for both sexes, but I’m in no position to talk about a man’s inner emotions. What I can say is that I believe wrestling may help teach Olivia that her body, her sexuality, is not an object to be traded for anything — not for love or a job promotion, not for money or a changed flat tire, not even for a copy of the tournament brackets needed by a young reporter who knows that the price is only a surrendered smile. While Jessica Bennett watched, both Siarra and Olivia won their weight classes at the Girls’ Northeast Regional tournament. A few weeks later, the two girls both finished second at the United States Girls’ Wrestling Association National tournament in Ypsilanti, Michigan. As the 2009 wrestling season winds to a close, I imagine what it will be like for the Fab Five, growing up having wrestled almost all their lives. They’ll know that wrestling is about aggression, but it’s not about anger. They’ll know that it’s about taking control of another person’s body and, through that victory, it’s about taking control of your own. I’m jealous: These girls still have years ahead to experience that rush of power that I so miss.

April 2010 The Yale Daily News Magazine

FICTION THE SECOND LIFE OF TOM ROWLANDS by Jeffrey Zuckerman He has undergone major facial restructuring surgery and flown across the Atlantic to live in a new apartment, begin a new job, and seduce a newly-met woman in Southampton, England. He is â&#x20AC;&#x201D; as of recently â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Thomas Rowlands.

WALLACE PRIZE WINNER

FICTION

2ND PLACE

The first time I looked at my new face, I had been in bed for a week. I knew there would be swelling and bruises. I wanted to see it myself, without anybody else in the room, not even a nurse or one of the people who had come to take care of me. By then I was used to walking again, and when it was quiet I walked from the window to the door, back and forth for hours. So I went over to the bathroom and gripped the medicine-cabinet door that I had kept open. If I closed it, I knew, I would find a mirror.

April 2010 The Yale Daily News Magazine

Your name is Thomas Rowlands, I thought. Tom Rowlands. I took a deep breath and closed the cabinet. The lightbulb’s reflection flashed in my eyes, and another face looked back at me. I blinked. It blinked back. It matched my mouth as I opened mine, and turned its head as I turned mine. Deep-set eyes peered from under a brow ridge I barely recognized. The nose looked like it had been broken years ago, nothing like the straight slope of my face. Even the mouth was slightly off, favoring the right side of the face. It looked just like the pictures of Tom Rowlands. As I walked around, packing up, I glanced every so often at my face in the mirror. “My” face: it seemed so tenuous, so unreal. By the bed, there was an overnight bag. That was all. I needed nothing but my passport, my license, and a credit card. The rest they had destroyed. The doctor had told me I could leave two days ago. But now I was ready, so I only had to sign the forms to go. I had been practicing my signature, willing myself to make it natural. The m and w still stood out, but I handed the papers back and the nurse barely glanced at the ink-scribble. *** I walked into the airport with the suitcase. The clothes inside still had tags on them. At the security checkpoint, they looked at my passport. “Where are you going, Tom?” I looked at him with calculated boredom, running through the story I had spent the last week rehearsing. “Southampton by way of Heathrow. It’s been a nice vacation.” The noise of a traveller putting his bag on a conveyor belt distracted me. He nodded at me. I looked like the passport picture. I sounded British — with a Yorkshire accent, even. They were happy for me to go back to England. I was happy to leave America.

II.

The quay at sunset was a peculiar shade of indigo. The seadarkness merged with the shadows of the docks. I could hear the faint hum of Southampton, a swell and surge of sound not unlike the water I was watching. It was a strange place. It wasn’t only the cars. Even the people seemed to be — well — inverted, smiling weakly at things I didn’t understand. “Bollocks,” I’d muttered as my suitcase had snagged on the sidewalk, and I heard a little boy snicker nearby. The words — bollocks, lorry, cor — meant something I couldn’t guess at yet. I had a job and an apartment, all of which had been arranged for me. I gave the cab driver the address, and I found the keys at the bottom of my bag. They’d given me the new identity right before I went into the surgery. “He’s been declared missing, probably dead,” the man had said to me at the beginning of his briefing. “The police found his clothes by the Cold Hiendley reservoir, and somebody even gave an eyewitness account of a man diving in.” I had looked at the fluorescent lights above, clearing my mind so I could hold this new information. “He’s actually dead. His body was found in a trench a few miles from the reservoir.” I’d asked how he knew this, and he answered, “You were the only person who could get close enough to Owen to shoot him, and you did us the favour. The mob takes care of its friends.” I looked off,

but then he thumped his fist on the table. “We paid off the police not to report it. When you come back in, the police will know not to track you down.” I swallowed and shifted my gaze. This was the end. I had to start at the beginning. “Now. You were born on the twelfth of May. 1983. Tom?” He levelled his gaze on my face. “That’s your name now. Tom. How old are you?” *** He’d given me a cell phone, too — a mobile, I suppose. It rang once, the night I’d come in, and I almost said my old name as I picked up. As I caught myself, I didn’t even listen; I snapped the mobile shut. Your name is Tom Rowlands, I told myself. Nobody has your mobile number. In the mornings, I got up and looked at my papers on the bulletin board and remembered the way to and from the office. Then I took a shower and made coffee and tied my tie properly. I didn’t turn on the news. If I heard that somebody had been shot or that police were searching for a perp, I couldn’t concentrate for the rest of the day. I repeated the mantra in my head, running down all those things normal people know about themselves, instinctively. Your name is Thomas Rowlands. Tom Rowlands. You were born in Leeds and you were an only child and your friends from uni decided to move here so you got an office job here. I stared at spreadsheets, holding the number in my head the way I’d held a whole building in my head: here were the expenses, here were the deductions, here was where Bill had stood, there were the men that had carried Owen away. It was one of those days when I saw Melissa walking past my desk — I was nervous and didn’t realize it. That first time, I found myself asking her if she wanted to get drinks after work. It was the way she said hello. Dorie used to talk that way, in the evenings when I came to her apartment. She’d look at me and her words came at me so straight that I forgot the table between us. I was talking to Melissa like I’d known her all my life. I almost said “Seattle” instead of “Leeds.” She leaned across my desk and said she’d never met anybody who sounded so intelligent. “So what do you say? I’ll find you when I finish up.” She paused, and then nodded.

III.

The kinds of things you say on a first date are things you should never have to say again. It’s easier when you’re lying — you’ve already decided that you’re a rash kind of person, for example, or that you like running in the rain. You can’t decide that about your real self. You sit across the table from Melissa and you make your whole life. You just open your mouth. Say you’re from Leeds. Say you went to Allerton Grange and then St Andrews. Say you were hit with a BB pellet when you were six, and Melissa won’t stop laughing. Say you spent last summer in the States — where was it — California, and the scene fills with details as you keep talking: the swallows, the Spanish names of the little towns on the coast, the brackish smell of the ocean tides. You talk about the little boy who lived down the street, who pulled your hair whenever you carried him on your shoulders. You talk about ice skating. Other people walk out for a moment, and you talk about the first time you tried to smoke, coughing and eyes watering. You talk about moving into your apartment, then the best single malt you ever tasted.

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Pick up your scotch, and you hear her recollect another story. It’s almost like one you used to tell, so, well, you make up a new one. You’re lying, after all: the moment you say the wrong thing about the Queen, that her outfits are ostentatious, you say you were joking and then you’re talking about the first time your mother held you up in her arms to wave to the Queen. Your mother, before she and your father were killed in a car crash. A convenient lie. You wrap each new story around you the way the Invisible Man wraps bandages over his skin. You go in the restaurant with an overcoat and sunglasses, and what comes out is something closer to a real person, flesh and blood and bone. You could perform surgery on him. You joke about conjoined twins. The ones you met before high school, Jimmy and Will who spoke in stereo because each had the other at his hip. You decide out loud that you must have a twin in another part of the world. In fact, wouldn’t it be funny if — You’ve had plenty to drink. You should be quiet. You listen to Melissa’s opinions on the Labour party. You nod as she wonders if she needs to move to a new apartment, and look at your watch because you’re ready to head back. You ask her if she would like you to walk her back. You insist on calling a cab because neither of you can walk in a straight line. She asks you if you want to come see her place, and you think before you say yes. She’s had far too much to drink, and you know better. You go in anyway.

IV.

Slowly, I pulled myself out of bed. My head throbbed and opening my eyes made me groan: the light was too intense. I walked over to the window and gripped the sill. I forced myself to open the curtains. Outside, the sky was grey with clouds. As I blinked, the drizzle came into view: the whole city held the faint sheen of fog. I reached down into the pile of clothes from last night to find my boxers. I found my mobile in my pants pocket, and saw that I had one missed call. It was an 0113 code, same as that other call where I’d hung up. Leeds. There was a message. I started to listen as I walked into the foyer. Maybe there was some orange juice in Melissa’s kitchen. The voice was shrill. “Tom? It’s — it’s Mum and Dad. Are you there? I feel kind of silly. The police gave us this number. Just — ” There was a pause, and I could hear the woman on the other side take a deep breath. “If it’s you, please come home. Or — um — just call. We miss you so much.” There was another pause before I heard the monotone of the machine voice. Shit. No: shite. I looked up. Melissa was making her way to the bathroom, a mess of long limbs and pale skin under rumpled brown hair. Her frame was the right size: I’d been able to wrap my arms around her and smell the shampoo she had used. I looked at her thin face from across the room. “Hell of a night last night, wasn’t it?” She looked at me blearily. I saw a smile begin to form before she realized what she was doing. “Yeah, I’ll be in the loo for a bit.” The door shut. I looked at the mobile again. The number flashed on the screen. How did they get my number? Police, they had said. Right. They hadn’t found the real Tom Rowlands. Of course they were still look-

ing for him. I sighed. Apparently the mob didn’t pay off the police enough to keep them away from me. Scratch that, I decided. It was my parents trying to find me and not actual officers. I looked out again at the fog, still thick on the streets. The wind changed direction, and the rain that had been falling slowly now pattered against the glass. The individual drops grew as they touched each other and formed new shapes. Melissa came out of the bathroom. She looked at my phone, and then my silhouette against the window. “It was my aunt and uncle,” I said. “Wanted to know how my weekend was going.” She nodded. “Do you have some orange juice? I know what we can do with that and some eggs and a muffin or two.” She pointed at the refrigerator. *** After I’d swallowed another bite of the soft-boiled eggs, I was ready to look at Melissa. “Cor blarst me,” she muttered as she chewed the last of her bacon. “Why didn’t you say you had an aunt and uncle?” “Well, you know how my parents died. So I grew up with them. I call them mum and dad sometimes, but they were never really my parents. I’m on my own now. They’re nice enough.” She smiled sympathetically. Before she could start asking more questions about my life, I asked her about hers. “What about your family? Got any brothers or sisters?” She turned and looked at the Southampton fog. “Oh, a younger brother. You know. I don’t care much about him.” I knew better than to respond. I took the dishes and put them in the sink, and walked back into the bedroom to find the rest of my clothes. As I was buttoning my shirt, Melissa came in and sat on the bed. “I’m sorry,” she said. It wasn’t a real apology. I found my jacket and gripped my mobile. “It’s okay. I’ll see you on Monday. Thanks for a great time.” As I headed out, she waved. She kept watching me as I closed the door. *** I played the message again as I walked back to my building. Whoever left this really thought I was her son. Shite. I debated about calling the man who had talked me though this life. I didn’t have any way to find him, through. And that was part of all the money the people had put into the surgery and moving me here: that I wouldn’t try to come back. They hired me to kill this man, Owen, that I’d worked with, and as they carried out his body, they’d asked me what I wanted. I looked around at the office I couldn’t stand, at the blood that had not yet been cleaned up, and all these people who had barely spoken for the shock of the gunshot. I could ask for anything, I thought, and I had to get out of here, I had maybe another year until they would come back to ask something else, and Dorie still wasn’t returning my calls, I had looked up at the ceiling thinking, what now — It was at that moment that I had said, “A new life.” A car roared past as I waited to cross the street. The mist seeped through my jacket. *** So this was the life I got instead? I could ignore all these calls. I’ve been practicing my mantra for long enough that I could just go on.

April 2010 The Yale Daily News Magazine

In any case, what would I tell them if I did answer? That I’d decided to run away, never mind the reason, and now I had a solid job in Southampton? The only thing that made sense was to not deal with it. I was back at my apartment now. I pulled the keys out of my pocket. Should I move someplace else? It didn’t matter. If the police could get my phone number, they could track me down. Besides, Tom Rowlands had done nothing wrong. He — I — was not a criminal. I opened the apartment door. It was the same place I had left last night. I looked in the mirror in the hallway, and the same strange face looked back at me. I hung up my jacket, and walked over to the sink where my own dishes were waiting to be washed. I rubbed at the window above the sink and realized that it wasn’t steam: the fog had gotten heavier.

I would stay right here, where I was. *** That day passed by slowly, without much change in the drizzle, and the next. The next week wasn’t much different. It was odd seeing Melissa around the office, because I couldn’t tell if I had hurt her feelings. But I asked her Friday if she wanted to go out again Saturday night, and she said yes. I sent off the new pro forma I’d spent the week putting together, and left. As I was walking back, the drizzle turned into a heavy downpour. I ran to the apartment with my jacket over my head. I walked up the stairs to my apartment, and saw the door ajar. I locked it this morning. I knew. I distinctly remembered having to lock and unlock and lock the door again when I forgot my jacket. I listened and heard nothing, so I went in. There were two cops and a man and a woman in the sitting room. As I walked in, the cops stood up, but did not move forward. I stopped in the hallway to the room. For a second, nobody said anything. Of course, I thought. The man and the woman looked vaguely like the parents in Tom Rowlands’ family portraits. I hadn’t gotten another phone call from them, though. How they could have found me so quickly, I didn’t know, but the police probably had everything to do with it. “Give me one good reason that this isn’t trespassing,” I said, and I was surprised at my coolness. “I’ve done nothing illegal.” The woman started sobbing, very quietly. Where was my revolver when I needed it? I sorted through the apartment in my head, and realized it was in my bedroom. Too far away. I had no idea if they were here because they thought I was Tom Rowlands, or because they thought I wasn’t. “Well?” I looked at the cops. The third man nodded at the two, and said, “It’s really Tom. You can go.” The cops walked past me to leave. “Excuse us, we’ll be on our way. Your parents, love.” Shite. I heard the door shut behind me and I looked at the couple. The woman walked over and put her hands on my face. “My God.” She kept trying to blink away her tears. “It’s you. Tom, my boy. Thank the lord.” Then I felt something I hadn’t felt in months and months, since Dorie and I had broken up. The two of them looked at someone they knew. She hugged me and asked. “Don’t you remember me? I’m your mother. I love you.” She looked at my face, and I tried not to focus on how strange it was that these features, which still shocked me every time I saw it reflected on the street, were so familiar to her. “Don’t you remember?” she repeated.

The Yale Daily News Magazine April 2010

The father shook my shoulder and I almost wanted to cry. They loved me.

I felt like I would be sick the whole time we drove from Southampton to Leeds. I said I needed to sleep and the two of them looked at me sympathetically. I stretched out in the backseat of the black Volkswagen and shut my eyes, running through every single fact I could dredge up for the next five hours. Of course I went up with them. The risk of ruining my identity in Southampton was far worse than the trouble of going up to Leeds, staying with them the whole weekend, and letting them believe that I had amnesia. This way I’d know more about the person I was supposed to be. As we passed Sheffield, the mother said, “Tom, you’re going to remember everything when you walk back in the house. Don’t you worry about what happened.” I texted Melissa. Family emergency. Have to go back to Leeds. Can we do next week? Seconds later, my phone buzzed. Yes. Everybody okay? I saw the highway signs for Leeds and began watching the scenery for the details I needed to know. We got off the M1 and drove into downtown Leeds. We crossed the bridge over the river, and drove past University of Leeds out into the suburbs. Finally we came into Moortown, and the father parked the car in front of the house. If seeing my face in the mirror for the first time was strange, at least I knew who it was. The house was completely unfamiliar. I looked for the number I had memorized, 18 Kingswood Drive. The bay windows reflected the faint light of evening. The mother examined my face. “Don’t you remember, love? You’re not a guest here.” This would be a long weekend. “It looks a bit familiar. Let’s go in. I’m on the second floor, aren’t I?” She nodded and we followed the father in. I took in every detail: the two steps into the muck room, the square layout of the kitchen. The mother went over and turned on the gas stove, and I heard water in the teapot burble. The house wasn’t all that big. I guessed which bedroom was mine, and the father thought I knew. He looked in as I put down my suitcase. “See? Give yourself a bit of time, it’ll all come back. Now, how you made it all the way down to Southampton I’d like to know.” I shrugged and started to unpack, taking in the posters on the walls and the window that looked over the backyard garden. I sat on the bed and texted Melissa back. Just my aunt and uncle. I’ll be back on Monday, don’t worry. A shout came from downstairs, and I knew it was time for tea. On the table, there were scones, corned beef sandwiches, and vegetables. The father had already started to eat. The mother was watching me. “I’m sorry, we haven’t stocked the pantry in a while. I’ll have to go buy groceries later tonight. So what’ll it be, then?” I nodded, and picked a sandwich. The room felt so different from so many other places I’d been these past few months. I didn’t know if I wanted to stay here forever or if I wanted to be disgusted by the way these two were so easily fooled. It isn’t easy, I warned myself. You have to keep working at it. I looked up and touched the teacup to my lips. Scalding hot, but probably safe to drink.

The father cleared his throat. “Say, do you remember going up to the Cold Hiendley reservoir?” That was where the real Tom Rowlands had disappeared. “No. Is it nearby?” I dipped my sandwich in the tea. It was actually rather good. He looked at me strangely. “You don’t remember canoeing there?” I shook my head.

VI.

I was trying on some of Tom Rowlands’ clothes. Whoever had picked his identity for me had done a good job: they fit me like I was Tom. I switched the shirt I had on with a Leeds United jersey. Mr. Rowlands looked in. “It’s good to see you here again, son,” he declared. I looked down at the jersey. I didn’t keep up with football, but I looked in the mirror and said, “Well, I think Leeds have a really strong chance this season.” He chuckled. “That’s my boy.” I would take these clothes, I decided. I was Tom Rowlands, after all. These were mine. My mobile chirped on the table by the door, where I’d put my own shirt. Another text. Then the father peered at it. I walked over nonchalantly, hoping it was insignificant. He had read it and was looking at me strangely. I took it and read the message from Melissa: Tell your aunt and uncle I said hi! I felt his eyes boring into my head. I took a deep breath before I looked up. “I’m your uncle?” he asked. “Your uncle?” The word sounded wrong. The room and his physical presence were hyper-real. I felt my torso go cold then hot as adrenaline began to kick in. I moved away as I felt the heat of his gaze. “Right. It’s a joke I had with Melissa.” I forced a laugh. “Tom. You don’t have any aunts or uncles.” He stood there, eyeing me. He didn’t love me. I started breathing quickly. Think carefully, I told myself. I needed a distraction. And just then, I heard the car start downstairs. Mrs. Rowlands was leaving to get groceries. “Say, could I get another sandwich?” He held his hand out in surrender, but he followed me as I walked down into the kitchen. I found some turkey in the refrigerator, and a tomato. I pulled out the tomato and started cutting it. Mr. Rowlands sat across the counter, thinking. “Where did you come from?” I looked up from the tomato. “Here. I live in my room upstairs. But I have an apartment in Leeds, too. What’s wrong, Dad?” Something about the way I said it seemed to have convinced him. He softened, then reached over and grabbed my hand. “I’m sorry, Tom. I shouldn’t have done that.” I put the sandwich together and sat next to him. I ought not to have, but I felt better when he put his arm around my shoulder. *** I couldn’t sleep that night because of the road trip. I kept running through his words in my head, weighing them for their suspicion. I couldn’t decide if he knew or not. I stared out the window most of the night, trying to will myself to sleep.

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*** “So what do you say?” the father asked me the next morning. “Let’s go hunting. For old time’s sake?” The hard grey light of midmorning fog gave a dull sheen to the shotgun he was examining, and when I heard the question I almost coughed on a dreg in my breakfast tea. I didn’t respond as I weighed the possibilities. If I said no, it would be too suspicious. So I nodded and resigned myself to the flashbacks that holding a gun in my hand would bring. It wouldn’t matter here. He grinned. We left pretty quickly after breakfast to drive about an hour north. “Which season is this one?” I ran through the ones I knew in my head as I waited for the father’s answer. It was a bit late for deer, I thought, but about right for game. He looked at me, surprised, over his left shoulder. “Pheasant, of course. Don’t you remember it’s early enough in October that we can still get the good ones? Now, if you see some ptarmigans, you be sure to get one. They don’t come south much anymore.” It was a long drive as the suburban houses gave way to estates on the city limits. The buildings receded, and the horizon flattened itself more and more until, crossing a river, we saw nothing but grey sky and grassy fields that had started to take on the yellowish tinge of autumn. When we’d finally parked and put together our shotguns and hunting equipment, we set out. It was barely ten, which meant there weren’t many people out yet, and the fog had not yet burnt away in the forests. The silence of the woods made speech uncomfortable, so I nodded to the father as we headed into the brush. The slow rays of half-light through the trees only made the fog of the meadow-spaces even more strange. I kept aiming at a bit of brown or red through the thickening haze, only to realize that I was looking at branches or leaves. We heard a bullet far off, and a faint cheer. The father nodded at me: there was game to be found. Finally, I saw a flash of color that wandered slowly. The father nudged me and motioned for me to take aim. I squatted down and brought the front sight into focus. I could make out the red bill, and I took a deep breath. The sight was lined up with the bill. I pulled my finger on the trigger hard— The bang was loud, and was swallowed up instantly by the fog. The father ran over ahead of me, and then waved at me not to come. There were feathers; I’d narrowly missed the bird. He walked back towards me and laughed. “All you do’s shoot and Bob’s your uncle, huh? Let’s go look for some real game that won’t go skedaddling off when we hit it.” I stiffened momentarily. Uncle? Was this about last night? He’d moved on, peering into the fog. I stood where I was, eyes squinting as if to find another flash of red. It was about last night, I decided. I was sure. The father was fairly far off in the haze now. I looked at my shotgun. I crouched again and cleared my mind. I checked to make sure nobody was around. Then I pointed the shotgun barrel at his body, lumbering past some brush, and counted down in my head. I pulled the trigger and the gun ricocheted. Then I heard the scream. I had hit my target, and I could make out that I had gotten him in the leg. I felt my hands clicking the

safety on, and suddenly I started running. Wait. I thought. What if— I willed myself not to think what if. I pulled out my mobile and dialed 999. “Hullo, my father’s just been shot. Can you trace this call to where I am?” I found myself talking too fast as I came closer to my father. My father? “Yes, we’ll have people there within five minutes. Please stay on the phone.” *** The next few minutes I can’t remember clearly. The ambulance came, and the words “hunting accident” passed through the ranks. Someone took my shotgun. As they lifted him up on his stretcher, I gasped at the blood dripping below him. The red was shockingly bright, unstanched by the fog still thick around our legs. “Dad, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.” I kept saying it over and over as the ambulance made its way to the hospital. He was breathing in ragged gasps. “Tom. It’s okay.” I saw a face I did not recognize. It was not anger, or fear. *** Much later, in the hospital waiting-room, I realized that it was surprise. Not long after, the mother came. She walked over and wiped my brow. “Tom. He’ll be okay. Are you okay?” I looked up and all I could do was nod. *** Hours later, we finally got to see him. He looked wan, but he would be okay. The doctors had not been able to remove the bullet from his leg, but they told us it would be fine after the repositioning they’d done. He looked up at me from the bed. “Tom. I’m so glad you’re here with us. We missed you.” He smiled. “You know we love you.” How could they love me? I wanted so much to say the truth. I almost said it: I’m not Tom. Then I realized what I would be doing. I started feeling nauseous, like I would collapse. I didn’t want this whole other life, not with parents I didn’t want to give up. My face was burning, but I couldn’t let myself cry.

VII.

The only memory I let myself retain of the mob assignment was the aftermath of the shooting. I had known there would be blood. I’d assumed I would want to run away. I couldn’t have known, though, that it would be possible for me to pull myself together and walk off. I had a future ahead of me, back then, one that would mean I could throw away my past in Seattle. This was completely different. There wasn’t another future. So I took a shower back at the house and packed my bag to take the train back to Leeds. Downstairs, the — no, my — mother sat, ready to drive me to the station. “Wait. I need to check one more thing,” I shouted as I dragged my hands through my hair. How long is this going to work? I wondered. This is Tom Rowlands. And I am not Tom Rowlands. I stared at the mirror as I checked again. The face that looked back was my face now. Your name is Thomas Rowlands. Tom Rowlands. The eyes looked right back at me, calmly. You are Tom Rowlands.

The Yale Daily News Magazine April 2010

FICTION LIVING THE DREAM by Greg Chase He has it all — a job that pays and a house in the suburbs that his wife wants to fill with children. Or does he? For some reason he can’t stop thinking about that beautiful girl in the red dress, the girl who knew him so long ago.

WALLACE PRIZE WINNER

FICTION

3RD PLACE

The traffic is paused again, and I am right in the thick of it, gripping the steering wheel, right foot settled on the break, as I try to remember the dream I had last night. Annabelle Ferraro was in it — that was for sure — and she was wearing that long, flowing red dress that she wore to the Senior Banquet, two days before we graduated from college. The car in front of mine jumps suddenly forward, only to stop just as suddenly ten feet later. She was wearing the

April 2010 The Yale Daily News Magazine

dress, sure, but what was she doing? I can see the sign for my exit. I could probably get there faster if I got out and ran… maybe I would actually get to work on time. I should really run more. I pay the bill for that gym membership every month, no complaining, but how often do I actually go? But Karen goes. Karen does go. But all she does there is take yoga classes. You don’t need a gym membership to do yoga. All you need is six square feet of floor space and a cheap, plastic mat. Besides, maybe Karen won’t be going to the gym after she comes back from the doctor. I’ve made it to my exit. I turn off and drive the final two miles at double the speed limit, so that I can — at least psychologically — make up for all the time I’ve lost sitting in traffic. It’s 9:04 AM. Four minutes late, not bad at all. But Sean will be mad. Well, fuck Sean. Sean is dating a beautiful twenty-three year old girl who comes by the office sometimes for lunch wearing her short jean shorts. Sean looks up as I open the door to the office, showing off his perfectly sculpted blonde hair. “You’re late, buddy,” he says. I hate that word, “buddy.” My dad used to call me “buddy” sometimes, usually when he wanted me to do a better job at something. I can still picture him at my basketball games yelling, “Come on, buddy, make that shot!” He thought it was a motivational tool, like if I remind my son that we are “buddies,” his three-pointer will improve. Sometimes I have nightmares where my dad makes me run around in circles yelling, “Buddy! Buddy!” My dream about Annabelle last night was not a nightmare, but I still can’t remember it. “I put some statements on your desk,” Sean says. He isn’t lying — there is a pile of financial statements on my desk. They are from various clients; I don’t even read the names anymore. I open my computer and begin filing the numbers into a spreadsheet, so I can add them up. Four thousand nine hundred and eight dollars plus one thousand and seventy two dollars plus nine thousand six hundred and twelve dollars. I mistype a number and have to start again. When I was in college, I could do large calculations like this in my head. I would do it at parties sometimes, the right kind of parties anyway, parties where mathematical prowess was cool. It doesn’t sound like it would work, but girls were impressed. Annabelle didn’t care though. She always thought math was boring. She told me about how much she struggled when she had to take calculus — it was a graduation requirement. I finish the first statement, and open a new spreadsheet to run the numbers of the second. This one is more complicated, assets in various places. She was an English major, of course. It would have been too easy for us to actually study the same things, actually take classes together, actually follow similar paths. The world doesn’t work that way. I was in love with her from afar for four years, so of course I wouldn’t ever get close to her until three weeks before

graduation. The only reason we even started talking at all is that she literally bumped into me one day as I was leaving this little coffee shop I liked. I was looking down, and she was walking too fast to stop, and we crashed into each other, my knee jabbing her in the thigh, and she put her hand around my waist and touched my back to prevent herself from falling over. “Sorry about that,” she said. “It’s all right,” I said. “Actually, while we’re here, do you want to get coffee with me?” I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m sure I sounded desperate. But this girl had been there, hovering in the background of my life for almost four years, and now, three weeks before graduation, I had finally come into actual, physical contact with her. I figured this was my last best chance. And she said yes. She did say yes. Sean is standing behind me, peering over my shoulder. “What’s up?” I ask. “Just checking in,” he says suavely. Sean is very into suaveness. I’m sure he would wear sunglasses in the office if it weren’t so fucking dimly lit. “Can I get you anything?” Get me a cold drink, I want to say. Get me a job where I can reasonably expect to be making more money in ten years than I am now. “I’m fine,” I say. “Just running these numbers.” I want to play solitaire. I open it on my computer and click on the cards to move them into piles, hoping Sean doesn’t come back. I’ve taken to playing solitaire at home now too, with real cards. Sometimes Karen and I play gin rummy, but usually I just play solitaire. Karen doesn’t know many other games. We used to play chess a lot, when we were first dating. That was fun, actually. Once Karen put me in fool’s mate, and I was so shocked I couldn’t speak. I wonder what happened to our chess set. Karen is probably at the doctor right around now. I win my game of solitaire. The entire screen turns red, as the computer congratulates me on a job well done. I’m fucking great at solitaire. Annabelle wore red a lot, not just that one time at the Senior Banquet. I told her the color was traditionally associated with prostitution, but she said she looked good in it, and I wasn’t about to argue with that. She had this red shirt on one day, the second time we got coffee, maybe a week before the Banquet. She had on red earrings too, long ones that dangled down toward her chin and swished back and forth when she moved. We were sitting down and she was talking about her younger brother and how he wanted to drop out of high school and become a musician and I had foam on my nose from drinking a cappuccino and I must have looked like such an idiot but she didn’t tell me because she thought it was funny. I guess it was, in retrospect. I play solitaire again. This time I lose. I enter some more numbers into the spreadsheet. I am cruising

At first I was horrified, because I was wearing nice clothes that probably weren’t waterproof, but Annabelle just laughed and pulled me down into the grass with her, and we let the sprinklers cover us with their cool, clear spray.

The Yale Daily News Magazine April 2010

through these statements. They should give me a medal. Like the Pulitzer Prize, only for accounting. I wonder if that exists. I decide to ask Sean about it later. For now I switch back to solitaire. I played solitaire a lot in college too, when I had free time and didn’t want to do homework. I must have been alone a lot in college, but looking back, I only remember the time I spent with other people. That’s not really true, though. I do remember being alone — I just don’t enjoy those memories as much. I remember one specific time, it must have been sophomore year, eating by myself in a dining hall and noticing Annabelle, two tables in front of me, joking and laughing with three male students, and I remember the sinking feeling in my stomach when I thought about how she would choose to date any one of those three before she ever chose me. I check my email, and there are five new messages — but four of them are related to work, so I don’t read them. The other one is from my mother. It reads, “Hi Sweetie! Hope everything is great!!! I love you!!! Write back!” I decide not to write back. When my mother asks me what I want for my thirtieth birthday next month, I can tell her I want to finally be treated like an adult. My phone rings. I jump. I am not expecting it to ring. No one ever calls me at work except Karen. I answer it. “Hi sweetie!” It’s Karen. “How is your day going?” “Fine,” I say. “Pretty standard day.” “That’s good. Listen, I had my doctor’s appointment this morning.” I picture Karen back home, wearing that brown sweater she likes so much, sitting in one of our massage chairs (expensive, but totally worth it—they give the best massages), and twirling

her hair nervously with one hand as she holds the phone with the other. “Right. How was it?” “She checked me out and I’m perfectly healthy. So there shouldn’t be any reason why we can’t conceive.” “Good,” I say. “That’s good. I’m glad you’re healthy.” “Also, you know I’ve been looking at the calendar, and following these tips to figure out when I’m ovulating, and…” She pauses. I say nothing. “I think today is the day. Today or tomorrow. So, just letting you know. Be prepared for when you come home. Haha.” (Karen is fond of saying, “Haha.” Like, she doesn’t laugh; she actually says it: “Haha.”) “Huh,” I say. “Interesting. Okay. Okay, thanks for telling me.” “See you when you get home, honey.” “See you.” I hang up. I don’t like it when Karen calls me at work. I imagine the receptionist listening in on our conversations. I think the receptionist is cute, but her hair is too short. Maybe if it were longer. Maybe then she could stop working as a receptionist and become something else. Like an actress. Or a stripper. It’s time for lunch. I unwrap the sandwich I brought and eat it at my desk. I like to eat fast, so I can leave work earlier. My sandwich is ham with mayonnaise. It’s not particularly good. I made it in five minutes this morning before I left. I like my sandwiches better when Karen makes them for me. She usually makes them the night before, but last night she forgot. When Karen and I still worked together, before we left New

April 2010 The Yale Daily News Magazine

York, we would eat lunch sitting cross-legged and facing each other on the floor of my cubicle. There wasn’t much room, so we would sit so close that our knees would always bump. Sometimes she brought baby carrots, and she would lob them into the air, and I would try to catch them in my mouth. I wasn’t very good at it, and the carrots would scatter all over the floor and Karen would giggle. Karen quit her job a year ago, so she could focus on “setting up the house.” I think it’s pretty much set up by now. I enter some more numbers after lunch. I am almost done, and Sean hasn’t given me anything else yet, so I return to playing solitaire. I get tired of that too, so I go online and look at pictures of Africa. Recently, I have been thinking a lot about how I want to go to Africa. I don’t speak the language though, so that could be a problem. A bigger problem is that Karen doesn’t want to go. She says it’s dirty. But I like dirty things sometimes. Like mud. Mud feels good. I bet Annabelle would agree. She didn’t mind getting dirty. The night of Senior Banquet, for instance, we lay in the grass on a field, under one of those rotating sprinklers, and got soaking wet. This happened after the Banquet ended. It had been a wonderful time — exotic food, lots of laughter, and Annabelle sat with me and all my friends, even though her friends had saved her a seat, even though she and I hadn’t even had sex, even though I had only talked to her for the first time three weeks earlier. After we left the Banquet, we were walking down the street holding hands, and it was still light outside, because it was the beginning of summer, and we were crossing the field toward her dorm when the sprinklers

came on. At first I was horrified, because I was wearing nice clothes that probably weren’t waterproof, but Annabelle just laughed and pulled me down into the grass with her, and we let the sprinklers cover us with their cool, clear spray. And then it got dark and the mosquitoes came out, so we went inside. Sean is standing over me. My computer window is open to a picture of some wildebeest. (They live in Africa.) Sean shoots me a quizzical look. “I finished those statements you gave me,” I say. “Well then, buddy, I guess we’re gonna have to find you some more work to do,” Sean says. He turns on his heel and disappears again. He doesn’t come back before it is time to go, so I manage to avoid doing anything else. I slink out of the office. I beat most of the traffic on my drive home, and Karen is making dinner when I get back to the house. She is making spaghetti. Spaghetti is my favorite food. We eat at our oversize kitchen table, sitting on opposite sides, too far across to touch. “Maybe someday soon we’ll have more people at this table, and then it won’t feel so big,” Karen says. I say nothing. I picture a row of children sitting on the table, bridging the gap between Karen and me. We are listening to classical music, maybe something by Bach. It is very light and bouncy, and makes me feel like I should be riding a horse through a meadow somewhere. Maybe in Africa. Maybe I could be riding a wildebeest. Maybe that’s what Annabelle is doing these days. I wouldn’t be surprised. She said she wanted to travel. She was going to San Francisco after graduation. She didn’t have a job yet, but she was going there anyway, splitting the rent on

The Yale Daily News Magazine April 2010

an apartment with a few of her friends. They’d already put a down payment on the place. “What are you gonna do there?” I asked. “I don’t know, maybe waitress, write in my spare time. Maybe I’ll get discovered and become a movie star.” “That’s L.A., not San Francisco,” I told her. She laughed at me for actually finding a job before I graduated from college, for locating a well-reputed accounting firm in New York, going to interviews, wearing suits. I told her how much I was getting paid the first year, to impress her, maybe even to make her think twice about going across the country, but she didn’t care. “You’re gonna be bored,” she said. Karen is clearing our plates and scooping herself some ice cream. She asks me if I want any, but I say no. The only flavor we have is vanilla. I miss that job in New York sometimes. Sure, it was boring, but this job is boring too, and at least before I was in New York, the beating heart of America, the locus of life for ambitious and energetic twenty-somethings, not this quaint Albany suburb with the low crime rate and the good schools and the Starbucks that makes caramel macchiatos just the way Karen likes them. I flip on the TV, but Karen stops me. “We have work to do,” she says. I imagine that Sean would say something like this before a big meeting. I follow her into our bedroom. We only have a queen bed. I wanted to get a king but Karen said it would be too expensive. Karen is taking off her clothes. But even a queen bed is better than those uncomfortable twin beds you get in college. Sleeping on those with another person is terrible. Good thing I didn’t usually have anyone to sleep with. I never even slept with Annabelle. I forget that sometimes. It feels like I should have. That night after the Banquet, I slept the whole night in her room, but we didn’t have sex because she thought it might make it too hard for me to say goodbye. After she fell asleep, I just lay there and stared at the glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling and contemplated asking her to move to New York with me, marry me, have children with me, grow old with me. My clothes are off now too and I am lying on the bed with Karen. I wonder if I should get a condom, then realize that I don’t need one — that’s the point. I imagine a million little versions of myself, swimming around inside me, jockeying for position, punching one another in the face. Suddenly I can remember the rest of my dream from last night. Annabelle is there, wearing her red dress. “Where do you see yourself in five years?” she asks, and it occurs to me that maybe this is not just a memory of a dream, but a real memory — an actual conversation we once had, that I have been trying not to remember all these years.

“I don’t know,” I say. “Where do you see me?” She is sitting on her bed, one leg crossed, the other dangling over the edge, red dress slipping down her chest. Karen’s body is below mine now. We are having sex. “Well,” Annabelle starts off, “of course you’ll be rich. You’ll have a steady job, and you’ll get good performance reviews and your co-workers will idolize you for being so smart but still acting like a normal guy. And you’ll be married — that’s for sure. You’ll meet a nice, pretty girl who’s willing to settle down with you, and you guys will have lots of kids and later, you’ll have grandkids, and they’ll have your eyes and her nose, and when you’re very old, they’ll all come over to your house for Christmas, and you’ll go outside and throw snowballs, and then you’ll come back inside and sit by the fire and you and your wife will sip hot chocolate and talk about the old days.” “That’s sound nice,” I say. “I think I’d like that.” I shift my arms so that they are pressing Karen’s shoulders down against the bed. I look around the room. The curtains are open. I see Annabelle — in New York, about a year after graduation. She’s there with her mother, attending a funeral (I forget whose). I have just started dating Karen, and I’m excited because a week earlier she met my parents and they really liked her. Annabelle and I buy sandwiches and eat them on the grass in Central Park and talk about that time when we lay on the grass outside her dorm room and got soaked by the sprinklers. “I was crazy back then,” I say. She touches my arm, and smiles, and then she walks me back to my apartment. I am coming. Karen’s mouth is open and her hair is all over the place on the pillow. The race is on. I imagine a million swimmers, dressed in tiny bathing suits, pushing and elbowing and trying to drown one another as they descend en masse toward some giant mysterious orb. I wish I could tell them what the prize is for which they are fighting so ferociously: nine months of floating around in some weird primordial soup, followed by sixty or eighty years of living life with my intense arachnophobia, and my male pattern baldness, and Karen’s high risk of diabetes, and my low tolerance for pain, and Karen’s fat fingers, and my eyes, and Karen’s nose. “I think this is it,” Karen says. “We did it. I can feel it.” Annabelle kisses me goodbye on a random street corner, where I have asked her to meet me, the day after graduation. It is a quick peck, like you would give to a friend. I am not crying, because my friends are in the car and they would make fun of me if they saw. She is not crying either, though I don’t ask why. “That’s good,” I tell Karen. “I’m glad our timing was so perfect,” she says.

Annabelle is there, wearing her red dress. “Where do you see yourself in five years?” she asks, and it occurs to me that maybe this is not just a memory of a dream, but a real memory — an actual conversation we once had, that I have been trying not to remember all these years.

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