She wandered silently around the shcool yard. No one looked up as she passed by. Everyone was playing hopscotch or jump rope or jacks. It's almost as if I'm invisible, she muttered.It's been like this ever since the first day of school.At first she tried to fit with the others, but now she just strolled on her merry way, staying to herself. From the start their only response to her being there was to laugh at her, teasing her about her clothes and how poor her family was.
"Whoowhee"Delia McKinney taunted as she clamped her nose with her chubby little fingers and scrunched her face the way she would if she had come across a skunk. Esther knew this was not true. Her mother filled up the old wash tub with hot water every night. We may be poor,her mother would say, but we're clean poor.
She could not understand why it hurt so much to hear her classmates tease her - After all,she reasoned, I should be used to it from home. Daddy only sees me when I don't do my chores fast enough or when I make mistakes. She always excused her parent's by reminding herself how old they were. She knew they loved her even though ever since his younger brother died, they seemed to ignore her presence more and more.
In her bedtime fantasies, Esther saw herself loved by everyone and very popular. She would see her mother and dad hold her in their arms and tell her how smart and pretty she was, and how lucky they were to have her as their child. All the girls at school were envious of her skills at playing jacks. They would admire how far should could hop on the chalk-drawn pattern on the sidewalk. They would get jealous when the boys would shower their attention on her as she jumped rope longer and faster than any of them.
When caught up in her daydreams, she was far different from the child that walked the school yard each day. In her reverie she was always dressed in pink frilly dresses and wearing Mary Jane shoes. Her blonde hair feel in long curls over her shoulders instead of being short and straight. Her face and body were every bit as cherubic as Delia thought her own were.
Each morning dawned the realities of her situation. One quick look in the mirror forced Esther to admit the truth. Begrudgingly she would put on her ragged hand-me-down-coveralls no longer fitting her older brother. Her scruffed shoes with the wired on souls that kept coming loose made her admit there was nothing cherubic about her thin face and body.
A life time of silence and rejection had taught her to keep to herself. Esther felt unwanted - at home as well as at school. She longed for a place of acceptance. All she had was her fantasies. In the fourth grade, her teachers had begun sending notes home with her - "Esther does not try to join in with her classmates"; "Esther does not pay attention in class"; "Esther spends too much time daydreaming and does not get her work done."
As the years passed, Esther moved into her surreal life more and more. Soon she had difficulty telling the difference between her two worlds. She found it difficult to leave her euphoria.
If her teachers had known what happened each time these notes were sent home, they would have stopped writing them long ago.
"You'd better stop getting into trouble at school," her mother always admonished her. "You know how your father is. He already thinks education is wasted on girls. All it'd take to set him off on you would be for one of them school teachers to come out here. What with your brother gone, your father already thinks you're of no use to him being at that school instead of in the fields helping him out."
Esther knew there was no use in trying to explain anything. All the notes did was help push her to seek out her secret place more often.
In the eighth grad an indicent occurred causing Esther to give up all hopes of ever fitting in. It was Christmas time and someone had given her family a box of used clothes. In the box lay a pair of Mary Jane shoes! They were slightly worn, but still shiny and pretty. Her heart thumped with excitement. She could barely wait for the Christmas vacation to end and she could go back to school wearing her new shoes.
When recess rang into existence, Esther hurried outside and walked about as she normally would. When she come upon Delia's circle of friends, she heard them talking about movies and movie stars. Pausing nearby, Esther had to work up courage to speak to them. Finally, she blurted out, "I've seen Gone With The Wind serval times." She deliberately dropped her hankie forcing Delia to see her new shoes.
Delia started to mouth something, then saw Ester's shoes and began laughing. "Would you look at those shoes! You look like a third-grader."
Esther's heart began to thud in her chest when the other girl's joined Delia's taunting and laughing. With burning face, Esther turned and ran. The sounds of their mocking laughter echoed at her heels. Esther could not return to class and face them again, so she hid in the bus barn until it was time to go home.
Faking sickness, she was able to convince her mother to let her stay home for the week. When she did go back to school, she always hid out in the darkened bus barn during recess. While hiding, she would drift off into her own private world.
In spite of her misery, Esther remained in school through the middle of her trenth grade. As soon as she turned sixteen she dropped out of school. Her parents did not seem to even notice that she had. One day a few weeks later, her father ordered, "Since you ain't in school no more, get a job. I can't afford to feed you to lay around the house all day long."
The only job Esther could find was baby-sitting. Although it paid very little, just her room and five dollars a week, it was exciting, because she was baby-sitting Glen Walter's children. He had a band he played with and his wife, Lydia, worked at Wollworth's all week long. She usually accompanied Glen on the nights his band played.
Esther enjoyed baby-sitting the children, even though the demands of the job prevented her from escaping into her dream world as often as she would have liked to. Usually she found her some private time after putting the two kids - Tommy, aged five, and Sissy, aged three - to bed. At first she had tried to become friends with the two children, but soon learned that the only person they respected was their father. She discovered that this respect they held for Glen was not from love for him, but out of fear of him. One wrong word and Glen was quick to reach out and slap them across the face.
Lydia seemed to spoil the little ones whenever she had the time to spend with them. The two learned to become sly and at times as wild as animals Glen was not around.
With the meager savings Esther could accumulate, she bought some toilet articles and make-up. Then later she bought herself a new pair of pumps and two new dresses. One dress was yellow calico print. The other one was a white cotton pique sun dress with blue applique on the skirt.
The first time she washed her hair with shampoo instead of her mother's homemade lye soap, she could not believe how beautiful her hair was. She was glad she had let her hair grow out. Now it was long, straight, and hung lightly over her shoulders. She applied a little poweder and rouge. Looking at herself in her mirror, she blinked disbelievingly at the young lady who stared back at her from that world inside the mirror. "I'm pretty," she breathed. "I'm actually pretty."
"Wow!" Glen gasped when she donned her sundress after supper one night. "Won't you just look at yourself. Going out on a date tonight?"
Before she could answer, Lydia glaned up from her magazine, red-faced and angry. "Esther, you know I alwaysgo with Glen at night. You might have at least told me if you had other ..."
"I ... I don't have any plans," Esther stammered, even though she knew she wished she was going with Glen in place of Lydia. For the past few weeks Esther knew that she was falling in love with him. With his dark eyes and black, slicked-down hair, Glen looked just like Clark Gable. She worried that Lydia might discover her secret passion and dismiss her. But, so far she felt Lydia did not know.
Esther felt encouraged yet ashamed when she became aware the Glen was watching her when Lydia wan not in the room. She was excited when he had started finding reasons to come hume during the day when he was supposed to be delivering bread for the town bakery.
On one of the occasions, he startled her when she had been brushing her long blonde hair. He sneaked up behind her and bent down to smell her fragrance. "My God but you smell so fresh and sweet." He began nuzzling her neck holding her from behind.
Before she realized what was happening, Glen had opened her blouse, caressing her breasts. "You don't know how often I think of you," he whispered into her ear as he slid his hands inside her bra. "Day and night. Even when I'm making love with Lydia, I pretend it's you in my arms." As he talked he kept moving her closer to her bedroom.
"Glen, what about the children ... they might see us." She found her words difficult to speak between his fevered kisses.
"Don't worry about them. They're next door playing with the kids."
Esther was disappointed as Glenn hurriedly put his clothes back on. She thought there would have been more to romance than this. Not ever having been in love before, she had to rely on her fantasies.
"Be sure you don't let anything show around Lydia," he ordered. "She may be fatter'n a cow, but she ain't stupid and she ain't blind neither." He quickly slicked his black hair into place and hurried into the living room.
For the first time in her life, Esther felt special, felt loved, felt wanted. She filled her days with happiness and her nights with her new fantasies of her Glen. She reveled in joy as she recalled the sweet words he spoke as they were making love. She finally felt someone had noticed her being alive.
Although Lydia remained rude and condescending toward her, Esther no longer minded. Her Glen made up for it whenever he could sneak home. Weeks passed by gloriously until one day when her dream world shattered. Esther realized she was pregnant with Glen's child. Everything's going to be okay, she tried convincing herself. Glen will leave Lydia and marry me when I tell him. Wanting to be with me, he obviously does not love Lydia. She could hardly wait until she could be alone with Glen to tell him.
"You're what?" he barked out as he pulled away from her after hearing her news.
"I've been thinking," she continued, even though disappointment edged itself into her voice, "maybe we could just run away together. Then you could divorce Lydia and we can get married. I know that you love me every bit as much as I love you. Oh, Glen, it'll be heavenly. Then I can to to your club dates with you like she does. It will be ..."
"Are you crazy?" he shouted as he leaped from the bed and started grabbing his clothes. "I've already got a wife and two kids. I can't believe you're so stupid as to go and get yourself knocked up, anyway. Besides, how do I know it's mine?"
Tears welled in her eyes. "Oh, Glen, you know you were the first and only one for me." She hung her head and began crying. "I don't understand ... aren't you happy about this baby?"
"Get up and get dressed, you stupid cow. Get out of here before Lydia gets home. She'll kill you if she ever finds out what you've done. If you're gone before she gets home, I can tell her that you were gone when I got here. Yeah, that's what I'll tell her, that you up and left, leaving the two kids alone." He grabbed her suitcase from her closet and began throwing her stuff into it. "Hurry up!" he barked between clinched teeth. "I mean it. I want you out of here right now."
All afternoon Esther walked the streets carrying her suitcase. She knew she had nowhere to go except back home, and her stomach tied itself up in knots with that thought. Finally she made a decision. Since her family never paid any attention to her anyway, it would probably be months before they would even notice anything about her. She felt that surely Glen would come get her before then.
Weeks passed in as haze of frantic worry, wilting hot summer day, and loneliness. Esther toiled in the cotton fields every day while she hoped to see Glen's car come driving up the way to get her. As the weeks turned into months, her hopes began to melt away. She began to believe that he was not ever going to come get her. And on the day her mother mentioned about how fat Esther was getting, she knew it was all over. Soon she would be out in the streets with no place to go. Her parents would never permit her and her baby to stay at home. She felt there was only one thing left to do ... go see Lydia.
On Saturday, Esther started out walking early in the morning. She hoped to get to town before it got too hot. However, by the time she reached Glen's house she was already sunburning. Her white sun dress, shapeless and tight now, was drenched with sweat.
"What do you want? I'd think you would never want to show your face around her after what you did."
"Lydia ... I need to talk with you." Esther spoke softly.
She had barely got the story out when Lydia begain screaming at her, "You brazen little slut! How dare you come into my house and screw my husband, behind my back ... after all I did for you."
Esther trembled when Lydia drew her arm back readying to slap her. "Please, Lydia, I'm pregnant. I need help. I can't stay home any longer. My dad's going to find out sooner or later. I'm already showing. I'm scared."
The blow, when it landed, almost knocked Esther off the porch.
Her head spinning, she fought off the dizziness and nausea that threatened to overwhelm her.
"Get outta here, whore!" Lydia screamed, "Do you really think I'd ever give a damn about you or your bastard? I'm not going to let my own kids go hungry because a slut like you got yourself knocked up. Get outta here!" She drew her arm back preparing for another blow.
Esther backed down the steps, turned and ran away. Lydia's screams echoed in her ears. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she wondered, Please, dear God, what am I going to do now? Please, please, make Glen come get me. Please.
The long walk home seemed to take an eternity, but it gave her time to gather her wits and do some thinking. She knew what she had to do - just did not know if she had the strength to do it. Reaching the house, she went directly into the bathroom and looked through the cabint until she found what she needed. She slipped her father's straight razor into her pocket and then locked herself in her bedroom. When her mother knocked on her door letting her know that supper was ready, Esther begged off "Please, mom, I'm not feeling well. Must've been walking in all that heat outside. I don't think I can eat anything."
As soon as her parents left for the fields the next morning, Esther left the house. She made her way down to the darkened barn. She climbed the shakey ladder to the hayloft. She took the straight razor out of her pocket and toyed with it as she wept. "Oh God, I hope You'll forgive me. I've got nowhere to turn. You know this is the only thing left for me. I would not want this baby to grow up like I did ... unwanted, unloved."
Esther's hands shook as she cried out in pain when the razor dug deep into her flesh. Gritting her teeth, she drew it all the way up to her elbow. Then she sliced the other arm likewise, praying that she would not pass out before finishing the task. She did not faint. Instead, she leaned against the hayloft wall and watched her life drain onto the scattered pieces of hay.
As she began drifting off, her thoughts entered into one final fantasy. She saw a little ghost wearing a pink frilly dress and Mary Jane pumps walk the school yard, forever popular and accepted.
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