CHAPTER ONE

I eased my hands on my abdomen, breathed deeply, and looked at my eighth-grade science teacher. I was as nervous as a mouse that hears a cat through the wall-but the time had come. Part one of Mom's plan began when I raised my hand. "Yes, Chartreusa?" Mr. Frost said.

     "I'm supposed to call my mother to pick me up. We have an appointment."

     "Oh, all right." He hesitated, as if he considered that I might be lying; but he had nothing to fear. Since moving from California to Gainesville, Florida last month, I got all my teachers to trust me; so Mr. Frost would never suspect how deceitful my request was.

     "I'll write you a pass to the office so you can call her."

     After grabbing my briefcase, I stopped by the restroom on the way. Blundering into the office, my emotions wanted to bust out all over the place as I handed the pass to the younger secretary beyond the left side of the long counter.

     "Well, you look chipper," she said, watching me set my briefcase on the counter before her, "standing there grinning like a Cheshire cat."

     "Was I grinning?" I straighten the curve out of my lips with my fingers. She giggled. I glanced behind me through the front window. "Wow, it's a great day, isn't it?"

     The secretary stared at the drizzling rain. "Yeah, if you're a frog maybe."

     I smacked the counter with my hand. "Well, I'm as happy as a toad in a damp, dark cellar."

     "Cellar? Boy, can you tell one of us is not from Florida?" She pointed to the little table by the wall to my left. "Students use the President's phone."

     I raised my eyebrows. "The President … in Washington?"

     "Under the picture of Mr. Carter there."

     I looked at the table. President Carter hung above it. "Oh, I get it. Thanks." I walked to it, lifted the receiver, and dialed.

     Mom had gotten a job at a new car dealership after she and her new husband, Cody, moved us here last month before school started.

     A woman answered the phone.

     "I'd like to be put through to the cashier, please."

     Silence. "Hello? Cashier," Mom answered.

     "Mom, this is your daughter with the weird color name, you know … Chartreusa Dickinson?"

     "Char! What's up? You sick, honey?"

     "Code red."

     "What? What? Code red? I'll be right there."

     She hung up.

     The secretary leaned on the counter. "Code red? That's it? That's the message to your mother?"

     "Code red," I repeated, hanging up and walking back to the counter.

     "You some kind of spy," the secretary asked, "sending secret codes over the phone?"

     I bobbed my eyebrows and grinned again. "Could be."

     The secretary pressed her lips together. "I see. A nineteen-eighty version of Mata Hari."

     "Mata Hari?" I tilted my head and stuck my lips out.

     She flipped a hand at me. "Forget it … before your time."

     I held up my free hand with an index finger pointing at the ceiling. "I get it. She was a spy, right?"

     "World War Two."

     "Well, I'm not spying, but my secret is …." I leaned over the counter, and she did, too. I whispered in her ear so the other secretary wouldn't hear.

     My secretary popped her head back and out-grinned the Cheshire cat. "Congratulations."

     Mom burst through the door twenty minutes later and offered her best owl eyes. I slipped a hand over my abdomen and nodded. She exploded in squeals that made me quickly glance around. Two boys stood at the far right end of the counter talking to the other secretary, and a male teacher listened to a dean beyond them by the far wall.

     "Shhhhhh," I said, whipping a finger to my lips, unable to block my growing smile.

     Mom strutted over, grabbed me by the shoulders, and danced us around in a circle. Breaking free, she announced, "My daughter's started her first period!"

     Normally I'm not very good at remembering faces-but, that day, the first day of my womanhood, four faces I had never seen before burned themselves into my memory forever.

     My secretary grinned again. "Code red?"

     Mom nodded. "Code red."

     The older secretary wrinkled her nose and flattened her lips while the male teacher turned and stretched his facial features vertically and tilted his head sideways. The boys jerked their heads around so fast they nearly twisted off. Each young, male face glowed with widening eyes followed by a slight reddening of the cheeks. Devilish grins outshined every facial feature as they stared at my groin. In looking through my skirt, I wondered if they saw me naked, or with a Kotex on.

     "Did you take care of it right away?" Mom said, loud enough for everyone to hear.

     "Mom?" I replied, looking at the floor hoping everyone in the office would disappear-and they did-until I looked up again. "Not so loud," I whispered. "I stopped by the bathroom on the way here."

     She leaned back and beamed at me. Her smile tightened so much I thought it would leave a permanent mark on her face. "You want me to take you into the bathroom to check it?"

     "Mom!" I lowered my voice. "It's all right."

     "You sure it's secure?"

     "Arrrrrrgggggg! Mom!" I grabbed her arm and pulled her to the door.

     My secretary walked to the counter and pushed a ledger book toward us. "Your mother must sign you out."

     "Oh yes," Mom said, dashing back to the counter. "What a day." She sighed. "What an incredible day this is going to be."

     "Mom?" I said, standing by the exit hoping the urgency in my voice would hurry her. The two boys stared at me until I felt my clothing peel away. I paused to look into their faces-and saw lust to the six-hundred-and-sixty-sixth power. I slid my briefcase in front of my pelvis, but then I realized that if they could see through fabric, they could probably see through leather and cardboard as well. "Come on, Mom. Let's go!"

     Dropping the pen on the ledger, she pointed to the secretary. "She's my youngest daughter of two. Caroline is ten months older, but Char here … she started first. Can you believe that?"

     "Well," the smiling secretary said while nodding, "what do you know?" The male teacher looked at Mom, and then at the secretary grinning back at him. He looked once more at Mom and walked into the vice principal's office behind the older secretary's desk.

     I threw out my free hand. "May we go now, Mom?"

     The younger secretary stared at Mom. "Obviously you're not taking her to a gynecologist."

     "Of course not," Mom replied. "We're going out to paint the town red!" She threw her arms in the air and danced around.

     "That's it, Mom! I'm out of here." I opened the door and stepped out into the breezeway that cut the administration building in half.

     Mom sauntered out and faced me with her childish grin. I set my briefcase down and crossed my arms. My sneer felt worse than Miss Gulch's looked in The Wizard of Oz when she came to take away Dorothy's Toto. "How dare you make a spectacle of yourself like that."

     We stared at each other as long as we could stand it before bursting into laughter.

     In picking up my briefcase, I thought of how much I loved it when she let me reverse roles with her. She's the greatest Mom ever.

     She threw one arm around my shoulder and walked toward the front of the building. "So, my little girl is a woman now. Did you see the looks on the faces of those two boys?"

     "I was only aware of them straining to see through my skirt. What about the male teacher? You sent him into full retreat."

     Arriving at the car, Mom opened the front passenger-side door for me. "Men just aren't comfortable with a woman's body. That's one thing you're going to find out for yourself."

     I climbed in and she shut the door. The window was down, and she leaned on it shoving her face into mine.

     "Female is everything, Char. It may be a man's world, but it's a woman's universe."

     She walked to her side of the car, and I couldn't help admiring her. What a clever, intelligent, open-minded, confident woman was my mother. How lucky can a girl be?

     "Okay, Char-baby." She climbed in, shut the door, and stared at me, eyes bulging wide and a smile like a carnival barker who had just suckered his one-millionth customer. "Char the woman, I should say. Where are we going to celebrate?"

     "The Silver Saddle Corral. You were going to buy me a big, medium-rare steak, remember?"

     She pointed at me and winked. "Good choice. You'll need the iron."

     We drove to my favorite steakhouse, ordered big meals, talked "woman-to-woman", and two hours later, we were in the car headed home.

     "How am I going to handle Caroline?" I asked.

     She pulled herself back until her arms stretched rigid to the top of the steering wheel. "I've been thinking about it. It wouldn't be right to hide it from her. It wasn't your fault you started first."

     I leaned against my door. "She's got to start soon, Mom."

     "She will. She will."

     "Aren't you worried about it? She'll be fifteen in December."

     She dropped one arm in her lap. "I'm not worried. Mine started at fourteen and six months. Your fourteenth birthday's next month. How about that, Char? You beat me by seven months." She turned left onto a two-lane road.

     I stretched my left arm along the back of my seat. "So, what about Caroline?"

     "Do what you would do if you were an only child."

     "Well," I held out my left arm and opened my hand, but nothing came to mind, "I wouldn't have anyone to tell except you. I'd let you tell Cody and kind of ignore it with him myself. And then … and then I would just take care of it."

     Mom nodded. "Sounds good. You take care of it, and don't say anything to Caroline. When she discovers it, treat it like nothing special."

     I whipped my right hand on the dash. "You know she's going to start trouble. She's the jealous one."

     "Yes, she is." She stopped at a red light, drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, and looked at me. "She's probably been worried about you getting yours first. I don't know what reaction she's planned. First she pitched a fit over Cody and I getting married last July, and then over moving to Florida in August. She probably will pitch one over this, too."

     She thrust her lap hand over her abdomen. "Ouch! Damn that hurt."

     I tore my hand off the dash and leaned forward. "What is it, Mom?"

     "I don't know. I've been having these sudden pains. Owwwwww!" She glanced at me. "There it is again."

     "It can't be cramping. Your period was two weeks ago."

     She looked at me and opened her eyes wide. "You've been following my menstrual cycle?"

     I nodded. "Mine was coming soon, so I watched you closely last month."

     The light turned green and Mom accelerated. I watched as she returned her hand to her lap. The pain seemed to have gone away. She started whistling her favorite tune, I'll Never Love This Way Again by Dionne Warwick. After making another left turn, she grabbed her stomach with both hands, threw her head back, and yelled, "Oh, shit!"

     "What is it, Mom?"

     The car veered to the right.

     I slid toward her with both arms poised in front of me. "Mom, the car!" I waited for her to recover; but she continued holding her abdomen, leaned back, and turned her head toward me. Her eyes closed, and I grabbed for the wheel; but she fell into me preventing me from getting a good grip.

     After taking out a street sign, we plunged through a shallow ditch and narrowly missed a pine tree. Her body bouncing around forced her foot to jam the accelerator. I fought against her falling body and tried shoving my foot on the brake.

     Concentrating on our feet, I didn't see the wooden fence charge at us. Looking up, I could only squeeze the wheel and scream. Lucky for us it was frail and we blasted it to bits without slowing down.

     I leaned forward and allowed Mom to fall behind me. Her foot lifted off the gas, and I jammed mine on the brake. We stopped just shy of a picnic table. The family sitting there hadn't seen us coming; and the parents and three elementary-age children sat with sandwich debris hanging from their mouths, their faces sheets of ashen white.

     "Help!" I screamed, keeping my foot on the brake. "My mother's sick!"

     One parent ran to each side of the car. The father opened the driver's door and quickly threw the automatic gearshift into park. Then he eased Mom out as his wife opened my side.

     I didn't wait for her to pull me out. Instead, I pushed past her and ran around the other side of the car.

     "Mom! Mom! What is it? What's happening?"