Page 59 of We All Live Here
“Do I look like a tattle-tale?”
So she tells him. About how she might as well have leprosy because not a single person except the absolute rejects will talk to her, and how Meena was her best friend and knows all her secrets—including the fact that she wet the bed until she was eight and how she used to sleep with Mum for ages after Dad left because it felt like everything was falling apart and she was suddenly weirdly afraid of the dark and how she went with that boy from year thirteen in the park last November because she was stoned. Now it’s like her whole life is in a box that Meena is just carrying round letting everyone peer in and laugh at her. And how she feels sick all the time and she can’t talk to Mum because Mum is always stressed and miserable and distracted, and Dad doesn’t think about anything but Marja and the new baby, and she doesn’t know how she’ll survive the next two years if she stays where she is because it feels like heading into a war zone every day.
And when she stops, Gene is standing beside her and he has his big old arm around her shoulders and he is pulling her into him and her face is against his T-shirt, which smells a bit of beer and cigarettes but not in a bad way. And he just squeezes her and kisses the top of her head and lets his face rest there for a minute. “Ah, sweetcheeks,” he says. “That’s rough.”
“I don’t know how to make it stop. Because I don’t know what I did.” She is wiping at her eyes, embarrassed, and he walks her over to a bench and sits her down until she can stop crying. It only takes about ten minutes. She can’t look at him now, just sits with her shoulders hunched, her elbows resting on her knees, hiccuping gently.
“You know, I don’t know much about much. But the one thing I do know about is acting.”
Oh, God, she thinks.Not another Gene On Stage story.But he continues.
“Now, I don’t know what you did. Or if you even did anything. But I do know that these girls—mean girls—they’re going to be reading youall the time. Girls are super good at that. Boys, you know, we’re just going to throw a few punches at each other and sort it out and it’s all pretty much forgotten. But girls, they’re complex. And right now, you’re walking around just like—”
He gets up and stands in front of her, hunching his shoulders and dropping his chin. He looks sorrowful, defeated.
“I don’t walk like that.”
“Yeah, you kind of do. Body language is my special skill, sweetheart. That’s what I do. And what you’re projecting right now is defeat.”
She stares at him, horrified. She pushes herself a little more upright.
Gene is talking directly to her now, his face uncharacteristically serious. “Now I’m not saying how you stand is going to make a whole bunch of difference, but it will makeadifference. And right now these girls know you care about what they’re doing to you. They know you’re hurting and it makes them feel powerful. It makes them forget what’s going on with their own lives. Because, honestly, they will all be having a crappy time individually.”
“How would you know that?”
“Because it’s only hurt people who hurt people.”
She stares at him.
“Celie, baby, you look around at people who are happy in themselves in their lives—they’re just busy living, having a good time. They don’t set out to be mean to other people. Their energy is going into other things. It doesn’t even occur to them to hurt someone else, or to try to make them feel small. In fact, they’re more likely to be building other people up. So you know what you’re going to do?”
Celie shakes her head.
“You’re gonna feel sorry for them. These stupid, sad, mean girls who can only get their kicks from trying to make other people feel bad. Yup.” He holds up a hand as she starts to protest. “But, also, you’re not going to give them anything to make them feel better.”
She frowns.
“You’re going to change the way you show up. So instead of this”—he walks, shoulders hunched, looking sad, glancing sideways as if he was apologetic for even being there—“you’re going to go in there on Monday looking like you don’t give two shits.”
She blinks.
Gene corrects himself. “Sorry—you’re going to look like you couldn’t care less what these girls think or do. You’re going to walk in, own your space, hold your chin up, and change the energy around you. Like this.”
He lifts his chest a little, walks determinedly to the patch of grass in front of her, and has a small smile on his face, like everything is faintly amusing.
“I can’t do that.” She pushes a curtain of hair from her face.
“Sure you can. You just have to practice. Go on. Do it.”
She shrinks into herself, glancing around at the people who are walking their dogs nearby. This is too much.
But Gene keeps standing in front of her. “C’mon. Do it. I’m not going anywhere until you’ve done it. Stand up.”
She sighs. He really isn’t going anywhere. She gets up reluctantly from the bench.
“Straighter. C’mon. You’re still bent double.”
She straightens up a few more degrees, lifts her chin.
