Middlesex

Clementine Stark invited me over to her house. Without even comparing it to Middlesex, it was an overwhelmingly medieval-looking place, a fortress of gray stone, unlovely except for the one extravagance—a concession to the princess—of a single, pointed tower flying a lavender pennant. Inside there were tapestries on the walls, a suit of armor with French script over the visor, and, in black leotards, Clementine’s slender mother. She was doing leg lifts.

“This is Callie,” Clementine said. “She’s coming over to play.”

I beamed. I attempted a kind of curtsy. (This was my introduction to polite society, after all.) But Clementine’s mother didn’t so much as turn her head.

“We just moved in,” I said. “We live in the house behind yours.”

Now she frowned. I thought I’d said something wrong—my first etiquette mistake in Grosse Pointe. Mrs. Stark said, “Why don’t you girls go upstairs?”

We did. In her bedroom Clementine mounted a rocking horse. For the next three minutes she rode it without saying another word. Then she abruptly got off. “I used to have a turtle but he escaped.”

“He did?”

“My mom says he could survive if he made it outside.”

“He’s probably dead,” I said.

Clementine accepted this bravely. She came over and held her arm next to mine. “Look, I’ve got freckles like the Big Dipper,” she announced. We stood side to side before the full-length mirror, making faces. The rims of Clementine’s eyes were inflamed. She yawned. She rubbed her nose with the heel of her hand. And then she asked, “Do you want to practice kissing?”

I didn’t know what to answer. I already knew how to kiss, didn’t I? Was there something more to learn? But while these questions were going through my head, Clementine was going ahead with the lesson. She came around to face me. With a grave expression she put her arms around my neck.

The necessary special effects are not in my possession, but what I’d like for you to imagine is Clementine’s white face coming close to mine, her sleepy eyes closing, her medicine-sweet lips puckering up, and all the other sounds of the world going silent—the rustling of our dresses, her mother counting leg lifts downstairs, the airplane outside making an exclamation mark in the sky—all silent, as Clementine’s highly educated, eight-year-old lips met mine.

And then, somewhere below this, my heart reacting.

Not a thump exactly. Not even a leap. But a kind of swish, like a frog kicking off from a muddy bank. My heart, that amphibian, moving that moment between two elements: one, excitement; the other, fear. I tried to pay attention. I tried to hold up my end of things. But Clementine was way ahead of me. She swiveled her head back and forth the way actresses did in the movies. I started doing the same, but out of the corner of her mouth she scolded, “You’re the man.” So I stopped. I stood stiffly with arms at my sides. Finally Clementine broke off the kiss. She looked at me blankly a moment, and then responded, “Not bad for your first time.”

“Mo-om!” I shouted, coming home that evening. “I made a friend!” I told Tessie about Clementine, the old rugs on the walls, the pretty mother doing exercises, omitting only the kissing lessons. From the beginning I was aware that there was something improper about the way I felt about Clementine Stark, something I shouldn’t tell my mother, but I wouldn’t have been able to articulate it. I didn’t connect this feeling to sex. I didn’t know sex existed. “Can I invite her over?”

“Sure,” said Tessie, relieved that my loneliness in the neighborhood was now over.

“I bet she’s never seen a house like ours.”