sits snugly on the underside of the bottle’s
cap. The girls hold this blue disc up to their lips and with their front teeth they bite a hole in the greasy plastic center
to pierce the flesh. They are then able to rip out the middle of the disc so that only the rim remains. Gently they tug at
this little translucent hoop of plastic, turning it around and around in their hands, pulling at it tenderly so it stretches
wider and wider and the thin hoop becomes a pale band of ribbon through which they can slip their hand. The girls then wear
these plastic ribbons on their wrists.
Popularly they are known as “Fuck-me bracelets.” It is a mark of a girl’s daring to fashion such a bracelet for herself from
the aqua seal of a Coca-Cola bottle neck, for whoever breaks the bracelet, however accidentally, thereby enters into a contract
with the wearer. Sometimes at parties a boy will lean over to kiss a girl and with his free hand he will scrabble at her wrist
to try to break the Coca-Cola seal. Most often the girl will feel him trying to snap the bracelet and she will pretend to
struggle, knowing what the breaking of the seal will mean: she will feign resistance and twist her wrist away from him to
make the bracelet snap the sooner. Once it has snapped they know that they must go through with it to the very end.
It is a shameful thing to break your own bracelet. The girlssnicker at the prospect, and alienate anyone clumsy enough to
catch the side of the thin plastic band on a doorframe or on the buckle of her backpack so it snaps.
One of the girls says, “They found a Fuck-me bracelet in Mr. Saladin’s tutorial room. Under the piano. It was broken.”
This isn’t true.
Monday
“Thanks all for coming in, people,” says the counselor above the scraping and shuffling, raising his palms like he is a politician
or a priest. “I’d really like to build on some of the issues that we raised in our last session. I thought that today we could
talk about taking control.”
Julia is sitting at the back, low down in her chair, with her arms folded and her ankles crossed and her hair falling across
her face. She watches as the other girls trip in from the cold, linking arms with their favorite friends so they advance across
the room in a rectangular squadron of favorites. They negotiate seating with whispers and nudges and a desperate narrow-eyed
panic, always fearful of one day occupying the terrible seats on the periphery which force you to lean across and be forever
asking “What? What’s so funny? What did she say?”
Julia watches them slot into place around the current locus of popularity and wit with a feeling of contempt and mild jealousy.
Most of the girls are seventh formers, contemporaries of the violated girl and infected only by vague proximity. The rest
are the music students, more critically infected and so personally summoned by a solemn pink slip photocopied over and over
and signed by the counselor in a delicate whispery hand.
The door opens and Julia sees to her surprise the sister of the violated girl holding her pink summons gingerly in her fist
and checking the brass numeral on the plate above the doorknob.Isolde is only in fifth form, too young for jazz band and
orchestra and senior jazz ensemble, and as she enters the room she nods at a few of the girls who must be her sister’s friends.
The counselor smiles approvingly as she enters, showing them all that he is terribly proud of her, in the way that one might
be terribly proud of a mascot or a flag.
Watching Isolde tuck her hair behind one ear and cast around sourly for a seat, Julia feels a flicker of interest in this
girl, now thrust forever into her sister’s arched and panting shadow, and wonders what she’s thinking.
As Isolde sits down, the girl sitting behind her leans forward and gives her shoulders a squeeze, slipping her thumbs into
the hollows of Isolde’s collarbones and whispering,
cap. The girls hold this blue disc up to their lips and with their front teeth they bite a hole in the greasy plastic center
to pierce the flesh. They are then able to rip out the middle of the disc so that only the rim remains. Gently they tug at
this little translucent hoop of plastic, turning it around and around in their hands, pulling at it tenderly so it stretches
wider and wider and the thin hoop becomes a pale band of ribbon through which they can slip their hand. The girls then wear
these plastic ribbons on their wrists.
Popularly they are known as “Fuck-me bracelets.” It is a mark of a girl’s daring to fashion such a bracelet for herself from
the aqua seal of a Coca-Cola bottle neck, for whoever breaks the bracelet, however accidentally, thereby enters into a contract
with the wearer. Sometimes at parties a boy will lean over to kiss a girl and with his free hand he will scrabble at her wrist
to try to break the Coca-Cola seal. Most often the girl will feel him trying to snap the bracelet and she will pretend to
struggle, knowing what the breaking of the seal will mean: she will feign resistance and twist her wrist away from him to
make the bracelet snap the sooner. Once it has snapped they know that they must go through with it to the very end.
It is a shameful thing to break your own bracelet. The girlssnicker at the prospect, and alienate anyone clumsy enough to
catch the side of the thin plastic band on a doorframe or on the buckle of her backpack so it snaps.
One of the girls says, “They found a Fuck-me bracelet in Mr. Saladin’s tutorial room. Under the piano. It was broken.”
This isn’t true.
Monday
“Thanks all for coming in, people,” says the counselor above the scraping and shuffling, raising his palms like he is a politician
or a priest. “I’d really like to build on some of the issues that we raised in our last session. I thought that today we could
talk about taking control.”
Julia is sitting at the back, low down in her chair, with her arms folded and her ankles crossed and her hair falling across
her face. She watches as the other girls trip in from the cold, linking arms with their favorite friends so they advance across
the room in a rectangular squadron of favorites. They negotiate seating with whispers and nudges and a desperate narrow-eyed
panic, always fearful of one day occupying the terrible seats on the periphery which force you to lean across and be forever
asking “What? What’s so funny? What did she say?”
Julia watches them slot into place around the current locus of popularity and wit with a feeling of contempt and mild jealousy.
Most of the girls are seventh formers, contemporaries of the violated girl and infected only by vague proximity. The rest
are the music students, more critically infected and so personally summoned by a solemn pink slip photocopied over and over
and signed by the counselor in a delicate whispery hand.
The door opens and Julia sees to her surprise the sister of the violated girl holding her pink summons gingerly in her fist
and checking the brass numeral on the plate above the doorknob.Isolde is only in fifth form, too young for jazz band and
orchestra and senior jazz ensemble, and as she enters the room she nods at a few of the girls who must be her sister’s friends.
The counselor smiles approvingly as she enters, showing them all that he is terribly proud of her, in the way that one might
be terribly proud of a mascot or a flag.
Watching Isolde tuck her hair behind one ear and cast around sourly for a seat, Julia feels a flicker of interest in this
girl, now thrust forever into her sister’s arched and panting shadow, and wonders what she’s thinking.
As Isolde sits down, the girl sitting behind her leans forward and gives her shoulders a squeeze, slipping her thumbs into
the hollows of Isolde’s collarbones and whispering,
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