Prologue
. My mother didn't discover what was happening to me until just before my seventh birthday.
At the time I was in second grade and old enough by then to run my own bath and take care of my personal needs without her telling me when to do so or standing over me. I was proud of my
independence and how I could successfully imitate my mother by putting just the right amount of bath oil into my tub, scrubbing my body with the same sort of soft brush she used, and laying out my clothing or pajamas neatly on the bathroom table, my fluffy pink slippers waiting eagerly below like two loyal servants.
Afterward. I brushed my hair exactly fifty strokes on both sides as she did hers, parted my face with some of her special skin cream, and went to bed. Most of the time she was there to kiss me good night, but I was always under my blanket by then, snuggling in anticipation of opening the doorway to dream magic, as I called it.
That fateful day, however, my mother stepped into my bathroom after I had prepared my bath and had just sat in the water.
"You're such a good girl, Jordan," she said as she came through the door.
She barely glanced at me in the tub before going to the medicine cabinet to search for something. However, when she closed the cabinet door, which was a mirror, she stood there staring into it as if she were looking at a television set and saw an incredible event taking place, like the events on one of those science or history channels my brilliant, thirteen-yearold brother. Ian, liked to watch. The cabinet mirror reflected me in my bath.
She spun around, blinked rapidly, and then very slowly approached the tub. The warm water was spiced with her wonderfully lilac-scented bath oil that I loved to suds up around me with the bubbles touching my chin. I felt dainty and feminine and anticipated her usual compliments about how grownup I had become.
"Sit up, Jordan," she ordered instead.
Confused at her sudden harsh tone. I immediately sat straight, thinking she was criticizing my slouching. She always tried to correct my posture or my manners before my grandmother Emma had a chance to do it, because she believed that whenever Grandmother Emma criticized either me or my brother. Ian, she was really criticizing her for not bringing us up properly.
The bubbles popped and the foam fell away from my upper body.
She gaped and then slowly squatted beside the tab and reached over to touch my chest. "I don't believe this.
You're.. .developing breasts!" she said. "You have buds!"
Her face contorted, her lips twisting, her eyes seeming to bulge. She shook her head to deny what she saw.
I looked down at myself. I had felt the development, but I hadn't thought anything of it. Somewhere in the back of my mind. I had stuffed a mental note to ask my mother about it one day, but I had forgotten. There was nothing painful or unpleasant about it.
"How could I have not noticed this? How long has this been going on?" she asked.
Lately, she had rarely been present when I dressed or undressed. My clothing for school was always decided the evening before and if Mama didn't set it out for me. Nancy, the maid, did.
I shrugged. I really hadn't marked the calendar on the desk in my room and couldn't even take a good guess. One day I noticed it and the next day I didn't. I wasn't at all like Ian, who took notes about everything as if he were the secretary for human history.
"A while," I said.
As she continued to stare at me. I could set another thought tightening the corners of her eyes and stretching her lips. She looked even more fearful and brought her hand to the base of her throat.
"Stand up,' she said. "Stand up, Jordan!" she shouted when I didn't move quickly enough.
I did so and her eyes, which were already wide and surprised, widened even more.
"You're getting. ..you have pubic hair!" she cried, as if I had been hiding something behind her back or had performed a magic act right before her eyes.
I looked down and once again shrugged. I didn't know what it was called, but I knew she had it, just more of it. Why shouldn't I be getting it, too? After all, she always told me girls were just little women.
"How could I have not noticed it? My God, she said, and I remember she actually flopped back on her rear and sat there on the tiled bathroom floor staring at me. She grimaced in pain and reached out to clutch the side of the tub. She looked like she couldn't breathe.
"Mama?" I said. I could feel my throat tightening. Whatever frightened her was nothing compared to how she was frightening me.
She shook her head and put her hand up like a traffic cop, stopping all the crackling and buzzing going on around us.
"I've got to think. I've got to think,' she chanted. Then she looked at me again, and again shook her head. "You're not even seven years old yet, Jordan. This can't be happening. It cannot!" she insisted.
She slapped her hands together as if she was really a magician and could make it all disappear. I looked down at myself almost with the expectation that I would see that it had, and then I looked at her again. From the way her face contorted and her lips quavered. I thought she was going to burst into tears, but she simply stared and bit down on her lower lip to stop the trembling.
"Can I sit in the water?" I asked, embracing myself. I was getting cold and beginning to tremble, too.
"What? Yes, yes. Sit, sit," she said. "Where has my head been? How could I miss this? What if someone else had discovered it first?"
There was no question about whom she was thinking. That put a new idea in her head.
Suddenly, she looked at the open bathroom door and rose to close it quickly. I'll never forget how she looked back at me. It was as if I had turned into something or someone other than her own daughter.
Perhaps I had.
I do remember thinking that I was no longer who she thought I was.
I had no idea how long it would take to find out who I would become.
1 Too Young
. My mother grasped my shoulders and even shook me as she spoke. "Never, never let
Grandmother Emma see you without any clothes on. Jordan," she warned in a loud whisper. "Don't tell Ian and don't even tell Daddy about this yet. He's likely to slip and say something. Your grand-mother watches every little thing we do in this house as it is," my mother added, and let me go.
Why would all this anger my grandmother Emma? I wondered. If she did find out, would she tell us to leave her house? Would Daddy be just as angry?
Mama read my fears in my eyes. "I'm sorry, honey. I didn't mean to frighten you. It's not your fault. Everything that is happening to you is just happening to you too early," she said in a softer voice. "It's too much of a surprise. It's just better if no one else knows for now, okay?"
"Okay, Mama," I said. She looked relieved, but I was still trembling. She helped me into my pajamas and into bed.
Suddenly, something else occurred to her and she went to the dirty clothes hamper in my bathroom. I had no idea what sh
e was doing, but she reached in and began pulling out my socks, panties, and shirts. She held up my panties and looked closely at them before tossing it all back into the hamper. "What are you looking for, Mama?" I asked her.
She thought a moment and then she sat on my bed and took my hand into hers. "You're way too young for this conversation, Jordan. I don't even know how to begin it with you."
"What conversation?"
"The conversation my mother had with me when my body started to change, but you're not even seven and I was nearly thirteen before she decided I had to have the most important mother-daughter talk with her. Something very dramatic happened to me first."