Edith had natural platinum blond
hair, light blue eyes with curled eyelashes and rosy cheeks, but she wasn’t
very beautiful. There was a certain masculinity to her build and a surprising
squareness to her face that made her look unattractive and a bit threatening.
Her parents were renting the attic of the house that was co-owned by my great
aunt Pope (that was her last name and my mom never referred to her in any other
way) and her alcoholic son Matt. We ended up sharing the first floor with great
aunt Pope while uncle Matt and his dutiful wife Helen lived in the basement.
Edith, my sister and I quickly became friends despite the awkwardness that
arose between her parents and mine who were now to take over the attic forcing
Edith’s parents to look for a new place to live. My aunt Helen was visibly
displeased with the situation too and would throw my parents dirty looks and
make subtle remarks about the money she was going to lose with her tenants gone.
I assumed we lived there for free, we were family after all, but years later my
parents filled me in on the secret arrangement of having to actually pay rent
each month. Perhaps in my aunt’s eyes they weren’t paying enough. While the
adults walked around the house with resentment towards each other, Edith, my
sister and I escaped this tense situation by playing in the backyard or the
alley.
It was summer of ‘94 and all the
neighborhood kids were running around, most of them boys from about
seven-year-old to my age, that is, thirteen. They were loud and mostly
annoying, but they had a backboard attached to their garage and they let us
shoot hoops with them. They had an obsession with swear words that we couldn’t
understand too well and loved calling us stupid
Polaks, which we did understand but
didn’t feel offended by it. It was obvious they didn’t know what Polak means in Polish (simply a person
from Poland) and that was stupid and
ignorant in our eyes. Still, we hung out with those little rascals because there
wasn’t much to do otherwise and because they happened to live next door. Whenever
they crossed the line and tried pushing me or my sister just to see our
reaction, Edith would step in. She was our pitbull and no kid messed with her.
She was ruthless. Used her nails when necessary, kicked like a boy and knew
enough English to shut them up. I loved Edith for that and wanted to be like
her, but I was too shy with the few English words I knew and the many that I
couldn’t understand.
One day the boys approached the
gate in the back of our aunt’s house and were actually being civil. They were
making an effort to have a conversation with me by slowing down their speech
and using very simple language. They started asking questions about our country,
asked if we liked it here, asked our age and then, out of nowhere the youngest
and most obnoxious little boy blurted out, “You have very hairy legs!” He was
pointing in my direction. My heart dropped. I looked at my sister’s legs and she
barely showed any hair. Edith’s legs, although thick and muscular, were bald
and shiny and mine, well mine looked like furry animal’s legs. It’s not that I
wasn’t aware of how hairy they were. It is that no one ever pointed it out in
that tone and with such disgust! I don’t believe any woman back in Poland
shaved her legs. My mom certainly didn’t own a razor of any kind. Leg shaving
simply wasn’t part of any woman’s routine. That little boy though drew
everyone’s attention to my hairy legs and now I was the girl with poor personal
hygiene. They were literally revolted at the sight of my legs. I had to do
something about it.
Naturally, I asked my parents for
opinion. They couldn’t understand what the fuss was about. My mom tried to help
with her usual logic that made little sense, “Once you shave, the hair will
grow back thicker. Bad idea, if you ask me.” I considered her advice and
decided to wait and see what other people had to say. Of course, at the time
the concept of shaving one’s legs was so foreign to my mom, she couldn’t fathom
shaving as routine practice. However, Edith came to my rescue again. When
approached about it, she first sighed with relief and then said, “You have to
shave that off. It looks horrible!” I weighed all the pros and cons and decided
to compromise and shave just a little. I
locked myself in the basement bathroom, found my dad’s razor, lathered my lower
leg with his shaving cream and with one upward stroke uncovered a full strip of
bare skin. That bare strip was so blinding, I took a step back in panic and realized
something very basic that had not occurred to me before; you can’t shave just a little! Still in panic, I
proceeded with the rest of the leg. I was so determined to remove all the hair,
I took off a layer of skin in some parts of my shins. There was blood
everywhere! I panicked even more. There was no way of hiding that now. I had
Band-Aids covering the cuts and my legs looked weird, almost smaller and bare.
As I unlocked that bathroom door, I
came face to face with my mom who immediately asked, “What did you do?” I don’t
know how moms always know when their kids are up to something, but she looked
me up and down and concluded with resignation, “You shaved your legs.” My dad
rose up from the chair to assess the damage. He didn’t say anything but was
visibly disappointed. I began making my way towards the bedroom with the
intention to hide there for the rest of my life and overheard my dad whisper to
my mom, “I think she used my razor.”
I knew it wasn’t over. I still had
to face the neighborhood boys and I was mentally preparing myself for all the
teasing. I hated the idea of going out there, but I hated sitting at home all
day even more. After lunch, I asked Edith if she wanted to go play with the
boys. We could hear them playing outside for a while. She smiled at me in a way
that made it clear she knew why I needed
her to go out there with me. We approached the boys as if nothing and started
shooting ball when finally, one of them announced, “You shaved your legs!” They
all looked in my direction. I could feel my face turning red, but Edith was
quicker. She looked the boy straight in the eye and said, “Shut up!” That did
the trick. No one laughed. In fact, no one ever said anything else about it. My
parents too came to accept it although reluctantly at first, but when aunt
Helen told them that she shaved her
legs, they knew they had to be okay with me
doing it.
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