Chapter 9

December 17, 2017

“How was the weekend?”

“It was great,” answered the tall, young girl in the back left seat looking at her dad in the seat kitty corner. “I’d like to put the discussion of part of it in abeyance until we get home, as there was something that happened that I need to tell you and I’d like to talk about it.” From her dad’s reaction, she could tell that he was concerned, very concerned, about what she’d said, so she held up her hand at him and said, “It was good, and nothing to worry or be concerned about. It’s just...” She growled slightly, then continued with more certainty, “It’s good, but it’s made me think, very hard, about ... things. About me. About my future. And I’d really like to hold off until we get home where we can be comfortable and I’m not talking at the back of Mom’s head.”

Her father inhaled deeply, unclenched his jaws, and exhaled, responding, “We can do that, Civia. I do like that you remembered ‘abeyance’ from a previous talk in this car. I assume you chose that word for that reason. Yes?”

She grinned at him, nodding her head, at which he shook his and rolled his eyes. She giggled. He looked heartened at that, as she only rarely giggled, and it was always when she was very happy. The tall, young girl did talk about the food – the sloppy joes on Friday and the home-made pizza on Saturday – at length.

Once they were settled in the living room, Civia started slowly, “We went to the practice pitch just to kick the ball around, but ran into 13 of the boys there, so with nine of us, we could play full field. It was good to really play, rather than just practice. Enough of the girls said that they’d like to be able to play more often, so we might get to play somewhat regularly, at least after the holidays. But what I want to talk about happened when we got ice creams after the game. Victor and Jamaal went with...”

Her father asked, “Victor’s the one that referees games and Jamaal was on the debate team. Right?”

Civia nodded, continuing with, “I was sitting across from both, and they said the same thing.” She closed her eyes, inhaled and exhaled, opened her eyes and said, “To paraphrase, they said that as soon as I begin playing for Central, I’ll start getting fans due to ... my skills, age, and ... attractiveness.” Her dad began to respond but quit when she held up her hand to him and added, “Victor said that everyone likes an underdog and that my age would make me one and both said that ... humility will become important for me, for ... fans, but especially for my teammates. I want to come back to the teammates thing, but mainly I want to talk about ... the ... the attractiveness thing. Jamaal, particularly, said that I’d have to learn that I would get fans at least partly because of how I look and that ... that could create problems for me. I assume when I get older. He said that Meka provided a good role model for me, as she is also skilled, smart, and attractive. He said that I’d have to accept that that would happen even if I didn’t want it to and didn’t like it.”

Civia’s parents looked at each other, her father shook his head slowly and only in short arcs and pointed his chin at his wife.

She said, “Neither of us has ... experience with anything remotely similar, so I’m not sure we know how to help you, except to urge you to always be aware of your circumstances, pay attention to what happens around you, and ... always make sure you have friends with you or very close by. I’m sure those girls would fight for you, particularly Meka and Rhee.”

Civia grimaced, saying, “I don’t think that ... anyone ... I don’t know. Would some guy ... I’m only 12, and I ... d-don’t know...”

She clenched her jaws, apparently trying to rein in her emotions. Her mother stood and joined Civia on the love seat, wrapping her arms around her only child, holding Civia’s head on her shoulder and petting the back of her head and her back.

After a minute or so, the mother said, “It’s unlikely that anyone will try to hurt you that way, but worse things have happened to girls. You shouldn’t let yourself be ruled by such fears, but you should stay aware of such possibilities.”

With much more control than she had had, Civia responded, “I understand. I’m not really worried about someone ... attacking me, but it got me thinking about ... umm ... sex,” the last word said very quietly.

She did not see her dad’s response, but she felt her mom’s and decided to get to what she wanted to ask before either responded.

“I don’t know what I want. I talked with Beth ... about it ... on the way home, and she said they didn’t really know much about how to deal with ... feelings. She said that she’s ... interested in Brett in that way, but those girls have only just gotten him to ... come out of his shell, and they didn’t want to ruin the friendship they were developing with him. He is really nice, and what she said made sense to me. I just ... I d-don’t know what I think about ... all of that.

“I’m confused, and I told Beth that. I’ve never really had friends before, so I don’t ... I don’t know ... how having friends feels ... different from having a boyfriend ... or a ... girlfriend. I really love those girls, particularly Beth. She and they always help me, look out for me, and all of them are so fun to be with. I’ve had more fun since July than I’ve had in most of the rest of my life. Since I’ve not had friends, I don’t know if what ... I feel for them, for Beth, is just a really good friendship or ... or ... something else.

She overrode her mother’s response by saying, “I know there are girls that like girls, you know, as ... as ... well, as girlfriends, romantically. I’ve also seen things about some of the professional women soccer players being ... lesbians. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to feel. When d-did you start ... liking ... boys like that?”

“Oh, Civia. This is always a difficult thing to deal with, both as a girl and as a mother. Mothers want what is best for their children, and that is not necessarily what many girls ... and boys ... think is best for them. The only real problems I ever had with my mother, your Baba, when I was a girl was about boys. I could not imagine that she could possibly know what I was thinking, how I was feeling. Of course, every mother was a girl first, but children are so self-centered and, for the most part, that’s how they have to be. Nearly all find it difficult to believe their parents were ever remotely like them, but they were.

“I don’t particularly remember when boys changed from the somewhat annoying people with which I had to deal to interesting objects of fascination, but I began having arguments with my mother when I was 14, so the process probably began when I was 13 or nearly so.”

Civia interrupted, saying, “Huh. Beth said the same thing.”

“That makes sense. Do those girls talk about boys a lot?”

“No. I think Brett’s the only boy they like as a friend, although Beth did say that both Victor and Jamaal, with what they said and the way they tried to make me aware of ... potential future problems with boys, had shown them that they might not know enough boys well enough to know whether Brett is as much of an exception as they thought he was. They told me they’re not dating this year and wouldn’t decide about next year until after high-school soccer was done, that they were too interested in education and soccer.”

“That’s ... very mature of them. Of course, that shouldn’t surprise me, even though it does, given how mature they are in so many other aspects of their lives.

“Now, about your feelings and your ... sexuality, I guess. Jeff and I agree that ... homosexuality is not, in and of itself, a horrible thing. However, it does make many children’s lives much more difficult, for a lot of reasons, but most of those boiling down to society’s beliefs about and negative reactions to it. Do you remember when your father explained to you about different lifestyles with homosexuality being one of those.” When Civia nodded, her mother continued with, “That is the main reason that we would hope you’re not. Homosexual children have an attempted-suicide rate nearly four times that of heterosexual children. I’m not sure of the exact figure, but it’s something of...” she smiled at Civia... “that order of magnitude. Being a teenager and having to deal with all the angst of changing from a child to an adult is difficult enough, angst-ridden enough, without throwing in homosexuality.

“One of the reasons that we’ve been so willing to allow you to spend so much time with your friends is that you’re so much happier than you were. We had been getting concerned that you would be a teenager that wasn’t particularly happy, and kids like that have a harder time with the transition.

“I can’t ... and your father can’t ... really tell you what your feelings for your friends mean, what your feelings for Beth mean. They’re your feelings, not ours. Because of soccer, you’ve spent time with other girls naked in the shower. If you don’t really think about that, about the naked girls, then you might not be a lesbian ... or, you just haven’t gotten to the point of having a sexual interest in others. It doesn’t help that you had no good friends before these girls and before you approached puberty. Like you noted, you don’t have a basis of comparison. I suggest that you not worry about it, but that you do think about how you react to both boys and girls. Brett becoming part of your circle of friends could provide that basis of comparison that you need. See how things go for a while. Don’t fret about it, as we’ll love you no matter, but your teen years will be easier if you don’t also have to deal with unknown or uncertain sexuality.”

The mother looked over Civia’s head at her husband, a look at which he nodded.

“Civia, I can’t add to that, but I will emphasize that we will love you regardless and would, hopefully, not give you any indication of rejection should you be more interested in girls than boys. We try to be open to those different lifestyles that we told you about and that we’ve experienced with the Williamses. Sandy and Carol certainly seem happy, although we have no idea what their childhoods were like. Bisexuality may be easier to ... handle from the bisexual’s point of view than is homosexuality. I don’t know that, but I can imagine it being so. However, there’s still a lot of public ... difficulty with it. Wherever your ... sexuality goes, we’ll always try to discuss it with you in a sane, unheated manner.”

He looked at her as she looked at him, pondering the words of her parents. After a minute or so, he spoke further.

“Did you want to get back to what you termed that ‘teammates thing’?”

Civia furrowed her brow, then replied, “Mmm, yes, but I think I’d have been better off had I tried harder to have friends among my teammates. I guess I just ... I wanted to be good, really good, and I wasn’t interested in their interests, so I ... I just thought it wasn’t worth it. Perhaps I wouldn’t be confused, now, if I’d have had friends on those teams. I guess that’s all I wanted to say.”

The girl’s father asked, “How was the rest of the sleepover?”

Civia grinned at him and said in a deadpan voice, “It was horrible. I had to put up with an unreasonable number of teenaged girls.”

Although she tried to keep a straight face, she couldn’t quite manage it, grinning widely.

“It was so good. We made sloppy joes on Friday night, and they were so good. Beth added chorizo to the ground beef. It’s so fun cooking with them. Although I really liked hanging with all the girls there on Saturday and Sunday, I liked Friday night best. The other girls are fun, but, except for Meka, I like my premier-team friends best.”

She grinned at her mom, then got a look like she’d remembered something and looked at her fingernails.

“You got your nails done!”

The girl looked at her mother and replied, “We all did. Brit is really good. Look at this. Can you figure out the pattern?”

“I’m not sure I like you getting your nails painted, but it looks well done, at least. No, I don’t see the pattern.”

“It’s a three-step pattern in blue. It starts with the darkest blue on her right pinky and gets progressively paler every third finger with the palest being the left middle finger.”