Big Mouth Ugly Girl Read online

  Sure, I knew people talked about me behind my back. My mom and dad. My classmates, even my so-called friends. Pushing along the corridor at school, entering the cafeteria—I saw the eyes, I heard the whispers, muffled laughter. Ursula! Ugly Ursula. I knew, and I didn’t care. As long as they stayed out of my way, right?

  A Fiery Red mood was great for basketball—Ugly Girl really burned up the court—but an Inky Black wasn’t so good. An Inky Black meant that my feet were concrete blocks, and where my eyes used to be, there were these broken little pieces of glass that hurt. I tried to avoid the Inky Blacks by slinking away and drawing in my notebook, charcoal sketches of invented people or scenes of my favorite place, the Rocky River Nature Preserve, or if I needed a desperate remedy I’d go running, for miles, in the nature preserve, running-running-running in any kind of weather until I practically collapsed. Ugly Girl, run to earth. But it felt good, mostly.

  I hated changing clothes in the locker room, which was a lonely place for me, an awkward place; I’d get almost as self-conscious about my body as I’d been in eighth grade, and the other girls giggling and whispering together, like in a weird way they were all sisters, and closer to my sister Lisa than they’d ever be to me. But as soon as I shut my locker and ran out into the gym, onto the basketball court, where every smell was so right, and the glare of the overhead lights on the polished floor, I could feel the Fiery Red coming up. Here was my place! I loved basketball, and if my teammates played well, if they passed the ball to Ugly Girl to score, and didn’t trip over their own feet too much, I loved them, too—or anyway liked them.

  “Hey. You weren’t bad, you guys. Thanks.”

  These words Ugly Girl had been known to mutter, after just a few games. The Rocky River team was thrilled to hear them, even those girls who hated their captain’s guts.

  Then it happened. This jinxed game with our archrivals Tarrytown.

  It was a Thursday afternoon in January, our first game of the new year, at home, and right away I saw that my team wasn’t behind me. Even my stronger players were clumsy and slow, leaving me unprotected at crucial moments. Every time I sank a basket and brought Rocky River ahead, one of the girls messed up, lost the ball, and Tarrytown leaped ahead. My own team was sabotaging me! Tarrytown was one of the most competitive girls’ basketball teams in the district—they’d beaten us in the district play-offs last year, maybe they were out-psyching us? But not Ursula Riggs. I was hot to play. In my maroon jersey and shorts, my body thrumming with excitement, I had unlimited energy—ready to ignite! Fiery Red had been building up for hours, now the fire was flaring up, up into my skull, and the more baskets I scored, the more I wanted to score. Even people who disliked Ugly Girl had to concede I was hot, and applauded my moves.

  What pissed me: The game hadn’t drawn much of a crowd from the school. There were almost as many Tarrytown supporters as Rocky River supporters—and they were loud in their enthusiasm for their team. We had maybe one twentieth of the Friday-evening crowds that turned out for the guys’ games, and the irony was we were better than the guys, on a winning streak while the guys had lost as many as they’d won. We deserved more respect than we were getting. My mother hadn’t showed up, either, when she’d halfway promised she might “drop in.” Mom had even planned on bringing Lisa—“If our schedules work out.” Still, we did have supporters, spread out on the bleachers, and the team owed them a good game.

  Maybe a few times I lost my temper and said some sharp things to the girls, and they resented it, and by the final quarter nobody was speaking to me, or even looking at me if they could help it. The score was 28–27, Tarrytown ahead; it was 30–31, Rocky River ahead; it was 33–30, Tarrytown ahead. (Of Rocky River’s points, Ugly Girl must’ve scored all but four or five.) As the game neared its end, we were sweating, and panting, and exhausted, and I’d gotten a little rough with two or three of the Rocky River girls—“accidentally.” It made me see red that the Tarrytown girls were rallying, playing together like a real team, scoring points that roused cheers and whistles from their supporters while ours sat sullen and dissatisfied. Tarrytown went into the lead by six points after a stupid blunder by our “star” guard, and during a break I told Ms. Schultz I was quitting, and she snapped at me, oh no you don’t, Ursula, don’t you dare, if you quit I’ll have you expelled. Schultz was the only one who wouldn’t take shit from Ugly Girl, she was one tough woman I had to respect. So I splashed cold water onto my burning face and went back into the game, and for a few minutes we managed to keep Tarrytown from scoring. By sheer luck I snatched the ball from the Tarrytown star forward, a dark-skinned African-American girl my height and size, and I was charged with adrenaline running down the court when suddenly, it was like being struck by lightning, I was tripped by somebody’s foot, and falling, falling hard, my right knee striking the floor, and the ball was snatched from me and passed to the Tarrytown forward, who runs, leaps like a gazelle, and scores, easy as a knife cutting into soft butter. From their side of the gym, cheers; from our side, groans. My face is burning, I know everyone is blaming me. Because Ugly Girl played so well until now, it looks as if she’s coasting, or hanging back. I’m running, limping. I’m shouting for the ball. My right knee is throbbing with pain, both my knees are weak as water. What’s happening to me? I never look toward the bleachers, but I’m seeing the derisive eyes, jeering faces, hands mock clapping. The Rocky River kids are yelling at me, I can almost hear them—“Ursula! Ug-ly Ur-sula!” Their faces are blurred as if they’re underwater, or maybe it’s sweat running into my eyes and stinging. A terrible sick feeling churns in my stomach. The way I felt years ago at a swim meet when I froze at the edge of the diving board, just stopped cold, and there was dead silence, and I bit my lower lip trying not to cry as finally I turned and walked away, to my shame and humiliation. But this is Ugly Girl. This is not a scared eighth grader.

  I throw myself back into the game, the last minutes are ticking by, I’m leaping for the ball as it flies overhead. And I’ve got it! Even with my blurred eyes, my shaky legs, I’ve got it. Even as I’m tasting vomit at the back of my mouth. People are screaming at me, I’m about to score, but suddenly the ball is stolen from me, now I’m desperate to reclaim it, running, skidding, breathing through my mouth like a winded horse. I’m tripped again—but refuse to fall. I’m running, beneath the basket, a clear shot, I send the ball spinning a fraction of an inch from the rim so it strikes the backboard, damn it, at the wrong angle, and ricochets back, and a fantastically high-jumping Tarrytown guard grabs it and runs down the court, passes it to the forward, who scores. The game is almost over. The gym is deafening with cheers, boos, whistles, applause, and foot stamping. Ugly Girl is reeling, knees like water. What has happened to Ugly Girl? There’s a collision of several girls, grunts and thuds, I’m sprawling on the floor writhing in pain, biting my lower lip to keep it in. Thank God for the referee’s whistle—“Foul!”

  Suddenly facing the basket, at the foul line. How many times I’ve practiced foul shots here in the gym, coached by Ms. Schultz, I can do them in my sleep. I can do them blind. Except, suddenly, I’m trembling. I’m scared I will be sick to my stomach. I’m scared the ball isn’t my friend this afternoon, but my enemy. This game is jinxed and Ugly Girl is jinxed. There are titters from the bleachers. In my hazy vision I can see Ms. Schultz’s tense face. The Tarrytown team in blue jerseys and the Rocky River team in maroon are staring hard at me, in that instant I can read their thoughts: Ugly Girl, fail! We hate you. And Ugly Girl is scared. Her uniform is soaked in sweat, she can smell her panicked body. She bounces the ball a few times to psych herself up. As if nothing is wrong. Carefully she grips the ball in both hands, curves it in toward her chest and up, and out—the ball flies to the backboard, strikes it hard, and bounces harmlessly off.

  Titters, groans. Silence.

  Ugly Girl swallows down vomit. Ugly Girl stands favoring her left leg. Ugly Girl bounces the ball again, one, two, three—and again throws. Shutting her eyes
like a beginner.

  The second shot falls short.

  Ugly Girl strikes out.

  I hear waves of boos, anger, and disgust from my teammates, I see Schultz’s look of fury. There’s no mistaking the message I’m being sent.

  They think I lost the game for Rocky River on purpose.

  THREE

  LIFE CONSISTS OF FACTS, AND FACTS ARE OF two kinds: Boring, and Crucial.

  I figured this out for myself in eighth grade. Wish I could patent it!

  A Boring Fact is virtually any fact that doesn’t concern you. Or it’s just trivial, a nothing fact. (Like the annual rainfall in, let’s say, Bolivia. Crucial to the Bolivians, but Boring to everyone else.)

  I know the Crucial Facts of Ugly Girl’s life are Boring Facts to others. Yet, to Ugly Girl, they are Crucial.

  There’s one test of a Crucial Fact: It hurts.

  “I didn’t. I didn’t screw up on purpose. But if you want to think I did, Ms. Schultz, think it!”

  The way I uttered Mzzzzz, it was a snarl.

  I ran limping from the gym, into the locker room. I would hide in the farthest shower, like a dog licking its wounds.

  Ugly Girl, sabotaging her own team.

  Ugly Girl, we’ll never forgive you.

  Could I blame them? Maybe they were right.

  I turned the hot water on hot as I could bear. Burn, burn! Ugly Girl, a traitor to Rocky River. The water was scalding, steaming. Maybe my skin would turn pink like a lobster’s and peel off.

  The remainder of the game, two or three minutes, had passed like a dream. Rocky River lost by three points. Ms. Schultz gripped my shoulder like her fingers were pinchers. “Ursula. I’d like to speak with you.”

  I had fled the gym. The sullen hateful faces. Tarrytown’s exulting, screaming supporters.

  Yes: The outcome of any sporting event is a Very Boring Fact to all persons not involved with the sporting event.

  But it is a Crucial Fact to those involved.

  I would not quickly forget the shiny-faced girls glaring at me. Ms. Schultz among them. My eyes were stinging with tears. But I would give none of my accusers the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

  In the shower, the hot tears spilled out. Or maybe it was just the hot, hot water streaming down my face.

  How was it my fault, that we lost the game? When I’d scored most of the points?

  Yes, but you know: It is your fault.

  You wanted to punish them. And yourself.

  I would quit the team! They hated Ursula Riggs—let them see how they would do without me.

  Maybe I would transfer to another school. A private school in Manhattan.

  It was an easy commute. Dad commuted—maybe I could ride with him.

  I let the shower run cold, icy cold. To punish. My teeth chattering and skin puckered in goose bumps.

  I hid in the farthest shower. The other girls knew I was there, I could hear their voices and sullen, sardonic laughter at a distance. Not once did I hear the name “Ursula,” but I’m sure I heard “she”—“her”—repeated numerous times, in tones of disgust.

  I heard locker doors being slammed, hard. No one called out to me, to say good-bye.

  Not even Bonnie LeMoyne, who I’d thought was sort of my friend.

  Not even Ms. Schultz, who must’ve known what I was feeling.

  It wasn’t my fault! Please believe me.

  Like oil spillage, an Inky Black mood was oozing up into my skin. The exulting Fiery Red had quickly faded, on the basketball court. When I’d been tripped, and fallen. Ugly Girl, down.

  I would live and relive the closing minutes of the Tarrytown game, I knew. Like my recurring nightmare of freezing—in public—at the swim meet in eighth grade.

  At least this time Mom wasn’t in the audience to be shocked, disappointed.

  At least Mom hadn’t brought Lisa to witness her big sister’s humiliation.

  It was a relief, actually, that Dad never came to watch me play any sports. He’d missed most of the swim meets, and there was never much pretense he could take time off from work to see my high school games. Even if Dad wasn’t out of the country on business, he was consumed by work in New York. He was CEO of the Drummond Corporation on Park Avenue, Manhattan, which had branches in London, Paris, Rome, Frankfurt, Tokyo, and Buenos Aires.

  Of course, Dad had time to see Lisa dance in The Nutcracker last month.

  But that’s different. Ballerinas are beautiful to watch. Not sweaty, grunting, ugly.

  Dad was always asking me, “How’re things going, Ursula?” with a frowning smile and that special concern in his eyes that made me want to believe he was truly interested, but I’d long ago learned not to tell him anything genuine, let alone in detail, because his eyes would glaze over, he’d get restless, glancing around for Mom to rescue him. Almost anything I said, he’d say, “Swell, honey! Sounds good. Keep it up.”

  Did I blame my dad? No. I knew there was nothing in my life of genuine interest or importance. I was a Boring Fact. Sure, Dad would care, Dad would care a lot, when I began to apply for college, but that wasn’t until next year. (Though he’d been talking about “my daughter Ursula” going to Harvard, where he’d gone. Harvard: the Number One Cliché.) In the meantime, Dad had his own life. It didn’t involve even Mom much anymore. He was Clayton Riggs, Clay to his friends, a busy, important man. Workaholic, and proud of it. There were kids at Rocky River High whose dads worked for my dad at Drummond, which was kind of embarrassing. Dad’s truest life was elsewhere, not confined to our six-bedroom white colonial in Rocky River, even if that house was his and Mom’s “dream house” on three acres of prime real estate.

  Sure, I’d cared when I was younger. Before I was Ugly Girl.

  By the time I left the shower, the locker room was dead silent. I toweled my hair dry over a sink. Combed out snarls with swift, fierce tugs of my steel comb. Avoiding my reflection in the mirror. My skin was reddened from the water but I was feeling a little better. I’d scoured away my rage and hurt. No one had seen Ugly Girl cry, and no one ever would.

  Ugly Girl stands alone.

  The locker room was a safe place, deserted. I liked the special smells, the steamy warmth. I didn’t have to not-hear the other girls talking and laughing together, sharing secrets. I didn’t have to notice them falling silent when I dialed my lock combination, and banged open my locker the way I usually did.

  When I got home, Mom would smile guiltily at me and ask how was the game and in the same breath apologize for missing it and I would say the game was OK, Mom, you didn’t miss much. So her guilty smile could fade. So she could fuss over pretty sparrow-boned Lisa.

  Still, I had to go home. I couldn’t hide in the damned locker room all night.

  I dressed quickly, carelessly. Throwing on clothes. My jeans I’d been wearing for weeks, and a loose-fitting black-flannel (man’s) shirt. Sometimes, out of perversity, I wore a loose-fitting white (man’s) shirt, for a funky-formal look. A row of gold studs in my right earlobe. Though scorning style, Ugly Girl had style. In ninth grade I’d “tattooed” on my left biceps, in colored inks, a mean-looking snake coiled about the motto don’t tread on me, which caused a sensation at school until I was made to wash it off.

  Everywhere I could, I wore my soiled old Mets cap.

  It drove my mom crazy. Even my dad, who liked baseball, winced.

  “At least the Yankees, honey? Why the Mets?”

  If you have to ask, Dad, you won’t ever know.

  It was late, past five o’clock. A thundery-dark winter sky outside. By now Rocky River High would be mostly deserted, I thought. (I hoped.) Sports events and practices and club meetings would be over, the school buses would be gone. It was strange to be the last one leaving the locker room; usually I was the first. When we won a game, there was a giddy, celebratory feeling—which Ugly Girl shared in, to a degree. But only briefly. Then I’d walk out, alone. Not even waiting for Bonnie. I liked being the first to leave. I knew they would be prai
sing my performance, regardless of what they thought of me. But tonight everything was weird. It was like the world had turned inside out. I had a sickish flash of myself standing tall and gawky and trembling at the foul line, the basketball (that should’ve been my friend but was my enemy) gripped in my sweaty hands. All those eyes on me. Ug-ly Ur-sula! They’d wanted me to fail, and I had.

  “It wasn’t my fault. It was not.”

  I wanted to shout this in Ms. Schultz’s face.

  I refused to be one of those neurotic girls who make themselves sick feeling guilty for what isn’t their fault.

  Still, I didn’t much want to leave the locker room. Where it was safe. I could see why a wounded animal creeps away to hide. My knee was hurting again, and all my bones felt cracked. My guts swirled with that sick flu feeling. Maybe it was only flu? I hoped so, not the symptoms of an Inky Black mood coming on.

  Ugly Girl! We’ll never forgive you.

  “Ursula? Did you hear—?”

  It was Bonnie LeMoyne calling to me.

  I was leaving school and surprised to see so many people standing by the rear entrance, talking together in lowered, excited voices. What was this? Bonnie, and other girls from the team. Even Ms. Schultz. People who’d been at the game. And others. At first I thought there’d been an accident out in the parking lot.

  Bonnie waved and called out to me like nothing was wrong.

  “Did I hear what? What’s going on?” I asked.

  Bonnie said, “Nobody knows, for sure. A bomb—”

  “A bomb?”

  “Well, maybe.”

  There was a rumor that a bomb threat had been called in to the school that afternoon. Or maybe an actual bomb had been discovered in the cafeteria, or—the library? A boy said he’d heard that the bomb—“a pipe bomb”—had been found in a custodian’s closet near the gym. “When? When was this?” I asked skeptically. “Wouldn’t our game have been called, and the school evacuated?” But no one paid much attention to me. They were talking all at once, their faces glowing. Some senior girls joined us with the news: They’d just heard that a boy, a junior, had brought a handgun to school, or—a .22 rifle?—or maybe it was a machine gun that could spray hundreds of bullets in a few seconds? Someone said he’d heard that the boy had been arrested, taken out of his fifth-period class by armed cops. “In Rocky River High? Armed cops?” We were all astonished. Here the girls’ basketball team had been playing Tarrytown, oblivious of such an emergency! A perverse kind of elation passed through us, like an electric current. I was talking with people I hardly knew. Ms. Schultz was in the group, and talking with me, too, as if she hadn’t been disgusted with me an hour before.