The Shaving

Mother called her into the bathroom. She was smiling, and seemed pleased to see her, gesturing for her to sit on the edge of the bathtub. Mother held a razor in her left hand, with the white clap-top into which single razor blades from a red box were put and held in place. She watched as mother maneuvered the hand-held razor around behind her knee and to her shin, gently pivoting her neck to see, while the droplets from her hand caused ripples in the shallow water. Mother dipped the razor into the water, submerged her legs and looked up. She hadn’t needed anything from daughter, it seemed, and was just enjoying her company. But there was no time to sit around when dog and bike were waiting to go speeding to the beach. So daughter checked if she could leave, and went.

The following day at school, daughter and her friend Lucy were walking towards class when Wayne Harbor came towards them and looked daughter up and down. She stood there, looked him up and down back, and finished with a long stare-down into his narrowed, handsome eyes. ‘Whadaya want, hairy legs?’ he goaded. Daughter felt a hot rush of embarrassment to her cheeks before she said, ‘c’mon Luce’ and they walked away. That night, daughter did a logical thing, according to her ten-year-old self, and went into the bathroom to use the white clap-top razor the way she’d seen mother do. That’d show him, hairy legs my hat, she said to herself, and daughter dried her legs with sister’s towel. Half an hour later, she felt uncomfortable and very guilty for some reason. She confided in sister that she’d shaved her legs. Not a big deal, just like eating an egg sandwich she supposed, wasn’t it? Sister stared at her, eyes moving down to daughter’s shins, and inhaled with a gasp. ‘Hoh you’re going to get in trouble for that’, and slinked away. That night, mother walked into the room where daughter was in bed. She walked slowly, looking sternly while daughter tried hiding half her face under the covers. ‘Hmmm’, she puffed, a snarl forming on her top lip, ‘Shaving your legs, at ten years of age! You’ll regret that!’ and mother left.

The next day at school, daughter sobbed uncontrollably all through class. Kind Miss Primavera asked her over and over what the matter was. Could she help? The nicer she was, the more daughter sobbed and cried and sobbed and hyperventilated with sadness. There was nothing Miss Primavera could do, nor daughter say, to clarify her predicament. She just felt terrible, awfully ashamed and regretful of her folly. If only she could go back in time, appease mother’s terrible opinion of her; her lowly daughter, a little hussy. While the class was occupied with some equations, Miss Primavera came over, put her hands on daughter’s shoulders and said, ‘take this pen, write down what you’re feeling, write anything at all, and you’ll feel better afterward’. Daughter looked up at teacher’s kind face through tear-soaked eyes, took the pen, pressed the page of the copybook down and began to write. A shroud of peaceful deep thought enrobed her for some time, and daughter composed a poem: four stanzas of beautiful rhyme amid horse gallops and never thought of her hairy legs again.