Member-only story
THE NARRATIVE ARC
Seventh Grade Sensuality
There’s nothing like fulfilling the promise of discovery
In the seventh grade, we were allowed to ride our bikes from school to Laura Stanton’s makeshift “clubhouse” in her garage. We spent hundreds of hours telling stories, experimenting with liquor we mixed together from our parents’ cabinets, and falling madly in love with each other.
Boys and girls together
The language of boys captivated me with its energy, its blunt humor and its pure bullshit. Girl talk was all analyzing people, telling secrets, and cultivating the fine art of bitchiness.
I fell in love with Ben McCarthy in that garage. He was smart, tall and athletic. The trifecta. Even though I hated sports, I would watch him on any playing field. But it was the snowfall of freckles on his face that made me crazy. On nights when sleep came hard, I tried to do a full count of them.
My fantasy life consisted of kissing him. I watched TV actresses and imitated them in my mirror. No luck. The myth of the predatory male frustrated my friends as well. We shared the understanding that it was the boy who should made the “first move.”
If a girl jumped the appropriate order, she was saddled with odd words like “slut,” a…
