And so it was for Mandy Callahan, who sat just in front of
me in Mr. Smith’s choir class. On that very day, she wore her skin-tight stretch
denim jeans in bleach white. That was probably a bad omen in itself. Also on
that day, our class had been practicing "One" from the musical
"A Chorus Line" four our Winter Concert. It seemed to fit the
situation quite perfectly.
The choir class sat in a half circle, four rows on four sets
of steps. I fit myself somewhere in the middle of the third row. Mandy was in
the fourth row, along the back wall near the band’s percussion instruments.
“One! Singular sensation!”
Mandy already knew what was about to happen, but she pinched
her knees together and hoped she could just get through the song and make it
through the last ten minutes of class.
“Every little move she makes.”
A growing pressure and pain grew in Mandy’s lower abdomen.
It wasn’t hot or cold. It was just outdoing Mandy, who sucked in her breath,
closed her eyes, and prayed to the puberty gods to let her last ten short
minutes so she could make it to the safety of the girl's restroom at the end of
the hall. Then, she’d be able to solve her little problem.
“One! Thrilling combination, every little step she takes.”
Before the song was over, however, she realized she wouldn’t
be able to last another ten minutes. No, she wouldn’t last even five. She
raised her hand halfway through the song and attempted to flag down Mr. Smith
before it was too late. He held up a single finger, urging her to wait until
the song’s end. The class kept on singing as the pressure in Mandy's belly got
worse and worse, as it crept towards her groin.
“One smile and suddenly nobody else will do!”
Mandy did not even make it five more minutes. In fact, she
didn't even make it another give seconds. She got up and ran out of the class
as soon as she felt the surge, dodging through the chairs and feet in the fourth
row. The front of her pants was already stained with a small reddish-pink
"ut-oh" spot right between both legs. The more she moved, the more it
oozed; there was no stopping it once the flood gates had opened. The mere fact
that Mandy rose from her seat in the middle of a song had alerted the entire
class. Everyone was now staring directly at her.
Children pointed and laughed as she exited the room. It must’ve
echoed in her ears as she ran to the girl’s bathroom at the end of the hall
near the Home Economics class. Still, she survived that teenage trauma, as we
all do. The next day, she returned to class with an entirely different,
entirely unremarkable dress, but the children whispered and gossiped, as we all
do. Still, she survived and each day, the memory of that day faded.
“She walks into a room and you know she’s uncommonly rare…”
Soon, it was just another anecdote of days gone by. That is
just the way with ten-year olds. That is just the way with eleven-year olds,
too. In fact, that is just the way with most anyone of any age. We laugh
because we are thrilled it didn't happen to us. Well, at least it didn’t happen
to us on that day.
“One! Thrilling combination, every little move she makes…
…because she’s a special girl!”
.
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