Girabella

Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

• Girabella
• Maeve Barry (bio)

When my school friends play, they pretend to be mothers. I pretend to be God. Or I put a blanket over my head and imagine I birthed His son. I carry plastic babies by their arms like they’re skinned kittens. I never once think about parenting. I think about angels rejoicing. My image emblazoned on hundreds of thousands of gold pendants. Dangled on little girls’ necks, thickly fingered on hairy men’s rosaries. The girls at school do not understand this. I don’t know if Girabella does. She hasn’t really said. She lets me act like God when we play; she has no ideas or opinions about my stories. She just sits there until I say what comes next.

I love Girabella because she lets me do what I want with her hair and her face. She wasn’t at all angry when I took my scissors to her hair. My mother was angry about the gold clumps that I sheared, which haven’t grown back. Girabella understands that the choppy haircut was not a result of my lacking ability but my strong sense of what is in fashion. [End Page 280]

She just lies there on her side with her new hair on the couch, like the lady in the picture of a painting that hangs above our piano. A harem painting, my dad told me, of a dead-eyed lady. Pale, also on her side, on a red and orange velvety sofa. That’s not what the painting’s about, my mother said, and she is the one who chose and then hung it. She said she and my father like the picture of the painting for different reasons. Really they just say the same reason differently.

Girabella is a perfect friend because we are the same height. We don’t waste time standing back-to-back and debating half inches. But she is lighter, so I can lift her. People watch from the sand while I swing Girabella’s legs through the brown water. They watch and they think I am generous. Such a good friend, who is willing to forgo attention. All I want is attention.

Why can’t you try acting like Girabella, my mother said one night at dinner. Girabella was quietly sitting at the table. Blankly staring and not eating until she was reminded. I’d been pretty loud—loud like the whole rest of the harem painting, apart from the dead-looking lady—singing a song I’d tried to teach Girabella. She couldn’t master the harmonies, so I sang all the parts, sliding my voice up and down through vocal registers and ending up very loud. I cried when neither my parents nor Girabella clapped at the end. I cried and then, like we always do this summer, me and my mom fought about American Girl dolls. I want one so badly. How can I learn to be God if I don’t hold any sway over the girls of His chosen country? My mother says they are too expensive and that I should learn to be grateful.

Some parents of the kids in my class wanted to arm school security. The school said no, so the parents started a GoFundMe. They made all the money and then some off the internet. I’m not allowed to use the internet without adult supervision. I told my stupidest babysitter that I needed the internet for a school project, [End Page 281] which she believed, which is insane, as I am in the first grade. I told her I needed to set up a GoFundMe for the animals. She didn’t even ask me what kind. I had planned to say bears. I had her register an account then said I couldn’t write with her looking. I set up the page to raise money to buy Kirsten—the Swedish doll, who looks the most like me, who is a Christian. I looked over my work. I seemed to be privileged and motivationally lacking. I added that I was an orphan who also had kid cancer.

As a punishment, the only friend I’m...