I often thought of the Cole girls and wonder if they ever made it out alive. For a long time, I thought that my giving them the barrettes, were the reason they were taken from our school. Maybe their parents got mad or something, thinking they’d stolen the barrettes. I confided this to a teacher, who told me not to worry, that was not the cause or the reason. They had bigger problems and this school was not the place or the people who could help them. I remember, in high school, hearing someone say they’d seen Katie Cole down at the mall, that she was loony as ever, and she was pregnant. Someone else speculated as to which one of her male relatives knocked her up…her father, brother, uncle? I remember feeling sick and thinking they were cruel. Turns out they were closer to the truth than they knew and it was then I became aware of sexual abuse and worse, incest. That upset me for months.
My first year of high school was spent at an all girls private school. Run by nuns. It was beyond miserable but we did our best not to let that get in the way. It was populated by the daughters of doctors, lawyers, and rich people. My father worked at the paper mill. We wore uniforms so we’d all be equal but it wasn’t hard to tell who the rich girls were, because they had make-up galore and their hair was always perfect. The rest of us looked like washed out dishrags. On Fridays, dress down day, they had the latest styles in every imaginable color. We shopped at Zellers and Goodwill and it showed. Over time, I got to be friends with some of the older girls. They tolerated me because I was good at running errands for them; and I did, just so I could be accepted…There were six of us. Three of them boarded at the school and the other three, myself include, got to go home everyday. Whatever the older girls did, they always asked me to come along for the ride.
At lunch time, rain, sleet or snow, we got into the habit of going to a little diner, at Leducs shopping center. Just to get away from the nuns for awhile. We basically ate French fries and smoked cigarettes, bitching about zits and periods from hell. The boarders whined about missing their boyfriends back home. We crabbed about boys in general. One winter, during Carnival, we didn’t really want to go back to class, so we dared to stay all afternoon. It was so daring and scary. I felt so grown up, to be with these older girls. They’d done my make-up and styled my hair. I felt so special. On our way back, we tried to come up with excuses as to why we’d been gone all this time. We hit on the idea to tell the old nuns that we’d been “kidnapped” by the guys at St-Lawrence College. Friendly kidnappings were a common occurrence during Carnival. We’d tell them, it happened really quick and the guys let us go when they realized we’d get into trouble. Looking back, I shake my head and wonder. And laugh…Whatever made us think we could get away with such a cockamie idea is beyond me.
The following day, the voice of Sister Reina boomed over the loud speaker no less, requesting that “the six girls who kidnapped themselves, yesterday, please make your way to the principal’s office immediately!” Oh shit…
Next -> Learning Curve
Tags: Goodwill, incest, paper mill, private school, uniforms