Matriarchs by Sarah Stubbs

PROLOGUE

I want a yoga instructor with boobs. Real boobs, not those piss-poor B cups; not even C or D will do, although that’s progress. No, I need a yoga instructor with great flapping double F’s, the kind of boobs that make you hot in summer but keep you warm in winter, the kind you have to lift to scrub the sweat out from under them, the kind where you fold a blanket into the creases beneath them to prevent sweatiness in the underboob. 

Mom complains that I’m getting my body odors on her favorite cashmere blanket. (Whichever blanket I use to mop my underboob is always her favorite blanket.) “Put on a bra like a civilized person, Danielle.” I want a yoga instructor who will call me Dani, not Danielle Meredith or Young Lady or No One Will Think You’re a Nice Young Woman When You Dress Like That. 

And no, I don’t say “breasts” like Mr. Tucher, my U.S. History teacher who turned bright red when I raised my hand and asked if Bill Clinton ever saw Monica Lewinsky naked, or if she just sucked his dick. 

“It’s completely inappropriate for an eighth grader to know about that,” Mr. Tucher said once we were in the principal’s office, starting to look as dark as an eggplant. I wonder what color he would turn if I texted him one. I wonder what his number is. His acne scars always blush first before the rest of his face. 

One week of detention. Still, they’re not BrEaStS. They’re boobs. 

I want this yoga instructor to be top heavy when she does balance poses like half-moon and warrior three, so that she has to use her foot as a counterweight for her great swaying tatas. Maybe this zaftig instructor even has to double bag with her sports bras because no one bra could sufficiently support the girls. (She wouldn’t call them “girls”: these precipitous curves could never be described in such an infantile way. We would deem them Matriarchs.) 

How could a person with small tits understand the lusty passion of flinging yourself into warrior two, mammaries heaving, or the thrilling terror of arching upside down into wheel pose and seeing your own cleavage plunge towards your face? Boobs are an expression in themselves; all accessories point toward them, the capstone of every outfit, the body’s thesis. The audience might think boobs monologue, but they actually soliloquize. They gesture grandly, though the ultimate audience is themselves. 

I thought of all this in drama class, as we studied lines from Pygmalion. I wish I could lose weight in drama, because then Mom might let plays be my extracurricular instead of yoga. At our school each kid is required to choose an extracurricular. Mom says it’s part of the high-quality education she pays for, even though yoga isn’t through the school, so I happen to know she pays extra for it. 

When I told my best friend Haley that Mom’s paying for me to do yoga two times a week, she blinked, like when she saw our house’s extra playroom where I keep my old toys ever since my bedroom got cluttered. “Your family is so rich,” Haley says, then looks ashamed, like she insulted me. Haley attends our private middle school on scholarship. I don’t know why I would be embarrassed about my family having money, though. Rich is better than poor. 

Anyway, Mom and I have an Agreement that if I commit to yoga for three months, I can audition for the after-school play, instead of only taking the class during the school day. Auditions for Pygmalion are next week, which is also the three-month mark. 

It’s not that I don’t like yoga. I like when Emily or Sarah or Amanda or any of the other twig-thin instructors tell me to breathe deeply and envision the light within myself. I like trying not to fall over during balance poses, and I like it when I do fall over because the ladies in the class laugh. I like it when Emily Sarah Amanda says utkatasana? or savasana? and her vocal fry makes the Sanskrit sound as flat as English. I like pretending I’m meditating in savasana when I’m really thinking about what part I might get in Pygmalion, or what to tell Haley on the phone after dinner. I like it best when I fall asleep during savasana. Eighth grade is tiring, and yoga is tiring, but going home is the most tiring of all. 

 
SCENE I

I’m meditating at the beginning of class, the part where Emily Sarah Amanda tells us to breathe all the way from the base of our stomach up to our inner eye. I always keep my actual eyes open even though she tells us to close them. When I close my eyes I see a roiling cloud of gray and black, and I feel as though I might disappear into that tempest, and once I am no longer visible, I will be nothing. 

So instead I look around at the middle-aged women taking the class super seriously, like if they breathe enough into their inner eyes their cellulite will go away and their husbands will stop sleeping with their assistants. During the rest of the class while we all sweat, trying to hold a high crescent lunge for one more breath, I can forget I’m decades younger than anyone else. During the warmup I can’t forget about that, because I need to keep my eyes open. So I don’t like the warmup. 

But it’s during the warmup, while I secretly stare at everyone, that I notice Mr. Tucher, my U.S. History teacher, in my class today. He’s looking back at me too. And he is NOT happy about it. 

Suddenly I love the warmup. 

Mr. Tucher hardly looks older than a high schooler. He has thick glasses and wispy hair receding into two points above his forehead. But he also has bright blue eyes and a square chin. Once he got so excited talking about the Civilian Conservation Corps that he got all flushed and his voice cracked, and Haley leaned over to me and whispered, “He looks like he’s about to jizz.” Then we couldn’t stop giggling, but Mr. Tucher was having a good day so he didn’t yell at us too much. 

The few men who come to my class are always obsessed with yoga and can warp themselves into boggling headstands and arm balances. The middle-aged ladies and I watch them, flabbergasted at their contortions, and also trying to see the outline of their junk in their tights. However, Mr. Tucher is wearing weird basketball shorts and an undershirt that already looks damp at the beginning of class. When we make eye contact, his acne scars turn crimson like a swollen constellation in his pores. He looks away, then sneaks his eyes back to see whether I’m still looking at him. I am. 

“Breathe IN through your nose, RISE the breath all the way to your forehead, HOLD it until you can’t anymore,” says Emily Sarah Amanda, looking at her phone. 

Mr. Tucher jerks his head toward the instructor and grimaces at me, as if to say, Pay attention! And because he’s a teacher, I close my eyes, although it takes all my concentration not to giggle. 

“Now open your mouth wide and sigh it all out,” says Emily Sarah Amanda. 

It’s soon apparent that Mr. Tucher is not one of the Yoga Obsessed Men. He can’t even touch his toes, and when he tries to do warrior two, his legs are only two feet apart, like he can’t lunge any deeper. Sweat plasters his wispy hairs to his skull. When Emily Sarah Amanda cues half-moon pose, Mr. Tucher almost falls onto the lady next to him, who gives him an overly encouraging smile. 

At the end of class, Emily Sarah Amanda adjusts her shirt, which is the fashionable kind: a tight crop top with a built-in bra. I tried one on a few weeks ago, but the built-in bra wasn’t supportive enough. Mom claims I’m a B cup; I think C bras feel better. She said that no matter what size I am, I am not allowed to have that revealing top. I don’t want it anyway, I said, it doesn’t work for C cups, look how the girls are bouncing up and down. And Mom said, don’t talk about your body that way, Danielle, that’s disgusting. 

But Emily Sarah Amanda can wear those little tops because she has yoga boobs. “Now it’s time for the hardest position in yoga,” she says. 

She means savasana, when we lie on our backs and she turns down the lights and changes the playlist from Taylor Swift remixes to pan flute folk. It’s supposed to be meditation time where you focus on the light within you and all that stuff. But today I don’t doze off like usual. I don’t even think about Pygmalion. 

As soon as savasana is over, I’m crumpling up my yoga mat before Emily Sarah Amanda can finish saying, “The light, the student, and the teacher within me honors the light, the student, and the teacher within you.” (My yoga instructor—the one with the boobs—would end class with something better. “You rocked it today, ladies and single sweat-drenched gentleman!” or maybe, “Today you burned enough calories that you can stop for a peanut butter milkshake on the way home, and I’ll give you that in writing so you can convince your mom.”) 

The only one trying to leave class faster than me is Mr. Tucher. He snatches up the cork blocks he used for stretching and rushes to the prop room. When I push open the door behind him, he looks up and twitches, like he’s not surprised to see me, but he’s still upset about it. 

Mr. Tucher doesn’t like me because of what I said about Monica Lewinsky. But when your boss is the President, and he wants you to suck his dick, what else are you supposed to do? That’s why I wanted to know if Bill Clinton saw her naked. If he saw her boobs, it would be like he had all of her, like she had nothing left for her own. 

But I guess he got the last laugh, since Bill is known for humanitarianism and economic expansion, and Monica is just known for sucking his dick. 

“Hi, Mr. Tucher,” I say, beaming. He shrinks back against the rack of blocks, as if I’m liable to pounce. 

“Hi, Dani,” he says. “Do you… come here often?” Then he cringes. 

“Two times a week. Until Mom says I can stop, anyway.” I take a step closer. In the small room his sweat smells like expired yogurt, musty and sharp. I add, “I’m pretty good at yoga. Did you see? Mom even made me keep coming here during the week you gave me detention.” 

“I did not give you detention. You caused that yourself,” he says, and straightens as if reminding himself he’s the adult in the room, gosh darn it. 

“Are you going to keep coming to yoga class?” I ask. 

He mumbles something about how I am enough of a handful at school without showing up in his private life too. I am too focused on my next line to listen. I don’t know what makes me say it. Maybe it’s because I want him to like me. After I got the detention, Mom told me that nice boys could never be interested in me because of how I behave. Mr. Tucher seems like the kind of boy Mom would say is “nice.” 

“I liked having you here today,” I say. And I stick out my chest. 

That’s when it happens. His eyes flick down to my boobs. They’re imprisoned in the double sports bras Mom makes me wear, which are so tight they force a fissure of cleavage to peek out. 

I didn’t know how easy it would be, to make him look at them. He’s not some creepy guy on the street, but a real person who admires FDR and who shakes each of our hands when we walk through his classroom door. It makes me feel feral, like I want to shriek and shove all the blocks off the shelves. But it also makes me sad, because it means I’m not a nice girl. 

Mr. Tucher’s gaze only rests on my boobs for an instant. Then he closes his eyes, his face redder than I’d thought possible. His fingers trace a jagged little shape on his temple. 

“Dani… please just let me out,” he says, and I feel a hot, curdling shame I cannot understand. 

 
SCENE II

In class the next day, Mr. Tucher shakes my hand like usual, but keeps his eyes way above my head. When I tell Haley about it at lunch, she is unimpressed. “He looked at your boobs. So? Boys do that to me all the time.”

I don’t believe this because Haley’s barely even an A cup. She only started wearing bras earlier this year. But we have more important issues to discuss than her yoga-sized titlets. 

“But he’s, like, a whole adult,” I say. “Who teaches eighth graders all day.” 

“So?” Haley says again. “He’s a dude. His unhealthy love for the New Deal doesn’t make him any less of a dude.” She glances toward the teacher supervising our half of the lunchroom, then leans toward me over her tray. “Was he, like, so awkward in yoga?” 

“He got as sweaty as your chicken sandwich,” I say, and we giggle, recoiling from her slimy sandwich next to the puddled coleslaw and warm carton of milk. Haley gets the free school-provided lunch every day, while Mom makes my lunch for me. Today I brought quinoa and tempeh with steamed kale. It could be decent with cheese, but Mom wants me to avoid dairy, too. My lunch’s taste and texture resembles a bite of wet grass. Mr. Tucher once told our class that in old times, being chubby was a sign of wealth and beauty. That’s another thing I wish I could get in writing for Mom. 

“I can never decide whether I think Mr. Tucher is gross or hot,” Haley says, eating the top bun off her sandwich. “I would give my mom’s whole paycheck to see him doing yoga.” 

That’s what gives me the idea. 

I don’t tell Haley about it right away, though. Instead, I say around a bite of clammy quinoa, “It was both gross and hot.” 

“Hot-gross. Or gross-hot,” Haley says, and we laugh so hard that we spray out bites of our lunches, and the teacher on duty makes us get napkins from the front of the cafeteria and wipe down the table. 

Later, while Emily Sarah Amanda is busy talking to one of the Yoga Obsessed Men (this one with arms far thicker than his legs), I look at the tablet she uses to check us in. The signup list for the class Mr. Tucher attended includes his home address. 

The next day after class and extracurriculars, Haley and I meet in the park near our school. Mom says Haley’s neighborhood isn’t safe because Haley lives in a trailer park. Haley claims they’re only there until her stepdad gets a job, but she’s lived there all of middle school. 

Fresh out of volleyball practice, Haley is still wearing those tight shorts that give you a camel toe. “So what are we doing?” she demands. 

“A reconnaissance mission,” I say, all slow and cool, like in a spy movie. 

Thinking about Mr. Tucher is like a bruise I can’t stop pressing. Turns out his house isn’t very interesting, though. We only have to walk a few blocks before we find it, on a street lined with vinyl-sided split-level houses, each a slightly different shade of ash gray. 

“Cookie cutter-ass place,” Haley mutters, and I have to agree that at least her trailer has personality. 

“This is the one,” I say. 

Mr. Tucher’s house is colored medium ash and sports a rocking chair on the front porch. The grass is cut neatly but there isn’t any of what Mom would call landscaping. We cross the lawn bent low, even though there’s nothing to hide under. Stifling our giggles, we peek into the front window. It’s dim inside. All we can see is a small kitchen with a microwave on the counter. A few unwashed dishes languish in the sink. 

“Ooohhh, dirty boy,” I say, and Haley laughs through her hands until she snorts, and we clutch each other’s arms and fall onto our butts. 

Then we creep around the edge of the house to look for another window, humming the Mission Impossible theme. When we pop up to look in the side window, I make goggles around my eyes with my hands and she slaps my arm and I slap back. We are cackling so hard we barely look in the window. It’s just a normal, empty living room anyway. No Mr. Tucher. We keep tiptoeing around the house, even though we see no one else outside in this blank neighborhood. Nothing moves in Mr. Tucher’s house, although a few lights are on. The Netflix home screen is open on a TV, and we squint to see what’s in his Continue Watching section, but we can’t tell. 

“He must be here,” I mutter to Haley as we round the corner to the front again. “Let’s ring the doorbell.” 

“And say what if he comes to the door?” she says, then adopts a breathy voice. “Wanna do yoga together, just the three of us?” 

“Shut up,” I say, but I stand in front of the door and peer through the small vertical window next to it. That’s when I see him! He’s standing in the kitchen, facing away from the door. He’s wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt with holes in it, his hair like ruffled feathers. He clutches a phone to his ear. Then he turns and sees me through the window. I say, “Haley Haley Haley. He sees me.” 

She doesn’t respond for so long I turn to her, but she isn’t looking at me. She’s staring toward the street, looking petrified. 

And walking up the driveway is Mom. 

 
SCENE III

“Acting like that in a nice neighborhood,” Mom snarls, chopping a pillow so viciously I expect feathers to fly. When she’s angriest, she does Violent Cleaning. “I pay a lot of money for you to go to that school, Danielle, and if you took it seriously it could really set you up in life. But instead, what do you do? You stalk your teacher.” 

After she got Mr. Tucher’s call and came to find us—apparently Mr. Tucher has her number because they have had conferences about my behavior—Mom was so angry she barely spoke. Not a single “Danielle Meredith.” She just whispered, “In,” and pointed at the car. Then she dropped Haley off at her house and we drove home in silence. Now I huddle on the couch while she cleans around me, like it’s me she wants to chop instead of the pillows. 

“Embarrassing me is like a hobby for you. That’s your real extracurricular, isn’t it? Why can’t you act more like Mary Ellen?” 

For years, Mom has been trying to make me play Model UN with my cousin Mary Ellen and her horde of collectible teddy bears. 

“We just wanted to know more about Mr. Tucher,” I mutter, pulling at a loose thread in the couch cushion. Mom slaps my hand away. 

“Was this Haley’s idea or yours?” 

“I thought of it. Haley was just—” 

“Do you want to end up like Haley’s mom, Danielle? Do you want to wear clothes from Walmart and smoke a pack a day? Spend your life as a stretched-out baby machine? You had every intention of making a whore of yourself today.” 

I swallow. Haley’s mom does smell like cigarettes, but she’s kind to me. “I wasn’t going to do anything actually bad,” I insist, folding my arms. “I’ve been going to yoga for almost three months. I’ve lost five pounds. And I have an A+ in Drama.” 

“Drama is not real school. And you’ve been even more out of control since you started that class. You’re switching electives.” 

I snap upright. “But you told me as long as I did yoga for three months, I could join the after-school play. They’re auditioning for Pygmalion next week!” 

“Then it’s a great time for you to change classes. I’ll make the call. See if they can stick you in Home Ec or something.” 

“I’ll sneak into the auditions. You can’t stop me,” I bleat. But she has all the ammunition. 

“That scrunched-up face again,” Mom says. “You think you can avoid consequences if you blubber like a baby. Well, it’s not fooling me. Go to your room, young lady.” 

 
EPILOGUE

My room feels hot and close. I rip off my shirt, then my shorts and underwear. Finally I yank my bra over my head, its underwire poking me in the face. I stand bared, chest heaving. 

I could run downstairs and make Mom scream Danielle what in heaven are you doing this is so inappropriate do you want to lose your remaining privileges. I want to roll my exposed self, my me-ness all over the fluffed pillows and the carpet I’m not allowed to eat over. Make sure every inch has touched me. I want to run down the street, screaming, “This is me. Look at me. Stop looking away.”

I think about Mr. Tucher and his unwashed dishes, and I think about Haley’s mom standing in the doorway of their trailer, smiling at her daughter. I think about Mom downstairs, costuming her voice to sound cheerful as she calls to pull me out of Drama, then sitting at the table with a glass of seltzer and staring at the wall. Sometimes seltzer is all she has for dinner. 

I know what you think of me, you and Mom both. This sexed-up child, a baby in a boob suit, grabbing at crotches through the bars of her crib. Maybe I don’t understand what happened with Mr. Tucher: the power I have, the different power he has, and how they vibrate when they rub against each other, with a squealing groan that makes you shudder. But I understand more than you think I do. I know you don’t want me to be like this, not you and not Mom, not my teachers or the men on the street or the women in yoga. There’s something I have that you, all of you, want to take from me. 

The only person who would want me to be this way is my yoga instructor, the one with the boobs. She would understand that I should guard what I have. That without it, I’ll only be another streak of gray blending into the tempest I see when I close my eyes. 

I push aside the dirty clothes on my floor and fall to my knees, sinking my fingers into the carpet near the green nail polish stain that got me grounded last year. I lift my legs into plank pose, feeling my arms and abdomen clench and ache. My boobs hang like fleshy ornaments, the nipples pebbling with exposure. My stomach curves down between my hip bones to where dark wiry pubes have begun to colonize my pelvis. Goosebumps ripple on my thighs. My arms shake from holding the plank. With a grunt, I bend my elbows and lower into chaturanga. At the lowest point, my nipples brush against the carpet, sending a shiver through my torso. 

Someday my yoga instructor will walk into class. When I finally meet her, in our embrace I will feel the sameness of our bodies, and the sameness of our souls will shine as a lighthouse through the tempest. 

I arch my back and feel my boobs rise, unrestrained. I heave my hips high in the air. My body forms an upside-down V with my heels off the ground. Downward dog. 

***

Sarah Stubbs is an emerging writer and overachiever who recently finished a novel first draft and a master’s degree at the same time. She lives in the Washington, DC area with her significant other and their cat, who runs the place. Her work has previously been published in Hive Avenue Literary Journal.