Not promising.
“Your dad’s worried about you, and he’s not entirely sure what to do.”
“Tellhimto sit by the door, then.”
“Well, he’s gone to the store to buy your supplies.”
That earned me a few seconds of silence. “He went to buy ... stuff for me?”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t know what you need. What do you want? Pads? Tampons?”
“He’s going to embarrass me,” she wailed.
“Honey, it’s a Friday morning. No one’s going to know who he is or for whom he’s buying these things. Besides, it’s all part of being a woman. You’ll have to buy them yourself one day.”
“I don’t want to be a woman.”
Same, kid. Same.
“Look, I know periods aren’t optimal.”Understatement of the year.“But, well, you gotta do something. You can’t spend the next seven days sitting on the toilet.”
“Seven days?”
“Er, it may not be that long,” I said. Apparently, Parker hadn’t considered the fact that buying books wasn’t the same thing as making sure they were read. Also, what were they teaching the kids in that awful fifth-grade puberty class these days? “I’m guessing you didn’t read any of the books your father bought you? What about your friends? Do they ever talk about their periods?”
“I don’t have any friends here, and my friends from my old school are all either boys or mad at me for moving away.”
Okay, then. PMSandbeing a thirteen-year-old.
A headache threatened to bloom behind my eyes.
“And my stomach hurts, and I feel like ...” She paused.
I understood both the pain and the embarrassment of a certain sensation that no one bothered to really warn a young girl about. “Cramps?”
“Yes.” Cassidy’s voice came out a relieved whisper that I could hardly hear.
“We can fix those cramps with some Advil. Do you haveanypads in there?”
“No.”
“Is it really, really heavy, or do you think you can wrap toilet tissue around your underwear and come out here?”
“Do what?” she said in a shriek, clearly scandalized by the idea. One day, she would have an emergency and thank me for the idea.
At that moment, Parker texted me:What do I need? Some of these? Fresh scent? Super tampons?
Vivian:Slow your roll.
“Hey, Cassidy? Your dad’s at the store. Do you think you’ll want pads or tampons?”
“Pads?” she answered tentatively. “But I saw this cool YouTube video about menstrual cups, and they’re supposed to be better for the environment and cheaper in the long run and—”
“Let’s start with pads,” I said. Talking about videos meant that Cassidy had to be feeling better, and I wanted to encourage that, but menstrual cups and novices didn’t seem like a good idea to me. Heck, I wouldn’t know what to do with a menstrual cup if my life depended on it. My generation was just overjoyed to get freaking wings on our pads.
“You want me to make some suggestions to him?”
She paused. “Yeah, I guess.”
