Good Girl Hood

Good girls can’t lie, but they can’t always tell the truth, either. We must be well behaved but not prudish. Smart, but not boastful. Attuned to others’ without being needy. Strong, but silent. It’s a club I began subscribing to after my parents’ divorce. I joined without anyone telling me I had to, embracing the unwritten code without giving it a second thought.

It’s 1977. I’m fifteen years old. Mature for my age. And I have a boyfriend. Fun fact: Good girls can have boyfriends. They just can’t love them too much. You know what I mean.

Steaming up the windshield on a dark side street, my lips slick with the residue of French kisses, I pull away, arms extended, to peer at the analog clock set into the dashboard of my boyfriend’s mom’s 1970-something station wagon.

“It’s late,” I say, catching my breath and activating the defrost setting in my brain. My head feels heavy. Fogged, like the car windows. The Love’s Baby Soft perfume I applied so liberally before our date is giving me a headache. “I need to get home.”

“Why? It’s not like your mom’s waiting up for you,” my boyfriend says, angling in for another tongue-laden kiss.

He’s right. I don’t have a curfew. But that’s because Mom trusts me. When she’s working, I’m in charge—the oldest and, by default, second in command. Completely reliable.

“I told her I’d be home by eleven,” I reply, turning my head to power down his advances.

He lets out a loud breath, the vapors clinging to the windshield. He’s frustrated, and I can’t blame him. It’s hard to be a good girl. And, I imagine, it can be difficult to date one.

“What about Saturday?” he asks for the tenth time.

I shrug. Pulling an all-nighter at the local roller-skating rink with our friends is tempting. But I’ve never been out all night before. I don’t have the nerve to ask permission. What if Mom says no? Will she think less of me for wanting to go?

Hard as it is to be a good girl, it’s not nearly as hard as being a single mother like her. I’d do anything not to add to her burden. I aim to please. And, right now, I was aiming to please my boyfriend without letting Mom down in the process. We good girls must stick together.

When Mom was young and my grandmother was confined to bed, it was Mom’s job to watch over her sister, just as I now watched over my brothers. It was our duty. But she wasn’t always so well behaved. She had a rebellious streak that came out when she told tales from her childhood. I always found it hard to reconcile that version of her with the woman I know now.

Being good feels heavy to me, like a legacy I’m destined to carry on. It often gets in the way, as I’m sure it does for her. We’re cut from the same cloth, after all. But if she can rebel, maybe I can, too. Mom can’t be disappointed in me if she never knows I’m gone.

Not sure about that, my good girl brain says.

It’s not lying if you don’t say anything, comes the reply. So, I put together a plan.

On warm summer weekends, Mom likes to jog to the Mississippi River near our home in Minneapolis. She’s up and out the door by sunrise. If I go, I’d have to be back before six, I tell my boyfriend. That Friday night I go to bed early. When Mom asks if I’m feeling okay, I just shrug. It may not be a lie if I don’t speak it, but it still weighs on me. Lying in bed fully clothed, the covers pulled up to my chin, I wallow in guilt for what I’m about to do.

By eleven o’clock, the house is quiet. Pulling down the covers, I step out of bed and hold my ear to the door, listening to the ticking of the kitchen clock. I bunch up the covers and step out into the hallway. It’s dark, the rest of my family asleep upstairs. Light from the streetlamp in the alley shines through the kitchen windows, guiding my way to the back. The scent of Friday night pizza still hangs in the air, triggering a pang of doubt.

This is wrong, my good girl brain tells me.

Can’t quit now, comes the reply. And out I go.

My boyfriend’s waiting for me at the end of the block in his mother’s station wagon. I climb in, and we drive to the skating rink, where our friends are waiting. They’re surprised to see me, and I feel a wave of satisfaction in proving that even good girls know how to have fun.

As we step through the front door, we can hear disco music blaring. A Bee Gees song fills the air like water, the bass turned up so high it vibrates through my bones. Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.

We pay for our session and pick up our skates from the rental counter, and my boyfriend helps lace up the red and black boots, so they fit snuggly around my ankles. Skating’s not my forte, but with him by my side—and all night to practice—I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it.

He guides me onto the rink where, for the next six hours, I slip, slide and push my way around the large, smooth oval under the glare of flashing, moving, multi-colored lights. By the time we make it back to the car, I can see the edge of the sky begin to brighten.

“What time is it?” I ask, catching my breath.

 “Six o’clock,” he says, checking his watch. My heart beats fast, as though the bass is back, rattling my bones. We drive home in a rush, any prospect of a goodbye kiss forgotten.

I approach the house though the ally, and I peer at the kitchen window from the privacy of the detached garage, where I’d stashed a change of clothes, just in case. The sun is starting to rise, bringing the backyard into view. Then the kitchen light switches on.

Too late to sneak in, I revert to Plan B. Still in the garage, I find my bag of clothes, change, step outside, and start stretching. Five minutes later, Mom walks out the back door.

“You’re up early,” she says, eyebrows raised.

“Thought I’d join you on your morning run,” I reply, swallowing my guilt while touching my toes. We jog two and a half miles, to the river and back. Her stride strong and sure; mine shaky and slow. When we get home, I go straight to bed, falling into a deep but restless sleep.

It takes ten years for me to admit to her what I did. But, of course, she already knows.

“How’d you figure it out?” I ask.

“It was obvious,” she says, smiling and nudging my shoulder. “I knew you had it in you.”

She still loves me, my good girl brain says.

Of course she does, comes the reply.

At that moment, I can see Mom’s fifteen-year-old self conspiring with me, good girl to good girl. I hadn’t gotten away with anything. I wasn’t fooling anyone, except maybe myself. My act of rebellion wasn’t a lie, it was a victory, just as hers had been. The rules I’ve been forcing myself to live by no longer apply. They’re ridiculous. Contradictory. A good girl paradox. It’s possible to be good without always being well behaved.

And I was finally free to just be me.