Understanding Ashley

The Physical- is Ashley ugly?

Ashley’s standing in the bathroom. Everything’s white. The polished tile floors, the ceramic basin, the painted walls. Everything except the decorative green soap holder in the shape of a frog and the shining metal faucets. Ashley is leaning over the glossy white counter to stare the girl in the mirror in the face. Her curly black hair dangles across her forehead. In the bathroom’s bright lights, her forehead, her face, her neck- her tanned body glows like sand on a sunny day. Ashley squeezes her russet eyes together, squinting, trying to see past the mirror girl’s skin and delve deeper. Ashley is straining to see the flaw that the others see in the girl, but it remains elusive and abstruse.
“damn you.” Ashley whispers the words to the girl in the mirror. Softly and slowly. Ashley never swears or curses to anyone. Only when Ashley is alone, sometimes Ashley likes to tell the girl in the mirror off.
“damn you.” Ashley says the words again. Each time she repeats the words she grows more powerful and the girl in the mirror is losing control, disappearing, dying.
“damn you.” Ashley takes a step back from the counter and knows she is winning. The girl in the mirror is becoming smaller in size.
“damn you.” Ashley is opening the bathroom’s painted white door and as she steps out of the bathroom, she glances back at the girl in the mirror. The girl’s face is so tiny and Ashley looks for but a fleeting second, but the pain on the face of the girl in the mirror is obvious and the tears sparkling like dew on grass.

The Mental- is Ashley slow?

Ashley’s sitting in a desk. A desk with metal rails like armrests on her right side and four metal poles that support the bright red, plastic chair and the connected wooden board for writing.
There are twenty or so other people, her age, milling about. The teenagers are her classmates. As a loud and long clanging sound begins to emit from speakers in the ceiling her classmates begin to organize themselves, taking their seats in their desks. Suddenly the bell stops and there’s a lady standing front and center.
“Buenos Dias.” The woman is in a navy blue suit, cut to fit her stout figure.
“?Que tal Diana?” The woman is a teacher and she is standing very close to Shelby, talking to the girl sitting two desks ahead of Shelby.
The girl says something and the teacher has moved on to the boy in front of Shelby.
“?Que tal Jeff?” The teacher has said those words again and Ashley knows they hold importance and is trying to remember- what do they mean?
And then, the teacher is looming above Ashley’s desk and Shelby. Her flabby skin and many chins, droop and shake as the pale lipped teacher opens her mouth and says those words again, this time with Ashley’s name; “?Que tal Shelby?”
Ashley can’t remember so she says nothing. A second of the oppressive silence becomes a heavy minute and already Ashley has heard a giggle from behind her. And then a snigger accompanied by a whisper and an answering giggle.
“?Que tal Shelby?” The teacher has bent forward and tilted her head so her ear faces Ashley and only one side of her face shows.
“ooo.” Air swooshes from Ashley’s mouth as Ashley opens and closes her mouth, pretending to speak, and the teacher nods and pretends to have heard Shelby, because the teacher and Ashley are continuing to play the game they have been playing all year.
It’s when class is over, when the screeching noise is erupting from the ceiling, and everyone is standing up and milling about again; for a moment Ashley hears the question, “?Que tal?” and knows the meaning.
How is it going? She remembers.
And then Ashley stands up. The wooden desk creaks as Ashley lifts her backpack from the floor to her shoulders and loops her long arms through the straps. Ashley picks her lunchbox off the ground and then Ashley disappears in the crowd.
It’s when the school day is over, and Ashley is walking through the hallway past her Spanish classroom, Ashley hears the question echoing in her head again:
“?Que tal Shelby?” Ashley has searched and racked her brain for the answer all day. But for all her pondering, Ashley doesn’t know the answer.

The Physical- is Ashley’s body normal?

Ashley’s standing in the bathroom. The white bathroom. The girl in the mirror is watching Ashley as Ashley tries on the new clothes her older sister gave her as a present.
Ashley holds the size seven blue jeans against her waistline. Then Ashley simultaneously lowers the jeans and lifts her left leg to slide her left leg into the pant sleeve, and then her right leg into the other sleeve. She slowly pulls the jeans up, then zippers and buttons them. Ashley takes a step back to see the full view of her body.
The denim pants are boot cut and fashionably faded. From the bottom up, the jeans grow tighter, gripping her thighs and embracing her hips. Ashley turns to her side, and looks over her shoulder at her tight butt.
Then Ashley lifts the neatly folded, dressy shirt off the lustrously pale counter, the dressy shirt her older sister had called a “must”.
Ashley lifts the shirt above her head with one hand, then gradually tugs the shirt over her body.
The neon pink, long-sleeved shirt is as skintight as the pants and flaunts Ashley’s slender build.
Ashley turns her head from left to right, looking over her new outfit. After a minute of examining, Ashley faces the mirror to confront the girl in the mirror.
“Sooo…?” Ashley questions, her voice trailing off as she waits for the girl in the mirrors critique.
Her face is a myriad of emotions. Flitting to and from, the girl in the mirror’s face looks perturbed and bewildered, and happy, and unquestionably ambivalent.
Ashley closely watches the display of feelings on the face of the girl in the mirror. Finally Ashley sees the head diminutively nod.
They are in agreement. Ashley smiles, and feels relieved to know she can look like everybody else. She can look normal.

The Mental- is Ashley funny?

Ashley’s sitting in a desk. Her heart is pounding like a drum, and her lips are compressed firmly together less she cry out. Her hands seem permanently glued to the chair’s bottom and her left leg is being repeatedly shaken by her “ta-ta-” tapping foot, which is hitting the ground with the rubber heel of its shoe unceasingly.
A moment ago, the teacher, this time male and decked with a tie, had asked the class as a whole, “Who was Christopher Columbus?”
“Who was Christopher Columbus?” As Ashley heard the question she was released from her reticent fort and swung into a childhood memory.
Little Ashley is pulling a joke book off the shelf. She flips through, gleefully laughing, at the book’s funny contents. Then little Ashley comes across a section in the book titled Jokes about Explorers. She begins to crack up over a joke about Christopher Columbus that she finds beyond amusing. So mighty are little Ashley’s loud squeals of delight and peals of laughter, so hysterical, her parents come rushing into the library den believing little Ashley to be in danger and in pain. They enter the room, and hug her and question her, only to find her in good health and happy tears.
“Who was Christopher Columbus?” The teacher has asked.
“A thief.” Ashley says aloud automatically, catching herself, the class, and the teacher by surprise.
Everything and one seems to freeze, and then…
“Why do you say that?” The teacher asks in a perplexed tone as he studies his usually withdrawn student. The class remains deathly silent, waiting for the outcast girl’s answer.
“Because…” Ashley pauses, and her coffee brown cheeks grow cherry black.
“Because he…he double crossed the Atlantic.” Ashley completes the joke in a hushed, stiff voice and cringes inside as she hears that giggle behind her. And that snigger accompanied by the whisper and the answering giggle. Ashley knows they are not laughing at the joke, but at her.
“Ohhh.” The teacher smiles and gives a light-hearted chuckle. Then the spotlight returns to the teacher as he elaborates on Christopher Columbus’s real life.
Now, because the spotlight is no longer on Shelby, no one sees or hears her silent breakdown.
She squeezes her full lips together to the point of sparking pain, less their trembles reveal her true feelings or release her cries. Her arms hang at her sides and bend from the elbows and wrists to seize the bottom sides of her sun red chair with her seemingly numb hands. Her heart’s beating is so loud in her ears all other sounds in the classroom have been muted.
When it is later in the afternoon, around three o’clock, and Ashley has arrived home; when Ashley’s mom asks her daily question, “How was school, hon?”, Ashley lies to her mother as usual.
“Great!” Ashley gushes. She forces enthusiasm in her voice as she gives a warped retelling of her “joke” in history class.
“ooh, aha!” Ashley’s mom gives an appreciative laugh and Ashley plasters a smile on her face pretending to savor the distorted memory.

The Physical-how does Ashley maintain her physical self?

Ashley’s standing in the white bathroom, alone and with the door closed.
The white bathroom is so spacious; it’s almost as large as Ashley’s bedroom.
The bathroom is so tranquil and so neutral; it is also Ashley’s favorite refuge.
Ashley centers her body in front of the mirror, then looks straight in front of her. Now she turns her head left with a swoosh and a flick of her ponytail. Then center. Then right…And around. And around. Then up. Then center. Then down…And around. And around.
Ashley always begins with her head exercises and ends with her floor exercises.
After half an hour of stretching, Ashley is sitting on the floor. Her back is ramrod straight and her feet are spread in a v figure. Ashley’s arms are slack against her side until she raises them directly above her head, her arms brushing her ears as she reaches up. Ashley points her white-socked feet ballerina-style. Then Ashley takes a deep breath as she bends her torso, leaning over her long legs to touch her toes.
“-haaaaa.” Ashley exhales as she feels her hands clasp her feet; she has reached her goal.
A moment later, as Ashley is standing up, her eyes glance into the mirror and she spots the change immediately. Ashley can still see the seemingly always-present wrinkles on the girl’s brow, but now there are two new lines forming. Beside the dimples of the girl’s mouth, the lines become indents as the girl in the mirror’s lips pull back to reveal a quick flash of white.
And then Ashley opens the white door and leaves the white bathroom.

The Mental--how does Ashley maintain her mental self?

Ashley’s sitting in a desk. She’s hunched over forward, hands resting on the desk’s surface as they hold her book. The book is so captivating; that if you ask Ashley what class she is currently in Ashley wouldn’t be able to answer.
Ashley reads the faded yellow pages and feels relaxed. Reading a book transports her into someplace else just as stretching in her bathroom does.
Ashley feels like she’s on vacation from her own worries as she reads her mystery about Jane and her lost hairbrush.
It’s only when the bell begins to ring, and class is over, that Ashley closes her book and tunes into life.