文學與人生 Dream sees the invisible, feels the intangible and achieves the impossible.

Chapter 1-4 莉莉試圖找到自己的定位,學習如何當一個女孩...

T. Ray and I lived just outside Sylvan, South Carolina population 3,100. Peach stands and Baptist churches, that sums it up.

迪瑞和我就住在南卡羅萊納州,汐爾凡外緣,人口3,100.有林立的桃子樹和幾處的浸信會教堂,大致是如此.

At the entrance to the farm we had a big wooden sign with OWENS PEACH ENTERPRISES painted across it in the worst orange color you’ve ever seen. I hated that sign. But the sign was nothing compared with the giant peach perched atop a sixty-foot pole beside the gate. Everyone at school referred to it as the Great Fanny, and I’m cleaning up the language. Its fleshy color, not to mention the crease down the middle, gave it the unmistakable appearance of a rear end. Rosaleen said it was T. Ray’s way of mooning the entire world. That was T. Ray.

農場的入口處,我們有一個很大的木製招牌,用你看過最糟的橘色橫印著”歐恩桃樹公司”.我恨惡這招牌.但這招牌還比不上那放在大門旁,60呎高柱上的巨大桃子.在學校每個人都說它是’大屁股’,而我要清除這罵人的話.那是肉色的顏色,就別提那中間皺摺的部份,看來就是不折不扣的屁眼.羅莎蘭說那就是迪瑞對整個世界挑釁的方式.那就是迪瑞.

He didn’t believe in slumber parties or sock hops, which wasn’t a big concern as I never got invited to them anyway, but he refused to drive me to town for football games, pep rallies, or Beta Club car washes, which were held on Saturdays. He did not care that I wore clothes I made for myself in home economics class, cotton print shirtwaists with crooked zippers and skirts hanging below my knees, outfits only the Pentecostal girls wore. I might as well have worn a sign on my back: I AM NOT POPULAR AND NEVER WILL BE.

他不相信睡衣晚會或襪子舞會,這不是甚麼大不了的,因為我也從未受邀參加,但他拒絕載我去鎮上參加星期六舉行的足球賽,賽前動員會,或貝塔洗車俱樂部.他不關心我穿的衣服,那是在居家經濟課程中自己製做的,有扭曲拉鍊的棉製印花襯衫,及長過膝蓋以下的裙子,這裝扮只有五旬節女孩會穿.我也許背後也掛著標誌寫著:我不受歡迎而且永遠如此.

I needed all the help that fashion could give me, since no one, not a single person, had ever said, “Lily, you are such a pretty child,” except for Miss Jennings at church, and she was legally blind.

我需要流行給我幫助,因為沒有一個人曾經對我說,”莉莉,妳是如此漂亮的女孩,”除了一位在教會的珍妮絲小姐曾說過,但她是一位法律認定的盲人.

I watched my reflection not only in the mirror, but in store windows and across the television when it wasn’t on, trying to get a fix on my looks. My hair was black like my mother’s but basically a nest of cowlicks, and it worried me that I didn’t have much of a chin. I kept thinking I’d grow one the same time my breasts came in, but it didn’t work out that way. I had nice eyes, though, what you would call Sophia Loren eyes, but still, even the boys who wore their hair in ducktails dripping with Vitalis and carried combs in their shirt pockets didn’t seem attracted to me, and they were considered hard up.

我不只在鏡中看自己的影像,也在商店的櫥窗及未開機的電視上看自己,試著要在我的樣貌上得到一個定位.我的黑頭髮像母親的,但基本上是一窩額頭蓬亂的鬈髮,而且我還因下巴短小感到憂慮.我一直以為當我的胸部長出來時下巴也跟著變長,但並沒有發生.然而我有漂亮的眼睛,就是所稱的蘇菲亞羅蘭的眼睛,但,即使那些梳理鴨尾式髮型滴著生髮劑,又在口袋裡攜帶梳子的男孩,似乎不吸引我,而且他們也被認為是經濟拮据的.

Matters below my neck had shaped up, not that I could show off that part. It was fashionable to wear cashmere twinsets and plaid kilts midthigh, but T. Ray said hell would be an ice rink before I went out like that –did I want to end up pregnant like Bitsy Johnson whose skirt barely covered her ass? How he knew about Bitsy is a mystery of life, but it was true about her skirts and true about the baby. An unfortunate coincidence is all it was.

我脖子以下的問題已經變好,這並不是說我可以炫耀那部份.時髦的裝扮是穿著開士米羊毛兩件式和彩格迷你短裙,但迪瑞說我如果穿那樣出去,會像去溜冰場-問我是否要像貝齊約翰遜搞到懷孕的下場?她的裙子幾乎蓋不住屁股.他如何知道貝齊是一件生命中的謎題,但有關她的裙子和嬰兒卻是事實.不幸的巧合是如此.

Rosaleen knew less about fashion than T. Ray did, and when it was cold, God-help-me –Jesus, she made me go to school wearing long britches under my Pentecostal dresses.

羅莎蘭知道的流行比迪瑞還少,而且當天冷時,哇,她讓我在五旬節連衣裙底下穿著長及膝蓋的褲子.

There was nothing I hated worse than clumps of whispering girls who got quiet when I passed. I started picking scabs off my body and, when I didn’t have any, gnawing the flesh around my fingernails till I was a bleeding wreck. I worried so much about how I looked and whether I was doing things right, I felt half the time I was impersonating a girl instead of really being one.

沒有令我更痛恨的是,那一群對女生吹口哨的人在我經過時保持沉默.我開始在身上挑掉一些結痂,如果沒有時,就啃我手指旁的肉直到我成為流血受傷嚴重的人.我非常憂慮我長相如何,以及是否我事情有沒有做對,我感到一半的時間我是在模仿女生而不是真的女生.

I had thought my real chance would come from going to charm school at the Women’s Club last spring, Friday afternoons for six weeks, but I got barred because I didn’t have a mother, a grandmother, or even a measly aunt to present me with a white rose at the closing ceremony. Rosaleen doing it was against the rules. I’d cried till I threw up in the sink.

我去年春天想過,我真正的機會是去女人俱樂部的美姿學校,每個星期五下午連續六週,但我裹足不前,因為我沒有母親,祖母或甚至一位不足掛齒的阿姨,沒人能在我畢業典禮時獻給我白色玫瑰.羅莎蘭做這件事是違規的.我哭到在水槽嘔吐.

“You’re charming enough,” Rosaleen had said, washing the vomit out of the sink basin. “You  don’t need to go to some highfalutin school to get charm.”

“妳是夠迷人了”,羅莎蘭說,在洗手台清除嘔吐物.”妳不需要去什麼誇張的學校得到魅力.”

“I do so, “I said. ”They teach everything. How to walk and pivot, what to do with your ankles when you sit in a chair, how to get into a car, pour tea, take off your gloves…”

“我是需要,”我說. “他們教每件事.如何走路及旋轉,當你坐在椅子上時腳踝要如何放,如何進入車內,脫下手套等…”

Rosaleen blew air from her lips. “Good Lord,” she said.

羅莎蘭從嘴唇吹了一口氣:”哇,”她說.

“Arrange flowers in a vase, talk to boys, tweeze your eyebrows, shave your legs, apply lipstick…”

“在花瓶擺花,和男孩說話,用鉗子拔眉,除腿毛,擦唇膏…”

“What about vomit in a sink? They teach a charming way to do that?” she asked.

“那麼在洗手台吐呢?他們教迷人的方式做嗎?”

Sometimes I purely hated her.

有時我真是完全地恨她.