The Blondettes

​Before she even realizes she’s pregnant, Ruthie begins having terrible dreams. Often, she only remembers bits—disconnected moments that linger through her day—a young man with Aryan features she almost recognizes, lecturing a class full of blonde, perfect young girls; the same man, but younger—a boy—surrounded by those same blondettes (as she starts calling them) cajoling him to do something horrible, she could never recall; the blondettes breaking into her bedroom as she slept, their manicured fingers digging into the soil of her belly, taking something away from her; and finally, her, surrounded by these girls as her baby cries somewhere nearby. One of them has it behind her back, Ruthie is sure, but every one she searches has empty hands. She cannot find him. Him. She sits up in bed, shakes Derick awake, and tells him,

​“It’s a boy.”

​“It’s very draining,” she says. They’re in the car, stuck in traffic on the way to dinner.

​“It’s probably the hormones. Dr. Buttkuss said some things might happen,” Derick says.

​“I know, but I can’t help thinking it’s relevant.”

​“Well, what does it mean, then?” Derick asks, but before Ruthie can answer, the traffic clears and she lets the subject drop.

​“I dreamed about food every night,” Christine, a math teacher, says in the lunchroom.

​Ruthie glances at her hair, which is red. Most of the faculty has brown hair. 85%, actually. Ruthie has been counting. The staff, on the other hand, are almost the opposite—about 70% are blonde. But Ruthie rarely interacts with them.

​“My sister had weird dreams,” Christine continues. “Nightmares.”

​“My grandmother always said nightmares mean a boy,” Joan, another teacher, says, causing everyone to laugh.

​“My sister did have a boy,” Christine adds.

​“Do you know what it is?” Joan asks.

​“I think it’s a boy, but we don’t know,” Ruthie says.

​All the women stare at her belly, which is just beginning to show. Ruthie feels a blush spread across her face.

​“There you go,” Joan says. They all laugh again.

​“The custodians tend to have brown hair,” Ruthie says to Derick, in bed.

​“How about the barn staff?”

​“Pretty good mix, actually, of brown and blonde”

​“The cafeteria workers?”

​“Brunette.”

​“Maybe it’s the parents,” Derick says.

​“Could be,” Ruthie says. “They certainly tend to be blonde.”

​“And scary,” Derick adds, but Ruthie doesn’t smile.

​The next morning, Ruthie has her students write an in-class essay. As they work, heads bent over their desks, she begins counting. Of the fifteen students, the first row has three blondes. As she goes down the rows, the number doubles, quadruples; almost all of them are blonde. She is in a room full of Aryan dream-children. The memories of her dreams flash against her minds-eye—she sees her little boy ruined, turned into an evil thing by these oblivious girls. The light seems weird in the room, and she isn’t sure whether she’s actually awake. Terror envelopes her, and she lurches back to her desk, her feet clumsy.

“All I have to do is make it to the bell,” she tells herself.

​At their desks, the children write away, ignoring her.