A Woman Trapped in a Woman's Body (13 page)

Jan delivered this speech not in a little side whisper in the direction of my ear, but at full volume toward the table.

I wanted to grab the tablecloth from under their plates, magician-style, so as to distract these nice people from the angry foreign man.

“How about a coffee?” Jan asked himself out loud. “Yes, let's go have a nice coffee.” He started to walk into the kitchen but paused in front of the swinging door—the same one that earned me a guest role in a Three Stooges movie every time I paused in front of it.

“Do you want a coffee?” he called.

When the staff overcharged the Germans, I was able to keep my mouth shut. When they told the Italians we were closed for renovations, I backed them up. But when they were being cruel to a family of nervous Americans in sneakers and Izod shirts tucked into pleated shorts, my heart was breaking.

As I stood paralyzed, the mother (who looked an awful lot like my Aunt Betty) locked eyes with me and mouthed, “Hello?”

Jan sensed I was touched by these simple people, so he tried a new technique to make sure I didn't interfere with his plan to teach them a lesson: humor. Or, at least, his attempt at what he thought was humor.

“Come on, dum-dum, you big asshole stupid. Coffee time,” he said.

Aunt Betty, who knew I was her only hope, abruptly and with a sense of an impending revolution, held a pamphlet in the air and cried, “Anne Frank! The Anne Frank house! Please!”

In that moment, nobody since the Nazis had wanted to find out where Anne Frank lived as badly as she did.

“Please, Jan,” I said, knowing the Anne Frank house was just down the street—literally two blocks away.

“No way,” Jan said. “They'll just go and block the sidewalk while waiting to get in, and then I will be trying to walk home later and I will be forced to walk in the street and get hit by a car. I'm not telling them. And neither are you. Come on.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the kitchen.

He let go right before I got to the door, and when I stopped to try to get one more look at the family, the door swung back and hit me in my face. Clutching my cheek, I ran back to the table—back to Aunt Betty, to Mom and Dad, to my two sisters, and all of our awkward family vacations.

I might not be able to save my own family from the food poisoning that turned Grandma's tongue black in Mexico, or the dog throwing up in my sister's mouth on the road trip to San Antonio, or the gypsy children crawling up my mother's skirt to distract her from being robbed in Rome, but I was determined to make sure that this family had the chance to have the time of their lives with each other at the Anne Frank house.

“Go out the front door and take a right. It's past the church on the same side of the canal as the hotel. Go now because the lines get crazy after 3:00. And be careful not to stand in the street—it makes the Dutch people very angry.”

I stood and waited for the family to thank me and ask where I had picked up that American accent. But the woman, who looked a lot less like Aunt Betty up close, shared a bewildered look with her family and then mimicked my voice, using her hand like a little puppet. I don't know what language she was speaking or where they were from, but they all shared a delightful bonding experience imitating what to them was gibberish.

I went out to the hallway to recover and when the family passed me on their way out, the mother gave me what I believe was a sincere “it's all in good fun, have a nice day” smile.

I knew it was wrong, and though I tried to resist, I couldn't help but smile back. “Thank you for coming!” I sang out. “Thank you so much! Have a wonderful day, okay?”

Somewhere across the ocean, the whole Midwest took a break from eating deep-fried cream cheese and smiled.

H
ere it was: the moment I'd been waiting for. Jack, the fourteen-year-old son of my live-in boyfriend, David, had come to me seeking counsel. At last, he considered me a wise adult—someone he could trust for an answer. His question: “How do you spell ‘qwef'?”

The fact that he sought me out for guidance on how to spell the word for vaginal fart was an honor. I was truly flattered that he'd asked, especially since I'd been fighting a long, hard battle to get him to respect me.

I wasn't asking for a huge amount of respect. Just enough to prevent him from referring to my Indiana relatives as “doughy white people.” Just enough so that when I told him about my jazz musician ex-boyfriend he wouldn't say, “You are such a racist,” simply because I mentioned that the guy was black, which, Jack explained, sounded wrong coming out of my “crackery-crack-ass” mouth.

Seeing as how Jack is part Asian and thinking this might be a “teachable moment,” I responded by saying, “What if I called you chinky-chink-ass?” To which Jack took offense. Even though, being the adult in the conversation, I pointed out, “That's not fair! You said it first!”

 

 

I would appreciate whatever amount of respect would prevent Jack from repeatedly commenting on my drinking habits. Jack's father hasn't had a drink in twenty-one years. I, on the other hand, like me my wine. Both David and I have told Jack it's bad manners to point out another's drinking habits, especially as this forces me to leave the table, slurring, “Listen, I drink! I'm drinky! Okay? Everybody happy? I'm going to go drink with the homeless people in the park, where I'm not judged!” (After which Jack registers his offense at my crackery-crack-ass implication that all homeless people are drunks.)

 

 

But now, with “qwef” hanging in the air, Jack was looking to me as a teacher. A mentor! Perhaps even ... a parental
figure. “Jack, I think you mean ‘qweef,'” I said. “It's ‘q' and then ‘weef.' Sound it out.”

When I relayed this Hallmark moment to David, it immediately turned into a fight. Not because David didn't want me talking to Jack about vaginas, but because David didn't know what a qweef was. He lashed out at me for bringing up yet another thing that made him look dumb. I tried to tell him, “David, it's a blessing you don't know what it is. A blessing!”

“I actually do know what that is, okay?” he shouted. “But in my day it was called a vart!”

 

 

In the early dating days of our relationship, David and I both lived with roommates, which meant we had to put some careful thought into where and when we'd bump uglies. David's roommate was his young and impressionable son. My roommate was gay and had let me know that the thought of my having sex anywhere—much less down the hall—made his acid reflux flair.

Since the repulsed gay man stayed up much later than the susceptible teen, most nights David's place was the default location for the making of the love. But even though Jack went to bed early, one major complication remained: the fact that during sex I would somehow always end up facing the picture of Hannah.

David is a widower. Six years ago he lost his wife, Hannah—Jack's mother—to cancer. She is remembered for her beauty,
wisdom, and no-bullshit manner. Her picture in David's bedroom emanated a very strong presence. I could almost hear her saying, “I wanted him to be happy, but not that happy.”

When we had sex, every time the “Okay, let's switch positions!” vibe arose I'd scurry to put myself in a position with my head facing away from Hannah. For the first time in my life I could see how being blindfolded would be hot. Eventually I had to ask David to move the picture out of the bedroom.

But pictures of Hannah were all over the house, which wrecked me. Obsessively staring at her photos and attempting to show how okay I was with the whole situation, I would chirp, “This is a nice one. Oh and this one too! Look at her here! I see she's wearing a sweater, so I take it it was winter time?”

 

 

Finally, with the blessing of Hannah's family, I moved in with David and Jack. Everything went off without a hitch.

 

 

Setting the table for dinner one night I said, “Oh my god, this is one of the ugliest tablecloths I've ever—”

“It was Hannah's,” David said.

“Oh. Sorry.”

At which point Jack came into the room. “Which tablecloth of Mommy's did Lauren say is ugly?”

Cleaning out a drawer to make space for my candles, I found a dollar bill, which I put in my wallet. Hoping to keep my karma clean, I told David.

“Do you still have it?” he asked.

“Yeah, I still have it,” I said. “God, David, freaking out over a dollar is a little pathetic.”

“It's just that Hannah's grandma gave it to her when Hannah was a baby. It was her lucky dollar.”

Right when I'd be about to break up to avoid any more of these unbearable moments, David would console me by telling me how well he thought I was doing, considering the situation.

“Hannah liked you,” he'd say, though I'd only known her briefly many years before. “She loved your honesty.”

If only Jack did.

 

 

One night, David and Jack and I were sitting in the living room, talking and hanging out. The subject of Hannah came up, and David mentioned that after she died all her college debt was wiped away. To which I replied, “Man, I should tell a few of my credit card companies that I died.”

I spent the following hour blabbing a long, pathetic apology, during which Jack stared at the TV on mute.

“Jack, that was just an asshole move—sorry, I shouldn't curse like that—that's inappropriate. And what I said was also really inappropriate and, oh my god! I think I just saw me on VH1! Did you see me?”

I would never attempt to be a surrogate mom to Jack. But during the first few months of the new living situation I tried to think of “things you should do if you're the only adult female in a house with a fourteen-year-old who has lost his mother.” One came to me: hug him.

I announced my intentions to David as we were getting ready for bed. “I'm going to hug Jack every night before he goes to bed.”

David was touched. “Oh, that's sweet, Lauren.”

“Do you think he'll let me?”

“Do it anyway.”

That's right, I thought. Do it anyway. He's not the boss of me. Don't let him determine how much love you can give him. He's the child. He needs it. I can give it.

If only I was a hugger.

 

 

I'm not a hugger. My mother was not a big hugger. She did hug me—it wasn't like she called me “It” and left me in the cellar to drink my own pee. She just didn't hug a lot. But I do remember one hug in particular.

I'd been busted for stealing a pair of control-top underwear. I wasn't shoplifting—that would have been at least somewhat cooler. I pilfered the panties from the family I was babysitting for, though I'm not sure where I found the time, since I was pretty busy eating myself into a tubby coma. (“Ding Dongs! We never get these!
Munch munch munch.
Dinner rolls! I love
dinner rolls!
Munch munch munch.
A bag of brown sugar and a stick of butter! Kids, go to bed!”)

When my mother noticed that my butt didn't move anymore when I walked (had she tried, she could have bounced a brick off it), it was all over.

She proceeded to call everyone whose house I'd ever spent time in to check if they had anything that had “gone missing.” Then I had to return the girdle to the family and apologize. Not only that, she took me out of school the next day so I could visit the juvenile court system to see what happens to children who steal.

After we watched kid after kid sentenced to juvie, Mom walked me up to the judge. “This is Lauren,” she said. “The one I told you about. We don't know what to do. Nothing has helped—we've tried grounding her, giving her anticonvulsants, and sending her to Weight Watchers. Nothing seems to get through to her. But we try to love her anyway.”

And
there!
There's the hug.

 

 

Hugging Jack every night before bed would be sweet, I decided. I could just see it. He'd go to sleep feeling a little love. And safety. I was going to provide these things for him.

“Goodnight, Dad,” Jack yelled from his room.

“Goodnight, Buddy. Say goodnight to Lauren, Jack.”

“Goodnight, Lauren.”

Here was my chance. “I want to go hug him,” I said to David.

“Then go now.”

“But he may already be in his bed and I don't want to creep him out ... Dad's girlfriend approaching him in his bed—”

“Jesus, Lauren. Just go do it if you're gonna do it.”

Instead I yelled, “Goodnight, Jack!” But my voice sounded oddly high and fake.

“Why does your voice sound like that?” Jack yelled back.

“I'm hugging you with my voice,” I said.

Three months into the relationship, David finally gave me some responsibility in the household beyond putting the napkins on the table. My task: picking up Jack from the airport. My level of pride was in direct proportion to my level of nonchalance.

The morning Jack was to arrive, David went over the flight details. “That's today?” I said. “Oh, that's right.” When David called an hour after leaving the house to double-check that I had the time right, I yelled at him. “Come on, David! I mean, come on!”

Two hours later I went to pick up Jack. I got to the airport at the exact time his plane was to arrive. But I went to the wrong airport.

The only thing I could say during the twenty-minute drive from Long Beach to LAX (a drive that normally takes at least forty minutes) was “No, no, no.” When I pulled up to the correct airport, Jack was shaking his head.