Getting Waisted (6 page)

But they made a terrible mistake when they falsely accused me of stealing from the till. Mara, a former Soviet with supposed connections to the much-feared KGB, confronted me as I came out of the bathroom. She bored into me with her piggy eyes and demanded I empty my pockets and lift my blouse. “I know you have taken our money and you have meat hidden on you. I can smell it.”

I could not contain my unexpected burst of laughter. “This whole place stinks of meat.” I turned my pockets inside out and lifted my blouse. There was nothing there. “I quit!” I exclaimed. With my head held high, I marched out and called my mother.

That was it!
My mother and Carly had a face-off outside the
delicatessen. They might as well have taken over Caesar’s Palace and shown it on satellite. Everyone knew about it. Carly, looking like a rabid puffer fish, screamed in full-volume righteous indignation. My mother chose the more powerful stone-faced defense and very softly said, “You are dead to me. That is my
daughter
you are accusing—your own niece—and you, a man who has absconded twice with
my
money! You don’t exist.” With that, we turned and walked away. As soon as we were around the corner, I reached into my waistband and pulled out a pound and a half of Black Forest ham.

My mother waved her black-magic wand, and in a nanosecond she set the whole family against him. By the time she was done, he
and Mara were toast—not invited to anything, not even a bris. It
took a moment to register, but that was my mother defending me!
The best part was, I no longer had to slice and serve sausage to garlicky old people.

We didn’t see either of them again until Mara’s funeral a year later. She died at the hair salon from a sudden heart attack, wearing a full head of perm rods. I always wondered if they combed her hair out before the big send off.

I thought things were beginning to look up. I had friends and my parents seemed to be getting along. A strange calm had settled over our apartment until my mother, standing at the bus stop once too often after seeing all her neighbors pulling in and out of their garages, went on a rampage, insisting that we needed a car. It was all she could talk about at every opportunity. This was the New World and everyone had a car except us. My father pointed out that it was all well and good to want a car but none of us knew how to drive one. I thought he had a valid point but that concept sent her into a tailspin, “You see how he thinks, from his big toe, not his head. You’ll learn; you’ll get a driving teacher.”

My father got behind the wheel of his driving instructor’s car only once. It occurred to me that perhaps he did
everything
only once. He spent four hours practicing gear changing, going from park to drive, and back to park, over and over until the almost comatose instructor insisted he put it into drive and take it for a spin. My mother and I stood in the supermarket parking lot watching in horror as the little blue car began jerking forward, heading directly toward a runaway shopping cart. My father honked and honked, but the cart didn’t understand honking, and it smacked head-on into the car with a loud bang! Outraged, my father slammed on the brakes, got out of the car, and walked away, his clenched demeanor making it abundantly clear that his driving days were done.

I thought my mother was going to implode, “Dick, come back here, you have to learn to drive!
Aacch!
You see, you can’t teach a dead dog new tricks.”
T
wo girls from my school were staring at her, then at me, and I heard them laughing. I could feel the fury building along with the hurt, but I pretended I didn’t hear them. I knew that I’d be knocking back some really large and sugary dynamite as soon as I got home.

I wanted to lose weight but I couldn’t seem to stop eating. What seemed more possible was losing my accent. I practiced relentlessly on storekeepers and strangers until I mastered sounding like a native, generic North American. But my parents’ new start was crumbling rapidly. My father lost his job through no fault of his own. His position was eliminated by a cleaning service. He was home all the time and at loose ends, not quite sure how to move forward. My mother huffed and puffed at the mere sight of my father doing what he had always done, reading from the labels on everything. “Robertson’s Marmalade . . . rather nice, made from sweet navel oranges; Morton’s Iodized Salt . . . that is good. We do need iodine. . . .”

He took small pleasure in turning himself into an impenetrable block of stone whenever she directed any of her frustrations at him, which just made her seem more like a crazed Rumpelstiltskin. I could always tell when my mother was about to blow; she rode her vacuum cleaner hard into every nook and cranny, vitriol spewing from her in a stream of consciousness series of rants, as if it was the vacuum’s exhaust.
“
Aach
, mildew, that’s what he smells of, old books, old wood, dust, death . . . keeping all his food in little piles in the fridge like a squirrel. I live with a squirrel, storing nuts for the winter. This is a country of supermarkets, with music and a thousand cereals!”

So is this what it was to be normal, to have a “real” family? Why did people want this so badly? It was a relief when it all came to an end and my father moved out, going back to his far simpler life. He was much happier going for strolls through Edwards Gardens in a park that reminded him of his beloved England. He always carried a camera but he never put film in it. It was a prop, to be used as a conversation starter as he posed the spinster postmistress from down the road in front of a bank of hydrangeas, or any one of the widows who rode on the same bus to the gardens. He was quite content between those outings and coming to visit me on Sundays, just as he always had, bringing candy and vitamins and being together,
comfortably not talking. My mother had gathered a new tribe of
blue-hairs that were as committed as she was to their biweekly battle of the bridge player, death-to-the-loser games.

I began to make friends. One of them, Vally, lived in the same building we did and she didn’t have all the latest clothes either,
but she had something better: big boobs, and a trail of cute boys
who liked them. Vally was sweet and generous, and she took the boys, one at a time, down to the locker rooms where the suitcases and odds and ends of unused furniture were stored. Locker 308B was never locked and inside there was an ugly old, forgotten green couch where she let the boys touch her pride and joys.

I hung around outside, entertaining those waiting their turn
with a running commentary on how each boy might be doing: “It’s Mark’s turn at bat and it’s possible he’s going to get a home run.” It never occurred to any of those boys to want to feel me up except for Rodney Sarner, who was nice, but short and pimply. One afternoon he took my hand and held it, his face moving in close to mine. Oh God, I knew he was going to kiss me, but I didn’t know how to kiss so I scrunched my eyes closed until I felt his breath close to mine. I opened my eyes for a second and saw that his eyes were so close I could only see one of them, and it was smack in the center of his forehead. I panicked and stuck my tongue out at him. He let go of my hand and looked at me as if I were a freak. In fact, I was a freak. Vally told me later that she’d show me how to kiss. It felt so nice, safe, and not scary. Now I had another worry: “Oh God, I’m a lesbian.”

I was practically sixteen and, despite my fears, it seemed I did like boys—specifically one boy. I was truly, madly, in love with Howie Bennett. Howie had dark and brooding good looks. He was smart, popular, and way out of my league, yet he was always kind and smiled in greeting as we passed in the hallway and I was smitten. He had absolutely no interest in me, but I wrote his name next to mine in every possible combination that would join us together even if it was only on paper. I cheered him on from the sidelines at track meets, even ogling him while he played street hockey. His friends began to tease him about me, but it was as if I was possessed. I dialed his phone number relentlessly; once, I was in such a dream state, I forgot to hang up. “Hello? Monica, I know it’s you. . . .” I slammed the phone down and I can still remember the flop-sweat on my palms, my heart flip-flopping like a dying goldfish, and that feeling of total mortification—but I couldn’t stop.

I resolved to go on my first real diet. I looked at every book on diets; there weren’t many. The Drinking Man’s Diet suggested drinking a cup of safflower oil to coat the stomach and then you could drink all the alcohol you wanted; I didn’t want any. The Buttermilk Diet sounded yucky; I didn’t like buttermilk. There was a new diet drink called Metrecal and it sounded perfect for me; it came in chocolate and strawberry. If I skipped breakfast and lunch and drank a tin of Metrecal instead, they promised I would lose weight. It tasted like chalk but the pounds seemed to fly off. I was willing to sacrifice flavor and the satisfaction of real food in order to have Howie see the real me hidden underneath the fat. Howie didn’t know it yet but he was perfect for me, I just needed to figure out how to get him to see that.

On my sixteenth birthday, my mother gave me a surprise: a huge, yellow convertible. I immediately felt anxious. Other kids might have been thrilled at the prospect of receiving a car for their birthday but I knew my mother; she always had an ulterior motive. I might have had the keys to the car, but I was to be at her beck and call—her personal chauffeur, on duty seemingly every waking hour that I was not in school. I was expected to drive her, and sometimes all her other pink- and blue-haired friends to their bridge games, the delicatessen, the bakery, the hairdresser. Mostly, I wanted to drive them all right off a cliff. But I needed that car. Now that I had wheels, I had the ability to check up on Howie. Checking up is probably a tad understated; in reality, I became an obsessive stalker. I drove by his house over and over, hoping to get a glimpse of him or just to breathe the same air he was breathing. One day, I drove by and I saw his door open. I panicked and threw myself face down onto the empty passenger seat, knowing he was watching a very familiar giant yellow convertible driving by with
no
driver.

Even after that horror show, I couldn’t stop. I was the hunter and he was my prey. I tailed him relentlessly. I knew Howie liked to play hockey so I put on my new white fuzzy hat and matching scarf over a pale pink, even fuzzier, sweater. In retrospect, I must have looked like a fat, cartoon character rabbit. To complete the look, I slung a pair of ice skates over my shoulder. I didn’t skate and, honestly, the idea that anyone could glide, spin, or leap on those skinny little metal blades was beyond this big-assed girl’s comprehension—but Howie didn’t know that, and I had no plans to
ever
get on the ice so he would never find out.

I casually circled the rink about eighty times until he finally looked up. By that time I was hot and uncomfortable, but I smiled and waved, possibly a bit too exuberantly. Distracted by the sight of me, Howie whacked the puck so hard that it flew out of the rink, hitting my skates, which flew up in the air. One of the boots came down blade first, slicing through my hat, my hair, and finally my scalp. Blood gushed out from under my white fuzzy hat and I could feel myself getting dizzy but I knew I had to seize the moment: “Hi Howie.”

His face twisted in a weird way and I was sure he hated me but gradually I understood—blood was dripping into my mouth and a big blotch landed on my white scarf. “Oh my God!” I felt faint but was determined not to let him see me pass out. “I have . . . a . . . a
. . . I have to go. Great seeing you. Bye.”

Twenty-seven stitches later, my non-relationship came to a horrible and even more humiliating end. How was that even possible? I was at home with a bandage on my head and a bowl of ice cream in my lap when the phone rang. It was Howie asking me if I was busy on Friday night! I was stunned almost into silence. I couldn’t breathe. There really was some angel who went around and answered prayers. “Um . . . I’m . . . I’m not busy,” I said, my heart beating out of my chest, “Um . . . what do you want to do? Whatever you want would be whatever I would want to do, too.”

I heard him swallowing hard, then came a long silence. I didn’t know what to say and it seemed, neither did he, but then he blurted out that my mother had found his number on the cover of all of my notebooks.
Oh God, oh God, no!
I thought to myself. He continued, “She thought we had a thing, so she called me to ask me to take you to your surprise birthday party on Friday at The House of Chan and I didn’t know what to say to that, and also I didn’t want to be rude, so . . . ”

I couldn’t feel my heart beating anymore, it must have stopped when it got caught in my throat, and I was sure I was flat-lining. “What! Wait, my mother called you? My mother called you!
Oh . . . oh . . .
aaah
. . . Thank you, um, bye.” I hung up and I sat paralyzed, completely numb except for the extreme pounding in my head, which wasn’t coming from my stitches.

Shaking it off, I charged into the living room where, of course, my mother was playing bridge with
the girls.
“You ruined my life!” I screamed.

She didn’t understand what she had done wrong but I knew she heard two and a half cases of Metrecal hitting the bottom of the metal garbage can, then the fridge door slamming after I grabbed a full quart of Neapolitan ice cream, followed by the banging of my bedroom door behind me.

5

Puppy Fat

Diet #6
The Stillman Diet

Cost
My pride

Weight lost
12 pounds

Weight gained
16 pounds

I was eighteen
and scarfing ham, chicken, beef strips, and every other type of former farm animal, all cooked with no oil, no sauce, and no taste because a Dr. Irwin Stillman had a new diet book that was all the rage, filled with promises of a leaner body just from eating a couple of hay-wagons worth of rump roasts. The monotonous chowing down on nothing but meat bored me stupid. Nonetheless, I gnawed like a zealot on those beef bones because everyone I knew except me had someone, and I needed to change that channel.

Every weekend my mother was off playing tournament bridge or being a better grandmother than an actual mother. She meant well, but she simply didn’t have the Betty Crocker/Donna Reed gene. Seeing as I didn’t date, she didn’t think she had anything to worry about on the home front; she just figured I’d be hanging out with my other sad-sack girlfriends, inhaling pizza and ice cream. It no longer really mattered to me whether she was home or not; her absences meant I had the apartment to myself and I became notorious for my weekend open houses, as everyone knew my apartment was an adult-free zone. Cars lined my street, unloading hordes of young people, mostly kids I didn’t know, and when the neighbors complained to my mother about the noise, she blew off the criticism by responding, “Call me if it ever gets quiet, then I’ll know they’re up to no good.” She was actually thrilled to hear I was popular.

Being up to no good was, and still is, a teenage art form and my peers and I had it down to a science. To compensate for my lack of romance, I became a very skilled ringmaster of all things social, including orchestrating pizza deliveries and getting other people to pay for them. My newly discovered talent for matchmaking evolved into figuring out how long my mother’s bedroom could be used for Seven Minutes in Heaven-style games. I didn’t know it but I was exhibiting all the skills required to become a successful madam.

After the parties ended and I was left to pick up the detritus, the phone always rang with more than one of my friends, male and female, calling to get my guidance on whatever romantic entanglement was at hand. I was everyone’s go-to girl for love advice and I was really good at it, which was ridiculous seeing as I’d never even had a boyfriend, just lots and lots of boy
friends
. Didn’t they know I was making this stuff up?

Having given my singledom a lot of thought, I decided that losing my virginity was the key to becoming a woman. All my puppy fat would melt away and return to the puppy from whence it came and I would be desirable. With no one I could trust with my big plan, and therefore no one to warn me that this was a really bone-headed idea, I forged ahead and called my best guy pal Ben. I asked him if he wanted to hang out with some friends since there was no way I was going to give him any clues as to my agenda in case he freaked out and refused. Next I called Vally, who was “honored and excited to be part of my sexual awakening.” I felt myself cringe when she said that out loud, but the plan was on. Vally was always up for an adventure, especially if it had to do with boys and sex. I, however, was scared to death.

But I did know there was no way anyone could get close to doing
“it” with me while I was wearing my iron underwear; I was locked up tighter than a woman on death row. I unshackled myself from my long-line bra, prayed for the Jaws of Life to help release me from my triple-elasticized panty girdle, and I was open for business.

We were parked above a skating rink on the edge of a bluff also known as “Makeout Mountain: Over 1 billion served”; I desperately hoped to join in the tradition. Vally was in the front seat breathing heavily with some new guy called Barry, and I was in the back with Ben, who was already weirded out that we were on a double date and were now parked at the notorious Makeout Mountain.

Between the heavy breathing coming from the front seat and the dead silence coming from the back, I was embarrassed with the realization that this was not going as I had envisioned, but I had a mission to accomplish even if it was weird. I needed this to happen and I awkwardly offered myself up to Ben, who looked at me as if I had just undergone a head transplant. I made it even worse when I reached for his hand and timidly put it on my breast. He pulled it away as if he was Clark Kent and my boobs were Kryptonite and whispered, “Are you insane?” I stammered that we could just close our eyes and be quick about it and no one would ever have to know. Ben looked at me and laughed nervously and said we were friends and he wasn’t attracted to me that way.

I told him that unless we
did it
, we wouldn’t be friends in any way. I felt sick but this had to get done. When I suggested I could put my coat over my head and he could pretend I was Donna, one of my gorgeous girlfriends whom I knew he
really
liked, his whip-fast retort was that I could put ten coats over my head and he’d still know it was me because I never shut my mouth! I was mortified. I didn’t even like Ben that way but I still felt hurt so I punched him hard in his ribs. I think he might have been about to twist my arm but just then the car began bouncing rhythmically as Vally and Barry reached some loud Nirvana-like state.

Could this get any worse? Apparently, yes. Vally, in the throes of ecstasy, threw a leg into the air and kicked the gearshift into drive; there was a grinding noise followed by a sudden lurch and the car was moving toward the precipice. Panic immediately set in. Barry was pounding on the steering wheel and swearing, Vally was screaming at him to turn the car off, and Ben and I were both trying to get the same door open. It was the closest physical contact that we’d ever had; our hands, arms, and legs were all over each other as we tried to get out of the moving car, but it was too late. We were flying over the cliff’s edge, wiping out small trees, shrubs, and everything else in our path as the car banged, bumped, and flew toward the skating rink below! Flashes of hockey players in red and black, and purple and yellow jerseys, scattered in every direction when they saw us hurtling toward the rink. The car came to a sudden stop, smashing into, then lodging on top of, a rock. The driver’s door creaked open and Barry staggered out; Vally fell out right behind him, wearing only her pink angora sweater; the rest of her was completely naked. I pretended to be unconscious.

Hockey players, coaches, and spectators all gathered around the dinged and scratched car. Ben and Barry were doubled over, laughing like a pair of lucky idiots, knowing it could have turned out a whole lot worse. They seemed oblivious to Vally, who was still lying on the ground where someone had decorously placed his coat across her nakedness. The wailing of an ambulance grew closer, as I hiked my still-virgin ass up the long and dark hill.

Like a brushfire, the story took on a life of its own, and I was branded as a slut—ironic since I remained for the foreseeable future much like the Sahara Desert, large and unexplored.