Authors: Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
“Lass, I’m afraid we’re gonna have to let you go.” Because of his brogue there was a very slight chance he said, “Would you like to go see Bono?” but it was doubtful. I tried hard not to show any emotion, pretending it was the smoke from his
fifteenth American Spirit causing my eyes to tear; after all, I’d been here, in this predicament, a million times. Why was this time any different?
I slunk out the back door, looking both ways to make sure that the drunk woman and her pants weren’t lying in wait in the parking lot. No one was there but my Buick Skyhawk. I turned the motor over and the interior of the car was illuminated by the empty gas tank light.
Fired in one night. Was it me? Would someone else have put up with that crap? It didn’t seem like my situation could get any worse. But then it did.
The next day, a friend set me up on an interview at the restaurant where she worked. I knew this restaurant to be very corporate—surely there would be a name tag involved and a very long list of flavored martinis to memorize, not to mention a two-week training period much like boot camp where I would be quizzed endlessly on how to put the modifier for cheddar cheese into the computer, but I was running out of options.
The very next afternoon I found myself seated in a booth across from the manager, a man in a dark Men’s Wearhouse suit and tie, shiny black dress shoes, and a pencil-thin mustache that I couldn’t stop staring at. The man, who introduced himself as Bob, was staring at me intently, too.
“You look very familiar,” he said, in what I perceived as a slightly accusatory tone.
“I get that a lot. I’ve got one of those faces.” I tried not to sound paranoid. He looked ever so slightly familiar, too, but
I couldn’t place him. I was, like, ninety-five percent sure I’d never slept with him.
“Did you ever work at a movie theater?” Bob asked, not unlike someone administering a lie detector test.
“Well…once, a while ago, but not for very long. Waitressing is really what I love to do.” If I
had
been hooked up to a lie detector, I imagined the needle would be leaving jagged marks up and down the page.
“Pacific West Theaters. You refused to buy white shoes. I fired you.”
I was so shocked, I actually peed in my pants a little bit. Something I hadn’t done since I’d been busted for shoplifting penny candy at Woolworth’s when I was seven.
“Oh, you’re
that
Bob. Hi, again,” was all I could think of to say.
Once I got myself home and changed my underwear, I realized I felt relieved in a way. I knew my career in customer service had finally come full circle. Something had to change—and that something was going to have to be me. I had to get it together—get a “new attitude,” like Patti LaBelle, but maybe not quite as positive—I had my limitations.
I purchased a used copy of
What Color Is Your Parachute?
, which I perused over my last “borrowed” bottle of Chilean wine, scanning chapters and making a list of my personality traits to find my perfect career:
I don’t know if it was the alcohol, the spirit of Patti LaBelle, or the book had magic powers, but suddenly the world opened up to me. It turned out there
were
jobs perfect for people with what I had to offer. I could be a politician, Shannen Doherty, or even a Hollywood producer, which ended up being my true calling. And it only took me thirty-four jobs to get there.
T
he month I turned sixteen I found myself the best-dressed girl at a runaway shelter. That summer was not a good one. You know those After School Specials where a mom with a very young daughter gets divorced and then quickly remarries her ex-husband’s best friend—who just happens to have some anger-management issues? And then the girl, most likely played by Kristy McNichol, grows up feeling she’s never able to do right by her stepfather, who is likely to explode over being asked to turn up the heat in the car or punch a wall over a request to please pass the butter? Of course, the mom (most likely played by Patty Duke) refuses to believe a single negative thing about her husband and goes on to have more kids with him. Over the years, Kristy McNichol’s character predictably becomes angry and withdrawn—the black sheep of the family. She starts to drink, skips school to hang out at McDonald’s, constantly gets into trouble with the assistant
vice principal, Mr. Ward, for forging absentee excuses, gets caught, and eventually is on the outs with everyone in her family. Let’s just say if there was an After School Special like this I would have
completely
related.
Between my sophomore and junior years of high school, my parents, restless from living in a small city with a lack of diversity, decided to move across the country to a similarly sized city with even less diversity. Since they had nowhere to stay while they looked for a house, my parents were thrilled to be offered a temporary place to crash with their friend Connie-Sue and her preteen daughter. Being relocated three thousand miles from my best friend, my high school, and my comfort zone only ratcheted up the long-brewing tensions in my family. By the time we were settled into our temporary digs, profanity-filled fights with my stepfather in front of everyone were a daily occurrence. Looking back, it must’ve seemed shocking to Connie-Sue’s daughter to hear words like “cocksucker” flying around her living room, especially coming from a teenage girl. After so many years of threats, I’d stopped caring about the consequences of fighting back. I’d stopped caring about much.
The combination of moving, preparing to start a new job, and dealing with the constant battles between husband and daughter while trying to keep from getting kicked out of Connie-Sue’s proved too much for my mother, and she lost it during a particularly draining argument. My mother felt forced to make a choice, and I wasn’t it. My mother screamed for me to get out and never come back.
As far back as I could remember, when given a choice, my mother had not chosen me. But she was my mother and, although the whole situation was shitty and I didn’t understand it, I loved her. She was all I had and I chose to believe, I
had
to believe, that she’d see she was making a horrible mistake. I had to believe she loved me.
At first, I tried to think of being on my own as an adventure, dramatic, and a bit glamorous. I snuck back into the house, rummaged through Connie-Sue’s kitchen, and gathered as many granola snack bags as I could find—which was only three—a few packages of string cheese, and a thermos of water (I didn’t want to dehydrate—I’d heard somewhere that the first thing that kills you is the dehydration). Then I set out for parts unknown. I was like Christopher Columbus out to discover Springfield, Massachusetts. It took about twelve blocks and thirty minutes for the glamour to wear off, the food to run out, and the anxiety to set in. I sat down on someone’s front lawn to go over my options while trying not to panic.
My parents couldn’t be serious, could they? Would they actually think that I could survive on my own in a city I’d lived in approximately four days? I was like a domesticated cat; as much as I put up a surly front, I still longed for affection and a warm place to curl up. Plus, I really enjoyed seafood.
Maybe I could just go back to Connie-Sue’s, I thought. Maybe, possibly, my mother wasn’t serious. But I knew she was. I tried to think sensibly about my options. I could go
to the police but what would I tell them? My mom kicked me out so you need to go talk to her and tell her to let me back in? That didn’t really seem like a workable idea. Plus, I was embarrassed that my parents didn’t want me and wasn’t excited to advertise it to the city’s police department.
Instead, I made my way about a mile away to the grocery store pay phone and made a mental list of people to call (collect). It was a very short list. My aunt Lucy lived in New Jersey and I’d been at her house for a few days before I arrived in Springfield. She’d also once taken me for an entire summer when I was nine, and although she’d forced me to take flute lessons, I’d had a pretty good time. Surely she’d send me a bus ticket. I called her and when she answered right away, relief flooded my system.
“Aunt Lucy!” I felt the tears burning my eyes immediately the way you always do when you’re hurt and although you try to stay strong as soon as you hear your mom’s voice you break down. But I tried to keep it together—I knew she didn’t need a basket case on her hands. “Aunt Lucy, Mom kicked me out of the house and I have nowhere to go.
Please
can I come stay with you? She says I can never come back. She says I’m no longer her daughter. I don’t know what to do.”
“Stefanie, you have to calm down. There is no way that your mom would just leave you out in the street. Just call her and talk to her. I’m absolutely positive that this is a misunderstanding. But I can’t get into the middle of it. Call her. It’ll work out.” And with that sage advice, she hung up.
I briefly entertained the idea of calling my biological
father in Los Angeles, but I knew he was newly on his fourth marriage to a woman in her early twenties and they’d just had a baby. It just wasn’t an option. There was no one else to call. Like I said, it was a short list. I sat down on the curb in front of the pay phone and sobbed. This wasn’t supposed to happen to people like me; people who wore clothes from
Fred Segal,
dammit. I didn’t look homeless. I probably looked like any kid in any town on her way home from summer camp or singing lessons, but I felt like the Russian nesting dolls my mother collected. Every time something happened, another outer protective layer was taken off and I was left a little smaller than before. I just hoped that things would turn around before there was nothing left.
All of a sudden, like in a movie, a Volkswagen bug pulled into the parking lot and out of a city of strangers, I saw a face I recognized. It was the lifeguard from the Jewish Community Center pool where I’d been dropped off while my parents unloaded the car, earlier in the week. The girl hopped out of the passenger door and came to my side. Thank God Jews love nothing more than to get involved with other people’s problems. When she found out what was going on, she went right into busybody mode. “Okay, I know a girl whose parents are out of town for the night. She lives pretty close by, and I’m sure she’d let you stay with her and then tomorrow we can figure something else out.”
I was in no position to say no. So off to a complete stranger’s house I went. The girl was kind enough to make me a little dinner and let me sleep on her couch. Although hu
miliated, I must say the frozen pizza was delicious. Shame has never really put a damper on my taste buds. But the next day, the girl told me I’d have to go because her dad was coming home. I really couldn’t understand why I couldn’t just move in with her. They had a huge house in a nice section of town, which was a lesson I took with me. When I later moved out to California and didn’t have a place to stay one night, I slept in my car. But not before driving to Beverly Hills and parking in front of the most expensive house I could find. Much like
having
a home, being homeless is all about location.
I was completely out of ideas. So, after wandering around most of the day, I called my mother. To say she wasn’t excited to hear from me would be a gross understatement. But, to my great relief, she didn’t sound surprised, either. For some ridiculous reason, I half expected her to say something like, “Thank God you’re all right. I made a huge mistake and I want you to come home right now. We can work this out. I love you, Sweetie.” What I didn’t expect was what she did say: “You are not welcome to stay here. But I have found a shelter where you can go. They can’t take you in until tomorrow, so for tonight you can sleep in the car and I’ll drive you there in the morning.”
I walked back the few miles to Connie-Sue’s. Without entering her house, I climbed into the back of our gray Jeep Wagoneer and fell asleep in the doggy odor that permeated the vinyl seats from our springer spaniel, Louie, and our Alaskan malamute, Conan—the smell still clinging to my clothes in the morning.
When I arrived at the shelter, I was an odd sight. Appar
ently it’s not the norm for parents to pull up and drop their kid off like the shelter is some sort of day care for teens and not a crisis center for kids scooped off the streets. No wonder I got the evil stare from the group of runaways, which could just as easily been the touring company of
Oliver
or
Annie.
It didn’t help my cause that I was wearing a spiffy new red mini-skirt and matching blouse with a sailor’s knot at the neck, a present from my biological father’s wife. I must’ve looked like a slightly more ethnic Shirley Temple with a major chip on her shoulder. The way people were looking at me, I’m sure they thought I was about to break into a rendition of “Good Ship Lollipop” and blow everyone kisses before my sign-in was complete. God, I hoped they had MTV. I had a bad feeling I wasn’t going to be making friends.
Once my mother drove off, I was shown to my room by the director of the program, a kind, obese black woman named Gladys. I was led through the family room, where a couple of boys, Chris and Jeremy, were sitting around playing cards and reading comic books. Chris looked up and gave me a “hey.” And Jeremy, with long, dark, stringy hair and an earring, didn’t even look up. I immediately considered him a person of interest.
We had to walk up a short flight of stairs to get to the bedrooms, and Gladys seemed out of breath by the time we made it up to the top. I had a twin bed with a musty, faded bedspread and a lumpy pillow that looked like it was made out of some kind of cheap foam padding. On the other twin bed in the room sat my new roommate.
“This is Tammy. You’ll be sharing a room with her. Get settled in and then come downstairs, and in the meantime, I’ll get you set up on the chores sheet.”
Chores sheet?
Wow, things just kept getting better. While I put the blanket and pillowcase on my bed which had been left folded on top, Tammy introduced herself.
“I’m a prostitute,” she said as casually as if she was telling me her astrological sign.
“Oh?” I tried not to look shocked. The girl couldn’t have been older than fourteen. She wasn’t even wearing fishnets—just no-label jeans and an old ratty sweatshirt that looked like she may have found it in the trash. Prostitution seemed so out of my realm. I tried to figure out how to respond, but it turned out a response wasn’t necessary. This one was a talker.
“My boyfriend, Zeke, was my pimp, but I couldn’t stand it anymore so I took off and now he’s coming after me. He’s threatened to bomb the place. He totally wants me dead. I don’t have pass privileges because he may be waiting outside. So if you go to the store, can you get me some BBQ chips and a Kit Kat bar? I could totally use a sugar fix.” While she talked, she poked through my belongings and stopped suddenly, holding up a periwinkle angora sweater with flared sleeves. “Fuck me running! Where you get this? It’s wicked gorgeous!”
“My grandmother bought it for me at Macy’s when I went to visit her in New York.”
I hadn’t shared a room with anyone in years, especially
a prostitute on the run from her pimp. It made me nervous, but I tried to be cool. “My mom’s a bitch. And my stepfather hates me.”
“Really?” Tammy perked up. “My mother’s asshole boyfriend raped me so I took off. Stole his dog, too. But Zeke has him now.” Jesus. It wasn’t a “whose life sucks worse?” competition, yet I was already feeling like a fraud. On the other hand, I was here, so somewhere things had veered way off track for both of us.
I had to pee, so Tammy showed me to the bathroom we’d be sharing. On the sink was a huge can of Aqua Net, a clear Ziploc bag full of drugstore makeup, and about nine bottles of prescription medication lining a shelf.
“I’m manic-depressive,” she said, gesturing to the bottles.
“Oh, yeah? My biological father has that, too,” I said, trying to bond.
“I hear it’s genetic. Anyway, let’s go eat,” Tammy said. “Breakfast is at 7 a.m. sharp and then there’s cleanup and chores, but it’s almost ten so we can have a snack.” Tammy seemed hyperfocused on food, which meant either she was a woman after my own heart or this place was really fucking boring.
“Great.”
According to the chore sheet I found in the kitchen, I had toilet scrubbing, dinner dishes, dusting, and vacuuming to look forward to on my first day. Everything was on a level system and since I was new, I was a level one, which I quickly found out carried very few—ok, no—privileges with it. I
had to earn the right to have dessert, watch television, walk to the store, go to bed later than 9 p.m., and even use the phone. This whole system seemed entirely unfair. This wasn’t a juvenile detention center; these kids were in need of someone who cared about them. They weren’t here because they’d committed crimes. I had been dropped off by my parents not because I was into drugs or alcohol or shoplifting but because I was argumentative. The rules and strictness seemed oppressive and worse than boot camp. Before we moved, I’d considered trying to join the military, but it didn’t seem doable, mainly because I was too young and I doubted they would take someone with a physical impairment like contact lenses, so I had ruled it out.
My first night, I went to my room straight after dinner and read
If There Be Thorns,
the latest in my favorite V. C. Andrews series, until Tammy came in looking distraught and shaky. She said she was certain she’d heard her boyfriend sneaking around outside, and although she didn’t see him, she knew he was there. We sat and listened for a long time, but I never heard anything and eventually fell asleep.