Without a Doubt - [66]
I knew my parents would throw a fit if they saw me in fishnets, so I came up with a plan to get around them. I went shopping with a school friend who helped me pick out a low-cut V-necked sweater that exposed my nonexistent cleavage. I borrowed a tight black skirt that was way too long for me. I think it was something my friend’s older sister had outgrown. I fixed the hemline problem by rolling up the waistband, then hid the bulge under the bulky sweater. I scored a pair of black hose and doctored the runs with pale pink nail polish. And I bought a pair of cool black pumps. This became my uniform. My secret uniform.
I’d leave the house every morning in normal clothes. Then, when I got to school, I’d duck into the girls’ bathroom, dig into my knapsack, and pull out my finery. There were usually several friends willing to help me tease my long, straight hair to an acceptable height. The black eyeliner, applied with a canoe paddle, and pale pink lipstick completed the transformation. I was ready for class.
Back then the student population was divided into two groups: “surfers” and “greasers.” I liked the greasers, car-addicted, chain-smoking tough guys who swore at the slightest provocation, wore tight jeans, pointed boots, and leather jackets, and poured more oil on their hair than in their engines. I attracted the attention of the leader of the pack. Tom was fifteen-an older man by the standards of a twelve-year-old. He wore his hair slicked back with a ton of lubricant and sported a black leather jacket, his trademark. He was reputed to be epileptic; this somehow only added to his mystique. He had a pair of deep brown eyes, full sensuous lips, and a sexy macho attitude that made him the premier catch of the school. Shortly after my own transformation, he decided we had to go steady.
This seemed a very cool thing to do. It was a sure way of getting accepted by the fast crowd and proving how tough I was to boot. So I took Tom’s ring, a heavy metal number that was way too big for me. I tried the prescribed remedy of wrapping yarn around it to improve the fit, but that made it so bulky, I ended up wearing it on a chain around my neck. My steady didn’t mind. He considered it proof of his manliness that his ring hung loose on his woman’s skinny finger.
At recess he’d let me wear his leather jacket, which hit me at the knees. We’d stand together, his arm around me. Periodically, he’d plant an ostentatious kiss on my lips. He’d linger long enough so that everyone could see we were a couple. What they couldn’t know was that he’d repeatedly invited me to go out on dates-usually to Saturday matinees-and that I kept finding ever more creative excuses to decline. Quite apart from the fact that I’d never be able to carry off an actual date under my parents’ noses, I learned that I could expect to be “felt up” and “felt down.” That prospect terrified me. I knew that eventually I’d have to put out or get out. I wasn’t quite sure how to do either.
It was one of my steady’s jealous ex-girlfriends, Linda, who settled the matter once and for all. She sent out the word that she was going to knock out my lights. Tom told me he’d “take care” of her. One day, at noon recess, I went into the girls’ restroom. I’d just finished patting my hair into place when Linda burst through the door, cornered me, and threw a punch. I was agile enough to duck, or she would have knocked me out cold.
“You little bitch,” she growled. “You can’t have Tom; he’s mine. Get it?” She was leaning forward with clenched fists. It would have been funny, it was so trite-except I was scared to death. What had happened to Tom’s promise to “take care” of her? It was clearly up to me.
“Take him, he’s yours,” I told her, in as rational and assertive a tone as I could muster. She seemed surprised, but she backed off. And so I slipped out of a rumble and a sticky romantic entanglement within the space of a minute.
My career as a greaser was cut short by my family’s next move, this one to Michigan. I had just turned thirteen. I found to my dismay that the quiet suburb we now called home had no great appreciation for fishnet stockings. The kids in my new high school worshiped all things Californian. They wanted to be surfers. There was only one real “in” crowd. All the rest were wannabes. By my third day, the popular clique-operating upon the mistaken assumption that because I was from San Francisco I must be a surfer girl-took me under its wing. I was ceremoniously escorted to their table in the lunchroom and introduced all around. The girls were all dyed-in-the-wool Heathers. You know the type.
Before lunch was over, they’d set me up to join them for Cokes at a local hangout on Friday, go shopping with them on Saturday, and visit someone’s house on Sunday. The kicker came when one of the girls called me at home that night to announce that I would be going steady with one of the freckle-faced rich guys I’d met at lunch. I was stunned. I’d heard of arranged marriages, but this was ridiculous.
