When I finally got to begin the long awaited process of Getting my Hormones, it was not the thrilling rush that I had come to expect it to be. Hospital Day, as I would come to think of it, was really a bust, a long maddening endless span of waiting around in a too cold examination room in a cotton gown feeling sprung and anxious and bored, like being on a long plane ride at the point where the movie had ended and the in flight meal was long ago reduced to a messy, discarded tray and there was nothing left to do but stare out the window aimlessly. I always brought along a backpack of books. School books, comic books, reading books, but I could never bring myself to actually open any of them and relax. I was too hyped up, worried that I would never grow past four foot ten, or I would end up sadly out of proportion like this one kid I once saw in the waiting room, with legs too short and arms too long and a thick torso that seemed too slight to support his limbs. I was getting very worried about my body, and had begun the habit of confronting my figure as of late, and finding it full of faults. I was entirely too round, I would think, as I stood and examined my torso in the bathroom mirror. Too round and sadly undeveloped. I watched with envy as my friends changed during sleepovers, seemingly unaware of their suddenly slimming waists and breast buds.
“But you have incredible hair.” my best friend Caroline would say, as a way to comfort me as she pulled off her bathing suit and slid a long flannel shirt over her head, her sudden swell of an actual breast giving a slight sway. I ran a hand along my hair that hung to my waist. Yes, I did have incredible hair. At least on my head.
Yes, Hospital Day was a disappointment. I had expected so much more, so much more than sticky scooped back avocado colored seats that were cold in the winter and sticky in the summer. I had expected much more than a windowless room where the nurse announced my weight in a stage voice that they could probably hear all the way to phlebotomy.
“One hundred and thirteen.” The nurse announced, and then looked at me from only the corners of her eyes, “that’s a little high for your height.” I immediacy felt the sort of shame that should only be reserved for someone that has been driving drunk, run a stop sign and taken out an old lady in the crosswalk. I wanted to apologize to the nurse and tell her that I would try to grow faster and eat less. I slumped back to my mother and slid down low in the plastic scooped seat.
“Be good.” She said, sensing my mood.
Being Good at Hospital Day was hard, because it was not the normal sort of Being Good that was expected of a twelve year old. Being Good at Hospital Day meant not giving the doctors attitude when they wanted to draw blood or count my sparse display of pubic hairs. How, I wondered, sliding lower on the plastic seat, can one Be Good in a situation like that, when pubic hairs owned by a twelve year old, by all rights, were to be looked at privately, like when Caroline and I skinny dipped, and we sat out on the lawn afterwards wrapped in thick towels, and I had furtively glanced down at myself to compare with what Caroline already had and I was surprised to see seven hairs sprouting there. I had absolutely glowed, staring down at that sudden crop. Later, at bedtime I had shyly shown my mother. And that, I thought, sticking to the seat, was what pubic hairs should be all about when you are twelve. It was against nature and nurture to have these sacred hair constantly probed at and counted by some nameless interns and then noted on my chart.
Yes, from the beginning Hospital Day had been a bust. It was a disruption to my school routine, to miss an entire day, and I still hadn’t figured out how to explain my absence to my friends. “I was in the hospital” always had quite a ring to it, but I didn’t want to get into the nuts and bolts of why. It was depressing, because I had expected so much more from Hospital Day. I could still dimly recall the spark and special flare of the hospitals of my childhood, the special feeling of being the sick girl, the emotional pampering, and the presents. But no one was lining up to give me a bouquet of flowers and an Easy Bake Oven now.
And the day began insanely early. My Mother would rouse me before my usual wake up time because there would be traffic to contend with. When we arrived at New York Hospital and handed the car to the valet, there was a long walk along the manicured gardens, and then the whoosh as we passed through the sweeping glass doors into the huge airy atrium, and the echo of my slapping sneakers as my feet dragged down the endless corridors that led to the Pediatric Endocrinology Unit. My Mother’s walk was brisk, efficient, as she carried a tote bag with magazines and books and lists to tend to. Even though we arrived before eight, even though we were among a handful of early patients, when we settled into the scooped plastic seats it was always at least an hour before Hospital Day really got going. I could help but begin to immediately fidget.
“Read a book,” My Mother would say, relaxed and flipping through her magazine.
“I don’t wanna.” I would say, swinging my legs and kicking at the floor.
“Can I take a walk?”
“Don’t go far. They’ll call our names soon.”
I would nod, even though I knew it wasn’t true. I could wander the entire length of the Pediatric Endocrinology Unit, five times over, all the way to the double doors that led to the cafeteria, where, my mother always promised, I could have Chef’s Boy-R-Dee ravioli if I would just Be Good all day.
“Be good,” my Mother reminded me in the exam room while we waited for the doctor. I was sitting on the heater by the window and swinging my legs again, making rhythmic thumping thwacks.
“I am.” I said, annoyed, but I stilled my legs and then hopped to the floor, letting my gown flap open in the back. I glanced around the room, at the two bland leather chairs, the exam table covered with tissue paper with the drawers underneath. I put on hand tentatively on the handle and tugged. Inside were supplies. Rubber gloves, butterfly needles for blood draws and alcohol scrubs.
“What are you doing?” Asked my mother, glancing up from her magazine.
“Exploring.” I said, “Look at what I found.”
I held up a rubber glove.
My mother grinned and motioned for me to toss it over. She blew it up like a balloon and we had a spirited game of Glove Toss. She could do this for me on Hospital Day, she could make it fun. She would let me case the entire room, pull out all the drawers, mess around with the blood pressure cuff, or put on a funny voices to make each other laugh. It stopped the insanity for a moment. Even though too soon my spirits would sag and I’d lie down on the exam table under a thin blanket and hover into twilight sleep until light tapping at the door would rouse me and I would sit up, blinking and disoriented at some resident, fresh faced and eager to exam the pre-puberty surgical menopause case in room five. It was always someone different, as it was a teaching hospital, but the routine was the same. Lungs, heartbeat, blood pressure, and then they would say in the same detached professional doctor tone,
“Okay, why don’t you go ahead and lie back now?”
I hated this part, where they would untie my gown and peer intently at my flat nipples, and then prod gently at the flesh around them. It wasn’t so much that there was nothing there to make note of, it was the strangers touching me, even in this medical fashion, that made my body seem less mine somehow, at this crucial time where I wanted it all to myself. I wanted to be like every other twelve year old girl I knew, alone in my bathroom in front of my mirror caught up in a secret flush as I took stock of the subtle changes that belonged solely to me, and were for me alone to observe, not lying on a paper covered table with a hospital gown lifted up as the Resident spread my vulva apart with gloved fingers and peered at the interior of my vagina and said,
“Okay! The Doctor will be right in.”
As the resident left I would hastily retie my gown feeling violated, a victim of medically sanctioned sexual molestation. My Mother would catch my eye, her entire face telling me, I’m sorry. I would show her my brave face, that plucky look I had mastered, perhaps more to lesson her pain than mine, for I had learned to completely disassociate the second my gown had been opened and the chilly air hit my skin.
Dr. Bei made me feel different, soothed even, as she examined me more intently, commenting softly and asking questions. She was Chinese and had a very thick accent that I could hardly decipher. My Mother would step in and translate on an as needed basis.
“Wu have pain lon scar?” She asked, pressing her deftly below my navel in swift little circles, almost like my Mother’s touch.
“Does your scar hurt honey?” My Mother stood at the foot of the exam table and rested a hand gently on my ankle.
“No,” I said, “but it kinda hurts a little higher.”
Dr. Bei would move her hands and prod my stomach above the double scar that sliced between my hips like a lopsided smile.
“Hurt here?”
“Yes.” I made a face. “Always.”
Dr. Bei would then go off on a long tangent that I only caught every forth or fifth word of, but my Mother seemed to follow, because she kept nodding and making interested little grunts of “Uh huh.” Or “Mmmm.” It took several visits but I began to decipher some of Dr. Bei’s spiel. “Vu-Ginal Beeding” meant your period, something I definitely wanted. “Odd-heeson” was adhesions along my scars, something I did not want at all. “Esstageen” was Estrogen, or Getting My Hormones, but this would not happen for some time yet as my Han Axreey (Hand X-Ray) and not yet shown Popper Foosen (Proper Fusion) of the bones. No Vu-Ginal Beeding or Bess Tisoo for me yet.
“We take bud today,” Dr. Bei concluded and plucked a butterfly needle from the drawer. I held my arm out like a seasoned pro, making a fist and not even flinching as the needle dipped neatly into the crook of my elbow. I moved my arm gingerly as I dressed, being careful not to dislodge the wad of cotton taped down, and then we were free, and I was cranky with hunger, and my footsteps fell fast as we headed to the hospital cafeteria where my Mother always tried to entice me over to the hot section first.
“Oh honey look,” she would say, motioning to the steaming trays, “they have lamb!”
I would stand firm with my backpack slung over one shoulder.
“Ravioli.”
I loved the cold section of the cafeteria. It was filled with all sorts of crap that I wasn’t allowed to eat at home. I adored feeding quarters and dimes into the vending machines and making selections from the large Varity of pastas and pastries. It was strangely satisfying to end Hospital Day eating something sweet and mushy.
And then, bellies full, we would walk back out into the bustle of mid-afternoon Manhattan, me scrapping one sneaker along the sidewalk as my Mother called my Father from the payphone on the corner to give a full report before we retrieved our car and headed home. Once in the shotgun seat, my eyes would grow heavy, and I would give into the emotional fatigue and fall under, listening to the drone of WOR on the radio, fully asleep even before we reached the West Side Highway.

We have ritual and we have remembrance and sometimes the these two things converge to create our history. My story begins with a song. My mother is singing “Sweet Baby James” to us in the car. We were driving northbound on the Taconic and we were coming up on the Berkshires and that was what she always did when we reached that part of the road. But the Berkshires weren’t dusted with snow on this particular day. It was May, Memorial day weekend of 1973, and we were headed to my Grandpa Max’s 75th birthday celebration. And my belly hurt.

My favorite photograph of myself as a child was taken at that party. I was siting on my Uncle Walter’s lap. He was my favorite Uncle, the one who pulled quarters out of my ears and gave me gifts of cheap costume jewelry from his store and called them diamonds, and told the same impossible wonderful stories over and over. He was my magical uncle. In this photograph I wore my purple and black fancy dress, the same one I would wear for school photographs the following fall. My long brown hair was pulled back into braids with matching ribbons on the ends. I leaned easily against Uncle Walter’s broad chest, and his head was tilted to my ear as he whispered to me one of his tall tales, and my tiny face is all caught up in quiet rapt attention, with a drunken, glazed smile parting my lips, showing tiny little teeth like pearls. Uncle Walter talked the best stories, and I was hanging on every word. I have always loved this picture, this vision of myself at six, this moment when the shutter clicked and I was caught all involved in the innocent glory of childhood. Braids and my party dress. My flustered face, reddened from chasing my cousins around a room crowded with relatives. A moment of quiet, with a safe lap to land on and a story so bold and tall that I know it cannot possible be true, but I so deeply believe in, told only to me. A thick glass filled with coca-cola, a forbidden treat, that my hands grasp possessively, my tiny fingers touching textured glass. This photograph would be featured prominently in the rooms of my life from that point on. It would move with me from the doll strewn bedroom bookcase, be lopsidedly thumb tacked to the cork board that shuttled between my dorm rooms and the early dusty apartments of my twenties, until it finally landed in a pretty silver frame purchased in a spree of home improvement in Pier One on a lazy Saturday afternoon shortly before my thirty-forth birthday. I love this picture, where I am six, and small, and loved, and safe and well, and my world is still a place of early innocence and a body built on sturdy health. I love this picture, because it captures the moment before it all changed.
We lived in Queens then, and it was a two and a half hour drive back. I fell ill in the car, and climbed into the tiny back space in the Bug that I could curl up perfectly in with my yellow blanket. I rocked gently with the steady vibration of the car as my Father sped along home, curled up with both my small hands clasped over the rounded slope of my lower belly, steadily growing with a dull, throbbing pain. It was full dark by the time we reached the Taconic, so we weren’t able to play any of our ritual car games, games that had grown out of memorizing each rise and fall of the road until even little Josh knew when to call out, “I’m making a gas station”, or “Horse farm” several hundred feet before the landmark appeared. Instead, my brothers dozed, and my parents murmured to each other quietly, so quietly that I only caught bits and pieces of their conversation over the low volume of the radio.
“….Something she ate maybe?”
“….Stomach flu going around in school..”
“…..Watch out…deer.”
Before they reached the city, my father had to pull the car over twice so that I could climb out and throw up.
At my pediatrician’s the next morning he did not poke or prod where I said I hurt. He glanced me over rather absently and said, “A touch of the flu,” and then his eyes landed on my younger brother, two years old with round cerulean eyes and curling blond hair that fell to his shoulders and said, “Or a touch of jealousy over that one. Do you need a little attention?”
He put on that dumbed down voice that an adult will sometimes use when speaking to a child.
“It hurts,” I said in a small voice, unsure of what else to say. I was six. I was small and in pain. The doctor did not believe me and my world had suddenly become a place colored red, too warm and closed in. My Mother, frustrated and frightened and young herself, at 29 she still wore her hair in braids too, took me home and and tried to feed me clear juices and Jell-O but I turned my head away and refused. By evening, I was crying over the pain, and pointing to the area just below my navel. My Mother put me on the toilet and told me,
“Try to go.”
But I couldn’t.
My Mother called the doctor back.
“She says the pain is in her lower belly and I think she’s constipated.” My Mother’s voice went quick and breathy over the phone. She was scared.
“She’s weak. She won’t eat or drink and I’m afraid she’s becoming dehydrated.”
The doctor didn’t like his holiday weekend being disturbed.
“How would you know if she were dehydrated?” He challenged. “Give her fluids.”
But I would not take them. I just lay there slack with a growing yellow tint to my eyes and skin and wouldn’t let even my Mother touch me. I shrank away from her hand. My Mother sat with me on the couch and watched me all night, she watched me shift and moan and grasp at my belly and cry under my yellow blanket. Towards dawn she telephoned her own OB-GYN, the doctor who delivered me, and with a rising panic in her voice, described my symptoms. He said without a beat,
“Bring her to Lenox Hill. I’ll meet you there.”
I don’t remember much more of it. I was lifted off the couch and wrapped firmly in my yellow blanket and carried to the car and placed gently in the back seat of the Bug. It was dawn, and I could see sideways pink clouds as the car pulled and shifted and climbed onto the onramp to the highway. I can clearly remember the trees we passed, and the cool and crinkly feel of the leather seat beneath my cheek, and the dull feeling of relief that help was waiting at the other end. I was six. I was small, wrapped in pain and fear, with my world now a place faded a dim yellow, a Pink Floyd song, my parents voices drawn out and echoing, the sky floating past outside the windows. Not comfortable, but definitely numb.
And then, that is all I remember.
My parents always picked up the story from there, a story that they repeated to me so often over the years, that like the story of my birth, it seemed over time that I did remember it, as if I had been there in some participatory way, and not just as a semi conscious child wrapped in a yellow blanket. It had been arranged for the head of pediatrics at Lenox Hill Hospital to meet them, and he stood waiting at some prearranged side door, and when the car pulled up, he reached into the backseat of the bug and scooped me up and carried me into the hospital himself. As a grown woman, I imagine how it might have been. The day is so early that the light is still fresh and clean. The sun is just beginning to peek through the tall buildings of Manhattan as my father drove off to look for a parking space. There would have been early morning sounds too, garbage trucks and commuter buses, everything just getting going in the May morning, men and women walking quick, with coffee and briefcases on their way to work. The doctor, a little disheveled, having been woken before dawn, carried me through corridors that were empty and echoed. His sleeves were unbuttoned. His tie was sloppy. My Mother kept pace with him, watching my little feet hanging over the crook of his arm with her eye all puffy from a lack of sleep and extreme worry. I was brought to an exam room and placed on a table. The doctor palpitated my belly and in an urgent tone said,
“There is a large mass in her lower abdomen.”
And then quickly, there was a sudden rush of activity as nurses spun into play and my yellow blanket is cast aside as I am plied with IV’s and fluids and then, and then, I am saved.

It was a heady moment, a moment led to with lip smacking flirtation. Almost everyone else had left, and we sat on opposite chairs by the table, the air between us all fused with energy. Energy like fire that I had fanned and coaxed into higher flames and now could do nothing with except watch it burn aimlessly. Energy like that. What does one do with energy like that with the last guest out the door, the door closed on the evening, my boyfriend asleep in the next room and Cade turned to me with a look that could kill me, collapse me, confuse me, and arouse me all at once.
He said, “Let’s lie on the rug and make out awhile,” like a softly pleading question, or suggestion, and it caught me off guard, even though I knew it was coming. Of course it had been coming. It had been brewing for weeks, since I had begun dating his friend, since he had broken it off with the ex, since this strange dance between us had begun and ended and begun and ended and begun and ended yet again.
Cade said, “C’mon,” and “C’mere,” in that way of his, that way he had of stunning me into silence with silky spoken words dangled on a string, sort of sardonic, but suggesting satisfaction, and then shockingly sweet all at the same time.
Cade said, “Come”, and patted at his lap as I propped one leg up against his chair, like a barrier, like a welcome mat, for I longed for his lips. I was crazy to feel his kiss, but I couldn’t let myself start. I wouldn’t be able to stop just there. I knew.
Cade said, “I just miss kissing you,” in a way that felt like a wire being pulled taunt. I could feel the tensions those words created in my belly, in that way that words can pull at you and make you so keenly aware of what you miss.
I said, “I miss kissing you too,” and the confession felt dangerous, like I was suddenly standing on very shaky ground. Like a steep, slick cliff with a sick edge that you couldn’t help peering over, even though you suffered from vertigo. The words made me spin. His hand crept over to enclose my ankle and then continued with a slow slide up my pant leg. It made me feel like I was sliding down that cliff, sliding into him, colliding, as he murmured at my skin, mumbled softly at my black boot, held an entire conversation with my calf as he slowly slid his fingers up to my knee, brushing lightly with words about soft thighs. I sat stoic, wanting nothing more than to leap into his lap.
I can’t, I wanted to moan, Not with our friend in the next room. Not with another girl’s things still strewn around your house. Not with the way that you can still make me feel, this way you can hold my heart in your hands and squeeze it without thinking, or blinking.
And I want more, I yearned to yell, So much more than just a kiss. More than a kiss filled with scandal in a room filled with smoke with our heads filled with drink. More than a beginning that never reaches an end.
But I said nothing, and in that he heard me quite clear, and without speaking, we went to wake our friend, so I could take him home. But oh, still so drawn, I found myself following him first to the bathroom to watch him brush his teeth, sitting on the closed toilet seat like a chair, like a groupie, dumbstruck as he loomed close, mouth clean, all tempting, laughing in a wickedly innocent way as he asked me,
“You sure?”
And then he rubbed his cheek against mine.
Agony. But lip to lip would be my undoing, so I simply turned my face with my mouth playfully open and let him flick his tongue against mine, laughing, Yes, to his question of Do I taste all clean?
How, I wondered, am I supposed to go off with another man now? Even if it only is my boyfriend?
“Not my job anymore,” Cade had said to me to me earlier at the bar, flashing a wad of cash.
“Go and get your boyfriend to buy you a drink.”
And I had wanted to mock him. When exactly was it ever your job? You never signed up for that class. There was no tuition paid. You were always just auditing.
Even so, it was Cade that my thoughts wound around as I wound myself down, twisting up on my side under the bedclothes in my little alcove, pulling my blankets close and a soft pillow into my arms, and turning away from my lover, and dreaming of some cylinder clean where I could sleep warm and untouched. Some safe, solitary space where I could lie still and imagine his kiss. Some space where it all could come together slow, finally calm, and open, and perfect. A space meant to belong in a dream, as that was all it really was, sleepy longing. Awake, with my eyes wide open, it all looked so different, when sobering daylight was lit full, and there were no night shadows to hide behind.

In March of 1974 I celebrated my seventh birthday. My Mother lay on her side in white levis and a green t-shirt that said ERA, no bra, her haired pulled back into a long high ponytail and her head propped up on her palm, smiling in as I grabbed at one present to open in a blur, ripping open wrapping paper and ribbon, a quick glance, and I dropped it beside me to move on to the next one. I was dressed in Sam’s old basketball shirt, as his clothes were always my favorite clothes, and flowered pants with patches at the knees, a tomboy child, active and scrappy with hair falling out of my long braids. My brothers sat quietly besides me, propped up on their knees with their feet tucked underneath them. Josh even had his hands clasped politely in front of the swell of his three year old belly. Both the boys were in dire need of haircuts. Their bangs brushed past their eyebrows and the ends almost touched their shoulders. The three of us look like little hippie children with our long hair and bare feet. Wrappings and new playthings are strewn around us. A new plastic bottle of bubbles. A pad of coloring paper. Colorful shoelaces.
This is the moment that my father’s camera catches. Sickness is a dim memory. You can see it in all of our faces. My Mother doesn’t have to worry about my undressing for the neighbors and discussing female fertility with them anymore. I have grown out of it, left it behind in some other space, like the space of my lost front tooth that shows in my happy and dazed drunken little smile.
Fresh Meadows, New York, our neighborhood of 1974 is still safe and innocent enough for us, and we were allowed to roam within reason. I had a steady route of neighbors to visit. The elderly ones gave me Stella Doro breadsticks to munch on. The young parents let me hold their babies. Mr. Simon had a calculator that I liked to play with. As soon as he let me in I made a beeline for his desk while he grabbed his golf clubs to swing at a few on his little patch of grass outside. I would sit beside him and push buttons while I updated him on the more important aspects of the lives of the Lubin family. Neighbors would stop my mother while she unloaded groceries and say,
“We hear you have new sheets,” or, “Has your husband’s rash cleared up yet?”
“Little chatter bug,” My mother would say to me as she soothed down those little wispy bits that always seemed to be seeping out of my braids.
“Look at our little mother Earth,” My Mother would say as I played with the next door neighbor’s baby or carefully lined up my dolls along the back of the couch.
“Our Little Girl.” She would say to my Father as I ran through the yard with eyes all glazed over, my entire being caught up in some imaginary game. We had a great gang of kids to play with in that neighborhood and so many places to explore, so many spaces under the bushes to build forts, two separate playgrounds within shouting distance, with swings and slides and dirt to dig in. We were the kind of children who kept our mother on her toes. We were particularly prone to running away. Any perceived slight from our parents could send us packing, although we usually didn’t make it much further than halfway down the block and I’m fairly certain that most of our staged protests went unnoticed. We got sick in stages instead of all at once, subjecting our mother to six weeks of chicken pox. It was winter when I got began scratching. By the time Josh was recuperating he was able to lay out back in a lawn chair covered with a blanket. Our vomit was always projectile. Milk was spilled at every meal. Our Mom made us chocolate pudding for deserts and we would spin the little bowl around with our spoons chanting,
“Chocolate chip and chocolate mush Johnny baby!”
I loved the skin of the pudding the best because you could suck on it, with it’s hard crust on top, and the creamy pudding underneath. Sometimes Jell-O molds came wobbling out of the kitchen, two-tiered two-toned two-types of Jell-O with mandarin oranges and banana slices caught frozen the red shivering sea. There were Mom’s graham cracker crust pies too, that she made by beating the crap out of an innocent box of graham crackers in a plastic bag. I loved to watch. It gave me a thrill to watch her go to town and beat down some crackers and then pour the crumbs into a pie tin. She would fill it in with mint chocolate chip pudding, or lemon meringue, or apples and peaches. She would place her creation in the middle of the table with a flourish and accept our gasps of “Ahhhh!” and then cut tiny little slivers that I swear you could see through. Our Father could sum up our distress with one sentence,
“Louise, stop with the cheap pieces of pie!”
We had so many rituals living near New York City. A favorite Chinese restaurant on Mott Street in Manhattan that we went to so often that Bing, our waiter, knew what to bring us before we even ordered. I would watch the older wives roll wontons while I poured sugar into my tea. They didn’t have teacups, but short glasses and we had to keep stirring up our tea with a spoon or all the sugar would seep to the bottom, where our Mom would see the sodden lump that lay on the bottom of the glass. If we put in too much sugar, she would take our tea away. It was all very much a game of Chinese Cat and Mouse.
We liked to drive up Broadway so we could look at all the lights blaring out from the theaters. Our Father knew every song from every show and could sing like an angel as my brothers and I sat lined up on the couch, a captive, hushed audience of three. Songs from “West Side Story” and “A Chorus Line” were our childhood lullabies. Our parents didn’t take us on vacations to Disneyland. They saved up for tickets to Broadway shows. The first one that we all five went to was “Pippin” with Ben Vareen. We sat front row center, rock star seats, and when the dancers leaned over the lights and whispered, “Join ussssssss.” I was enthralled but Josh, four, arched his back against the plush velvet of his seat like a scared cat and yelled, “No!”
The sexy dancers who seduced Pippin embarrassed me. Their bras had slits in them to make it look like you could see the flesh of their breasts.
Jones Beach was close too, and in July and August when it reached triple digits we could pile into the Bug and drive to the ocean. Sam and Josh and I would begin to chant in the car when we reached the Tower that marked the turnoff to the beaches. We would sit in the backseat all piled over each other like puppies and say all in rhythm together, “I see the To-wer, I see the to-wer, I see the to-wer,” and so on, until we could see actual ocean, and then with no notification between us would immediately switch to “I see the wa-ter, I see the wa-ter, I see the wa-ter,”
Until we pulled into the parking lot (beach # 6 was a favorite but we also loved Beach# 9) and commenced chanting, “I see the saaaand, I see the saaand, I see the saaand,” until our parents parked. They never asked us to be quiet. I like to think that they enjoyed the chanting.
Jones Beach was a peanut butter sandwich with a light dusting of sand eaten on a scratchy blanket in a damp bathing suit, followed by Oreo cookies, always Oreos at the beach, and in later years, Double Stuff Oreos. Then our father would jump waves with us and hold our hands and pull us up and over the tops of swells before they curled over and crashed on the sand. It was a lightheaded, dizzy feeling, to be lifted up like that, and later, after the beach, when I was in bed and falling asleep, I could still feel the movement of the ocean. Our Mom bathed us with baby powder back at the car, rubbing all the sand off with a clean towel in a little private area she made by opening the drivers door and standing next to it, shielding us as she wiped sand out of the creases in our groins and our butt cracks. She would dress us in fresh clothes and place us one by one into the backseat, where we would feel so sated with warmth and sunshine, our faces colored like summer and our bodies feeling smooth and clean, and ready to doze off on the way home.
We could fly to the beach too. Our Dad had his pilot’s license and belonged to a group that could rent Cessna’s out of Tetorboro Airport in New Jersey. He would slowly do his pre-flight exam while Sam and Josh and I walked along the docked planes. They sat on cement that was cracked, but soft if you touched it, and the wire fences had weed like grasses that grew all tangled through it. You had to walk on the wing to climb into the plane, and there was a strip of black that was scratchy so you wouldn’t slip. Josh wore a baby harness in the plane but Sam and I had seatbelts. I felt completely at peace when my Father flew us somewhere. He controlled the entire universe from his pilot’s seat and I never felt safer. He was like a benevolent God when he flew, serene and at total peace, controlling all our orbits with a slight flick of his hand. He and our Mom wore thick headsets and their words were blurry from the noise of the engines, like listening to people speaking underwater. Our destination could be anywhere. East Hampton. Martha’s Vineyard. Provincetown. I can remember landing at an airport on the Cape and all of us walking over a huge sand dune to the ocean, laden down with sand toys and towels and a cooler with lunch. It seemed long. I made up a story in my head about a march across the desert and felt thirsty and like whining. But we were rewarded with a shimmering perfect blue Cape Cod ocean, and a sweeping low tide that left us with miles and miles of sandbars to play on. Back at the plane our Mother would bathe us in powder, change our clothes and place us in the backseat to wait for takeoff. In the moment when the plane lifted off the runway I felt perfect and happy, as if life could never get any better than this, my entire family encapsulated in a warm little metal shell, all of us flushed with sunburns and salt water, with my father flying us through the air towards home.
We had Massachusetts, two hours away, where in one small town there were more Uncles, Aunts and cousins than you could count on both hands. There, we had permission to walk alone down the three long blocks from our grandparents house to the little store where we would fetch our Grandpa Max his paper and cigar, and ice cream bars were a dime and our Uncle Walter would surely be holding court with his cronies at the deli next door and he would call out to us as we tumbled through the door. He would pull me up on his lap and call me Charlie and tilt his head down to my ear to tell me one of his famous stories while Sam and Josh sipped hot chocolate. On the walk home Sam would proudly hold Grandpa Max’s paper and tell us, “When I grow up I’m going to live here.”
While Josh took larger steps to keep up, I would hold the cardboard box of costume jewelry from Uncle Walter’s store, our “diamonds” he called them, and think about Pittsfield, Massachusetts and how it seemed like it inhabited a different decade than Fresh Meadows, New York and not just because my grandparents lived here and they were old. There was certain quaintness to the town, to the entire environment. My grandparents’ house had wastepaper baskets instead of garbage pails and window shades instead of window blinds and beds with pretty flowered sheets and knitted blankets instead of Mickey Mouse comforters. They had an attic that housed not only our baby clothes but our Mother’s toys and Nancy Drew books from her own childhood. My brothers and I would sit on the wide planked wooden floor and look around at the old chalkboard, and the doll carriages and ancient suitcases and the clear plastic garment bag that held our mother’s wedding dress and feel completely surrounded by our own history. It was a wonderful feeling of awe, and a little scary, because we thought perhaps that the attic might be haunted, but we felt almost safe if we were all there together. And in those years. the three of us were always together.

 

 

 

Once upon a time, when my father was a young man, he was chased by the Devil while driving southbound on the Taconic Sate parkway. Prior to this paranormal encounter, the Taconic had always been a long, lackadaisical scenic splay of pavement for our family, the link between New York, where we lived, and New England, where our Grandparents quaint little home lay. On the day that The Devil tried to get my Dad, he had dropped off my mother and brothers and me in Massachusetts for a visit, and then had turned around to drive back home. I don’t know why. The particulars are unknown to me and forgotten by him, lost to time. What he can recount, in great chilly, detail, is that while driving back on the darkened parkway, he had caught a glimpse of something in his side mirror, and had suddenly realized that a man was running up along the side of his car, grinning and panting and reaching for him. My father had blinked hard and stared in the mirror in horror at this creature, recognizing him at once as The Devil. He had stomped his foot hard on the gas and sped up, trying to outrun the ghoul, but when he checked his side mirror, there it was again, keeping pace, gunning for him. He had hit the gas hard again and sped ahead, and then, in the split second it took for him to glance again in his side mirror again, he found himself jerking awake, wide eyed and in a cold sweat as he sped southbound like a demon in the night.

He thought, “What the hell just happened?”

He gripped the steering wheel in a panic.

“Was that real?” He wondered, “Did I fall asleep at the wheel?”

Both prospects frightened him immensely.

All the way home he trembled with panic and perspiration, trying to separate fantasy from reality. He rushed inside our house and called my mother at my grandparents’ house in Pittsfield.

“I just outran the Devil on the Taconic parkway.”

This story became legend in our family. My brothers and I would beg our father to tell us again and again about the time he was chased by The Devil. Sometimes I imagined it was the cartoon Tasmanian devil chasing my Dad in the dark, and in my child’s mind he was round and brown and hairy and laughing in the night. As I grew older, I imagined a tall, thin, figure of a man in a sharp suit, reaching towards my father with long, tapered, taloned fingertips, like Richard Ramirez, the real life Night Stalker. I imagined The Devil man wore a mustache and goatee and had glowing dark eyes. He was clever looking, but if he were to catch up with my father, he would surely kill him.

But was he real?

What Demons really chased my father that night?

It is a certain fact that we all have Demons that follow us as we ramble though our lives, and in the light of day, they stay hidden in the shadows. But then, sometimes, they can catch us all alone on a dark night and make their move.

My father certainly had demons that lurked in his soul, and crept around his heart. You might say he was an easy mark for a demon to try to run him down, but my father was crafty. He sped up and kept running and managed to stay one step ahead.

Does the devil live inside your head, or in your heart?

If you know what to look for, you can watch the people you love always struggling to shoot that extra step. My brother Sam is sixteen months older than me, so I had a front row seat to watch him dodge his demons his entire life. Sam’s battles grew along with him as he grew up. Nothing rolled off his back. It collected and congealed and haunted him. Watching him from my vantage point of younger sister was like watching someone stumble through thorns, getting stabbed again and again, and never being able to heal from the punctures. His wounds were deep. He lost his first child, his son, when the baby was born too premature to survive more than a handful of days. He was one of the first paramedics to respond to the Twin Towers on 9/11. Months later when he would finally speak of it, he would talk about it in a flat, detached way with his eyes empty, the steady inflection of his voice a vain attempt to veil the horror, as if he were speaking of stumbling down a street littered with broken toys. He could push the demons down, but their hunger was unrelenting. They trailed after him for the better part of twelve years. You can try to muscle your pain, but it will take you over in the end. A man who always loved the youthful play of being the most dashing part of the party will begin to hide behind these tools in his grief, as if they have become the very paraphernalia of his survival. A man, who was always smart and daring and glorious can become a slow boiling pot, always a second away from steaming over. Staying one step ahead of your demons takes an enormous amount of energy.

In the end, it was the Taconic that was his undoing, and that sneaky southbound side at that. Sam had learned to sooth himself with long drives made musically melancholy with his old friends Bono and Sting, singing to him all the songs that could sate his sorrow. In the cocoon of his car, he could smoke, and dream, and drive just fast enough to stay that one step ahead.

He should have remembered the story of the night The Devil tried to get our Dad.

I can see him in my mind, my Irish Twin big brother, driving along in a warm fog of contemplation, the wipers brushing rhythmically along with the music, and the headlights sweeping a swatch of bright clarity into a very dark night. I imagine him soft; his thoughts slow, the heater brushing warm air across his feet and against his face. I imagine he lazily looks into his side mirror and sees a figure running up along side his car. He feels a panic rising in his throat as the figure reaches towards his mirrors, fingertips like claws, the face coming into clearer view, a menacing mask, wanting nothing more than to take him down.

My father knew to gun the gas, and speed ahead as fast as he could, but Sam, poor Sam, finally forgot how to run, and wrenched the steering wheel to the side, careering off the road, smashing into a tree, and flying like an angel out of the car and into the cold night, smashing his skull as he came down, breaking his body and his brain, lying there bleeding in the night until he was found hours later.

Did the Devil stand over his broken body and laugh?

And what of this, if the Devil knew my Dad, and if the Devil knew my brother, then does that mean the Devil knows me? Does he know where I’ve been, and what haunts me? Does he know the battles that brew inside me? Does he know of the pain that lingers in the most tender part of my heart?

And is he somewhere, out there on the highway, waiting for me?

I will refuse to run from him, and he will have no cause to chase me.

But is he still out there, lurking and looking, waiting to run you down? How many times has he slid alongside some unsuspecting driver in the midnight hour, or in the morning mist, or even in the bright light of the midday sun, grinning as he grasps towards your window, crooking his claws at the glass with his talon like fingertips to give it a tiny little tap.

Still, in spite of it all, I have all these daydreams of marrying him, but it’s never some traditional job with little flower girls and my weeping mother dressed in light blue organdy. No, my fantasy flowed this way. It would be late, two am on a Friday late, after Happy Hour, after a loud, cranking party had wound down at his place and the last guest had left and we would be left eyeing each other. He would come sliding close and kiss me in that way of his that made me spin, and among the pawing at each other that followed, he would suddenly cry out to me in this sweet, soulful, desperate way that I was all he wanted in this crazy life. He would say, “Sweet Jesus I love you so much.” He would have tears in his eyes. And then he would lay it on me. We should get married. Tonight. Get in the car and drive to Reno. And in this scenario I always imagined myself on the floor, half pinned by his hip, clothes askew, heart leaping as I laughed and said, “Yeah, let’s do it.” And I would fumble into my clogs, and grab my jacket and follow him out the door as I readjusted my bra. And then in a drunken clutter we would drive, all fucked up, all fast, up 80 with him smoking cigarette after cigarette and talking all animated about what our life would be like together as I dozed in and out with my head on his shoulder. He would wake me in Reno at 5am, and we would get hitched in the drunken dawn, the complimentary wedding photo capturing a wild runny-eyed time, mascara under my eyes, his shaded with sunglasses, and both of us lidded, gleeful, all, Can you believe what we’ve done? But it’s love, and it’s desperate, and it’s huge, and it’s right.

The rest of the fantasy is not as clear; it’s a vague thing really. One night of hormonal honeymoon bliss in some anonymous Reno hotel. The drive back to Marin, with no regrets, fingers linked over the stick shift, dialing cell phones to inform friends and family of the elopement. And then I empty out my tiny apartment into his tiny house and I claim space.

Okay, here it grows cloudier still, because I get mired down in facts, such as, would I keep my goose down duvet, because he already had one, or would I just stick mine down in the basement? But then I would consider the rainy winters, and my thoughts would drift to mold, and I would think how mothballs might keep a duvet nice and fresh, if it were stored in the proper airtight container, because someday we might need a second duvet, if we had a kid or a guest room, or things didn’t work out and we spilt up, and that’s where the entire fantasy just completely falls apart. And then I remind myself that technically, he’s never really been my boyfriend anyway.

This I know because I could always refer for reference to the list that Marley and I had written one evening in the middle of laugh jag, halfway through listing the litany of complaints about the men we were sleeping with. We called it, The Top Ten Ways To Tell He’s Not Your Boyfriend.

10) If he only calls you back.

9) If he kicks you out of bed before noon.

8) If he throws out your toothbrush.

7) If he’s married.

6) If he lives with another girl.

5) If he says to you on the way out the door the morning after, Catch you in the future Baby, it’s the nature of the beast.

4) If he’s sleeping with someone else.

3) If he lives in New York and you live in San Francisco and Gram Central Station is playing in both San Francisco and LA, and he goes to see them in LA…and doesn’t invite you along.

2) If he won’t take care of you when you’re sick.

And the number one way to tell he’s not your boyfriend? if you can’t break up with him. You know, because, he’s not your boyfriend.

And no matter how he can sway you with a Stay, Babe, and shoot you that slanted eyed smile of his that always makes you rethink things, no matter how he can show his predatory stalking mode strong, or send you little tingles of hope by saying he doesn’t want to shut any doors, or sweep you off the sidewalk in a bear hug and swing you around, no matter all this, no matter all this, you must not forget this list.

Write it down.

Don’t you just love the movie “Harold and Maude”? It’s seriously one of my favorite movies, and I’ve watched it countless times since I was a kid. The plot is so delicious, the characters are so rich, and that Cat Stevens soundtrack just about breaks my heart. The way Harold’s first love collides with Maude’s last love is tangible and acutely painful, much like the sting of cupid’s sharp little arrow, cutting deep and opening hearts wide. It’s a total classic.

Now, while I can honestly hope that at age seventy-nine I might be something of a free spirit bad ass like Maude, I also know that I could never then – or now – date a Harold, simply because of the age difference. I understand the older woman / younger man paradigm. Isn’t that how Stella got her groove back? Didn’t Annie Savoy just love a young baller? And oh, that sexy, seductive and stylish Mrs. Robinson! But I am not a Mrs. Robinson, or an Annie, a Stella, or even a Maude. I am Rebecca, and as I put in my “you should message me if” portion of my OkCupid profile, I only want to date you if you are within five years of my age.

The twenty year old dudes on OKCupid, however, seemed to skip right over that part.

“I’m an old soul,” wrote one 26 year old from San Mateo.

“I’m a real man where it counts,” wrote the 25 year old from San Francisco, and I had the urge to write him back and ask him, “You mean in, like, your bank account?”

But the most horrifying message I received was from a young man whose profile said he was a mere twenty years old. He wrote that he was actually twenty seven. But I thought he was lying. I thought this because I was certain I recognized him as the son of a woman I considered a friend.  Not a close confident, but we had friends in common, and we were friends on Facebook, and several times I had attended parties at her house. So if I were to see her out, or at the grocery store, we would definitely have a nice conversation, one that would not include the question, “Is your teenaged son dating anyone?”

He had written to me, that while we weren’t close in age, real maturity could never be based on age, and that he would bet that I must know a lot of men my age who weren’t really mature. True dat, I thought. I could think of several men my age who were total assholes, but that didn’t make me want to date a teenager slightly more than a year out of high school. He concluded his message with the certainly that his life experience made up for his actual amount of years alive, and that I was “totally gorgeous.”

Reading his message made me feel wrong and dirty in a thousand different ways. There were no visions in my head of the empowered Maudes and Stellas and Annies and Mrs. Robinsons in all of their glory with their young (yet certainly over 21) men and soaring musical soundtracks. Instead I was consumed with cringeworthy scenes of the seriously BAD movies of this older woman / younger men genre. Seriously crass movies like “My Tutor”  and “Private Lessons” and my personal Brat Pack 80’s favorite, “Class” in which Jacqueline Bisset actually ended up in a mental hospital after her affair with the young Andrew McCarthy.

Yeah. I felt icky. But I also felt this odd sensation that I needed to be a 100% sure that this was really the son of someone I knew. Why? I don’t know why. I just wanted to know.

So I wrote him back and asked him his name. Nothing coy. Just a simple, “What is your name?”

He responded with a name I did not recognize, and I was perplexed. Perhaps all the young kids just looked alike these days? Maybe he was using a fake name? I decided to answer my questions by doing a little simple old fashioned Facebook stalking. I looked up my friend’s profile, scrolled though her photographs, came across one of her son and studied it intently.

Yep. Same guy. Fake name. Fake age. Oh my.

While I was stalking he sent me another message. “I feel like we could have a great time,” he wrote, “and besides, you don’t look your age and I can grow a beard. What do you think? Exchange numbers?”

I wrote back, “I think no. You’re young enough to be my son.”

And say hello to your mother for me.

Recently I had a date that was so bad that in the course of the evening it actually circled around and became awesome in an epic, urban legend sort of style. My date, who I will henceforth refer to as Bozo, first swirled into my orbit when he liked my OkCupid profile. The Like led to a message, the message led to a text, and the text birthed a phone call which seemed promising in that the conversation flowed in an easy way, lifting up and touching down lightly. We talked a lot about music. He mentioned his divorce, but didn’t do that thing where divorced guys turn you into their therapist so they can lament their lives, monopolizing the conversation and shredding any chance of you ever wanting to sleep with them. He talked more about the Hurricane (Katrina, not literal) that had hastened the end of his marriage, and how he and his ex had simply drifted apart (literally, not the hurricane) when it became time to rebuild the foundations of their lives. He seemed fairly mellow about romantic relationships in general. He mentioned how once a potential girlfriend morphed into a platonic friend, and that friendship not only had endured, but flourished in the face of family like familiarity.

He seemed perfectly normal.

“We should go out,” Bozo said, “when are you free?”

I already had my weekend mapped out with music plans with girlfriends, but in a burst of feeling spontaneous, I invited him to come and join us.

“We’re going to have dinner in the city and then catch a show at Great American Music Hall,” I said.

He said he was in.

For our dinner, I picked out a New Orleans flavored restaurant in a nod to his Bayou background, and we met up in the bar before my girlfriend Hailie joined us. At first glance, all signs seemed positive. Bozo was dressed casually in black jeans and a simple white button down shirt, looked exactly like his profile picture and did not have serial killer eyes. He greeted me with a warm hug and admired my outfit in a manner that was not salacious. As on the phone, he seemed sweet and mellow, and perfectly normal. We moved to a booth, where Hailie found us, and continued our conversation, now flowing between the three of us, admiring the menu selections and talking about music and New Orleans. 

Seriously, a perfectly normal dinner. 

Except, Bozo kept excusing himself to the men’s room, and when he would reappear, he would say that there had been a long line and that he would give it a try in a few minutes, and then excuse himself again. He left the table three times before our appetizers arrived. 

I raised an eyebrow at Hailie. 

“Must be a long line.” I said. 

He returned to the table as the oysters arrived.

“Success?” I asked. 

“No,” he said, “the line was too long. I’ll try again in a minute.”

When Bozo excused himself from the table for the forth time, I noticed that he had his hand held firmly over the back pocket of his jeans, obviously gripping his cell phone How odd, I thought. 

He returned with a sheepish look and his cell phone in his hand. 

“My phone is blowing up,” he said, placing it on the table in front of him. “I just want to see who is texting me.”

He scrolled through his texts and let out an “Oh Man!”

“What?” Hailie and I asked in unison. 

“Wow.” Bozo said, obviously floored by what he was reading. “These are all from my friend.”

He glanced at me. “I told you about her, remember?”

I recalled our phone conversation where he mentioned the potential girlfriend who became the platonic friend and in my mind, our date ended right that second. Being overly enamored with your cell phone at the dinner table is rude. Being overly enamored with your cell phone at the dinner table because another woman is texting you is a deal breaker. Strangely, I found this situation rather humorous, so I slurped down an oyster and queried, 

“What is she texting?”

Bozo rapidly read through the texts as his phone continued to buzz as new texts arrived. 

“She says she is at home and she had a big fight with her boyfriend and that she thinks she made a huge mistake and that maybe she should be going out with me.” 

His phone buzzed as another text arrived. He read it and his eyes widened. 

“Would you excuse me for a moment?” Bozo asked and left the table, phone in hand. 

“He probably still has to go to the bathroom.” I said to Hailie.

“This date is bizarre.” Hailie said to me.

“Oh, this date is over.” I said to Hailie. 

Bozo returned to the table, more flustered than ever. He settled himself back into the booth and sighed, and then dove completely into the defining date death knell. He began to wax philosophically about his friend, the texting fiend. 

“So we dated,” he told us, obviously deciding that we were no longer having dinner but instead a group therapy session, “but she wanted to be friends. And there has always been…” he trailed off here, searching for the right words.

“Sexual tension?” I prompted. 

“Exactly. And now she’s fighting with her boyfriend.” Bozo trailed off again as our food arrived. He took a bite of his hamburger. 

“Would you mind if I bailed on the concert?” he asked. “I think I should just go home and text my friend, you know, be a shoulder for her to cry on.”

“Oh, I think you should definitely go home.” I encouraged him. I glanced around for our waiter. “I’ll get the check.”

“Oh no!” Bozo said, “We should have dessert first!”

When we got to The Great American Music Hall all I could do was laugh. Our other friends arrived and we told them our disaster date story. Halfway through the first set, Bozo sent me a friend request on Facebook. I held my phone up to my girlfriends. 

“Seriously?” I asked them. 

I shook it off, that strangest of dinner dates, and let the music take me over. I love to dance to live music. I love the pulse of the crowd and the waves of sound washing over me. I love bumping into other people and smiling as everyone grooves together. I love the smell of strangers. 

My girlfriends nudged me and tilted their heads at this delicious looking young guy to my right who was dancing alone, with his hands curled up to his chest, swaying, eyes closed, head nodding to the beat. His hair was blondish, and long, in that bushy, not exactly brushed hippy style. He had wide set eyes and a strong jaw and pouty, pretty lips. He opened his eyes and saw me looking at him and gave me a sly smile, and shifted his shoulders towards mine, just slightly, but suddenly we were dancing together. We kept shifting our bodies along with the music, and I let him creep his hands to my hips and drop his chin towards my neck. He smelled like a forrest. I tilted my head towards the side of his face and ask him him he lived. He put his mouth to my ear and with warm breath said, “Alaska.” 

His hands gripped at my hips and he buried his face against my hair. I leaned into him as I glanced at my girlfriends and mouthed Oh My God, and they laughed shaking their heads, because he couldn’t have been a day over thirty. 

And then his friend was grabbing at him and saying they were leaving, and he kissed the side of my face with that warm, warm breath and whispered good bye. 

Okay Cupid, I thought as I turned back towards the music, Thanks for the dance, it definitely made up for the dinner.