by Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl (retail) (epub)
HIM: Of course he did.
ME: And I would say, No really, I don’t know any girls like that.
HIM: Yeah, like, Do you know any girls who want to get in bikinis and wash cars in my parking lot?
HIGH SCHOOL SENTIMENTAL
Mark and I were at Angelo’s, the local Greek restaurant, with our friends Jake and Garrett. My first boyfriend was there too.
While we waited for our orders, Angelo brought us a pan of frosted dough shaped like a pizza. I grabbed a piece, and my boyfriend told me that I shouldn’t eat it.
It’s not healthy, he said.
Jake said, Ignore him, Jeannie.
Garrett and Mark echoed Jake.
My boyfriend huffed off, and Mark told me to stay.
As tempted as I am to remove my first boyfriend, he is relevant to this project. I never pursued Mark, partly because of my first boyfriend—but also because I didn’t want to jeopardize my friendship with Mark’s sister. That, and my crush on Mark disappeared after I realized just how stubbornly lazy he could be. Here was somebody who took his intelligence for granted.
Mark never pursued me, partly because of my first boyfriend—but also because he lacked confidence. I now remember Mark telling me this shortly after the assault. I suspect his lack of confidence was, though I hope it wasn’t, his explanation for the assault.
In my attic, I sort through old boxes marked High school sentimental and find photos of Mark and me. In several taken the same evening, we’re in my driveway and dressed for homecoming with Amber and my first boyfriend. (Amber told Mark, We are just going as friends. Understand?) Mark’s blue button-up shirt almost matches Amber’s blue, chin-length bob. She wears a shiny gray dress with black branches printed on it; it looks prettier and more subtle than it sounds. Mark’s right arm is around Amber, and Amber’s right arm disappears behind Mark. Meanwhile, my arms are crossed, my hands cupping my elbows, while my boyfriend’s right arm disappears behind me. I’m wearing a black strapless dress that reaches just past my knees. My long and wavy hair is pulled back with stray strands hanging down. I was going for that I didn’t try very hard look to offset the dress. My boyfriend’s right hand reappears on my hip. I look uncomfortable. In all three photos, I stand rigidly, arms crossed. That evening, before my boyfriend arrived, I told myself, This is the last dance you’re going to with him. But he’d attend most of my high school dances.
When I think of my first boyfriend, I mostly think of the road rage. The first time it happened, we were maybe six months into the relationship. I would have been fourteen. He would have been eighteen. I started dating him shortly after I transferred to public school.
We’ve been dating for half a year now, he said.
I stood in the corner of his bedroom with my purse.
My curfew, I said.
This time a curfew, he said. Usually it’s a headache.
I’m serious, I said.
He sat on his bed, underneath his tacky makeshift ceiling mirror of blank CDs.
Fine, I said. I’ll call my parents. They can pick me up.
He put on his shoes and grabbed his keys, and I followed him downstairs. His sister was at a friend’s house, his mother was on a date, and his father hadn’t been heard from in a few years.
I don’t understand you, he said, slamming his car door.
Inside the car, he complained about Catholicism, believing that was the reason I refused to sleep with him.
I just love you so much, he said, beginning to cry. I don’t think you love me.
As he turned from his street, he pressed on the gas pedal.
A busy intersection was two blocks ahead.
Please slow down, I said.
He ran a stop sign.
Please, I said.
The traffic light ahead turned yellow.
He pressed the pedal harder.
I love you, I lied. I love you. Now stop.
He slowed down, drove me home. He parked in the driveway with the ignition still running and walked me to the front door, where my dad was waiting.
My boyfriend told him: I’m sorry for being late, Mr. Vanasco. I had car trouble.
My dad patted my boyfriend’s shoulder. He said not to worry.
While they chatted, I went upstairs and distracted myself with a book. My mom appeared in my bedroom doorway.
Your father was walking the floor, she said. I told him not to worry, but then he got me worried.
Had I told her about my boyfriend’s temper, she would have told my dad, and my dad probably would have yelled at my boyfriend. My dad’s left vocal cord had been surgically removed because of throat cancer, making his voice scratchy and, when raised, frightening. Only once had he raised his voice to me. My mom and I had been arguing, and he interrupted: Respect your mother.
But my dad approved of my first boyfriend, and I didn’t want my dad to question his own judgment.
So I apologized to my mom and left it at that.
Later I called Mark’s sister. As soon as she said hello, I remember thinking: I wish Mark had answered.
I told her I didn’t know how to break up with my boyfriend, and she suggested I simply say I didn’t love him.
I hated the thought of hurting his feelings.
He’s going to college soon, I said. Maybe he’ll find someone there.
When I was in high school, I had a poster of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the full text, hanging next to my bed. One evening I reread the play’s opening while my first boyfriend tried to unhook my bra. By the time he figured out the clasp, Lysander was telling Hermia: The course of true love never did run smooth. I read the line aloud to him, finding it funny—given how not smoothly things were running.
Get it? I asked him.
But he didn’t laugh.
I can’t believe you’re choosing now to read, he said.
I don’t feel like making out, I explained.
He called me cruel, said I gave him blue balls, slammed my bedroom door behind him, and squealed his tires as he drove off. He called me when he got home, said he wanted to kill himself because I didn’t love him, said I didn’t understand the emotional and physical pain I was causing him.
Later I asked Mark, Is blue balls really a thing?
Don’t worry about it, he said.
On the phone Mark said he regrets not confronting the assault afterward: And I don’t know, maybe that was for the best. What could you say? And I basically replied, Don’t worry about it.
But maybe there’s not much the perpetrator can say. That’s why jail time exists.
EASILY DIGESTIBLE BAD GUY
I needed a break from transcribing the call. So, a few days ago, I emailed some of my early manuscript pages to my friends Jung and Molly. Molly and I went to grad school together. We both studied memoir. Jung is a novelist who moved to Baltimore around the same time I did. The last Sunday of every month, the three of us meet for brunch and discuss our current writing projects. This month, it’s my turn. While walking to the restaurant, I contemplate last night’s nightmares. In the first, Mark masturbated next to the bed I was sleeping in. Scared, I remained still and silent. No dream dictionary required there. But then, without transition, I chased cats and dogs around our neighbor’s front lawn, trying to usher them into a white tent. I’ve never met you, I told them, but you died years ago and you really have to stay dead. Pretend if you have to.
At brunch, while we discuss where to get a good bra fitting, I worry: Jung and Molly are mad about my sympathetic portrayal of Mark.
But then Jung tells me, I was late to work last Thursday because I was so absorbed by what you sent.
Do you think it’s bad, what I’m doing?
No, it’s really interesting, Molly says.
It doesn’t seem like you’re writing this out of revenge, Jung adds.
I’m really not, I tell them. I’m genuinely interested in the psychology of it all—like, is it possible to be a good person who commits a terrible act?
I’d hate him if I were you, Jung says. I wouldn’t talk to him, if I were in your situation.
But I don’t want to come across as sanctimonious, I explain. I think it’s fine not to forgive.
Did you forgive him? Jung asks.
I told him I did. But I don’t know if it was real forgiveness.
I like that Mark is complex, Molly says, while your first boyfriend is an easily digestible bad guy.
That’s a good way of putting it, I say, and write easily digestible bad guy. But does that then mean I need to show my first boyfriend as a complex individual with good qualities? I have a hard time thinking of the good qualities.
I don’t think so, Molly says. I think it’s common for teenage girls to stay with guys they don’t like.
I basically stayed with him because I figured my dad approved, I explain. I wanted my dad to die believing I’d be okay.
After they agree that my first boyfriend belongs in more of the book, I remember him photographing me naked several times—without my permission—when I was stepping out of his shower. I remember him saying, in a joking tone, that he’d share those photos with our friends if I dumped him. And—with no clear transition, like last night’s nightmares—I remember that he believed in laissez-faire capitalism without considering its social consequences. And he supported gun ownership rights. Did I date a Libertarian? How am I only now realizing this?
Molly asks if I lost my virginity to him.
Does oral sex count? I say. That’s the furthest we ever went.
This could be my traditional Korean upbringing talking, Jung says, but no, I don’t think it counts. You have to break the hymen.
We transition to the politics of oral sex. A guy we know wrote a series of short poems about how much he enjoys going down on women. Is this empowering to women or objectifying? It’s hard to decide without reading the poems. I mention that a straight male poet I admire recently wrote an amazing poem about not enjoying blow jobs.
He feels like he should enjoy receiving them, I say.
The first time my first boyfriend insisted I go down on him, he was a college freshman and I was a high school sophomore. He stood by his bed. From where I knelt, I could see his black rifle case. I started crying, told him I wanted to stop, but he pushed my head down, kept it there.
I really don’t want this to be about my first boyfriend. So let me try to get him out of the way.
The road rage continued throughout our relationship, usually in response to my not having sex with him. He’d speed past stop signs. He’d cry, say things like, Can’t you see how much you’re hurting me?
And somehow, I’d end up apologizing.
I wonder if I ever told my friends about his road rage. I recall feeling such shame about it. I think of how women in abusive relationships are often blamed: she knew how he was, and still she stayed. But I remind myself: he had guns. He often said he’d shoot himself if I left. I didn’t think he’d shoot me. Or I tried not to think about it.
Too afraid to end the relationship in person, I dumped him, finally, over the phone. It was the fall of my sophomore year at Northwestern. He’d just graduated from Ohio State and still lived in Columbus. After I dumped him, he moved to a Chicago neighborhood, about thirty minutes from Northwestern’s campus, accepted a dubious position selling something door to door—all to prove that he’d do anything to save the relationship. He wanted to talk in person. I owed him that, he said. So I grudgingly visited his new apartment.
You could live here, he said. You’ll get so much more studying done. I’ll drive you to classes.
No, I told him.
I asked him to drive me back to my dorm.
He turned onto a major road, and I cried as the speedometer’s needle moved quickly from forty-five to eighty.
I’m ending things, he said. Everything.
I’ll reconsider, I’ll reconsider, I said. Let’s talk at my dorm.
He slowed down. After he parked outside my dorm, I got out and told him we were done. I threatened to get a restraining order.
The next time you see me, I’ll probably be in a coffin, he said.
I won’t be at the funeral.
But I didn’t say that. I turned around and left.
. . .
ME: I have this really great memory of us. You know how we’d always have these study sessions at your house? You told me you needed to get out of the house. I remember we went in your car, and you said that you just needed to get away. I don’t know who all was over. And I remember you looked like you were going to cry, and I tried not to look at your face, because I didn’t think you wanted me to see you cry. I hadn’t seen many teenage boys cry. I didn’t think they liked to be seen crying.
HIM: It’s true. We don’t.
ME: And you had told me that you were lonely and depressed. I get so lonely, you said. I know you understand this. It was this really wonderful moment, and it’s my favorite memory of us. I don’t know if you remember it. I know we probably were in the car a lot.
HIM: I wish, I wish I had that memory. I block so much stuff out. I was astounded at your memory in the book, among other things. Just the detail. And I’m sure you had years to work at it.
ME: But also, there’s so much I don’t remember. You don’t remember us in the car?
HIM: Yeah, I just don’t remember that specific incident. I have no trouble believing that it did happen.
ME: Do you have one favorite memory of us? Or just a nice memory of us?
HIM: Let me think. I mean, it’s weird. My memory works in general terms. I remember being really good friends with you and really enjoying spending time together. I have little snippets of us at Dianna’s Deli or at Steak ’n Shake or in the back room of my house.
ME: It’s okay. I just was curious.
HIM: And I think part of that, the overwhelming power of memory is focused on that one incident. And so that warps it.
ME: I didn’t know how much it affected you. I knew you felt bad about it.
HIM: It was really never my place to talk about, Oh, this was so hard for me, and I still don’t really feel comfortable doing that, but yeah. It was, it was. Like I said, it shook my confidence in who I was, or who I thought I was. Um. I’m sorry. I don’t know how to say what I’m trying to say.
ME: It’s okay. I think you called me to apologize.
HIM: Yeah, I remember doing that.
ME: It was either the next day, or shortly afterwards. You said, I’m so sorry.
HIM: I remember saying something like, Can we just pretend it didn’t happen? I’m not sure in retrospect that was the best way of handling that.
ME: I think you said you had drunk a lot. And I remember feeling, Well, I guess it happens. And so then, I kind of felt like, Well, that wasn’t him, he was drunk. But people drink a lot and don’t do that. But also, yeah, we were nineteen.
HIM: The other thing to understand there, for a period of years there, I was deeply, deeply in love with at least the idea of you. And I don’t know, maybe that combined with the alcohol, just something snapped. But who knows.
ME: I never knew if you ever liked me.
HIM: And my general move was to not express that in any conceivable way that you would have detected.
THERE’S SO MUCH I DON’T REMEMBER
I started to challenge him: People drink a lot and don’t do that. But now cue my diminishing his guilt: But also, yeah, we were nineteen. I also made the mistake of saying feel when I should have said think: And I remember feeling, Well, I guess it happens. And: I kind of felt like, Well, that wasn’t him.
I remember feeling sad and shocked the night of the assault.
The next morning, I remember thinking, Maybe that was him. Maybe I never really knew him.
And then I didn’t want to think about any of it, and so I stopped letting myself feel anything about it. I directed all my sadness toward grieving my dad.
On the phone, Mark offered a potential reason (excuse?) for why h
e assaulted me: I was deeply, deeply in love with at least the idea of you. He then cited his drinking: Maybe that combined with the alcohol. But I was pushing him to offer an explanation.
I can almost hear Sarah right now: Stop making excuses for him!
And then, as if to flatter him, I told him, I never knew if you ever liked me. But I certainly suspected it, and after the assault I remember thinking, Maybe I should have known better—as if his crush on me justified the assault. I remember Amber teasing Mark about liking me. This was when we were all in drama club together. Amber also acted. Mark worked on the technical crew. I was given a good role in that year’s play: Belinda Blair in Noises Off. The play centered on a small group of actors trying to put on a play. The play performed by the actors was less interesting than the actors’ struggles to keep the production together. Belinda was the reliable and cheerful peacekeeper. She was also a two-faced gossip. My art teacher, also my drama advisor, originally offered me the role of Brooke Ashton, a young and inexperienced American actor, but that would have required me to wear lingerie onstage.
No way, I told him.
Later, I asked Amber and Mark if I’d made the right decision. Maybe Brooke would be more fun to play. Amber laughed.
Mark wants you to play Brooke, she said. He wants to see you in lingerie.
No he doesn’t, I said.
Mark just blushed. And that’s when I realized, Oh, maybe he wants to date me. But by then, his slacker attitude irritated me.
And now, as if to request new meaning, another memory reappears. For drama club, our physics teacher handled the lighting and sound. One evening, he came into the girls’ dressing room to explain the new lighting arrangement. I had just taken off my shirt and was wearing only a bra and underwear. I gasped, crossed my hands over my chest. He glanced at me, looked away, kept talking. After he left, we all laughed.
That was weird, right? I said to Amber.
So weird, she said.
The next day, I taped a sign on the dressing room door: ACTORS ARE CHANGING. KNOCK BEFORE ENTERING.
So, I believed in boundaries—could even set boundaries. The problem: in the moment, I found it hard to articulate what those boundaries were—because doing so might embarrass a man. I treated men how I treated literature: I feared misinterpreting their intentions.
