• • •
People (in the world, not People-mag-dot-com, which is my favorite online publication but also the source of so much agitation for me because they insist on posting horrible stories about children being murdered) have often made a point of how loyal I seem to be as a friend. And it’s true. I’m one of those people who will friend you for life, if you’ll have me. But that’s in part due to my own fear of being left out.
I remember in fifth grade when all the girls turned against me in classic mean-girl puberty style. Girls who had been my best friends since I’d moved to Arizona were suddenly so mean to me that some days, on the playground at lunch, Noah Guttell and Seth Kasselman would take pity and let me hang with them on the bleachers while they talked about the Beatles. One morning, after my friends had been particularly cruel the day before, I was sobbing in my bed, not wanting to go to school, and my mom let me play hooky. She took me to the movies to see The Little Mermaid instead, which is one of the saddest/happiest memories of my life. I’ll never forget sitting there in the dark, eating popcorn and watching my favorite Disney movie ever with my mom in the middle of the day when I should have been at school. In that moment, I felt like she fundamentally understood me, like she knew how best to take care of me.
Really, I think acting was the thing I clung to because I was a part of something. And also, it meant that I got the attention of the people I so desperately wanted to see me, for at least thirty to forty-five minutes every few months, when I would perform in whatever weird play or showcase I was currently doing. Plus, I was good at it. People always tell me I’m lucky to have known what I wanted to do since I was eight years old, but honestly, I think there’s a piece of me that felt like it was all I could do because it’s the only time I really ever feel like I’m a part of things. Because the girl who’s the lead in the school play can’t be left out, right? You would think.
But it’s funny, because with acting—the thing I’m best at, the thing where I feel I belong the most—I still feel left out all the time. Somehow, I’ve managed to choose the absolute hardest profession for someone who tends to feel forgotten and worries about not being seen. I’ve had so many days in the past twenty years where I just want to stay in bed crying until my mom shows up to take me to see The Little Mermaid in the middle of the day.
But in all my therapy over the years and all my talking to friends and all my social media–ing, I’ve determined that just about everyone feels left out; it just comes down to how you handle it. I haven’t handled it the best, historically speaking. But I’m trying to get better. And truthfully, isn’t there something incredible about the fact that we all feel left out? Shouldn’t that somehow make us all feel a little less alone??
Maybe I do need to change the way I see two-year-old me. Maybe I need to start looking at it more the way my mother does. But the facts remain. When I was two, I took a walk around the block. What’s up for grabs is what it means to you. It’s like a litmus test: Do you see a sad, left-alone baby wandering the streets, or a determined little kid who wanted to see the world and decided to ace out in her nudes and make it happen for herself?
I guess it really just depends who you ask.
SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT
(Nirvana)
There’s no denying I was never one of the popular kids in school. I know that a lot of people who have gone on to become successful in whatever field they chose tend to have this same narrative. And I don’t want to be one of those annoying good-looking people who’s like, “I swear I was such a nerd, guys!” Also, I totally appreciate that sometimes people feel like outsiders even when they’re the head cheerleader, or whatever. But, come on . . . be honest! You were still the head fucking cheerleader, you know?!
It’s similar to when super-skinny actresses insist they just eat whatever they want! I mean . . . ! I used to fall for that, but now I know better. Yes. You can totally eat whatever you want. As long as it’s literally like three bites of that thing and then you stop. I remember a friend of mine recounting a date he went on with an actress (she’s famous, guys) and he was initially impressed when she ordered the fried chicken. But then she proceeded to pick the fried part off and eat like three bites of white meat before she declared how full she was. Those are fake eaters, my friends. And they are everywhere in my town.
Anyway, the point is, my friends and I were not exactly the head cheerleaders. Not that head cheerleaders even exist in elementary school. They don’t. Unless maybe if you live in Texas. But you get it. We weren’t necessarily nerds, but we for sure weren’t considered popular. The popular girls did things like have coed parties and kiss their boyfriends in sixth grade and wear Esprit and big earrings and read Sweet Valley High. We played games like Store for the Stars, where we would take “business meetings” (which consisted of ordering iced teas and bread baskets at Buster’s, a local bistro we could ride our bikes to), and we read the Baby-Sitters Club (way less cool) and the only boys we were friends with had no interest in kissing any of us.
My very best friend was Emily Bronkesh-Buchbinder. Our family moved into our rental house in Scottsdale in August 1985, and little Emily came around the corner with pigtails and a plate of brownies and that was it. We’re the same age (she’s actually like eight months older than me), but when we were in third grade, she skipped ahead a year. But we still spent most days playing Pound Puppies at each other’s houses or riding our bikes around the neighborhood after school. That is, when she wasn’t taking her “college classes” at Arizona State University. Emily was the smartest kid I knew (she’s still one of the smartest people I know), and she was in some sort of after-school program a few days a week at ASU. But of course she made sure everyone thought she was taking actual college classes with college-age kids.
I had crushes, but nothing requited. None of my friends did, either. By middle school, the popular kids were all dating and “going out,” but my friends and I were content to just hang out with each other, listening to Boyz II Men or watching Pretty Woman for the millionth time. Then seventh grade rolled around, which meant school dances. There were a few every year, held in the school gymnasium, with the eighth graders participating too. Mostly, my friends and I hung around the edges together. None of us really danced with any boys, and I would just goofily do the running man to make Rachel laugh.
Ever since second grade, Rachel Davidson had been my school best friend (Emily BB didn’t count, since she was a grade above—she was my best friend in real life). Rachel was for sure the leader of our group, the queen bee of a hive no one really paid attention to. She was the one who was always egging the rest of us on to do mischievous things. But I loved to make her laugh. She was such a good audience. I can still see her, doubled over in laughter, her hands covering her mouth, tears in her eyes as I did something stupid, like tie my shoelaces to Brandy Payton’s and run down the storm wash only to end up rolling and almost breaking our legs. I would do insane voices and characters on the playground at her request. As far as I was concerned, Rachel was the coolest.
Anyway, the Valentine’s Day dance in seventh grade was coming up, and for some reason, it kind of felt like a big deal. It was all anyone could talk about, and there were student government posters up all over campus encouraging us to get our tickets. I can’t remember what boy I had a crush on at that point. Maybe John Randall, who was Mormon and therefore seemed mysterious and exotic to me? In any case, my girlfriends and I were so excited, and we decided we would ask our moms if we could wear some makeup to the dance. I knew it wouldn’t be a big deal for Rachel. Her mom was incredibly stylish, which meant of course she’d let her wear makeup. But it was a bigger deal for me.
My sister is four years older than me, so she was already a junior in high school when I was in seventh grade. Leigh Ann and I were (and are) very different. She was somewhat of a tomboy. She went to an all-girls Catholic high school and seemingly had zero interest in things like makeup or cool hairstyles or wearing heels. Meanwh
ile, I would spend my free time watching Beverly Hills, 90210 or Saved by the Bell and then use my mom’s makeup to try to replicate the actresses’ looks. I would spend hours in front of the little mirror at her vanity, trying all her different products and using her perfumes. And then I’d use her Pond’s cold cream and wipe it off my face, like I’d seen on Designing Women, one of my favorite TV shows. (I watched a lot of TV.) (Still do!)
My mom was fine with me playing with her makeup in the house, but she thought it was inappropriate for young girls to wear makeup out of the house. My parents were the type who had those weird age rules that in retrospect seem so arbitrary—like I couldn’t get my ears pierced until I was twelve, I couldn’t get contacts until eighth grade (why eighth grade? I had to wear glasses forever!), and I wasn’t supposed to wear makeup until high school. HIGH SCHOOL! Like two years after seventh grade.
Anyway, I was nervous to ask my mom, and at first, as I had suspected, she said no.
“Elizabeth. No. You don’t need any makeup,” she said. “You’re beautiful as you are!”
“But maybe just mascara? And lip gloss??”
“I don’t know, Biz. Your dad won’t like it.”
“He doesn’t even need to know! Come on! Mascara and lip gloss?!”
My mom sighed. “I’ll ask your father.”
I have a feeling she didn’t ever ask him. I’m pretty sure my mom did whatever she wanted or thought was right and then later informed him what was happening. For his part, my dad generally thought that whatever she decided—especially in matters pertaining to girlhood—was probably the right call. So it was settled. I won. Mascara and lip gloss it was.
The day of the dance arrived. At school, everyone was discussing what they were wearing, who they wanted to ask to dance, who they wanted to hopefully try to kiss. I was personally excited about two things. One: the mascara and lip gloss. Two: Emily was going to let me borrow her amazing brand-new purple Guess jeans to wear with the super-intense patterned blue-and-purple shirt my mom had bought at Price Club but had somehow convinced me was cool.
Emily and I got ready together at her house. I cannot explain to you the layers of mascara I used on my poor little eyelashes. The fact that I could even open my eyes was a miracle. My mom had, for some reason, decided to be super rad before the dance and bought me my own blue mascara at the drugstore. That, combined with my Lip Smackers strawberry lip gloss and Emily’s purple jeans . . . well! I don’t think I need to tell you that I was really feeling myself.
Emily’s mom dropped us off with our signed permission slips, and my mom was to pick us up at ten on the dot. Already there were kids streaming into the gym. As soon as we got inside, Emily headed to the right, closer to the speakers, which was where the eighth graders typically hung out. I very quickly found Rachel and our other seventh-grade friends on the left side of the gym, near the bathrooms and the snack table.
We must have gone to the bathroom at least seven times to look at ourselves with our “makeup” on and reapply our lip glosses and adjust our outfits and our hair—not that it mattered much, since the lights in the gym were turned off and there were only a few ambient pink-and-red lights and a disco ball.
We danced a little in our group and ate a few cookies. And then, just as I was starting to feel a little restless with my group of friends, the DJ switched it up from the usual pop R&B and put on Nirvana’s hit single “Smells like Teen Spirit.”
Now. I need to explain something about pop culture here. This was February 1992. Earlier that school year, in the fall of 1991, Nirvana’s “Smells like Teen Spirit” debuted on the radio and MTV. Most kids were still listening to pop music like P.M. Dawn, Paula Abdul, EMF, R.E.M., and Michael Jackson but that video was everything. This was before the internet, so trends and music had a tendency to trickle in a bit slower. I mean, if you were a normal kid, you really had to rely mostly on MTV and regular radio. The cool high school kids, like Rachel’s older brother, were already totally into Nirvana and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Not my sister, though. She was really into George Michael and Color Me Badd. But in middle school, there was just a small faction of kids starting to get into grunge, mostly some cooler-than-average eighth-grade boys.
So the DJ put on “Smells like Teen Spirit.” Most of the older kids went nuts, since they all could at least identify it was something considered cool, and truthfully, it’s a fucking catchy song, even if you’re just a suburban kid in Arizona. But when the song ended, something truly weird happened. The DJ put it on again. And then again. And again. It was as if he just hit repeat and went outside to smoke or something. Well, this made the cool eighth-grade boys get really hyped up . . . on Nirvana and hormones and fruit punch and cookies and as-yet-unidentified white male privilege. They started a mosh pit, something I’m sure none of them had ever really been in before but had only seen on TV. You know, like in the “Smells like Teen Spirit” video.
I wanted a better look. Did I want to be a part of it? I don’t know, truthfully. I can’t for certain tell you what provoked me to move from the safety of the seventh-grade side of the dance, where I’d been trying to make Rachel laugh and looking for John Randall. I know what I said. I said, “I’m gonna go see if I can find Emily.”
But that was a lie. I knew it then and I’m telling you now. I wasn’t going to find Emily. I wanted to see what the fuck those boys were doing. What that anger and aggression and music was all about. So I made my way in the dark over to the eighth-grade side of the gym.
Even now, I can see it like it’s a movie. In slow motion. The music distorted. The lights flashing on my little baby-fat twelve-year-old face, full of mascara and too-shiny lip gloss. I want to tell seventh-grade me not to go. I want to tell seventh-grade me to stay in the comfort of my friends. There’s nothing to see with those boys. There never will be.
But there’s no time for that, because it wasn’t in slow motion. One minute I was on the edge of the mosh pit, and the next I was in the middle of it. It happened so fast I didn’t even know why I was on the ground. I just knew I couldn’t get up. I couldn’t get up off the ground. Just like that, my left leg didn’t work. And fuck did it hurt! The searing hot pain combined with the blaring music made me panicky as oblivious kids stomped over and around me. I looked up for help. There was no one who could see me. It was just a swirl of sweaty bodies in the dark. I tried scooting backward a little on my butt, but the pain in my leg was too intense.
That’s when I started to cry. Hard. The song ended, thank God . . . and then it fucking started again. And there I was, sobbing on the ground, these horrible boys all around me, unsure of what had happened or why I couldn’t move, in so much pain I assumed my leg was shattered, but I honestly had no idea. I couldn’t even see. I put my arms around my head, tried to curl up as much as I could, and just cried. I had no idea how or when this would ever end.
Then, all of a sudden, I heard a girl’s voice.
“Hey! Are you okay????”
I looked up to see Lauren Ellis, an eighth grader, shouting over the music. She was short but superstrong, the kind of cheerleader who could do backflips up and down the football field. I literally couldn’t even talk at this point. I just shook my head no. She crouched down next to me.
“WHAT’S GOING ON?” she yelled. “CAN YOU MOVE??”
I shook my head again, through sobs. She looked around.
“OKAY! I’M GONNA PICK YOU UP.”
I shook my head again. I was in too much pain. I just wanted her to leave me there to die. That seemed way more reasonable.
“YES,” she said firmly, and with that, little Lauren Ellis scooped me up and started screaming at people to get out of the way. She carried me, cradled like a baby, to the edge of the gym and set me down gently on the floor next to the bleachers.
“OKAY, LISTEN. I HAVE TO FIND A TEACHER OR SOMETHING. DON’T WORRY. I’LL BE RIGHT BACK!”
This time I cried out, “NO!”
I’ve been injured a few times in my l
ife, like in a way that required ambulances and hospitals, and I know now that when I’ve been in one of those situations, when my body is going into shock, the person who comes to save me becomes very important. I just want that person to stay with me. It’s helpful to have something consistent to focus on. (This is also true of giving birth with no pain drugs but that is much later in this book.)
“YOU’RE GONNA BE FINE! I’LL BE RIGHT BACK!”
And with that, Lauren Ellis disappeared into the darkness. A small circle of kids started to awkwardly form around me. The saddest group of kids at the dance. The ones who had been standing at the sides. And here I was now, in the middle of everything, mascara pouring down my face in sheets, pooling under my chin and dripping onto my patterned silk shirt that was now also stained with sweat.
A kid stepped forward and yelled, “WHAT’S YOUR NAME?”
Oh, God. I shook my head. I needed someone I knew.
“DO YOU KNOW EMILY BRONKESH-BUCHBINDER?” I asked one of them. “CAN YOU FIND HER FOR ME PLEASE??”
She nodded and ran off just as a teacher finally showed up with a walkie-talkie. He was trying to assess the situation and figure out what was happening. All the while, “Smells like Teen Spirit” continued to play on repeat. Again. And again. And again.
Truthfully, this is where things get a little fuzzy. Emily showed up with her eighth-grade friends, concerned but also maybe a little wary of being identified with the injured seventh grader on the ground. Then the school nurse and one of the administrators arrived. Someone had the DJ turn the music down, then off all together, to the jeers of not only the moshing boys but also most of the student body population. Then the lights came on, garish bright fluorescent gymnasium light, illuminating me in the middle of a growing circle of kids. Rachel pushed her way to the front.
This Will Only Hurt a Little Page 2
