After the shock subsided, it occurred to me that the deed was done, with or without all pact participants. I had set out to lose my virginity and I’d done it. Check! I should have felt proud, changed, matured, and ready for the next step, but instead I felt a little confused, and a little lonely. Maybe that was growing up. From the point of view of a chemistry lab technician, the results of my popped cherry were inconclusive, but I was eager to do more research. Cheryl didn’t say much more about it, other than she felt a little jealous, and I didn’t push the conversation out of fear of adding to the distance the night had wedged between us. That was it. Time to get coffee and drive back into our respective horizons.
Cheryl and I returned to well-worn topics of future hair plans and final exams, and with no one to review my experiment with, I took a renewed interest in the chapter on reproduction in my biology textbook. But as my 90 percent in physics would tell you, bodies in motion stay in motion. And I was one of those bodies.
CHAPTER 4
SWAN DIVE
My mother still thinks that she caught me losing my virginity, but what could I say? “Don’t worry, Mom, I lost it months ago to a fake air force pilot on a hotel bathroom counter.” So I let her believe Tommy was my first.
Tommy was my high school sweetheart, although nothing about him was sweet. No parent, after meeting Tommy, would say, “What a delight! Now that boy is marriage material.” Considering his two favorite bands were Black Flag and The Dayglo Abortions, I was surprised we met at a Midnight Oil concert. It must have seemed like easy listening to him. Australia fever had hit America (and therefore Canada), thanks to Paul Hogan’s Crocodile Dundee empire, and my friend Kelly had scored us two tickets to see the Oils live. I carefully picked out a black-and-white striped half-top for the event and paired it with black jeans and Doc Martens: feminine yet edgy.
By sheer luck, our high school’s biggest heartthrob, Sven, was right behind us at the concert. Sven was a true Sven. At six foot two and 170 pounds, Sven hailed directly from Sweden and was nicknamed “The Nordic God.” He wore his white-blond hair chin-length, perfectly framing his rectangular face. While we danced to “Beds Are Burning”—a song condemning the exploitation of Australia’s aboriginal land and people—I stared longingly at Sven, the poster boy for colonialism, hoping he would consider exploiting me. (Yes, I know, Britain colonized Australia, but he was super white and tall, which is how I picture all colonists. Plus, history was not my best subject at the time.)
The next morning, I hit the hallways hoping to hear some positive gossip about me floating around school. Sadly, there were no reports of Sven having been mesmerized by a spiral-permed eleventh grader exposing her belly, scar and all, at a rock show. But there was an interesting development. Sven’s friend Tommy had misread my coquettish gaze and assumed I was making eyes at him all night. Sure, maybe I needed better aim, but I was getting results, nonetheless. Tommy told Carrie, who sat behind me in chemistry, that he wanted to take me out to a movie.
Tommy was not a Nordic god. He was like Sven’s evil twin. Also tall, but with chin-length curly brown hair, Tommy wore homemade T-shirts that read EAT THE RICH and TOO DRUNK TO FUCK. Even though he was always on the honor roll, I was perceived as the good girl that he was corrupting. I coveted that role; it made me feel like I was taking a risk—like if I dated him I wouldn’t have to sign up for Outward Bound. I told Carrie to tell Tommy that I was free Friday night after ballet class.
We went to see Boyz in the Hood at the local movie theater—which, from the standpoint of two white kids living in suburban Canada, could easily be classified as a foreign film—and then spent the rest of the night sitting in Tommy’s truck talking about how cool we were. We immediately became a thing. We dressed in matching all-black attire and were idolized by all the weirdo cliques in high school. Tommy gave me a thumb ring, prompting Andrea (pronounced Un-DREY-uh), a brainiac who sat across from me in social studies, to dreamily ask if we would get married one day.
“Married?” I sneered. “Nooooo. Marriage is a failed, old-fashioned institution. Maybe we’ll have a commitment ceremony and get matching tattoos, but I’m never getting married.”
I pronounced the word with such contempt it might as well have been “bestiality” or “cruise ship vacation.” Marriage was too mainstream for us, but I was positive that Tommy and I would be together forever. Or at least until graduation.
My mother despised Tommy and his never-ending three-chord guitar strumming in our family room almost as much as she hated her own boyfriend, Ivan. While Ivan spent his time drinking at the local Legion, Tommy was moshing at all-ages punk rock shows. That winter, my mom and I lived together like estranged roommates, avoiding each other as often as we could. She’d go to work, clean the house, and head over to Ivan’s, despite how much she pretended to loathe him. I bounced from school, to ballet, to punk gigs with Tommy. However, by spring, our mother-daughter relationship temporarily improved when I was chosen to dance in the Alberta Ballet’s production of Swan Lake. I’d worked my ass off (almost literally) in ballet for that opportunity, partially out of guilt from being constantly reminded how much those lessons cost. My mother was so proud of me that for an entire month I could do no wrong. But I found a way.
The morning of the final dress rehearsal and first performance, my mother opened the door of my basement bedroom to make sure I was awake, and found Tommy in bed with me, both of us naked, entwined in each other’s arms.
At the sight of my mother, I sat up so fast I nearly fainted.
Until that moment, Tommy and I had been employing what we thought was a fool proof system for his escape if he spent the night: I’d set the alarm for 5:00 AM, then we’d quietly creep up the stairs together and I would silence the wind chime that hung strategically close to the back door (my mom was no dummy) while he slipped out. Tommy would then put his truck in neutral and let it roll past a couple of houses before starting the engine. For whatever reason, this time we slept through the alarm. Even mastermind criminals slip up once in a while. Perhaps I was exhausted from months of long dance rehearsals, and since Tommy didn’t really give a shit about getting caught, it was possible that he carelessly shut it off and fell back to sleep.
Unlike Tommy, I wasn’t used to getting in trouble. I’d never been grounded or had my privileges revoked, so I had no idea what to expect. Even though my mom was permissive by today’s standards, she still had old-fashioned ideas about sex and certainly did not condone having it under her roof, especially by her youngest. And it was clear by the look on her face that she was sure that we’d had sex. If she only knew. My mom glared at Tommy, her eyes ablaze. “Get out of my house, NOW!” she commanded in a low, threatening tone normally reserved for my wayward older brother. “And take your guitar with you!” She slammed my door shut and stormed back upstairs.
Tommy wiped the sleep out of his eyes, turned to me, and said, “Babe, do I really need to go?”
“Yes! Go!!” I yelled in a panic and shoved him out of my room.
I could hear my mom angrily stomping around above me as I quickly got ready, gathering up my tulle skirt and white-swan-feather hairpiece. I ran up the stairs and whisked by her to wait in the car, terrified, with my head tucked into my jacket. My stomach lurched with nausea in anticipation of her wrath, but she didn’t say one word during the entire drive—not that I’d have been able to hear her over the pounding of my heart. By the time I entered the studio to warm up, I was already sweating.
Before rehearsal, I confided in some of the ballerinas that I was about to get thrown out of my house. In reality, there was no way my mother was going to kick me and my pointe shoes to the curb, but it was the worst punishment I could imagine. As they rehairsprayed their buns, some of the swans exchanged looks of disdain. They didn’t understand how I could waste my time with this guy—he wasn’t even a choreographer, body image therapist, or amphetamine dealer. Others consoled me by saying that I could totally come live at their houses, secretly, in their basemen
ts; they wouldn’t have to feed me much. I was a ballerina.
The lights dimmed at the Jubilee Theater and the orchestra swelled. I pas de bourréed onto the stage, took my place by the lake, and folded my wrists in front of my long white tutu as swans do. I could feel my mother’s eyes watching me, wrestling with the fact that her little ballerina was growing up way too fast for her taste.
After the curtain call, I didn’t want to leave the stage. I was safe up there in that fantasy world, where if things didn’t work out, you could jump into a shimmery lake. But the house lights flickered, signaling it was time to face the real music.
Other than giving me a stiff hug and a tight smile of congratulations after the performance, my mom ignored me and engaged the other parents about the show. She was silent on our walk to the car. As we drove home, I patiently waited to receive my sentence. Finally my mother said, “So. What do you want to know about sex?”
I didn’t want to know anything about sex from her, but I detected it might be my road to forgiveness. So I half-listened. What could she possibly tell me that I didn’t already know from Banff or Swank?
My performance in Swan Lake was my coming-of-age ceremony, the bat mitzvah I would never have. My mom may have realized that I’d be leaving the nest soon, regardless of how much she yelled at me now, because in addition to telling me that “a gentle lover is a good lover” during that uncomfortable drive home, she also softened her stance on Tommy sleeping over, as long as I asked for her consent first. None of my other friends enjoyed anything even close to this level of freedom. No grounding? No television privileges revoked? No living in Nicole Peter’s basement? Or is it simply impossible to be angry with your daughter when she’s dressed up like a sad swan? Either way, investing in those expensive ballet lessons was money well spent.
CHAPTER 5
TOMMY, CAN YOU HEAR ME?
My Australian friend Tai couldn’t believe that Tommy and I had never heard of the movie Dogs in Space. It was an odd little film about a bunch of suburban punk rockers living in a communal house, all searching for the true meaning of anarchy. Tai said it was so us. It certainly struck a chord with me, even though it was actually more of a cautionary tale about overdosing on heroin while pretending to be in a band. Nevertheless, I was deeply affected by the style and rebellious tone of the movie and wanted to be like those punk rockers—minus the shooting heroin part. I dreamed of squatting in a half-finished condo with other nonconformists, retaliating against capitalism, commercialism, and the man—whomever that was. I would learn to play the mandolin, make hemp jewelry, and have stimulating conversations while sitting on milk crates. I could even sew pillows for the crates out of vintage fabric. My fellow squat-mates and I would stage spontaneous political performances in public spaces and create art installations using tarnished kitchen utensils. I envisioned myself as a composite of Dian Fossey, Wendy of Prince’s “Wendy and Lisa” fame, and a Banana Boat suntan lotion model: smart, edgy, and hot. At the time, I thought these aspirations made me different.
The fact that Tommy and I had met at a Midnight Oil concert and were obsessed with Dogs in Space clearly meant that we were destined to travel to Australia together. Tommy said it best: “Babe, we should go there so we can be us.”
We weren’t just a couple; we were style icons. We embraced the outcast archetype and thought of ourselves as the suburban version of Sid and Nancy. Again, minus the heroin. And the stabbing. The land down under seemed like the ultimate place to further cultivate our alternative personas.
Moments after my mom noticed that I’d triple-pierced my ears, I told her I was planning to take a year off after high school and travel around Australia with Tommy.
“Take those earrings out now, and you’re not going anywhere,” she said, with the intolerance of a retired drill sergeant and mother of six.
But it wasn’t going to be that easy. After all, I was a strong-minded and determined seventeen-year-old. “Mom, I’m not taking the earrings out. You can’t make me. And,” I added smugly, “I’m going. It’s too late. I already bought my plane ticket.”
She knew I meant it because we were cut from the same stubborn cloth. She quickly forgot the six new holes in my head and started bargaining like a recovering alcoholic at a New Year’s Eve party, offering me an all-expenses-paid trip to Holland to see her side of the family if I gave up on Australia. She’s lucky I didn’t take her up on that; a free trip to Amsterdam for a girl like me would have landed me in the sequel to Dogs in Space way more quickly than backpacking through Melbourne. But I refused her bribes. I was going to Australia. I would fund my own trip. She couldn’t stop me.
The problem was that Tommy and I weren’t really getting along. Our relationship was increasingly volatile and dramatic. We fought constantly, although I can’t imagine about what since we didn’t share money, an apartment, or children. That said, it came to light that Tommy took his bad-boy image seriously; he was increasingly jealous and totally unpredictable. For instance, one afternoon while I was working at my mother’s grocery store, he stormed in, wrestled me to the ground, pinned my hands to the floor, and asked if I was flirting with his friend Raj. The answer was yes, but again, it was probably not the best time for the truth.
“Get the fuck off of me!” I yelled as loud as I could and wiggled out of his grip. “Are you fucking crazy? Never touch me like that again. Ever!”
“I won’t as long as you never talk to Raj again,” he threatened.
“Don’t be insane. You can’t tell someone to do that. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
He slumped into a chair like a six-year-old boy forced to share his favorite toy. His outburst should have raised some major red flags, but hey—he’d never done anything like that before, and I figured I could handle him. I took my “survivor” image a little too seriously.
THE SCHOOL YEAR was wrapping up, and Tommy and I were invited to a country club for the Honors Society banquet, a grade-based night of awards and overcooked chicken breasts. After receiving our engraved plaques, Tommy and I started to needle each other. He thought I was ignoring him by talking to the other dorks, and I was annoyed that he kept nagging me about leaving early to catch some crappy hardcore band downtown. The result was a huge fight, where I ran out of the dining room in tears. Tommy followed and our argument continued in the car until I noticed he was driving the wrong direction, toward the outskirts of town.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
All I got was a maniacal smile.
I tensed up. I didn’t like this weird control game and demanded that he pull over immediately. Which he did, very calmly. I hadn’t really planned on what to do next, but it seemed like the only thing to do was to get out, which I did. He leaned over, presumably to talk me into getting back in the car, but he pulled the passenger’s door shut instead, did a U-turn, and accelerated back into town. I stood on the side of the highway in awe, clutching my golden plaque. Not exactly the poster child for the Honors Society.
I walked along the highway for about half an hour, wondering how long it would take me to get home, when Tommy returned. I got back in the car, defeated, and tried to pretend like the whole thing had never happened. But I couldn’t. The next morning, I woke up with a clear head and a solid conclusion that traveling with Tommy to the other side of the planet was a terrible idea. I kept hearing this TV announcer’s voice in my head say, “If you liked being abandoned on a highway outside of Calgary, you’ll love being left at Ayers Rock!”
Tommy and I had plans to hang out at his house because his parents were out of town. His “house” was a mobile home on a farm ten miles outside of city limits, and a few miles past the last remaining drive-in movie theater. He picked me up and we grabbed some Taco Bell for dinner.
We were sitting at the dining room table, finishing our tacos, when he brought out some of our travel brochures to review. My stomach sunk. I couldn’t do it. I wanted to avoid this moment but knew it was inevitable. I took a deep
breath. “Tommy, I . . . this isn’t working. I can’t do it anymore.” I paused, then closed with the headline. “I want to break up.”
As I sat there holding my breath, knowing he would not react well to this, I could see the rage building inside of him. Within seconds, he exploded into angry tears. He started circling the room and raving like a madman.
“No! No! No! We’re going to stay together, whether you like it or not!”
That didn’t sound . . . reasonable.
“What’s so wrong with me?!” he shouted. “Tell me exactly what is so wrong?” And then he tossed me a sheet of paper. “Write them down! All of them. Write them down!”
He looked different to me. All of a sudden I had no idea what he was capable of. My brain started to go to fearful places. Don’t most murders happen on farms? It just didn’t feel real; it was like I was in a movie—the prequel to Trailer Park of Terror. Tommy left the room to blow his nose, and my instincts told me to flee, pronto. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a car or a plan, so I simply ran. I tore out of the trailer, leaving the screen door flapping behind me, and darted down the half-mile dirt road that led to the highway.
Panting on the dark highway again, I remembered that there was a lonely pay phone near the drive-in movie theater about fifteen minutes away, so I jogged toward it in my jelly shoes. Fishing around in the bottom of my purse, I found a bunch of pennies and one quarter. I thanked the spare-change gods and cursed Midnight Oil, Dogs in Space, and Sweden. The decision of who to call was simple: my friend Seth. Seth was the kind of guy who was always up for anything.
“Hey, Seth, it’s Ophira!” I said, as if he had won a prize.
“Oh, hi!” He sounded genuinely happy to hear my voice.
“Something weird happened between Tommy and me and . . . could you come pick me up?” I tried to sound nonchalant.
Screw Everyone Page 4
