Gawky

by Margot Leitman

  “Alright, alright! Just put those things away. Go in, find your friend.” The guard looked traumatized. His giant hands appeared to be trembling at the mere thought of menstruation. He wanted us as far away from him as possible, and he wanted to forget the image of the super tampon as quickly as he could. That we had in common.

  “Thanks!” she said, and gave a cute wave back to him. She grabbed my arm as we walked in to “Don’t Come Around Here No More” and said, “I tried that a few weeks ago and it totally worked. So far a foolproof method.”

  I tossed the super tampon in the first trash I found and went from disgusted to thrilled. The tampon scam was the coolest thing I had ever pulled off, and the biggest success I had ever achieved in terms of manipulation. The pretty girl certainly knew how to get things done, and she majorly schooled me in the art of exploitation for the sake of music. That night, we chatted up some cute long-haired boys who seemed to dig me. By going to concerts so frequently I was discovering that while at school I was an undateable, gargantuan freak, at concerts I was a rock goddess. Guys at concerts complimented my outfits rather than making fun of them. Sure, maybe it was because concerts were always dark, but still, guys seemed to respond positively and that was enough for me. I had extreme confidence in dark, loud, crowded environments filled with people I would never see again. It was the day-to-day encounters with schoolmates under fluorescent lighting that I needed to work on.

  CHAPTER 14:

  Bubble Seduction

  After the tampon incident, I was inspired to come up with a concert manipulation of my own. I wanted to meet long-haired rock ’n’ roll guys and have a deep connection with an inevitable time limit à la Before Sunrise. What I came up with was pretty close to genius, as it worked almost every time. I would sit listening to the music, blowing bubbles I had gotten with my 25 percent discount at the drugstore. Then, hot, tall, skinny stoner guys with long hair (who all looked like me without the estrogen) would follow the trail of bubbles wondering, Who is the rock goddess responsible for this simple pleasure? Then, like a stoned Hansel meeting his doppelganger Gretel, the guys would follow the soapy spheres to me, the source, and I would greet them, rechanneling my Octopussy voice, and say, “It’s me; I’m blowing the bubbles.” Then they would stay and talk to me for the rest of the concert.

  It was never a romantic connection, no numbers were ever swapped or awkward first kisses exchanged, but knowing that there were guys out there who enjoyed my company, albeit under a cloud of weed, kick-ass rock music, and manipulative bubble seduction, was just enough to get me through my week at school. After a concert, going to school to find that same bitch-faced bully waiting at my locker to say “What the fuck you wearin’ today?” seemed almost tolerable. Listening to the tables of upperclassmen discuss their amazing futures that were just around the corner for them next year at college while I gnawed on a hummus-and-sprout sandwich all alone in the cafeteria wasn’t so bad after a deep connection the weekend before over a joint and some Santana.

  A few weeks after the super-tampon success was the They Might Be Giants concert at the other local venue, the Count Basie Theatre. Not wanting to be seen with a super tampon ever again, I decided it would be best to just purchase my ticket the old-fashioned way. The Count Basie Theatre was cheaper anyway, so I only had to work a few extra hours at the drugstore to afford the ticket. They Might Be Giants were in a different category of music than my usual straight-up rock. But they were a soundtrack to the outcasts, using unusual instruments like the accordion and pushing the rules of music by doing innovative above-the-law experiments like ten-second songs. They were music for nerds, and although I was not a nerd by traditional standards, I certainly understood how it felt not to be cool. These guys were alright by me, and I had copied all my brother’s They Might Be Giants CDs onto cassettes when he went away to college. This was going to be a great night.

  I packed my bubbles, borrowed my mom’s special suede fringed vest, and headed out for a night of nerd rock. Even though this was an indoor venue, I figured my bubbles would still flow freely through the concert hall. And it being a more intimate setting, I figured the process of bubble seduction would work at a much more rapid pace. I arrived at the venue, found my seat, and just as the show began, with “Ana Ng” pumping through the giant speakers, I took out my secret weapon of suds. I blew those bubbles like it was my job, only running out of breath as the final chord of TMBG’s most rockin’ song came to a close.

  A long-haired boy approached. Another successful bubble seduction! He was tall and thin, but his hair was dark, therefore making it slightly less narcissistic for me to be attracted to him. Corey was a little older, lived a few towns over, and had cute dance moves. He bounced up and down, keeping his arms restrained, unlike me, who flailed them around like I was the ghost of Isadora Duncan. He had good rhythm and wasn’t trying too hard, which attracted me to him. Somewhere between “Particle Man” and “Birdhouse in Your Soul” he asked me where I was from and what my name was. We hung out, danced, and talked a little bit after the show ended. Corey even kissed me in the lobby at the end of the show. It was just a quick peck—no tongue, lasting a little longer than one would kiss a relative, but still further than anyone at school had attempted—and then he left. We didn’t exchange contact information; emulating those hotties in Before Sunrise, the night was left as just a moment shared between two teenage misfits at a concert. No need to keep it going beyond that; it was what it was, and somehow the fantasy of wondering what if? was more exciting to me than any reality of seeing Corey ever again.

  Two days later, a card arrived for me in the mail. It was from Corey. It said something about how he couldn’t stop thinking about me since the concert. Then the phone rang. It was Corey. I said, “Uh, hi! I’m holding a card from you in my hand right now. How did you get my address? How did you get my phone number?”

  “Easy,” he said, in a voice that seemed much whinier than I remembered hearing when we shouted to each other over some badass accordion rock two nights before. “You told me what town you lived in and what your full name was. So, I looked up possible spellings of Leitman in the phone book until I arrived at one that matched your hometown.”

  What? I had only a few make-out sessions with Jonah Hertzberg and a brush with a genital with Jackie Angel’s friend John as my previous experience, but I knew something was very wrong here. Sure, I had an affinity for horror movies after seeing Chopping Mall (tagline: “Shop till You Drop . . . Dead”) at way too early an age. I also loved the thriller genre, having seen The Hand That Rocks the Cradle five times in the theatre, despite being under seventeen and it having an R rating. So maybe my alerts were slightly heightened, but I needed to trust my gut on this. Something wasn’t right.

  At the same time . . . I’d be lying to say that the thought of Corey turning into a creepy killer didn’t excite me a little. How dramatic! This would truly be something to write in my journal about. Maybe this would build to him chasing me through the woods with an ax until I fell backward into a pile of muddy leaves screaming “No, no!” I thought back to the concert. True, he hadn’t just asked me my name, he’d asked “What’s your full name?” And I had said “Margot Leitman.” To which he probably thought, Okay, mental note, possible spellings: L-I-T-E, L-I-G-H-T, L-I-E-T, L-E-I-T . . . I will hunt her down and I will find her!

  I’d thought at the time that in asking for my full name he was just curious about my ethnic heritage. Because of my fair skin and height, people often thought I was Scandinavian. Maybe he was just checking to see if his hunch that I was from an adorable sweater-wearing culture was right. I had no idea he was going to use my last name as a tool in his overresourcefulness at staying in touch. Why didn’t he simply just ask for my contact info? I would have given it to him. As creepy as this was, I didn’t have any other options for love interests. No one else was into me; at school I was still thought of as a hulking weirdo, so I had to take what I could get.

  Corey was
still talking. “I was hoping to call first and then have you get my card second, but damn, that postal system is faster than I thought! I am impressed!”

  “Yeah,” I said, attempting to remain agreeable with this teenager clearly in need of a deeper connection. I tried to focus on what Corey was saying, but as he rambled on about America’s underappreciated postal system, I became keenly aware that we really didn’t have anything to talk about. Corey was like a vacation friend: fun to swim with on a deserted resort in Aruba, but beyond that fun in the sun and those piña coladas, there was no reason to stay in touch.

  After a few moments of awkward silence, and a few more accolades about the U.S. postal system, we hung up. I figured that would be it. Hey, at least someone liked me! But a few days later another card arrived, then a letter. I made sure to start grabbing the mail as soon as I came home from school so as not to have my parents find it and wonder what was going on. Plus I’ve always loved mail. As a kid I would call 1-800 numbers to request brochures specifically addressed to me. My mom used to tease me when my monthly brochures for Craftmatic Adjustable Beds and the Raquel Welch Wig Collection would arrive, but I loved the thrill of something arriving addressed specifically for me.

  Besides, I was kind of excited by Corey’s pursuit. Yes, sure, it was strange how Corey got my info, but I admired his persistence. After being called “Maggot” and “Girl Eric Clapton” all day at school, I found it refreshing to come home to a letter from a weird boy a few towns over who thought I was “the hottest being on earth.” I didn’t need to actually see him; just knowing that someone out there liked me A LOT was enough to give me a twinge of hope that I could one day find the one.

  Interspersed between the letters were phone calls, which I found less old-timey and exciting. We would hang up and then two days later I would receive a brief letter commenting on something he had forgotten to mention when we talked. He would take the time to handwrite things like “I forgot to mention, I also think Bonnie Raitt has a good singing voice,” put it in an envelope, seal the envelope, address the envelope, stamp it, and find a post box to mail it to me. This guy was really dedicated to his correspondence. And slowly becoming obsessive.

  Corey kept wanting to hang out, and I had a gut feeling that was a bad idea. He was becoming less like a vacation friend and more like a prison husband—fun to receive letters from, but if we ever met in person, he just might kill me. His initial search through the phone book to find the right Leitman scared me a little. Did he send letters to the other Leitmans and call them as well until he finally got to me? Was I being paranoid? He hadn’t done anything dangerous, but why did he have to contact me every day? The more he asked about getting together, the more I started dodging his calls and not writing him back.

  This only made him persist more. Never before had I been in a position of having the upper hand with a guy. I wasn’t playing hard to get; I really didn’t want to get gotten. I wasn’t all that into Corey to begin with. My parents still had no idea Corey existed. I thought about telling them but worried I would be sad if it all came to an end. If Corey stopped calling and writing, I would be back to looking forward to a “hey” from Vinnie at the pizza/pot store as my only male attention.

  Meanwhile, Corey’s letters were becoming some bizarre meta experience, in which he instructed me how I should write him. They would be filled with sentences like “I am writing you to remind you that you should write me a letter. Stop reading this right now and start writing me a letter. Still reading? What are you doing? Start writing me!” And so on. I didn’t find this desirable. But then again, I wondered if anyone would ever like me this much again, and if not, I should make the most of this. I began looking at my somewhat scary correspondence with Corey as a once-in-a-lifetime experience in being aggressively courted. Girls like me may never have another opportunity to be loved quite like this. I wasn’t Alyssa with big boobs. I wasn’t Jackie Angel with a cool swagger. I was Margot, or “Maggot,” and in the same way that “boys seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses,” boys also seldom made passes at girls six inches taller than them.

  So I ignored his instructions for me to reply by mail, but I never told him to stop writing, either. Corey, in turn, resorted to writing right on the envelopes, in case I wasn’t opening them. The envelopes would be decorated with “write me” or “call me” written over and over on the outside. Sometimes he would even start the letter on the envelope as a teaser both to me and the dozen or so postal workers who had handled the letter before it reached me.

  Then, finally, came the coup de grace . . . the ultimate serial-killer envelope. This envelope was covered entirely with the phrase CALL ME, all caps, written in pencil hundreds of times in perfect penmanship. Then, erased into the hundreds of CALL MEs was a giant CALL ME. Then, on the back flap of the envelope, was a large CALL ME in which each letter was formed by a series of individual CALL MEs.

  This wasn’t fun anymore. Well, actually it sort of was. Sure, he had my home address and phone number, but he was obsessed with me. Me! A girl who once had a rumor spread about her that she had a penis! Some lonely teenage boy a few towns over liked me enough to spend hours decorating an envelope just to get my attention!

  I put the envelope away and looked at it again after a good night’s sleep. The next day it didn’t seem flattering or fun. It just looked scary. I knew it was time to tell Corey to go. I opened the envelope anyway. I mean, who could resist? Inside was a Valentine card that read “Valentine, I think of you day and night, night and day, even when I’m asleep.” Well, no one could question this card’s authenticity.

  He called later that day. I answered the phone, and told him I really wasn’t interested. I tried to explain it was just a concert boyfriend/bubble thing, but he didn’t understand. Apparently the four seconds we were able to chat in between “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” and “The Statue Got Me High” was a deeper connection than he had ever felt. I tried to be nice and not hurt his feelings, but I don’t think it made him feel any better to learn that for me he was just another concert boy to make my dreadful days of suburban high school more tolerable.

  A few days later I received a letter from Corey while my parents were out running errands. The letter was full of graphic language that at the time seemed shocking, especially after the sweet, romantic letters he’d been sending. He wrote, “I thought we had something special, that doesn’t mean we have to fuck or anything . . .”

  Fuck? He said fuck! What? Wait! I was in shock! I didn’t know you could mail that word! I stood by the bay window clutching the pornographic letter in horror. My mother’s handmade rust-colored drapes captured the light in a way that made this moment extra dramatic. This would be a great closing scene to a horror movie, I thought. After the lead heroine thinks she’s safe, a letter comes in the mail. The camera zooms out as she clutches it in the rust-colored lighting by the bay window . . . I really soaked in the moment. Just then, as I clutched the letter in my perfect cinematic lighting, I noticed my parents were home way earlier than I expected. I looked out to the driveway to see the Queen of England and my academic dad with the hood of the car open. This was a sight I had never seen—the two of them seemed to be working on the engine. Noticing that the car was smoking, I went outside to investigate.

  “It’s the strangest thing,” began my mom, careful not to get grease on her cute denim jacket. “We found a block of wood in the engine next to the fan belt, where it almost caught fire. It looks like it was purposely placed there. Maaargot, do you know anyone who might have it out for you? A boy you may have rejected perhaps?”

  I paused for a moment, gathering up the courage to tell my parents this was all my fault. I wanted to tell them how I was lonely at school and all the other girls had boyfriends and the only guy all year who seemed interested in me was Corey from the concert. I wanted to tell her my self-esteem was at a low point, that a girl waited at my locker every day to bully me about my outfits, that I’d sunk so low that I’d
rather be stalked than invisible. But before I could even speak my mom apologized for suggesting such a terrible, impossible thing.

  “Sorry, honey. Of course no one would do this to you.”

  I stood, mouth agape, insulted! I knew full well my mother was actually saying, Sorry, honey, we know no one would ever like you enough to try to kill you. There was no need to tell her about the stalking. I was dealing with a former runner-up for Snow Queen. My cute mom had probably been stalked by loads of guys dying to be her man. Even if I told her all, she would barely be impressed. I kept my flattering murder attempt by Corey to myself and went back to being ignored by local guys.

  All communication from Corey abruptly stopped after that. I’m pretty sure it’s because he thought he had succeeded at killing me. But I was right about something. I can safely say, no one ever did like me that much ever again.

  CHAPTER 15:

  He Looked Like a Man

  Junior year continued, and after the stalking drama died down, I got a little stir-crazy. Nothing else eventful had happened to me all year. I was still sitting alone during third-period lunch, I was still working at the drugstore, and there were no other romantic prospects since Corey tried to set our car on fire. Also, I didn’t have my driver’s license yet, so I had to walk everywhere. Every day before I left the house, my mother would say, “Be careful, Margot! Be careful walking!” Be careful walking? Sure, tall girls are garishly clumsy, but every time my mother told me to “be careful walking,” she might as well have said, “I didn’t raise you to be a gawky klutz. Your grandmother was five-foot-eleven, carried a set of twins, and she never fell once in her life.” I detested my daily walk to and from school, down the skuzzy alley past chain-smoking guys in Megadeth T-shirts, each of whom had everlasting hickeys on his neck.