Gawky

by Margot Leitman

  At school if you were good at math, science, football, or band you had an automatic social circle. Those kids had it made with their math competitions, science fairs, football games, and endless group practicing of their brass instruments. The rest of us were left to fend for ourselves. I started writing innovative poetry instead of listening in pre-algebra class or participating in pep rallies. To my dismay, no one ever picked up one of my journals, purposely left open on my school desk when I left for methodically planned bathroom breaks, hoping to return to class to overhear classmates declaring me the next Sylvia Plath. Sadly my musings of the struggles of being young in the ’90s were for my eyes only. My poem “Sick of Sixteen” was just begging to take over the poetry scene where Allen Ginsberg left off. I did my best to draw attention to myself whenever I was writing alone. I wanted someone to ask, “What are you writing?” so I could show him or her my feelings on paper. Then surely someone would read my poetry and be so deeply moved and inspired that he or she would say, “I have big-time connections in the poetry industry. Would you mind if I shared this book of original poems with my major-league colleagues and made you a star?”

  My favorite poem in my collection was “Help.”

  I don’t need your help.

  It’s useless.

  Don’t use that word for me.

  Help.

  I also sucked at poetry. It was yet another thing I wasn’t good at.

  Maybe it was because I was date-deprived. Beyond my brief seventh-grade romance with Jonah Hertzberg, the one peck with the They Might Be Giants–loving stalker, and Genital John from Pennsylvania, there was no action to be found. It’s not that guys didn’t want to hook up with me; I’m pretty sure they did. But they were interested in me in an “isn’t that weird girl wearing men’s pants kind of fuckable?” voyeuristic, Andy McCarthy, Pretty in Pink kind of way. Instead I wanted a guy who liked me in an “I identify with that girl with the Manic Panic–dyed hair and I, too, often feel like a misfit,” Ethan Hawke in Reality Bites kind of way. I wasn’t into brain-dead morons, so I chose to fantasize about Vito and Vinnie from the pot/pizza parlor and stay solo. I knew no world beyond the natural deodorant–wearing Blues Traveler fans, sloppy French kissing, and meat-headed boys who were curious about me for the novelty of it.

  College still seemed like light-years away. I knew if I kept my grades up, I would have a lot of options for schools all over the country, but somehow that didn’t seem real to me. I was a so-so student for my first two years of high school. I didn’t care too much about grades, but I wanted to go to college as far away from my high school as possible and I needed the best score possible to make that happen. My brother, a straight-A student, had his pick of top-notch schools. Three years ago, after weighing his scholarship options, he left for Northwestern University in Chicago and was having a blast. My grades were more erratic, always As in English and writing classes but solid Bs and Cs in math and science classes. I wanted to go to a large, big-city school like NYU or Boston University for college, but my grades wouldn’t be enough for me to be accepted. So I was banking on my SAT scores and extracurricular interests to get me in the door. But at a year and a half away, it just seemed like ages to me. I couldn’t really picture my life beyond high school. I felt stuck. Jackie Angel and her family had now moved far away, so even escapes to rural Pennsylvania were no longer an option. No more weekends in her Mason jar–filled home. Additionally, my glamorous city-gal grandmother had passed away a few years ago, so going off to New York City on weekends didn’t really happen much these days. Sure, my family and I would go on day trips here and there, to see a play, or to shop the holiday market at Christmastime, but we’d always come home right afterward. Going back to camp was not an option, and I started to regret my uneventful, anticlimactic sneak-out that had put me on the “Dangerous Camper List.” Was that night of making small talk in the woods really worth causing me to never be allowed back to the one place I was truly happy?

  I began writing depressive letters to Rodreigo, the young counselor I was in the play Little Nell with at Camp Wallobee:

  “No one understands me here like you did. And to make matters worse, I don’t think my band, PBJ, is staying together. The distance is killing us!”

  He would respond with cheerful notes about his life in sunny Puerto Rico:

  “Sorry to hear that, Margot. Today I went to the rainforest and caught a salamander!”

  All this is to say that midway through my junior year, when my parents gave me some good news, it was much needed.

  “Maaargot!” called my mother.

  I sighed, reluctantly, put down Go Ask Alice (which I was reading for the third time), and headed down the stairs to find out what she wanted.

  My mom finished making her perfect cup of black tea in a floral bone china cup, carefully stirring in the few drops of whole milk and then removing the tea bag and placing it on her sterling silver used tea bag depository (another Cartier castoff from my grandmother).

  “Have a seat, honey.”

  I sat down nervously in one of our awful wicker chairs. This one was ripped, causing half your butt to sink through the saggy seat. It was pretty much the opposite of a chair—it actually made you less comfortable than standing up.

  “Well, as you know, your father has a new job, and we are doing a little better financially.”

  My father, who had had a very modest upbringing in the Bronx, had been working his way up in the big-city world. I never fully understood what my father did for a living, but I knew he commuted to the city, worked late, and got to stay in glamorous chain hotels like the Radisson. Recently he had taken a new job where he was the boss and we were all really proud of him. Now he brought me back tiny soaps and lotions from even more luxurious hotels like the Hilton and got home a little earlier.

  “Um hmmm,” I said, wondering how much better we were actually doing if we couldn’t afford chairs that actually served their purpose.

  “Oh—I can’t keep it in any longer. We are going on vacation! Just the three of us!”

  Awesome, I thought. Camping, again? We had spent vacations roughing it in New Hampshire when I was a kid, and I wondered how quickly the novelty of three five-foot-nine-inch-plus people, including one snorer, in one tent would wear off. On the other hand, my brother was away at college, and being an only child on a vacation could have its advantages. I could have double the amount of virgin strawberry daiquiris without anyone complaining that I was running up the bill. I decided to contain my lack of excitement and just wait for my mother to continue.

  “Margot, don’t you want to know where? I mean, the where is where the excitement lives.” My mother’s catchphrases never made sense to anyone but her.

  “Sure. Where?”

  “Okay . . . dum da dum dum . . . drum roll, please . . .”

  “Uh, you just did the drum roll yourself.”

  “Oh, for God’s sakes. We’re going to Saint Thomas in the Virgin Islands, Margot! For spring break! You’re welcome!”

  My mouth dropped. Never in a million years did I expect this. We were going on an actual tropical vacation! And I would be really close to Rodreigo in Puerto Rico! Maybe I could even visit him there. I knew nothing about Puerto Rico but I imagined it was a place of dashingly handsome tan men and also a place where I could temporarily alter my pasty, vegetarian complexion. People on Hollywood Squares were always winning trips to “sunny Puerto Vallarta” (announced by hottie Shadoe Stevens) and seemed overjoyed at the prospect. I wasn’t sure what Puerto meant, but I was pretty sure Puerto was a good thing, whether it be Rico or Vallarta.

  Wow. Suddenly life seemed a lot better, and that night I decided not to finish my chapter in Go Ask Alice, even though I found Alice’s state of depression riveting. Alice was contemplating suicide again, but really it was just the drugs talking, which she would soon figure out for herself. I let her be; I could always come back to the book later if I really needed a fix. Instead I pasted together some
semblance of a tropical spring-break wardrobe out of my crushed velvet ’70s attire. I was so excited I even made a spring-break mix to play during the flight on my brother’s old Walkman he forgot to pack for college.

  On our plane to Saint Thomas, my highly intelligent father couldn’t wrap his brain around volume control when it came to speaking with his headphones on. We had a real bitch of a stewardess, who had an unironic beehive hairdo, even though it was the mid-’90s. When asked for a glass of water, she said, “Ugh, I guess so,” and then huffed and puffed to the flight attendant station two feet away. So you can imagine what happened when it came to be four o’clock and my first-generation faux-British mother absolutely had to have her cup of tea, as she had every other day of her entire life.

  “Excuse me, miss? Uh, miss? Yes, may I have a cup of black tea? Just milk, no sugar. Milk, not cream please. Not cream. Okay, miss?”

  Beehive lady grunted at my mom (as I had wanted to every time she requested a stupid tea from me) and stormed to her station. My mom quietly seethed.

  My father, not seeing how close the stewardess was, took note. Headphones still on, he whisper-screamed, “WHAT? THE BITCH WON’T COOPERATE?”

  My mom whisper-shouted back, “Bo-obbb! Shh! She’s right there!” and then pointed at her so the rest of our cabinmates could see whom they were complaining about. At that moment I knew, sunshine or no sunshine, I wasn’t going to make it through seven days with these doofuses. I knew I should have brought more than that one mix tape to tune them out.

  Upon arrival, I spent the first two days lounging on the beach studying manically for the SATs. However, forty-eight hours of studying on the beach made me a little antsy. My parents were on their first real vacation of their marriage and I felt like my being underage and angsty was weighing them down. While I was lying in a shaded lounge chair doing algebra equations, they were frolicking in the ocean, drinking mojitos, and refusing to wear sunscreen. I needed to do something fun, and I really wanted to go see Rodreigo, but I didn’t know how my parents would react if I asked to go off to Puerto Rico on my own. I hadn’t asked Rodreigo yet if he was game for a visitor, but I assumed his island lifestyle would be adaptable to a drop-in from an old friend. I rehearsed a few times in the bathroom mirror, making sure to sound as though I was doing them a favor. Then I entered their suite with a fresh coat of aloe vera on my shoulders, took a deep breath, and began my plea for freedom.

  “Guys, my friend from camp, Rodreigo, lives in Puerto Rico. It’s just a quick puddle jumper away. I was wondering if maybe I could, like, go there and visit. I’d be doing you a favor I think, really. You guys could do grown-up stuff without having to worry about me.”

  My parents rejoiced a little too quickly. “Yes! Absolutely! Please do! We’ll look into flights tonight!”

  Never in my wildest dreams did I expect them to say yes. Fifteen hours later, my parents waved good-bye to me at a sketchy, tiny airport with a dirt runway.

  “Have fun, Maaaargot . . . but not too much fun, hahaha!” my mom singsonged. “Be careful flying! Be careful driving! Be careful walking!”

  My dad was calmer. He remained relaxed at all times, actually, except when he was behind a wheel. There he clenched his teeth and called people “assholes.” He kissed me good-bye and said, “See you in a few days. You’ll be fine.”

  I thought to myself, Duh, of course I will be fine, and waved goodbye to my parents.

  I ducked my head as I entered the tiny propeller plane, which was clearly not designed for people my size. No sooner did I squeeze into my seat than I looked out the window to see them racing away at top speed to go get drunk and probably have sex. Ewwww.

  The flight lasted about thirty seconds. There was no drink service, no peanuts. No one checked to see if my seatbelt was buckled properly. There was just one seat per row on each side of the plane, so I didn’t even have a seatmate to avoid making small talk with. I didn’t even have time to write in my journal! As we landed in bustling Puerto Rico, I wondered if it would have been more cost-efficient to take a paddleboat.

  When I stepped off the plane, I suddenly felt flustered. I didn’t speak Spanish and I had never traveled alone before. People were racing around speaking very rapidly, wearing a lot of linen and floral prints. I felt extremely out of place. This was a far cry from Newark International Airport. And everyone in Puerto Rico was so short! Why couldn’t I have visited Rodreigo somewhere I would blend in better, like Sweden or Norway? Would I remember what Rodreigo looked like? Would he recognize me?

  Sure enough, I walked out of the terminal and there he was: in a lavender collared shirt with denim shorts and black sandals, his dark hair tossed right in front of his eyes. He seemed to have a more mature vibe than the silly boy I had stumbled through a melodrama with onstage at Camp Wallobee. And even though he was only about two years older than I, he looked like a man.

  “There she is!” he shouted theatrically. How could he miss me? I looked like a gargantuan albino compared to the airport locals. I was elated someone was so happy to see me, especially after being the third wheel on my parents’ second honeymoon for the past few days. We got in his Jeep Cherokee and took off through the streets of Puerto Rico.

  Puerto Rico was much more action-packed than Saint Thomas. Stray dogs ran free everywhere and I was called an “amateur” for getting excited over a lizard sighting. I was completely unaware until this point that in terms of driving, Puerto Rico is a lawless island with anarchists behind the wheel. My driver’s ed teacher would have a heart attack if he ever came here and saw people turning left without using their blinkers! When Rodreigo drove through a stoplight at about eighty miles an hour, wind whipping through his black hair, I knew this was going to be the most amazing weekend of my life.

  First thing, he took me to a restaurant called Mona’s, where it seemed all eyes were on me. The patrons and staff seemed to be monitoring my “careful walking” a little too closely.

  “Why is everyone looking at me?” I asked.

  “You’re blonde, you’re tall. You have blue eyes and freckles. Here, you are an exotic woman,” Rodreigo explained.

  An exotic woman? Yes! This was unbelievable. It took only two airplanes and a language barrier for me to become an unattainable goddess. Here, my hair bounced in the same way Cecelia Rios’s did. My blonde half–Jew fro didn’t look like a wet David Coverdale wig; it looked like an exotic mane to be copied in salons everywhere. I sat taller than ever, suddenly proud of my size and willing to accept the attention I was getting for it. I never wanted to leave Puerto Rico.

  After a fun night of catching up and a good night’s sleep, the next day I got back in the car with Rodreigo. He drove me through winding unkempt roads at top speed, and we came millimeters away from hitting multiple cars. But it was all worth it, because we were going to a rainforest. An actual rainforest! I had spent many hours in school staring at burnouts in various hemp T-shirts advising me to save the rainforest, but I never thought I’d actually visit one.

  We survived the car ride, disembarked, and began our hike. I could barely talk because I was so struck by the beauty of it all—I had never seen a place so green. I had never smelled air so clean. The freshest air I had ever smelled before was at the top of the hill at Camp Wallobee. This place took nature to a whole new level. Rodreigo’s letters had been true; there were salamanders everywhere! There were also brightly colored birds squawking and wildlife so green it looked as if it had been colored by a child in art class. I felt completely calm and forgot all about the jocks, dorks, skaters, and scuzzes back home, lost in my new jet-setting lifestyle. Until . . . I looked up to the top of a small hill and saw a familiar face. It was Floyd Barstow, the blond kid in high-waisted jeans who played the trumpet from my music appreciation class. Back home we were hardly friends; he was really into his trumpet and often shot me dirty looks in class, as I was one of the many B students taking the class for an easy A. But we were in Puerto Rico in the middle of a rainforest, what
were the chances? I called out, “Floyd! Hey Floyd!” and waved manically so he would notice me at the bottom of the hill. Already I was planning that when we returned to school Floyd and I would be forever bonded by the fact that we were both now world travelers. Floyd and I would have private jokes, saying things like, “Sorry, man, I’m still on island time,” and would peel the skin off our sunburns whenever we got bored in class. I waved again, bigger than before.

  “Floyd!!”

  Floyd stopped walking, saw me waving and yelling, and then walked away at a faster pace than he’d been walking before.

  What the—? Floyd wasn’t even one of the cool kids, like Chad Decker. He played the trumpet, for God’s sake! And he’s blowing me off? Even in friggin’ Puerto Rico, I was too weird to say hi to? Even in a rainforest?

  My spirits dropped. I was hiking in a tropical island alongside a handsome Hispanic man, but I was still a gangly girl from Jersey nobody wanted to talk to.

  Rodreigo put his arm around me and jokingly said, “Close friend?” I laughed it off and we kept walking. I wasn’t going to let a band nerd ruin my adventure.

  That night, Rodreigo took me to this beautiful old castle in Old San Juan. This was pretty much the coolest way to spend a spring break ever. Not only was I in a castle, but also I was now a tropical island beauty. Rodreigo walked proudly with me, and I felt like one of those girls who just expected to be prom queen. I was on top of the world.

  Then, without warning, Rodreigo ever so slowly touched my freckled face with his tan hand, leaned close to me, and kissed me. This wasn’t a sloppy middle school kiss or an awkward seven-minutes-in-heaven kiss. This was a slow, romantic kiss like I’d never experienced before. I was kissing a man—a man who had seen the world and been with a bunch of girls already (but hopefully used condoms because I couldn’t chance it with AIDS again). This was no lame hookup with some dimwitted Jersey thug; I was passionately kissing an exotic man who appreciated theatre and wore denim shorts unapologetically. I’d finally made it.