Gawky (12 page)

       
I finally found the love of lifetime.
A love to last my whole life through.

I hated this pitch-it-down-the-middle style of rock, but I looked in amazement around the room as these girls tried their best to make themselves cry. I could tell by their excessive blinking and subtle pulling on their eyelids that they each coveted the attention that tearing up while singing along to FireHouse would surely beckon. To my delight, no one succeeded. Too bad no one thought to go as far as to pull out a nose hair to force tears to fall. The best anyone achieved was Nancy, who rubbed her eye so much to induce tears that she now looked as if she had contracted conjunctivitis. The song stopped with a loud snap as the cassette single ran out of tape. Silence. All the girls tried their best to look as if they were really “taking in the moment,” the way I imagined people looked at each other after a massive chant at some pretentious retreat where clueless rich people went to “find themselves.”

“So, I thought we could go around the room and say who our love of a lifetime is,” said the Newly Hot Hair Girl. What was up with these girls always wanting to go around the room saying stuff? I'd been awake way past my bedtime at enough of my parents' grown-up parties to see
that they never stopped partying to go around the room taking polls on the “most successful appetizer at the gathering” or “who was their most influential historical figure.” They were too busy drinking Rolling Rocks and having actual organic conversations. I definitely did not want to go around the room and declare who my love of a lifetime was. I was thirteen. Hopefully I had not yet encountered the love of my lifetime yet, because it was slim pickins at Matawan Regional Middle School. But much to my chagrin, all the guests at this lame-o party seemed enthused at the idea. I could see the wheels spinning as they began nervously brainstorming their list of possible loves of a lifetime. I fiddled with the fringe on my leather belt, hoping no one would notice me, again cursing my stature and knowing that it would be impossible to go unnoticed.

“Jessica, who's your love of a lifetime?”

“Oh, definitely Chad Decker,” said Jessica Rosenstein through fluorescent-pink braces. “Except he doesn't know it yet.” The girls all laughed. Jessica Rosenstein was killing it! She didn't have a boyfriend, so she thought outside the box. Wow. Nailed that one. What was I going to say when they came to me? I couldn't say Jonah Hertzberg, despite the fact that we were fully fledged members of the frequent-Frenchers club. No one knew about us, and that's what was exciting about it. And he wasn't my love of a lifetime anyway; we didn't even acknowledge each other in the school hallways. Ugh.
Please pick me last. I need some time here.

“Nancy, who's your love of a lifetime?”

Oh good. Nancy. Nancy had an actual boyfriend. She wasn't secretly sneaking out to make out with him in the dark; Nancy actually held hands in the hallway with her boyfriend and stuff. This was true love. “Chris of course. He is totally my love of a lifetime. We're going to get married.”

All the girls oohed and aahed at this, completely on board with Nancy's lifelong commitment to Chris, a thirteen-year-old guy who wore nothing but soccer T-shirts. Then, with the sharpness of a
businesswoman conducting a job interview, Nancy turned to me, made severe eye contact, and said, “Who's your love of a lifetime, Margot?”

No! Not me
! Why did I have to go next? I hadn't had time yet to aptly prepare a witty response! All perfectly lined eyes were on me. I looked at the wood-paneled walls for inspiration. Nothing. Blank. Silence.

I had no idea what to say. I didn't have enough time to concoct a lie. I turned back to Nancy and said with defeat, “I don't have a love of a lifetime.”

Gasps came from the crowd of Electric Youth perfume–doused teens. What? How could that be? How could I already be thirteen and have not yet found my love of a lifetime? I was a shriveled-up old maid with an A cup and a mouthful of baby teeth. I fiddled with the peacock feather earrings my mom had let me borrow for the occasion as long as I “didn't destroy them.” I sat stoically, refusing to call on the next girl and potentially humiliate her by asking her who her love of a lifetime was.

The party had hit a low point thanks to me, when finally the Newly Hot Hair Girl said, “Are we ready for the next song?” We were desperate to change the mood and we all agreed that the best thing to do would be to put on the cassette single for Extreme's “More Than Words.” Everyone was so busy singing along that no one noticed me sitting in silence, desperate to get home where I had unlimited access to real rock 'n' roll and where no one questioned the fact that I had yet to meet “the one.”

These girls were really not for me. They just didn't get it. I'd rather spend my spare time in modern dance classes and learning to play guitar with Jonah. And their Electric Youth perfume smelled to me like a strawberry-scented pine tree car air freshener. I didn't want that wussy smell rubbing off on me. I longed to be allowed to wear Nag Champa organic body spray, something I had seen once in a hippie store and that seemed like a “woman's scent.”

And don't forget, I had a secret lover, and nothing was more exciting or illicit at the time. I was having much more fun with Jonah
Hertzberg anyway. After our jam sessions, we would make out and our bodies would get really close. I had felt something move down there, though only through clothes, and was constantly worried that something would
leak out
of him. I often wondered, while Jonah Hertzberg's denim-clad groin rubbed up against mine, did my pregnant classmate Teresa Carimonico actually have intercourse? Because according to our health classes, you didn't need to have sex to get pregnant. Our super-intense health teachers had told us a toilet seat, heavy petting, and dry humping could impregnate you. I had no choice but to believe them. And after that all-too-vivid birthing video, I certainly did not want to fall victim to pregnancy via toilet seat, or any other method for that matter.

The week of Newly Hot Hair Girl's party, I was aware that my period was a little late, but the constant chatter of Teresa Carimonico's situation made me take it a little more seriously. The next day, I turned to the free cat wall calendar I had gotten from the local Chinese restaurant and counted off, only to discover that my period was in fact a whole two weeks late. Two weeks! Never mind the fact that I'd never even seen a man naked besides that awkward time I went to see
The Crying Game
with my parents. Never mind the fact that I'd never gone beyond second base
above
the shirt. Never mind all of that; I was thirteen; I was two weeks late with my period; I was a whore.

For nearly a month I carried this weight around. I was sure I was pregnant with Jonah Hertzberg's baby. What other possible explanation could there be? Our bodies were so close when we made out, something could have leaked out. Recently, in the dark, Jonah Hertzberg couldn't see so well and he accidentally Frenched my cheek. Could the angle have affected things? He was a few inches shorter, giving his penis room to stick straight up through his jeans, which fell directly below my crotch. Had I been wearing thick-enough pants to every make-out session? Corduroy would probably have prevented any leakage, but what about
my new velvet leggings? Granted, velvet is one of the thickest fabrics aside from burlap, but leggings really bring out your crotch.

I was totally screwed. I had to tell someone . . . but who? The girls from the horrible “Love of a Lifetime” circle were not to be trusted. My parents weren't even an option; we weren't
that
kind of family. We didn't have free-spirited, anything-goes conversations about our sexual journeys while passing around a rain stick. My brother, Greg, was too busy remaking Tim Burton films into his own creations, such as
Gregory Egg-Whisk Hands
. Jonah was a no—I wanted to keep my cool image with the only person who actually thought I was cool.

Finally, I came up with someone I could tell. The only person who wouldn't judge me. I could tell Alyssa, my big-boobed friend up the block. She'd know where I could get a cheap back-alley abortion with the money I'd saved from babysitting those wretched twin girls down the street.

I picked up the tan clunky telephone in my parents' bedroom to call her. I had asked repeatedly for my own line but my parents refused to cave. I had then started begging for a phone in my room, maybe a cute multicolored one like they gave out as consolation prizes on
Double Dare
, but alas, there was no phone jack in there. When I asked them to upgrade to a cordless so I could bring the phone into my room, they told me that the tan phone worked just fine and there was no need to replace it. So I was reduced to hiding in their bedroom whenever one of them wasn't lying in bed doing a
New York Times
crossword puzzle, knowing I could be walked in on at any moment.

I began to dial Alyssa's number, which I had committed to memory the second she gave it to me the first day of middle school while waiting for Randi at the bus stop. Then I remembered it was Saturday. The Sabbath! Shit! It was
Shabbos
, the Jewish day of rest. On Saturdays, Alyssa's family didn't use the phone or TV or drive or cook. Sometimes they would slip me some cash to come over and use their electrical appliances to make their dinners. I loved those nights. Being made to feel
magical by simply turning on an oven was just the ego boost I needed at that point in my life. Though some would have viewed this as sacrilegious, I saw it as a great way to make a dime while hanging out with Alyssa. It certainly beat babysitting those bratty twins who wanted to watch
Look Who's Talking
every single time I came over. I'll take turning on a Jewish oven and dishwasher anytime over rewatching forced sexual tension between two puffy Scientologists.

I had no choice but to walk to Alyssa's house. The seven-minute walk felt as long as that fateful viewing of
The Crying Game
with my folks. As I knocked on Alyssa's door I thought to myself,
Please be home, I have to take care of this soon, the fetus is growing inside of me, I can feel it.
My fist trembled as I knocked, intentionally not using the doorbell in order not to show off my unlimited electrical rights during Shabbos. Lucky for me, Alyssa answered the door wearing a tight black T-shirt that hugged her C-cup boobs just so. “Can I come in?” I asked, my heart racing.

“Sure!” she said, smiling at me with those perfect teeth that didn't even require braces. She must have been relieved, I'm sure, to have a visitor from the outside world of electricity users. Shabbos always had a laissez-faire connotation to me, so I was relieved I wasn't crossing any religious boundaries by popping in during the day of the Sabbath. We sat down on the couch; I looked around for any family members lurking, then mustered all my strength to confess to her my deep, dark, dirty secret.

“Alyssa, I think I'm pregnant. I French-kissed Jonah Hertzberg in the vacant lot last month and I haven't gotten my period since. Our bodies were really close. Something could have leaked out. I'm sure I am. A woman
knows
.”

Alyssa took a moment, soaked in the bomb that was just dropped, and assessed the situation. Jonah Hertzberg and I were hardly boyfriend and girlfriend; we were just two people nostalgic for a time we never
experienced firsthand who liked to make out with each other. Alyssa now had to process the hot gossip that I had been making out with Jonah Hertzberg on a regular basis,
and
that I was with child. It seemed like an eternity as I sat there waiting for advice from the neighborhood sexual guru.

She let out a big sigh and then finally gave a verdict. “Well, it sounds to me like you're definitely pregnant. What you need to do is call the 1-800 number on the back of your box of Tampax and they'll tell you where to go to take care of it.”

“You mean you don't know where to go?”

“No,” she said, “but the ladies at Tampax will. I'm sure of it, that's why they have the number on the box. Everyone knows that. Are you going to tell Jonah?”

“I don't know, I'm not sure, I'm trying to keep him out of it, I don't want to freak him out.”

“Good idea,” said the object of every seventh-grade boy's sexual fantasy. “Try to remain cool with Jonah.”

I left Alyssa's house and walked home, feeling my unborn child grow within me with each nervous step, sure that I was the most fertile kid in town (aside from Teresa Carimonico). At home I frantically pawed through the linen closet, searching for a box of Tampax, tiny soaps and mini shampoos flying everywhere. I never understood why my dad hoarded them if he never intended to use them. Whenever I asked, he would just say, “Someday.” I felt using the soaps was a very attainable dream, but to my dismay, he never went for it. I occasionally used them, but the tiny size of the soap only made my body feel larger, like a giant in a dollhouse. I wondered if this was why no one else in my Amazonian family ever used them.

Finally, behind a universe of tiny lotions and various Ramada Inn soaps I found one box of Tampax Supers. Gross. Supers were for ladies with larger-than-average vaginas, which was the direction mine
was heading if I ended up giving birth to Jonah Hertzberg's baby. I never wanted to be caught with a Super, feeding the stereotype that tall girls have big vaginas, as stupid Chad Decker had said on more than one occasion.

I found the 1–800 number on the back, snuck into my parents' bedroom, closed the door, and dialed the tan, clunky telephone. A nice operator lady picked up the call right away.

Panic-stricken, I summoned the courage to blurt out, “Can you please help me? I'm thirteen years old, my period is two weeks late, and just one month ago I made out with Jonah Hertzberg and our bodies were really close. Something must have leaked out; I'm pregnant, right?”