Gawky (19 page)

No one even had weed, and this would have been the perfect night for me to try it. The girl who played tambourine had a bottle of Diet Coke from the canteen, but that was about it. If Jackie Angel had been there, we would have had some sort of be-in, but this sneak-out was for the birds. I made out with my Argentinean bandmate just because I was bored.

Just before the sun started to rise, I arrived back at my bunk to find my British counselor, Agnes, wide awake, pacing with her arms crossed. She didn't even give me a chance to attempt immunity with her by engaging in a discussion of traditional British foods. Before I could utter a word about blood pudding and Cadbury Flake candy bars, she brought me directly to the camp advisor's office, where the rest of PBJ were also incarcerated. The camp advisor had already been informed there were campers on the loose. He seemed excited that he got to flex his barely used authoritative muscles. Artsy kids were so used to being teased that we rarely caused trouble. In camp horror movies, it's always the hunky sports counselors and the big-boobed swim instructors that are first to die after they have sex in the woods. My kind of folk would simply lock the door and continue reading their novel by candlelight if there was a killer on the loose. As the sun came up, I listened to this man's prewritten sneak-out lecture. Finally, he got to break out that old chestnut.

“We have no tolerance for deviant behavior at Camp Wallobee,” began the aging camp advisor, who had clearly been smoking since he was fifteen. “I have alerted the local police, just in case.” I looked around at the other deviant campers, who all seemed to be stifling laughter. I was fairly certain he was lying about alerting the police. There were no cops anywhere to be found; he didn't call the cops to tell them we had turned up; and I was fairly certain that even if he had alerted the cops, they had worse crimes to deal with than a few rebellious weird
kids hanging out after hours. The camp director continued, “You will be stricken from our camp records; we don't want alumni like you destroying the Wallobee name. You will be put on the Dangerous Camper List.”

Dangerous Camper
? I liked the sound of that. Jackie Angel hadn't come with PBJ on the sneak-out, so I was thrilled to be more dangerous than she. I walked out of the camp office excited that I had made an impact. The sun was shining and all the campers were saying good-bye. I would not be allowed to return to Camp Wallobee, but it was just as well. Because of my age, next year I would have to be a counselor in training, and I had no interest in disciplining anyone, especially a bunch of flamboyant campers only slightly younger than me.

My dad arrived to get me, conversing with the mole bunk counselor who had turned me in. He also got the same speech from the camp advisor regarding sneaking out against the rules. I wasn't sure, but I thought I detected a smirk on his face when he was told I was on the “Dangerous Camper List.” There was no time for good-byes: My dad wanted to get in the car quickly to start the long drive home. I had already gotten Jackie Angel's and Rodreigo's info to keep in touch. Although I was a little disappointed I wouldn't get to give them good-bye hugs, I'd rather a quick good-bye than brew on the fact that I was leaving the only place I ever felt at home. My new, delightfully weird friends from camp were going to be my social circle and ticket to a new life. I was absolutely going to stay in touch with Jackie Angel and Rodreigo. So what if I had no driver's license and Jackie lived in Pennsylvania? So what if Rodreigo lived in Puerto Rico and there wasn't a shot in hell I'd ever visit there? I had just experienced three weeks of bliss and was headed home in high spirits about my future.

My father sped off in our Plymouth Voyager down the long dirt road in silence. He had spent about fifteen summers of his life at camp, as both a camper and a counselor. In every childhood photo I had ever seen of him, he was wearing his camp uniform. Most of the people at
our house parties drinking endless Rolling Rocks were his friends from camp. My father was the king of camp. I was terrified he would be mad at me for dishonoring the institution of camp.

When we got to the highway, he finally spoke. “I'm proud of you, Margot. Nights like that are what camp is all about. You'll remember last night more than any other night you've had here for the past three weeks. Live your life.”

I smiled. I was finally cool, and my dad was, too. He understood our need to rebel against the rigid establishment of camp schedules and bunk rules. I decided not to tell him that last night was pretty tame compared to his swinging '60s sneak-outs. I let him think I was a dangerous camper.

CHAPTER 11:

H
igh school was to begin a month after Camp Wallobee ended, and this year, starting school again was a little more tolerable knowing I had cool friends just a few hours away. A few weeks later that summer (though it felt like months), Jackie Angel invited me for a weekend in her hometown in rural Pennsylvania. To be honest, Jackie Angel's invitation both terrified and exhilarated me. She was wild, she was older; her long dark bangs gave her a Demi Moore in Striptease vibe. And she was really into boys. I could tell guys liked Jackie Angel even though she was tall, almost as tall as I was. But it was clear that Jackie Angel was tall in a sexy way, not a gargantuan way like me. I imagined Jackie Angel could slink into a room, light up a cigarette, and strike up a conversation that would have every horny boy in the vicinity fighting for her approval.

Jackie told me she dated older guys who actually remembered the '70s. These were borderline-men who didn't have to stand on a few phone books to make out with her. The guys at my school all seemed to
be the size of Webster compared to me. Already I had begun to fantasize about going to a battle of the bands at the local VFW where an older, tall, long-haired guitarist would notice me from afar while he strummed along to U2's “All I Want Is You.” Instead, still the only guy who ever came close to that back home was Jonah Hertzberg, the guitar player with the Jew fro. Seeing another world at camp made me realize that options are truly limited when you're a gigantic giraffe in a school full of Shetland ponies.

It was just as well. I was still recovering from the damage that years of elementary and middle school health classes had bestowed on me. What I had taken from these lessons was that if I came into contact with a penis, I'd immediately die of AIDS. I knew I'd have to experience contact with a genital at some point or another, but Jackie Angel's invite made me fear it would happen sooner than I expected. Out of all my many health classes, the elementary school ones were still by far the worst. Amid all the other assemblies that tried to prevent us all from ever tasting alcohol or puffing a joint, it seemed every month of fifth grade our teachers would bring some guy into the cafetorium who actually had AIDS to scare us straight. Somehow my school never had enough pencils, milk, or substitutes, yet they had the budget for an endless supply of men with AIDS. I remember one particular guy would walk through the crowd of distracted, bad-mannered fifth graders and tap a select few on the head, saying, “You, you, you, you . . . you've got AIDS. Statistically, that's how many of you have AIDS.” I almost had a full-blown asthma attack from the expectation of being tapped on the head and told I had AIDS. Even though I was in only fifth grade, I had to question his wisdom.
Really
? I'd think to myself.
Five out of 75 fifth graders in middle-class New Jersey have AIDS
? But nonetheless, as a horny teenager in the making, I was listening. I believed the words of every man with AIDS who came to our school. I believed that my raging hormones would eventually kill me and that it would be best to assume that everyone had
AIDS and not act on the sexual desires building up in my pubescent mind. Besides, I didn't want to have to call that Tampax operator again in a panic; the first time was humiliating enough.

I knew my weekend at Jackie Angel's could be a disaster in the making. Chances were high that in due time, rolling with a girl like Jackie Angel, I would come into contact with a genital. Nonetheless, I wanted to extend my camp experience, so with my parents' permission, I boarded a train to Pennsylvania. “Have fun, Margot, but not too much fun,” my mom instructed. She was too distracted by the recent death of her mother to see the one thousand red flags about this trip. I was fourteen, traveling alone, across state borders, to visit an older girl with bangs she had never met. Instead of a lecture on safety, she gave me a hug, sent me on my way, and went back to knitting her forever-unfinished afghan.

Jackie Angel's house was exactly as I had imagined it. It was a home run by an aging hippie—very wooden with glass Mason jars filled with lentils, raisins, and almonds all around. My mother, being a fellow tall girl, kept no glass anywhere in the vicinity of a hardwood floor. She knew better. Did Jackie Angel live in a world where tall girls didn't shatter every breakable they encountered? That summer alone I had destroyed a glass coffee table, my mother's antique teacup, and a Precious Moments figurine (okay, that one was on purpose). I had managed to shatter all that even with being gone for three weeks of summer. Jackie Angel lived in a tall girl's parallel universe, and I wanted in.

She took me to her attic, which smelled musty and was covered in tapestries. She blasted the Guess Who and offered me a joint. I had been so preoccupied with my fear of genitals that I hadn't had time to worry about drugs. I said yes, of course, and as “These Eyes” played I put the soggy joint to my lips, the whole time thinking,
It figures I would turn to drugs. All the greats have.
I knew everyone in my father's record collection had smoked pot, including his dream girl Joni Mitchell. I wanted to
rock too. After a laughing fit in the shower, and the amazing discovery that plums “taste soooo friggin' good,” I decided that I liked marijuana and remained stoned for the rest of my trip.

My second night there, Jackie Angel took me to a party at one of her cool guy friends' houses. I don't know where his parents were; for all I knew he might have lived there alone! “Hey, Margot, this is my friend John. Man, John, I haven't seen you in like ages!” Jackie Angel and John embraced and then he came over to me. John looked as if he could be one of the guys she knew who remembered the '70s.

“What's up? I'm John,” he said, flicking his cigarette into an open can of Natty Light.

“What?” I asked, losing focus and staring directly at his tattoo, a skull on his left bicep with the word
Dad
underneath. The only people I knew with tattoos were my parents' Vietnam vet friends. I had never met someone close to my age who was already inked up. Didn't you have to be over eighteen to get a tattoo? And if you were under eighteen, didn't you need parental permission? John seemed like he was neither over eighteen nor under any sort of parental supervision. He had definitely gotten that tattoo illegally. Wow. I was playing with the big boys.

“I said, I'm John. You're a friend of Jackie's?”

I nodded, my eyes wide.

“Cool.” John smiled, just long enough to show the gap between his two front teeth. Hot. He lit up another Marlboro Red, gestured for me to sit down, and then ran his fingers through his long brown hair. He had the same dirty, dangerous, and deviant vibe as Sebastian Bach, and I instantly fell in love with him. And he was taller than me! This was my first opportunity to make out with someone who didn't need to stand on a bleacher first. Next to John, I actually felt small, the way a girl really wants to feel. I could act tough, tortured, and misunderstood all I wanted, but really I just wanted to feel small and dainty and to be swept up in the arms of some big strong man who could
make me forget for just one moment how self-conscious I really was. Staring into John's eyes, I knew this moment could actually happen with him. Then, in the next instant, I remembered from my school assemblies that he would definitely give me AIDS. But talking had to be okay, right? We chatted for a bit and I found out that John was seventeen years old, a high school dropout who had been kicked out of his parents' house. Now it was confirmed that the tattoo had been acquired under illicit circumstances. Nothing was sexier to me than a guy who tattooed the very name of the person who threw him out of the house on his bicep. The second his dad saw that skull tattoo, he'd surely offer him his room back. When Jackie Angel and I finally left, we stood in the driveway saying our good-byes, and John grabbed me and kissed me passionately in front of the entire party. I had to stand on my tippytoes to kiss him! Something shifted in my burgundy velvet pants stolen from the camp costume room. This wasn't love; this was lust. Only this time Bobby Brown was nowhere in sight. John was a real-life person, not a music video, and I lusted for him.

I proceeded to spend the rest of the weekend smoking weed with John and Jackie Angel. On the second day we helped Mrs. Angel clean out the attic. She asked me to carry down the antique glass Christmas ornaments that had been given to her by her grandmother so she could put them in a safer place. Honored that Mrs. Angel trusted me with her most prized possessions, I carefully stacked the boxes and headed down the stairs, making sure to look back at John sexily on my third step, the way I had seen Greta Garbo do in one of the black-and-white movies my father forced me to watch while my brother took copious notes. I gave John the eye, making sure to blink twice, and then slowly turned my head back so my hair would swing as if it were in slow motion. Unfortunately, my left foot missed the next step, causing me to fly down the stairs on my bony butt. Crashing down a flight of stairs is quite possibly the least sexy move a girl can make, aside from stepping in dog shit during a first kiss.