Gawky (30 page)

It made me especially annoyed to know that I was originally supposed to be named Carey, after the Joni Mitchell song. How inspiring it would have been to be named after a song that contained the lyrics,
And we'll laugh and toast to nothing and smash our empty glasses down.
Plus, Joni Mitchell was my dad's dream girl (my mother's dream guys being a tie between fellow tall person and actual Brit John Cleese and hunky president Bill Clinton). But a few days before I was born my mom became concerned about the cult-classic Sissy Spacek movie
Carrie
. My mother's fear was that the other babies my age would have seen the R-rated horror movie and then make fun of me for having the same name as its virginal, pig-blood-coated star.
Carrie
is a movie I did not see until I was about twenty-five, and by then another iconic “Carrie” had come front and center, Carrie Bradshaw, a woman whom half of all womankind wanted to be exactly like. So really? Would naming me Carey have been
a horrible mistake? Because I went to school with a lot of Jasons during the
Friday the 13th
era, and they all seemed to be okay. And I went through middle and high school with a girl named Carrie, and she was never once teased for her name. I know this because I sat behind her in countless classes, and every day at roll call each teacher pronounced her name perfectly on the first try. Never once did I hear a snicker or whisper of “dirty pillows.” I, on the other hand, was called MarGOT by virtually every teacher I ever had, resulting in a huge uproar of laughter from my classmates with phonetically spelled names like Rob.

It was obviously time to rebrand myself. If I never got to be Carey, I would settle for Maggie. I couldn't wait.

My parents and I arrived early afternoon at a dorm building in the middle of a scenic wonderland. There were waterfalls and flowers and birds chirping. There was a lake on the horizon and a smell of fresh air mixed with crisp fall. This was a far cry from the strip mall I called home. Here in Ithaca, I was smelling new smells! I was on my way out. I was going to be the new me. Maggie was about to make her life debut. My dad hadn't even cut the engine in the parking lot at school when I grabbed a bag and struggled to open the annoying sliding door of the backseat of my parents' minivan.

“It might help if you unlock it, Margot,” said my father oh-so-helpfully, taking a swig of his now-hot seltzer that had been sitting next to him in the car for the last five hours.

With a huge sigh I flipped the manual lock, looking forward to soon traveling only in vehicles driven by cool artists with normal doors. I wouldn't have a car in college, and that was okay with me. I planned to make friends with people who had cars, learn the local public transportation system, and go on long walks where butterflies would land on my shoulders and I would have major breakthroughs about my life's calling.

My mom was silent for once, most likely because she didn't want
me to know she was crying. I got my lanky frame out of the car and we all walked to the dorm to check in. Suddenly the same feeling of walking into Jessica Rosenstein's fashion intervention rushed over me. The dorm was filled with happy faces of late teens who were about to be free from parental supervision for the longest stretch of time they'd ever gone. Everyone seemed to have been there for hours and already made his or her best friends. I hadn't even started school yet and I already felt alone.

My parents came with me to the check-in table at the dorms, where I was to get my room number and key. Right away we discovered that there had been a glitch with my housing. A week before, I had gotten a letter informing me that I had been placed with a smoking roommate on the last remaining college “smokers' floor,” and my mom called and complained.

“What is this, 1964?” my mother had screeched at the nineteen-year-old work/study student who answered the phone in the college housing department. Apparently, the nineteen-year-old work/study student did not take the initiative to resolve the situation and place me with a different roommate as promised. So a battle began to find me a place to live where I would not have to restart my childhood candy cigarette fetish in an attempt to trick my neighbors into thinking I was one of them. My mom served as war general for our side of the skirmish.

I was mortally embarrassed to watch my mom create a scene, but I actually agreed with her that I needed a new place to live. Despite my New York City grandmother's glamorous example of holding endless More 120 brown cigarettes between her perfectly manicured red nails, I had never taken up the habit. As chic as my grandmother made smoking look, my coworker at the bakery made it look equally revolting, really driving home that smoking just wasn't for me. I didn't belong on a “smokers' floor,” and there was no “granddaughter of a smoker's floor,”
so I was going to have to go somewhere else. The college finally solved the problem by assuming that not only could I not live with a smoker, I couldn't live with anyone, and they assigned me to a single.

A single? Oh no. My mother's first college roommate was still her BFF. I had eavesdropped on countless phone calls between them where they laughed hysterically at endless private jokes. I wanted private jokes! My mom and her college roommate spent every New Year's Eve together drinking Bahama Mamas and dancing to sixties music. Who was I going to drink Bahama Mamas with?

“I'm so sorry, honey,” said my mom, as she handed me the key we had just gotten from the RA. “Hmm . . . room 1310.”

“Room 1310? I guess that's on the thirteenth floor . . .” I said, looking for the elevators and feeling lonely already.

“That can't be,” my mom said. “Most buildings don't even have a thirteenth floor, too spooky. It's really bad luck. Have you ever heard of a thirteenth floor, Bob?”

My father shook his head.

My mom turned around again to plead with the RA. “There shouldn't be a thirteenth floor. It's unlucky. I don't want my daughter on an unlucky floor. My mother's high-rise had floor 12, then floor 14. Do you remember that, Margot? No 13!” she shrieked.

“Mom, it's fine,” I interrupted. “I like being alone. I'm not superstitious, and I just want to move in. Let's do this. I've heard they put the people with really messed-up housing in student lounges and hallways.”

“What? I don't want my daughter living in a hallway!” she shouted at the RA again.

“Mom. I'm not living in a hallway. I'm just living on the thirteenth floor,” I said calmly, and watched my RA turn a little less pale.

We piled my bags of vintage jeans, psychedelic blouses, classic rock CDs, and posters of various ethereal women who all slightly resembled me into the elevator. On the dreaded thirteenth floor, we paraded down
the hall to room 1310, and I opened the door to the tiny space I would be spending the next year in.

It was small but nice. The blinds were open to reveal a view onto Lake Cayuga. If I looked far enough down, I could see students mingling on the lawn. It was isolated, picturesque, and calm. If I was going to be all alone, this wasn't a bad way to do it.

My parents were more nervous than I was about the new development of my solo digs.

“Margot, who are you going to eat dinner with tonight?” asked my mom.

“She'll be fine, Pam,” said my dad, aware that I had spent my junior year eating third-period lunch alone. I was no novice lone diner. I could handle it.

Finally, with a tearful good-bye, they shut the door. I put on Bob Dylan's
Blood on the Tracks
and began hanging up posters of flowyhaired maidens as he sang through his nose with great passion. I wanted to feel comfortable here. Ever since my growth spurt I had never felt comfortable in my own skin. If I could have a fresh start here, where no one knew who I had been back home, combined with a comfortable yet possibly haunted living space, I could finally feel at ease. I lit two candles, unpacked a bag, switched the CD to Simon & Garfunkel, leaving me alone with nothing but my “books and my poetry to protect me,” and put up a poster of a butterfly and a fairy.

After I unpacked, I didn't really know what to do with myself, so I sat on the bed and began writing in my journal. Soon after I heard a sing-along beginning next door. First they sang “Tomorrow,” from
Annie
. Then I heard “One” from
A Chorus Line. Theatre dorks,
I thought to myself. I was sure the dorm room next door was filled with
Cats
sweatshirt–wearing, piano scarf–donning Sondheim fans who harmonized while singing “Happy Birthday” when the cake came out in restaurants. I wasn't going to be that kind of theatre major. I was
going to be the kind who penned genius experimental plays and had bangs that grew over her eyes like Jackie Angel. Too bad my future bangs were sure to curl and frizz up like a bad Miss Piggy wig.

I opened my door a crack to make the Andrew Lloyd Webber–ites next door aware there was a lone person in this room. I sat down and began writing in my fairy journal with my purple fine-tipped pen just as the dork patrol began singing, “Life is a cabaret my friend, come to the cabaret,” in perfect harmony. I was just turning up my Simon & Garfunkel when I heard a faint knock on my door.

“Hello?” said a nasal voice.

I opened the door to find a tall, skinny, perky, black-haired girl wearing head-to-toe Ithaca College attire combined with what seemed to be full stage makeup in comparison to the tinted Blistex I was wearing. There was no way I was going to find my niche here.

“Uh, yeah?” I asked suspiciously.

The perky girl walked in uninvited. “Cool room. Wow!” she said in a thick Buffalo accent. “You've decorated the place! Smells like lavender in here. Anyway, I was wondering, when you were done with your journal entry, of course, if you'd like to join us next door. We're having a sing-along.”

“I know, I heard,” I said, while quickly pondering if it was too late to accept the scholarship to Rutgers I was offered so I could stay as far away from this dork central station I had just agreed to spend the next four years in. When I visited Ithaca College it seemed like the college version of Camp Wallobee. I was excited to lie on a tapestry in the quad and bond with fellow artists who had also read
On the Road
. But after only a few hours in this place, it seemed less Sid and Nancy and more Donny and Marie.

“Okay then. Well, if you want to come by, you're more than welcome. You can even bring your guitar.”

Shit. My guitar.
I brought my guitar with me for more of a fashion accessory and room decoration than a musical instrument. Despite a
year of guitar lessons, many coaching sessions from Jonah Hertzberg, and incessant listening to every classic rock album in my father's record collection, I still knew only four chords. I was more into having a guitar than playing a guitar. Well, who's kidding who, I was the most into wearing the guitar. But I didn't want this perky girl to find out that I was a fraud so instantly.

“Okay, thanks,” I muttered. And then I gently shut the door, leaving it open just slightly enough to send the message
Don't bother me but don't ignore me either.

I returned to my journal and tried to focus on my feelings but was incredibly distracted by the group rendition of “Everything's Coming Up Roses.” I turned up Simon & Garfunkel a little louder. Still, I couldn't concentrate, and as Paul and Art belted “Sounds of Silence,” I decided,
Fuck it.
I put down my fairy journal, blew out my lavender candles, turned off my music, grabbed my guitar and favorite songbook—
Great Songs from the Sixties
, which I had inherited from my grandmother's sheet-music collection she kept in the bench of her pink piano—and headed next door to see if I could possibly enjoy myself surrounded by perky people from upstate New York.

I opened the door, and the girl with the makeup stood up and said, “You came!! Everybody this is—”

“Margot.” Shit! I forgot to be Maggie. Okay, next time remember to be the new you.

“Hi, Margot. I'm Adriana. And this is Eric and Lori and—” Adriana went on to rattle off about ten names of the various smiling faces in the room. I didn't realize that many people could fit in such a tiny space and still seem to enjoy themselves.

“So, you've got a guitar!” said Adriana. “Want to play us something?”

Shit.
I knew I shouldn't have brought my stupid guitar.
From now on I will only accessorize with bracelets, barrettes, and scarves. No more guitars.

“Uh, sure.”

I took out my songbook and began aimlessly leafing through it to buffer the time before I confessed to the theatre dorks that I had no talent.

“Mind if I play something while you're looking through your book?” asked Eric, as I all too eagerly handed him the guitar and the book. “This is dedicated to you, Margot—I heard your music next door.”

He began playing “Bridge over Troubled Water” and we all sang right along with him, including me. We then sang “Spinning Wheel” and “Do You Believe in Magic” and about a dozen other awesome songs from my book. The theatre dorks were very adaptable to my music and I felt bad for being so judgmental of them at first. They didn't judge me after all, so maybe I should be a little less closed-minded.

I hung out with the perky girl, Adriana, for the rest of the night. She told me about how at orientation she had participated in the sack races; I told her how I had sat on the sidelines and judged those who participated. She was looking forward to unlimited orange “pop” in the dining hall; I had brought my own herbal tea. Maybe Adriana would be my lifetime “college roommate BFF”—despite our apparent differences or the fact that we weren't actually roommates. I was excited I would have at least one friend to start off college with. I was also pretty stoked that she was already aware of my tendency to become reclusive and obsessed with my journal, and I respected that she had developed a coping mechanism of hosting a sixties sing-along to combat that. Adriana seemed to really embrace her inner dorky tall girl and didn't care if anyone thought she was lame. She wore her Ithaca tracksuit and red lipstick proudly, and I admired her for that. Not since Jackie Angel had I met another tall-girl misfit I related to so much. Except Jackie was whom I strived to be like one day, and Adriana was more like the present me. I imagined that being an artsy tall girl in Buffalo was just as trying as being one in Central Jersey. I went to sleep that first night on my own, feeling optimistic about my future here.