Kiss and Tell (5 page)

The big song on the radio at that time started with the lines “Which way you goin’ Billy? Can I go too?” The song echoed in my mind and made me cry as I boarded a plane for the very first time. From Newfoundland to Saskatchewan was a major move. I cried for most of the flight but stopped when I was served soft rolls and butter for the first time ever. I could not get enough of airplane food (which I like to this day). I said, “My gosh, this is so delicious; what is it?” My aunt was surprised. “Honey,” she answered gently, “it’s butter?” Well, we’d never had butter at home. I’m sure at one church gathering or another I must have tasted butter, but my mother used to buy margarine or lard in bulk. I stuffed my face as tears rolled down my cheeks, the beginning of consoling myself with food.

In the weeks to come I would miss my dog, Lassie, and my cat, Harold. I would miss my mom’s homemade bread, the fresh fried-and-sugarcoated doughnuts she made. I’d miss watching her knead the dough and giving us some to play with. I’d miss homemade Play-Doh and homemade clothes. I’d miss the woods and fishing and the smells of home; the thump of the old wringer washer and the hum of the sewing machine. Most of all I’d miss the sight of my dad coming home after a hard day at work, and being allowed to put five teaspoons of sugar in his coffee and tasting it for him.

My old life…and my childhood… were gone.

Chapter Three

Rebel Just Because

M
y mom somehow managed to keep us off welfare—barely.

I’ve really got to hand it to her; she could easily have copped out and said, “I can’t take possibly care of these seven kids all alone.” But she never said “Poor me”—at least not out loud. It was a horrible time for her. The love of her life was gone. My angry, embittered dad was still in the hospital for rehabilitation, and she was trying to pay off what bills she could. Her three oldest kids were gone, and she still was taking care of the four little ones while closing down the ranch. I don’t know how she managed. I would have been hanging from the rafters.

It was a chaotic time for everyone. While my mom was getting her affairs in order, I was trying to adjust to life in a new place with my uncle’s family. I went from swooning over Billy kissing me on the forehead to developing a fierce crush on my cousin Randy. How backward of me! I was only 12 and I didn’t do anything about it, but oh, I loved him. He, like Billy, was tall, dark, and handsome. I became fixated on him while Lance, Kim, and I were living in their house. My aunt and uncle did their best to be surrogate parents, but I was a confused, hormonal preteen and didn’t notice or appreciate their efforts. I started at a new school and began making new friends. I got my first job, grooming horses with my cousin Brenda, who I’m sure wasn’t thrilled that I was tagging along. She was paid with riding, and I was paid with a little bit of heaven: Rice Krispies with fresh heavy cream and brown sugar. Wow, that was good!

MY COUSIN RANDY - I HAD A CRUSH ON HIM!

Eventually the whole family—minus my dad—got back together. It was an entirely new way of life for all of us. We were in a city now, which was quite a change from a mink ranch. Our new home was one of a group of three-story row houses with fixed rents for low-income families.

I attended Carolyn Robbins, a very forward-thinking school. They had classes in the round, with all the students sitting on the floor in a circle with the teacher, who was also part of the circle. The classes were all held in the one room. It was very interesting. As a student, I was like most kids—good in the subjects I enjoyed. I liked creative writing and math a lot, and every school I attended had some kind of choir I joined.

We walked the four blocks to and from school each day, back to the low-rent part of town where we lived. My mom worked days and went back to school at night. She enrolled in a lab technology course in 1970; in fact, she and my sister Tracy started school on the same day. Mom had trained as a nurse before getting married, but now, without much help from her parents, she had to manage to support all of us. (Mom would eventually specialize in hematology and in 1981 became the director of administration for the laboratories at Royal University Hospital and the Department of Pathology for the College of Medicine at University of Saskatchewan.)

MOM AND HER BROOD AT 71 WESTVIEW PLACE; SASKATOON, SASK,, CANADA. LANCE, MOM, KIM, SHANNON, SARA, TARRY, JEFF AND TRACY. DID MY MOM KNOW I WAS OUT IN A VOLKSWAGEN WITH MURRAY?

My mother was doing remarkably well managing her new circumstances, but work and school didn’t leave her much time for her kids. Mom did the best she could; I would never find fault with her in any way for anything she did, but I wish she could have encouraged us to keep in touch with Dad. I think it would have helped me and the other kids. In hindsight I assume that it was too emotionally painful for Mom and Dad to have any contact. I was now a girl with a big piece of my heart missing. Ever since the accident I’ve been standing on chairs trying to get men to love me. I did everything I could to get their attention. My dad had really loved me, and I missed basking in his adoration. I was going to find that feeling again, any way I could.

A photographer snapped a picture of me one day, catching me right at the beginning of my rebellious period. There was a sign on the street that said, “No Standing No Stopping,” and the local newspaper published a photo of me standing under the sign hitchhiking. Meanwhile, my mom told me not to ever do anything like that. I wasn’t supposed to be hitching rides or hanging at the mall, but now I was, in a word, busted!

I started shoplifting at the local drugstore and at stores in the mall after school. I got caught at the mall, and my mom had to come bail me out of jail. The mall security actually took me to the police station to throw some fear into me. The idea was to scare kids so badly they’d never do it again. In my case, it worked. My friends and I kept hanging out at the drugstore and the mall, but I would never steal again.

I started acting out in other ways, too. No more silent crushes, like on Billy and Randy. I acquired my first real boyfriend—in retrospect, he was probably a pervert. He was an older boy from another school—high school—and he was cruising the middle school grounds for chicks! Murray was 17 years old, and I was 13. He had a load of curly, sandy blond hair and drove a little Volkswagen as blue as his eyes. I thought he was so handsome and was flattered when he paid attention to me. So, what did I do when he started talking to me? I jumped right in the car! All my friends egged me on: “Oooooh! An older boyfriend! Is Murray picking you up tonight?” My mom did not have a clue about what was going on between me and Murray or she would have put a quick stop to it, but she was distracted by the six other kids, a full-time job, and lab classes all vying for her attention.

MY FRIEND LAURIE LYMAN, DUNCAN MACKENZIE (ANOTHER EX-BOYFRIEND!) MY SISTER KIM AND ME AND CHRISTMAS. STYLIN’, WASN’T I?

Murray introduced me to oral sex, which I must say was great. Being on the receiving end, that is—I was far too young and inexperienced to reciprocate. Come to think of it, I believe he was perfecting his technique, practicing on me. In a Volkswagen Bug, mind you. I was so young; I look back on this and know it was wrong. I would be horrified if my daughter ever did anything like that, not to mention I would have to kill the guy too! But no one was watching, no one was keeping an eye on me. There was a woman, Mrs. Rennieberg, who came over to make meals for us while my mom was at work. I had never liked liver and onions until Mrs. Rennieberg made it for me. (I ate a lot of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese and liver in those days.) She fed us, but that was as far as it went. I was unsupervised! All I could think about was Murray. Did he really like me? Was I in love?

I can’t remember if I ever introduced Murray to my mother.

I used to stay out late with him and tell her I was at my friend Laurie’s house. Laurie lived in the same housing project we did, and it would have been pretty easy for my mom to walk over and check, but she never did. Poor mom—she had all those kids, all those worries, and I was off with some boy in a Volkswagen.

At his age—17—it really wasn’t right for Murray to do what he was doing with me, but it could have been much worse. He could have used and abused me and been violent and ugly, but he wasn’t like that at all. He was very considerate. We never really went anywhere. He’d pick me up and we’d kiss until our lips were raw. Just sit and neck for hours and hours. He definitely paid me a lot of attention, at a time when I was yearning for it. I don’t know whatever happened to Murray. We lost touch after I left eighth grade and started high school. Maybe I got too old for him!

In ninth grade, I developed a big crush on a football player. His name was Brian, and he took me to a party. It was the first time my mother got involved on a personal level in my romantic life. She made me a kelly-green dress to wear. I only had that one date with Brian. I have blocked out the details of what happened, but I clearly recall walking home alone from the party. I knew that night he would never ask me out again, and he didn’t. I had no clue how to be cool, how to behave.

CHRIS DEAN, WE DATED. HE WROTE SWEET LOVE LETTERS FROM ENGLAND BUT NEVER CAME BACK!

That same year, I fell for another guy with a Volkswagen Bug, but I never could get him to respond to me. His name was Eddie, and he was a hippie. I used to hang out with all his hippie friends at the mall, wanting so much to get close to Eddie, but he was stoned all the time. He smoked pot constantly, and I never enjoyed smoking pot. It just made me hungry, and detached from reality. I wanted to be in my right mind. But still I hung out with all these potheads instead of going to school, waiting in vain for Eddie to pay me some attention, skipping my classes and smoking cigarettes.

My teenage years were forming a very distinct pattern. My life was all about going from boyfriend to boyfriend, because my whole life has been about finding the guy. Finding my dad, the love that I lost. Don’t get me wrong, I had some lasting good girlfriends, too, but they were just as boy crazy as I was. Besides clothes and makeup—neither of which I had much of—boys were all we talked about.