Spent (3 page)

5

W
hile I binged and
purged, Mom stopped eating and joined a volleyball team. She'd become skinny like a model. I could tell by the way she smiled at herself in the full-length mirror and swerved when she walked that she liked her legs. Her brown polyester skirt floated inches above her knees. According to her, everyone said she had terrific legs, and it was true. She never worked out at a gym or walked farther than down the driveway to the car and from the car to her office, so when she joined a volleyball team I was surprised. I'd never seen her wear white socks, just Hanes control top pantyhose that made her shapely legs shimmer and glide.

The volleyball team was where she met Chris, a hunky postman she hastily moved into our house after they had been dating for a few months. He had a Tom Selleck moustache and wore little, blue terrycloth shorts. He spent a lot of time in the garage building stuff: bookshelves, cabinets, and canoes. He woke up at 5:00
a.m.
to deliver mail then came home and napped from about 3:00
p.m.
until 5:00
p.m.

You didn't want to wake him up.

In our house, there was a bar downstairs with stools where Mom and Chris gulped yellow booze with three ice cubes from rocks glasses. Mom liked to swish hers around in a circle, making the cubes clack against her glass.

The sound reminded me of galloping horses. Mom loved to tell stories about being a little girl when she got drunk. “My brother got everything,” she growled. “He could go out and do whatever he wanted. I had to get perfect grades and do all the housework. Do his homework. The happiest day of my life was going to ride Kathy's horse. I wanted to stay there and brush the horse and ride her horse, Bo, forever. I didn't care when he kicked my teeth out. I wanted a horse more than anything in the world.” I wanted to give her a horse—anything she wanted. I hoped Chris would.

The first night it
happened, I closed my eyes in bed and listened to them argue. Mom's bedroom was directly above mine. I heard a loud thud. I recognized the sound of her body being slammed against the bedroom door. Mom kept whimpering, “Please stop.” His feet stomped across the ceiling like a monster. I expected to hear a laugh track, but there was only yelling. He threw things that hit the walls. I imagined the lamp and the alarm clock splitting into shards.

Outside, the wind blew the redwoods hard. Branches creaked and snapped. The sound was like limbs breaking. I liked the outside sounds better than the inside ones. I opened my window and inhaled damp forest air. I thought about crawling out the window and grabbing the tire swing and slowly lowering myself down like Wonder Woman.

I heard feet running: heavy long strides above me like Sasquatch.

“If I can't sleep, no one's sleeping!” Chris turned on all of the lights and televisions in the house full blast. The stereo blared Kenny Rogers' “The Gambler.” I knew all the words because my mom played that album nonstop in her green Volvo while she smoked her menthols. We would sing along loudly to “She Believes In Me.” My eyes were open and I mouthed the words, but I held my breath and didn't stir. If I was very still, I figured they would stop.

Mom appeared in the doorway and sat on my bed. I'm not sure why. She had a cut on her lip that was bleeding through the Kleenex. I worried about her pretty smile. “I love you,” she said from beneath the tissue and pet my leg. She was drunk.

In a few minutes, she left, then the lights, televisions, and stereo were shut off, and it was quiet apart from the wind. I was wide awake, so I turned on my black and white television and watched the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in an elaborate white wedding dress walk in front of thousands of fancy guests. She stood close to a man with a big nose. He wore a stiff military jacket and had delicate hands. The woman was slim with soft blonde, feathered hair. The train on her dress was at least twenty-five feet long. I watched them say vows and kiss with formal elegance. The woman had golden skin. Her expression was gentle and prim. I wanted to look exactly like her. I studied her hair. I had no idea who they were, but the news announcers told me they were Lady Diana and Prince Charles.

The mornings after Mom and Chris fought, I watched her dab beige Avon makeup on her bruised eyes and smear frosted pink lipstick on her swollen lips before she went to work as a legal secretary. I followed her around and spelled words out loud for my spelling test as she admired herself in the mirror and sprayed Charlie perfume on her delicate neck. “Res-tau-rant.” She reached for a string of beads the color of dried blood and put them around her neck. She took them off and chose a string of rose quartz, lavender, pink, and white orbs instead. “R-E-S-T-R-A-N-T.”

“Wrong.” She dug around for her matching lavender quartz earrings. “R-E-S-T-A-R-N-T.”
She'll yell if I screw up again.
“Three syllables. You're missing a syllable. Pay attention.”

All of her suits were color coordinated. She used to match her taupe vests with blouses that she would tuck into her nylons. Her suits were polyester because, she said, “They don't need ironing.” She was a joiner of women's groups, an attender of luncheons, and president of AAUW (American Association of University Women). She was a member of DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution). She was treasurer of her class, and she drank with sorority sisters. She never missed a day of work. She cooked and cleaned. She was stern, capable and delicate, like Lady Di, I think. Her boyfriend beat her, and she loved him. I loved him, too. He paid attention to me and liked the same music that I liked. We sang along with the radio in the car. His raspy, deep, voice in harmony with mine as we drove. “He's the love of my life,” Mom used to say.

The night Mom's yelling became screaming I called the cops from my yellow phone, then climbed out of the window and walked up the cement stairs alongside the house. I watched Mom convince the cops dressed in a women's organization voice and matching blouse. “Everything is fine,” she said. The cops talked softly and wrote things down on small pads of paper, then they left and it was just me in the moonlight, spying on her from the side of the house. I felt guilty. Mom went inside again, but I walked down the hill and through my neighbor's garage into my best friend, Kate's, house. Kate's mom, Rose, was a second mom to me. Rose was standing in the dark kitchen drinking a glass of wine. When I told her about the yelling, she said, “It's just water off a duck's back.”

I didn't believe her. I figured she just wanted me to go away. It was a school night. I went outside and walked the streets of my small town in the moonlight, then snuck back into my window at sunrise like nothing happened.

6

I
lost my virginity during
a blackout, in a summer cabin near the Eel River.

By fourteen, I'd found alcohol. I never liked the taste; I just drank to get gone. Usually, the way it happened was a friend had a party, and we all showed up and guzzled their parents' stash. I drank until the burn melted my throat and I fell down. Those summers were foggy and cold, but it got warmer an hour South of Eureka in Garberville, the notorious pot mecca.

Kate's family had a summer cabin in the hills of Garberville. The first time I went I must have been about seven years old. I got sick from Kate's Mom's white spaghetti, but I think I was just homesick and scared. It was my first sleepover out of town and I missed Mom.

Kate had a big family with two older sisters who were Gods to me. They listened to Top 40 music, had boyfriends, knew how to bake cookies from scratch, and curled their hair like the girls in
Seventeen
magazine. They baby-oiled their tanned curves, wore pink and turquoise string bikinis, and bought expensive sunglasses from a department store in Santa Rosa with their babysitting money. They did ballet. I wanted Kate's family: her sisters and her mom who stayed home and cooked. My mom preferred men and things that were dangerous for her, like runaway horses, menthols, and raging men. Never mind the things that were quiet and safe. I was born with her same cravings and tendencies. When I put myself at risk, I felt closer to her, daring her to keep me safe. I did this knowing she wanted to more than anything, but she didn't know how.

After I adopted myself
into Kate's family, I got invited to Redway instead of going to the poor camp. Redway looked a lot like a campground and had rope swings that hung from redwoods. There was a dirt trail with wobbly wooden steps leading to the Eel River. In the car with Kate and her sisters, we sang commercial jingles like, “Don't give me that so-so soda, the same old Coca-Cola, I wanna rock and roll-a.” We'd go back and forth like that, first Shasta then Tab, “For beautiful people.”

To become a beautiful person, I barfed two or three times per day. I had red sores on the knuckles of my right hand from rubbing against my teeth. They're now little white scar-slivers where I picked the scabs and didn't let them heal. No matter how much I barfed, no matter how much Jazzercise I did, I was never going to be skinny, but it wasn't only about the weight. Bulimia was about control, which I was always on the brink of losing.

I barfed up every meal and guzzled hard alcohol with Diet Sprite. Alcohol was easy enough to find—the fully-stocked bar downstairs in my house, where neighborhood drunks hung out and played liar's dice with me, and sometimes Alan, when he was avoiding Dad and his new family. Mom and Chris kept the whiskey flowing, so I poured the gin or rum into a glass and added water to the bottle to fill the gap I left. They'd never notice the difference. I drank alone in the dark, keeping both barfing and booze secret.

At Kate's cabin, I was nervous to barf because I was worried she'd hear me and get upset or send me home. It was close quarters, so I snuck into the bathroom when it was empty and the rest of Kate's family was at the river, worried they would hear me retch. It was close quarters and I had little privacy, while at home I was left alone and there were several bathrooms where I could hide, run water, and puke my heart out. No one was ever around.

With television as my very best friend, I knew every commercial by heart. I was delighted to chew Freshen-Up gum that exploded in my mouth and knew every word to every Blondie and Prince song. Singing was like praying. With music as my mouthpiece, Madonna and Prince expressed my emotions for me. I was spawned by MTV, absolutely brainwashed by Madonna's sloppy bawdiness and Catholic pageantry. I studied her songs, gyrated to “Burning Up For Your Love,” and stole gobs of plastic bracelets from Woolworth's that covered my forearms. I sported black lace fingerless gloves to hide the scars. I was determined to have sex, but I'd only kissed boys. Girls were easier to get close to, and although I thought about it, I didn't kiss them until later on. Since my mom wouldn't allow me to date until I was sixteen, I developed a knack for lying and sneaking.

By the time I was fourteen, I was already enjoying attention from boys, but I had no idea what to do about it. Kate and I went to private Catholic school together for the first seven years, until we decided that wearing uniforms sucked. Public schools had boys and fashion, punk kids and no mandatory mass. Our parents eventually caved to our pleas. In public school, the boys I flirted with pinched my butt and gave me mean looks. They nudged me, kissed me, then ran away.

Rudy Geraldi was an olive skinned dreamboat who made all of us laugh. I had a terrible crush on him. He was tall and mature, seventeen years old with even teeth. Us girls—Kate, Sandy, Jolie, and I—planned a sleepover at Rudy's place while his family was away. We drank his parents' vodka and played music and danced around with our elbows out and our knees weak in the summer heat. I got shitfaced with Kate, and we got loud and ridiculous. I was a stupid, reckless drunk, singing my commercial jingles and dancing around, hating my body, but I barely remember this. I do remember the beds outside where we slept. They were old iron frames with striped mattresses that smelled like bug spray and suntan lotion. I wore turquoise and purple plaid preppy shorts and a sky blue Izod shirt. “Is this okay?” He asked. Tongues, lips, no bra. Shorts sliding down past my knees. The sky shimmered with blurry lights, like water with eyes. “You must be my Lucky Star,” I said, moving my arms up in a sloppy cheerleader move.

“Are you sure?” Rudy asked. I remember the question but not the answer. Prince's “Little Red Corvette” played over and over, someone had put it on repeat and then passed out. His hair was fine and silky. I shrunk when he was on top of me, finally the thin girl I wanted to be—under a big black sky that was asking, “Are you sure?”

My tongue must have tasted rotten with vodka and my teeth rancid from puke. If there was pain, it was an echo of a Shasta soda pop commercial, a crinkle of tin. “I want a thrill, I want a wow, I want that taste I want it now.” The music faded and the stars blurred. I remember the musty smell of damp Redwoods and little else. When I woke up, my head pounded. There was a bump the size of a walnut on the back of my head where I must have hit it against the headboard. I looked down. There was blood dripping down my legs, running down my thighs. Rudy was asleep next to me with his back to me. The mattress springs dug into my back. I found my crumpled T-shirt and pulled it over my naked body and went to find Kate and Sandy.

“What happened?” Sandy asked, seeing the blood.

“I think we did it,” I said. “Please don't tell Kate.” I was embarrassed, ashamed, and scared. I held my sore head in my hand. I found my plaid shorts under the bed. They were also bloody. I went inside the bathroom and watched my highlighted hair fall into the toilet water as I puked. I thought about Tab Cola, with just one calorie for beautiful people—like me. I felt light headed and held the toiled bowl sides to keep from falling. My head ached. I was losing weight. I rinsed my baggy, wrinkled, damp shorts in the sink. I could throw up, but I could never take it back. I reached for the pink can of Tab, swallowed it, and made Rudy my boyfriend until he wasn't.