It was just like every other day when it happened.
Larry had started working again; the money was flowing in. We’d go out drinking until 3 a.m., then get up and go to work again. Every day was the same, and weekends gave us a little time to sleep.
It was just another night in another bar, like every other night.
Like always, Larry was watching the band and I was staring around the room. As always, I compared the way everyone looked to the way I felt.
Everyone looked old and drunk, dancing and singing and acting ridiculously immature for their very advanced ages. At 21, I felt bone-crushingly lonely and out of place, like a bright red tulip in a field of weeds. It didn’t matter that I was in no way a bright red tulip. I thought I belonged in a better place.
I was watching some old women (at least 30) cackle in a corner; one of them kept putting her arm around some guy who obviously didn’t want her hanging on him.
“I can’t do this anymore,” I said to Larry when the band was on break. “I can’t be here anymore.”
“Whattaya mean?” he asked. “You wanna go to a different bar?”
“No,” I said. “I can’t live here anymore. I can’t be here anymore.”
“I’ll get you another beer,” he said, knowing from experience that I easily might forget all of this in ten minutes. “Wait here.”
I can’t wait here, I thought. I don’t want to wait. I can’t be here.
Larry went to the bar, ordered us another round, and then talked to someone in the band. He was jovial and upbeat. I was sitting stone-still in my chair, staring emptily forward, dazed by my internal conflict.
I believed I might spontaneously combust.
Larry set my beer in front of me, took a long swig of his beer, then stubbed out his cigarette. Smiling, he said, “I’ll be right back, Baby!”
Then he climbed onto the stage and strapped on a guitar. Before I had a chance to say anything to him, Larry was starting to sing:
“If you had not fallen, I would not have found you, angel flying too close to the ground….“
Obviously Larry did not understand my angst. He thought this had something to do with him, that he could pacify me with a song, remind me that he loved me, that he’d protect me, and I’d be happy again.
But this had nothing to do with Larry.
It had to do with … everything.
I can’t be here anymore. This is all wrong.
Everything had been wrong for a very long time, but I was only seeing it now. I just wanted out.
I can’t be here.
“Love’s the greatest healer to be found….” Larry sang, smiling in my direction. But he’d become just a distant figure on a stage in the abstract world that was suddenly my life.
I can’t be here. This can’t be my life.
My head felt like it was going to explode.
“I’d rather see you up than see you down…” Larry sang. He didn’t understand me at all.
I. Can’t. Be. Here. Anymore.
“So leave me if you need to…” sang Larry. And that’s when it hit me.
I need to leave you, I thought. I need to leave right fucking now.
And with Larry still on stage smiling, playing his guitar, I got up and walked out of the bar.
And I kept walking in the dark for a long, long time.
After my bar fight in Tampa, I was not allowed to go across the bridge and play pool until 3 a.m. anymore.
“We gotta wait for them to forget who we are,” Larry said. He figured this would take a month or so.
Meanwhile, I had realized that I was pissed off most of the time, underneath my fun-loving exterior. I kept myself busy with smoking, drinking and sex, but whenever I stopped doing stuff, my default mode became anger.
While I was waiting to be allowed back into my favorite bar, we needed to find a new bar in Tampa. That extra hour of drinking was paramount, so we found a place that stayed open until 3:00 and had a live band, even though the band stopped playing at midnight and the bar was the size of a shoebox.
Sometimes Larry would wander off to the bathroom and someone would whisper in my ear, “Wanna do a line?” And I’d sneak off to the ladies room with the guy, do a couple of lines, and then return to my seat.
I’m not sure how they knew I wanted cocaine. Did everyone want cocaine?
The other thing the new bar had was “regular” people – meaning, non-bikers. They were all old, like Larry, but not all clad in leather.
As I gazed around the room, I saw my parents just like my parents … and I would want so badly to get out of there, believing strongly in my independence. I was almost sorry the bar stayed open until 3:00.
But when we were home, it was worse. I was starting to realize that my time in Florida was being wasted. Ed had been a beautiful distraction, but now he was just … beautiful. I was no longer distracted.
Work was not enjoyable. “That’s why they call it work!” laughed Larry, entertaining himself. I was not amused.
I’d go off in the mornings to the dark office in the giant warehouse where I saw no one and talked to no one – except my mom, who had that toll-free number.
I would answer the phone a dozen times a day, write down messages on little pink pieces of paper, and then I would go home. I had no mental stimulation.
I would smoke one cigarette in the stifling heat at 10 a.m. and another at 2 p.m. My half-hour lunch (a bologna sandwich and generic sugar cookies) gave me enough time for three cigarettes.
Larry would drop me off and pick me up half a block away from work, to avoid the ground glass and nails in the industrial park. At home I’d change immediately into jeans and grab a beer, then plop myself down on the couch until after “dinner” (more bologna or leftover pizza). Then we’d maybe head to the bar.
We did not watch television. We did not talk about anything of any significance. We ate garbage. We drank 12-pack after 12-pack of Miller Lite. Larry did not sit around and sing, like he had in Pitcairn. He just sat and smoked and drank and talked about motorcycles.
I was bored. I was bored with my job, with Larry, with the heat, with Florida, with my life. I saw absolutely no future for myself and it was starting to sink in that something needed to change.
But I never said a word to Larry about my dissatisfaction. Instead I drank more, did shots of schnapps at the bar, did some coke when he wasn’t looking, and started looking diligently for someone else to save me.
In Tampa one night, before 3 a.m., I noticed a woman staring at me.
In fact she was kind of … glaring, as though I’d done something improper. I couldn’t figure it out, so I ignored her. Larry and I continued playing pool, gulping our beers between turns. I was quite enjoying myself; pool made bars extra fun.
Suddenly that glaring woman rammed into me. “Excuuuuuse me!” she squealed delightedly. Then she laughed and walked back to her side of the bar, and changed back to glaring mode.
After our game, Larry and I both plopped down on our bar stools and the woman started staring at Larry. I saw her wink at him, and blow a kiss.
I looked at Larry, who was smiling but looking down.
“Do you know her?” I asked Larry, confused now.
“Never fuckin’ seen her in my life,” he said. “She’s just tryin’ to pick a fight.”
“With who?” I asked, perplexed.
“With you!” Larry looked at her and she blew another kiss and winked again, then glared at me. She was like a badly drawn cartoon.
Then I heard her voice again: “I want the leader!” she squealed. “I want him!” And she pointed directly at Larry, who was apparently “the leader” – of what, I’m not sure.
Then she glared at me and mouthed the word “bitch.”
It occurred to me that I was wearing giant skull rings, bulky and solid metal, so they’d be great for punching someone. But I didn’t have any desire to hit that girl. She was ridiculous.
“Take the pool cue,” Larry whispered to me.
“Huh?”
“The pool cue,” he said. “Ya gotta surprise her. Hit her with the pool cue.”
So, as instructed, I picked up a pool cue and walked around the bar to where the girl was sitting. Since I didn’t want to fight, I imagined I’d knock her out with one swing.
She stood up when she saw me coming, still blowing kisses, then laughed, “look at the little bitch!” And as she turned her head to say it, I cracked her across the back of her skull with the heavy part of the pool cue.
It actually knocked her down. Both of us were surprised.
While she was on the ground, I realized that I was rather angry – although not necessarily angry at her.
But the mere act of swinging that pool queue released something in me that I hadn’t really noticed before. Underneath my drunk, quiet exterior was enough rage to blow up a building.
Before she struggled to her feet, I hit her with the stick again, then kicked her in the face with my boot. When she then pulled herself onto her knees, I punched her in the jaw with that brutal metal skull ring. She reached out to grab my hair and missed, and I punched her in the nose, which bled immediately.
She went back down to the ground quickly. Everything happened in slow motion.
I became vaguely aware that people around me were yelling. Another girl was frantically waving the pool cue in my direction. Some guy was pushing at Larry, who brushed him aside with one arm and pulled me off the girl.
“We gotta go,” Larry said, his voice low and slow.
I was still kicking.
“We gotta go,” he repeated, ultra-calmly.
“I’m not done with my beer!” I said.
“They called the cops,” Larry said. “We don’t want to be here when the cops get here.”
So without my beer, we went outside, hopped on the bike, and roared away.
Lest the world believe that I did nothing but drink after college, I had one other vice that was equally serious, and equally life-threatening. And since no one in Florida seemed to have any cocaine, at least not at my house, I kept my other addiction pumping full-force, 24/7: I smoked cigarettes.
And I smoked cigarettes constantly.
When I’d started smoking, I did it occasionally, usually while drinking, and I smoked Salems. This is what my boyfriend smoked so I thought that was what I should smoke.
Then I discovered Salem Lights. These seemed more in line with my femininity. Everything I was doing was “light” at the time. I ate “light” foods and drank “skim” milk and “Diet” Coke. So Salem Lights seemed to be just the thing.
And I always smoked menthol, because it was like peppermint candy.
Later I discovered Salem Light 100s, which were a little bit longer. For the same price, my cigarettes would last longer, so I smoked those.
Then one day, I arrived at the gas station to discover a display box near the cashier. There was a picture of a woman on the box, and the brand name was “Virginia Slims” which sounded like a very thin woman. I picked up a pack of Virginia Slims Menthol Light 100s and put Salems in the rearview mirror.
It took a minute to adjust to the new brand, but I felt cooler asking for cigarettes that were made specifically for me.
The day I discovered Virginia Slims 120s was truly providential. The 120s were ridiculously long – they looked nearly twice the size of a standard cigarette – and for me, that mattered.
The marketing for Virginia Slims 120s implied that smoking these meant I would be elegant and beautiful. The antithesis of the Marlboro man, who had a rugged demeanor and wore a cowboy hat, a Virginia Slims 120 smoker wore an elegant gown and flirted, head thrown back and laughing, with every millionaire at the proverbial dinner party.
For me, there was no gown, and I have never wanted to attend a dinner party.
I was all about quantity. My motto in life: If it’s good, more is better. What I wanted was a cigarette that was going to last a long, long time. And originally, I believed I would be holding that cigarette in my hand most of the time, just looking cool.
In reality, I smoked every centimeter of that cigarette, all the way down to the filter, every time.
Larry (who smoked Winstons and wouldn’t touch menthol) sometimes put his cigarette down. He’d set it carefully in an ashtray, still burning, so he could do something else, like make a sandwich. I saw other people put their cigarettes down once in awhile, too.
I didn’t understand this. I never, ever put my cigarette down unless it was a dire emergency – like, my beer tipped over or I fell off my bar stool. Otherwise the cigarette stayed in my hand and I sucked on it like a baby with a pacifier.
Before I ever got sober, I was smoking three packs of Virginia Slims 120s every single day. That’s 60 cigarettes a day, more than 400 cigarettes a week, well over 1,500 cigarettes a month. And I never, ever put my cigarette down. For years.
I believe my family’s prayers are the only reason I am still alive. Otherwise, it makes no sense at all.
Ed was a scruffy dreamboat from Pitcairn with long bleached-blond hair, sparkling green eyes, and a slow, deep voice.
One day, unbeknownst to Larry and me, Ed hopped on his Sportster and rode from Pitcairn to Florida. He appeared on Larry’s doorstep on a random Saturday afternoon.
“Hey Man!” Larry said, patting him on the back and inviting him in. “How ya’ doin’? Ya want a beer?”
“Yeah,” Ed drawled. His voice was even deeper than I remembered. “My fuckin’ ass is killing me, fuckin’ Sportster! I gotta get a bigger fuckin’ seat.”
I glanced quickly at Ed’s 25-year-old butt, wondering briefly if he needed a massage.
Larry laughed, nodded, lit a cigarette. “I guess my brother told you where we live!” It wasn’t a question.
Ed cracked his beer. “Yeah,” he said. “I hope it’s okay if I crash here for a few.”
“Of course!” Larry said. “Stay as long as you like!” With Joe gone, we had a whole couch available for Ed.
So Ed stayed.
When Larry and I went anywhere, we took Ed with us: me on the back of Larry’s bike, Ed on his Sportster. I ogled Ed as he rode, his shoulders almost always bare in spite of sunburn, his hands clad in fingerless leather. Ed would take off his helmet, shake his head like a wet dog, and emerge like a GQ model.
When he smiled, showing all his perfect white teeth, my stomach would flip; around Ed, I felt like a schoolgirl.
At the bars, Ed and I discussed music that wasn’t country. Ed would dump all his quarters into the jukebox to play Rough Boy on repeat. He’d play bad air guitar, his wild locks flying, then he’d run one giant hand through his hair, willing it back into place. I melted every time.
When we played pool, I’d casually rub against Ed as we moved around the table. When Ed’s hand slid down lower than it should on my back, I not only allowed his hands on my body, I craved them.
One day we all went out in Dave’s pickup, and Ed and I hunkered down in the back. We had to stay under a tarp to avoid being noticed by law enforcement. Ed and I were under there for an hour, our hands wandering all over each other, exploring what we couldn’t have. We started kissing under that tarp, my insides topsy-turvy, and kissed until the truck stopped moving. Then we hopped out and never mentioned it again.
Ed and I stayed up nights drinking while Larry slept, completely hands-off. But when Ed would pass out, I’d sit in my chair and stare at him sleeping – drinking my beers and drinking Ed in.
One morning, I was still staring at Ed when he woke up.
He saw me staring and stared back, hard. Could he see me trembling? Please, I begged telepathically, please, now.
Finally Ed nodded toward Dave’s room, sitting silently open and empty.
Obediently I left my chair and threw myself onto Dave’s bed. Ed followed me in, closed and locked the door in one motion, and never said a word.
I started to whisper something but Ed put his finger on my lips, then carefully, passionately kissed me. The anticipation, the reality of succumbing to this particular desire, made us wild with desperation. But we remained deathly silent. Whatever we consummated in that room had been coming for a very, very long time.
Afterward, satiated, we padded back to our original positions on the couch and chair.
Larry was asleep in the room next door.
After a couple of days at my new job, having exhausted my supply of khaki pants (one pair) and skirts (one), I showed up at work in jeans.
My supervisor frowned. “We would appreciate it if you would dress more professionally at the office,” he said.
But I never see anyone! I wanted to wail. I sat alone in that dark room with no windows every day – and now I had to dress “more professionally”…? It didn’t seem fair.
“I don’t have a lot of clothes,” I said, always making excuses. “But I’ll try.” I spent the rest of the day behind my desk, imagining that I would wash my khakis and skirt every other day.
But the laundromat cost money, and it took a whole day to go there and wash clothes. And laundromats interfered with my drinking time. Sometimes I left my clothes and walked to the bar, but that usually didn’t end well.
While washing my khakis in the sink, I whined to Larry about the injustice of it all. “Everybody else gets to wear jeans!”
Everyone else worked in a warehouse driving trucks.
“It’s okay,” Larry said, cigarette dangling. “We’ll just go to the Goodwill and get you some dresses.”
Dresses? I thought. I was thinking slacks!
Then: Wait, did he say Goodwill?
Goodwill was the place where, growing up, we donated all of our functional garbage. I thought Goodwill was a place to donate things. I didn’t know there was a Goodwill store.
Why would I shop at Goodwill?
I thought about the giant donation bins, the piles of junk onto which we piled our junk. I thought about someone actually wearing the clothes we’d outgrown. I thought about someone else’s garbage being my “more professional” attire.
Tears sprung to my eyes. I choked them down with a swallow of beer and said nothing.
The next day at work, wearing my air-dried-in-the-yard khakis, I called my mom; the tears returned instantly.
“He wants to buy me dresses at Goodwill!” I sobbed. “I can’t shop at Goodwill!”
In fact, Larry and I were the perfect Goodwill clientele. All our money went for beer and smokes, so I could no longer afford to shop at Limited Express, which I much preferred.
I cried on the phone as though the world were ending.
My mom is a fashionista. She understands and appreciates clothes. I appreciate clever t-shirts, and that’s where my fashion sense ends.
But my mom wholly empathized with my angst.
“We’ll get you some clothes,” she said, probably having no idea how she would make that happen.
“But Larry wants to go to Goodwill tonight!” I cried. The tears were uncontrollable.
“We will get you some clothes,” she assured me from a thousand miles away. “It will be all right. Just wear the clothes you have for now and call me tomorrow. We’ll figure it out.”
I could feel her hug through the phone, warming my heart.
Unbeknownst to me, my mother hung up and called her sisters.
Within minutes, the troops were rallying to gather all the stylish, professional clothes they could find, some brilliantly handmade. They boxed up the lot and sent them to me, like care packages for a war hero, though I was certainly no hero.
A few days later, clothes – real, beautiful, my-style clothes – arrived at Larry’s doorstep.
I immediately wore some of my new clothes to work, where I called Mom again on her toll-free number. “Everything is great!” I nearly screamed. “I look beautiful!”
“I’m sure you do,” said Mom.
I don’t know if I ever said thank you.
I got a job as an administrative assistant in the front office for a window-selling company.
It had never occurred to me that anyone sold windows. I believed windows just came with the house or building to which they were attached. It had never crossed my mind that buildings were … well, built. And it certainly never occurred to me that after a building was built, someone might someday want to replace the windows.
So I found the concept to be fascinating: my company sold windows! To people!
This all happened in an enormous warehouse where little trucks hoisted giant pallets of windows from one place to another. There were hundreds of framed windows all over the warehouse, stacked like cards in piles and against walls, and they weren’t attached to any buildings at all. They came in different shapes and sizes, although most of them were simple rectangles. I liked watching little trucks drive around, and I especially liked that the trucks drove around indoors, where there was air conditioning.
But that’s where the fascination ended. The enormous warehouse was tons of fun to watch, but I wasn’t supposed to go into the part of the warehouse where there were trucks. After a five-minute tour of the facility, I was taken to the “front” office, which sat at the side of the warehouse. The office was big enough to hold a desk – where I was expected to sit – and the desk was big enough to hold a typewriter and a telephone, which I was expected to use.
Ironically the office had no windows at all, so it was dark as night in there. In fact, the warehouse was windowless, too.
My job required me to sit at that desk from morning till night, completely alone, where my fast, accurate typing skills were never used at all. My job was to answer the phone, which rarely rang, and write down a message on a little pink piece of paper. Sometimes a guy would come in for two seconds and pick up the messages, but I was not allowed to deliver them.
On a big day, a caller might ask me to find someone in the warehouse, which meant I could wander around with a sense of urgency until someone told me it was “too dangerous for you to be in here!” Then I would go back to my desk and tell the caller that I couldn’t find the person they needed, and write down a message on a little pink piece of paper instead.
I did not have a computer, or the internet, or a cell phone; none of those things existed. I occasionally wrote poetry in my spare time, and sang songs in my head and typed out the lyrics on my office typewriter, so I could hang them on the refrigerator at Larry’s house. Doing nothing for eight hours a day was very, very, very dull.
One day, I remembered that my mother had a toll-free number at her work, so I called her. We chatted, and it was nice. The next day, I called her again. I told her all about my new job, and she listened, and I never once asked about her or my dad.
I called her every day, because I had nothing else to do and no one else to talk to, and my life was miserable and I just wanted a friend.
And my mom, who probably should have hung up on me, just listened. I could feel her nodding and smiling. Every day. Whether I deserved her love and attention or not.
Occasionally during our wild nights out, Larry would pull his chained wallet from his back pocket to pay for the booze and laughingly say, “You gotta get a fuckin’ job.”
Since I spent my days doing literally nothing, the thought had occurred to me. But what would I do? I’d wanted to be a journalist but in Florida, journalism seemed like a pipe dream. Lifeguarding – for which I was in no way qualified – seemed like a more likely career choice. I had no idea what to do with myself.
Unless I wanted to spend the rest of my life watching palmetto bugs in my living room, or learn to build a functional motorcycle from a rusty frame with a gas tank, I needed to find an actual job.
I knew how to get a job: I needed to read the want ads in the Sunday paper and send out my resume, with a well-written cover letter. I learned this not from college, but from my parents. So one Sunday, at around 2:00 in the afternoon when I finally rolled out of bed, I walked up to the gas station and bought a carton of cigarettes and a Sunday newspaper.
It was heavy and I had to walk a whole block with it, while smoking a cigarette. Life was hard.
When I got to the house, I read the comics first. Then I read Ann Landers. Then I took a shower. Then I lit another cigarette and flipped to the employment section.
Everyone wanted to hire me. The ads offered entry-level opportunities in retail, food service, administrative work, car sales, general sales, and telemarketing. I could do anything!
But what I wanted to do wasn’t available. I wanted to be a writer, and there were no ads looking for writers. My second choice – working in TV or radio – didn’t seem to be available either.
I did not blame my total lack of professional experience or unwillingness to do an internship in college. I did not blame the stupidity of wanting to work in an already overpopulated field.
I did not think about my friend, Debbie, who had a ton of job offers and was working in a beach town as a public relations professional. I did not think about the drunken afternoons I spent at college when she was working in the admissions office.
I did not think about my lifelong resume which included three weeks at The Gap, two summers at Kennywood, and a few months tossing forks around in the college cafeteria before being fired.
In other words, I did not in any way blame myself.
I blamed Florida.
“They don’t have any good jobs here!” I whined to Larry. “I don’t want to do fucking sales!”
“Then don’t do fuckin’ sales,” Larry said, barely looking up from whatever he was spraying with grease.
I didn’t want to be around people, I didn’t want to work hard, I didn’t want to work retail ever again, I didn’t want to do anything related to food service, and I didn’t want to talk on the phone.
That left me with office work. I loved, loved, loved to type. I was the fastest typist in my high school class, and I made very few mistakes. (Accuracy was essential in the days of typewriters and white-out.) And in 1986, fast, accurate typists were still in demand.
So on Monday afternoon, I started calling places. And by the end of the week, I had a job! I’d be making slightly more than $3.00 per hour.
Things started getting a little better when we started going to bars in Florida. This afforded me the privilege of hanging out with people who weren’t Larry, some of whom weren’t even bikers. I was unbelievably glad to get out of the house and sit in the dark with loud music giving me an excuse to stay silent.
Sometimes, when there was live music, Larry would ask the band if he could sit in – and sometimes they’d let him sing. It reminded me that he was hot as heck with a straight-stand mic in front of him and a guitar in his hands.
Larry often chose to perform a Willie Nelson song called Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground. Larry said the song was written about us: a guy who discovered a fallen angel and healed her through love.
The lyrics are touching, which made me believe Larry was a romantic. (In actuality, Willie Nelson must have been a romantic.)
I patched up your broken wing and hung around awhile
Trying to keep your spirits up and your fever down.
I knew someday that you would fly away
For love’s the greatest healer to be found….
When Larry sang, “So leave me if you need to …” I wanted to crawl onto his lap and never leave him. The song reminded me that I was safe, that Larry loved me, that I would always be protected by the man who saved me from my imminent crash.
I completely forgot that Larry was actually the man who picked me up at a gas station in the middle of the night, someone I didn’t trust to pronounce my real name.
Larry would come off that stage and I’d gush all over him, believing so wholeheartedly in our love.
Then we’d sit and drink and chain smoke until the bar closed, and I’d look around at all the really old people, contemplating what I should do about my life.
As the bar was closing, I would invariably start complaining.
“I don’t want to fuckin’ go home,” I’d slur. “I need another beer!”
“Bars in Tampa don’t close until 3:00,” Larry said. But we were not in Tampa; we were in St. Petersburg. Larry grabbed my hand. “C’mon. If we shoot across the bridge, we might be able to fuckin’ make it.”
So we’d hop on the bike and “shoot” across the bridge into Tampa, just in time to squeak inside before 2:00, so we could drink for another hour. The Tampa bar seemed built at the end of the bridge specifically for the purpose of allowing St. Petersburg drinkers another hour of alcoholic bliss.
Plus, Larry was teaching me how to play pool and they had a ton of pool tables there. I loved that Tampa bar, and the pool tables, and staying out an extra hour.
And there was nothing quite like the feeling of going over that bridge: completely wasted, believing I was invincible, arms outstretched, boots locked on the foot pegs, breathing in the salty air and anticipating more drinking….
It was the best feeling in the world.
An hour later, we’d drive back across that bridge to go home, which was nowhere near as fun.
“Let’s go visit my sister,” Larry said one day. “It’ll be a nice ride.”
“Where’s your sister?” I asked. Up until this point, I’d only met Larry’s two brothers. He also had two sisters, which I’d kind of forgotten about.
“Vero Beach,” he said. A beach! I thought. In spite of our prior beach experience, I was still trying to live my elusive dream.
We hopped on the motorcycle and got on the highway. It wasn’t a pretty drive, and it lasted hours and hours. We didn’t stop to drink beer on the way. We just kept riding. I got sunburned and my butt hurt, but we eventually arrived.
I looked up, confused.
Larry’s sister, Diane, lived in a house, but somehow it wasn’t like Larry’s house. It had a green manicured lawn and a little porch out front. There were painted shutters decorating the windows, a storm door on the front door, and shrubbery where the red anthills should have been.
This house was … nice.
We clomped up to the porch in our boots and I suddenly felt underdressed. Larry threw his cigarette behind the bushes and told me to do the same.
Diane opened the door. She had short, dark hair and a big-toothed smile. She hugged Larry before he walked inside, then she hugged me, too, even though she didn’t yet know my name.
Diane was extremely welcoming. “Ed took Julie out so we’d have some time to chat,” she said with a slight southern drawl, letting me know she was married with a baby.
And that Diane maybe didn’t want us near them.
We walked into the kitchen, where Diane poured us both iced tea. I don’t like iced tea but I was afraid to be rude, so I held it. I did not smoke. There was no smoking in this house.
Even though it wasn’t like Larry’s house, it felt familiar. Whole-house air conditioning. Magazines on the coffee table. Live plants in front of windows. Little throw pillows on the couch.
We sat down on wicker stools at the kitchen island and I glanced around, still confused. I couldn’t quite label how I felt here.
I thought maybe it was Diane – something about her. But when I looked at Diane, I only thought: she’s so OLD. Since my sisters are both younger than me, I somehow expected Larry’s sister to be younger than me, too. But Diane was older than Larry.
She was over 40 – older than my parents! That was ancient.
Larry and Diane talked about Danny and Timmy mostly; she hadn’t seen her Pittsburgh brothers for awhile. While they talked I scanned the room, sipped at my tea and tried not to engage.
Suddenly it hit me: this house was clean.
It was big, and clean, and well-maintained. It was a family house, one that someone meticulously decorated and kept nice. This house screamed “suburban life.” This was the kind of house that kept people warm and cool and safe and dry. This house was absolutely beautiful.
This house was like my parents’ house.
Suddenly I hated this house. With every ounce of my being, I just wanted to leave, to smoke, to drink. I sat with my tea and waited. And waited. And waited. When Diane left the room, I pulled Larry aside and begged him to take me home, which he did – back to that tiny, roach-infested house with its scraggly lawn, dirt, dust and grime, and the complacent stench of mold, urine and stale cigarettes.
I just wanted to feel comfortable again.
