“Amy, I can’t believe you broke that seat.”
I guess the tone of my voice was funny because people actually laughed with us. Amy wasn’t angry at me for jokingly diverting the blame to her. But underneath my smile I was horrified. A horror I didn’t share with Amy at the time. Even with her I needed to be the class clown. Being escorted to another pair of seats by the angry manager was not pleasant. But I kept a smile on my face the whole time and throughout the movie. Amy wasn’t the wiser.
Amy remains fascinated by that incident to this day. And who can blame her? It’s not every day you date someone with killer thighs . . .
Amy was also the one who tried to discuss my mom’s reputation with me. She tried to help me admit out loud what I already knew deep down inside. I shared with Amy the stories about how my mom abused me, but I hated it when Amy would verbally attack her. I was embarrassed because I knew what a tramp Mom was, and her reputation around the hospital where Amy’s father worked was sordid indeed.
One Christmas day, Amy joined my mother, my mother’s boyfriend-of-the-moment, Ken, along with my sister and me for dinner. My mother had toiled all day on her festive dinner, a very rare occurrence, and the mood was jovial. True to form, Mom had prepped me and Lori with the day’s lies—to be told for Ken’s benefit.
Mom had prepared a magnificent turkey, but we were to lie and tell Ken it was goose because that was what she had promised to make for him. Before dinner, I had slipped to Amy that the main course was indeed turkey but that mum was the word.
Well, during dinner, Amy mentioned the “T” word and my mom choked on her saliva. Amy then talked about her and me being in high school together.
Oops. Too much information!
Within seconds, Amy and I were summoned to the kitchen and met with a menacing glare as Mom hissed through clenched teeth that we were not to verbally ruin her special dinner for Ken. Apparently Amy’s “admission” that we were in high school played against whatever stories my mom had been telling Ken. And, believe it or not, I was mad at Amy and not my mother. In my fragile view of the world, Amy had ruined my closest shot at being like one of those pretend families on television, even if just for a moment.
I loved Amy but couldn’t be there for her as a real boyfriend. It took everything in me to protect my self-esteem, which sometimes made me come off as a stuck-up person. Amy might argue that it wasn’t just “sometimes.”
Well, heck—wasn’t I “foxy for a fat kid?”
After a while, my romance with Amy fizzled. Mainly because the romance aspect of our relationship had never really taken off. But we remained just as close, sharing the evil tales of both our wicked mothers. We nicknamed mine “Diana Doll” (the Barbie-like doll that comes complete with bleached hair, blue eye shadow, and spring-form legs).
We did have our fights; especially whenever Amy attacked my mom or even Lori. In my mind I still envisioned my family as The Brady Bunch. I wanted so badly to live up to that happy TV-family standard. With only one military-run channel that showed American TV in Germany, we were often exposed to reruns as opposed to the current TV fare that was airing in the United States. But my family never could live up to the Brady’s—or any TV family’s—standards. Amy saw this and tried to enlighten me. She saw my potential for depth. But I wanted to remain in the dark, literally, and eat contraband junk food while there.
COMING IN FOR A LANDING
One day my dad came to Lori and me with “exciting news.” He had met a flight attendant from Scotland and they were going to live together. We couldn’t have cared less and couldn’t, for the life of us, figure out why he was telling us this.
We both stared back at him with blank faces. “So?”
Soon, Bonnie and my father were living together. She had quit her job with the airline and left her family in Scotland to live with my dad. I didn’t know it at the time, but she and I weren’t that many years apart in age.
Bonnie was nice enough, but she had a problem with the fact that my dad already had a family—not that she would have to worry, since my dad never really acknowledged his said family in any way.
Since the legal driving age in Germany was seventeen, there were still times that Lori and I needed my father to drive us to certain places. One Sunday afternoon, Dad had promised to drive us to the movie theater. He came to pick us up with Bonnie in tow. We were on our way to our destination when Bonnie burst into tears. Apparently, they had been at an afternoon party and then had to leave early so Dad could drive us to the movies.
Bonnie was hysterical over this, pleading with my father and asking when she wouldn’t have to put up with his “abusive behavior” anymore. Lori and I were watching this drama unfold from the backseat of the car.
My father leaned over and said to Bonnie in a reassuring voice, “Soon these kids will be out of our lives. I promise.”
I don’t think my father realized then or to this day what it was that he said in front of my sister and me. While Bonnie tried to calm her tears, Lori and I held our breath until we arrived at the movie theater. Dad had been late picking us up, so we rushed inside after buying our tickets. We had to assure dad that we’d take a bus home—not that either my sister or I knew how to take a local bus in Germany. But neither of us wanted to get back in that car again.
Once inside the movie theater, Lori and I looked at each other and laughed. As I reflect on that event today I realize that it might appear to be an odd reaction, but I guess it was the only response that allowed us to continue with our lives and not completely lose our minds.
Soon after that Dad and Bonnie got engaged. She went home to Scotland to officially apply for her visa to live permanently in Germany. While Bonnie spent her last bit of time in Scotland, my father moved from their apartment into our buiding’s maid’s room. He wanted to save up his money so he and Bonnie could afford a nicer apartment once she came back.
Meanwhile, my ever-expanding girth was close to 300 pounds, but it didn’t seem to be hurting my growing popularity. I was excelling in school, and had been accepted to the private college of my choice. I received several drama and solo singing awards in all-Germany-High-School competitions and continued to appear in local community theater productions to standing ovations. People especially enjoyed it when Lori’s and my voice were paired together, such as when we played Roger and Jan in the stage musical Grease.
Our parents never attended our shows—neither high school nor community theater—and never shared in or even acknowledged our successes. We didn’t care. We had done what we could to inoculate ourselves from the apathy and cruelty of our parents. Instead, we embraced the acceptance and love from the community.
The local press’s terrific reviews of Grease came pouring in. Neither of us were in the leading roles, but Lori and I had still become the standouts in the show. As a result, a reporter interviewed me for a story that appeared on the front page of the local paper.
One night my mom’s boyfriend, Ken, was sitting at the dining room table when I walked in. I said, “Hi,” quickly trying to rush my bag full of groceries past him.
Ken asked me, “So . . . how does it feel to be in high school again?”
“What?” I asked.
