girls

Sometimes being a step mom isn't all bad. The girls brought more girls over this weekend and a total of five made for a Maybelline kinda evening. They planned to attend the Clinton Street Rocky Horror show at midnight on Saturday, this time in costume. It is amazing what a year will do to a 14-15 year old mind/body. Last year, or was it just 6 months ago... they looked like boys. This time they were so beautiful, so vulnerable. I was able to contribute with a black tophat, a feather boa and lotsa eyeliner. The girls: a waitress with fishnets; a tophatted, dreadlocked princess; a surprising Rita Hayworth lookalike once the levis and backpack were gone and the makeup and slinky black slip-dress on; one in checkerboard tights, this one, a girl so thin, so very thin, so obsessed with Motrin it reminded me of obsessions to come-- who looked like a claymation character from The Nightmare Before Christmas and I remembered my husband asking me if someone used the towel laying next to the dryer to puke in... a bulemic in the house....; and finally, one so non-committal, so not willing to show her allegiance to black or any other color, refuing to admit she cared at all what she looked like, who reminded me of me. My parting words were: "Stick together. I trust your judgment, but there are other people out there who you can't control. Remember who you are."

As if they know.

And this is where the rubber meets the road for me. I was 14-15 once. I swear to God I was innocent. And innocence, like heroin, just doesn't keep when left out in the open air. It is so tough to love and protect something so fleeting. What I know is that at 14 I was interested in one thing only, well, two: Speed and Boone's Farm Apple Wine. I'd settle for Vivarin and Gallo Burgundy, and did more times than I'd like to admit, but my singleness of purpose was absolute. (is that redundant?) I'd rob Woodland Heights Market while I babysat for the owner and fill the trunk of my mother's pink and white Plymouth Plaza with cheap wine. Anyway, I ended up in jail at 14, and was really onto something big.

Their father was so frightened. They are good kids, who, slowly but surely, are getting away.

I'm so done with company. I want a weekend to do nothing. In a motel. With room-service.

Besides five girls and four visitors from the southland, we went to a wedding, complete with a mile high cake that looked like it was frosted with layers of pleated satin. It wasn't, of course. But we thought it was layers of white chocolate, which it was not. It was some sort of taffy, which really didn't go with cake at all, and was all the more disappointing for the wait. The sheer number of photo-ops made me grateful for our simple ceremony. The bride was pretty, the groom pretty too. Who knows whether it will work. She loves him, he seems better for it. It is tough not to see what I see. As for us... I married the only man I would ever consider marrying. We couldn't not get married. It was the only next thing to do. He kept asking and I finally heard him. I don't even care if it works out in the long run. It was an emotionally necessary marriage. I had to know life married to this particular man. I didn't want to get married. I didn't want to move. I still think it was probably a terrible idea. But it was the only idea left. Love is such a funny thing. So unavoidable. And who am I to say they don't have what we do. I love my life. I have had the best life of anybody I can think of. Who can say that? I spent enough time alone to endure the reality of spending the rest of my life with another person.