Surviving Valencia

“How about this one next?” She passed me one that had to be clothes, judging by the shape of the box. Inside were jeans and an oversized thermo-knit sweatshirt in lavender with matching scrunchy socks. How did

she even know about cool outfits like this?

“I love this outfit!” I said. I actually got up and hugged them.

“Now this one,” said my mom, passing another package to me. It was heavy and turned out to be board games: Scruples and Pictionary. I’d be playing these by myself, I figured, but it’s the thought that counts.

“How about this one?” asked my dad, handing me another that looked like more clothes. Inside were Ocean Pacific shorts, tank-tops, and t-shirts.

“Summer’s almost here!” said Mom.

I held up a top with a surfboard printed on it. Turquoise and peach were very big colors in 1988 and these mix-and-match sets put me right in style.

The doorbell rang. “That must be the pizza!” she exclaimed, hopping up and running to the door.

My dad raised his eyebrows and rubbed his belly.

“Don’t open any more presents without me,” hollered my mother.

She reappeared carrying not one pizza but three. “That was fast. Let’s take a break from presents and eat these while they’re hot.”

“That’s a lot of pizza,” I said.

“I’m on a diet so I got veggie,” she explained. She lined up the extra large boxes on the countertop and opened them all. First was the one for my dad, then her veggie pizza, and the last was plain mushroom: my favorite. I drew in a breath and exhaled, completely caught off guard. This was all too much. I didn’t know if I should feel better or worse that she knew things like my favorite kind of pizza. I mean, of course it was better if she knew, right?

“Should we take a picture?” I heard myself ask.

“Dig in!” said my dad, loading up a plate with five floppy slices of the heart attack special. My mom took three veggie slices and then threw another one on her plate for good measure. As hard as she tried, she had never quite grasped the definition of diet.

“Save room for cake and ice cream,” she reminded us between bites. She had a black olive stuck to her chin. Seeing it pasted there like a tiny tire filled me with sadness and guilt and love.

“Let’s take a picture,” I said again, scrambling through drawers in the kitchen, trying to find the camera.

“Take some pizza before it gets cold,” said my mom. The olive slice dropped to her lap. She noticed and popped it into her mouth. I gave up trying to find the camera and got a plate of pizza instead.

And so the evening went. After pizza they lit thirteen candles and I made a wish. We had chocolate cake with raspberry swirl ice cream, then I opened the rest of my presents: More clothes, an Esprit purse, and some sandals for summer. I wouldn’t look homeless anymore! ALF was on TV, and we sat down to watch it together, my parents patting the spot on the couch between them to indicate this was where I should sit. I conveniently let it slide that the only time either of them had ever commented on the show had been to voice their displeasure that it had ever been made.

Part of me was removed from the whole scenario, watching it as if it might actually be a dream. I kept trying to get that part to snap back inside my head, but it floated above me, cradling my soul and judging the evening as make-believe.

Chapter 35

That summer I began riding my bike or taking the bus everywhere. Suddenly I was no longer trapped. On Saturdays I would bike to the closest bus stop, and after three transfers I was in downtown Minneapolis. I found a listing of summer jobs posted at a library and decided I wanted to make some money. What I really wanted was to be one of those models at the mall. The ones doing fashion shows, prancing around like real-life celebrities. I had heard that was how Tiffany became so famous, and she was ugly like me, so I figured I stood a good chance of landing the job. Now that I was riding my bike all over, it made escaping my miserable life seem possible. It gave me hopes and dreams.

This was before we got the Mall of America, so news of a talent search at Sears seemed like a big deal. I put on my new Ocean Pacific clothes and rode my ten speed all the way there, arriving sweaty and with bugs in my teeth, but very, very hopeful. I touched up my makeup and got in line. There was a long folding table, the kind you see at bake sales, with four men sitting behind it. They drooled over us little girls. Well, not all of us.

I had hoped I might luck out and be the only person who had caught wind of this, and win by default. No such luck. Throngs of people were there, mostly girls my own age with their mothers.

We each had to climb up a riser to a short, T-shaped catwalk, spin, and walk back down the steps. That was round one. Round two involved singing or dancing and didn’t happen until the following weekend, so I figured I had a whole week to come up with a routine. Flocks of Jennis and Jessis and Karis stood in line in front of me, holding their moms’ hands, cracking their knuckles and stretching their calf muscles. They wore bubble skirts and bolero jackets, not gender-neutral gaudy shorts with dogs surfing on them.

Suddenly I was up. One of the men made a gesture towards me like he was shooting me and I stepped up onto the catwalk. I paused, wanting to nail it. Loud music was playing; I took a step, another step, then skipped down to the top of the T to show that I was FUN. I felt I had to do something memorable or I wasn’t going to advance to the next round, so I tried to do the splits but came up a little short.

“Okay, that’s enough,” yelled one of the men.

I had to roll to the side to get out of the uncomfortable position I was in, and instead of walking back down the catwalk I just jumped off the side and ran away.

So instead of being the next Tiffany, I got a job babysitting a four-year-old girl named Kennedy. She lived far from me, in a scary section of town, but it was better than sitting at home. Every morning I woke up early and rode my bike to her house where I watched her until her mother came home at three. Kennedy and I went to the park or the pool, painted with watercolors at the picnic table, or played with her extensive My Little Pony collection. A fence surrounded their house, and through its chain links we watched such things as one Pitbull killing another, and some policemen catching a teenage boy and throwing him so hard against the hood of his car that an ambulance needed to come for him. “Is that boy gonna die?” Kennedy kept yelling at the police. I think he would have if we hadn’t been there watching. Babysitting Kennedy was great. It made me feel independent and grown up, plus I got paid.

Kennedy’s mom’s name was Sharon and she was only twenty-three. All over their house were wedding pictures of her and Kennedy’s dad, Tom. He was tall and thin with sandy hair and a mustache, and stood there looking at her like he couldn’t have been more proud. Sharon’s dress had a high neck and long, lacy sleeves. Her veil came down between her eyes in a point. I thought she was beautiful. Nine bridesmaids in baby blue dresses fanned out to her right, nine handsome men in brown suits fanned out to his left. Someday, I hoped, I would be just like them.