Hangin'

I was an It Girl.

Ok, I was 12, and barely knew who Andy Warhol was, but that didn’t take away from my It-ness.

In fact, I felt prepared for the job, probably owing to my deep understanding of Susan Dey, whose Laurie Partridge mannerisms I could mimic - the eye-rolls at Danny, the way her hair draped over the keyboard, her murmurings of “far out” when the band learned a new song. I’d even practiced lifting my upper lip to show my two front teeth the way she did.

She could dry-shampoo! She could look romantic! She could culturally appropriate! I think I loved her.

My It-Girl status began on the playground, where all great things started.

“Cushman likes you,” a boy said, as he ran past me.

I knew Cushman liked me.  I liked him too, and had, since 4^th grade when we roller-skated together after school. There was something intimate about instantly becoming an inch taller together, the vibration of pavement under our wheels that only we could feel, and the silent, meditative concentration as our skate keys swayed back and forth in tandem.

Once, when my wheel caught a raised crack in the sidewalk, Cushman grabbed my elbow to steady me, and I could barely get to sleep that night.

I felt a similar thrill as he ran past me and blurted, “Want to go bowling Saturday?” 

I yelled “yes” at his back and had to keep myself from bouncing on the balls of my feet.  A few other girls were asked by Cush’s friends and we stood in a cluster and squealed, not noticing that other girls, who hadn’t been asked to do a thing, were watching.

That Saturday, we met in Audrey’s yard and walked to the bowling alley in two lines. The boys were stoic, as if marching off to war, while we giggled and whispered, passing a pot of lip gloss, an innocent precursor to the joints we’d one day share. We dipped and swirled our pinkies, until they were coated and deliciously gooey, then swiped them across our lips. As we walked, our shiny mouths caught strands of blowing hair, which we flicked away like unwanted thoughts. We continued talking, our voices higher and more animated than usual. I wondered if the silent boys envied us.

We bowled as we had walked; boys on one side of the horseshoe-shaped bench, girls on the other.  Afterward, we had slices of pizza just as separately, and once we got back to Audrey’s, stood in a circle and awkwardly said goodbye. 

It wasn’t as much fun as bowling with the girls, but it was more thrilling.

The same routine happened the next Saturday.

On the third Saturday, I got dressed and ready, but not for bowling. 

As I got into the back seat of my parents’ car, my mother placed a Macy’s bag in my lap. Inside of it were the loose clothes we’d been told to bring.  I threw it onto the seat, then shoved it over as far as I could.   My father talked about traffic, and when that ran out, he put the radio on.  To the traffic station.

Monsey, New York was only an hour from our house in New Jersey, but the ride felt longer. I stared at the back of the front seat, my mother’s teased hair rising above it, like the puffed top of a cake before it falls.

I didn’t know anyone who wore a back brace, but had sat with my parents in the orthopedic surgeon’s office looking at my S-shaped spine on the light box behind his desk as he explained that bracing a spine was like bracing a young tree. If you caught it while it was growing and still pliable, you could straighten it. I thought of the little oak in our side yard, flanked by sticks and tied with rope.

The doctor shared pictures of the brace, but I didn’t look, because if I didn’t know what was coming, it couldn’t ruin my last few weeks of freedom.

Which were now officially over.

Mr. Zamosky, who we called The Brace Maker, had a big house and shook our hands with both of his. The kindness in his eyes gave me a sudden rush of panic. He led us to his workroom, and there it was, laying on a table - the brace I’d avoided thinking about. I told myself it was for someone else, and looked around, as if a less-bulky, less ugly contraption was sitting on a shelf waiting for me.

But no.

He swept it off the table, and held it in the air, like a ballet dancer lifting his partner. I waited for my mother to say something, but she only mustered a soft “oh.”

Mr. Zamosky closed a curtain in front of us.  My mother tried to smile as I peeled off my Danskin and unbuttoned my Peanut Pants (the tightest, most low-slung hiphuggers known to the 6th grade girls of Edison, New Jersey).

I handed them over. My mother handed me the Hanes white undershirt we’d been told to bring, “to protect her skin from the brace.” I didn’t have the wherewithal to wonder what would protect my soul from the brace. I put the undershirt on, over my training bra, its thick cotton, a barrier between my budding femininity and the world.

There was a slight quiver  in my mother’s voice as she said, “we’re ready.”  The curtain opened. He was still holding the brace the same way, as if he’d been playing Freeze Dance. My breath caught a second time.

“So, you just screw it shut at the neck, then tighten this strap to cinch the girdle,” he said, and my mother’s eyes flashed at him. 

“It’s not a girdle,” she said quietly, but all I could picture were the ladies in Playtex commercials.  I held my hair out of the way as my mother screwed me into the neck piece, which, because of its angle, forced my chin upward, in the universal gesture of optimism that I came nowhere near feeling.

She cinched the girdle (it was a damned girdle) closed.

“Just a little tighter,” he said, and I would have looked at him like he was crazy, but I couldn’t turn my head. “Ah. There you go. That’s what we need. Just that much pressure on the spine.” He marked the spot on the strap with a pen. I stood perfectly still, staring at a tree that grew in his yard, straight and tall, without sticks or rope.

This drawing was done from a photo of me, but the illustrator gave me a different face and hairstyle, for which I was grateful.

I tried not to cry as my mother took the loose, striped top from the Macy’s bag and slipped it over the plaster and metal that covered me. She helped me pull a pair of matching, baggy elastic-waist pants over my not-a-girdle. I kept my eyes on the tree.

The loose-fitting outfit was made by a brand called Hang Ten and had two bare feet embroidered on its chest.

“It’s what the surfers wear,” my mother had said, when she’d given it to me a few days before.

She repeated this line every time I said the outfit looked like something a 5-year-old would wear. As if that wasn’t annoying enough, she added that “hanging ten” meant curling all of your toes around the edge of the surfboard so you wouldn’t fall off.

Feeling like anything but a surfer, I bunched the loose fabric of the Hang Ten pants between my fingers as we rode home.  In my lap was the Macy’s bag, that now contained my Danskin and jeans. I clutched it for a while, then, with a heavy sigh, tossed it onto the seat.  When we got to our driveway, my father took my arm, not sure how much to help, as I stiffly unfolded my body from the car.  Once I did, he kissed my forehead, and the love in his eyes made me want to cry. I glanced at my orange patent leather watch and was surprised to see that it was only noon.

Audrey’s house was next to mine, and my friends were inside, getting ready for bowling. Cush had asked a girl named Lynn to go in my place. I hurried in, not wanting anyone to see me, clunking along in my striped top and baggy pants.

At school that Monday, I smiled and said thanks to the kids who said nice things, pretending “It’s not that bad” was a compliment. When I saw Cush on the playground, I walked toward him.

“Look!” I said, and crouched to the bowling position I’d practiced at home. I swung my arm forward, opening my fingers with a little “release” gesture. “I can still do it!”

He said, “Oh, cool,” but didn’t meet my eyes.

He ran off and my smile froze. I had gone from It to Out.

I wore the brace for 23 hours a day. During the hour off, I showered, then got into my Danskin and Peanut Pants and stood in front of the mirror. I cocked my head to the side, wanting my hair to fall like a silky curtain, but my waves stayed put. I coaxed a lock down and held it over an eye, then lifted my chin and said “hey, what’s up” as a statement, not a question. Like a cool girl.

The following Saturday, I heard giggles and shrieks from Audrey’s yard through my window screen. I kneeled on the bed and peeked out. They stood in a circle that I had to acknowledge looked complete with Lynn in my place. She was a nice girl. They were all nice. I would have done the same in their place.

Someone glanced up and I was horrified because I thought they saw me. I flopped down (stiffly.) And for the first time, collapsed into sobs.

I still hung out at Audrey’s, who was as stalwart a friend as you could ask for, and went to the mall with everyone, but instead of lying on the fitting room floor while shimmying into a pair of impossibly tight pants, I watched.

I learned to laugh along and say “those look great” without a hint of jealousy, while sitting on a chair in my baggy stripes. When it came to being a good-natured outsider, I hung ten.

By high school, I was able to go six hours a day brace-less which meant I could once again wear cool jeans and tight tops, but by then, I was more interested in embroidered peasant tops and denim skirts made from my sister’s old jeans. I found my way back to “in” via the artsy kids. We were too young to be hippies, but we gave it our all. I knew every word to Crosby Stills Nash & Young’s Four Way Street album, and said the name Joni with reverence. I still do.

By college, no one knew me as a girl who’d worn a brace. And to my great joy, guys in flannel shirts, whose hair, like mine, was wavy and middle-parted, liked me as much as I liked them. Sometimes more.

I was in, and I stayed that way when I moved to New York, where I lived in the west village, but hung out in the east. It was as if I’d found the life I’d been meant to have - a life filled with art openings, interesting movies, and rent low enough to afford drinks at 7B and the five dollar admission to Save The Robots.

I may not have been an It Girl, but I was definitely an In Girl. And I guess you could say I still am. After all, I’m comfortable in my life and I’m comfortable in my skin.

But lately, I’ve been a little off-kilter. I’m not sure why - maybe it’s a recent birthday - the first without my mother - or maybe I haven’t challenged myself lately and don’t have enough to say.

Whatever it is, I’m feeling a bit off. In situations where I normally thrive, I’ve found myself hovering on the outskirts of conversations.

It’s easy to think, “once an outsider, always an outsider,” or to see myself as part of a club whose membership never expires.

But I’m not sure it’s really that exclusive a club.

I think maybe we’re all outsiders.

At least sometimes.

After all, we all know what it is to stand outside a circle of people who seem happier than us.

We all know what is to struggle.

As we keep our chins up.

And smile along.

And do our very best.

To hang in there.

And hang ten.