It Looked Different on the Model (15 page)

S
o I was just informed that there’s a thing that can block your private parts in X-ray scanners. You know what I’m talking about: the Rapiscan machine that can not only see through clothes but can show how much saggage my multiple decades—despite preventive measures and expensive body butters—have inflicted on all parts affected by gravity and all the unnecessary time I spent not lying down. I know for a fact that Rapiscan is installed at the Phoenix airport, and since I go to Phoenix a lot, I will eventually be instructed to take a trip through the tunnel of horror, which will not only rip my clothes off faster than a guy just released on parole but I’ll be STANDING UP. And I get a nice, single-serving dose of cancer for an amuse bouche.

I thought for a moment that I would absolutely have to get these little things called Flying Pasties—tiny patches you can adhere to your “no access” areas to ensure privacy—and I was scrambling for my credit card when I suddenly stopped and thought, Why am I doing this? TSA, if you want to peek in my pants so badly, go right ahead. If you really need to invade my privacy the way you claim because some underachiever on a
flight to Detroit tried to light his wiener on fire, you deserve what you get.

And that’s not all.

You really want to see me naked, let’s take this baby all the way. Take a good look, because if it’s so important to get to third base without even buying me any sort of dessert first—preferably chocolate-filled or anything on fire—shaving is off the table. If you’re looking for a belly ring, I’ll give you a jelly ring instead. It’s that thing that folds over. And you’ll be getting the bra that has one strap held to the cup with a safety pin, because that’s the one that doesn’t dig into my back fat so much. And underwear?

If you’re sure you wanna buy a ticket to no-man’s-land, get an eyeful. Drink it in, my friend. No, that’s no loincloth, those are the panties that I save for Midol days, with the torn waistband and an aggressive stubbornness that OxiClean couldn’t conquer. And yes, that just might be fire shooting at you out of my nipples, drawn in Sharpie, and when I turn around, those just might be the words “KISS IT” and an arrow pointing to my ass, which no human eyes have seen since 1994.

Until now.

Enjoy.

And don’t worry. I’ll be back.

T
he moment I walked into my neighbor’s Christmas-perfect living room, I felt inadequate.

I had never seen a Christmas tree in a non-retail situation look so pristine; the wood-stoked fire in the fireplace roared heartily, and the aroma of a freshly baked ham drifted all around us. The décor was so perfect that I expected Diane Keaton to waltz through at any minute, wearing all off-white cashmere. I wasn’t sure how my husband and I were going to work our way into the mix, but we were going to try, and I suddenly felt very lacking about the Christmas wreath hanging on my door, which I had cobbled together like a craft mom from fir and cedar debris that had crashed into my yard during the last storm.

Being new on our street, we were thrilled when our neighbors invited us to their holiday gathering, since we were anxious to get to know the people in our community. We had already encountered some of the folks on our street, but this was a chance to not only get to meet a wide variety from around the neighborhood but to show our hosts that we were friendly, personable, and nice.

Martha, our hostess, was welcoming and warm and showed
us into the kitchen, where the holiday goodies had been spread out. Careful not to appear as either gluttons or too picky to enjoy the food that she had obviously gone to a great deal of effort to prepare, we took a little of this, a little of that, and tried to mingle. It was a house full of people that we had never met before, which is not easy when you’re limiting your drink to apple juice to ensure that “the new neighbors across the street desperately putting on a good front” don’t become “the alcoholics that just moved in, let the house go to shame, and are probably selling drugs, because she’s home all day.” We met the retired lawyer from up the street, whom I had seen walking his min pins several times a week; the librarian, who was the star in the senior-center holiday program; and a young wife who was there with her husband and really didn’t know a soul, either. She, however, was slightly less concerned with first impressions than I was, evidenced by the nearly empty wineglass in her hand. That is foolish, I thought.
Glug, glug, glug
! This is a neighborhood holiday gathering, not a bachelorette party. You need to be on your best behavior. This is showtime, lady!

A half hour later, disaster struck. We had just finished nibbling on our ham and snacks when Martha came into the room and made a sweeping cull, choosing people here and there without any indication of criteria. Somehow, my husband escaped, but I wasn’t so lucky. With Martha’s hand at my elbow, I was guided into the living room with the rest of her picks. Once she had herded us in front of the piano, she had a helper hand out copies of the “Jingle Bells” lyrics to the guests, and she sat down behind the keyboard. I had been wrong.

This
was showtime.

Oh, how I wish I had not only forgone the apple juice but had downed several shots. I am simply not a singer. I do not come from a family of singers. When we get together and
warble “Happy Birthday” to one another over cake and candle, it doesn’t sound as much like a song as it does a pack of jackals yapping over a fresh carcass. And in my case, it’s nothing that you want to inflict on the innocent, or at least on people who haven’t reported us to the city yet. Who is flat, off-key, or tone deaf in the Notaro clan is all up in the air—it doesn’t matter, and we can’t tell, anyway. The fact of the matter is that we all know it, and instead of choosing to come together as a family and embrace our difficulties, we have formed splinter groups, which then mock the available “talent” in the other splinter groups. On holidays, to the naked eye it will look like everyone is carrying on, singing a jolly tune, but if you pay attention, the sound is suspiciously thin. It becomes clear that 80 percent of us are lip-synching it, leaving only the people who have married into the family and the children, who aren’t aware of their hideous, hawkish voices yet, to round out the song.

Therefore, I wasn’t too happy when I was handed the lyrics and Martha began to tinkle out some notes. I didn’t realize I was going to be expected to perform; the invitation certainly didn’t say anything about mandatory vocal contributions. In addition, I didn’t know why everyone wasn’t asked to join in, only a handful of victims. Why would you go and pick people like that instead of just plunking one note down on the piano and letting all of the guests who had the performer chromosome come running in seconds flat?

The young wife that I had met in the kitchen had also been picked and stood next to me. We exchanged similar glances of pity, each wondering what we had done to make ourselves stand out.

Martha finished her intro and launched jovially into the song, and I noticed that many of the singers possessed robust
voices, like the librarian who was starring in the senior-center program. After pretending to get lost on the words of the first line, I feigned a laugh, acted a little goofy, and launched into the song myself.

Albeit silently.

But I was pretending to have a good time, even using my pointer finger to make sure I followed along with the right words, looking at the other singers, making my eyes smile thanks to Tyra Banks, and nodding my head when I felt the moment required an extra dash of jubilation to make it real. And, just for the record, this was new for me. No one practices Facial Song Acting in my family; we all just look pissed and hungry until the song is over.

But with “Jingle Bells,” I was starting to actually enjoy myself and feel that I was an active part of the choral community, when the music stopped unexpectedly and the lyrics came to a sudden screech, trailing off like water buffalo running off a cliff. The whole party got quiet. And when I looked up to see what had happened, I saw Martha, and Martha was staring at me.

I felt my face turn flame red.

“Laurie,” Martha said in front of everybody, “are you mouthing the words?”

If anyone didn’t know who I was before, they sure did now: I was now the Word Mouther. Song Ruiner. The “Jingle Bells” Liar. Everyone’s eyes bore down on me. The white-wine new friend next to me took a step aside and cast shame in my direction.

“Listen,” I wanted to say. “I didn’t ask to sing. I didn’t want to sing. You made that decision for me! You marched through this party and picked people at random, like a Broadway version of Dr. Mengele. ‘You sing!’ ‘You sing!’ ‘You just watch!’
I’m just trying to appease a hostess and not harm my fellow neighbors. There’s something that comes out of these pipes, all right, but it’s not the gentle tweet of a songbird. It is the sound of gears grinding the flesh and bone of inner ears.”

But I didn’t say any of that. Instead, I stood there, caught in the silent spotlight, with even my husband watching, and said, “Yes.”

“Oh, no,” Martha responded immediately. “This is a party, and we all need to sing.”

“I’m sorry,” I apologized.

“Jerry,” Martha said, as she pointed to an older man in a Fair Isle sweater and motioned for him to take my spot, “I need someone here who can deliver.”

“Laurie,” she added, looking back toward me as Jerry plucked the lyrics sheet out of my hand, and I halfway expected her to send me to the party principal’s office to wait there until they all decided how to deal with me.

“Come next to me,” she said, carefully thinking, then handed me a tinkly object she’d grabbed from the top of the piano. “You can be on bells.”

I smiled as if I had always wanted to be on bells, as if I had been eyeing the bells from the minute I walked through the front door and finally they were mine, or as if I would have jumped on the chance if I could have majored in bells in college.

Satisfied that I was now within striking distance, Martha smiled politely, counted to three, and jumped into the intro again. I smiled as I watched all the singers do what I couldn’t and waited for Martha’s signal for my foray into the song. She gave me one firm nod on the chorus, and I jingled my little heart out. Jin! Gle! Bells! Jin! Gle! Bells! Jin! Gle! All! The! Way! Oh! What! Fun! It! Is! To! Ride! In! A! One! Horse! O! Pen! Sleigh! EY!

It was like the whole party took a collective breath when they saw I was going to shake the bell for real and not just move my head and murmur, “
Ching ching ching.
”

A! Day! Or! Two! A! Go! I! Thought! I’d! Take! A! Ride! …

I felt like I was a contribution to the gaiety of the evening, to the holiday atmosphere, and was being a worthwhile party guest. I was chiming along, lending so much festivity to the party, when the music stopped abruptly again, this time only long enough for Martha to hold up her right hand and sharply inform me, “Only on the chorus, dear,” before she led her troupe back into the second verse, which I had apparently been busy mutilating.

There are four verses to “Jingle Bells,” in case you didn’t know, and when sticklers sing the song in its entirety—which they tend to do when they’ve written out every single lyric on a sheet and copied it off on party paper—it can last longer than
Avatar
.

When we finally finished the song, Martha smiled again, took the bells from my hand, and thanked me. My husband had my coat already waiting for me at the front door, and my bell hand begged for my wrist splint during the short walk across the street. We never mentioned to each other, although we both knew that the next time we moved to a new neighborhood we were going to have to work up a routine or obtain a circus skill before accepting any invitations.

A year later, my husband and I were bundled up on a Tuesday night and were going out to get a bite to eat when I noticed something strange. There were cars parked everywhere, up and down the street, in front of our house, almost blocking our driveway. I had never seen that many cars on our street before. And that wasn’t all.

It was like a scene from a movie. People were streaming from every direction, also bundled up in hats and scarves, carrying pans, trays, and sometimes gifts, and all were converging on Martha’s house. If I didn’t know better, I’d say a team of horses pulling a sleigh had parked at Martha’s curb, delivering several ladies who’d been nestled under tartan wool blankets.

From my porch, I could see through her living-room window: The house was already packed. The perfect Christmas tree had been resurrected, and a fire blazed on the hearth. People were milling about inside, and I’m sure they were chewing on ham.

I looked at my husband at the same time that he looked at me. I opened my mouth to say something, but I was too stunned to make anything come out.

“Don’t even tell me you’re surprised,” he said to me after he locked our front door and stood in front of it.

“I can’t believe she banned us,” I whispered.

“WELL, I CAN,” my husband mouthed.

And it was true. We had been blackballed from the neighborhood holiday party, that was it. No second chances, no replays. One episode of lip-synching and we were sunk. No pleas or explanations of why I was faking it would ever be heard. I had apparently insulted my host by not participating in the fullest holiday sense, and I was not going to get a reprise.