It's Not Me, It's You: Subjective Recollections From a Terminally Optomistic, Chronically Sarcastic and Occasionally Inebriated Woman (13 page)

“Sure. That would be great.”

That Friday night, I found myself having a few beers with Jon at a dive bar in Hollywood. We sat across from each other and talked about jobs, music, politics—all the first-date classics. It was nice. He was polite, funny, sweet. The time sort of flew by, and suddenly it was 1 a.m. and time to go. I saw no reason to point out that now that we were face-to-face I didn’t think we could get married.
This is just two people grabbing a few beers together. It’s not even a date, officially.
An official date involved food was how I rationalized my plans to avoid telling him the wedding was off.

When Jon dropped me off at the end of the night, I said a quick, “Thanks for the beers” and hopped out of the car before he could even respond.

That night there was an email from Jon asking me out for sushi.
Shit, food.
But when I came online, we instant-messaged and he was just as hilarious and comfortable as always—which made what I had to do even more devastating.

I figured it wouldn’t kill me to go out with him once more. It wasn’t like I wasn’t having a good time with him—it just wasn’t an
online
good time.

I had trouble relaxing during our second date. Although there was a copious amount of sake consumed, I couldn’t shake the weirdness that was being with Jon in person. He was too real, too present, too interested in what I had to say.
I felt standoffish and generally not myself. After dinner, we went for a drink, after which Jon pointed out that I flirted with a guy at the bar. I maintained that I wasn’t
flirting,
I was just interested in hearing more about his “sculpting studio.” After all, the movie
Ghost
had only been out for nine years, so pottery wheels were still a titillating topic. Plus, Jon wasn’t my boyfriend! We were ex-fiancées—although I hadn’t alerted him
just yet.

When Jon took me home at the end of the night, I amateurishly hadn’t thought to take my seat belt off before pulling up to the front of my building, so when he went in for a good night kiss, I was stuck. I kissed him back for a minute or two, surprising the hell out of myself. Then without warning, I started channeling Blanche from
The Golden Girls
, a southern belle who although caught up in the passion was trying her best to remain a respectable lady. “Oh, my, my,
my
!” I said, just barely avoiding a stagey accent. “I really must go. It’s so late and if I stay any longer who knows
what
kind of trouble I might get myself into! Good night!” And I again hopped out of the car and into the safety of my apartment. Alone. Totally good. Relieved. Scared shitless.

I don’t know for sure why I went through with the third date. I could’ve cancelled. I’ve certainly done it countless times before. Almost every time I’ve felt genuine fear of letting someone get too close to me, I’ve bailed—giving myself almost any rationalization. But, somehow with Jon, I just couldn’t find one.

We were walking silently down the Santa Monica Prom
enade when Jon stopped and looked at me. “Look, maybe this is weird for you. It’s weird for me, too. Maybe I’m an idiot to keep asking you out. But I’m still the same guy you talked to on the computer for months. I’m still him.” Whoa, he called my shit out. “I don’t know. Maybe you could pretend there’s a keyboard between us.”

Sitting at dinner over a glass of wine, something shifted ever so slightly. Maybe it was the booze or maybe it was the candlelight, but he was pretty damn cute. Which was not my imagination, since the waiter was clearly flirting with him. He must’ve offered Jon more pepper on his salad than any waiter in the history of Caesar salad service.

“Um, the waiter’s flirting with you,” I pointed out.

“No, he’s not. The man just really knows his way around a peppermill.”

He was funny, he was smart, he was nice, and I was suddenly feeling lucky to be with him.

Sitting in the dark theater watching
The Muse,
because I love Albert Brooks and anyone I date better love him, too, I started itching for him to hold my hand. I looked over at his hand sitting placidly in his lap. He had great hands.
God, why doesn’t he touch me already? What’s the holdup? Doesn’t he like me? Did I screw it up? I thought he liked me. Maybe I read the signals wrong. Hold my hand, asshole.
Ever so slowly, as if he was reading my mind, his hand reached over and took mine. And then he leaned over and whispered in my ear, “This movie sucks.” There was no denying it. The movie absolutely sucked, and I was absolutely falling in love.

W
hen I was almost thirty years old, my friend Samantha talked me into being a camp counselor with her to a group of thirteen-year-old girls at a YMCA camp. Samantha was a major do-gooder, always up for getting out and volunteering for causes usually involving animals or kids or the elderly. I considered myself more of a mental do-gooder. I had good intentions but preferred community service I could do from my couch while reading magazines and eating take-out—kind of like
The Secret
but with trans fats.

But this actually sounded sort of fun to me—specifically because I had great memories of summer camp and because I’d be with the thirteen-year-old group, which I felt was my target demo. Hell, I was practically like a thirteen-year-old girl myself with my love of Gummi bears, shopping at Forever 21, and illegally downloading Britney Spears songs—except that I lived in my own apartment, had a job, and had
slightly easier access to alcohol. So I quickly agreed to do it, and before I knew what happened, I was a few hundred miles from home at a camp by Big Bear Lake getting to know my young charges. As I quickly found out, a lot had changed since I was thirteen. Today’s thirteen-year-olds were smoking pot and, as it turns out, very, very over Britney Spears. They preferred hard-core rap. And out of twelve girls, at least ten of them had names that were some version of Kristine.

As soon as I’d hit cabin nine and laid my knapsack and boom box down on my steel bunk, the girls started sussing me out.

“Do you like rap?” an impossibly tall African-American girl named Cristal wanted to know.
Are thirteen-year-olds supposed to be seven feet tall?
I wondered.
Would it be rude to ask her if she played basketball?
I thought it might be. I mean, it should be obvious she did, right? Or, at the very least, volleyball.

“Sure. I love rap.”

“Are you down with Mobb Deep?” asked Krissy, an overly smiley girl with strawberry blonde pigtails and braces. I had a bad feeling her mother sent her out on commercial auditions.

“Mobb Deep? I’m not familiar with her work but I love Tupac.”

“Mobb Deep isn’t a her. And Tupac? He’s dead.”

“That may be true but it hasn’t stopped him from putting out album after album.” The guy was more prolific from up in heaven than I’d been my entire life on earth.

“Album? What’s an album?”

“It’s like a CD only…hey, we’re due in the mess hall for breakfast and I hear they’re serving banana waffles,” I said in a voice that reminded me of a preschool teacher.

“I don’t eat waffles,” yelled a different Crissy from across the room. “I only like plain toast with I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter zero calorie spray. I brought my own.” If her goal weight was that of an anorexic flamingo, she’d already attained it. But I didn’t think this was the right time for a lecture on eating disorders, especially since I could’ve stood to lose a few pounds. Maybe she’d lend me some of her spray.

Despite the fact that these girls were clearly more mature than I was, I tried to make the most of my two-week session: I attempted to rock climb (getting an avulsion fracture on my ankle in the process), watched them water-ski from my perch on the dock where I iced and elevated my ankle, and made an only semimangled lanyard keychain in arts and crafts. To get on my campers’ good side, I purposely “forgot” when it was our night for cleanup duty after dinner, and pretended not to notice when they dressed in clothes that even the Bratz dolls would have deemed “too slutty.” Didn’t their parents supervise their packing? Did they
have
parents?

When the girls decided to run a massage booth at the camp carnival, I realized I would have to stop trying to be their best friend and become more of a role model/parental figure. While the younger kids did water-balloon throwing and face painting, my girls wanted to put out mattresses to
give out back rubs. The male counselors and campers lined up in droves before I put a quick stop to it. To my amazement, the camp administration saw nothing weird about our booth. My girls may have thought I was a buzz kill, but I felt proud that already in my new leadership role I’d saved them from a life of prostitution. Clearly, handing out back rubs at thirteen is a gateway to giving full body massages, which is inches away from working in a downtown massage parlor offering full release. They’d thank me later.

I decided it was time to turn their attention to the end-of-session talent competition. I busted my ass choreographing a dance number to Anita Ward’s “You Can Ring My Bell,” which they’d never heard of but thankfully liked. “It’s cool ’cause it’s so old!” said one of the girls whose name started with a K.

“Thanks, Kristen. It’s called disco.”

“It’s K
ir
sten, not Kristen.”

I forced them to practice over and over. I was like the Paula Abdul to their Laker Girls. And when they took their victory lap after taking first place in the talent show, I wept like a premenstrual chick watching
Titanic
and they completely ignored me like the thirteen-going-on-thirty teenagers they were. Then they snuck out and smoked a joint behind their cabin, which I pretended not to smell. But when the bus took us all back to the YMCA building where their parents were waiting to pick them up, a few of them gave me a hug and told me I was their favorite counselor. And only one of them furtively gave me the finger. I may have been
in a bit over my head, but deep down, I knew I was onto something.

So the following year when Do-gooder told me she was going to apply to be part of the Big Sister program, I was all over it. But I figured as a Big Sister I should set my sights a little younger. Maybe a newborn.

At the orientation, I sat smugly on my school chair with the little desk. I’d always suspected I was a good person, but my decision to become a Big Sister confirmed it for me. Here I was taking the time out of my busy schedule to fill out a mountain of paperwork, get interviewed, and pay fifty bucks for the organization to run a criminal background check on me and even submit my boyfriend to a background check (which I would’ve paid a hundred for). But I knew this was nothing compared to the personal rewards I would be getting back in spades. I couldn’t wait to start enriching a disadvantaged youth’s life! I wanted the personal satisfaction I was sure to get from “
expanding horizons through one-on-one friendships
” as the official website advertised.

Once I was cleared to be what they refer to as a “Big” in the program, I’d be matched to a “Little” based on location and compatibility. Sort of like Match.com for nonblood-related siblings who don’t plan on screwing. The volunteer went on to give us some tips for success on forming a relationship with your new “Little.” According to the program, Littles are pleased as punch just to have a new friend, so there is no need to do things that cost a lot of money. In fact, playing a board game, sharing a pizza with only one
topping, taking a walk in the park, or just hanging out and talking were perfect activities. I didn’t quite see how if I was a Little I’d be impressed with my Big taking me for a walk in the park to chitchat for an hour. They were clearly underestimating my creativity, possibly used to dealing with amateurs, not seasoned camp counselors like myself, so I cut them some slack.

Next, we went over the ground rules; a commitment of seeing your Little at least once a week—if possible, communication with your Little’s parents and checking in with your caseworker every so often for a progress report—sounded easy enough to me. All this “business” was making me fidgety, though. I couldn’t wait to get this show on the road. I imagined getting cards and letters from my Little years after our experience, telling me what a huge positive influence I’d been on her. Maybe she’d follow in my footsteps and become a writer and dedicate her first novel to me: “To Stefanie, My Big, the person responsible for opening my eyes to all I could become in life. I couldn’t have done this without you.” Or, maybe we’d accidentally lose touch and years later I’d be contacted by a producer from
The Montel Williams Show
and told that a certain Little had been thinking about me for years and called the show to help reunite with me, her long-lost Big. I wiped away an anticipatory tear.

A few weeks later, to my great excitement, I was assigned a Little. It was on! Her name was Ashley, she was nine, and the first time I called I got her mother, Patrice, on the phone. “Hi. Is this Patrice?”

“Yes.”

“This is Stefanie. I’ve been assigned to be your daughter’s Big Sister. I’m really excited to—”

“
Ashley Lynn!
Pick up the phone!” her mom yelled half into my ear, leaving a slight ringing sensation.

“Who is it?” I heard a voice from far away.

“It’s your Big Sister. Just pick up the damn phone.” A minute or two went by while I absently flipped through my mail.

“Hello?” said a slightly dour voice.

“Hi, Ashley. This is Stefanie, your new Big. How are you doing?”

“Fine, I guess.” I tried to engage her in a little small talk and found that she was not exactly forthcoming over the phone. But, hey, she was probably just shy, not used to people taking such a keen interest in her—or maybe just not really a phone person. I refused to let that dampen my enthusiasm. I’d loosen her up. I’m great at bringing people out of their shells. Especially after a couple of cocktails. I made plans to see her that coming weekend.

Ashley was cute, and with her brown hair, brown eyes, and baseball cap she sort of looked like me. “Hey, it looks like I really could be your big sister,” I said.

“Well, maybe my mother.” I chose to let that one go. She probably didn’t know what I meant. Instead, I focused on how cool she was dressed. She was decked out in a red Adidas sweatsuit and was sporting a fairly new pair of Air Jordans. I immediately complimented her on her outfit.

“My last Big Sister got it for me. The shoes, too.”

“Oh, really?” I tried to keep the edge out of my voice. “You had a Big Sister before me?”

“Terry. She’s
real
cool. She took me to Magic Mountain.”
Great.
There was already an ex in the picture I had to compete with. I really wasn’t in the market to become a nine-year-old’s sugar daddy.

“What happened to Terry?”

“Um, she’s pretty busy. You know, we kind of grew apart. The Big Sister I had before that was busy, too.” I couldn’t believe it. This girl was a serial Little! One thing was certain. I wouldn’t be leaving her. She needed me and I wasn’t going to let her down.

I had planned an easygoing first outing, but with Terry breathing down my neck I figured I’d better up my game. It seemed doubtful that hanging out playing Pictionary (the only board game I currently owned) was going to cut it, so after grabbing a couple of disposable cameras, I drove us straight to the Santa Monica Pier, where I handed over fifteen dollars for parking. We rode the Ferris wheel, then the roller coaster, ate soft pretzels, and I even won her a stuffed iguana after about forty dollars’ worth of tries at the Coke bottle ring toss. If there’d been a sound track under us, it would have been a perfect movie montage—especially because Ashley barely spoke the entire time. I felt myself working hard to forge a connection with her, but she answered any questions I asked with one-word responses and I’d usually have to ask the same question three times. It was like spending the day with
Marlee Matlin—only Marlee would’ve offered to pay for at least a soda. On the way home, I asked her if she had fun. “It was okay. Next time could we go to Magic Mountain?”

“I have an idea,” I said, pulling into the parking lot of CVS. I wanted to get us a journal. It would be our Big Sister/Little Sister journal, and I figured we could paste photos we took together in it, color stuff, cut pictures out of magazines, and keep a record of all of our Big Sister/Little Sister outings. It would be a keepsake for her to look through later and remember that when the chips were down, she always had me in her life to lift her spirits and guide her way.

Okay, hold up, was Ashley eyeing a pack of Marlboros behind the counter?
“This way, young lady.” I steered her away from the smokes and toward the Hello Kitty notebooks, purchased some markers and glitter, and then took her home, where I pasted some pictures into the journal, sprinkled the glitter, added decorative stickers, and then wrote a little paragraph about our day. Meanwhile, Ashley and Patrice watched TV the whole time, completely oblivious to the fact that I was in the same room with them. Before leaving, I told Ashley she needed to call me anytime during the week so we could arrange another outing and that she should think of two ideas for things we could do together. The caseworker had told the Bigs to let our Littles be part of the process. It was up to them to help figure out activities.

Ashley never called me. But on Thursday Patrice did.

“Hello, Stefanie? This is Ashley’s mom, Patrice. When are you picking her up?”

“Oh, hi, Patrice. I was hoping Ashley would call me herself, but how’s Saturday?”

“Well, I’m going to be home on Saturday—I need you to take her when I’ve got to be somewhere else. Can you come on Sunday? I gotta get my hair done.” I sincerely hoped Ashley’s mom knew this wasn’t a babysitting service.

“Okay, I can come on Sunday. Why don’t I pick her up around noon?”

“Can you drop her off around six? I need to get it colored, too.”

“I was actually thinking that a couple of hours would be plenty. Why don’t I plan to have her back by three?” I thought I detected her sucking her teeth in disapproval, but I chose to ignore it.

On Sunday when I arrived to get Ashley, she got into the car looking irritated. “What are we going to do?”

“What would you
like
to do?”

“I don’t know.” I had assumed this would be the case given Ashley’s winning personality, so I’d come up with an option.

“Okay, well, I thought we could go to my apartment and make pita pizzas and rent a movie. How does that sound?”

“I don’t like pita pizza, whatever that is. I want to go out for Chinese food.”