Promise Me (6 page)

“G
oodnight,” called Aunt Rose. “Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

As I gently pulled the door closed and crept down the hall, I heard her brightly singing.

“
I could have danced all night.…
”

Suzy was perched on the edge of the bed in the guest room, her face wrecked with tears.

“It looks bad,” I conceded, “but she seems all right.”

“
All right?
” Suzy huffed, incredulous.

“If it doesn’t bother her, Suzy, why should it matter to us?”

“Nanny, of course it bothers her.” Suzy hugged her knees to her chest. “How can she stand it? And how could he marry her after she was—she was
mutilated
like that?”

“Maybe because she’s funny and beautiful, and she sings, and who cares if—”

“Stop. Just stop talking about it, Nancy. I don’t ever want to think about it again.”

But she did think about it. The image never left her. I didn’t have the thousand words to erase that picture in her head. It didn’t matter to her that Aunt Rose went on to live—and live large—for many years. Divested of the gorgeous fourth husband, she married a fifth and continued her travels, relishing the adventure that was her life until she was an old woman who carried this terrible scar and all her other scars, seen and unseen, with dignity and grace.

Suzy blossomed in the era of Jayne Mansfield and cashmere twin sets. Big breasts were—well, they were
big
. If you’re not old enough to remember, take a look at the tight girdles and torpedo bras on
Mad
Men
. I was still flat as a pantry shelf and perfectly happy, but Suzy had begun to develop Mom’s soft curves and enjoyed the way her body was evolving. A breezy model-in-the-making, Suzy turned thirteen in 1956, teeny-bopping to the tune of “Blueberry Hill.” I was a rambunctious ten-year-old, athletic and easygoing. I started sprouting taller, quickly surpassing my big sister by several inches, and Mom’s fashion sense and sensibility helped me adjust to and comfortably inhabit my changing body. As Suzy and I blossomed from little girls to young ladies, conversations about menstruation and reproduction were informative and not at all tortured. We felt free to ask questions, and Mom gave straight answers. If she didn’t have the answer, she’d bring in Dr. Moffet.

Our gorgeous mother was as much a role model for womanhood as she was for stewardship. She never “let herself go”; to this day, she’s feminine and impeccable from the moment she gets out of bed. Dr. Benjamin Spock’s groundbreaking book on baby and child care was published the year I was born, so the world was awakening to a kinder, gentler view of parenting, but Mom was way ahead of her time in recognizing the importance of self-esteem in young women—and not just for Suzy and me. She periodically went through our wardrobes and weeded out anything that hadn’t been worn recently (whether we were ready or not to part with it), and Mom impressed on Suzy and me the need to be sensitive about where our hand-me-down skirts and sweaters were going.

“If you see another girl at school wearing these clothes,” Mother warned, “you don’t ever say a word.
Ever
. If I hear a peep about it, you’ll come home to a big closet full of nothing.”

Mom wasn’t one of the rich girls when she was in school, but she was popular because she was so kind, the personification of “pretty is as pretty does.”

In 1957, the Everly Brothers were all over the radio with “Wake Up, Little Susie,” and it was as if Suzy did. Fourteen years old, girly-girl going on womanhood, she was the most popular girl in school. She loved being beautiful, but it never seemed to go to her head because she loved being kind even more. Her friends had names like Peachy and Dottie, and Suzy went through a brief phase where she decided to be
Suzi
with an
i
, instead of plain old
Suzy
. They wore angora sweaters and felt poodle skirts that they exchanged among themselves so each girl could maximize
her wardrobe options, and they always looked perfect, from their sparsely tweezed eyebrows to their pristine bobby socks. They gathered on our big front porch like so many butterflies in a rose garden, and their conversations were largely about their boyfriends, what their wedding dresses would look like, how they’d teach their husbands to dance, and whether or not it was wise to force their children to take piano lessons.

Our high school years overlapped for one wonderful year; Suzy was a senior when I was a freshman. Suzy tried to bring me into the butterfly tribe, doing her best to style me, coif me, make me over. It was no use. I was an unrepentant tomboy, galloping around with a hasty ponytail and cuffed-up jeans. My sister had stopped growing at a nicely filled out five-five or so, but I kept going—five-seven, five-eight, five-ten—I was taller than most of the boys in my class, almost as tall as
Daddy
. It made me feel alternately freakish and almighty and made it impossible for me to participate fully in the wardrobe exchange.

“It’s all how you carry it,” said Suzy. “It’s whatcha do with whatcha got.”

With great patience, she’d sit me down and open her cosmetics case between us, explaining each step as she played up my eyes with a soft sweep of shadow, carefully teased on a coat of mascara, told me to apple my cheeks and pout my mouth so she could apply rouge and lipstick.

Our house was at the top of the hill with a circular driveway, and as dusk fell on Friday and Saturday nights, I’d look out and see a parade of headlights, boys coming to hover and gawk. Suzy had them entranced with her shyly charming humor. All girl, but no Gidget. She was calm and put together. She knew exactly what she wanted and how to get it. Suzy wasn’t one to play helpless or dumb, but she was more than happy to let a man take the lead, and she tried to coach me on the finer points of feminine wile.

“Nanny, if you just dive in there—
I’ll fix it, I’ll do it myself
—that drives men crazy. You can’t take charge and expect them to think you’re wonderful. Men don’t want you to be the strong one. Not until they’re old and sick and need you. Then it’s okay.”

This was not okay with me, but it was hard to argue with Suzy’s success. She had an immaculately groomed and gallantly well-behaved date for every school function and all the social events at Anshai Emeth. She
was conscious of maintaining her good-girl reputation, but the front porch saw a lot of within-accepted-parameters cuddling and canoodling late in the evening. Daddy paced between his study and the foyer, craning his neck at the living room window, eyeing the clock as it got closer to curfew. My task was to distract him, convince him the clock was broken, or at least deliver fair warning when he was on his way to the front door.

One night, he threw the front door open to discover that Suzy and her beau had hightailed it to the backyard. Daddy went for a flashlight and found them out there, lip-locked in the shadows.

“
Susan!
Get in here right now. It’s your curfew. And
you …
” He steadied the beam on Suzy’s beau. “Hold it right there.”

The boy made a break for it, but Daddy chased him down and threw him bodily into the shrubs.

“And don’t even think about coming back!” he bellowed.

Daddy came in, slammed the door, and berated Suzy all the way down the hall to her room. She was weeping, of course, decrying the fact that Daddy had ruined her life and she’d never be asked out again, but the following Friday, the parade of headlights floated up the hill, and Suzy and her friends held court as usual.

Richwoods High had just opened in 1957, so the class of ’61 was the first four-year class to graduate. Suzy was elected homecoming queen. Mom and Daddy and I were huddled together on the bleachers at the football game the night before the dance when the announcement came over the loudspeaker.
Miss Susan Goodman
.

Everyone cheered. Last I heard, her trophy was still in the school lobby. It’s odd to realize now, but this was actually very close to the midpoint of her life. Her middle age. She was not quite eighteen; she wouldn’t live to see thirty-seven. More than half my years with her were already gone, and since so many of those last memories are fraught with fear and sorrow, Mommy and I hold on to Suzy’s beautiful moments now. The ribbon of headlights. The roar of the crowd. Her rhinestone tiara and flash photo smile. The rustle of crinolines as she swept out the door. She wore a dress with a swan-white bodice, voluminous sky-blue skirt, and wide pink ribbon sash, and we shopped for the perfect pink satin pumps to match.

Peoria, Illinois, was and is a wonderful place to come of age: the quintessential American town. Elms and oaks shaded the friendly neighborhoods.
The business climate hummed with fresh ideas and a strong work ethic. Suzy and I knew life wasn’t so rosy for everyone living in Peoria County, but for us it was that idyllic place and time that anchors nostalgic Norman Rockwell images and “oldie but goodie” radio formats—that was our hometown in the 1950s.

Pleasantville, USA.

So, of course, we couldn’t wait to make our escape. We lay in bed at night, talking about all the dragons just waiting to be slain.

In the fall, Suzy went off to the University of Missouri, and I felt utterly adrift without her. At first, we talked almost every day, but that was murder on the phone bill, and Dad let us know it. I kept my nose to the grindstone, because that’s what it took for me to get the perfect grades I expected from myself, living for the weekends when Suzy came home and slept in her own bed, messed with my hair, and rounded things out with her laughter and breezy stories. She wasn’t miserable at college, but she must have known from the start it wasn’t where she wanted to be. Of course, she had a plethora of friends and boyfriends who adored her.

She was nominated for “Miss Mizzou,” one of the more free-spirited titles in pageant-dom. This all-American beauty traditionally is awarded a trench coat, which she’d wear (according to campus legend) with little or nothing underneath. Suzy’s campaign featured a full-length photo of her in a little dance leotard with the caption “This woman needs a raincoat!” I’m sure they’ve abolished this politically incorrect practice by now, but Suzy loved it. She was all over campus, involved in social and charity events. Her studies were barely a footnote.

Stuck at home, I doggedly applied myself to my schoolwork, living for spring break and summer vacation. The summer between junior and senior year, I joined the “Cherubs” at Northwestern University’s National High School Institute. Honor students from all over the country came together in six divisions: Debate, Speech, Journalism, Music, Film and Video Production, and Theater Arts. In other words: Heaven. The founder of the Institute, Dean Ralph Dennis, started the program in the 1930s with this goal: “To bring together gifted young people and superior teachers in an atmosphere of affection, knowledge, and trust.” An elegantly succinct description of the ideal educational endeavor, whether you’re talking about a public school, a private tennis lesson, or a Saturday
afternoon symposium for oncology nurses. It was hands-on, experiential, out-of-the-box learning, and I loved every minute.

In the fall of my sophomore year, President Kennedy spoke at Rice University in Houston. Riveted to the radio, I hung on every word.

Another elegantly succinct statement of mission.

Later in my life, while I was serving as U.S. ambassador to Hungary, I was starved sometimes to hear English, and the funny thing is, I didn’t know how deeply I craved the sound of my own language until I heard someone speak a few words. I couldn’t have identified this feeling when I was seventeen, but that’s exactly the thrill I felt when I heard Kennedy speak. I didn’t know it out loud yet, but this was my native tongue.

We choose to go to the moon
.

Not “we hope to go” or “we plan to try.”

We choose. To go. To do. To make real this thing that so many say is science fiction.

In the fall of my junior year, President Kennedy was assassinated.

S
uzy majored in art history, as I recall. She never finished her degree, but she dabbled for a couple of years at an interesting course of study with all the makings of an appropriate pre-housewife degree. All she really wanted was a home and family: to live well, do good, and look great doing it. She wanted to be the same kind of quietly world-changing woman our mother was. Not me. I could feel the world shifting beneath my feet, and I wanted to be part of the earthquake. I wanted to make some noise.

Daddy had decided I should be a lawyer, but being a lawyer didn’t really interest me, and beyond that was the reality of my well-hidden but ever-present learning differences. Since my first day of school, I’d turned myself inside out trying to maintain perfect grades, but the thought of keeping that up all the way through law school left me feeling utterly dwarfed, overwhelmed by the sheer number of words on paper. A stifling tension developed between my father and me. Now I know his high expectations were based on his love and respect for me, but at the time, I pinned it down as an extension of his deep disappointment that I wasn’t born a boy. It burdened me to know I was failing him, but I was certain that if I waded into that ocean of reading and writing, it would sweep me out to sea and drown me.

College entrance exams shored up my lowball assessment of my own potential, so with a deep sigh of resignation, Dad wrote a check to the “safety school”—an excellent state university where I was guaranteed acceptance with my high school class rank. I intended to pursue subjects that actually interested me: sociology, anthropology, political science, and world cultures. These were also the makings of an appropriate pre-housewife degree, but at some fundamental level, I knew I’d find a way to turn my education into a career that would take me far from Peoria, Illinois.