The Art of Men (I Prefer Mine Al Dente) (5 page)

My mother said it was okay to invite Kim, but he would have to stay at the home of another male swimmer. Yes, I could see him every day and yes, he could join me across the street to babysit for the Clarks, but he absolutely could not sleep at our house.

I of course thought this was a dumb idea. Lillian Maxine Heaton, aka Mickey, aka my mother, clearly didn’t trust me or know the ropes. I’d just returned from two months at art school, for Christ’s sake, where I could easily have had sex if I’d known how. But my mother, unworldly as she was, had her stupid rules of proper conduct when menfolk came calling. My mother had not been to art school, she had not fallen in love with queers, she had not seen a boy almost jump off a building to his death because another art school diva had shunned him. My mother had only seen Kansas and my dad and tornadoes. She hadn’t seen the world like I had. Her opinion was unfounded.

Anyway, I agreed that Kim would not stay overnight at our house, but I rolled my eyes nearly out of my head trying to comprehend how my mother could be:

A. My mother

B. So stupid

She was simply unsophisticated.

Kim arrived at my house that Friday afternoon, all the way from Oklahoma or Missouri, same difference, and had dinner with my family. I was embarrassed because my mother had prepared her “special” pork chops, which meant the ones cooked 40 minutes longer than required. The ones with bowed edges from being fried to death. The ones that were akin to leather soles. Those pork chops. Her theory was, “By God, THIS family won’t get trichinosis.” My mother was a nurse, you see, and knew every disease known to man and what every horrid thing—bacterium, fungus, and virus—could do to a person’s body. I was never just “sick” as a child. If I had a common cold, I was dying of encephalitis, the disease she had warned us about the week before. I never had any common disease, and how many kids, at age six, are taught by their mothers to do tracheotomies in case a tornado causes a house to implode? Oddly, I CAN do a “trach” with a garden hose and a piece of glass. Slit that throat open right on top of the soft spot above your collarbone and insert a short section of garden hose or other tubelike thing and boom! Gregory House is in the room, saving that poor person’s life. I learned a new medical procedure weekly from my mother.

I watched Kim eat the trichinosis-free pork chops and the canned peas. I gasped as he had to use the tea towel my mom threw in the center of the table for all to use, instead of individual napkins.
He’s going to figure out we are poor!
We weren’t totally poor, and I had no idea what Kim’s social status was, but most swimmers I’d met were from wealthy families. They were from places like Mission Hills, Kansas, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma City. They were from oil families. The majority of the kids in the Wichita swim club were from rich families. Would this handsome boy from . . . from . . . the tristate area reject me because we were one overcooked pork chop away from the poor farm?

All through dinner, between poverty fears I’d get whiffs of Kim’s bitchin’ cologne, Dante. No man I’d ever met wore Dante. Certainly my dad hadn’t been introduced to this pricey department store luxury. My dad wore Aqua Velva, and strictly because it was an aftershave, not a “signature scent.”

After dinner Kim and I walked directly across the street to babysit Russell and Sharon Clark’s kids. We played with them, watched TV, and had a big ole time.

After we put the kids to sleep we did what all babysitters who invite their boyfriends over do: we started to make out. Kim was the first guy to French kiss me, but my friend Sarah’s sister Connie had told us what to expect: tongues. I sorta liked this tongue thing. It made me feel a little sexy and definitely made me realize I was in the big leagues now.

Like I said, Kim was 16 and had a lot more make-out experience than I. I was so happy I’d invited Kim for the dance the following night. All those other junior high girls would have the same 14-year-old loser townies we went to school with daily. Wait ’til they got a load of this flaxen-haired
man
all the way from Oklahoma . . . or Missouri. I would end up the talk of Mead Jr. High School, it was certain.

As we were making out there on the scratchy man-made-fibered sofa, Kim worked his magic lips over to my neck and nibbled awhile there, which I simply adored. Townies had never been so inventive. Then he made his way to my ear and blew a little warm air in there. This sent chills down my spine, as it does to this day. I was so, SO glad Kim had come all that way for the dance. Then he stuck his French-kissing tongue into my ear.
Ugh, what?
This was never part of my friend Sarah’s sister Connie’s menu. Sloshing around in my ear with his stupid “Okie” or “Show-Me” tongue was beyond the beyond. It was slurpy, and the slurping was magnified like listening to a conch shell screaming at you instead of whispering the sound of the ocean. Slosh, slosh, slurp, slurp, Jesus! Was Kim a serial killer in Oklahoma or Missouri? Where had he learned this carnival sideshow trick? It wasn’t as disgusting as 69, but it was definitely the act of a rapist at least. I hadn’t invited this cute boy to Kansas to feast on the inside of my ear! I was grossed out! It was like he was trying to “slurp” my virginity away. And that was the end of Kim.

The next morning I was so “sorry” to tell him about how terribly sick I was, with a terribly high fever of 104 degrees. I was even sorrier to tell him, “It looks like I won’t be able to go to the dance or hang out all weekend. I might even have encephalitis!”

This is when I began to give serious thought to having male visitors. But as young girls do, after many years of life, they forget their solemn vows of never again having weekend guests. They even forget their blood oaths of never, never, ever doing 69.

In the past 12 years of being single, I have invited five male visitors to visit for between three- and seven-day stays. Although THEY thought they were having a grand ole time and that I was an excellent hostess, I can honestly and with great embarrassment say I have not changed since I was 14.

The only advice I can reap from these laborious encounters is: when you “fall in love” in a foreign country or in a different city, it’s possible that exotic delicacies SEEM to taste better. Kinda like escargot—it makes a lovely appetizer but as a main course it makes you puke your guts out.

Always get married in the morning. That way, if it doesn’t work out, you haven’t wasted the whole day.

—MICKEY ROONEY

The Art of
Being a Bride

B
OB ALLEY was my first true love. Of all the loves in my life, he was probably best suited for me. And I for him. My maiden name is also Alley, and to make it even weirder, my dad’s name is Robert D. Alley and Bob’s name is Robert D. Alley; not the same middle names, but Freudian enough nonetheless. Was it in the cards for me to become Kirstie Alley Alley?

You really couldn’t have found someone more spectacular than Bob. He was handsome like the Marlboro Man, with long sideburns and ringlet hair like Roger Daltrey, cofounder of the rock band The Who. There was nothing it seemed Bob couldn’t do. He could ride a horse better than Little Joe on
Bonanza
; he had a pilot’s license; his singing voice was cool and on pitch; he was a great swimmer, a groovy dancer, smart as a whip and funny as hell. He was the dream man of most of the teenage girls in our high school, Southeast, and sought after by dozens of beauties from other schools. His parents gave him no curfew, so he could spend all night out if he wanted to, unlike my sixth-grader curfew of nine o’clock on school nights and midnight on weekends.

Bob was a year older than I was, was sexually active, and, well, just the hottest guy in the universe. He hailed from a wealthy family. His dad, Dr. Alley, was a renowned Wichita oral surgeon. I, on the other hand, was an idiot from a middle-class family, with limited abilities. True, I was a cheerleader, but not because I was beautiful or cool. Southeast’s student body voted for me because I could jump five feet in the air and had had a lot of acrobatics training, so it was hard to ignore my impressive cheerleading skills as I handspringed my way across the gymnasium floor.

I’d cheered one Friday night at a game that took place at a rival school, East High School. It was the equivalent of my high school. There were only two public high schools worthy of attending in Wichita, Southeast or East, and if you were mandated to go to any other, you might as well have been a leper. There were always school dances after big football games.

Because I was a cheerleader people assumed I was popular. I was behind the gym after the game with a few of the actually popular cheerleaders, smoking, something that was strictly forbidden and grounds for being kicked off the squad . . . so, we were also drinking. Somehow I ended up making out with Bob Alley. It was random, and at first I couldn’t tell whom I was kissing. It was dark and not uncommon in Kansas to just make out with whoever was closest. Although I was highly flattered that he grabbed me instead of one of the other cheerleaders, I didn’t expect to see him again. He was WAY too cool for me, and I was WAY too dorky for him.

The following Monday I was bent over getting something out of my locker when Bob walked up behind me. “Hey, you wanna go out next Saturday?” Could this really be happening? Was he talking to me or was someone hiding in my locker? I snapped out of my reverie and realized I needed to give him an answer.

“Oh, this Saturday? Um . . . yeah I’m pretty sure I can do that—this Saturday.”

“Good. I’ll pick you up at seven. Dress warmly; we’re going to a party out in the country,” he said.

As he walked off I was already onto him and his devious little plan. How stupid did he think I was? I had no doubt that we would go to this “little party” out in the country, and we’d be the only ones there. He’d end up making out with me and then all his COOL friends would pop out of the woods and splash pig’s blood on me and start laughing just as they had done in the movie
Carrie
. Of course
Carrie
didn’t debut until 1976, and this was 1967, but perhaps I was prescient. I didn’t know exactly how the charade would unfold, but I certainly knew he was setting me up just as that beige boy Ken had at art school.

Bob picked me up on Saturday and drove me to Augusta, Kansas, which was 20 miles away. As I had predicted—no one was there. “Wanna walk around awhile? Looks like we’re the first ones here,” said the spider to the fly. But I was so ready for what might happen. I had my moves all planned out. We walked around awhile, then he stopped by this big oak tree. I knew his next move was to lean in and pretend to be interested in kissing me.

It was too bad that he was an imposter. He looked so crazy handsome standing there in the moonlight. I glanced quickly, inconspicuously up into the branches, lest the evil boys were perched up there with their buckets of pig’s blood or paint. But I couldn’t see anyone; it was so quiet out there. Bob was being so sweet to me. He was so sexy. He leaned in for the kiss, but I blocked his fatal advance.

“Let’s just wait for the others,” I said cunningly, knowingly. An obnoxious smirk was plastered across my face.
This ain’t my first rodeo, Hon. I’ve been shunned by queers and tricked by straight men with little dicks already. I GOT YO NUMBA, DADDIO
, I thought to myself. About that time six or seven cars and trucks came roaring up. Kids jumped out from everywhere. They had beer, stuff to make a bonfire, s’mores, hot dogs, and Jack Daniel’s. They didn’t have pig’s blood or paint.

“Can I kiss you now?” Bob laughed. We did kiss . . . and kiss and kiss and kiss. From that day on we became inseparable.

That is, until this New York City Amazon rolled into town. She became hellbent on getting her claws into my man. How the heck could I compete with a girl like Katie Yeagley? All six foot one of her in bare feet. With her tiny-assed NYC bikini body and her shiny NYC black locks flowing down around her 19-inch NYC waist. To this day when I think of her, she always walks in slow motion, like she just stepped out of a Pantene commercial. Oh lord, if I’d been a man I would have jumped on Ms. Yeagley like New Yorkers jump into taxis. She had Bob in her sights, and it was clear this sniper never missed her target. She didn’t look at me or flinch when she would pass Bob and me standing in the hall of our high school. All eyes were on her, and her eyes were on Bob. I always made sure to grab him and start making out with him if I saw her striding down the hall toward us with her long, fawnlike NYC legs. No one in Kansas looked like this bitch. No one anywhere looked like this bitch!

Bob would act like he didn’t see her, but how dumb was that? She was 20 feet tall, for god’s sake! You couldn’t have been greener with jealousy than I was. And I knew it was only a matter of time before he succumbed to Ms. Manhattan. Bob was a year older, so he was graduating from high school a year before me. Ms. NYC was also one year my senior. Bob took me to his graduation bash out in the county by a huge lake. Of course my mother insisted I get back home before 10 because I had school the next day. And we all know how important that last day of school is compared to the threat of your old man banging the hottest girl in the universe. Katie was the focus of the party. Every girl there was clinging to her boyfriend for dear life. I was on the phone BEGGING my idiot mother to let me stay until the party ended, but she told me to get my ass home or she would ground me.

Reluctantly, I kissed Bob good-bye, and I saw Ms. NYC grinning at me from across the lake. I was scared shitless of my mother, so I obeyed her orders and drove home. That night, about three hours later, I began to feel sick to my stomach. It was a feeling that I’ve since identified as the feeling I get when I’m being cheated on. I think we women have that sense about us—that keen perception when a man is not being faithful. It transcends mere speculation; it is our heart’s radar system. I threw up most of the night. Bob didn’t call me after the party, as he had promised he would, but I didn’t call him, either. I fell asleep after wearing myself out bawling.