The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir (15 page)

“Can I get you a dressing room?” the cashier asked.

I couldn’t help it. I had to try it on. “Yes.”

She led me into the back, and opened a pink patent-leather door with gold buttons that reminded me of Barbie’s dressing room.

“Let me know if you need any help,” she said before leaving.

I shut the door. Alone, I took off all of my clothes, bra included, and pulled the slip over my head. The fabric felt cool against my skin, and it smelled of something—maybe lilac, I wasn’t sure. I adjusted the straps and took a step backward so that I could see my reflection in the mirror.

Oh, my gosh
. I stared.

I was the spitting image of the girl in the Wookey mirror. Stepping forward, I touched the glass. This time my fingers were the same on both sides of the mirror.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi,” she answered.

I stood there for a moment, examining her. I touched my collarbones and neck, which looked like it had grown a foot since my weight loss. Then I looked at my long arms and slender fingers. I instinctively ran my right hand through my hair, admiring the S my body made when I had my elbow bent in the air and my butt pushed back.
Wow.
There was an aspect I’d failed to notice about her before, something only this slip brought out.

I’m sexy,
I thought for the first time ever.
Who knew that I could be sexy?

It was too fun not to play with. Soon I was posing with one leg kicked up. I turned my head away, and then quickly back. I pouted, I bit my lip, I puckered. With each move the slip clung to my hips and I noticed that while the fabric was dark, you could make out the space between my legs pretty clearly, which was hot. I leaned in and studied the lace against my breasts. My skin brought out the shape of the intricately woven flowers. I looked closer.
Oh, my goodness, you can see my nipples!
I let out a squeak.

Someone tapped on the dressing room door. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes,” I quickly said. “It’s fine, I mean great,
it’s great
.”

“Do you need help with your size?”

“No,
I like my size
!”

“Alright, just let me know if you need anything.”

“Okay.”

I turned back to the mirror and took one more look at myself. I thought about all the times I’d seen a woman’s body and wished that it was mine. Now I didn’t know quite what to do
—should I hold my breath and wish to become her? Or is this already me?

I bought the slip. I knew it was pointless. I mean, it’s not like any guy would ever see me in it. Not until I’m married, at least. Or actually not even then—a sexy slip over Mormon garments would just look tacky. But still, it was just too amazing not to buy.

Kissing, Take Six: Christian

Now that I had racked up enough pretty points, I decided to do something about the “You used to be so funny” comment. I got an internship at The Peoples Improv Theater. During my first week there, the guy who ran the theater noticed I had good penman ship. He turned me into his handwriting slave. Instead of doing comedy, I spent all my time making signs.

One Tuesday night in April, I was making a sign to go above the office that said, THE WORKSHOP. Naturally, I got overambitious I painted a huge canvas with camouflage designs. Then I wrote
THE
, and I started to write
WORKSHOP
, but I centered it wrong and by the second letter I already knew I wouldn’t have enough room to fit the entire word. It was already eleven thirty; my shift was over. But I’m like my dad. If I start a project, I have to make it big and I have to finish it.

Which is how I ended up walking down Fourteenth Street, at midnight, with a giant dripping sign.

I was focusing on this predicament, trying not to get paint on my jeans, when I heard a man’s voice ask, “What’s the WU?”

I looked up and practically squealed. It was
him
, Shannon, the love of my life from the Irish bar, standing there in the middle of the sidewalk, Fourteenth Street, Second Avenue—the missing man of my dreams.

“Shannon?”

“No,” he said.

“Oh . . .” I paused. On closer inspection, he was right. He wasn’t Shannon, he just looked like Shannon, a little different, but beautiful just the same—chiseled jaw, almond-shaped brown eyes, and dark hair that flopped loosely to the side. He belonged on the cover of a men’s magazine.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You look just like someone I know . . . or sort of know, or actually don’t know at all. . . .”

“You look familiar, too.” He smiled and brushed his hair out of his face. As he did this I noticed that his fingers were covered in blotches of black ink.

“Are you an artist?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“Or just a big fan of the Wu Tang Clan?”

I laughed. “No, I just painted this sign and it was supposed to say ‘The Workshop,’ but I ran out of space, and then it started dripping, and ‘The Wo’ became ‘The Wu’ and sorry none of this is interesting, why, are you an artist?”

“How could you tell?”

“Your hands.” I pointed to his fingers.

“Oh, that.” He laughed. “I painted my coat today.” He lifted the base of his beige Burberry coat so that I could see the bottom. A woman with black hair and big sultry lips looked back at me.

“Nice,” I said.

“Hey, check this out.” He held his hand next to mine—we had ink on the exact same fingers.

I laughed . . . and then,
Crap
, there it was, that feeling all over again, like the world had become small and we had grown big, or vice versa. In an instant, I forgot all about Shannon.

“I’m Christian,” he said.

“Me, too!”

“What?”

“I mean, I’m Elna,” I quickly corrected.

“That’s a cool name.”

“Thank you . . .”

“I was just heading to Café Pick Me Up,” he said.

“Oh, okay.” I wasn’t sure how to respond. “Have fun.”

He laughed. “No. Do you want to get a cup of tea?”

“Yes!”

Minutes later, Christian and I were sitting across from each other at a twenty-four-hour French café.

“Has anyone ever told you you have beautiful eyes?” he began.

“My dad calls them my root beer eyes!” I repeated verbatim.
Oh, no, it’s happening again.

Christian changed the subject. “I went to the new MoMA yesterday. Have you been yet?”

I nodded my head yes.

“What did you think of it?”

A fair question; what did I think of the new MoMA? I searched my brain for a response, and instead of the sharp, quick thought bubble that usually formed, all I could get was a fuzzy haze.

“It’s super cute,” I said, followed by the thought,
Wow, this is what it must feel like to be stupid
.

“That’s exactly what the review in
The New York Times
said.” He nodded.

Right on cue, I started to giggle. Everything Christian said was funny, even if it wasn’t.

Why is this happening?
I glanced down at my chest; it was covered in red splotches.

“Excuse me,” I said abruptly. “I have to . . . pee pee.” I pointed to the bathroom and escaped from the table.

That was close.
I entered the one-stall restroom and locked the door behind me. Alone, I felt my ability to breathe and think restored. I walked over to the sink, put my hands on either side of it, and looked up. . . .

Oh, no,
I gasped.

Staring right back at me, in all of her splendor (as if a day hadn’t passed since I first thought Paul Stowe was my boyfriend) was the semiretarded school girl.

You
—I should’ve seen it the whole time.
She ruined my chances with Paul,
I thought.
She’s the one who sabotaged Shannon, and now she’s trying to take Christian from me.

She smiled an evil smile. “He’s going to be your boyfriend,” she began to chant in a high-pitched singsongy voice.

Go away,
I cautioned her.

“Go away,” she mimicked like a child.

Look
, I tried to reason with her.
I’m a grown-up now.

“No, you’re not!” She rolled her big eyes at me.

Yes, I am
.

“He’s gonna be your boyfriend!” She bounced up and down.

I’m being serious,
I pleaded.
Please, if you ever felt any compassion for me at all, do me this one favor: Stay in this restroom and let me go back to that table, alone.

“Boys have wee-wees, girls have vajayjays!” she squealed.

Stop it!
I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her violently.
Can’t you hear me? Don’t you understand? I want you to go away.

Most people experienced this moment in middle school when they traded their imaginary friends in for dirty magazines and lessons on giving head. But I’d missed this aspect of my adolescence. I was a thirteen-year-old in a twenty-two-year-old’s body. And lines like “super cute” and “I have to pee pee” weren’t going to get me very far. If I wanted to take part in the world I’d suddenly landed in, I needed to cram ten years of life experience into a few minutes.

But first and foremost, I had to kill the semiretarded school girl.

Good-bye
, I said with finality.

She looked up at me innocently and a bubble that was attached to her chin by dribble popped. This made her smile, and as she smiled I couldn’t help but notice that her eyes were the biggest, sweetest color brown—and that they were indeed the color of root beer.

“Buh-bye,” she answered.

I turned away from the mirror, placed my hand on the doorknob, and took a deep breath. Christian was sitting where I left him. I walked across the café in a straight line, and sat back down. Draping my hands in a V across the table, I cleared my throat. When I spoke, it was with a woman’s voice. “Have you read the latest issue of
The New Yorker
?” I asked. And in an instant I knew—
everything is going to be okay.

 

An hour later we were standing in my courtyard laughing too loudly at each other’s jokes and talking about art, our favorite books, and all the things that would indicate exactly how cultured we were.

“I
read
all the time. . . .” I said, like it was a really big deal, even though technically all I was doing was name-dropping literacy. That’s when it happened, way sooner than I wanted it to: In the middle of my sentence, Christian leaned in and tried to kiss me.

You can do this . . . ,
I told myself
.
But it was like diving off a cliff into water: You either jump, or you don’t. If you hesitate, you’re screwed.
What if I mess up?
I thought.
Oh, no, I’m screwed.
His lips reached mine. I responded as usual—I tucked my head into my shoulder and I tried as hard as possible to be invisible. But I wasn’t invisible. The whole time Christian could see me. And in his eyes I was probably very different from the real me. To him, I was the kind of girl who did cheerleading in high school, or at the very least went to senior prom with someone other than her gay best friend.

Christian pulled back. The look on his face was all I needed to assess the damage:
That sucked,
it said.

You’ve done it again.
I immediately started to overanalyze.
You ruined it. . . .

That’s when I heard it, the same woman’s voice that I’d used in the café spoke to me again:
Just act like you know what you’re doing,
the voice instructed.

Just act like you know what you’re doing
, I repeated.
Yes!
In one swift movement I grabbed onto Christian’s T-shirt, pulled him into me, and kissed him. He moved his tongue into my mouth.
Oh, no, this is the part where I always screw up. . . .

I waited for it to feel weird. Only this time was different, it wasn’t just a stranger’s tongue, it belonged to a person I was eager to know. And so I kissed him, for real. I pressed my tongue against his, and as I did this I was amazed at all the things my tongue could make my body feel just based on the rhythm, speed, and pressure with which I moved it. It was amazing.
How have I had this tongue for twenty-two years and never realized its power?
I felt excitement in places I’d never understood excitement could be, other than in theory. I felt enlightened. I felt happy. I felt relaxed and held and loved. And I felt like I could be in control, too. And this feeling made me kiss him with confidence and urgency.

Christian came up for air. “You’re an incredible kisser,” he said.

“I know.”

Kissing, Take Seven: Home Depot

I waited for Christian to call. Waited and waited and waited. The weekend came and went—nothing. So I got desperate and sentimental and played Frank Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night” over and over again. And to make matters worse, my urge to kiss, which had been dormant most of my life because I didn’t know how to kiss, was suddenly there at maximum intensity.

He called on Monday. I leaped up off the couch and twirled around my apartment while we spoke. “What are you doing today?” I asked, ever impatient.

“I have to go out to Queens to go to Home Depot,” he said.

I didn’t waste my time. “Can I come?”

We decided to meet at the corner of Forty-second by Grand Central Station so we could take the subway together to Home Depot. As I stood there looking at all the faces of people crossing the street toward me, I noticed how so many different men looked like versions of Christian.
It’s him, no, that’s not him. It’s him, no, that’s a woman. Wait. What does he even look like? Did I make him up? I made him up. He was too perfect and his lips were too soft, and I couldn’t possibly have kissed someone so strong, so handsome. . . .