The Tumultuous Teens

At the age of seventy-one, I vividly recall one particular outfit that was part of my meager wardrobe at the age of fifteen.

Arlene, my best friend, had a closet full of store-bought garments showing the latest trends. Lucky for her, her mother worked at Eaton’s. They went on sprees and Arlene got to choose whatever she wanted.

I burned with resentment, hiding my jealousy in dark shadows of shame. Mom didn’t tolerate discontent of any kind which, when occasionally expressed, was dismissed as “nonsense."

My no-nonsense mother was a psychiatrist who tightly controlled my fashion world.

She hired my older cousin, Sylvia, to sew all my clothes. The two of them huddled to choose patterns and materials while I watched passively. I endured fittings and gazed in the mirror at outfits I hated.

“That blouse looks lovely, Sylvia. You did a wonderful job.”

I’d shudder at billowy blouses tucked into ghastly gathered skirts and smile through gritted teeth, not wanting to be rude. I longed to have clothes that looked like everybody else’s.

 In late August, Sylvia completed four back-to-school outfits to replace the ones I’d grown out of. Two were allocated for everyday wear. One was a dark-grey pleated skirt and matching grey blouse with a white collar made out of a doily. It made me look like an old lady’s sofa. The other was a duplicate outfit, in a lighter shade of grey.

“Nice and functional,” said my mother, appraising my reflection in the mirror. I ground my teeth and smiled.

The other two outfits were dresses reserved for “special occasions”. One was a sleeveless, shapeless navy-blue shift.

“This will be perfect for warmer days in the fall, spring and summer,” explained my mother with a satisfied smile.

The second dress, which felt like it was sewn out of material used to make living room drapes, was flaming-red with large black buttons lined up like soldiers from my waist to just under my chin. At the neckline, my cousin attached a floppy white collar and an enormous black bow. I dismally stared at Bozo the Clown in Sylvia’s full-length mirror.

“Perfect for special occasions in the winter,” declared my mother, nodding with approval at her niece.

In spite of the fact that we went to different high schools, Arlene and I were inseparable. I was allowed to stay at her place for sleepovers on weekends. “I wish you could fit into my clothes,” she said, sympathetic to my plight of wearing the same things over and over.

We constantly teased our hair and doused ourselves with hairspray until we succeeded in erecting two impermeable mountain peaks. We rimmed our eyes with jet-black liner and thick, clumpy mascara. Plastering white lipstick on our pouting lips, we spent hours gazing into mirrors, primping, and obsessing about boys.

Arlene raved about a classmate named Bob – how “dreamy” he was. She wanted to show him off and took me to a café hoping he’d be there.

“Wait ‘til you see him! I could just die!” she gushed. “Is my hair high enough?”

 The café buzzed with conversation. Embarrassed to be wearing my clown-dress, I peered around at my surroundings. Six round tables were covered with red and white-checkered tablecloths and flickering candles. We sat at a vacant spot and Brenda pointed excitedly at Bob, who stood at the next table talking and laughing with his friends.

 He was tall, with dark brown hair, high cheekbones, a firm chin, gorgeous brown eyes and the most appealing dimples. When he saw Arlene, he grinned, sauntered over, and flopped confidently into a chair. My heart raced and my thoughts swirled as Arlene giggled and babbled in a high-pitched screech. He stifled a yawn and abruptly turned to focus on me, taking my breath away.

“I haven’t seen you around. Do you go to Humberside?”

“No, Parkdale.”

“We hammered you guys at the last game. I got two of those touchdowns,” he boasted, flashing me a radiant smile. “By the time we got through, your Parkdale Panthers were pathetic little kittens.”

The following weekend, I tagged along with Arlene to her school dance. I was terrified as we entered a noisy gym crowded with strangers. Someone asked Arlene to dance, and I cowered against the wall, hating my clown costume, terrified Bob would remember I had worn it at the café a week earlier.

My eyes scanned the huddled bodies. I spotted Bob dancing with a pretty girl. My heart sank. The music stopped. He elbowed through the crowd and walked right up to me.

“I’m glad you came!” he said, holding out his hand. Tongue-tied, I allowed him to lead me onto the floor. He showered me with his exclusive attention and flashed a radiant smile as we twisted to Chubby Checker’s big hit. He held me in his arms for slow dances and I melted into his embrace. His breath was hot in my ear, sending shivers through my body.

All too soon, the dance was over. Arlene had set her sights on another boy and wasn’t upset that I’d been with Bob. We gossiped all the way back to her place.

“Did Bob kiss you?”

“Yes,” I lied. “Oh, he’s SO fab!” I added, recalling the feel of his arms around me.

“Alan took me outside to neck. What a great French kisser!”

“Bob has my phone number,” I countered in my attempt to keep pace.

“Alan has mine, too.”

We both shrieked with excitement as we raced down her street, stormed into her house, forced ourselves to calm down, politely acknowledged her disinterested Dad, and crept into her room to share our romantic fantasies in excited whispers. When the light of dawn poked through the curtains, I finally drifted into a fitful sleep.

Bob phoned me every day the following week. He wished I went to his school and told me he missed me. I couldn’t wait to see him again.

The following weekend we met at the High Park skating rink, where we circled the arena, hand in hand. I was joyous. When he kissed me goodbye, he poked his tongue between my lips, and I clenched my teeth against the invasion. Then I thought of Arlene, and decided to let it happen, even though it felt yucky. Our tongues briefly twirled, exchanged saliva, and retreated. I’d been initiated. Vive la France!

         Just before Christmas, my parents, curious about my daily telephone marathons, insisted they meet Bob. He reluctantly came to dinner and answered a barrage of questions about his parents, where he lived, his football team, and his grades at school. After a tense meal, we were allowed to “watch TV” in the attic. Ignoring the shows, we necked and petted. I was immensely grateful that I finally had two small lemons to fill out my training bra, but still agonized that all my girlfriends had their periods and I didn’t.

The two-week holiday was bliss. I saw Bob every day. To my relief, he never suggested I meet his parents. Instead, we met at the rink or a restaurant every day. I took a streetcar and subway, using the transit tickets Mom stuffed into my Christmas stocking.

At the end of the holiday, I grieved. I couldn’t bear his absence and pined like a neglected puppy. We continued to talk endlessly on the phone.

At dinner, when Mom announced, in her dreaded business-like voice, that we needed to talk, my older brother smirked. For once, he wasn’t the target of Dad’s criticism.

“You’ve been ignoring your homework,” she scolded. “Bob is taking too much of your time.”

           “The phone’s always tied up with your ridiculous conversations,” added Dad. “It’s a bloody obsession!”

           “Your marks will suffer if you keep this up,” warned Mom. "We don’t expect you to stop seeing Bob completely, but certainly there is no need to be with him every single weekend.”

The thought of distancing from Bob panicked me. I was enraged. How dare they take away my ONLY happiness! I decided to lie and steal.

Arlene was an excellent alibi, and I claimed to be doing homework at her place every day after school. Instead, I raided Mom’s change purse for transit money, and met up with my forbidden love. Stolen moments, huddled side-by-side in our booth, sipping cherry-colas and playing hits on a jukebox. Heaven!

He always blew me a kiss as I boarded the bus back home.

As Mom predicted, my marks at school dropped, as did my initial elation about being Bob’s steady girlfriend. When he’d slipped a black and silver ring on my finger and asked me to go steady, my heart had fluttered. But after a few days, the ring turned my finger green.

When Bob invited me to a house party to meet his friends, I put the ring back on and fidgeted in front of my mirror, desperate to make a good impression. I worried that he’d notice I was wearing the same red party dress. It was all I had for colder weather, and there was a raging blizzard.

Bob told me to meet him halfway between his place and mine at a corner bus stop where a gale-force wind from Lake Ontario drove the snow pellets against my face like bullets. He was twenty minutes late. Frigid, I crouched with my back toward the bitter wind, fretting about my hairdo. The helmet of spray I’d applied was no match for the storm. Eventually, Bob climbed off his bus, looking annoyed. When we finally arrived at the party, I raced into the washroom to initiate damage control. A frightening apparition stared back from the mirror. My drenched hair hung in gluey tangles. Black mascara dripped down my cheeks. Snot streamed from my nostrils. I did my best to mop up the damage and rejoined the party, perching on the edge of a chair in the corner, staring down at my red dress with the hated black bow.

When Bob didn’t introduce me, I raised my eyes, frantically seeking his, and was met with cold stares, excluded from whispered conversations in tight circles. Bob ignored me and circulated. I waited anxiously for someone to talk to me. No one did. I reached up to fiddle with my hair, which, to my dismay, had semi-dried into glutinous globs. My back ached and my rear was numb. My stomach growled, but I didn’t dare cross the room to get a sandwich.

Ages later, we finally left. Bob barely spoke, except to ask me why I didn’t talk to anyone. “All you did was sit like a lump,” he accused. He didn’t mention the upcoming school dance and he didn’t blow me a kiss goodbye at the transit stop.

I waited two days for his phone call. Finally, I dialed his number with a shaky hand. His mother told me he wasn’t home and hung up before I could leave a message. He never called back. Miserable, I sobbed on the phone to Arlene.

“Have you seen him? Did he talk about me?”

“No. He didn’t say anything.”

“He’s mad at me. What’ll I do?”

“Stop worrying. Just come to the next dance.”

 That Friday, I tagged along with Brenda and her new boyfriend Alan, hoping to see Bob. He was dancing with a girl who’d been at the party. He had his arms around her waist and quickly looked away when our eyes met.

In a rare show of righteous indignation, I marched across the floor, edged my way through the crowd, ripped the tin ring off my finger, flung it in his face, and made a dramatic exit, hoping he’d race after me, full of remorse. He didn’t.

When I got home, I locked myself in the bathroom and stared into the mirror. The white collar and black bow mocked me. Then I rummaged in the medicine cabinet, seized a half-full bottle of aspirin, and swallowed a handful. “He’ll be sorry,” I mumbled.

The overdose caused an annoying ringing in my ears and my head felt bloated, as if someone had jammed cotton batting up my nose. With a sour stomach, I collapsed into bed and stayed there for the rest of the weekend, telling my parents I was sick. The infernal buzzing subsided, but it took a lot longer for the heartache to ease. I moped around the house, wanting to sleep all the time.

“Victoria, you’re only fifteen…far too young to be so upset. Before long, you’ll forget all about him. It’s just puppy love.” Mom’s words didn’t help. Didn’t she understand how horrible I felt?

A few weeks later, when warmer weather melted the snow, and longer days promised a reprieve from winter, the fatigue finally lifted and I returned to Arlene’s for weekend sleepovers. On Saturday nights, we lounged in a booth at our favorite restaurant, fed coins into the jukebox, sipped on cherry-colas and chain-smoked cigarettes. She’d tell me Bob was an idiot for being so cruel. I’d respond that Alan was a monster for ditching her. We listened to Connie Francis wail her hit song, “Who’s Sorry Now?” over and over, and I vowed I’d never wear that red dress again.