But the landscaping was never finished; it was infinite and ever-evolving. One truckload of woodchips led to a truckload of stones followed by a truckload of manure. Not one stray blade of grass was permitted, and a lawn party would, no doubt, decimate the sod.
All this elegance left bitter scars, because I felt like a prisoner trapped in a tower awaiting execution by my mother, her royal majesty. No classmates or potential boyfriends would dare to cross or sully the imposing moat-like sea of grass on which two gardeners fanatically plucked out the first signs of a weed eruption.
From time to time, I would sit down in the kitchen, miscalculating by placing my hands on the granite top.
“Don’t touch the counter!” My mother, Simone, appeared from the ether. She had designed the house to be a museum, a shrine to her hard work and obsessive-compulsive tendencies. The house was not intended to be lived in. It is said that home is where the heart is. But there was very little pulse beating in my childhood.
3. The Egg With Legs
My problems started surfacing in middle school. I attended a Jewish yeshiva where there was physical separation between the boys and girls, with each gender being trained in different ways. The boys were destined to be scholars, while the girls studied to be the wives of those scholars.
Give my mother some credit; as an early feminist, she couldn’t accept this division of academic labor. One day she dragged me into the principal’s office and vehemently complained that my schedule was filled with home economics, art, and piano lessons. “Where are the classes to train her in advanced mathematics and chemistry?” my mom asked angrily, clearly thinking of the future medical career she was planning for me. The rabbi cowered, Mom’s brand of domineering and beautiful too overwhelming for a pious man.
Poor rabbi. He didn’t stand a chance. The very next day, she pulled me out of yeshiva and enrolled me in the town’s most elite private middle school. However, she made it clear that there was another goal: my becoming a Jewish doctor was only the first step. I was also expected to MARRY a Jewish doctor one day.
That would not be so easy. While school was a breeze, my body was painfully slow to develop. My mother once told me, “Rory, sadly, you have not inherited my looks, but you did inherit your father’s brain. Academia will be your ticket in life.” My mother’s admonition that I was ugly and should simply forget about a social life was coming true, whether I liked it or not.
I waded uncomfortably through early adolescence, struggling with the inner tube that had accumulated along my midsection while my legs remained gangly. My body was in freakish prepubescence: an egg with legs.
I recalled covering my bedroom mirror with a sheet the way my relatives did while sitting shiva after funerals. The less I saw of that awkward creature staring at her reflection, the better.
As the end of the school year approached, I found myself being boisterously teased by my classmates. They had never accepted this strange alien from a “weird” school. And I was jealous and so insecure. With my pudgy face, frizzy sandy-brown hair, and crooked teeth imprisoned by heavy orthodontia, I just wanted to be pretty like the other girls, with their long, straight hair and perfect skin. I was ashamed of being this odd creature, and as a result, I barely opened my mouth. If the other kids would laugh just looking at me, I could just imagine how embarrassing it would be if I tried to talk through my braces.
One bad day, I made it through the infinite teasing of classmates and somehow held back the tears until I arrived home that afternoon, where I unburdened my tortured soul to my mother.
She repeated her useless mantra, barely making eye contact: “Rory, sweetheart, we have talked about this before. Some girls are destined for beauty. Those are the types that grow up to have men take care of them. Others live by their brains.You’re in the latter category. One day, you will become a doctor and stand on your own two feet, and boys won’t matter so much.”
I guess that was my mother’s attempt to protect me from an unforgiving world, but boys won’t matter? I wasn’t buying it. Despite being the classic book nerd, I wasn’t devoid of common sense.
From time immemorial, young males flooded with testosterone had believed that breasts held a sort of mythical power. Those girls who were robust in the chest department flaunted this power as a look-but-don’t-touch coquetry.
During adolescence, however, common sense didn’t help me understand the “rules of cool,” the natural process of being a part of the “in crowd.” In those hormone-charged years, I knew that there was only one way to anesthetize the emotional pain—I wanted in. Katy Perry breasts, Britney Spears midriff.
Yet how to attain cool-girl status from where I stood was still a mystery.
It wasn’t so mysterious where geeky boys and girls like me lived: band class. Playing second-row clarinet, I would stare longingly at Tommy Reed with his shiny brass trumpet; he was my first real crush, who dismissively ignored my puppy-eyed stares.
Aside from the onset of the monthly painful cramps, my fat, fleshy body with bite-sized breasts remained the same throughout middle school and the beginning of high school. In typical fashion, my mother offered a simple warning: keep your legs locked tight and ignore all boys who only have dirty things on their minds.
Once again, it was easy to heed her advice. No boy was interested.
Then, sophomore year, something magical happened. An amazing change in my body occurred, and I started to feel my little buds beginning to become more sensitive. Somehow, they exploded like spring flowers over a weekend.
I went into school one Monday, braless as usual while wearing a snug orange sweater that highlighted my unfettered boobs. My male bandmates were suddenly sneaking lewd looks in my direction. I was initially clueless, but eventually I caught on to what was happening.
After school, I wanted to witness with my own eyes what all of the hoopla was about. I raced home and stood in front of my vanity mirror, carefully peeling off the tight sweater.
There they were, like a religious miracle: my magnificent new breasts.
God was even better than any plastic surgeon. My globes were... perfect. I cried with joy. All of those long-suffering years of prayer for adolescent curves had been answered.
I had the tits; now I would spend the next decade trying to find the right boy, preferably a rebel. If he was someone my parents didn’t like, so much the better. My pent-up sexual needs aside, I would soon learn, on my odyssey to my medical shingle, the tits I had incessantly prayed for would represent a major double-edged sword.
4. I Think I Just Had Sex
All my life I’ve been looking for love in all the wrong places, and my boyfriends have wanted to love me in all the wrong places as well. I would have liked to blame my behavior on a rebellion against my parents’ cloistering philosophy. Reflecting on my adolescence, however, I recognize that I had been a passive enabler of my bondage.
My mom wasn’t wrong that I was ready to peel off my kimono for the right kind of boyfriend, but it still pissed me off that throughout my teenage years, she was always keeping a beady eye out for my hormonal eruptions. She seemed to be on high alert that I was becoming more of a Jezebel, the “painted” prostitute, than a Venus, the far more unadulterated embodiment of love and beauty.
