Ali in Wonderland: And Other Tall Tales (2 page)

After an eternity of emotional unwinding, I decided to let my mother speak. She had always been the voice of reason, the fixer, the cleaner, the person who knew how to take hold of the reins and drive the carriage home.

She sighed. “Sweetheart,” she began in her smooth, assuring voice, and then she took a long pause. “Nobody goes to the Bahamas in July!”

Y
es, my mother’s name is Muffie, but don’t let the name fool you. She doesn’t wear headbands and Belgian loafers; she doesn’t winter in Palm Beach or summer in Vineyard Haven. She doesn’t have any needlepoint pillows with inane sayings like, “Dogs are just children in fur coats,” and she doesn’t collect porcelain figurines. The name Muffie itself conjures up a plethora of stereotypes that I can eradicate with two simple statements: one, she doesn’t drink; and two, there is no more money. Sure, years ago great-great-grandparents invested well in Ford Motor Company and Standard Oil and relatives were able to live in style and skate through an economic downturn, but those days are gone. The money has since been invested badly, embezzled by greedy spouses, or drunk away. The only visible trace of any WASP heritage is the name. And the lineage. And the ethics, theology, and ideology. And the fact that she was raised in Boston, went to boarding school and Smith, and twice married men from Harvard. Plus, she’s never peed in the shower.

This Muffie, my mother, is strong and determined. “Balls!” said the Queen. “If I had them I’d be King!” She has worked her whole life and during any down time wrote a book, started a company, or curated an exhibit about the women who formed this country. And in her spare time cleaned out a garage or had a yard sale on the hottest day in Maine or drove ten hours to Cape Cod with four screaming kids. If anyone were to write the “I know how to have it all, find balance, live a fulfilling life, lose weight, aha moment chicken soup, live your best life on ten dollars a day” book, it’s Muffie.

Everybody knows my mother. Even if they’ve never met my mother, they know my mother. I could be at the American embassy in Moscow doing shots of vodka with an antipropaganda documentarian from Siberia or scraping barnacles off the bottom of a Spinola Bay boat with a toothless lobsterman, and I will undoubtedly hear, “Please give your mother my love.” The maid who cleans the First Lady’s toilet knows my mom; the illegal Peruvian plumber knows my mom; the man who produced
Charlie’s Angels
knew my mom. She is beloved by all gay men, who in my opinion constitute the world’s most discerning judges of character. She is democratic and liberal, marched down Main Street for her beliefs, fought for civil rights, campaigned for all the Kennedy brothers, and managed to maintain democratic status in the Reagan White House. She has helped alcoholic friends get sober by walking them up and down the beaches of Cape Cod and played Monopoly on the carpet with financial tycoons. And won. She never wears makeup, but always has impeccably manicured toes. We have the exact same singular chin hair. She could invade Poland on a snorting white horse, but breaks into tears over a splinter. Her favorite lunch is sliced tomatoes on bread, deviled eggs, and iced tea. You can bribe her into anything if you can produce a hot fudge sundae. The only things my mother can cook are English muffins and crème caramel. She will choose a bath over a shower, a play over a movie, and the ocean over a pool. She has saved herself from intense pain in her life with strong, pulled-up bootstraps and terrifying organizational skills. She has the legs for tennis, the grace for skiing, and such high-arched eyebrows they could bring the Supreme Court to their knees.

My mother has Givenchy gowns she bought at a Saks sale (or for all I know, were created for her by Givenchy himself) in the closet next to frayed evening jackets she excitedly scored at Goodwill. She doesn’t believe in hedonism, loathes ostentation, and will buy boxed wine from Costco over Châteaux Margaux if it means more money for the Boston Museum. She didn’t grow up in the age of private planes, Pilates instructors, and hiring Ke$ha to play at birthday parties. She finds the new world self-serving and indulgent. She constantly screams “Hello?” at her iPhone before hitting the answer button.

I have spent half my life rebelling against my upbringing, as most people do. If my mother had been a hooker, I’d be a Rhodes Scholar today. If my mother had been a Rhodes Scholar, I’d be a hooker. I was once asked by
Playboy
to show skin in an issue they were doing on funny women. The exciting thing for me was not that they thought it was even feasible to feature me naked in their august publication, but the exhilaration I would get from telling my mother. “
Playboy
is offering me one hundred thousand dollars to pose naked,” I announced gleefully. (It was actually more like ten thousand, but the money was irrelevant.)

There was one of her famous long pauses. “Well, I will pay you a hundred and ONE thousand dollars not to pose naked.”

Of course, I never intended to even consider the offer, more for aesthetic reasons than out of any moral qualms: I knew what I looked like naked, and it wasn’t going to sell many magazines. In any case, Phyllis Diller took my page.

Chapter Two

Mama, Can You Hear Me?

W
hen I was four years old, we moved from a modest family home into an immodest four-story brick house situated on a dead-end street. There were thick woods to the right, and the driveway to the British embassy to the left. To an adult it was quiet, exclusive, and swank, but to a child it was eerie and lonely, the woods riddled with ghosts, goblins, and faceless zombie children on a quest to eat my soul through decapitation (was this just my fear?). It was a lonely existence on Whitehaven Street; the whole concept of
Sesame Street
and the always upbeat people in the neighborhood was lost on me. I never got to experience hanging on the stoop with multiracial kids, kicking the can with the neighborhood gang, or frolicking in the fire hydrant sprinklers. I could walk the length of our street (about a quarter mile) without ever seeing a single person. Much less a freakishly tall yellow bird.

The house was in a section of Washington called Embassy Row, where every country in the world has a residence and representation in the nation’s capital. It’s like frat houses, with the cool ones (Italy and France), who threw parties like recruitment week at William and Mary, and the lame ones (Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka), who’d maybe get a few interns from the UN who had to BYOB their own Red Bulls. When I was a teenager, during the Iran hostage crisis, there were so many protests right outside our door, we could have been living in Tehran. It has never been proven, but I know I saw a Khomeini supporter in our kitchen stealing cheese.

At that time in my life, I abhorred sleepovers. Why would I want another kid breaking off my Barbie legs and forcing me to stay up until midnight discussing which acne-faced and annoying boy I would kiss if there was a gun to my head? I never got past why someone who had a gun would choose to use it to unearth my hidden third-grade desires. At nine years old, you were supposed to beg for sleepovers, so I did, the same way in college you were supposed to have a tattoo, so I did (but with a Sharpie). I dreaded packing my sleeping bag, toothbrush, and clean underwear. As a child of divorce, I saw it as just one more dysfunctional family I had to stay with.

I had a best friend in second through fourth grade named Constance. We wore identical outfits, wrote secret notes without words, and conducted endless phone conversations without talking. It seemed natural that my first sleepover would be with her. You know the movie
Carrie
? It paled in comparison to a night at Constance’s house. The problem being, her mother was nuts: she was erratic, had hallucinations, and spoke in tongues. The woman should have been a leader at a witches’ coven, not the PTA. One night Constance and I were getting ready for our first girl/boy party. We had spent all day pairing the correct bell-bottom corduroy with the appropriate Danskin turtleneck, Hush Puppies with the matching headband, and earrings that didn’t accentuate braces. We started blow-drying our hair at two o’clock in the afternoon and applying lip gloss at four. It was a big night, a preteen’s prom; just when the hormones were starting to kick in, here was a platform upon which to exercise them, in the concrete form of Spin the Bottle and Five Minutes in the Closet, bathroom, freezer, heaven, wherever.

Constance’s mother drove us the twenty minutes to the party, which was being hosted by Stewart, a pipsqueak in a rugby shirt and penny loafers, eager for his first kiss (Stewart is now a U.S. senator). As we reached the ranch-style house, Constance’s mother pulled the car to an abrupt halt. She whipped her head around and, with eyes beaming red, screamed, “I know what you’re going to do in there! You think I don’t know? You are little whores!!!” With that, she stepped on the gas and we were speeding back to Constance’s house, where we were berated and sent to bed.

Fearing I would be forced to pray to Jesus Christ in a candlelit basement the next time, I decided I would no longer sleep over at Constance’s house. In fact, I decided I would no longer even drive by Constance’s house. If we were going to make Jiffy Pop popcorn and color in our fashion books, it would be in the safety of my own home. With chaperones who didn’t say things like, “Pimples are the Lord’s way of chastising you.”

I
decided to give the sleepover frenzy one more chance. Constance’s mother finally acquiesced, and Constance came over for my first hosted sleepover at our house at the end of our creepy street. We had our favorite meal, spaghetti and meatballs, vanilla ice cream, and Welch’s grape juice blended with ice. And we were allowed to eat it in pajamas. Everyone in the house was far more excited about this playdate than I was; they acted like I was experiencing a major rite of passage. “What a big night! A SLLLEEEEEEPPPPPP-OOOOVVEERRRRRR!!!!” my older sister kept saying. My mother was in a sparkling Armani gown, my stepfather in a tuxedo, as they watched us slurp up the last noodles. They were off to a dinner, but before they left they wanted to fan the sleepover excitement.

“Look at you guys having spaghetti on your sleepover!” Really, it became a bigger event than my wedding night.

Finally, by eight o’clock, my parents were out, my older siblings were out, and Constance and I were alone in the house. Well, except for our babysitter Elizabeth, but she was in the basement with a cigar watching
Barney Miller
on top volume, so we were essentially alone.

My mother’s room was always the center of our universe. If we were sick, we would sweat and vomit in her bed; if we were sad, we would cry and bury ourselves under her pillows. Any important news was headlined from her bed—things like “Your father is having an affair” and “Your brother’s been arrested climbing the outside of the Washington Cathedral.” I have carried on the tradition by designating my bed a free-floating lift raft for both my daughters. In fact, we would all get by perfectly well with just a king mattress and a hot plate.

So Constance and I curled up on my mom’s bed with a stack of comic books and a box of Ding Dongs. I yearned to be in my lower bunk in matching nightgowns with my miniature dachshund, Max, but instead powered through the dreaded sleepover ritual.

The phone rang. Constance darted toward it and, even though I reminded her that I never answered the phone because I never got calls, Constance picked up. “Hello?” She stared at me in silence and then slammed the receiver down.

“What?” Constance dug herself under the down comforter. “Who was it?” She ignored me. I ate another Ding Dong.

The phone rang again. Constance picked it up before the second ring. “Hello?” There was a long pause, and she hung up. She screamed loudly and insanely. “Some man was on the phone! He said he is going to kill us tonight!”

My heart was beating so hard it almost leaped out of my ballerina nightgown, taking my inner child with it. “What do you mean? What did he say?”

Constance pulled the sheets over her head, and from under the covers I heard a muffled, “I don’t know who it is! He just said he was going to kill us!”

I had never seen a slasher film in its entirety or read the
New York Post
, so I wasn’t savvy about the real-world horrors lurking outside, but I did have an active and vibrant imagination. My brain could host its own Wes Craven scare fest unprompted. I visualized a beady-eyed man wearing a black leather jacket (like all bad guys) with a large chain saw in his hand hacking up Constance’s body. (I never thought of it as my body because it’s always scarier to witness the crime than to be the victim.)

I climbed over the mound of Constance and grabbed the phone. I dialed 411. “British Embassy. Yes, residence.”

Within minutes, the police sirens and floodlights had transformed our dead end street into an Aerosmith concert. There was pounding on the front door, and when I opened it, the British ambassador stood anxiously in his navy striped pajamas and Burberry raincoat. The embassy guards and D.C. cops started searching the house, along with two rabidly sniffing German shepherds. I cowered on the front steps with the ambassador and a female police officer with zero maternal instincts. Constance stayed in the lump until a cop escorted her out to the front yard with the rest of us. You would have thought it was a bomb scare at the UN or the Barneys Warehouse sale.

My parents pulled up in time to witness all the commotion. I remember my mother running up the driveway, her dress billowing behind her. There was a reaction of relief—nothing was stolen, and I was still breathing—and embarrassment—the ambassador was standing in our front lawn at midnight in his PJs. Elizabeth the babysitter had fallen asleep during
The Rockford Files
and had snored through the whole show.

I still couldn’t shake the fact that there was a man somewhere out there, hiding in an embassy Dumpster, plotting my demise. I slept next to my mother that night in a position that ensured I maintained contact with 90 percent of her body mass at all times. Constance slept upstairs in my room on the upper bunk. My stepfather couldn’t handle two kicking and thrashing nine-year-olds in his bed. Plus, they had never been fans of Constance’s; he felt it was enough he didn’t charge her for meals.

I could hear my stepfather’s teeth grinding and felt my mother’s last muscular twitch before she fell into a deep slumber. I had almost nodded off when Constance cracked open the door, blinding me with the hall light, and slipped into the room. She came close to my face and whispered, “It was a wrong number.”

I rubbed my eyes. “What?”

She whispered again, “I made it up. It was a wrong number.” She smiled like she had informed me I was soaking in Palmolive and crept out. My first and last sleepover until my college years, and even those I would tiptoe out of before dawn.