Screw Everyone: Sleeping My Way to Monogamy (2 page)

I ended up kissing Brad Moore, but that happened
after
we broke up. We terminated our short stint as classmates-with-slow-dancing-benefits via the 1980s equivalent of text messaging: passing notes. Based on the speed dating he did after our “breakup,” he must have wanted first shot at all the seventh-grade girls before the other boys caught on that we weren’t icky. I wasn’t terribly heartbroken; I just wanted to climb more of that stairway to junior high heaven.

Three months later, I got my chance at Janet Vanderbroek’s legendary Valentine’s party. Packed in her wood-paneled basement that was decorated with rolls of red and pink streamers, we stood around nervously munching on bowls of potato chips and listening to Janet’s recent purchase of ten cassette tapes for a penny from Columbia House, which included everything from Huey Lewis and The News to Quiet Riot. But the real centerpiece of the party was the cardboard Cupid hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the dance floor. Word quickly spread that the Cupid was ersatz mistletoe: If you ended up under it, you
had
to make out with the person you were dancing with. As the Orange Crush and root beer took hold, we loosened up, and Brad Moore, wearing his brand-new ripped jeans, made his way through the crowd and asked me to dance. Maybe he realized that playing the field wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

I don’t remember what music was playing at that moment; it could have been a death metal band, for all I knew. All my attention was on our proximity to that cardboard Cupid. Working together like a Ouija planchette that magically slides to yes, we floated across the room until we were suddenly beneath it. Brad closed his eyes and leaned toward my face.
This is it!
I thought, nervous, but game. Our lips touched, and then his tongue shot into my mouth, wiggling around like a minnow caught on a fishing line. I quickly joined in with my own tongue. I may be a poor leader, but I’m an excellent follower and a quick study. It was more than childish kissing; we were really making out—just like in
Grease!
Looking back, I’d have to say that Brad Moore was a better kisser fresh out of the gate than many thirty-year-old men I’ve known. That’s why I didn’t bother changing his name. He should know that.

Everyone was gawking at us, some with disgust, others with envy, a few with a mixture of both, but I didn’t care. It was better than eating bacon on Hanukkah morning. Days later, I could still feel the pressure of his lips, and for months afterward, I would replay that moment in my head every night before I went to sleep. The only stinger was that after our dance, Brad Moore asked every girl at the party to dance and kissed them all. Thank god I was first, and subsequently the only one who didn’t come down with strep throat.

MY MOTHER DIDN’T
raise me with fairy tales about some Prince Charming sweeping me off my feet and solving all my problems. “Wish on stars all you want,” she would say, “but no one’s listening
except you.” It sounds harsh, but what do you expect from a woman who grew up in World War II Holland? “Don’t be picky,” she warned, “it’s not attractive.” Looking back, I guess she was saying, “Be happy if someone likes you, and if it doesn’t work out, try someone else.” We weren’t raised to be orchids, only blooming under perfect conditions. We were taught to thrive anywhere. Like a weed.

My parents met in Nijmegan, Holland, right after the German occupation. My dad was born in Israel (although back then it was sort-of Palestine) and was part of the Allied forces that liberated Holland from Germany. Eager to leave war-torn Holland behind, my mother agreed to the marriage and was pregnant at sixteen years old, living in the oh-so-peaceful land of sort-of Palestine. She raised my two older brothers there, but constantly complained that she’d only moved from one war zone to another. “I was sick of all the bombing, the guns all the time. I wanted a break,” she would say, as if she were recalling a particularly rainy year. In 1957, they immigrated to Canada, the land of peace, snow, and opportunity. My dad started working as a Hebrew teacher, and then became the principal. Meanwhile, they had four more children. The only battles now took place in the living room, in the form of whining protests if we had to watch the news when Star Trek was on.

There are twenty-five years between my oldest brother and me. He and my next oldest brother already had wives and kids before I was even a trickle in the tap. I’m the youngest of six, and my mother had me late in her life. Back then if you were pregnant in your forties, you’d appear on
Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

As a family we joked around a lot. Sarcasm and teasing were the currency of affection. The dinner table was like an open mic, with whomever was oldest headlining. My brothers and sisters loved telling anyone who would listen how my mother cried and cried when she found out she was pregnant with me. They took to calling me “The Mistake.” Once I asked my mom about this, and she told me not to worry—we were
all
mistakes.

If she could embrace her mistakes, even consider them happy errors, then the pressure was off me to make perfect choices. Maybe life wasn’t so much about getting it right, as much as it was about rolling with the punches . . . or punch lines.

The year I was born, my father left education and bought three grocery stores. We lived in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, an affluent oil and cattle town near the Rocky Mountains. Calgary was about as ethnically diverse as a Joan Baez concert—or a Moby concert, or a Taylor Swift concert, depending on your age. The fact that we were Jewish, and a family of seven brunettes and one redhead, made us the most exotic household in the neighborhood, second only to the Chinese family that lived down the street. As a child, I hated how my name, Ophira, stuck out and no one even bothered to try to pronounce it properly. They called me Ophelia instead. Didn’t that
Hamlet
character kill herself? Forget unrequited love; she probably did it because no one ever got her name right. My grade school teachers would scroll down the roll call list, study my pale face, light eyes, and suspiciously dark hair, and ask me if I was Black Irish, or maybe my parents were hippies? I’d tell them that my parents were twice their
age, from Israel and Holland, and Ophira was an ancient Hebrew name; it just didn’t catch on like Rachel or Sara. They’d nod and put a little red
x
beside my name. I was definitely a kid that needed to be watched. By singling me out as special, they created a standard that I’d strive to live up to.

Other than my odd name, which sounded more like a brand of contact lens solution than something you’d call a little girl, I had something else that distinguished me as “unusual” among my peers. At eight years old, I survived a terrible car crash that left me with a scarred body and a sense of urgency. Perhaps this is why I raced faster than my friends to conquer life’s benchmarks as soon as possible.

While driving home after a day spent swimming at the Jewish Community Center, we were rammed into by a guy who’d run a red light. Unconscious and in critical condition, I was rushed into emergency surgery with a punctured lung and liver, a ruptured spleen, a head wound, broken ribs, and a medley of other broken bones. The doctors told my father I had a 50/50 chance of making it. Upon hearing this, I’m told, a gigantic smile spread across his face, and he started marching up and down the hospital halls, yelling, “Did you hear that? Fifty percent! She’s going to live! Fifty percent! She is going to make it!”

I like to think that I heard him.

Thankfully he was right. Not only did I make it, I walked out fully intact, with a souvenir scar in the shape of a slightly off-kilter Y that runs the length of my torso, from breastbone to pelvic bone, and across my midsection, from belly button to my right side. It’s big, and it looks pretty cool.

In gym class, if we had to change, I could feel girls staring at my stomach. They had a right to be curious—I would have been too. As budding young women, we were fixated on one another’s bodies. Some of us were growing hips, some breasts, some crazy body hair, while others—i.e., me—had a little of each, plus a big pinkish scar. As puberty fully took hold, I, too, became self-conscious, worried that guys would freak out if they saw it (as it turns out, I should have been more concerned about the guys who would be really
into it. Blech.
).

After another uncomfortable health class filled with stifled laughter and awkward fidgeting over details about our impending hormonal future, I was walking home with my friends Tania and Megan, discussing important stuff—namely, who in our class would most likely become a stripper (for the record, it was a girl named Becca Dickerson). That’s when it hit me. I couldn’t even screw up my life and fall back on topless waitressing or stripping like other girls could. Due to my scar, I wasn’t even in the running. It was so unfair! What strange XXX club would have a girl taking off her clothes to reveal a large operation scar? Maybe a fetish club, but I didn’t know about those—yet (my future policy to never leave an unmarked basement door unopened would eventually lead me to one). I had no choice but to get my shit together.

As kids, it hadn’t occurred to us that tragedies could happen to anyone we knew, let alone at our age. The fact that it happened to me meant that I was treated differently, and consequently I thought differently. After the accident, I grappled with the idea that random acts could throw everything off course. Bad things happened. Life wasn’t
going to take care of me, and I had to agree with my mother that waiting for things to happen organically was an utter waste of precious time. You want a cupcake? Go buy one. They only have lime ones left? Guess what your new favorite flavor is. As I got older, this translated to: If I wanted a job, apply! A boyfriend? Ask him out! To lose my virginity? Make it happen! To fall in love? Okay, that was a little more difficult, but having a job, a boyfriend, and some sexual experience would give me a running start.

MY FATHER DIED
the summer before I entered high school, and our family broke into fragments. At almost sixty years old, my mother had to go to work and manage the grocery stores. Within a year, she was doing things I’d never seen her do before: going out dancing, dating, having fun. The last of my siblings moved out, and for the first time the household was just two people: me and my mom. Even though it was a period of great transition, we relished the space and freedom it gave us. All of a sudden, the house had too many couches to lie on, too many remotes to control, too much silence. My mother relaxed the rules and my curfews in exchange for me letting her date without interference. I could basically do whatever I wanted, with virtually no one to answer to, as long as I kept up with my responsibilities. And trust me, I took advantage of it. It
is
possible to keep your grades up AND drop acid.

Luckily Calgary was a nice, safe place—it was like the walls were made of soft sponges. You had to work really hard to get in trouble. The mere fact that I was considered one of the primary instigators among
my friends was a sign of how nonthreatening the place was. I was the one with all the ideas, and I’d drag friends through the “bad” parts of town (indicated by an overflowing garbage can) and ask derelicts if I could buy their hash. We’d layer our faces with makeup and tell doormen that not only were we eighteen, but we’d also been personally invited to the nightclub by the owner. Rarely did anyone question or refuse us. It was a talent I’d parlay into every aspect of my later life: approach with confidence, know what you want, and just tell them. I’ve found that it works very well with men, but not with immigration officers or tax auditors.

Despite my late-night shenanigans, I still managed to make it to school, perform reasonably well, and show up for my shifts at the grocery store.

I liked having a job. It gave me pocket money to pay for cover charges and Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers. My mother increased my work tasks incrementally, and soon I was even doing the ordering, everything from groceries to hardware to magazines. Never was a teenager more in tune with news, celebrity gossip, trendy fashions, and, of course, men’s sexual fantasies. That’s right, I wouldn’t just sort and restock all those magazines when they came in; I’d
read
them all—or at least check out the pictures.

In retrospect, what appeared in the shiny pages of the men’s magazines we placed on the upper shelf of the magazine rack—like
Bear, Playboy
, and
Swank
—was pretty tame by today’s standards. I think I’ve seen more hardcore porn on Bravo lately. But if my memory serves me right, the material wasn’t
that
degrading. I’m sure Naomi
Wolfe would like to kill me, because yes, the women were being objectified, but I didn’t perceive it that way. What I saw was a bunch of tarted-up women not so much exploited as exploiting a situation to their advantage.

The story spreads were my favorite: five pages of glammed-up women applying for jobs as secretaries, or being coached on the tennis court. They were both hilarious and fascinating. Everyone started out so nice and professional looking, in polyester blouses with floppy bows or proper white tennis dresses, always paired with Lucite stilettos (see-through goes with everything), but within one panel all the clothes would be off. Good storytelling starts in the action. By panel four, not only did they score the job or improve their swing, but they looked like they were having a damn good time doing it. Sure, maybe my perspective was a bit skewed, but I preferred the dynamics of these scenes over the more passive ideal of timid girls pining in the wings, hoping to get asked to the dance, and scoring poorly on
Cosmo
quizzes. I didn’t have the luxury to wait around hoping for some mythical right time or right person to appear, like some precious orchid waiting for the right conditions of light and water to blossom and grow. I needed to be like a weed, and thrive
now
. Brad Moore had the right idea. I, too, wanted to get out there and kiss, “go around,” and eventually screw whomever I desired, maybe
everyone
I desired. Who cared if I made mistakes? I’d figure it out, with or without a cardboard Cupid to guide me.