Chapter 10

Where I lived, in Woodhaven, Queens, there is a tremendous boulevard that stretches for miles.  It starts (or ends?) at Queens Center Mall, This boulevard is 8 lanes and very intimidating.  When I was a little girl, as young as 8 or 9, my best friend and I would take the Q11 bus from Woodhaven to the mall, where her Mother worked.  We would bravely walk up those bus steps, put our coins in the coin collector, find our seats - usually in the back, where we could hide with the fumes from the exhaust - and look out the window.  We couldn't miss our stop because it was the last stop on the bus. We were always the first ones out.  It was freedom! Queens Center Mall sits on the corner of two huge boulevards, Woodhaven Blvd. and Queens Blvd.  To give you an idea of how scary Queens Blvd. is, it's nick named "The Blvd of Death", I kid you not, look it up! We would jump off the bus bursting with excitement and somehow storm our way across Queens Blvd, and into the mall.  We would find Macy's, where my friends Mother worked.  Back in those days Macy's had a diner inside it.  My friend's Mother worked as a waitress there. We would eat french fries by the heaping plate full. It was glorious!  French fries were a delicacy to me! It was like hitting the food lotto! Most of the time, that would be the only thing I had eaten or would eat in the span of a day or two, especially in the summer when I wouldn't get my hot lunch at school.  

After we would stuff our bellies to capacity we would wander around Macy's.  We loved sitting in the show room couches, pretending we were sisters.  Then there was the gigantic wall of televisions in the electronic section.  It towered over us like something from a sci-fi movie.  Our favorite thing to do was go to the computer section and play with the Apple computers.  This was about 1985, so these computers were so high tech to us.  We would run over, hoping nobody was there so we could get two computers next to each other.  I loved typing in my name, but never my real name, always my pretend name, Stephanie. After we got kicked off the computers we would head into the mall and look at all the stores wishing we had money to buy stuff.  When we got older we stopped looking at toys and started looking at clothes.  And boys. Of course, boys. 

The bus to the mall became a staple in our lives.  The weekends were made for the mall.  When we were teenagers and just getting into New Kids On The Block we would cut out our favorite photos from magazines and bring them to the mall to turn into buttons.  It was what we did every weekend.  All week we would try to find that perfect magazine photo and rush to the mall for our buttons.  Every weekend, we would walk out of our favorite store, Fan Fan, joyfully pinning our buttons to our shirts and that's when the hunt would begin.  Around this time was when we started noticing the same gang of boys every weekend.  Week after week we would repeat this same routine.  I became infatuated with one of the boys in the gang, Tommy.  The mall was a big circular building, with stores all around the sides.  You could see all the floors from the top floor.  That's where we would stand and scour the floors and the escalators.  It was a game, who would spot who first.  One week my friend and I were going up the escalator as the boys were coming down.  I'm sure this was quite strategically planned.  This is how I found out my beloved Tommy's name, finally.  It had been months, or so it felt, since we had been playing cat and mouse at the mall.  One week we exchanged names and went home to obsess about it.  The next week we would find out where we were from. The boys were from Sunnyside, a neighborhood close to Manhattan on Queens Blvd.  Eventually, we exchanged phone numbers.  

Tommy was my first crush.  I still get butterflies in my belly when I think about him and how innocent and sweet that time was.  

We would talk on the phone, very awkwardly, and arrange times to meet at the mall.  I eventually began venturing further than the mall and into Sunnyside.  Once I knew his block that was all the incentive I needed to get out of  Dodge.  The Q11 bus would end right where the Q60 bus began.  I would transfer buses at the mall and get off in Sunnyside a whole new person.  Tommy was far enough away from Woodhaven that I could pretend to be anyone I wanted.  I started primping myself with hairspray and makeup.  I would ride those buses with a huge knot in my stomach.  The knot was anxiety and butterflies and first crush emotions, along with a tinge of shame and embarrassment.  What if he found out who I truly was, who my parents were, where I lived.  No, HOW I lived. Sometimes I would just go to Sunnyside uninvited and unplanned.  I was so desperate for an out that I just went.  I would knock on his door.  His Mom was so sweet to me.  Tommy would come out and we would talk on his stoop.  It was great! But, it didn't last.  Tommy began to get tired of me.  I wasn't telling him about anything going on at home, and even if I did, he wouldn't understand the real reason why I was there on his stoop at all hours of the night.  Eventually Tommy made it very clear that I was smothering him and he wasn't interested in my surprise visits anymore.  I was heartbroken.  I cried for months.  Yet, I still took that bus to Sunnyside as often as I could.  Sometimes I would just pretend I lived there and walk around the neighborhood alone. 

My trips to the mall never stopped.  If Tommy didn't want me, I would find someone who did.  There were plenty of cute boys at the mall to flirt with and play hide and seek with.  One Saturday I ran into a friend of Tommy's, Justin.  At first I was so excited to see him because it brought me that much closer to Tommy.  We would sit on the steps outside the mall and talk and laugh.  I would ask about Tommy, until one day I didn't anymore.  Justin was much sweeter than Tommy.  He asked me questions that Tommy never did, about ME.  Justin and I became inseparable.  

Justin and I started our clumsy relationship when I was 15, when I was discovering my own femininity.  I think my Mom was just as excited about me having a boyfriend as I was.  She began to give me makeup and hair lessons. Lessons on etiquette and demeanor.  Where to place the perfume so that it would last all night.  Exactly how to put liquid eyeliner on, so that it would go between the lashes.  She taught me how to shake Justin's Dad's hand before I left for his house to meet his parents for the first time.  She told me NEVER to cut my hair short, boys LOVE long hair.  When Justin called, she would talk to him for a few minutes before giving me the phone.  She would break the ice for me, make him laugh and we always started our conversations talking about how silly and cute my Mom was.  All the while, she would be singing "Just in time, you came Just in time" in the background.  It was an exciting time in my relationship with my Mother.  These little lessons she taught me when I started seeing Justin stuck with me forever.  

This was a time of innocence and excitement tangled up in a web of innocence long lost.  I was keeping a secret in my heart.  I was hiding a deep wound from everyone, including myself.  Being raped at 14 years old changed me.  It changed me before I even knew me.  I quietly started forming a defense mechanism.  I convinced myself that I lost my virginity as a willing participant.  A protective instict started.  I became the initiator and the aggressor in my relationships.  I would not be caught off guard again. I could not be raped again if I gave it up before it was taken.  I don't know just how much this defense mechanism helped form my new relationship with Justin, or how much of it was "normal" teenage relationship.  A few months into our relationship, Justin got sick with mono.  He was home from school every single day for weeks.  Every single school day I would leave my house, pretending I was going to school and march right onto the bus to Sunnyside. Nothing stopped me. I waited for the bus in rain, snow, wind, and sleet.  I won't go into details, (mostly because I don't remember most of them) but it was a very sexual and crazy time for both of us.  We became more like live in lovers than the kids we actually were.  With no parents all day, we would spend our days in bed, then into the kitchen to raid the closets and fridge, then cuddling on the couch with a movie.  It was actually wonderful.  I felt truly loved.  I felt safe.  I felt like I was living in a dream.  I would pretend we were married.  I would walk around his apartment and fantasize that I could have these things someday.  Like all good dreams, this one ended abruptly.  Justin got better and had to get back to real life.  For him, that meant a prep school upstate somewhere.  For me, that meant hiding on the roof of my building.  

I will never forget this chapter in my life. I wouldn't change any of it. I had so much to learn about life, love, intimacy and relationships.  This was the first step I would take onto the  confusing, conflicting, turmltuous path to womanhood.