Gawky (4 page)

I was officially on my way to massive success as a pop star. I couldn't wait for that assembly, and I hoped a big agent in the crowd would see beyond my awkwardness to the musical prodigy lying within. Then my life would really begin. Maybe in my tear-out photos in
Bop
magazine I wouldn't look so tall. As long as I wasn't always standing right next to Amanda, I was sure they could fudge it so I looked normal size.

I also had a secret backup plan on the off chance there were no big-time Hollywood agents in the audience of the Lloyd Road Elementary School. I had learned from watching Madonna interviews that getting no attention is worse than negative attention. So, the next best thing to getting discovered as a musical prodigy would be to get caught publicly for stealing the song. A part of me secretly hoped my teacher would stand up and say, “Everyone hold your furious applause. The Jersey Girls have clearly ripped this song off from Wham! Call the police! And thank you, yes, I have lost weight. Sixty pounds to be exact.” Then I would be whisked off stage in handcuffs screaming “Get me a lawyer!” The options—record deal or arrest—seemed equally appealing to me. I'd end up forever labeled a bad girl or a genius. Either way, I'd come out on top.

The day of the assembly arrived. While Amanda and I waited in the wings of the auditorium, I peeked out to see who was in the audience. All I could see were my schoolmates and teachers, no recognizable showbiz types. No men in top hats or guys with big mustaches. No ladies in mink stoles holding clipboards to take notes on the talent of Central Jersey. I didn't have much time to get nervous or think about the ramifications of getting caught stealing from Wham! There was barely any time before Mr. Fervor proudly said, “Please welcome the Jersey Girls!” and Amanda
and I took the stage to moderate applause. Mr. Fervor began playing the piano with all the enthusiasm of a coked-up Elton John performing “Bennie and the Jets.” Amanda sang through her nose, and I faked that I could sing the best I could, wondering if any of these pimple-faced squirts would have the guts to point out that I was a fraud.

We finished the song and everyone clapped politely. No one seemed all that impressed. No one stopped in the hall to tell us we were child prodigies. No one offered us a recording career. No one even accused us of stealing the song from Wham! All we received was the same polite applause that the little boy who had done the recorder solo had gotten.

The school assembly was kid stuff, I reassured myself. We'd get our real shot at the parent/town assembly that night.

I warmed up all afternoon, doing vocal exercises in my bedroom I had learned from Miss Piggy. I stuck out my flat chest and squealed, “mee mee mee,” just as I had seen her do in the latest Muppet movie. Miss Piggy was also an exciting and glamorous woman like my grandmother, even though she was a pig and a puppet. And she tamed that big blonde mane of hers in a way I longed to master.

That night at the town assembly, once again Amanda and I waited in the wings. I knew this was a huge risk—it was highly likely someone out there would recognize the song. What had started as a simple few words on loose-leaf paper had now turned into a live concert event in front of every single person I had ever met. What's worse, I had now copyrighted a Wham! song as my own and was taking innocent Mr. Fervor and my best friend Amanda down with me.

With the fear of the devil in me, Amanda and I hit the stage and rocked the night away. We did all the moves I carefully choreographed—
step, touch, sway, repeat
—with a precision unmatched in any of our tedious rehearsals. Amanda again sang through her nose while I tried to sing on key. I was extra careful not to let the
step, touch, sway, repeat
mess me up while I tried to remember the lyrics I had penned privately in my
bedroom. The refrain was the easiest, as it was the most blatant rip-off of “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.” Thankfully, we made it through disaster-free, and that stupid kid with the recorder didn't steal too much of the spotlight. Amanda and I lingered a little too long bowing to the crowd, savoring the high of nailing it.

Then we looked out into the adoring crowd. Not so adoring. Once again no one seemed all that impressed. No one seemed to notice that the melody was stolen. I looked out at my mother, expecting to find her weeping with joy over the discovery of her daughter's innate musical talent. There she was, head towering several inches over the other big-haired women, clapping politely, her eyes dryer than I had
ever
seen them in my life. Apparently Laverne's sojourn to L.A. in season 6, episode 113 “Not Quite New York” was more moving than her daughter's big solo in front of the whole town. I stared at her extra long to see if she was bragging to others, saying, “That's my daughter, the tall gifted one.” Not a word. Meanwhile my father hadn't gotten out of work in time to make it, and my brother hadn't come. No one seemed to care about my big moment.

Amanda and I lingered a little longer on stage till the clapping faded into silence. Finally, we untriumphantly departed.

After the concert, we all went to Friendly's, where I got my usual, the clown sundae with the cone on top made to look like a clown hat. I pushed my spoon into it thinking,
This isn't a clown, it's just an upside-down ice-cream cone. The thrill is gone.
Amanda and I ate our sundaes and didn't speak of the George Michael–size elephant in the room—but I knew she knew I stole the song. That night, lying in bed smoking one of my Stallion brand candy cigarettes, I wondered if our usual Friendly's waitress had ever wanted something more; she looked even more tired than usual.

A few days later I mailed a cassette copy of this potential #1 hit to the Kirk Cameron mailing address I had ripped out of
Bop
magazine. I'm still waiting for his reply.

CHAPTER 2:

A
fter the assembly turned into a nonstarter, Amanda and I spent the next year practicing our dance routine to Chaka Khan's “I Feel for You,” which consisted mostly of homoerotic grinding mixed with a few kick ball changes. By sixth grade, all our activities seemed to have developed a new undertone of sexuality. I believe one of our songs at that stage actually had the lyrics
I want you inside of me
. One day, when Chaka Khan was boring us, we caught a commercial for a phone-dating service and Amanda sweet-talked me into placing an ad. I pretty much did everything Amanda said, because her mom had the good snacks like Devil Dogs and Fruit Roll-Ups, and I didn't want to be banished back to the land of cheese and raisins where I came from. But I instantly saw a second reason to get excited about our ad: Maybe I would meet an older man who would understand me and my giant-child predicament, the way Amanda never could, and possibly be able to look into my eyes without the assistance of a stepstool.

For this particular dating service, you had to first call and leave a voicemail version of your “profile” for potential suitors. Then you could listen to other people's profiles and leave messages for them. After a while, if you
really
liked the person, you could leave your home phone number, and the potential mate would call, and then you'd go on a date and do dirty things that I had thus far practiced only on my Fred Savage poster.

I was pretty calm about the whole thing; it was only a voicemail, and I had about a dozen or so opportunities to get out if I wanted, considering all the steps until an actual date. So, first, we created my profile.

I used my interpretation of a “sexy” voice (based entirely on women I saw during an awkward viewing of the James Bond film
Octopussy
with my parents). I didn't fully understand the plot of
Octopussy
—there was a lot of hullabaloo over a Fabergé egg. This seemed ridiculous, as my grandmother had fancy eggs like that lying all around her New York City high-rise and no one seemed to want to kill her over them. But Octopussy's voice was sexy in a Kathleen Turner kind of way, and so I used her as inspiration and recorded this audio profile:

Hello. My name is Margot. I like to have fun. I'm five-foot-six, weigh about 115 pounds, and have blue eyes, blonde hair, and freckles. I'm an aspiring singer currently recording my demo with my writing partner. I love to dance, and right now my favorite song is Chaka Khan's “I Feel for You.” So if you feel for me, leave me a message.

It was sheer brilliance, and completely true. I didn't lie about being twelve years old; I just left it out. Amanda was really impressed. She insisted we move right on to hearing the guys' profiles and leaving messages for them. We probably gave the equivalent of a
Match.com
“wink” to about sixteen men, ranging from twenty-five to thirty-one.

A few called back and left replies. One guy's message stood out above the rest. He had a nerdy, nasal voice, but he sounded friendly:

Hi, my name is Paul; I'm a thirty-year-old bank teller who lives by
the shore. I enjoy surfing or just lying on the beach. I'm five feet tall, so if you think good things come in small packages, leave me a message.

I felt an instant connection to him. Paul was a tiny grown-up and I was a giant child. I felt that we could meet in the middle somewhere, and for just one second I could feel normal. Perhaps if Paul and I got married, our children would have a good shot at being average height and avoid the bizarre woman/child phase I was going through. Paul would understand me the way only a thirty-year-old undersize man could. Plus he was really good at puns, which I appreciated.

Amanda related to my quest for fun—for her, this was a perfect diversion from watching her mother sprinkle glitter on Styrofoam for the Bat Mitzvah centerpiece business she ran out of their garage. But she couldn't really understand how meaningful this could be for me—to meet a man of my own kind, weirdly heighted and treated differently for it.

In just two days, I went through all the appropriate steps with “good things come in small packages” Paul. I left him my profile; he liked it and then left me a personal message in my box. Apparently, Paul also had an affinity for Chaka Khan. I left him a message in my Octopussy voice and he left one in return. This went on for about a week (all charged to Amanda's mom's phone bill). Then Paul left me this message:

Hi, Margot, it's Paul. I' d love to talk to you one-on-one this week. I was wondering if I could get your phone number so we could talk beyond these voicemails. Hope to hear from you soon.

Amanda was psyched. “Margot, he's totally rich. I mean, he's a bank teller! Like, how many more opportunities are you going to get to go out with a rich guy? No one is rich here. Paul is rich. Rich, Margot! Just do it! Give him your phone number!”

Amanda was right; no one had big money in our town. My mom was a schoolteacher, my dad got home at 9:00
PM
every night from
a New York City commute just to make ends meet. A lot of locals ran landscaping businesses on the weekends, sold Avon or Amway or Mary Kay as a side business, and ran daycares out of their living rooms. I had seen how the other half lived on my weekend visits to my grandmother in New York City and wanted a piece of that taxi-riding, takeout-ordering, Duane Reade–shopping lifestyle. Linking up with Paul the tiny bank teller could be my ticket out. Maybe I wouldn't end up working as a Friendly's waitress (my hometown's version of Shotz Brewery). Maybe this was my season 6 very special episode of
Laverne & Shirley
, or should I say
Margot & Amanda
episode 113 “Not Quite New Jersey.” And so, I wrote yet another script and proceeded to leave Paul this message:

Hi, Paul. It's Margot. I' d love to chat with you directly, so if you could give me a call tomorrow AFTER THREE, that would be great. Make sure it's AFTER THREE; I will be at . . . uh . . . work. Until three. Recording my demo from eight to three. Anytime after that. But before nine. Actually before eight is good, because
ALF
is on tomorrow and I just love that show, and really would prefer not to miss an episode. Okay, give me a call. My number is—

And then I proceeded to give a thirty-year-old man my parents' phone number so he could unknowingly call and try to date me, a gargantuan, gawky girl who hadn't even gotten her braces
on
yet.

Amanda told me I did a great job on the message. I humbly agreed. I thought the
ALF
part really personalized it.

“Look, Margot, if it's true love, he'll wait. Paul will wait. Don't tell him your real age,” Amanda warned.

The following day during school, however, I started to get nervous. I was in too deep—how quickly I had become a gold-digging hussy! I barely got through the day; every time I glanced over at Amanda, she nodded her head and gave me a generic hand signal, which I knew meant
go for it
. At lunch that afternoon Amada had all the good stuff—Lay's
potato chips, that fluorescent orange spreadable cheese with the red plastic spreader, and Ecto Cooler, the limited edition
Ghostbusters
Hi-C juice box. Only the coolest kids at Lloyd Road Elementary School had Ecto Cooler. I had a Thermos filled with skim milk or room-temperature tap water, depending on the day. Amanda even had a crazy straw. I couldn't let her down.