I dream about modeling, which I began during the summer between fourth and fifth grade. My father had a customer at the furniture store who wrote a syndicated column called “Taffy’s Tips to Teens” that was published, among other places, in the New York Post. Her name was Gloria Shifferman, and, at some point, she asked to see photos of my dad’s two kids. When he showed her pictures of Dennis and me, she suggested that I try fashion modeling. Then she autographed her book—of the same title—for me.
That night when my dad came home with the book, he asked if I wanted to try modeling. He told me that when I came into the store to thank Mrs. Shifferman in person for the book, she’d tell me more about it. I said yes. That Saturday, when I went to thank Mrs. Shifferman—I’d already written and mailed her a formal thank-you note—she explained that she could give me the names of the top five modeling agencies in New York and that I should start with the top agency and work my way down. My mother was to call and make an appointment for me to go into Manhattan for a group interview. Folks there, she explained, would look at me, and, if they were interested, they’d tell me what to do next.
Mrs. Shifferman was a tall bleached-blonde of late middle age who wore a tailored, dark navy gabardine suit. She thought I was pretty, but more importantly, that I had the “look” that modeling agencies wanted.
“You’ll do great,” she said, as we sat on a floral print couch together in the furniture store. We were in the display on the front part of the floor, and customers walked past us. Mrs. Shifferman had on high heels and her knees peeked out from the hem of her tight skirt.
I asked Mrs. Shifferman how the agency would determine if they wanted me, and on what basis would that decision be made.
“You never know, sweet-pea. They might have you walk, or not. They’ll either see something they think is marketable or else they’ll simply pass on you. If that happens, your mom will make an appointment with the next agency down the list. If you go through them all, I’ll give you names of some other agencies. Someone will want you.”
Mrs. Shifferman opened my copy of Taffy’s Tips to Teens, which I’d brought with me. It was a hard-covered, slim volume, maybe two hundred pages at most. She found a black and white drawing of a thin, leggy girl in a traditionally waisted dress with a flared skirt. “Wear something like this. Almost to the knees, not too short. And you’ll want to wear socks, not stockings. You’ll be going into the children’s, not the teen’s, market.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Shifferman. Thank you for all you’ve done. The book is great. I love it.” I crossed my legs. I was wearing a plaid jumper with a cranberry colored jersey underneath, matching knee socks, and new Oxford shoes.
“I can see you’re becoming a young lady. I’m sure your dad is very proud of you.” Mrs. Shifferman rose and extended her hand.
I rose, too. I thought about curtseying but decided not to. I simply shook her hand. “Thanks again. I really enjoyed meeting you.”
“I’ll catch your news from your father. I wish you good luck. Remember that young ladies are our future; the civilized world depends on them.” She walked into the office where my dad was doing some paperwork. I watched through the glass window as my dad rose politely from his chair and shook her hand before they both sat to do business. As they talked, I felt very excited and ran down the wide staircase to watch Henry apply gold leaf to an end table. Henry usually had a piece of candy for me, and today was no exception. It was a Hershey’s kiss that he took from a plastic bag stashed away in a high drawer. I unwrapped the foil and stuck the chocolate into my mouth.
Two weeks later, my mom picked me up early from school, PS #5. I met her in the carpeted office as she was signing me out. She had a change of clothing for me—an old-fashioned cotton dress with a fitted bodice and full skirt—and we planned to drive into the city for my group modeling interview. First, however, I needed to change in the girls’ bathroom.
The afternoon sun poured through the high, west-facing side window of the bathroom. My mother and I were alone, standing by the row of white porcelain sinks, low against the tiled wall.
The dress my mom had chosen was one I didn’t like, thinking that it made me look like a little girl rather than a young lady upon whom the civilized world could depend. Also, my mom had brought along an itchy crinoline, and I knew I’d have to sit through a long car ride and possibly a subway ride in it.
I yanked the crinoline around, trying unsuccessfully to calm it down so that it would lie a bit flatter. But it didn’t cooperate and spread the full skirt out, shortening it inches above my knees. Also, my mom had brought white-laced bobby socks along with patent leather Mary Janes. I looked like a bizarre doll, not a fashion model.
“Mom, I look weird.”
“You’re beautiful. We’ve got to go, or we’ll be late.”
“Can I put the crinoline on in the car? It’s itchy. And these socks, I hate them.”
“Leave it all alone. I know what I’m doing. You’ll be fine.” Off we went, down the hall, where, I was grateful, no one saw me. Then we were in my mom’s Chevy Malibu, driving down Peninsula Boulevard, out Sunrise Highway to the Van Wyck Expressway, down Queens Boulevard, across the 59th Street Bridge, into Manhattan.
There was little traffic in the middle of the afternoon, and in forty-five minutes we were parking in a small underground garage just a few blocks from the Marge McDermott Modeling Agency, the top one in the city, Mrs. Shifferman’s first choice.
We stopped in the ladies’ room on the first floor of the large nondescript Manhattan office building, with its marble entranceway, door man, and concierge at a front desk, who directed us to the public bathroom, then to the fifth-floor agency. In the ladies’ room, my mom adjusted my crinoline dress and combed my wavy, strawberry blonde hair, which I wore long and pulled back with a hard-plastic, tortoiseshell-colored headband.
Looking into the full-length mirror in the little powder anteroom, I watched my mother as she made me presentable. I looked okay but younger than my years and very un-hip.
“This isn’t working, Mom,” I tried to complain, but I knew that my objection would fall on deaf ears and that it was too late for any change. “Maybe we should do this thing another day.” I tried but failed to smile at myself in the mirror.
“You look great. Trust me.” My mom was squatting by me in her tight-fitting burgundy dress and heels. I could smell her perfume and hairspray as she straightened my skirt, pulled up my bobby socks. When I finally managed a smile, trying to project my best self, and looked at myself in the mirror, I saw the hole in the back of my mouth where I’d lost a tooth.
My mom took my hand and calmly said, “Let’s go.”
We entered a large carpeted room filled with wall-to-wall kids—boys, girls, babies, toddlers, young teens. There were moms to match them. And lots of noise. Some were sitting in upholstered folding chairs arranged around the room’s perimeter.
As I walked in, still holding my mom’s hand, I noticed that the carpeted area was located in a roped-off section, and beyond the rope—which was red velvet, like the kind that cordon off long lines at fancy movie theaters—a marble tiled area connected two doorways at either end of the room.
No one came out to tell us what to expect. The room felt uncomfortably hot. I looked at my mom with an expression that said, maybe this was mistake and we should just go home. My mom smiled back at me as if to reassure me that no, the situation was all right and that we needed to give it some time.
There were no vacant seats. Many people, including us, had to stand. Babies cried, toddlers whined. The large plate glass office window at the side of the room looked out onto the city street, where cars were stalled in traffic and honking—the very beginning of rush hour.
Then an elegant woman appeared, and the crowd hushed as if she were a movie star. She certainly was glamorous, in high patent leather, spiked heels, and a tweed business suit with a yoke collar and pearls. Her hair was done up in a sophisticated high bun, worn at the back of her head. She walked back and forth twice across the marble tile, heels clicking. The room remained quiet, and she glanced over us all, pointing to three children.
“You, you, and you,” she said, and at the final you had pointed at me. “The rest can leave. Thanks for considering the Marge McDermott agency.” She exited through the door at the opposite end of the hallway. A man came out, exactly on cue, to unhook the velvet rope and to nod the three of us in—a very young girl, maybe three or four years old, me, and another girl, perhaps a few years older.
As if it had been the most natural thing in the world, my mother found my hand, squeezed it, and we walked along with the two other sets of moms and girls into a swanky back room.
“Please, sit down,” the woman in the tweed suit said. She was already seated behind a large kidney-shaped dark wood desk. She didn’t rise to greet us. The man who had unhooked the rope stood by the now closed door. He was dressed, I noticed, in a black pin-striped suit and had his hands folded together in front like a TV gangster.
“I’m Marge McDermott, and I want to welcome you to our agency,” she said.
I sat beside my mom, listening as the woman—Marge, she preferred to be called—explained that she would arrange for a photographer to take photos for our “composites”—a sheet that would contain a sample of photos and our information—and that if they looked good, we’d do photo-modeling as well as fashion shows. But if they didn’t, we’d just be doing fashion shows.
Marge offered the moms written contracts to be returned at a later date. There were forms to fill out—so that we could get Social Security cards and working papers. We’d be paid per job, and the rate of pay varied considerably. Much of this information flew by me, and really, I was still in shock that I’d been selected.
There’d been beautiful girls out in that room. Stunning girls and young women whom Marge had passed over. And here I was in my silly white bobby socks, my little-girl dress. I felt like a fool, a pretender, a fraud.
k
I sit in the bedroom, on the wicker reading chair. Awake again, late morning. In front of me is my life.
I can do anything. I can. I can read all day or sleep all day. Eat or starve. Kill myself or write my book. Ambivalence is my middle name. Everything’s complicated.
When I was almost thirteen, I attempted suicide. My brother had tied me up earlier in the evening, put me in the closet, but this time I decided to protest and scream. And rather than gag me, he let me out. Rushing, I’d stumbled over winter boots and old umbrellas, the heavy coats like woolen ghosts hanging above, the closet dark and strange, full of damp, unfriendly smells.
Dennis wanted to go out and leave me alone, which was fine with me, but wouldn’t be fine with my parents. Letting me out and giving me a piece of chocolate cake was part of his bribe.
“I’ll give you a dollar, and I’ll be your slave tomorrow.” Dennis was dressed in jeans, a button-down shirt, and already had his junior varsity jacket on.
“Where you going?” I sat in the hallway. We’d thrown the boots, umbrellas, and other random items back into the closet. I wore my flannel nightgown but was barefoot. The hall tiles were cold and the front part of the house was dark. My brother hated to leave lights on. He had a kind of quirky fastidiousness. Sometimes he’d go into the bathroom to straighten the towels on the racks or come behind me with a sponge if I left crumbs on the kitchen counter.
“I’m going over to Marlene’s for a couple of hours.” Marlene and Marc were Evelyn and Frank’s kids. In fact, my parents were out with Evelyn and Frank—to dinner and a movie. Usually, after dinner the four of them would go back to our house or theirs to play cards, but tonight they’d wanted to see a recently released movie playing at Central Theater in Cedarhurst. They were going for drinks afterwards. Because their family lived about twenty houses down the block, we kids keep in close contact.
“Let me come too,” I said. For years, I had had an on-again-off-again crush on Marc, who was a year older than I.
“You can’t see Marc,” Dennis said. “He’s spending the night at a friend’s. Marlene’s alone. I want to see her.”
“Okay,” I said. This was actually the second-best situation. If I couldn’t see Marc, I could read a book alone in the house without Dennis teasing me, which he often did when I read or played my music.
“Call if you need me. Be good.” Dennis gave me one of his fake, exaggerated winks as he zipped up his jacket and walked to the front door. “Lock it behind me. I’ve got a key. You can stay up until I come home. Take one piece of cake. One piece. That’s it. Mom put it on the top shelf of the pantry. It’s still in the box.”
“What about my dollar?”
Dennis pulled his wallet from his front pocket, took out a dollar, extended his hand for me to come get it, a sort of passive-aggressive relenting.
“What about tomorrow?” I asked. “You gonna do what I say?”
“Yeah, yeah. We’ll see,” Dennis said. But I knew the slave part of the bargain was already history.
Then Dennis left. I watched the front door close behind him. I bolted the door, fastened the security chain.
My mood went black. While Dennis was present, I could hate him. But now, I only hated myself. I hated the life I had—my parents, school, home with Dennis. I felt a weight in my chest, an anchor mooring me to some desperate place in a rough sea of powerfully sad, depressing thoughts.
What’s the point? I asked myself. What’s the point of anything? Eating? Sleeping? Watching TV? Reading a book? Making friends? I thought then as I think now, remembering.
I opened the hall closet where I’d been held prisoner and took my winter coat off its hanger. Putting it on, I walked out the back door and into our small yard—a concrete patio mostly, with a little grass around it, beyond which was a chain-link fence that stretched around Meadowbrook Pond, the man-made lake. I sat down on the patio’s rear-facing steps, staring into the calm black water. Stars littered the sky, and houselights from across the lake glittered like colored rhinestones.
I hugged my coat around me and began to cry. Cold and alone, I began to pray, muttering the Sha’ma Yisrael. But I couldn’t find my faith. I decided there was no God—no heaven, no hell, except the one I was living.
I sat there for a while, then walked inside, deciding to check the medicine cabinet in my parents’ bathroom, to see if the valium capsules that my dad took regularly to help with his insomnia were there in sufficient number. Perhaps I could end it all. I found two vials—one completely full, the other partially full. I took eight capsules from each, thinking my dad would probably never notice—stupid logic, of course, because he’d figure it out if I ended up dead.
I put away my coat in the front hall closet, stuffed the sixteen pills into my bathrobe pocket, heading for the kitchen, for a piece of cake, a glass of cold milk. I thought about having myself a little party, and suddenly, I felt liberated, joyful, giddy. I put on my old Meet the Beatles album, remembering how as a young girl Joannie, Linda and I—all best friends in early grade school—would dance to it in Linda Freedman’s finished basement. We’d spend an entire Saturday playing this record over and over again, dancing with each other, practicing “The Swim,” “The Pony,” “The Jerk” to “I Saw Her Standing There” and “All My Loving.” When “This Boy” came on, we’d get dreamy, maybe even tear up, thinking about boys and romance.
I sat at the kitchen table, devoured my milk and cake, and, after putting my dirty dishes in the dishwasher, I turned the music up even louder and walked to the front foyer, where the large mirror there covered an entire wall. It was “smoked” with streaks of gray and brown, a look that my mother, in particular, liked, for it created a kind of “antique elegance,” she’d said.
Now, it became the perfect reflection for my mood. I took off my nightgown, bathrobe, and danced naked. I turned up the volume, made a dramatic entrance into the hall, took a bow, made a courtesy, pretending to lift the hem of my skirt, then began a wild, full-on boogaloo.
After the performance, I apologized to the mirror, my audience, for any inadequacies of my dance routine and left the “stage.” I found my nightgown and bathrobe on the floor, dressed, and walked downstairs to the bar to find something with which to wash down the valium.
The bar was an elaborate add-on my parents had constructed during the first year we lived in the house. About twelve feet long, with a Formica countertop and wood-paneled sides, the bar had six black barstools lining the front, with liquor cabinets built into the back. None of the cabinets had locks.
I found a bottle of clear vodka, decided it must be easy to drink, poured out a full glass, and went upstairs. The music still played, loud and crazy. I turned it off, and the new silence changed the whole mood of the house—as if the soundtrack had stopped while the movie continued.
Gil, our dog, slept on my parents’ bed, and I walked into their room to pet him, to say goodbye. I loved him, and it seemed particularly sad to leave him with Dennis.
I walked back into the front foyer, with the valium still in my pocket, the glass of vodka in my hand. Watching myself in the smoky mirror, I stuffed the capsules into my mouth, using the vodka to help swallow them. I had to choke them down. I’d never had alcohol before, and this stuff tasted like liquid electricity. I immediately suppressed coughing the capsules up; my throat burned, my eyes teared.
After I got them all down, I drank the entire tall glass of vodka, although each mouthful fought me. It was awful. I couldn’t imagine why adults drank this for pleasure.
My head began to swim. Dizzy and sad, I wanted to return to my bedroom, turn off the light, go to sleep, never to wake up. I thought about my parents finding me the next morning. How they’d probably wake up late for Sunday brunch, with orange juice, fresh bagels and bialys—my favorite—lox, scallion cream cheese, and mounds of tomato-and-onion scrambled eggs. Then, there’d be coffee cake for dessert, with a fresh pot of coffee brewing, its aroma filling the kitchen, bright with morning sun glinting across the lake. They’d open the curtains to the view, spread The Sunday New York Times across the table. My favorite were the magazine and book review sections.
Dennis might be in the pool room, shooting with the cue stick he’d been given last year as a birthday present. Perhaps he’d have risen unexpectedly early, had cake for breakfast, and would be now practicing Eight-Ball so as to beat my grandfather the next time they played.
My dad, I imagined, would at some point ask, “Where’s Rae?” At first, my mother would reply, “Let her sleep in,” but by dessert, she’d suggest that someone wake me. Perhaps my dad would volunteer, go to my bedroom door, knock, call my name. When I didn’t answer, he’d call more loudly, “Rae, Rae. We’re having breakfast, sweetie. Come join us.” With no answer, he’d open the door, come over to my bed, put his hand on me, gently try to wake me.
Soon, he’d find I was cold, even beneath my blanket, which he’d throw back. Then, he’d see I was dead.
“Ed, Ed, come here!” he’d scream. My mom would dash in, moving gracefully but swiftly down the carpeted hallway to my bedroom.
“What’s wrong, Bernie? What’s going on?” she’d yell, realizing with horror that something terrible had happened. She’d rush in to find me, throw herself over my limp body, weep like the world had ended.
I thought all this as I lay on the large Linoleum tiles, crafted to look like Greco-Roman stonework. I was, however, unable to move, unable to walk back to my bedroom so that my mom and dad could find me the next morning.
Instead, I fell asleep in the foyer, in front of the smoky mirror. I felt very cold, I remember, before I lost consciousness, wishing I could make it to bed. Then, I felt incredibly stupid and blacked out.
A little after midnight, I woke up. I had puked and found myself in a large puddle of mushy orange-brown vomit. My bathrobe and nightgown were soiled, and neither Dennis nor my parents were home yet.
I got up, and with difficulty, pulled off my clothing, dumping them in the bathtub. Naked, I stumbled into the kitchen, pulled out the roll of paper towels from its dispenser and a paper bag from under the sink so as to clean up my mess. I did my best to scrub the stinky place with an old sponge, tossed it into the paper bag, and sat down in the bathtub to run the shower, wash myself and my vomit-stained clothing before stuffing them wet into the washing machine. Finding an old pair of flannel pajamas, I took the paper bag to the outside trashcan. We had two large trashcans with metal sleeves sunk into the pavement—my parents had paid masons to construct these so that our unsightly garbage cans wouldn’t be visible or stink from the patio. I lifted the heavy lid of one of them, folded the bag up tight, put it in.
The night was cold and clear, with stars and the moon out, shining on the still surface of Meadowbrook Pond. My head throbbed something fierce, but I felt clean—amazed and happy to be alive. I will live, I decided. God had given me another chance.
I promised myself that I’d study hard, get excellent grades. I’d read important books about the world around me so that I myself could grow smarter, stronger, more powerful. And I’d write—poems about my torture, about how my friends hurt me, about my pains, joys, my private thoughts. Already I felt strong—a girl with resolve, a plan, a purpose.