When I was thirteen, my family and I moved to a suburb in Melbourne’s northeast called Warrandyte. Warrandyte circa 1992 is best described as a place where wealthy, geriatric hippies lived in treated-pine mansions. Their pastimes would typically include robust games of Trivial Pursuit, doing craft using the natural environment as their source material and tending to their own personal crops of marijuana. It was a peaceful, sleepy town where parents drank cask wine and favoured crystals over deodorant. Dreamcatchers outsold milk and bread two to one in Wazza.
The main drag in Warrandyte didn’t offer much in the way of fun times. The highlight was a shop confusingly called Scandals Candles! I’m not quite sure how the scandal portion of the shop title came into play and to this day I question the need for the exclamation point. When I think of salacious acts, patchouli-scented tea lights don’t exactly spring to mind. I refuse to believe it was purely for alliteration purposes. I like to think the owners poured hot wax on their genitals while chanting Satanic verses before crafting the candles they sold and that’s what made them scandalous.
There was one clothing shop called River Clay that dealt exclusively in tie-dyed, hemp fisherman pants. They also had the monopoly on the lucrative dreamcatcher market. Not surprisingly the owner drove a new Mercedes. Our art gallery only ever displayed local handmade pottery: ‘da Vinci da Sminchie! Have you seen this divine pinch pot Maria Skogal made from clay she found beneath her house?’ We also had an organic health food shop (way before they were cool) that had twenty-three different types of herbal tea.
There certainly wasn’t a lot for the youth of Warrandyte to do. As a teen there was no way to escape, there were only two buses that went in and out each day, and we never really knew when, as they seemed to operate on a schedule known only to the drivers. We had the Yarra River to frolic in during the warmer months; of course, that was if you didn’t mind the odd brown snake whooshing past you on a rapid. I once spent a summer trying to smoke cedarwood-flavoured incense, I’d read that it promoted power and strength if you burned it, so imagine what smoking it would do for me! The pamphlet I’d seen in River Clay (of course that’s where I’d purchased the incense sticks) did say to do it in a fort or castle with an army before battle but all I had was our chook shed. Sadly, it was sans chooks as there had been a massacre on Easter Sunday: a fox had literally got into the hen house and taken them all. To this day the incident is still referred to, among my family, in hushed tones and never within earshot of my mother, as The Great Easter Sunday Chook Massacre.
For me, the one huge bonus about moving to Warrandyte was the fact that the boy I was completely and somewhat disturbingly obsessed with lived only a street away. His name was Ryan – even typing his name now makes my heart race a little. His coolness factor was off the charts. He had blond hair that was styled similarly to Kurt Cobain’s (who was hitting his peak at this time), amazing eyes, tanned skin, long, muscular limbs and could sing. His father drove a vintage Porsche. Ryan’s hotness covered a three-grade radius. By that I mean the girls in the year below him, in his year and the one above were all in love with him. Obviously not that same love I felt, silly superficial bitches. My love was real and deep and belonged on The Wonder Years with Kevin Arnold and Winnie Cooper. One afternoon Ryan was running to catch the bus and as I watched him run, wondering what we’d call our kids, I noticed something fall from his backpack. I checked no-one was looking and I swooped in on it and to my absolute delight I saw that it was his deodorant. Something that had touched him! Something that smelled like him! For a small, apprentice stalker that was a jackpot. I shoved it in the front pocket of my backpack and quickly looked around to see if anyone had witnessed my desperate act. No-one had – the perfect crime! Yes, I accept I was one step away from knitting a yarn doll from our combined DNA.
There was just one thing standing between Ryan and me. One major roadblock souring our inevitable eternal love: MY BODY HAIR. By the age of thirteen I was essentially a hobbit with a taste for glitter. The stuff was growing everywhere, from the tops of my feet to the tips of my fingers. Can I ask, what possible evolutionary purpose is there for giving an thirteen-year-old girl hairy feet? Why did God smite me so? I’m not kidding, me emerging from the shower each morning was reminiscent of the opening scenes from Gorillas in the Mist. I had a snail trail you could plait and a fine set of hairy koala ears that hung out either side of my undies. Once the nipple hair arrived, the only smooth skin I possessed was the soles of my feet.
Oh yes, for any men who may be accidentally reading this book, we ladies get boob pubes or, as I like to call them, bubes. In my experience, that is the threshold most women will not cross with their partners. We will shit ourselves giving birth in front of you, allow you to stroke our hair as we delicately chunder, but you will never see our boob hair, that is our line in the sand.
I didn’t know what to do about all the hair. My mother didn’t tell me how to go about removing it as she is a blonde, blue-eyed, hairless Australian woman. I’m not even kidding – naked, she looks like a seal, not one goddamn hair on her body.
Needless to say, when my sports teacher told us that the school swimming carnival was coming up, I became catatonic with panic. I was in Year 7, and it would be the first time that we’d all see each other in our bathers. The stakes had never been higher, maximum hotness was required, so basically I was fucked. My classmates had no idea of the thick patches of hair I was unwittingly cultivating beneath my tartan kilt and cream cotton shirt. The date of the swimming carnival loomed large on the horizon. I went to bed thinking about it and I woke up thinking about it. I planned to fake being unwell to get out of going to school, and three days out I began complaining of a sore throat and headache. I had to plant the seeds of sickness well in advance if I had any hope of convincing my mother I was truly unwell come the day of the dreaded event. I didn’t succeed, she called my bluff when I thought perhaps I could still go to athletics training, my only reason for existing at that point. ‘If you’re well enough to run, you’re well enough to swim.’ Tough love from my mother AKA the hairless wonder.
When the day arrived, I hadn’t been able to do much deforestation. When I popped on my green speedos in the locker room, to my horror I noticed my armpit hair could no longer be tucked away and held in place with sweat and Impulse Merrily Musk. It looked like I had two guinea pigs nestling under each arm. As I desperately tried to rip them out with my bare hands, a girl named Rose walked into the locker room and looked straight at me. I couldn’t get my pits in check in time and she caught a glimpse of the situation under my arms.
Reeling back in horror she exclaimed, ‘OH MY GOD! THAT IS GROSS!’
I was mortified. Of all the people to see me of course it had to be her. Rose had the kind of tits that made watching her do the backstroke a religious experience. She had the body of a Playboy Playmate at thirteen. Her hotness knew no limits. She had a gap in her front teeth that made her look like Madonna and a very rich father who went to the Oscars for a film he’d worked on. The Year 12 boys wanted her as much as the Year 7 ones did. Oh, and probably the most poignant thing about her was that she was also Ryan’s girlfriend because OF COURSE SHE FUCKING WAS.
Rose backed out of the locker room at an impressive pace and ran towards the pool. I didn’t know what to do. I knew she’d be gathering an army, and as I stood alone and frightened in the dunnies I imagined her describing the black forest upon my person to every single judgemental teenager she came across. Rallying the troops against me, whipping them into a hormone fuelled frenzy. I sat paralysed with fear, waiting for the repercussions of Rose seeing my untamed body mane. Then, after ten or so minutes, I knew my fate. Over the loudspeaker I heard: ‘Could Emy HAIRYano please report to the pool deck, your fifty-metre freestyle event is about to start. Emy HAIRYano.’
That brilliant bitch.
I wasn’t even in the fifty-metres freestyle!
Needless to say, this incident pushed me over the edge. Not long after I found an old, rusty BIC razor of my dad’s, locked myself in the bathroom and took to my legs. The thing is, I didn’t know about lubrication before shaving. I hacked away at my red raw skin and removed most of the upper layer of my shin. Do you think the masses of blood pouring off my legs stopped me? Christ no, I thought that if I removed enough of the leg the hair could never, ever grow back. My knees didn’t fare much better and then as I attempted my inner thigh, I slipped and cut it deeply. Look, I don’t know how great your biology is but there is a pretty major artery running along your inner thigh. I realised things were getting out of hand when the first towel became saturated with blood. Long story short: I had to go to hospital and have my thigh sutured together with butterfly bandaids.
Unfortunately this wouldn’t be the only trip to the emergency department involving attempted hair removal. I had become obsessed with finding ways to rid myself of my situation and on a food shopping expedition with my mum, I saw something called a Silkymit. I knew she wouldn’t buy it for me so I stole it.
You see, on the packaging it promised to remove hair with just a few gentle strokes. I could do that! I was also relieved to have finally found an answer that didn’t involve sharp edges or boiling hot wax. As I had the coverage of a large bear, I decided to go in with a more heavy-handed technique, upping the ante on the ‘gentle strokes’ and going more with an ‘aggressive stabbing’ motion. The result was not the silky smooth, hair-free body promised. The result was second-degree burns on my flaps and another trip to the hospital for some topical cream and light bandaging.
The other major issue I was having at this time, besides the body hair, was my menstrual cycle. It appeared to have a mind of its own and showed up whenever it damn well pleased. One afternoon in Year 8 science I felt a wet patch in my nether regions as I shifted in my seat. Naturally my first though was, Oh God I’ve shat my pants. We’ve all been there right, guys? Guys?
I gently raised myself up to inspect the damage and there on the back of my green and white striped uniform, to my pain and anguish, was the Japanese flag. It was horrific. It looked like a traffic accident involving a small animal had occurred on the bottom half of my school uniform. We’re talking a level one, no-where-to-run blow-out. I felt betrayed by my vagina. I waited until everyone else had left the classroom and then quickly tied my jumper around my waist. I spent the rest of the day hiding in the girls’ toilets. When the final bell rang it dawned on me that I needed to get myself to the bus bay and onto a bus home without anyone seeing the back of me. I was also troubled by the prospect of the beige-coloured faux velvet bus seats. I couldn’t make any sort of contact with them or it would be clot-o-clock, if you know what I mean. You don’t ever live down a period-stained school dress and you know it.
With my jumper and a lowered backpack acting as a shield over the large red stain, I kept my back to the wall as I made my way to the bus stop. I crab walked onto my bus, found a seat near the front and squatted above it. I had to be careful to make sure it looked like I was actually sitting and be equally as careful to not actually sit. TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES I STAYED IN THAT DEEP SQUAT. My legs were starting to violently shake as the bus pulled in to drop me off. Mercifully, I lived only fifty metres from the stop. The problem was Ryan (you know, only the love of my life) also got off at this stop and being the perfect human that he is, stood up and waited for me to get off first. This would have required me to walk past him which of course meant I ran the risk of SMEARING PERIOD BLOOD ON HIS LEG. Then I would be in front of him, which would leave the blow-out at the back possibly exposed. I just stared at him with wide, panicked eyes and shook my head like a carnival clown game. He smiled that glorious half-crooked smile at me, laughed and got off the bus. I waited until he was a safe distance away, then carefully manoeuvred myself down the steps all the while clenching my legs together to stem the overflow and waddled up my street. When I got home and inspected the damage there was nothing left to do but shower, fully clothed.
I lusted after Ryan for all of high school, but he never knew. I did eventually start dating his best friend, Clarke. Partly because Clarke was very cute but mostly because it put me one degree from the object of my intense affection. When I left the school, I didn’t see Ryan for a long time, in fact we didn’t have any contact until many years later. Let me see if I can recall the date . . . Sunday 27 February 2011. My daughters and I were at the movies, about to embark on a slaying of the classic Romeo and Juliet (Gnomeo and Juliet) and I heard someone say, ‘Emy Rusciano.’
I think you know where I’m going with this.
IT WAS RYAN!
My God, so many thoughts and emotions. I’ll try to give them to you in order:
1. Shit, I’m not wearing any make-up!
2. Oh, he looks amazing.
3. Damn, my children are here.
4. Shut up, you love your kids.
5. Yes but they make me seem unavailable.
6. You are unavailable you twat, you’re married.
7. Shhh, brain, Ryan might hear you.
8. Wait, he’s in a kids’ movie. He must have kids.
9. Shit, he’s married. So are you, remember?
10. Oh God, it’s been too long I have to say something . . .
Em: ‘Ryan! Wow, how did you know it was me?’
Oh brilliant, Em. Great opening line for the man you obsessed over for most of high school.
Ryan: ‘I see you on the TV each week, it wasn’t hard.’
Brain going into meltdown – he’s been watching me on the TV?
Em: ‘What? Really? You, um . . . watch TV? Of course you do . . . So . . . Oh . . . You’ve seen me on the TV.’
Mayday! Mayday! We’re heading for a crash landing.
Ryan: ‘Are these your girls?’
It took me a while to respond to this one, for ten seconds I was standing at the bus stop I had shared with him during high school. They were the greatest five minutes of each day.
Em: ‘Oh, yes. This is Chella and Odie. Are you here with offspring also?’
Ryan: ‘Yes, I’ve got two here and two on the way. This is my wife . . .’
Yes, he was an almost father of four. He had a lovely wife, they lived near where he and I grew up, they go to the movies together on Sundays and he hadn’t aged one day.
The movie started and so of course I sat there analysing and agonising over the three-minute conversation we’d squeezed in. I had to make up for my atrocities when the lights came up so I started workshopping ideas.
I would ask about the impending birth to throw them off the fact I obviously still had a schoolgirl crush.
I would talk about my husband – YES, MY HUSBAND! Someone loves me now, that’s right!
As the lights came up I steadied myself – I knew this had the potential to go horribly wrong. I needed this to end on witty banter at the very least.
We gathered up our respective children and walked slowly up the stairs.
This is it, Em, get it together . . . Nothing boring or inane . . . You need pizazz and brilliance . . .
However, as I looked at him with his two impossibly beautiful sons and glowingly pregnant wife who he obviously adored, I realised I was being ridiculous. What did I think was going to happen? I’d impress him so much he’d obviously want to go back in time and be my boyfriend? Because that’s as far as I had got. I wanted him for my fourteen-year-old self – it wasn’t practical for now.
Once I remembered I was in my thirties and not fourteen I was able to look at him through adult eyes and see that ship had well and truly sailed.
In the end we talked about gestational diabetes and nappies, I gave him a kiss and a hug (swoon – look I’m only human, okay?) and I wished him all the best. When I got home I went to my glory box and finally threw that can of Lynx Africa in the bin.