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.
CHAPTER 2
EXPAND YOUR HORIZONS
My first couple of experiences with sex didn’t exactly go as planned. Then again, neither did the next forty. When I hear about women who have tidy, pretty, lingerie-infused sexual encounters, all I think is, Where’s the part where you break your toe and have to mop up? Some women’s torrid love affairs belong in movies with James Bond. Others of us, with Will Ferrell.
At the beginning of August, I began counting down the days to the start of high school. I couldn’t wait to walk down the hallways in slow motion with my posse, like in a John Hughes movie, and I didn’t even have that many friends. It was the potential that fueled my enthusiasm. Take thi
s entry from my high school diary, dated September 1: “I know this year is going to be amazing. I want an amazing life, full of the most wonderful times, friends, boyfriends, laughs and tears, boyfriends, and for the upcoming years to be the best years EVER!”
Yes, I wrote boyfriends and amazing twice.
Western Canada High was not only the biggest high school in Calgary but also the coolest, situated in the heart of the city and surrounded by cute dress shops, restaurants, and cafés. Taking the public bus there every morning made me feel so grown-up—like I was going to my sexy job at a detective agency rather than to a dry biology class taught by a teacher so boring that the chapter on reproductive organs wasn’t even funny. My mother gave me fifty dollars for first-day-of-school clothes. My challenge: find an outfit that would communicate a unique sense of style that everyone wanted to copy but couldn’t, no matter how hard they tried. I’d be untouchable. The answer was Le Chateau, a retail chain that sold cheap, trendy clothing to high school girls whose parents had given them fifty dollars. It was also where all my friends shopped. Somehow we believed that the mass-produced lacey tops and identical jewel-toned felt berets we wore marked us as individuals. Lucky for me, I was able to set myself apart by being one of the few who looked good in mustard.
Although the standard cliques were well represented at our school—jocks, headbangers, stoners, nerds—the student body was essentially divided into two groups: the smart people and the rest of us. The smart people were enrolled in this Geneva-based International Baccalaureate Program, or the IB Program. Fortunately for them, it was before irritable bowel syndrome was a household name. This education program offered advanced classes for the more gifted students, ensuring them acceptance into prestigious colleges, and all but guaranteeing them plum careers at companies like AIG, Lehman Brothers, Pfizer, and other top-notch corporate empires. The rest of us would have to settle for a shitty education at a mediocre college and a future working at some podunk company where our uncle knew the manager.
The clincher was that my application for the IB Program was rejected. During my interview with the Ministry of Swiss Intelligence, or whatever they called themselves, they claimed that the amount of time I spent in ballet classes would distract me from my studies. To which I blurted, “Listen, I’m a terrible dancer, not very flexible, and I can barely keep my balance in a double pirouette!” In retrospect, pleading mediocrity probably wasn’t the best strategy, but I accepted my fate. It was just as well. I didn’t fit their profile. I had decent grades but no specific plans to make anything of myself. This is not to say I didn’t have ambition—my focus was deeper. Per my journal, I had goals. Secure a boyfriend. Spiral-perm my hair. Lose my virginity. Probably in reverse order.
As with most high schools, the popular students at mine were the athletic rich kids, and I can tell you, I was neither of those things. It didn’t matter. I had no interest in being popular. I related more to the math whizzes, chemistry lab nuts, and drama geeks anyway. Ferris Bueller was my social role model, and I aspired to be a friend to all, without having to conform to any one clique. The ultimate self-assured outsider. Who knew this would prepare me for the life of a stand-up comic?
Also, I wanted to get my virginity over with, lose the new-car smell of my adolescence, shower, and start living real life. I worshipped my older sister, who moved back home after a fight with her boyfriend when she was twenty-seven. The fight was so monumental that he apologized for it by buying her a nose job, a toy poodle, and a massive diamond ring. She accepted all the gifts but wasn’t interested in moving back in with him right away. I looked up to her so much, it surprised me that we were the same height. Even though we lived under the same roof, she existed in an alternate universe, one in which a looping conveyer belt ferried her daily from her bed, to her makeup vanity, through her extensive closet, then out the other side bedecked in spandex and sequins, where she’d be whooshed out the front door to a vast network of parties and bars—then back again for another round. She spoke to me like a fortuneteller, warning me of my future. It didn’t look promising. Before I’d even swallowed one drop of alcohol, she predicted that vodka would make me argue with my boyfriend (she was right), and that I’d also suffer a falling out when in the presence of Jose Cuervo and Captain Morgan. She promised me that losing my virginity would not be the beautiful and romantic experience movies made it out to be. Instead, it would be more akin to how English philosopher Thomas Hobbes described the life of man in his natural state: nasty, brutish, and short. “Don’t waste it on someone special that you really love,” she advised. “Just get it over with so you can move on to better sex.”
The realization that I had control over how and when I lost my virginity empowered me. If my thighs were actually going to balloon out as much as my sister said they would over the next ten years, I needed to get sexually proactive.
Up to that point, I’d done my fair share of kissing, and even skipped past second base with a Latino guy I met at a teenage nightclub called The Flipside. This was one of those all-ages dance clubs where fourteen-and fifteen-year-old kids would go to bop around to Madonna, Depeche Mode, and The Cure while downing five-dollar sodas.
Guys we didn’t know would ask us to dance, including this Latino kid who resembled my music idol, Prince. While Echo and the Bunnymen’s “Lips Like Sugar” segued into Prince’s “The Beautiful Ones,” he held me close, reached under my denim pencil skirt, and proceeded to finger me. I was fascinated that I could get to third base while standing vertically on a dance floor. It was more shocking than titillating, but it was progress. I applauded his dexterity. His hand snaked in there like an electrician finding a light switch in the dark. While he continued, my mind wandered to what would happen next. Would I have a boyfriend at a different high school? It had never occurred to me to look beyond the blue-lockered confines of our hallways. Would I go to two proms? I hoped he was from one of those bad schools in the Northwest.
The song ended, and Boy George’s “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me” came on next. Not knowing what to do or say, I thanked him and dashed away to regale my friends with the details of my dance-floor diddle. They were in awe and asked me to point out the handy bandit, hoping he’d ask them to dance next. I looked around but my Latino lover had disappeared into the throng of dancing teenagers, perhaps to find a bathroom to wash his hands. We didn’t exchange numbers, and after thinking about that finger-bang moment over and over again for a couple of days, I learned that The Flipside had been shut down because some kids had smuggled in shampoo bottles filled with alcohol. We’d hit the end of an era before it had even gained traction and settled back into our routine of scanning the gymnasium’s bleachers for potential suitors.
Most of my friends were appalled that I wanted to “get rid of” my virginity as soon as I could, as if I were talking about back acne or a sticker collection. To them, casting off my chastity so flagrantly sounded sinful and slutty. They stressed that popping your cherry with just anyone would be yucky and depressing and I’d regret it forever. My friend Cheryl was the only one who agreed with me. She was in the IB Program. She was also considered one of the prettiest girls in our high school and was a math and science wizard. Her logical brain saw the strengths of my theory. Either that or she was an enabler. It didn’t matter—Cheryl and I instantly became inseparable.
One Saturday afternoon, we were hanging out in Cheryl’s basement doing what we always did: listening to Prince while working on our Lotus 123 spreadsheet titled “Potent.wk1” (“potentials” being too long for the file name conventions of that era). We used it to rate guys on their looks, personality (which we called the “nice quotient”), and type of car they drove, and then converted these stats into a pie chart so we could see whose slice came up the biggest. I suggested that we should try losing our virginity on the same night—not to the same guy, of course, or in any scenario worthy of pay-per-view programming, but more as an intellectual data-gathering experiment. Cheryl agreed this was an
excellent plan. But where could we set up our lab? It clearly had to be somewhere away from our parents, school, and prissy friends. And where would we find these lab-rat guys to begin with? While our game of sexual Sudoku was missing a few numbers, we could still prepare for it, so we came up with a code phrase to signal each other if the moment was right: “Expand your horizons.” Brilliant.
To set the plan in motion, we met at Cheryl’s locker every lunch hour, located on the floor that was allocated to the IB Program, and ate our sandwiches while a bunch of the gifted and talented boys buzzed around us. What I lacked in blonde hair and high school ambition, I made up for in my ability to do silly impressions—especially of my family. I soon became known as “Cheryl’s jokey friend Ophira.” Did this win me dates? Not exactly, but at least they knew my name.
Among this small swarm of IB boys were a pair of twins named Jake and Matt. While they weren’t lab-trial quality, they had very high nice-quotients and were constantly trying to impress Cheryl. One day, they mentioned that they played in a rock band with two other guys. A rock band?! Cheryl and I were instantly intrigued. When could we see their band in action? we asked, and who were these other members? Jake told us (Or was it Matt? Who could tell.) that the lead singer and bassist ate their lunch in the cafeteria. No wonder we’d never met them! Since we brought our own bag lunch, we rarely ventured into the high school equivalent of a mess hall. It was time for a field trip. Cheryl and I grabbed our notebooks, reteased our bangs, and descended down to the lunchroom. Here, Jake and Matt motioned toward a couple of unoccupied gray enamel stools attached to the folding cafeteria table that the band claimed as their own.
Screw Everyone Page 2