If nothing more, should he need it, I could provide an ear to listen, and a shoulder to lean on if he wanted to unload or vent. Worst-case scenario, I thought, he wouldn’t read my work, or he’d be too freaked out to carry on any relationship at all. I hoped for the best.
Later, he called me while standing duty at the barracks.
“I read it,” he said, his voice deep and booming. It reminded me of Papa’s. In the background there was shouting and whistling that brought me back to living in my dorm room. Before I could thank him for reading or ask what his thoughts were, he continued.
“I’m impressed. You could say that I’ve fought my battles and you’ve fought yours,” he said. “We’re both veterans, just different wars.”
I was flattered by his analogy. I felt brave and oddly recognized. Honored, almost. With such a simple sentiment, he did more than validate everything I had been through. He appreciated it.
“I know this sounds really weird, but I would like to meet you,” he said. His voice turned softer, genuine, and kind. “I’ve never met anyone with dwarfism before, someone who has gone through bone-lengthening surgery. It would be cool to meet a person who knew what it was like to crawl out of hell but still keep a smile on their face.”
I’d been picturing him while we were on the phone, long before he even brought up the idea of meeting. I wondered what it would be like to look into his eyes in person.
“Yeah, it would be cool to meet.”
“I don’t even know how that would work, but it would be nice. Put a face or something to the letters beyond just a photo, ya know?”
We finished up our conversation in our usual, casual way, but there was nothing casual about what swirled around and around in my head. And maybe even a little in my heart. I sent many things overseas to troops, but I have never met any of them. There was a part of me that thought it sounded a little creepy, but I mulled over the concept that night as I got ready for bed. Washing my face, I suddenly felt a sense of lightness and an urge for adventure at the idea of going to meet my pen pal marine.
Why not?
Nothing was stopping me. Who said I couldn’t pick up and go for a weekend? Wasn’t this why I’d had surgery— to live life to the fullest? To get up and go when I felt like it, and not let my body stand in the way? I didn’t have any expectations. I was just a girl who wanted to show support, and he was a guy in need of it before he headed to war for the second time. If I didn’t go and he became another soul sacrificed for our country, I would hate myself.
Early the next morning, I approached Mom over breakfast. She listened as I recounted my conversation with Eric.
“Why not?” she said, just as I had the night before. “But only if I go with you.” That afternoon, we researched flights together.
The weekend of January twentieth, we took off for North Carolina. Dad was less than thrilled. Mom and I had always done our own thing throughout my life with all my surgeries and our decisions.
“What should I do if the plane crashes?” he asked.
“Make sure to go to our funeral,” my mom quipped.
Though it minimized my sweet father’s concern, I couldn’t help but laugh.
As I hobbled down the narrow aisle of the plane, Mom stuffed our weekend bag into the overhead storage bin. I stared at her, nervous that I’d made a mistake in rushing to book a flight. The choice to board a plane and meet a perfect stranger who didn’t even know I was coming topped my personal list of crazy.
“Mom, I didn’t call Eric to tell him we were coming this weekend,” I told her. I didn’t mean for it to be a surprise, but I’d gotten caught up in the thrill of booking our flight and being spontaneous. And whenever I pictured myself telling Eric that I was coming, I felt like a stalker or an overexcited little girl.
“That was smart,” she replied, plopping into her seat and motioning to take my cane. “Call him when we get to the hotel.”
“What if he can’t meet this weekend? What if he’s somewhere out of state?” My worries and worst-case scenarios were having a party in my mind as the captain announced over the speakers that we’d be taking off on time.
“Then you have a nice weekend away with your mother.”
Negative thoughts continued to haunt me when we landed and drove our rental car to the Millennium Hotel in Durham. In our suite, with my heart beating fast and my palms sweating, I dialed Eric’s number into my cell phone, feeling like I had definitely done something creepy.
When I revealed the surprise, he sounded stunned, but very happy.
“I’ll head out to see you around seven tomorrow night,” he suggested. “We can hang out, maybe get some pizza?”
“Sounds great!” I responded. I couldn’t stop smiling all night. It wasn’t until eleven o’clock on Saturday night that Eric finally walked through the door. Mom had booked our hotel suite near the airport, not realizing that Camp Lejeune was three hours away, in Jacksonville. It took him four hours to reach me because he kept getting lost.
The moment I set eyes on him, I realized he was every bit as striking as in his picture. He had a strong, perfectly square jawline, a cute cleft in his chin, and those long eyelashes that girls always envy. There was, however, one big difference in Eric’s appearance in person. He was smiling. The online photos showed a man in uniform— a rough, tough, and disciplined marine just like the ones I remembered from my childhood at the car wash. But that night, he arrived in civilian attire— a blue short-sleeved shirt with tattoos peeking out from underneath, jeans, and sneakers. He had shed his camouflage skin and taken a more approachable form. The only trace of military I could readily spot was his high and tight haircut. His broad shoulders and strong physique made me feel like I was three feet tall again.
I sat on a stool at the breakfast bar in our suite’s mini kitchen. As he approached, Eric went from being another service member on a Web site to someone very real. He made Prince Charming look like a pansy. He shook my hand and I was surprised to notice it was soft and smooth— not what I expected at all. I thought for sure his hands would be weathered, worn, and scarred. These were supposed to be hands that could kill a man, but he gripped mine ever so gently.
Eric kept referring to my mom as “ma’am” and offered his hand to her as well. Everything was “Thank you, ma’am,” “Yes, ma’am,” and, “No, thank you, ma’am.” It made me tingle. I’d heard a lot of this in Texas, but I wasn’t old enough then to fully appreciate it.
Our conversation in person flowed just as easily as it did over the phone. We smiled, laughed, joked, and hardly realized that the pizza we ordered tasted like particleboard.
Eventually, we made our way to the television in the living room. We ordered Red Eye and The Skeleton Key on pay-per-view. My mom excused herself to the bedroom. Eric and I had a great time picking apart the plotlines and the acting. I felt comfortable and at ease lingering in our instant connection. After the movies, like two warriors back from fighting, we compared our battle scars.
“Check this one out,” Eric said with a grin as he pulled up his jeans to reveal a scar on his knee. “I got this one in high school playing softball.”
“Oh, please. I’ve got you beat,” I replied, rolling up my sleeve to flaunt the deeply embedded knots in my forearm.
“That’s fucking awesome! All right, now . . .” He rolled up the other leg of his jeans. “What about this one?” He revealed, proudly, a vertical slash across the back of his calf. “This is from concertina wire from my time in Iraq.”
I appreciated his effort but was having too much fun playing with him to say so.
“Seriously? You call that a scar?” I mimicked Crocodile Dundee’s Australian accent and raised my loose-fitting black pants to reveal my shin. “Now, this is a scar!”
“Nice!” he said with a laugh.
In all my life, I had never smiled as much or as naturally as I did in that hotel room. Despite traveling hundreds of miles on a whim, I felt like I was right where I belonged. W
hen my pen pal marine looked at me with his perfect, almond-shaped eyes, I felt something I didn’t think was possible in such a short amount of time. But there was no denying it— it overtook me like a wave. I’d never given much thought to love at first sight before, but I was convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this was it.
Our movie marathon critiquing and snacking took us well into the three a.m. hour. I fell asleep sometime after that, but Eric stayed awake. He didn’t sleep all night. Instead he did what a marine is trained to do. He kept watch over me and made sure I never rolled off the couch.
Around six in the morning I woke up but didn’t open my eyes. I felt Eric holding my hand, bending my little fingers, and slightly tightening his grip. I wanted to see what was going on, but the last time I opened my eyes only a sliver, I saw my dad crying at the edge of my hospital bed. The last time I had the urge to take a glimpse at the world surrounding me when it thought I was asleep, my heart sank with sadness. That Sunday morning, I allowed myself to peek at the romantic scene unfolding before me.
Eric was smiling softly as he held my hand in his. He was studying it, becoming fond of it, appreciating every detail that made it unique. He gently raised my hand to his lips and placed a tiny kiss on my fingertips.
By the morning, Eric and I both knew what we’d found in each other. But our love story wouldn’t be long and drawn out. We didn’t have the luxury of taking our time and getting to know each other like other couples. Literally, we had only five months (four, really, factoring in his infantry training in California) before he would be shipped off to the sandbox. We took advantage of every passing day. Though we never discussed it, we both knew that once a marine was over there, God only knew what would come next.
For Valentine’s Day, Eric flew up to Massachusetts to see me. He didn’t approach his platoon sergeant before purchasing a ticket. He didn’t request special liberty before leaving the guarded gates of base or even ask for permission from his squad leader. He just did it, without a single word. We visited Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester, dined out, took dips in the hot tub at my house, and rented nearly every movie available. His visit flew by. It didn’t matter what we found ourselves doing, even the most mundane activities were a blast because we were together.
In the weeks that followed, my mom planned a couple more trips to the beaches of North Carolina so I could see Eric. But as the time ticked down closer to his deployment, while I appreciated my mom’s efforts, I wanted him all to myself. I wanted to travel on my own.
Before my first solo flight, Mom took me on an impromptu visit to Victoria’s Secret. To me, the store had never meant anything more than a place to get cotton panties, flannel pajamas, and robes. The idea of being sexy (or wearing undergarments that looked the part) had never factored into my world before.
“Can I help you ladies with anything?” asked an employee wearing a headset and dressed in a black suit.
“Actually, yes. Her boyfriend is a marine,” Mom blurted out as I suppressed the urge to blush.
“Oh. And he’s coming back from the war?” She smiled at both of us.
“No, he’s going to war,” my mom replied. “For the second time.”
“Oh, wow, I gotcha,” she said. “So you need something to make some memories with?”
I stood there silently, feeling happy with a side of awkward.
“Exactly,” my mom continued. “She’s going to visit him in North Carolina and they need to make some memories before he deploys.”
The lady’s smile grew even wider. She started walking through the store and motioned for us to follow.
“Are you sisters?” she asked over her shoulder.
Finally I got a word in. “No. She’s my mom.”
“Wow. I wish my mom was cool like this.”
My mom grinned, clearly flattered. “What can I say? I’m a realist.”
I rolled my eyes and followed the clerk as she led the way to a particularly scandalous spot in the store that reminded me of the Pussycat Dolls and Christina Aguilera. It was nothing but hot pink ribbons, ruffles, and binding black corsets accented with rhinestones. This was a frilly satin sex festival and I was about to buy a ticket. I didn’t feel awkward about having my mom with me. After all she and I had been through, sex was hardly an embarrassing topic.
But I did feel out of place, as though my life were suddenly on fast-forward. I never considered myself sexy or the type to prance around in suggestive lingerie. I knew many of my friends loved me as a person. I had been someone’s friend, close friend, or even best friend, but I was never someone’s true love. I might have been adventurous, lively, funny, and loud, but never the object of desire. For someone to be in love with me, and for him to want to express that love, was entirely different. That kind of love meant I would have to be a woman. Up until this point I was catching up on just being a girl.
Meandering through the store, I felt inept, gauche, and nervous. Without much warning, a desire that was tired of being suppressed finally surfaced. All at once, I wanted to look good enough to eat. Even if I feared being eaten alive.
I glanced at a few outfits, while Mom mocked a few others, and eventually I made my choice: black satin boy shorts with a rhinestone butterfly in the back, and an electric pink corset decorated with black ruffles across the bust. I made my way to the dressing room. When I lifted my shirt over my head, wisps of hair fell carelessly out of place from my short ponytail. My mom waited outside the dressing room and made small talk with the lady helping us.
I heard her criticize other garments outside the dressing room. “Why bother wearing anything at all?” Mom quipped about one of them.
“Some of it’s ridiculous. Plus, it lasts for only five minutes, then it’s on the floor,” the lady said, laughing along with her.
I fumbled with the row of black hooks on the hot pink corset. Then I attempted to slide on the boy shorts, but quickly realized bending down in a corset went against the natural order of things. I had to start over, undo the corset, pull up the shorts, and then fumble with the hooks of the corset top all over again.
“Does it fit? Do you need a different size?” the lady asked.
“I’ll tell you in a minute,” I replied. “I haven’t got the damn thing on yet.” Convinced that I must be missing the instruction booklet, I took a deep breath. C’mon, Tiffanie, I coached myself. You’ve taken out your own stitches and staples! For years you cranked your bones apart— you can handle a few hooks.
Then I pictured Eric, and I became caught up in my reflection in the mirror. I pulled the elastic out of my hair, which fell and shaped my face in a surprisingly flattering way.
I liked what I saw, because I felt confident about the person I was buying this little getup for in the first place. The fit of the boy shorts around my bottom made my legs appear even longer and the corset flattered my hips, hugged my waist, and lifted my breasts. As I examined myself in the mirror, thoughts of Eric running his fingertips from my shoulders to my hands made the knotted scars on my arms virtually disappear. I fantasized about his tight grip around my waist, pulling me so close against him I could feel the warmth of his dog tags against my skin. Visions of him kissing my shins and thighs erased the years of abuse on my legs. Lost in my dream world, I liked what I saw in front of me.
“Are you okay?” the lady asked. I didn’t realize I’d been silent for so long.
“I’m definitely okay!” I called out.
Despite the struggle and the ugliness of all the pain I’d experienced, I felt beautiful when I pictured myself with Eric. I felt normal. It was as if all the messiness I’d been through had been airbrushed away, and what remained was my true self.
I was beautiful. And I was ready.
I called out once again beyond the dressing room door. “I’ll take it!”
On May 20, 2006, I boarded a plane by myself for the first time. My mom helped me check my suitcase, the sexy lingerie tucked deep inside. I was seated in an airport wheelchair,
and an attendant pushed me down the long tunnel to the plane. Walking long distances will always be an uphill battle for me. Settled into my seat, my Steve Madden platform shoes firm and flat on the ground, I left Boston happy, stress free, and enthused— like any other girl jetting off to see her boyfriend. When the flight attendant asked if I wanted a drink, I opted for a screwdriver and enjoyed every sip of it.
For forty-eight hours, Eric and I never left our hotel room. Though I had a rough idea of how the choreography was supposed to go, I let him take control. I put my trust in him and he didn’t abuse it. He treated me so delicately, so respectfully, that any anxieties I had drifted away. In his arms, every move he made was magical. Eric’s tenderness made me feel innocent again.
As we lay together, I felt appreciated for being both a warrior and a girl he loved. “You know what I can’t figure out?” I asked, partially to be cute and partially because I genuinely wanted to know.
“What’s that?” he asked while he rubbed my shoulder with his thumb and index finger.
“Where did you put your white horse?” I asked with a wink.
He chuckled a little bit and kissed my forehead and then my hand. “Oh, I traded him a while ago.”
I smiled. “You traded him?”
“I traded him for a rifle.”
On the thirteenth of July, Eric deployed to Iraq for the second time. He didn’t want me to fly down and wait with him as the buses loaded his company.
“It’s too hard to say good-bye to you in person,” he explained. I thought I heard a crack in his otherwise solid voice. Even though I cried my eyes out, he was right. It was easier to just say “see you later” over the phone. I wouldn’t see him again until February.
Dwarf: A Memoir Page 19