So . . . you can imagine how popular I was with the church-y kids at school. Have you ever read one of those psychology textbooks where they tell you the traits of the eldest, middle, and youngest sibling? My sisters and I fit exactly. Tracy, the eldest, follows rules, is strict, and did whatever our parents told us to do. Colleen is an introverted oddball who played songs on the guitar written in French and read books for fun. I was the annoying loudmouth comedienne that everyone loved. (Right? Right?) All I ever wanted to do was make people laugh.
When I became painfully shy and quiet at school during those years, it was VERY out of character for me. Luckily, that’s when I met Maggie, my childhood soul mate. I was in third grade, and we were in the talent show together. She was singing Karen Carpenter’s “Top of the World” at the top of her lungs. I remember she was so loud that her voice became shaky trying to handle it. My mother had been rehearsing my sisters and me in a roughly harmonized rendition of “Chapel of Love” and getting up on that stage absolutely terrified me. I knew how difficult it was to sing in front of people, and because of that, I was SO impressed by Maggie. I remember being enamored by her and thinking she was the bravest, most confident person I had ever seen. And then when she got off the stage, she punched a boy for making fun of her. That’s seriously badass.
I approached her, told her I liked her headband, and we were attached at the hip after that. We spent every waking moment with each other—either she slept at my house, or we stayed up on the phone with each other. (I would have stayed at her house too, but we just got away with much more mischief at my house.) With her, I finally came out of my shell. We really were oddballs together. It was finally okay for my strangeness and humor to come out.
I even loved her family. Maggie’s mom was a stay-at-home mom who went back to college in her late forties and started working again. Her dad was this slick FBI agent. He was very strict, so different from my own parents. #whatisstructure?
The best part of Maggie’s family was her older sister. To the rest of the world, she was a high school theater nerd. To me, she was the most incredible actress I had ever seen. We went to see her high school play once. It was a comedy and she had complete command of the audience. Laughter rang out at one point and I remember thinking to myself, I want to do what she’s doing. I was eleven years old, and it was the moment I decided I wanted to be an actress.
Being in Maggie’s atmosphere made a huge impact on my life. We loved to try to thrill each other. It became kind of a contest as to who could be the most shocking. In school, we would write each other the most fucked up notes we could think of to see who could get a bigger rise out of the other person. We knew some curse words at this point in our lives, but we didn’t exactly know how to use them. So we inserted them into sentences where they sounded good! That’s how words work, right?
She passed me one that said: “My arm shits smell. It really fucks that we can’t go to Six Flags Great America this weekend.”
To which I’d respond: “Can you ass me some water?”
We were pretty legit.
In sixth grade, Maggie’s note was intercepted by the principal. The principal read the note and then told Maggie, “You need to read this aloud to your parents.” We both looked at each other frantically. Her FBI agent dad would NOT be cool about this, to say the least.
“Oh SHIT,” we both muttered to each other, finally using the word correctly!
Not only did we both get so much detention, but the next day there was an assembly for just the girls in our school about the importance of being a lady. Our principal had a bold opening line: “When you say ‘shit’ or ‘fuck’ or ‘bitch’ it is very unbecoming, girls.” I avoided her eye contact at all costs, while Maggie nodded along, sardonically, an air of fake concern about her. Like I said, Maggie was badass.
Next on Maggie and Laura’s list of shocking activities? Public urination. Maggie and I would pee in public all over the place. That’s normal, right? She would go outside of a Walmart, I would go on her neighbor’s lawn, we both took turns outside of a public library, again and again until we ran out of places. Or until the neighbors started to notice spots of dead grass on their lawns.
But as expected, our game of “Who could pee in the most shocking place?” got old quickly. Fortunately, Maggie knew how to take things up a notch.
In sixth grade, we took a trip to Six Flags Great America and stayed at the Holiday Inn. That night we were in the hot tub, splashing each other while sitting across from an older couple who were just trying to enjoy their vacation.
“Can you ladies stop it, please? You’re being disruptive,” the woman said.
“Yeah, Laura,” Maggie said, “stop being disruptive.”
I frowned and shoved her awkwardly, but quieted down. The woman sighed. I looked down at the bubbling water to avoid the old couple’s shaming glaucoma-glare. I saw Maggie roll her eyes.
“Can we go back to the room?” I asked Maggie.
“Nope. I want to get pruney.”
I sighed. A moment of silence and then Maggie smiled at me with this devilish grin. I looked at her, confused. “What?” I whispered. And then . . . I felt it. Something soft and mushy in my hand. I lifted my hand out of the water—and screamed!
It was Maggie’s shit. She had shit in the Jacuzzi. AND THE SHIT WAS IN MY HAND.
I was so fucking shocked that I threw the shit as hard as I could, hopped out of the Jacuzzi, and jumped into the pool. The lady sitting across from me screamed. I may or may not have gotten some shit on her.
To this day I won’t go in a Holiday Inn Jacuzzi. I hope Maggie’s not upset with me for sharing that. Maybe I should change her name. Maddie. Identity concealed! Nice, Laura.
Maggie and I were fucking weird and adventurous and I loved it more than anything. We would striptease for each other to “The Sign” by Ace of Base. (Which really is a top striptease song, I’d say, and definitely still holds up.) We’d give each other half naked massages by candlelight and we’d go to Barnes & Noble and find the Victoria Secret catalogs in the back and tape pictures of our faces inside of them. This, in retrospect, was probably highly disturbing for the next person who opened them up. Someone in the market for Victoria Secret probably didn’t bet on seeing a smiling eleven-year-old’s face taped above some huge tits. But we didn’t care!
We very badly wanted to grow up and be women and know things about our bodies. We were curious. In Downers Grove, not many people were interested in educating prepubescent girls about sex. So it was just me and Maggie against the world, figuring things out for ourselves. Living in a weird, amazing bubble.
At school, Maggie and I had other friends for a while. But as she and I got more and more drawn into our own world, our other friends became convinced we were lesbians and cut us off from hanging out. I guess they thought lesbian meant . . . weird?
But we didn’t care. If they were going to abandon us for being too strange, then I was happy to see them go. Together, it was okay to be different. To be who we were. Maggie became the star of all my horror movies, and fake-stabbing my best friend with a butter knife became my favorite pastime.
Despite living in a comfortable middle-class town, my family never seemed to have any money. We were pretty much always broke. But in spite of all that, I never felt poor. Probably because families hide things well from the youngest child! But also because I felt safe and we always had enough to eat. And if I ever wanted expensive things, I would just steal them. Problem solved!