Seventh and eighth grades run together in my memory, all messy and disorganized. Next to an insane asylum, I can’t think of anything crazier than a congregation of 13- to 15-year-olds, thrashing about in brand new waters, self-conscious, happy and unhappy, terrified. Memories are like fingerprints – no two are the same, but I remember Blocker Junior High, seventh and eighth grades, as one big minefield, a new catastrophe around every corner, coming right at me.

I watched the popular kids to see how they were different. Better-looking? More money for Bobbie Brooks outfits? More self-confidence? I almost decided not to like them, but I remembered: If they don’t know me, I don’t know them, either. Maybe bad things hide under their beds, too. I had already read The Great Gatsby, and I fell in love with the advice Nick Carraway received from his father: “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one . . . just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

My own advantages and disadvantages seemed to be one and the same. My mother and father had been preoccupied with mutual destruction; my mother and new stepfather were absorbed in the infatuation phase of love. Thus, they all stayed out of my way. Even as a child, I recognized the advantages of this. I had lots of time to read, and no one questioned what I read. Perhaps I might have made good use of more parental guidance, but then, there’s freedom in not being watched too closely.

I didn’t know the popular kids well enough to judge them, but I could see the advantages of being popular. I tried things, like pep squad (gray skirts, maroon blouses), but I wasn’t a joiner. After school I wanted to be alone and daydream.

The Bombardier said I was pretty, smart, funny, capable, sensitive. Obviously, I wasn’t pretty, smart, funny, capable, or sensitive enough for him to take an interest, which left me wondering if there was anything about me worthy of attention. Girls who lose their fathers have to deal with it, but no one gets out of life without something, and of all the bad things under the sun, that’s not so bad. But I didn’t trust or understand the attention of boys.

When the dances came around, I was terrified. Rhonda would be invited by every boy at Blocker, and I would be ignored by all the boys now and through high school, and I would die a young old maid of 30. I was correct about Rhonda, but wrong about my own fate.

Enter Raymond, my knight in shining loafers.

I liked Raymond. He was good-looking and had a cute personality. When he invited me to the spring formal, I was amazed and pleased to accept. Now I faced the looming disaster all girls deal with every time something happens that’s special, or not special, in town or out of town, formal or informal. I had nothing to wear.

My mother’s suggestion made me consider infecting myself with bubonic plague (somehow) so I could cancel my date. The Butterfly thought I might wear her lurid, low-cut purple divorcee-going-out-dancing dress. An old-lady dress. Please, God, let me die first.

Instead, it came to pass I would wear my cousin Beverly’s beautiful dark blue gown. I was thrilled. I had never worn anything like it. Such dresses wore all the girls in 1959. I thought perhaps the blue dress could dance by itself, but for sure it could stand alone. These gowns were constructed in the devil’s workshop and given to young girls as torment for original sin. The area where the bosoms went was a cavity, a uni-boob bramble cage.

The dress had a voluminous skirt under which went a big hoop skirt, and the whole thing was wired and re-wired. And finally, it fit Bev, who was a couple of years older, and had something to put in the bramble cage. I tried it on. My poor little “lightly padded” strapless bra (that I didn’t need) left a four-inch cavity.

But hey. I turned sideways and considered my new, hard-wired silhouette. Rhonda-wowza! I looked good! The front of the gown was cut high and camouflaged with little ruffles, but still. How did I imagine no one would notice this miracle, especially my date. The legendary “magical thinking” kicked in. What could go wrong?

Imagine the big night:

Raymond’s mom drives him to my house, and the young swain alights, corsage in hand. My mother answers the door, and I sail into the room like the goddess on a ship’s prow, with wired up non-breasts jutting ahead.

Raymond’s eyes pop out, but he’s no moron. He’s navigating strange waters, too, and he stays cool. He probably thinks: “What do I know? Maybe they were there all along. Maybe they did show up between Friday afternoon and Saturday night. Go easy, Ray. Don’t let your eyes come out of the sockets and careen around the living room.”

And then, he remembers: “Oh my God. Mom said I should pin this corsage thing on her dress.” The corsage trembles in his grip. He stands in front of me looking anywhere but at my chest. I’m sure he will faint, but my mother snatches the corsage and pins it to the front of the dress. She lines us up for a photograph (alas, destroyed in Hurricane Carla). “There. Run along now. Have a good time.” She smiles. She should have laughed out loud.

My date looks like he just escaped a firing squad, and my dress doesn’t suit me. I’m pretty sure a good time isn’t on the horizon, not tonight.

Raymond’s mom drops us off and the first catastrophe happens before we get inside. I don’t know how to manage the hoop skirt, and I’m wider than the cafeteria door. I try to go through by squeezing the skirt and hoop from the sides. The front of the rig rises up like the hood of a 57 Chevy. I can’t see anything but blue, but my panties and garter belt are on display to anyone who’s looking. No one told me to wear a half-slip for modesty’s sake.

We get through the door, the dress settles down, and Raymond presses his hand into the small of my back. Now the dress hurts, for heck’s sake! No one told me to wear a contraption called a long-line bra, either, which would have kept the raw tulle seams from scraping the skin off my mid-section. In fact, no one has ever told me anything useful, beginning with don’t ever, ever go to a dance, even if adorable Raymond invites you. Stay home and read The Great Gatsby again!

Next, we face the No. 1 teen dilemma: where to sit in the cafeteria. We stare at a room full of pale faces, and spot a table with a few empty chairs. No doubt, the kids at that table are praying someone, anyone, will sit with them, just as we’re praying we won’t be turned away. We sit, but we’re expected to get up and dance. That’s the rule, and Raymond and I are rule-following Texas City kids.

Life as I know it ends after we dance close to a “slow one,” and the empty wire boob-frame collapses inward. Given the layer of ruffles and the dark color of the dress, the newly concave area probably doesn’t show, but I speed off to the ladies room.

I lock myself in the stall and push the wire out again. It makes a popping noise. Ha. I push it in and out a couple of times. Pop pop. Ha ha. The sound echoes against the tile, and makes me giggle, and I realize how ridiculous it is, and how benign. No one is going to die because of a dress. I do the popping thing a couple more times and laugh out loud. I fill the bra-cavity with toilet paper (it takes a whole role), and I’ve won the battle. Now back to the war.

I glide up to Raymond and smile. He smiles back. I laugh, and even though he remains clueless, he laughs, too. And just like that, we start to have fun. We talk to each other, and talk to the other kids. We dance again, and the toilet paper does its job. We enjoy refreshments, politely thank the chaperones, and before I want it to be over, the lights flicker on and off, and parents wait in the parking lot to collect us newly-minted paragons of social success. We have survived our first formal dance.

I woke up the next day wondering if Raymond was now my boyfriend, or wanted to be my boyfriend, or if he was off somewhere playing baseball. I decided to “reserve judgment” on this weighty question. He sat next to me in the clarinet section of the Blocker Junior High band, so I would see him on Monday and figure it out.

I never imagined Raymond would become my nemesis instead of my boyfriend.

I signed up for band because my popular cousin Beverly (owner of the blue dress) was in band. But it wasn’t even like we were in the band together, she had moved on to high school. Still, it seemed like the right thing, until I took one look at the snake-like, black-hearted clarinet. It looked more like my Aunt Jackie’s peppermill than a musical instrument. Play it? I’d rather beat someone up with it. So I pretended to play it. I named the nasty thing Beelzebub, and it was full of holes that apparently meant something. The mouthpiece came off so you could empty out the spit. Who wouldn’t love something like that?

I loathed summer band practice, which started in August so we could be ready for the sacred football games in September. I don’t have to explain Texas City in August. No trees, no breeze, the relentless sun, and me in a walking nightmare, pretending to play the clarinet. Given a choice, I would happily have spent the time being run over by a tractor. Being in the band suited Beverly, but it didn’t fit me any better than her blue dress.

Once as an exam we had to play a solo in front of the whole band, just a few bars. Did I practice? Well, I meant to. But I spent Sunday night at Beverly’s after a family dinner, the solo far from my mind. On Monday I had nothing to wear to school, and no time to go home. I couldn’t wear my jeans from yesterday. Girls wore dresses or skirts and blouses.

Bev did her best, and we found two options. The first was a pink dress she hadn’t worn in three years. It hit me about four inches above the knees. Her other dresses didn’t fit. It was the chest again. Bev had a figure; I didn’t. I could show my knees (not yet fashionable) or look like I recently had balloons under my dress and someone let the air out. I went with the knees. The first person I met in the hall on Monday morning – naturally – was Rhonda. She laughed out loud. Time to employ “magical thinking” again.

I’m hopeful. Maybe I won’t be called today. There are a lot of kids, and we won’t finish in one day. I can then practice all night, and tomorrow wear something that belongs to me. Band class comes, and Mr. Meyers draws names from a hat to determine who will play. I’m called second. SECOND.

I stand in front of everyone in my pink tutu, put the horn in my mouth, and what comes out can’t be called music. I blow a couple more times and start to cry. The whole band jeers and boos (they do no such thing, but I hear it in my head). Mr. Meyers rolls his eyes and says I can sit down. He doesn’t ask about my good intentions. I don’t feel badly treated. I don’t blame Mr. Meyers. I knew about the exam. I feel I should have practiced.

Here’s where Raymond re-enters the picture. Musicians, even in junior high, sit in their sections according to their musicianship. The first chair in any section is occupied by the best musician, last chair by the worst. Miraculously, I wasn’t last among the clarinets. I was third or fourth from last. Mr. Meyers must have preferred the musicians who played nothing to those who played badly. Playing nothing actually got me moved up a few chairs.

As for Raymond, he was one chair lower on the scale of completely incompetent horn-blowers (I can’t go on referring to us as musicians). Raymond found this situation intolerable. Mr. Meyers allowed his kids to move up via the “challenge.” The kid below you in the section could challenge for your place, and move up one chair if they won. Raymond just had to do it.

We’re assigned a piece of music. For once, I practice. My mother advises me early on to let Raymond win; don’t scare the boys off. I just can’t do it. When the day comes, Mr. Meyers sits in a room where he can hear but not see us, to avoid any appearance of partiality. One at a time, we squeak away on the bloody clarinet. I win. But Raymond’s relentless. He challenges my chair regularly, and I keep winning. I loathe and despise the procedure. I don’t understand why it matters who’s third from last or fourth from last in the Blocker Junior High band, and yet, I practice every time. I also don’t know why I win, unless Raymond suffers from nerves. He doesn’t look nervous. And what the hell anyway. To call either of us musicians insults musicians all over the world. By the end of the school year not only is adorable Raymond not my boyfriend, we barely speak to each other.

At the end of eighth grade, I decided to look for something else to be. I was athletic, so maybe I’d try out for cheerleader. I screamed on-stage about Grandpa’s Top Hat and Grandma’s Bustle. I’d rather play the sobbing solo in a pink tutu rather than stand on stage and do that again. I didn’t become a cheerleader. My stepfather legally adopted Tish and me in the spring, so Becky Bagley didn’t appear on the ballot, and no one knew who Becky Long was. I have no illusions I might have won otherwise, but this allowed me to feel better about losing. And it was something I picked for myself, not because of someone else. Win or lose, that was progress.

The only thing left was to tell Beverly I was dropping out of band. She would be disappointed. I summoned my courage at a family picnic, and blurted out the tragic news. She looked at me like I said I didn’t care for the three-bean salad. Whether or not I stayed in the band was a non-matter to her. One more time, nothing that threatened my existence was as bad as I thought. Or else I found something to laugh about, and got on with the process of growing up.

In seventh and eighth grade, I learned to laugh at myself. I learned nothing involving dresses, popularity, clarinets, and other large-looming small things is that bad. I learned if you practice and prepare for about anything, you’ll do it better. I learned competition between friends requires maturity. The outcome might not be what you want or expect, so proceed with caution.

At the Texas City High Class of ’64 50^th reunion, I saw Raymond and felt such a surge of affection for him. I wanted to thank him, but I wasn’t quick enough to articulate what I felt, so I’ll say it now.

“Thanks, Raymond, for everything. Thanks for asking me to a dance. Thanks for challenging me. Thanks for helping me grow up.”

 

NEXT: Ninth Grade – Carolyn.