Thongtastic, darling
You may find this to be shocking news to hear from a woman in America in the early years of the new millennium, but I have never worn a thong. I could blame it on my weight or germ phobia or feminism or a dire fear of wedgies, but the truth is; I just never understood them. And it’s ok, really. I met a woman at the hospital who would become one of those lifelong friends whereupon meeting you know on a gut level that you’ve known each other through lifetimes and there is that instant and total soul recognition before they ever even open their mouth. I’ll call her Jacqueline. She was and is a paragon of twenty-first century glamour but with that wholesome girl-next-door twist. Jacqueline is six feet tall, looks like Carol Alt and has the unmitigated charm that gives her a star quality—mainly because of its endearing insecure undertones and sweetness to all she encounters. But she doesn’t miss a trick--and she would become my confidante and co-conspirator in the battle against the brain in the months to come.
At thirty-eight (yet looking at least ten years younger), Jackie’s life had been parallel to mine in many ways…middle-class background, kind and loving (if sometimes clueless) old-fashioned parents, Catholic upbringing and overachiever tendencies. A few differences were that her father drank while my parents were virtual teetotalers--except for the occasional glass of wine (maybe two on holidays) with dinner twice a week at most. My father’s drug of choice was his career as a highly successful educator. But our mothers may have well as been the same person…both beautiful and both married to successful men who were emotionally distant at times. In fact—my mother had even reigned in the mid-sixties as Miss Massachusetts which was an endless source of fascination for my sister and me growing up but a source of pleased embarrassment for our humble yet stunning mom. The story goes that my mother had accompanied her friend to a casting call for the pageant and was scouted from the audience to try out…the rest, as they say, was history and her biggest thrill was not getting her picture taken by the local paper in crown and sash but her first ever plane trip down to Miami for the pageant itself. Her affair with fashion continued off and on for the next ten years while she did some runway and print work and even a gig as a hand model for a famous jewelry line. My sister and I were walking with books on our heads before we could read and wearing makeup before junior high.
Jackie’s mother came from the same era more or less…the “always look your best, even if you feel like crap” theory prevailing over all. She had once been on American Bandstand and closely resembled Annette Funicello while my mom was more the Natalie Wood type. About the third day after I had met my new pal in “lockdown”, her parents came to visit and drop off some clothes. Jackie’s attempt had been much more “serious” than most and had gone further than several others on the ward. She’d overdosed and lay comatose for over seventy-two hours while her family was on tenterhooks wondering if she did revive, would she be irreversibly brain damaged? Miraculously, she came out of it ok and was brought to the hospital where I’d already settled in a week earlier. The red-rimmed eyes I’d suffered as a side effect of the carbon monoxide had faded to a less alarming pink, so that my eyelids no longer resembled those of an albino rabbits. But Jackie’s skin still held a bluish tint that even careful makeup couldn’t camouflage. We made quite a ghoulish pair. After her parents left that first time, she was pawing through the stuff they’d brought her casually and came across a lacy thong spinning it around one finger asking me if her mother thought she’d be getting lucky? And in a smaller Ziploc bag were no fewer than four tubes of lipstick…all the better to look more schizophrenic with. We both “cracked up” laughing. Lipstick and thongs??!! Later she’d ask her mother what on God’s green earth she’d been thinking and her mother snapped irritably saying that she’d just grabbed things randomly and wasn’t exactly thinking lucidly after her daughter’s horrific dance with death thanks very much. Needless to say, she was not nearly as entertained as we were.
