memory like a horrible TV show from the seventies. My prom party was held in a gravel pit, though I don’t remember the party nearly as vividly as I do the dress I wore—sadly, I find this to be true of many occasions. I had earned the money for it waitressing at DeToy’s Supper Club. The manager made us wear polyester dirndl skirts and white blouses that pulled down over our shoulders; we looked like von Trapp wannabes. I took my waitressing money and bought a prom dress in the precise shade of pink that would most clash with my hair. My date brought me a bouquet of nearly dead roses. I had to cradle them in the crook of my elbow, but their heads kept slipping off my arm like a drunken woman being carried to bed.
Over the years I’ve tried to explain to Alessandro what growing up on a farm in the upper Midwest, outside a town of 2,242 people, was like. He’s never quite been able to grasp it. He grew up in Florence, Italy, and his experience in, and with, America is largely limited to the East Coast. Furthermore, he has an annoying way of trying to top my stories. If I describe the trauma of circling the gym in a salmon-colored dress to the dulcet strains of “Stairway to Heaven,” he’ll counter with a tale about a family trip to Switzerland.
Thus, when I received an invitation to my twenty-five-year high school reunion a few years ago, it seemed the perfect moment to introduce him to my past. We arrived in Madison tofind that its population had shrunk by more than half. There was one pickup truck halfway up Main Street and—I kid you not—a tumbleweed rolling toward us. I peered at Alessandro to make sure he registered the symbolism, but his face was lit up, reveling in the possibility that gunslingers might leap out from behind the Shear Salon, à la spaghetti westerns that he’d grown up with.
The reunion itself was held in the VFW lounge, which was in a basement. I told myself that it was all going to be different. I was a
professor
now, not to mention a
New York Times
bestselling writer. I could hold my head high; my failure to make the cheer-leading team was far behind me. But alas: the painful glaze of humiliation that plagued me in high school rushed back the moment I saw the same clusters of people, still talking together, two and a half decades later. Though, of course, the subjects of those conversations had changed. “She fired that shotgun right through the ceiling,” one of my classmates whispered. “She was hoping to hit that worthless husband of hers—he was carrying on an affair right in her bed—but instead she shot the sheriff. Got him right in the foot.” I was opening my mouth to ask what the sheriff was doing in the assailant’s bedroom, but she had already moved on. “You did hear about Lindsey-Ray, didn’t you?” I shook my head. “She moved in with seven or eight gay men down in Minneapolis,” she said, “and then got pregnant. Kind of a miracle birth, doncha think?” The drinks had turned out to be vodka with a splash of juice, and Alessandro grew very cheerful, periodically circling back to me to report on his conversations like a slightly drunk Garrison Keillor. “Did you talk to that woman who already has six grandchildren? Amazing!” He shook his head in disbelief. We had barely recovered from toilet training, so he hadn’t noticed that procreation can start early.
After what felt like yet another four-year ordeal, the evening’sprogram got under way. A class member who now happened to be the mayor of Madison started awarding prizes. I honestly can’t remember why I won a prize; as with the prom, a sartorial detail eclipsed the main event. When I walked to the front of the room, I was presented with a huge, dingy pair of men’s boxer shorts, stapled to two slats of wood, with a rope slung on the top. A “Norwegian handbag,” the mayor called it. I carried this object back to our table, trying to smile like a good sport.
Finally, finally,
finally
, I saw on
Over the years I’ve tried to explain to Alessandro what growing up on a farm in the upper Midwest, outside a town of 2,242 people, was like. He’s never quite been able to grasp it. He grew up in Florence, Italy, and his experience in, and with, America is largely limited to the East Coast. Furthermore, he has an annoying way of trying to top my stories. If I describe the trauma of circling the gym in a salmon-colored dress to the dulcet strains of “Stairway to Heaven,” he’ll counter with a tale about a family trip to Switzerland.
Thus, when I received an invitation to my twenty-five-year high school reunion a few years ago, it seemed the perfect moment to introduce him to my past. We arrived in Madison tofind that its population had shrunk by more than half. There was one pickup truck halfway up Main Street and—I kid you not—a tumbleweed rolling toward us. I peered at Alessandro to make sure he registered the symbolism, but his face was lit up, reveling in the possibility that gunslingers might leap out from behind the Shear Salon, à la spaghetti westerns that he’d grown up with.
The reunion itself was held in the VFW lounge, which was in a basement. I told myself that it was all going to be different. I was a
professor
now, not to mention a
New York Times
bestselling writer. I could hold my head high; my failure to make the cheer-leading team was far behind me. But alas: the painful glaze of humiliation that plagued me in high school rushed back the moment I saw the same clusters of people, still talking together, two and a half decades later. Though, of course, the subjects of those conversations had changed. “She fired that shotgun right through the ceiling,” one of my classmates whispered. “She was hoping to hit that worthless husband of hers—he was carrying on an affair right in her bed—but instead she shot the sheriff. Got him right in the foot.” I was opening my mouth to ask what the sheriff was doing in the assailant’s bedroom, but she had already moved on. “You did hear about Lindsey-Ray, didn’t you?” I shook my head. “She moved in with seven or eight gay men down in Minneapolis,” she said, “and then got pregnant. Kind of a miracle birth, doncha think?” The drinks had turned out to be vodka with a splash of juice, and Alessandro grew very cheerful, periodically circling back to me to report on his conversations like a slightly drunk Garrison Keillor. “Did you talk to that woman who already has six grandchildren? Amazing!” He shook his head in disbelief. We had barely recovered from toilet training, so he hadn’t noticed that procreation can start early.
After what felt like yet another four-year ordeal, the evening’sprogram got under way. A class member who now happened to be the mayor of Madison started awarding prizes. I honestly can’t remember why I won a prize; as with the prom, a sartorial detail eclipsed the main event. When I walked to the front of the room, I was presented with a huge, dingy pair of men’s boxer shorts, stapled to two slats of wood, with a rope slung on the top. A “Norwegian handbag,” the mayor called it. I carried this object back to our table, trying to smile like a good sport.
Finally, finally,
finally
, I saw on
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