Everything I knew about sex in the summer of 1961 could be found in a single book in my mother’s nightstand. Merck’s Home Medical Advisor was a hypochondriac’s dream reference. At the slightest hint of a symptom, my sister and I would pore over the explanations for diseases we surely had; every headache was meningitis; every body ache, polio. Even our mother feared for our imminent deaths whenever she consulted Merck’s tissue–paper–thin pages. Merck’s also provided the only education in anatomy I ever had. When no one was around, I would turn to the transparent overlays that showed the muscular system, the circulatory system and, most important, the reproductive system. It was there I had my first view of a penis––or a line illustration of one.
But penises were not on my mind the summer I was thirteen. I spent my days at the beach, my nights on the phone with girlfriends, or at a party, or setting my hair on huge rollers to smooth out the frizzy curls that I’ve spent a lifetime trying to conquer. Looking back from a future vantage point, we sometimes recognize feelings or patterns that aren’t acknowledged at the time. It wasn’t like that for me. I knew at the time that something was brewing inside me––a sense of change, a feeling of promise, a heightened awareness of life. Eighth grade had ended in triumph. I was chosen for National Junior Honor Society and elected vice president of the student council for the following year. My braces came off, and I was suddenly pretty. I went to a party and danced with two boys who started calling me within a couple of days. With no call–waiting, we would talk until my father made me hang up. I had a crush on the 15–year–old. His name was Gary, and I liked to watch him at the beach, his lithe tanned body slicing through the waves. Norm, the 16–year–old, had a black and white ’67 Chevy and asked me out on my first date in a car. My parents conferred with my older sister who convinced them to let me go. I was 13.
I spent every day it wasn’t raining at the beach that summer. Sometimes Norm drove me in the morning before he went to his summer job and came over in the afternoon after work. We went to a few parties together, but he ended up going out with my friend Heidi for several years.
My church fellowship group attracted kids from all over, and I looked forward to it each weekend. We danced and played games and planned events like a hayride in the fall and a beach picnic in the summer. I knew that a couple of boys in the group took a romantic interest in me, and it was heady stuff to feel popular. I was walking on the beach with one such boy from church, whose ID bracelet I’d worn for a couple of days before returning it, when a boy approached us––a gorgeous boy with dancing blue eyes. He was wearing red trunks and carried a red transistor radio, but everything about him was golden, golden flattop, golden hairs sparkling on his golden arms.
“Hey Tommy,” he said to my friend.
“Hi Kevin,” Tommy said.
“Kevin? I’m Noelle,” I said. “You are really cute.” I hadn’t yet learned how to flirt subtly.
I saw the golden–haired boy again a few days later. I wore a turquoise blue tank suit, my curly hair tamed into submission under a white triangle scarf. The beach was crowded with kids I knew and didn’t know. Not far from me were the beautiful twins, Toni and Lisa Perez, lying on their blanket enhancing their perfect tans. They were a year older and went to a private Catholic school, but we knew each other to say hi and chat a minute. Within a year, they would both be gone, killed in a car accident while on a double date with their boyfriends, but that was still in the future. I was sitting on my beach towel, watching the water lap against the shore and deciding whether to venture in, when Kevin came toward me across the sand and asked me to hold his radio for him. We all had transistor radios back then, and a walk along the beach was like walking through a musicscape of waxing and waning songs from our favorite New York City DJs––Cousin Brucie on WABC, Scot Muni and Murray The K on WINS, Dan Ingram on WMCA. As we moved past one group after another “Runaway” would fade into “Quarter to Three,” into “Tossin’ and Turnin’,” into “Travelin’ Man,” and so on.
My transistor was about the size of a deck of cards and had a leather case. Kevin’s was bigger, about the size of a book, and bright red plastic. He didn’t tell me where he was off to, or why he needed me to hold it, but I took it from him, instantly registering that he would have to come back for it. My heart raced a little, assuming that was why he gave it to me. When he returned, he offered me a ride home, but my mom was coming for me, so I told him he could take me home the following day. And so it began.
Soon he was calling me every night and taking me to the beach and the movies in his red and white ’56 Ford. Summer faded into fall and, with high school on double session, he got out early and would often pick me up from junior high. One hot September afternoon, we were hanging out with the girl next door, while she complained about her first weeks as a freshman at the new Catholic high school. Her English text book was speckled with blacked out words and phrases, redacted to protect innocent Catholic minds. When she went in to answer the phone, Kevin asked me to go steady. I wavered, telling him I was concerned about my parents’ approval, though truthfully, I didn’t think they’d care. Then Ellen called us into her house. She was on the phone with a girl I knew from elementary school named Carol who wanted to talk to Kevin. When I asked him how he knew her, he said they had once gone steady. Laughing, I grabbed the phone and told Carol that Kevin and I were going steady now. I wore his high school ring on a chain around my neck as girls did back then.
Going steady meant we weren’t seeing anyone else, but he was 16, almost 17, and a senior in high school; I was 13, almost 14, a freshman, still in junior high. I had dancing school, church choir, Youth Fellowship, Student Council meetings, and YWCA social club activities. Going steady was more of a concept than a reality. Sometimes he came over after school; sometimes we went out on a Friday or Saturday; sometimes I sat on the floor by my grandmother watching her play solitaire, and sometimes I sat by the kitchen wall phone, willing it to ring. We were both invited by other people to Christmas dances we couldn’t attend together (both were by people from other schools), and gave each other special dispensation to attend. Mine was a set–up by Ellen with a popular boy from Catholic High. It was a disaster. I wore a frilly, ruffle tiered, red spaghetti strapped dress that was much too dressy for the dance. Furthermore, no one had told me that the Catholic High dress code did not allow bare shoulders. I was mortified when a nun gave me an old sweater to wear. Besides, I didn’t particularly like the boy and suspected Ellen set me up because she liked him and knew I was not a threat.
But there were other dances and parties with dancing, and a whole new level of knowledge from my neighbor, Ellen. It was she who told me what happened when you danced too close to a boy, and pointed out what I had never noticed before. Suddenly, bulges were on my radar.
Occasionally we went to a party, and Kevin got drunk. He drank a lot, but so did most of his friends. His mother had died a few years earlier; and I forgave him his misbehavior, while reveling in his kisses. Every kiss, every word of desire was a significant event to relive when we were apart. That fall my mother bought me two new dresses in anticipation of special events over the holidays, a long sleeve A–line wool dress, pink with a subtle rose pattern, and an all white, low–waisted wool dress with a pleated skirt. Both were more stylish and sophisticated than anything I had owned previously. I wore the white dress on Christmas Eve when Kevin took me to the midnight service at my church. He gave me a silver bracelet; I gave him a blue sweater. He took me to my first New Year’s Eve party where I wore the pink dress and had permission to stay out past midnight. The long–imagined, long–awaited phenomenon of love was at hand. He told me he loved me. We weren’t just a couple––we were a couple in love.
The narrative I’ve clung to over the years since we were together is about Kevin’s thoughtlessness, his drinking, his affair, his negligence of our children after we separated. But the truth is, back during that year and a half we went steady, our feelings for each other ran deep, and he was a good and loyal boyfriend. He took me to my first concert, the Dave Brubeck Quartet, at our local high school. I felt so sophisticated in my sheath dress, high heels and flip hairdo, sitting in the huge auditorium and listening to the jazz greats play the famous “Take Five.” I knew nothing about jazz, but loved the idea of it, what seemed to me to be its bohemian roots. The movie, “West Side Story” came out that year and each showing was a major, almost three hour event, including an intermission in the middle. I was thrilled when Kevin invited me and said we would stop at his aunt’s house so I could meet her. He was picking me up early and I rushed to eat the chicken dinner my mom had prepared before he came, only to find out his aunt had dinner waiting for us when we arrived––roast chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans and biscuits. Kevin had never mentioned we were invited for dinner. I was so full I could hardly sit through the long movie.
I recently came across a letter I had written to my sister who was a year older than Kevin and away at college. It was shocking to read how obsessed I was with Kevin, how much my desperation came through. I wonder what she thought, reading my foolish declarations about how he was all I could think about, and how his friends thought I was too young for him, but I didn’t care. Every love song was our song; every kiss a promise. I would listen to the Parris Sisters singing “I love how you love me…I love how you squeeze me, tease me, please me…” without any understanding of the subtext. But I did love how he loved me, or at least the fact that he loved me. I have trouble remembering what we talked about when we were together, certainly not politics or the war or even our families. His father was a bus driver; his aunt had moved in to raise him after his mother died, and he had a married sister. That was about all I knew. And I had grown up understanding that I was never to talk about my family––even when my girlfriends complained about theirs, I kept silent. It’s possible I never even realized my father was alcoholic and my mother mentally ill until I was an adult or, more likely, I buried the evidence deep inside and lived the façade I wanted to believe was true.
I remember a sleepover at a girlfriend’s house during this time, where we lay awake at night talking about our boyfriends. She told me that all she wanted was to marry Skip and live with him in a little house with a white picket fence. I hadn’t even thought about what the future might be like with Kevin. I was planning to go to college; my best friend Suzy and I both wanted to go to Smith, one of the “Seven Sisters” women’s colleges. After that, I thought I might study to be a lawyer. Suzy ended up at NYU Law School and became a highly successful attorney. It’s fascinating to me now, how I was able to compartmentalize so many aspects of my life, and keep so many things hidden.
Where were my parents all this time? Why did my parents allow me to spend so much time alone with a boy three years older? My father’s role in our lives was fairly typical for a mid–century father––he commuted to work on the train each morning, and read the paper in his leather chair each evening. Often he would still be there in the morning, with a book and a bottle of vodka on the floor beside him. I think my mother simply abdicated her role. She felt trapped into staying with my father by all the circumstances of the era: fear, finances and above all, the constraint of two children. More than once she told my sister and me that the only reason she stayed was because of us (a note here––long after we left, she was still with him). Neither of my parents set down rules, except for a curfew, or discussed with me what was and was not appropriate ––possibly because I had never come close to disobeying them or pushing any boundaries. Or possibly because they were interested in their own problems and weren’t paying much attention to what I was doing. I had a very basic sense of the mechanics of sex, but no details and no understanding of desire.
In June, Kevin came to my junior high graduation. I won awards and gave a speech along with the other Student Council officers. In the yearbook, I’d been voted “Most Likely to Succeed.” He took me to his senior prom. I wore a pale turquoise strapless gown with a tight bodice and short, very full, poofy skirt, that had belonged to my sister. I got permission to go to the after–party and we stayed out all night. It was the longest I had ever been alone with him. His desire for me was more than exciting, more than persuasive; it awoke a sense of power I had never known before.
That summer was full of promise. We hung out with Norm and his girlfriend, picnics on the beach, parties and music, music all the time from our cars, from our radios, from our portable record players that we hauled to each other’s houses: Duke of Earl, The Lion Sleeps Tonight, I Can’t Stop Loving You, Peppermint Twist. In August, I rejected the suspicion that was growing along with my body––after all, Kevin had assured me on prom night that we were safe, and I didn’t know any better. By September, I had simply blocked out reality, much as I had blocked out the reality of our amorous encounters. Kevin was off to college in Boston; I had started sophomore year in high school. We wrote long letters; I baked and sent him cookies. Kevin encouraged me to run away to him in Boston, but I was so in denial, so sure this couldn’t be happening to me, that I ran for sophomore class vice–president and won. I was 14 years old. Could I even run away?
Why didn’t I tell my parents early on that I was pregnant? What made me more afraid of them than the reality I would eventually have to face? I was the good daughter. I had always removed myself from myself to survive. I had never faced life changing consequences and had developed no resources to cope with them now. To my chagrin, my mother innocently sympathized with my weight gain and bought me a new outfit, but it became harder to hide my swelling shape under bulky sweaters. I blocked out reality. I made promises to God. It was my first encounter with the inevitable, and I was too naïve to know what to do––so I did nothing. I told no one. I was terrified.
At the end of November, the school nurse called me to her office, where she gave me a cursory exam and sent me back to class. I didn’t go. Guessing she would be calling my mother, I ran to the pay phone, fumbled for change and hesitated. Who should I call? This decision would direct the rest of my life. I could call Kevin, walk out of school, board a train to Boston. I thought of my mother, picking up the phone, hearing the news from the school principal at the other end. Call Kevin? Call my mother? I was 14. I had never made a decision for myself in my life. I dropped in a dime and dialed home.