My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One Night Stands | Page 2

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two . . .”

This was before there were time-outs, so my sister and I didn't know what to make of his

counting. I wondered if his ABCs were next. He stopped at “three,” and we braced ourselves

when “four” didn't come.

Sloane was holding on to me for dear life. Her crying had turned into heaving, and now

she started to shake uncontrollably. I tried to comfort her by rubbing her back like my mother

did but was too preoccupied with my imminent beating to be very reassuring.

Since my sister had turned into a real mess, it was up to me to devise a plan of escape. At

that moment, Sloane wouldn't have been able to lead a horse to our swimming pool, never

mind leading me to my bedroom without getting my ass kicked.

“We have to go up and just let him hit us,” my sister whispered.

“Ah, I don't think so. I don't make appointments to get hit. Plus, this was your idea and

Dad should hit you both times.”

“I want to get it over with!”

“No fucking way. I am not going upstairs to get hit.”

This was the very first time I said “fucking” in front of anyone and I liked the way it soun-

ded. I had heard my brothers and sisters use curse words but had never dared use one my-

self in front of anyone. But I had practiced alone in my room lots of times, trying out different

cadences and intonations: “Fuck, fuck, fuck you, fucknut. Shit, shitstain, fucker! Go fuck a

duck, you asswipe!” My favorite was, “What a fucking cocksucker.” The plan was to say this

casually to one of my new friends while one of our teachers walked by. No one in kinder-

garten ever really got my sense of humor, so I was hell-bent on making my mark in the first

grade.

Saying the word “fucking” in front of my sister catapulted me to an instant state of author-

ity. Sloane stared expectantly at me. I strained to hear what was going on upstairs. Suddenly,

everything was very quiet. I fantasized that my father had forgotten why he had wanted to hit

us in the first place. Maybe he was watching the stock market and found out that his eight

shares of Noah's Bagels had quadrupled. Maybe if we stayed down there long enough he

would forget all about what we did and actually be excited to see us when we came out. I

could lie and say I was just looking for Q-tips and used the camera to block what I hadn't ex-

pected to see. Or I could say I just wanted help with my homework. My father loved when I

did my homework.

We hadn't even been in the basement for a whole half hour when my sister started to

complain that she was hungry.

“Where do you think Mom is?” she asked. My mother was the nice one, and she always

protected us when my father was in one of his moods. I knew my mother wouldn't be mad at

us because she was always defending us to our father no matter what we did. Especially

since we had a lot to hold over her head.

All I would have to do is remind her of a week earlier when she forgot to pick me up from

school and I had been accosted by a male predator on my way home. Our house wasn't even

a mile from school, but some man slowed his car along the sidewalk I was walking on and

asked if I knew any tricks. Upon taking a good look at an overweight older man with gray

stubble, wearing a pair of coveralls, I bolted home faster than I'd finished the fifty-yard dash

earlier that day. After a good twenty minutes of me berating my mother for not picking me up

and allowing me to possibly be abducted, she hit the roof.

“But you weren't, were you?” she said. “Luckily you were able to outrun him!”

My mother is European and expresses her love through food and cuddling. She wasn't the

type of mother who would make it to school plays or soccer games, but if you wanted to stay

home sick, she was your girl. Whenever you'd go up to her room to cuddle with her, she'd pull

out a KitKat or Snickers bar from her night table and look at you with dancing eyes. She is a

very sweet woman but had zero tolerance for all the Jewish mothers in our town and wanted

to avoid them at all costs. If there was a parents' night or a teacher conference, it was under-

stood early on that our mother would rather set herself on fire; we were lucky if she showed

up at our bat mitzvah. Unfortunately, my father loved any sort of school event and would usu-

ally show up hooting and hollering in the front row, wearing snow boots and a sweater

covered in dog hair.

Normally, I would have expected my mother to knock on the basement