14 Going On 21

Sixteen years ago today, is an Easter that I will never forget. Right, Layla?

Saturday, March 25th, 1989 was a warm day; unusual for that time of year. I wanted to go out with my friends but Layla insisted that I stay home because we were having a big Easter dinner at Aunt Wendy’s house the next day. I couldn’t believe that my mother wanted me to stay in the house when I had only one night left of Spring Vacation to get lit. The nerve of that woman!

I was panicking! What was I gonna do? Everyone was expecting me to meet them at the pizza place; Franz was going to be at my house by 8 PM and I couldn’t go out. I was feeling defeated when all of a sudden, I began laughing to myself. What was I thinking? Why was I worried? What’s wrong with me? Here I am bitchin and moanin because I can’t go out yet I failed to acknowledge that I have been deceitful for the past three months. Then it occurred to me. “Duh. SNEAK OUT YOU IDIOT! Ya haven’t been caught yet, why stop now????” That was perfect! How can I overlook the fact that I have been sneaking out for the past three months and haven’t been caught yet? My room is the only room in the front of the house. It’s so easy to climb out the window. She can’t hear me nor will she ever know. Or so I thought.

I called Franz and told him the plan. We had to delay everything because there was no way I was going to get away with sneaking out at 8 o’clock at night. So we decided to go ahead with our plans and make it for 11 o’clock. I pretended to go to bed and waited until I heard Franz tapping on the window. As I was climbing out the window, a flashback of an incident a few days ago shot right through my brain. I had snuck out a few days before to go to the store for smokes. I left my window open but when I came home, the window was closed. Still, I climbed out of that window and into Franz’s van and we took off to meet the others at the pizza place. Franz and his buddy Jerry were the managers of the pizza parlor. We use to wait until closing time and Franz and Jerry would let us in and we’d tap the keg. It took a long time for the owner to discover what was going on in his pizza parlor. Not to mention, the loss of money from the beer and pizza we took. That night, we tapped the keg as usual and got stoned. We made some pizzas and decided to head back to Franz’s mom’s apartment to go hot tubbing. On the way there, Franz stopped at the store and convinced some stranger to buy us beer. Coors. Yuck!

When we arrived at Franz’s, I realized that I had no bathing suit to go into the hot tub so Franz gave me a pair of boxers and a white T-shirt. Uh huh. A WHITE T-SHIRT. We were all laughing and having a good time and getting faded. We were drinking beer through straws. What a way to get drunk, huh? Absolute stupidity now that I think of it. AND THAT DAM WHITE T-SHIRT! Yeah, it must have been a treat for Franz and his friends. What a dirty little trick that was.

Anyway, as we were boozing it up, the cops came because someone in the complex had complained that we were being loud and obnoxious. Franz had to hide me from the police because I could barely stand considering I drank two beers through a straw. Hey! I was only 85 lbs.! He carried me back to his apartment where my friend, Candy, and I passed out in his bed. We didn’t wake up until 10:30 the next morning. Layla would be coming to my room at least by 11 to wake me up and tell me to get ready to go. I needed to get home. I woke Candy up and we tried to get Franz up. He was in a heavy sleep on the floor and refused to get up. I started yelling at him and I woke his mother up. It turns out that his mother is a quadriplegic. She heard me screaming and wanted to now what the hell was going on but lucky for him, she couldn’t walk. Franz finally got up and went to his mother and when he returned, he hurried us girls out of the apartment and dropped us off at my house.

The trembling of my body was so bad, I could barely walk. The minute I looked at my window, I knew I was in for it. It was shut. Was it Layla that shut my window before? If it was her, how come she didn’t confront me about it? Was she waiting to catch me in the act? If so, here it is.
With heart-thumping fear, I walked up to the front door. The only thing racing through my mind was the thought of seeing Layla on the couch, arms folded with a nasty, evil grin, ready to pummel me into oblivion. The wretched, horrible, enraged sound of “the voice” – the kind of voice that runs the icy chill down your spine and makes you want to piss your pants. You all know what I’m talking about – the voice of one hot, pissed off, steaming mom. The voice that can make the devil come crawling out of your body, pleading for forgiveness. But wait, the door was locked. Locked? Oh no. I have to go through the garage. Gawd help me, please? If you have any ounce of forgiveness, now is the time to distribute it. I went to the garage door on the side of the house and once again, that nightmare popped into my head. She’s in the garage, in the dark, waiting for me to open that door so she could grab me by the hair and drag me into the house. I reach for the door knob. DAMN! It’s locked. What is going on here??? Why are all the doors locked? The side door is never locked. What the hell????? I calm myself down, take a deep breathe and gather my thoughts. Okay, obviously she meant for me to come through the kitchen because she knew she would catch me coming in while cooking breakfast. So, I prepare myself and think, “Okay, she wants me to come through the kitchen which means it’s not that bad. I’m still in a lot of trouble but she wants to talk about it.” I walk up the porch and peak through the window. No one is there. Then I started thinking, “Oh yeah! Here’s my chance! All I have to do is run through this door and straight into my bedroom and pretend nothing ever happened!” So I reach for the door. These fucking doors suck! Strike three! There was only one door left. I started to cry. Why? Why is this happening to me??? How can my mother be so god damned clever??? I looked over to my right and there it was; the one remaining door. The only door that had to be unlocked unless Layla has put me out on the streets. I slowly walk over and go up the steps. Before, I was beginning to calm down but this was a whole different story now. As I was sliding open that door, I had another flashback and this time it was the voice of the women (Layla’s best friend) who lived in the in-law unit in our backyard, “You need to watch out, Bella. I’m telling ya. Be careful.” It didn’t dawn on me what she was talking about until that very moment I was opening the door. But then I backed away. I couldn’t go in there. I can’t do this. I have to run away. Right through that door was Layla’s bedroom and the last thing I wanted to do was walk through that door and see her with her bloodshot eyes from anger and the rage on her face. There was nothing I could do though. Where would I go? I decided to get it over with. I walked in, “Hey mom. How’s it going.” and walked right through her bedroom, out her door and straight to my bedroom.

I ran actually. I ran straight to my bedroom and tried to slam my door shut but then I realized that to my horror, my door was removed. I saw Layla coming towards me and I was searching for a way out but I was cornered. I went for my window but it wouldn’t open, even when I unlatched it. I looked down and another horror surprised me. They were nailed shut! OH SHIT! I’m fucking dead. She’s gonna kill me. I turned around and there she was walking towards me. It seemed like slow motion, straight from a horror film. She had a box in her hand. What is in there? What’s she gonna do to me? Help me, someone? She opened the box and pulled out a cute half shirt with my nickname sewed on the back. She then pulled out this cute black spandex skort (Remember those? A skirt with built in shorts under them, made of spandex) and threw them at me and yelled, “Happy Easter, Bella. You don’t deserve this gift but who else is gonna where it with your nickname on it?” She began to cry and I admit, I felt really bad but I couldn’t let her know that so I became cold. I got sassy and I told her I didn’t care about anything. The only thing I cared about was Franz, my boyfriend. Layla came towards me and the next thing I knew, she punched me in the face and I fell backwards and smacked my head against the window sill. NOW. I should tell you that there is a discrepancy with this story between Layla and me because she claims she slapped me. I say, “Hell no, she straight up punched me!” And she did punch me.

I got up rubbing my head and that’s when Layla went into the screaming fit. Apparently something happened the night before that I don’t remember doing. All over the back of my neck were hickeys. Gross. (Just a little insight – Candy swears to this day nothing beyond necking and kissing went on between Franz and me. The deed never happened between us.) Layla became even more enraged and expressed fear that her daughter had become an overnight slut. She was convinced that I had sex with the boy but I never did. I think she still thinks that too. hehe

A screaming match went on until we got to Aunt Wendy’s house and from there it got worse. For some reason, the women in this family cannot keep their mouths shut. Oh yeah. They love a good drama. My grandparents, my aunts and uncles all got into it and I was chastised by eight different people. The only people laughing were my cousins.

I ended up being grounded for about three months. Three whole months. It turned out that my mom’s friend, the one who lives in back, had seen me sneaking out the night I went to the store. She was the one who closed my window. I remember having a brief chat with her and that’s when she told me to watch out. I was confused by this but it made sense to me when I was walking into Layla’s bedroom that morning. I also found out that the night I snuck out, Layla was in the back talking to her friend. Her friend had told Layla that she thought I was sneaking out. Layla didn’t believe it but she challenged her to go and check my room. Layla did and sure enough, I wasn’t there. So, she knew the whole night.

Needless to say I learned my lesson and it was a hard lesson to learn. Yep, a valuable lesson it was. Just think, none of this would have happened had I just walked out the front door like I did from then on.