LITMIR.BIZ

      Senior year pep squad (Sylvia Harris)

      I decided to ditch the quiet Sylvia and became a cheerleader. Blame my hormones—I was no different from the other girls who were really getting into boys and the requisite trouble that often follows those first brushes of freedom and young love. I’d sneak alcohol out of the cabinet and join some of my fellow cheerleaders at one of their homes that would be parent-free for most of the night. We’d put on some loud Pat Benatar music and have our version of a wild evening. As Pat crooned, “Hit me with your best shot,” I even tried my first hits of pot, but back then I wasn’t a big fan of drugs. It only made me sleepy.

      My drug of choice was going to the Bay Meadows Golden Gate Fields with my father when the horses were racing. I’d sit in those metal stands and feel the thunder and the power of the Thoroughbred racehorses. I was a runner and they were runners, so I identified with their every step. With my mouth wide open, I’d watch them sail through the air and silently wish I could be their rider so I could feel weightless and free.

      I kept up the partying for the rest of high school, getting smashed on alcohol just about every weekend. My parents would give me the occasional lecture, and a couple of times I got in trouble for leaving without telling them; I would just look them in the face and lie.

      “I didn’t do it,” I’d say in my most casual of voices. “I was home the entire time.”

      “Sylvia, I checked your bedroom. You were gone,” my mother said.

      “I was in the other room,” I’d fib with a straight face, and most of the time my mother would just sigh and give up. She was too sick to really delve into my problems, and my parents remained on extreme edge with each other, which left them little time for dealing with adolescent concerns. Eventually, I got the attention I thought I deserved from a pretty serious boyfriend who was the handsome, charismatic star football player at the rival school in town.

      Broad-shouldered and sweet, Dan was a year ahead of me, and when he graduated, he signed up for the marines. We had the summer together before he had to take off. The night before he left, he took me in his arms. “Wait for me, Sylvia,” he pleaded.

      I promised that I would, if we could get married and start our own family. The idea of my own home and a husband seemed blissful to me; I could leave the escalating baggage behind and be a part of a real family.

      Deeply in love and planning my future, I’d run to the mailbox each day for his daily letter from boot camp, and I missed him in the way you only can with a first love. That fall, my senior year, I was nominated for homecoming queen. The one problem was, I didn’t have a date because my marine was off at training, and my father flatly refused to escort me.

      “I’m busy that night,” was all he said. He had grown very distant and tried to spend most of his free time away from us and the house.

      My last resort was asking my track coach to take me to the big dance, which was completely humiliating. To top it off, I didn’t win the crown; it was first runner-up for me. Without much enthusiasm, I had stepped onto the stage in the school gym to accept my award when my broad-shouldered, handsome ex–football star walked in like something out of a movie. It was my Dan, and now I felt like a winner. Later that night, he asked me to marry him with a beautiful diamond and emerald ring as my prize. He had to go the next day, but he more than made my night. It was enough to get me through the rest of the school year. With a happy new life awaiting me, I even buckled down and focused on my studies.

      A few weeks before my high school graduation, my fiancé sent me a thicker letter, and I couldn’t wait to rip it open. I thought that maybe he had written me a few poems or enclosed a few drawings, because he liked to sketch in his free time. Instead, he sent a picture of a woman holding a baby. His baby.

      Crushed, I didn’t get out of bed for the next few days. My mother tried to comfort me, but a bout of her illness was causing her to stay in bed much of the day. Eventually, this made me push aside my own misery and try to help out around the house. Dad was more distant than ever and didn’t question or show much concern for us. He would go to work, hang out, sometimes all night, and speak very little when around the house.

      Having to help out more got me out of my rut, and I was determined to shake myself free from the sadness and celebrate my graduation. Even if it was not going to lead to the future I had hoped, it was still a new beginning—a fresh start. And in the days that led up to graduation, I joined my classmates in the excitement of our big event.

      On graduation day the sky was a brilliant blue, and so was I, in a powder blue dress under my ceremonial black robe, replete with baby blue eye shadow to match the dress. I even had on blue high heels, and I knew I looked good.

      After the ceremony, the sun was beating down on everyone, but no one really cared. I saw my father off to the side of the field. It didn’t surprise me that he wasn’t near my mother, who was sitting in the shade, with my brother fanning her. I walked over to him unsteadily, as my extremely high heels kept sinking into the turf of the football field. I thought at first he was smiling, proud to see his little girl holding her diploma and the many awards I had won for track and field. But once near him, I could see he was only squinting in the sharp sunshine.

      “I can’t do this anymore,” he said as he handed me a graduation card with five hundred dollars in it. He stood there for a moment as if he were going to explain himself, but then he turned and walked away.

      “Daddy?”

      He didn’t stop, and I watched the wrinkled back of his tan suit as he faded away. The next day he packed up his stuff and moved back to Virginia, where we had once lived when I was very young.

      What followed were really rough years where my mom was on disability and I felt myself sinking deeper into some sort of emotional abyss. It was a year later that I had my first bipolar episode.

      Furlong One