Ali in Wonderland: And Other Tall Tales by Ali Wentworth Read Free Book Online Page A

petite Georgian who owned an elaborate manicure set and used a safety pin to separate each lash after applying mascara. She taught me to wear earth tones, big belts, and brow highlighter. She ate cottage cheese and lettuce every day for lunch, and whenever I had a bowl of Sugar Pops with whole milk, she would look at me with such disappointment that I felt like a puppy who had just disemboweled the couch. There were moments when I got tremendous pleasure out of torturing her with raw cookie dough during all-nighters. I may have been twenty pounds heavier, with overgrown brows, but I much preferred watching her do sit-ups from the sideline with a box of Entenmanns’s Brownie Chunks. It is my firm belief that if Bella had eaten Halloween candy and Rice Krispies Treats back then, she wouldn’t be spending Saturday nights on a StairMaster tagging articles about surrogates and anal bleach kits today.
    Lulu did not possess Bella’s svelte figure or discipline; she was the opposite. Lulu was voluptuous, with heaving breasts and a thick mane of orange ringlets. She dressed and looked like a carrot-top, Shakespearean Janis Joplin dipped in freckles. My introduction to Lulu took place in the middle of the night. I was asleep. She snuck into my room, shook my shoulder, and asked if she could talk to me.
    “Sure,” I whispered, wondering how I could possibly be of any help to her. She was groovy, drank blackberry wine, and wore a floppy felt hat.
    “Well,” she whispered back, “Would you come with me to Boston this weekend to get an abortion?”
    I had no idea what an abortion was. It was not something that came up at Girl Scouts. “Of course,” I answered. “I’ll get one too.” (Thank God hers was a false alarm. Otherwise I’d probably be missing my pancreas.)
    Lulu was the first and only nymphomaniac I have ever known. If Oprah did a show on sex addiction, it would be Lulu, Charlie Sheen, and a whole bunch of football players on the couch. At night Lulu would sneak out of the second-floor window and, like a cat in heat, promenade into town, a sleepy New England village that shut down at 6:00 p.m. There were no bars or clubs, but she would trawl the streets like a vampire searching for fresh blood. She would meet a cop having his cup of joe or a townie listening to Black Sabbath in his Camaro—the details weren’t relevant. They’d have nameless, faceless sex, and afterward she would just crawl back through the window before dawn with pink cheeks and a wicked smile on her face. I can only imagine her Facebook page today (lots of people to befriend)! During a particular heavy patch or full moon, Lulu would have to go to the infirmary for a day to recover; she needed pills, sleep, and a bag of frozen peas. And then there were the nights she couldn’t escape, when the dorm mother was patrolling the halls like a prison warden or campus security was parked out front. Lulu would dance around the room completely naked like a psychedelic wood nymph. She would blare the Rolling Stones or Pink Floyd until she worked herself up into such a state she would collapse, covered in sweat. I assumed that was how witches masturbated.
    And there was the group of girls that were untouchable. You had to be either a junior or a senior even to be eligible to run with that pack. You also had to smoke, dress in ripped jeans that partially exposed your underwear (ghetto for debutantes), and have rope bracelets stacked up your arm. It was required you be obsessed with the Grateful Dead and have a summer home in either Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard. Renters didn’t count unless you were from Bermuda. One night I found myself in the butt room with this social hive of queen bees. And on my third cigarette I was invited into the conversation. Did I know where they could score some pot? That was their opener. I had to be very careful framing my response; my answer could jeopardize the next three years of my life. I had never smoked pot, let alone