Her Legs are Magic, Mine are Made of Ketchup

Out the window, I see her. My best friend, standing eye to eye with my ex-boyfriend. She’s resting her arms on his shoulders. His hands are on her waist, their bodies pressed together. Her head tilts, fingertips touching. Then, their lips meet — glued together in a deep, open-mouthed kiss.

I hold my breath, then let out a violent “eughhh” noise. I’m fifteen. Sitting on the school bus, three minutes before we roll out. I gag on the bus fumes.

My best friend and I, who we’ll call Karen, are thick as thieves. We stay up late telling dirty jokes, jump off her bed to the Beastie Boys, shove our faces with sour cream and onion chips. She was my ride or die. We had one hundred inside jokes. We shared clothes, we shared secrets.

I didn’t know we would be sharing?everything.

Back to the kiss: it’s a hands-in-the-hair roaming affair. It’s an upper lip octopus slurping a squid. It is a lusty engine, powered by fast moving jaws and pleasure-seeking tongues. My heart is pounding. Can they see me? And also:?so that’s how people kiss.?I’m slinking further into the leather bus seat. Shrinking my body so I can still watch, but not be seen.?They are so good at it.?I’m taking notes; they keep going.

Simultaneously, a new feeling is being born.

I am a shoeless peasant, plain faced and troubled. I’m a slug, leaving behind a wet trail of messy feelings. Karen is a free spirit, selectively capturing the male gaze with a practiced smile. She is a graceful bird, dipped in jasmine and wildflowers. I am a sack of soggy McDonald’s fries. Her legs are magic; mine are made of ketchup.

She told me she was chatting with him on?ICQ ?so she could?get him to like me again.?Wow, you would really do that for me? I’m so lucky to have such a loyal friend. She was going to prom with him?so she could convince him that I was the perfect girl.?We came up with a game plan of talking points. Plus, I already had a date, so this was his way to win me back. Obviously.

Weeks before, he called me and told me “we are better as friends.” Which didn’t make sense because we were never friends. We met through Model United Nations. He was America, I was The Netherlands. From the get, the romantic compatibility of our two assigned countries was — I’m just going to say it — very hot. Surely, we were destined to be long-term diplomatic partners. At the very least, we would be ratifying a resolution to disarm nuclear weapons. Friends? I was?The Netherlands. I didn’t need more friends.

The heartbreak crushed me. Naturally, I went to the bathroom and cut off all my hair. I’d grab a large piece with one hand, and then with the other: chop, chop, chop. Over and over until it was all gone. “What happened to you!” my mother cried. “Your beauty!” she gestured to the excised pile of 12-inch strands on the tile. “What beauty!” I yelled back. Like a bunch of hair would do me any good. I’m an ogre, I thought. Let the world see me for what I truly am.

I took up residence in my bedroom and listened to Natalie Merchant’s?Ophelia ?for days. My mom started bringing me plates of shrimp dumplings, face scrunched with concern.

“You are like our pearl, Mandy,” she said, sitting next to me on the bed.

“You are so precious. We spent so much time raising you! And this boy, he treat you like … like shit! Like SHIT do you hear me? Forget him!” my mom commanded. She handed me the chopsticks. I placed one dumpling, then two, then three in my mouth. I chewed; tears streaming down my face. How juicy the dumplings; how cruel the world!

Karen knew all of this, of course. She was my?bestie.?We spent HOURS talking about how I could “win him back.” She knew about the heartbreak, the pining, the?everything. She’s the one who found a fancy salon to fix my hair. Technically, I had already been to a salon but it was a local Chinese one and they gave me a men’s buzz cut (don’t ask).

“Did you shave the back of your head, darling?” the French hairdresser said. She was confused. Frankly, we all were. “Never do that again.” I nodded, somberly.

I talked to Karen one last time. We shared a 20-minute cab ride together, about a year later. She told me how they continued dating through the summer. For their first romantic reunion, he asked to meet at?Schlotzsky’s Deli . She thought that was lame, so she dumped him.

“Schlotzsky’s?” I asked, suppressing a laugh. “That’s pretty bad.”

I imagined them sitting on plastic chairs with plastics trays: him with a roast cheddar, her with a turkey club. She breaks the news, his sandwich dripping with Thousand Island. “But I love you!” he protests. His sobs echo through the fast casual.

Maybe he deserved it, I think. No, they deserve each other.

She looked at me, and told me she was sorry. I believed her, she had no reason to lie. When you have so many lies between two people, sometimes you’re left with no choice but to tell the truth. She asked me how I’d been. Good, I said. I have new friends now. My hair’s growing out. My parents are doing well, how are yours?

She quietly confessed that it had happened again, with another close friend.

“I did it again, Mandy.”

“WHAT do you mean?you did it again??You stole another friend’s boyfriend?”

“Yesss,” she whispered, covering her eyes with her hands. “I didn’t mean to, it just happened!”

I bust out laughing.

“Oh my god. You HAVE to stop doing that!”

“I know, I know,” she mouthed. We’re both laughing.

“You’re gonna lose all your friends!” I yell at her, cracking up. For a second, we’re back. Hands clasped, howling with laughter.

We said our goodbyes, and never talked again. I heard from her a few more times on ICQ, but behind all my little exclamation marks (“I’m good! How are you?!”) was a pit of annoyance.?Her?again? What does she want? She was trouble, and I didn’t want anything to do with it.

Let me ask you. Is it possible to hold two very different feelings at the same time?

Yes. You can miss someone terribly, wonder if you’ll ever find friendship like that again, and also know in your gut that it’s over. You can emotionally give up on someone, telling your husband “ugh they’ll never change” but the minute they need you, like really need you, you show up as if you never wavered. You can be terrified to make a decision, but still walk into the fire, ready to burn.

I’m 41 now. I’m a mom of 2. I run a business, I have multiple degrees. I can put together furniture, make bread from scratch. I have a well-organized pantry full of snacks. I drive my kids to gymnastics and Russian math.

But I will always be 15. I will always, in some way, be the girl who cried over losing her best friend, who got dumped, who cut her hair. I will always be the MUN nerd, dragging my wet trail of feelings behind me. I will?also?always be the girl who picked herself up, who decided not to take any crap, who made new friends (way better ones), and got over it.

To this day, I can’t walk past a Schlotzky’s without laughing. Imagine getting dumped in that place? Your heart is broken; the people next to you are eating a Loaded Baked Potato soup. How would?anyone?ever recover? ??

===

This story was originally published on my weekly Substack:

https://mandytang.substack.com/p/her-legs-are-magic-mine-are-made