Teen

I was an awkward teenager.  I was very talented in art.  I wanted to become a graphic designer which my son now is but I was told that there was no money to send girls to college and that I would go to secretarial school.  Which I did in my senior year of high school, I would leave school at 3PM and go to Shortts Secretarial College in Stamford, Connecticut for typing and shorthand and filing, etc.  My plan was to leave for England the day after graduation.  But my mother had other ideas - not that she didn’t want me to go to England: “This house isn’t big enough for two women.”  But every time there was some contretemps, usually in her mind only, she would call British Airways and cancel my flight.

She found fault where none existed.  A missing bank deposit slip turned into me stealing her money.  Not calculating my rent payments properly were proof that I was trying to cheat her.  It went on and on day in and day out.  One day, we were putting groceries away and she reached for a certain cabinet and I ducked.  It was an involuntary response; I started to run but she punched me with all her might right in the middle of my back.  I literally saw stars and she would call British Airways and cancel my flight.

Thus proceeded a year of unspeakable depression and loneliness.  All my friends were at college.  I got a job the day after graduation working as a secretary for Dr. Hillis, an ancient old dentist “to the stars” on Greenwich Ave.  He had many celebrity patients.  Things went along reasonably smoothly until money was stolen from the cash box and I was blamed.  The Greenwich police came.  I would never steal a nickel let alone $100 which seems little now but at the time was quite a chunk of change.  It turned out one of the hygienists was short of money and she had taken it.  So, exonerated, I found another job in the secretarial pool at American Machine & Foundry in Stamford, CT.

We were supervised by this floozy woman always with a cigarette in her mouth or hand and very high heel strappy shoes even in winter and lots of décolletage.  But she was an excellent teacher and I learned many things from her.  In the meantime,  I met Joe Sullivan and I slept with him and I got pregnant by him.  So phone calls were made to London to my Uncle Clive and voila I was off to London.  Not quite the way I meant to get there but at least I got there.  

The pregnancy was terminated and I started my new life with Uncle Clive, my mother’s youngest brother. On the eve of my departure, she burst into my room as I was trying to put one more pair of high heel shoes in my suitcase. She grabbed the shoes and beat me all over the head with the stiletto heel end because she thought I was trying to read a secret note that she had written to Clive. I didn’t even suspect there would be a secret note. The note said that I was not to be trusted - that I stole money and cigarettes and was a habitual liar. It was August 1964.