Goddess Twiggy: Lookin as clueless as I felt …
Photograph: Barry Lategan
He was the football captain. The lead of every musical. Coveted by my girlfriends. He — who went “all the way” — or so they said — with the hottest, fastest “hood” in senior year. He was tall. He was dark. He was oh so handsome. Yeah yeah yeah. But it was that bad boy thing that drew me in. He danced with me just once in junior year, gave me a twirl, and promptly cast me aside. But I would think of that embrace each night. This time? As we approached the end of senior year? No “almost” — I’m going for it. I had nothing to lose. I am asking him to the Prom and I am gonna win him.
I was a “B” girl in high school. Come on. You know how that is. Plenty “cute” — but I was a little odd — even then — not in A circles. And he … he was an A+.
We went to the prom. I remember wearing as much guck in my hair as I did on my face, my twiggy eyes, my all-over. Oh yeah, I went all the way.
And it worked. I won him. That very first night.
“I was a “B” in High School. Come on. You know how that is ... And he ... he was an A+”
We were “together” for four years. We went steady, we got “pinned”— please, does anybody remember getting “pinned?” And I wore his engagement ring. He went off to an Ivy League School majoring in economics. I am yawning as I write this. And me? I went off to art school — and by year three, I would fantasize about him getting shipped to Vietnam so I could be free of him. Nice. He wanted to go. He wanted to “save our country.” And he was increasingly concerned about my shift in dress, in thoughts, in interests.
And he should have been. I broke up with him two weeks before our wedding “event” at the local Wayne Manor. I broke his heart in my little VW with the WHO in the background screaming I’M FREE while I gave him the news. And I can so remember trying to repress the feeling of exhilaration as that poor boy was losing his shit. He went off to Vietnam. And I went off to get happily radicalized.
What felt like winning on Prom night soured pretty quickly. But the feeling in that VW as I broke free from a life I did not want has felt like winning every day since — it was the start of my life as a Glorious Broad.