I had dated a few boys before that point, and I am positive my aunt and uncle wouldn't have been quite so worried if the first guy I saw openly hadn't been quite so black. They are the kind of upper-middle class white people who really don't think they are racist, but then they open their mouths and the worst combination of words possible spills out. The conversation my aunt had with me while I was sitting on my mattress in the dining room, desperately trying to send out privacy vibes, really drives that point home.
"Now Lauren, are people going to...going to look down on you for dating a black man?"I got my peace and quiet after that one, though she could have been more considerate and huffed off less obnoxiously.
"No, why would they?"
"Well, when I was in high school, only trashy women dated black men."
"No, Fam, when you were in high school, you thought all the women who dated black men were trashy. Don't confuse the point."
Luckily, the relationship was a rocky one and didn't last long enough for it to become a bigger issue for them, though it did end in him being socially ostracized for two and a half semesters at our school. Not only was this the year I really honed my sarcasm, but I also learned how to set the social machine turning to my advantage in the fashion of a true manipulative bitch. I came to my senses somewhere during the summer before my senior year, luckily.
I couldn't understand why they weren't relieved that I settled down and was dating one guy, because they didn't like the next one much, either. Granted, I think few people would have been alright with their ward dating her karate instructor, and in retrospect makes this one of the few sensible reactions they have had over the course of their lives. He was only eighteen, which makes it slightly less disturbing, but I no longer think it is a good idea for a college freshman to be dating a fifteen-year-old girl. I seem to be showing early signs of becoming one of those stodgy old people I hated so much at that age Luckily, I have always had a spine, so nothing serious happened.
I think that these previous relationships would have lasted longer had I actually been able to drive. My third boyfriend was eighteen, and had his own car, so we could see each other whenever he was free. He was the one I dated until I left for college. I didn't get my own license until I was seventeen, partly out of spite. As soon as my friends started driving, my uncle sank into a funk that he would not remove himself from for several months. I have never been sure why he was so against the idea of me driving since he hated taking me to and picking me up from school. I never drank, I never did drugs, and he always pointed out with a hint of regret how respectable my friends were. It makes me more convinced that the niece he has and the niece I am are not one and the same. So, I took my sweet time getting my license to force him to drive me for a few months more, even though our interactions during these times were often almost physically painful:
This morning in the car on the way to pick up Rose the only thing he said to me was "I can't take this music, Lauren". Then he turns off the CD. So I turn off the radio, thinking he wants silence. He glares at me and then turns it onto some horrible song. I tell him I don't like it, and he turns it up. I turn it down. He turns it up again and goes "You're not the only person in the car, Lauren." "Neither are you," I reply, trying to get him to understand that a compromise is needed...he just glares at me again and turns it up more. After the song is over, he turns off the radio and then goes to sleep.I often felt like we were both sixteen.
I am almost positive I would have never been allowed to drive alone at all had they not decided to move. The house was newly remodeled, and I had a set of walls I was happy with, so of course it was time to uproot it all and relocate thirty minutes away. Making me move schools was out of the question--I was far too fragile to handle the strain, which is parental code for "we're afraid she'll start sleeping on the stairs again." I still think it would have been far simpler to stay put in our current house, which had everything we needed, or relocate to one within the roomy expanse of my school district. Instead, they paid the school nine thousand dollars a year for me to attend, and dropped another ten thousand on a car. I'm not complaining about how well it worked out for me, but it never ceases to amaze how many problems they have solved by poulticing them with cash.
The car caused more problems than it was worth, in some ways. My uncle finally de-funked and accepted the inevitable, and my aunt told me I could pick which car I wanted, within reason. I began to suspect her motives, however, when she told the rest of the neighborhood that "the car isn't hers. We're just letting her drive it to and from school, and that's it. She won't be cruising around with her friends." After I pointed out that she was the one who decided to move me out of a reasonable walking or biking distance from everyone, and that I was perfectly happy with the old house, she decided to drop that angle. She had already decided that the family problems we all had been having were due to "a lack of space," and was absolutely convinced that things would be different at the new home. It actually makes me sad that she was wrong, but I also feel that her conviction made our problems worse since she felt we were always being unreasonable if we disagreed with her from this point on.
I celebrated my newfound, be-wheeled freedom by dying my hair and the brand new bathtub purple and taking fashion cues from my more gothic friends, which made my aunt and uncle even more concerned about "what the neighbors would think" in our new, much more posh, neighborhood as Year Four began.
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