Remember When #featured #AllStars

Chapter 1

PART ONE  1990:  

LISA

Lisa DeSanto and I have been friends since she moved herewhen we were both seven. Her family originated from Atlantic City (which seemed incredibly exotic and worldly at the time) to head north and plant roots in the forgettable little suburb of Norman. Thank God they just happened to buy a house on the same street where I had lived my entire life.

I remember being so excited when I first heard that a girl my age was going to be living only three houses away! Until that point, I was relegated to hanging around the neighborhood with my little brother and the four McAllister boys next door. The only other girls on our street were Flora and Phoebe Kopinsky who were just babies at the time.

It's not that spending my formative childhood years around all those boys was all bad. I am an excellent kickball player and have been known to throw a mean whiffleball curve from time to time. To this day, I still retain the ability to scale a fence without breaking a sweat and I think my tolerance for pain is probably a little higher than most girls I know.

Looking through the family albums, I can count on one hand the number of pictures of me that don't include scraped knees or a Band-Aid somewhere on my body. Even my First Communion photos show an otherwise unassuming little girl, hands folded innocently in prayer, dressed in a frilly, white dress... and wearing a cast on her forearm. I won't get into the whole story here, but the particular circumstances in which I broke my wrist that spring involved a Wonder Woman costume, an invisible airplane and the roof of the McAllisters' garage.

Lisa, on the other hand, was always more of a "real girl" than I was. I hadn't realized I was such a tomboy until I went to her house for the first time.

Upon entering Lisa's room, I was immediately informed of the fact that her mother had let her decorate it almost entirely by herself. It was actually painted pink and there were white, eyelet curtains at the windows and a rainbow comforter on her wicker bed. My only attempt at decorating at that time involved a Scooby Doo blanket that I had won on the boardwalk. The pictures on her walls were of David Cassidy and Scott Baio and Donny Osmond, a bit of a departure from the Burger-King-issued, 1978 Yankees and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band posters that hung on mine.

In spite of our differences, or maybe because of them, Lisa and I have been best friends ever since. It seems that it was within ten minutes of our first meeting that she taught me how to feather my hair, make braided ribbon barrettes and draw a proper unicorn, necessary survival traits for any girl in the late seventies.

Over the years, she has dragged me to the mall repeatedly, making me buy Jordache jeans, parachute pants, Guess denims and ultimately, to my enduring mortification, ZCavaricci's. She ran me through the gauntlet of makeup and clothes enough to help me get my act together in time for high school.

Prior to that, I was sort of clueless. I used to play football with the guys at recess and spent more time climbing trees than playing dollies. That tomboy stuff was fine during elementary school, but by sixth grade, my body had begun to sprout boobs and that's when all the boys started looking at me a little funny.

All the boys except the one I'd started to really like, however.

I had the hugest crush on Brian Hollander during that time and I just couldn't understand why my superior athletic ability wasn't helping to catch his eye. Lisa stepped in and gently explained that boys liked girls who were, well... more like girls, and I'd have more of a fighting chance if I started acting like one right quick.

It was the summer between seventh and eighth grade when Lisa went into full-on Frankenstein mode with me. She armed me with a bottle of Love's Baby Soft and a tube of Zinc Pink lipstick and gave me a complete beauty lesson, showing me how to put on makeup to suit my "season", and went clothes shopping with me to find outfits that would best show off my new boobs without making me look trashy. When all was said and done, I was surprised to find the girl looking back at me through the mirror. Until that moment, I had no idea that I ever wanted to be... pretty. But there I was, all made up, hair done and dressed like a real, live girl, and I realized that Lisa's description actually held some truth.