the heartbreak kid

my child somehow morphed from a freckle-nosed gangly little muppet to a femme fatale overnight. How did this happen? I know not. But she is light-years ahead of me in sophistication and just knowing stuff at the age of 13.

At 13 I was still trying to figure out how to ride my bike to school without getting the leg of my corn-flower blue Levis cords jammed into the bike's chain, resulting in spending yet another day of 8th grade with the crinkled bottom of my pant leg looking like it was run through a greasy meat grinder as my brother pointed and hooted in the hallway between classes, shouting "Dumbass!" There was not a thing femme nor fatale about me. Nada.

She is pondering existentialism and permanent hair removal, the laws of karma and eye liner and veganism. At 13 I relaxed in the lemon yellow bean bag chair in the avocado green and harvest gold family room reading 'Teen magazine and fantasized about Peter Frampton. She is reading the editorial page of the New York Times and asking me about Art Buchwald, The Nation, abortion, reincarnation. I was rumpled and frizzy, metal braces on my teeth, boyish. She has huge green eyes and perfect skin and beautiful, golden-streaked hair that wanders down her narrow back to her waist. She wears a 34-D for chrissake. Help me.

Last night, after a week of total feces at work and other arena's of my life, I logged off work early, put on my crappiest sweat pants and stained 15-year-old t-shirt and crawled into bed with a copy of Bob Dylan's Chronicles, declaring to all that Mommy was officially offline until Saturday morning, please pretend I am not here. About 10 minutes into my restful bliss (I was in New York with Bob, it was winter, 1957, Bob's lips were in my ear and I listened to his low, mumbling words of incoherent yet poetic memoir..."Outside the wind was blowing, straggling cloud wisps, snow whirling in the red-lanterned streets, city types scuffling around, bundled up -- salesmen in rabbit fur earmuffs hawking gimmicks, chestnut vendors, steam rising out of manholes..." when suddenly I realized I was on the schedule to open the theatre (the community theatre two towns away where I volunteer) at 7 PM and serve as house manager for the evening's performance. Shit.

So I leapt out of bed, got dressed and jumped in the car. My daughter accompanied me. She likes to spook around the backstage area, find hiding places in the lofts, hang out with the sound and light guys and forage through the costume room for new finds. On the way there, she got me up to speed on the latest social machinations at school.

"Max asked me to go out with him," she said.

"Go where?" I asked.

"You know, Mommy, be his girlfriend."

"Well, what exactly does that mean?" I asked, and went on to remind her that there is no driving at this age, I will not drop her off at the mall so that she can roam and socialize with her pack of friends, no way. So where, exactly do teens who "go together" "go"?

She rolled her yes and said it was not an issue because she turned him down "but in a nice way." I explained to her for the 100th time that boys have feelings too and it must have been pretty tough for Max to screw up the courage to tell her that he "likes" her and ask her to be his girlfriend. His feelings must be a bit bruised and so she should be aware of that and treat him with kindness. She said it was cool, no problem. Fine.

Halfway through last night's performance, I stood in the lobby chatting with the 70-year-old concession stand volunteer when I saw Schmoopie staggering toward me, a stricken look on her sweet little face. She motioned at me violently to break away from Walter, who was filling me in on his latest Medicare hassles. She grabbed my hand and skittered into the theatre office, dragging me.

"Mommy, he hates me!" She said, pointing at the computer screen on the desk. I took off my glasses and leaned over for a closer look.

"Honey, what am I looking at?" I asked.

"It's his friends list on myspace. I was number one yesterday. Now I'm number 15!" she said, looking at me with disbelief, the pitch of her voice ratcheting up.

I guess this is how kids telegraph their pleasure or displeaure to one another these days.

When I was 13, if a boy didn't like you anymore or wanted to hurt you in some way he ignored you or, worse, did something shitty like knocked your books off your desk, a sort of public rebuke that all the other kids witnessed.

This is sort of the same thing, a public "you broke my heart and therefore you no longer rate with me as a person of importance" kind of thing. Only this seems more intense. What was once a painful but fleeting moment of rejection -- the feelings flying around in spastic trajectories that manifested in a passed note or a dirty look flashed in the hallway, this is much more of a public calling out that the whole world (if they wish to) can see. And it seems to matter so much to her.

Help me.