The Runway Model from L.A. (Lower Alabama)

By Patrick Best

When I was 16 years old I became infatuated with a girl named Christi Ross. She was almost six foot tall, had long brown hair and her skin was so perfect I compulsively said things like the following when I looked directly at her: “Wow, Christi, you sure do have pretty skin.” This made me sound eerily like one of the crazed serial killers in the horror movies I watched on Showtime late at night, so I started looking at the ground or at the back of my hands when I talked to her.

Christi literally looked like a runway model. This is one of the many reasons why I couldn’t understand why she had any interest in me. I was poor, I hung out with the wrong crowd, and my wardrobe said homeless runaway more than it did New York Fashion Week. I wore wrinkled concert T-shirts that were screen printed with band names and pictures that usually included blood or flames or both, and my only pair of high top tennis shoes were covered with grass stains from the occasional lawn-cutting job I did to earn walking around money.

My hair was long and straight, and I had an annoying habit of blowing my bangs out of my eyes every 10 or 15 seconds. It drove my step-father absolutely nuts. “Woo! Woo!” my step-father would mimic me as he blew air toward the sky through his puckered, beard-surrounded lips. “That’s all I hear when I’m around you! Woo! Woo! Get a haircut, for god’s sake!” A bulging, crooked vein would appear in the middle of his forehead and I’m convinced he seriously considered grabbing a steak knife out of the kitchen drawer and sawing off a couple of inches of my hair. I didn’t care. I liked my long hair. And, more importantly, Christi Ross liked it.

“You have really cool hair,” she said to me during one of our phone conversations. “It’s really shiny.”

This simple compliment made me obsess over my hair in the morning before school. I started getting up earlier every day so I could wash it and blow-dry it and stare at it in the mirror. I turned my head from side to side so I could get the lights to gleam off the shampooed, conditioned and thoroughly brushed strands. 

For a few glorious weeks in the early fall of 1986, Christi and I talked on the phone all the time. We also chatted at school in the hallway.  Even better, she invited me over to her house a couple of times to watch movies. I remember being impressed – and more than a little intimidated - by her beautiful house with the expensive furniture and the big T.V. in her living room.

“Do you want some chips, Patrick?” Christi’s mother asked me politely as she opened the pantry doors in their kitchen.

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied eagerly. Christi was sitting on the couch next to me so I was staring down at my fingertips, checking for the little white spots that I’d heard appear on your nails if you don’t have enough calcium in your diet.

“Plain, barbecue or Doritos?” she asked.

“Doritos, please.” There were no white spots on my nails. I surmised that it must have been all the milk I consumed in the two or three bowls of Crunch Berries cereal I ate each day.

“Would you like a Coke?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said with a smile.

“How about a chocolate chip cookie?” she added as she handed me a big bag of Doritos and a cold can of Coke.  “I made a bunch yesterday.”

“God, Momma,” Christi said as she laughed and rolled her eyes. “You’re going to give him a stomach ache!”

“It’s fine,” I said. “I love chocolate chip cookies.” ‘Did you really just say that? I love chocolate chip cookies?! Really?! You are such a dork!’ My internal dialogue was constant when I was in uncomfortable situations, and this was definitely an uncomfortable situation for me. I probably spoke more words to myself than I did to Christi during my time at her house.

I spent a lot of my time away from high school drinking cheap beer and getting into trouble with my friends, so most of the mothers of the girls I liked stared at me with raised eyebrows and accusing eyes. Christi’s mom talked and looked at me like I was a kid whose parents belonged to the Ozark Country Club and had his picture in the newspaper for making all As and not missing one day of school since kindergarten. I liked it… and I liked her. But, alas, my relationship with Christi and her mother wouldn’t even last a full month.

My friend Justin and I were riding around in his silver Chevy Chevette one day after school. We were both around 6’3, so we looked pretty ridiculous crammed into the front seat of that little car. We didn’t care. If one of our friends had a car that worked, we were going to be out riding around in it until the gas tank ran dry and we were all out of money. We had just come through town and were sitting at a stop sign when I spotted something out of the corner of my eye. I could see my little house on East College Street from where we were sitting, and there was a car in the driveway and people standing in the yard.  

“Who is that?” I asked Justin, pointing in the direction of my house. We were a couple of hundred yards away, but I could tell there were three people talking on my front lawn.

“How the hell do I know?” he responded sarcastically. “I don’t have binoculars for eyes, ya know.”

“You don’t have to be such a jerk about it,” I said. “Drive by real quick and let me see what’s going on.”

“Really, dude?! Who cares? Let’s just go over to TJ’s and pick him up. He’s waiting for us.”

“Just ride by real quick. It won’t take two seconds.”

Justin reluctantly turned the steering wheel, grinded into first gear and pressed the accelerator. The little tin can with wheels lurched forward like a cat trying to push out a giant hair ball, and we slowly moved up the street toward my house. I recognized Christi first. Her arms were crossed, her head was down, and she was standing in the middle of my front yard. Her mother was a few feet in front of her and she was holding my mother’s out-stretched hands.  

“What in the hell?” I said with astonishment.

“Dude, this does not look good,” Justin said gravely. “What did you do?”

“Nothing. How do they even know where I live?” I said as Justin pulled up in front of the house. I opened the door and leapt out onto the curb before the car came to a complete stop. Christi looked up when she heard the creak of the door. Her face turned beet red, then she dropped her eyes back down to the dandelions and clover that had overtaken our yard.

‘Dammit. I knew I should have cut the grass yesterday,’ I thought.

“Hey, baby,” my mother said before I could get out any of the questions swirling in my head. “I’m so glad you’re home.”

I completely ignored her and spoke to Christi. “Is everything okay, Christi? What are you guys doing here?”

Christi said nothing. She shrugged her shoulders slowly like a child who’s just been caught lighting matches behind the sofa. She was wearing navy blue shorts and a white designer shirt. She looked like she’d just stepped off the pages of the new Macy’s catalog.

My mother’s voice broke the silence. “Christi tried to call you this afternoon and she kept getting the message that our phone had been disconnected. She got worried about you, baby, so her and her sweet momma came over to check on us.” She paused, then added, “And Christi, you’re even prettier than Patrick said.”

Christi smiled politely and nodded her head, but she didn’t look up or say a word.

I could tell my mother had been drinking because the sides of her mouth were turned down in a frown and her eyes looked a little sleepy behind the big red eyeglasses that looked just like the ones TV’s Sally Jessy Raphael wore every day on her talk show. My mother always spoke with a Southern accent, but after two stiff drinks she would channel Scarlett O’Hara during her melodramatic scenes with Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind. ‘And when I think of myself with everything I could possibly hope for, and not a care in the world... And you here in this horrid jail... and not even a human jail, Rhett, a horse jail!’

“What’s wrong with the phone?” I asked as if I was shocked by this news. I already knew it had been cut off because we hadn’t paid the bill, but for some reason I felt I might get another explanation from  my mother if I asked the question with conviction.

“I told Mrs. Ross that we’ve been having the hardest time keeping up with our bills,” she said as reached out to touch Mrs. Ross’s forearm. “And, bless her heart, Mrs. Ross has offered to pay this month’s bill. Isn’t that sweet, Patrick? Isn’t she just a blessing?”

“What?!” I yelled. The volume of my voice made everyone jump. Even Christi looked up at me for a brief moment before returning her eyes to the weeds. “She’s not paying our bill, Momma.”

“It’s fine, Patrick,” Mrs. Ross said cheerily, reassuringly. “I told your mother she can pay me back whenever things get better. Y’all can’t go without a phone. It’s just not safe.”

I could tell by the look in her eyes that she felt pity for me. I felt like I was on fire all over.

“Go in the house, Momma,” I said calmly. “Let me talk to Christi and Mrs. Ross.”

“Isn’t she just as nice as can be, Patrick?” my mother said, her hand now patting Mrs. Ross on the shoulder. I could almost imagine her twirling a parasol and wearing a dress made out of curtains.

“Go in the house, Momma,” I repeated, this time through tightly gritted teeth. My mother seemed to notice for the first time at that moment that I was angry. This recognition seemed to immediately sober her up, like the sight of my red cheeks and furrowed brow was the equivalent of a cold shower and a double shot of espresso. She turned around and, without saying another word, walked up the concrete steps and into our house. She slammed the front door behind her. I felt a pang of guilt for the way I had talked to her, but my feelings of embarrassment and frustration were much more powerful.

“I didn’t mean to cause any trouble,” Mrs. Ross said. “I…”

“You didn’t cause any trouble,” I interrupted. “We don’t need you to pay our phone, Mrs. Ross. My step-father has the money to pay the bill.” I lied.

“Oh… good,” she stammered. She wasn’t buying what I was selling, but she didn’t know what else to say.

I didn’t even look at Christi. I already knew she was going to be out of my life. Our relationship didn’t have enough history to hold heavy moments like disconnected phones and drunk mothers. Moments like that sit on immature young relationships and crush them like an elephant on chairs made for toddlers.

“Well, you give me a call if there’s anything I can do to help you,” Mrs. Ross said as she reached out to give me a hug. I hugged her back, but we didn’t say anything else to each other. When she let me go, she stepped away from me and smiled.

“Come on, Christi, let’s go. I need to stop by the grocery store before we go home,” Mrs. Ross said in an upbeat tone as she walked toward her car.

Christi muttered “See you tomorrow” in my direction and quickly moved toward the passenger door of her mother’s car.

“Sounds good,” I replied flatly. “See you tomorrow.”

Justin’s car was idling in the road in front of my house. When I opened the door and slowly folded myself back into that tiny death trap of a vehicle, my knees slammed against the handle on the glove compartment. “Dammit, this car is not made for people like us,” I said, grimacing with pain.

 Justin looked at me quizzically. “So… you gonna tell me what the hell that was all about?”

“You’re not going to believe it. Our phone got cut off… and Mrs. Ross was offering to pay to have it cut back on.”

“Screw that!” he said. “You told her to go to hell, right?”

“Basically,” I replied.

“Good for you, dude. You don’t need their charity,” he said as he aggressively pressed down the clutch and guided the little stick shift into first gear.

“I sure as hell don’t,” I said as I turned up the stereo. The sound of loud guitars and pounding drums blared from the speakers and chased away the remainder of the conversation.

I watched as the Ross girls backed out of my driveway and headed back to a life that didn’t include me.  The next day at school a friend of Christi’s told me she didn’t like anymore. This filled me with a mixture of emotions that included pride, anger and a little bit of sadness. I never talked to her again. Not one word. I acted like I didn’t see her when we passed each other in the hallways, and I didn’t call her when our phone got turned back on a couple of months later. It’s just as well. I was definitely the wrong guy for her if she couldn’t handle a little family drama every once in a while. Besides, if I kept going over to her house to watch movies, her mom would have eventually turned me into a diabetic. Things happen for a reason.

Some names have been changed to protect the innocent.