When some families had weekend traditions like volunteering or going to church, mine had the tradition of going to the mall to shop on weekends. Sometimes these trips included major purchases, but mostly they consisted of browsing familiar haunts. When all four of us would go, often my sister and I were released and everyone went their own ways with the understanding that we would meet at a designated spot at a specific time when it was time to go home. This was life before cell phones, and a life that required watch wearing, or being brave enough to ask someone what time it was. After my sister joined the Air Force and started her own adult life, we moved to California and the weekend outings continued. Sometimes this meant I was left to my own devices during our family shopping together apart time. During fall of my senior year one of these outings resulted in me meeting a guy who was out shopping with his friend. He asked for my phone number and I gave it, not because I had actively decided that I was interested, but because I had bought into the idea that any attention of a reasonably good enough looking guy was good enough. There was minimal decision making on my part because what was the harm, right? This was how people met. This was how you get a boyfriend.
He was black, a highly uncommon demographic in my high school. He wasn't bad looking. His name was Ulysses (middle name "Grant," I kid you not) and he lived in East Palo Alto which was, at the time, a notoriously dicey bay area town adjacent to Palo Alto, which was home of Stanford University and a lot of rich people. In remembering events, I realized we'd met before I was licensed to drive and took the bus from Half Moon Bay to San Mateo to meet up with him for a movie date (Dark Man, starring Liam Neeson, thank you IMDB). That was the extent of our relationship. When the movie was over, we talked, but my primary concern was catching the bus to get home.
Three years later, I was a senior in high school and prom (at some point we stopped calling it "the Prom") was on the horizon. I wanted to go as to not miss out on a milestone high school experience. My dad had died a few months before, and there was a high school classmate interested in asking me out (which I knew through our mutual friends), but I did not want to deal with rejecting him. In steps Ulysses, who invited himself to be my date.
It seemed good enough. Looking back, I wish I had invited my best friend or attended in a friend group. I hated that we were expected to pair up with a boy in order to enjoy a night out in a gown and enjoy som time on the dance floor. I hated that I did not have the ability to deconstruct what I had unknowingly internalized. I said yes.
Ulysses did not have a way to get himself from East Palo Alto to my home in El Granada, so I drove to pick him up. I arrived at his apartment building, where we went inside to gather the tuxedo he'd rented. He was sipping a lemon Snapple when I got there, and I remember thinking his breath was tart, but I said nothing. We got into the car and I drove us back "over the hill" on highway 92 that crossed the Santa Cruz Mountains and led to the coast.
We got ready at my house. My mom had helped me choose my entire ensemble, a blue violet tea length off the shoulder velvet dress with dainty black mules and a necklace and earrings she'd lent me from her collection. I guess we'd also given Ulysses a room to get himself ready; I didn't remember. He did not have a corsage for me.
My mom drove us to my friend's house, where the limo was supposed to pick us up. There were two other couples, and we had split the cost of the limo and agreed to have dinner before heading to the San Francisco hotel ballroom hosting our prom (theme: I'd Die Without You, by P.M. Dawn).
What I remember: Ulysses had no money for dinner. We had to split a pasta plate Lady and the Tramp style, which I am sure I covered using my library page earnings. By the time we arrived at the hotel for the actual prom I was experiencing deep regret. I didn't know this guy, and I had not paused to think about what I actually wanted for myself with this milestone experience. What I did know: I did not want this guy. When we took formal photos, you could actually see me leaning away from my date, because not only did his breath smell, his cologne did not mask his blossoming body odor. He had looked good in the store when I was 15, and now I had buyer's remorse.
Prom ended with the six of us outside, waiting for the limo to fetch us for the return trip home. Ulysses kept trying to lean in for a kiss and I kept dodging. I dreaded having to make that long drive back to drop him off. My mother got us from the limo drop off point, and when we got home, she told me she would be driving him back. She and I took up the front seats while he sat in the back. I had never been so thankful in my life. It was just the two of us in the house now, and we were both adjusting to the loss of my dad. I had seen how quickly she took action the morning after he died; selecting flower arrangements and organizing the funeral. She didn't believe in keeping a body on ice for weeks which meant there were only a couple of days between his death and the funeral. She was good in a crisis, and I sometimes wonder what she might have been able to do if she'd established a professional career.
This was no different, and we dropped off Ulysses and went home. She never criticized my choice or asked what I had expected from that night. I think she must have seen the disappointment on my face and knew to step in and (literally) take the wheel. In this moment, she was the mother I needed, and I will always be grateful for that.
