Longing for Maturity

But the wind kept blowing out my matches and I was getting mad.  So engrossed was I in getting the damned thing lit that I didn't hear the truck pull up behind me until someone called to ask if I needed help.  There I stood, tears of frustration streaming down my cheeks.   And there they sat, grins plastered all over their faces, the four o'clock drilling rig shift.  One of them graciously leaned out the window and lit my cigarette with his lighter.  Before I could choke out a teary tank you, they roared off in a cloud of dust leaving their laughter hanging on the air.

Why was I so determined to smoke?  Because I was a late bloomer.  There I was in a class of buxom girls who looked eighteen while I, skinny waif that I was, looked about ten.  So I decided I had to do something to make myself appear older.  Smoking was the first step.

It wasn't easy becoming a smoker around parents who never indulged in tobacco.  I had to be sure I didn't breathe my smoky breath in their faces.  I had to make excuses about why my clothing smelled of smoke.  I had to hide my cigarettes where they wouldn't accidentally find them.  I discovered a crevice under a big rock in a neighbor's field and hid my precious pack there.  Unfortunately the rains came and turned my hard-earned cigarettes into a useless soup of tobacco and soggy paper.

Once I thought I had smoking mastered and made sure my school mates knew about it, I moved on to another step in my battle to come of age.  All my friends bragged about their boyfriends.  I needed a boyfriend.  The boys in my school were all either involved with one of the other girls, not interested in me, or just plain repulsive so I decided to find one among the men I had ogled for so long in my movie magazines.

I finally settled on dark, handsome Italian Rosanno Brazzi.  I cut out his photo, carefully glued it onto the top of an old photograph and coated the entire thing with clear nail polish until it looked like a real photo - almost.  My classmates didn't seem too impressed, but I thought I was rapidly moving toward maturity.

My figure, however, wasn't.  I cajoled Mom into buying me a training bra.  Then stuffed the cups with Kleenex until I developed an impressive, but bumpy bust line.  By this time I was sixteen, still skinny and still felt I was a misfit.  One thing my boyfriend-less evenings did provide was free time, though, and I spent a lot of that baby-sitting.  Now I had a bit more money to spend and I discovered, in the lingerie department a wonderful product called falsies.  I bought a larger bra and the falsies and finally, I thought, I was beginning to look like a woman.

But I craved more.  My enthusiasm (and the nail polish) was wearing off old Rosanni Brazzi.  What I needed was a real boyfriend, and not one of those wimpy schoolboys.  No.  I wanted an older man, one with a truck to take me places - and how I was going to get that past my parents I have no idea.  I wanted a man who owned a lighter to light my cigarettes.

I found one easily enough.  He looked after the oil wells that had invaded our farm.  He drove from well to well, cleaning the sites, keeping an eye on the tanks, and doing handyman work.  I had a horse and took to following him.  I suppose today it would be called stalking.  I'd "accidentally" run into him three or four times a week.  He didn't seem to mind my company and often paused in his work to chat, but he wasn't noticing me the way he was supposed to.  He wasn't seeing me as a woman.

One sunny afternoon I dressed in my shorts and tightest T-shirt (wearing my falsies, of course) and climbed on my horse.  I found him at the far end of our property and stopped to light a cigarette before I approached him.  I rode onto the well site and offered my sexiest smile.  He smiled back.  It was then I saw the bottle sitting on the truck and realized he'd been drinking.

That was the day, too, that he really noticed me.  His grin turned to a leer and he stumbled toward me where I sat frozen on my horse.  He reached up and caressed my thigh with his dirty hand.  Not wanting any more noticing, I slapped my horse with the reins and galloped away from him.

Behind me I heard his laughter and it was reminiscent of that laughter long ago when I shed frustrated tears over an unlit cigarette.  I rode my lathered horse into the corral and turned him loose.  My mother was busy in the garden so I sneaked in the back door and into my room where I threw myself facedown on the bed and cried myself to sleep.

Later that night, after a long bath that still left me feeling soiled, I threw my falsies into the garbage, ripped my cigarettes into shreds and scattered the remains in the bush.  Maybe I wasn't quite ready for maturity.  Maybe it would be better to remain a skinny little farm girl for a little while longer.