Nine years old and listening to the Fifth Dimension’ s Wedding Bell Blues, I wondered why-o-why Billy Davis Jr. wouldn’t marry Marilyn McCoo. She could sing, she obviously loved him and, boy, was she beautiful. I looked in the mirror and wondered how could I ensure that this would not happen to me? So, ever the planner, I scratched out a list of wants.
Boobs were number one. Boobs, mustache bleach, (hoping to rid me of my 5th grade nickname whiskers), and a Miss Congeniality win in the Miss America contest (even at nine I knew- boobless and with a mustache–Miss America was out of my reach). I added learn to write to my list, in case the marriage thing didn’t work out.
By twenty-one I’d bleached my mustache and developed breasts and the realization that beauty contests were for, well… beauties (lovely new breasts aside). I went to nursing school, became an exercise physiologist and finished a doctorate in sport psychology. To my great relief and Marilyn McCoo’s (I like to think) I married. But somewhere I lost my voice-forgot to write.
Instead, I waxed my mustache, gave birth, got a nursing bra, and cried a lot. I discovered that, shockingly, facial hair removal, great breasts, and a can-do attitude is not enough to make the Mockingbird that was my marriage sing anything other than the wedding bell blues.
In the end, that little flat-chested girl with the dusting of facial hair and modest dreams; found something better than living life inside a hit from the 70’s. I found my words, wrote them down and became a novelist. On Maggie’s Watch is being published this year by Berkley (a division of Penguin) about a woman who struggles, gets a story, and finds her voice.