LIAR, LIAR

I wasn’t always shy. I was introspective as a child, but not introverted. In fact, looking back, I would call myself outgoing—a leader, even…until sixth grade, when I was traumatized by a series of events that have had a lasting impact on me. In first grade, my parent enrolled me in University Elementary School in Minneapolis, where I was chosen to give a little speech to all the parents and the whole class sang the following song:

I had a little nut tree.

Nothing would it bear

But a silver nutmeg and a golden pear.

The king of Spain’s daughter

Came to visit me.

And all for the sake of my little nut tree.

These are my only other memories of that year:

• I was scolded once for whispering during rest time, just as I had been— again, just once—in kindergarten. I was chatty, yes, but being scolded utterly mortified me.

(My first grade teacher told my parents, although I wouldn’t know this until I was an adult, “Cathy won’t guess.” After sixth grade, I would take an I.Q. test at my mom’s insistence, and when I was asked what the word mosaic meant, I wouldn’t venture an answer, though what I saw in my mind was a picture made of bright bits and pieces. All my life, it seems, I’ve been morbidly afraid of being wrong.)

• I was extremely frightened when—one by one—during rest period we were all examined by a doctor. The girls who went before me said he pulled down their underpants. This incident is significant, perhaps, in light of what I would learn decades later.

• I was wrongly accused by a classmate—the daughter of friends of my parents—of lying. “Liar, liar, pants on fire, nose as long as a telephone wire,” she chanted in her parents’ car on our way to school. I was stunned—both by the injustice and the cruelty of her accusation.

• I was embarrassed at my seventh birthday party when someone called to wish me “Happy Birthday.” Flustered with excitement, I responded without thinking, “Happy Birthday!” right back at them. Then, realizing my mistake, I quickly added without missing a beat, “’Happy Birthday!’ That’s all I ever hear!” I don’t think they were fooled, though.

(Actually, this is the only birthday party I can remember ever having. In future years my mom would let me invite a friend to lunch at Dayton’s Sky Room on the very top floor of the department store, where I would invariably order a fruit salad with sherbet, summer fruit being a special treat.)

•  Also at the party, my best friend Maryanne gave me a colorful little suitcase for doll clothes that I still have. This is significant because when Mom moved Doug and me to California, most of my things never arrived. In fact, many of my moves would entail losses, I would find in the coming years.

• On a visit to a couple my parents knew, I walked through their bedroom to the bathroom and saw on the dresser a little porcelain jar with delicate flowers on the lid. I was so taken with it, I wanted to ask our hostess if I could have it, but I knew that would be impolite. Years later this experience would provide me with the title of a movie script I wrote—The Ring Jar.

• At school I developed a crush on a little boy named Peter Wright, a redhead like me, who will figure into my story when, a few years later, he will drown in a boating accident.