The Truth

Thank you, everybody, for obliging me by trying to figure out the one lie in my pack of truths. I'm beginning to realize that I'm a much better liar than I thought I was. Nobody guessed the truth, so here it is:

1) When I was five, my sister and I were run over.

This is absolutely true and one of the weirdest things that ever happened to me. My little sister and I were sitting at the foot of my uncle and aunt's steep driveway, where there was a lot of beautifully fine sand that we enjoyed playing in. We saw the car backing towards us and felt absolutely no fear. My uncle drove right over us. To this day I can remember how it felt, crouching down low, the undercarriage of the car just brushing our bent heads as we were suddenly enveloped in rumbling, sooty darkness -- then the explosion of light as the car passed over us and came to a screeching halt perhaps teen feet away in the middle of the road. There was not a scratch on either of us.

We saw my uncle, still clutching the wheel, staring at us in open-mouthed, white-faced horror. We smiled and waved. To this day I also remember the spanking we got: we couldn't sit down for three days afterwards. We'd been warned dozens of times not to play there, but that sand was compelling. After that spanking, we found other places to play.

2) When I was in graduate school, a friend and I worked as singers and bar girls in a Japanese 'club' in San Francisco.

My friend and I decided to do this to improve our spoken Japanese. We were really just glorified waitresses, but we were hired to help shy businessmen sing and spend more money. The high point of our time there was when our club sponsored a singing contest and Tokyo Television came and filmed us. Tokyo Television's cameramen showed up late because they'd gotten lost in the wrong neighborhood and had a lot of their equipment stolen. Neither of us won.

3) I can do the splits and stand on my head.

This is true too, though I should point out that I can only do the splits all the way if my left leg is forward and I find the headstand easier to do yoga-style nowadays. While I am the world's most uncoordinated human being, I am actually pretty flexible. I can also stand with my feet together and put both hands flat on the ground. What I can't do is look great while I'm doing any of these things.

4) I have read Yukio Mishima's books in the original Japanese.

This one is a lie. I've read a couple of Japanese writers in the original, but never Mishima. I have, however, read almost everything by him that has been translated into English, but even some Japanese people find reading Mishima's Japanese a tough slog; he liked using really old, hard-to-understand characters. His prose was also very dense, and his books tended to be depressing. I like to read the Japanese translations of English books too: I read the first two Harry Potter books in Japanese. They kept me plenty busy, and when I was finished, I wasn't depressed. Win-win.

5) Three times in a row over a couple of weeks I shared an elevator with Bella Abzug and Gloria Steinem, in New York City. We smiled at each other, but did not say anything.

After our third time together in that elevator, Bella and Gloria seemed a lot like old pals. I tried not to stare, but it was tough.

6) For two years, I co-owned and ran a small inn with my husband. Every single day, I baked my own bread, made my own entrees, desserts, and hors d'ouevres, and worked at least fourteen hours.

Our inn was in Scotland. We actually won an award (AA red diamond -- we still have the certificate), met hundreds of interesting people, and made a modest profit, but I have never worked so hard in all my life for so little return. We were more than happy to sell after two years.

7) As an adult, I was deathly ill from the chickenpox. I was so badly afflicted, none of the doctors or nurses in the hospital recognized me when I went back to thank them a week after I got out.

Also true. I was so tormented by the itching I couldn't sleep for four whole days. When I went into the hospital, my eyes were virtually swollen shut and I was one suppurating mess from my elbows to my knees. If you're an adult and haven't yet had a good case of chickenpox, be forewarned -- it isn't fun. And try not to scratch.

I'm passing this on to anyone else who wants to do this because I invariably choose people who are too busy to play. And I promise to use my lying powers for Good alone.