My previous neighbor, Kathy, and I remained friends, much to her mom’s chagrin.

I was a junior when Kathy, a year older, invited me to a senior dance at her high school. Hudson Falls High was five times the size of Hartford Central, making it five times as exciting with five times the number of boys.

A few days before the dance, a little pimple popped out on my cheek. I gently squeezed it and applied hot washcloths. Instead of fading away, it grew. And it hurt a lot. My pimple turned into a super-pimple, known as a boil.

I never had a boil before. It swelled up as big as a golf ball, stuffed full of oozyness. Because of its location on my cheek, I couldn’t hide it. I felt like the elephant man.

Before and after my horrible haircut!

I became a bad version of Mary Martin’s Peter Pan. I was ten when the television movie first played. And I didn’t believe, for even one minute, that the lady with the ugly haircut, pretending (unsuccessfully) to be a boy, was a viable candidate for Peter Pan. And now I also looked like a boy, but without green Neverland clothes.

My sheered head didn’t stop at horrible; it made my head look shrunken and crooked. It also highlighted my boil.

On the day of the big dance, I continued applying hot presses to my facial appendage until Dad and I left for Kathy’s house. My deep-red boil stuck out about two inches, so I crisscrossed it with a couple of Band-Aids; X marks the spot.

The first thing Kathy noticed was my hair.

“You cut your hair,” she said, graciously refraining from further comments.

Then she noticed my dress; the one Aunt Sophi bought me.

‘Nice dress.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I like yours, too.”

And then, she noticed the two Band-Aids humped out on my cheek.

“What the heck happened to your face?”

So much for hoping my skin-colored Band-Aids blended in and might go unnoticed. Kathy smoothed her long black hair, parted in the middle and hanging perfectly straight. I once tried straightening my bushy-wavy hair by ironing it, and succeeded in getting singed ends and a burnt scalp.

I was still in Driver’s Ed, while Kathy was a full-fledged operator. As we drove toward the dance, I was the ugly step-sister next to Cinderella.

Little did I know what the boil or night held in store for me.