(^62) | marieclaire.com.au
EMOTIONAL
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF CARLA CARUSO.
The first person I search for is the
kid who called me “Moustache”. I’ll
name him “Pete”. A LinkedIn profile
pops up. There’s a studio-style shot of
him, sporting glasses and, well, less fair
hair. He wasn’t how you’d picture the
typical bully, being short, studious and
more middle-of-the-road than cool kid.
Now he’s in mining interstate.
With my heart in my mouth, I
click on “connect”. After refreshing my
inbox a few times, and no message to
say he’s accepted me (what’s new?), I
move on – to one of the blondes. Let’s
call her “Gwen”. She wasn’t the group
leader, but she was the girl who refused
to accept I was born in Australia.
I find her on Facebook and send
her a vague message. It’s about now
that I’m rethinking my mission. Who
wants to admit that they still have
hang-ups from school?
To my surprise, “Gwen” replies
within seconds, agreeing to a phone
interview a few days later. I don’t have
a good sleep the night before and feel
like I’m about five again. On the phone
though, she sounds less like the popular
girl who paired her uniform with pink
leg warmers and, well, more like me.
She now works in real estate in
Christchurch and even calls herself
“shy”. When I finally ask her about the
“incident”, I stumble over my words.
“I’m so sorry,” she exclaims. “Oh
my God. I can’t remember saying that.”
Ironically, she’s now dealing with her
seven-year-old daughter having friend-
ship issues, plus trauma following the
mosque shootings nearby. “It’s really
opened a lot of kids’ eyes – to be kind
and not judge,” she says, admitting that
her kids are exposed to a lot more cul-
tures than she ever was.
Buoyed, I work up the courage to
phone where “Pete” works next. My call
goes to voicemail. I’m not hopeful he’ll
ring back, but later I receive a text. “Hi,
‘Pete’ here. Let’s find time
to have a chat.”
Gulp. It’s on. Needing
to rip off the bandaid, I
arrange via text to speak
to him that night. Later,
on the phone, he sounds
like I remember: smart
and assured. After some
small talk, I get down to
the nitty-gritty, reminding
him of his past comments.
Like Gwen, he doesn’t recall, but says,
“Thanks for telling me. That’s terrible. I
guess you don’t remember the names
you use, only the names you’re called.”
I press on, asking why he thinks
he might have done it. “To be honest,”
he muses, “I was probably just jumping
on what was going around. I didn’t really
carry any bad feelings towards anyone.”
For me, it’s cold comfort. Turns
out the name-calling that I’ve held onto
wasn’t about me, just impressing
the pack. I was an easy target because
of my otherness.
I let him off the hook by saying he
probably had quite the Aussie home life
by comparison. But he says, “Not really.
My [late] dad was Slovenian and my
grandparents spoke broken English.”
This means that despite the regular sur-
name and looks, he’s ethnic too. He goes
on to lament his father never teaching
him Slovenian. “It would have been nice,
but Dad was a wog and got picked on at
school. He was, like, ‘What’s the point?’”
Oh, the irony.
I move on to “Pete’s” domestic situ-
ation now and I’m in for another shock.
“I married an Indian-Malaysian lady,”
he says, joking a little inappropriately,
“So talk about ‘The Sun’, she lives on the
sun. We have a little caramel boy.”
In bed, I twist up the sheets again.
Strangely, I’m dissatisfied, angrier,
after the call. Then a realisation hits
me. This is not about forgiving those
who called me names — they were just
kids being kids, and have all turned out
to be lovely people. This is about forgiv-
ing myself. I’m just as judgemental of
that weird, foreign-looking dork I was.
These days, I feel closer to a cool girl. I
like fashion. I’ve had an exciting career.
Celebs like the Kardashians have
helped me appreciate my “exoticness”
(aided by laser hair removal).
The next morning, bleary-eyed, I
organise my final phone interview, with
my year 7 teacher, Mrs Jaunay. One of
the first things she asks is if I was one
of “The Cats”. I confirm I was. Her reply
solidifies that our group wasn’t the
hippest, but also offers another slant.
“I value the difference your group
showed by being prepared
to stand alone and do
something unusual. Your
friendship was strong and
you weren’t embarrassed.
It was pretty admirable.”
In her 50 years of
teaching, it’s kind of cool
that we stuck out in her
mind, and it’s a reminder
that those Aussie pals
always saw past my looks.
Afterwards, I click on the Face-
book group for my school’s anniversary
celebrations. Maybe it would be good to
make my return. That strange wog kid
was the chrysalis of the resilient cre-
ative I’ve become. Who wants to be a
cardboard cut-out anyway? Maybe I’ll
even wear the “Black Cat” tee.
Carla Caruso is the author of The Right
Place (Harlequin HQ).
Growing up, Carla
Caruso was the
subject of taunts in
the schoolyard; now,
the 40-year-old is a
successful author and
has learnt to let go of
the bullying in her past.
“ON THE PHONE
SHE SOUNDS
LESS LIKE THE
POPULAR GIRL
WHO PAIRED
HER UNIFORM
WITH PINK
LEG WARMERS”
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