The worst part about going to a boarding school for children with learning
disabilities was that there were no girls. Boys can be very aggressive but I
think they’re even more so when there isn’t a woman in sight. Sometimes it
could be brutal. Kids would come up and punch you for no reason; there was a
lot of testosterone in the air.
I had a hard time making friends. Sometimes, when I felt insecure about
something, I’d brag a little about my family, which didn’t go down well. I
didn’t have the greatest social skills.
I didn’t know it wasn’t a good idea to tell other kids that Benjamin Bradlee,
my father, had been the editor of The Washing-ton Post for 26 years (Jason
Robards played him in All the President’s Men), that the paper’s owner, Kay
Graham, was like an aunt to me and that my mother, Sally Quinn, is still a
working journalist.
My parents are my best friends. They’ve never let me feel I’m a lost cause;
it’s because of them that I don’t put myself down every day. I was born with
a hole in my heart. When I was nine, they were told I was retarded and would
never be able to function as an adult in any meaningful way. They simply
wouldn’t believe it.
Then, at 14, I was diagnosed with a genetic condition called
velo-cardio-facial syndrome (VCFS), which affects about one in 2,000. The
main symptoms are trouble with your heart, some trouble with your speech and
learning disabilities.
When I finally went to my specialist boarding school, my mom was so freaked
out about being separated from me that she thought she was having a heart
attack. My dad flagged down an ambulance and we went to hospital – but it
turned out she was suffering from anxiety.
We still had the holidays together. And when I was 19 my parents asked if I’d
like to bring anyone along for a Caribbean break on the island of St Martin.
There was one boy at school who’d always been nice to me – so I asked him to
come with us.
Like everyone in the world, he knew I wanted to get laid and that I’d had a
difficult time achieving this. Before we left, he said: “I’m gonna get you
laid.”
The third night we were on the island, we hired a taxi to take us out on the
town. My mom asked the managers of our hotel for the most reputable driver
they knew. She wanted him to take us to bars where kids hung out, to wait
for us and to take us back to the hotel at the end of the night.
The driver was named Silky. He was a bald islander who wore a hat and lots of
gold jewellery. When he asked where we wanted to go, my friend said: “Just
take us to some bars.” In hindsight, I think maybe my friend talked to him
before I got in the taxi.
After driving for about half an hour, we pulled up to what looked like a bar.
We were the only white people in the place and I felt a little
uncomfortable. I also realised pretty quickly that every guy in the bar,
which was called Heaven’s Gate, was talking to a girl and every girl was
sitting in a guy’s lap in a very sexual way.
After we got beers, my friend disappeared. So I found an empty seat and sat
down. The next thing I knew, a girl had come over to me and sat down on my
lap. She had skin that was as dark as the night sky and black curly hair
that came down to her shoulders. As she sat there, I very nervously and
slowly put both of my arms around her waist. I had no idea what to do.
She stood up, took my hand and led me to a paying stand. It looked very much
like a booth where you’d buy tickets for a play. After I’d paid $35, she
took me down a narrow hall with red doors on each side and then into one of
the rooms. I was still a little confused about what was happening.
When she started to take off her clothes, I finally realised what was going
on. Once she got on the bed, I immediately and nervously took off all my
clothes, too. You can guess what happened next . . .
I’m glad that it happened, but it wasn’t necessarily the way that I wanted to
lose my virginity. I didn’t really know what was going on that night for the
most part.
When I woke up the next day, the first thing that came into my mind was: how
am I going to tell my parents? I was really used to telling them everything
(I still do, to be honest). I thought I’d better tell my father before my
mother.
When I walked out onto the terrace, my dad was there, reading the newspaper as
he does every morning. He doesn’t like being interrupted. But this time I
figured he might like to hear what had just happened to his youngest son. I
didn’t know any other way to say it, so I told him: “I got laid.” All he
asked was: “How’d it feel?” I think he was happy for me.
Then, all of a sudden, my mother walked out onto the terrace. She asked what
was going on and I told her. All hell broke loose.
My mother worries way too much, if you ask me. I know that all mothers do and
they’re supposed to. But she took this a little far. The first thing she did
was ask if I was joking. I think she was so stunned she didn’t believe me.
Then she asked whether I’d used a condom, which of course I had.
When she found out I’d lost my virginity at a “house of ill repute”, she went
nuts. She started to go on and on about how many people on the island had
Aids. She was making me upset, but she was making herself even more upset.
At this point my friend came in and I explained that I’d told my mother,
thinking she would be proud of me. My friend couldn’t believe I’d told her.
I guess he didn’t realise how much I confided in my mom. Maybe more than I
should have.
My mother started to call every doctor she knew to tell them what had happened.
My dad calls this “going to General Quarters” – an expression from the navy
that means getting the ship ready for battle. And, boy, was my mom on the
warpath. She’s a powerful woman.
She took us to the front desk of the hotel where she gave them a talking-to.
The hotel called Silky, who took all of us back down to Heaven’s Gate. The
manager was an elegantly dressed woman whose office looked like the inside
of IBM – very professional. My mom was relieved to find out it was a
medically inspected place used mostly by government officials.
The manager could see my mom was panicking and she was very cooperative – even
when my mother asked her to find the girls we’d been with, which took about
half an hour. While we were waiting for the girls, not one word was spoken.
It was the only time in my life that I’ve been too afraid to talk to my
mother. When the girls showed up, I was more relieved than scared or nervous.
They got in the car and Silky took us all to a clinic for an HIV test. Talk
about awkward. My mom and dad sat in the front with Silky and we sat in back
with the girls. (They ended up being clean, thank God. They were also very
nice about the whole thing, although since they didn’t speak much English,
I’m not sure I really knew how they were feeling. Confused, probably.)
I don’t think my mother was intentionally trying to embarrass me, but I’d
never been embarrassed like that before. I couldn’t wait to leave St Martin.
I’ve never wanted to leave any place as much as I did that day.
I learnt two things from the experience: that my father was much more of a
ladies’ man when he was my age than I am now and also never to upset my
mother.
Even now she wants me to be independent yet, at the same time, she doesn’t
want it. I’m 26 and I live in my own place: it’s literally next door to my
parents’ house and I can go there whenever I want. I’ve relied on mom for
everything for so long that it’s hard to stop.
When I think of independence, it’s her I think about getting away from. She’s
always a little terrified for me. I’m her child. And I’ve got these problems
that she wants to help me with, always help me with. My whole life, she’s
been the one who saves me.
She’s like a lioness. You don’t want to mess with her. She has controlled a
lot of my life. Sometimes I’m angry about that, because I feel I’m in the
passenger seat and I have to ride wherever the driver wants me to go.
Sometimes I feel I have no freedom.
Do I want to be independent? Yes. Will I ever be truly independent? I don’t
know. It’s one of the biggest riddles of my existence.
The second biggest riddle of my life? Girls. More than anything, I want a
girlfriend. I think one of the reasons I have a hard time taking it to the
next level with girls is because I had no contact with girls for much of my
adolescence. Sometimes I think that I’m a loser, that I’ll never find a
girlfriend, that I’ll be a nobody for the rest of my life.
I seem to have the worst luck with women no matter how hard I try. I feel
they’re picking up some vibe from me that says I can’t handle a
relationship, or I’m not mature enough to be in a relationship. Whatever it
is, I am apparently doing something wrong. I’ve taken and followed all of
the advice my friends and my parents have given me about dating, but it
hasn’t quite worked out for me yet.
I have trouble with reading cues and I can never tell if girls like me
sexually. If you’re having an intimate friendly conversation and a woman is
smiling and you’re making her laugh, then you think that maybe it’s possible
to take it to the next level. But, typically, the day after that kind of
thing would happen with a girl, I wouldn’t hear back from her.
I’d immediately think I’d done something wrong. Then I’d spend the rest of the
day trying to figure out what it was. Being uneasy around girls and unsure
of where I stood sometimes led me to call or text them every other minute,
which didn’t help my cause. I guess I was acting like a stalker, but in my
mind I was just worried. It’s always been hard for me.
Since I moved into my house, which I share with two women, I’ve learnt more
about the female sex than I’ve known in my whole life. For one thing, I’ve
learnt that if you say you don’t like their hairstyle, you’re screwed. And
never joke about their weight. I also know that the key to a girl’s heart is
respect.
I may not know much about the female way of thinking, but I do know that if I
were ever in a relationship with a lucky lady, I’d do everything I knew how
to please her.
This is an edited extract from A Different Life by Quinn Bradlee, to be
published by PublicAffairs, a member of the Perseus Books Group, on May 7,
2009
