If You Don't Have Big Breasts, Put Ribbons on Your Pigtails (3 page)

The following week, Dad came to the dimier table and we bowed our heads as he recited our usual prayer much faster than usual: "Bless us, Our Lord, for these our gifts which we are about to receive from thy bouniy through Christ Our Lord. Amen."

"Amen!" we agreed, and raised our heads to find Dad majestically holding up a small blue paper in both hands, the same way Father Galloway held his golden chalice on Sundays. Then, with great fanfare, Dad passed the blue paper around the table.

Each of us stared in awe at what appeared to be a check with a lot of zeros following the number 1. It was Marty Joe who figured it out first.

"Why, it's a thousand dollarsV" he said.

"Yup! That's right, kids!" Dad proclaimed. "We're RICH\ And we're GOING ON VACATION. !!"

The next morning, my mother packed ten kids, ten bathing suits, and ten tuna fish on Wonder Breads into our blue station wagon, and we headed to Asbury Park. Our family had never stayed in a real hotel, and our stay at the Brighton Beach Hotel proved to be the most exciting week of our entire childhood.

One month later, Paul Peterson had been let go, Edwin W. Corcoran was out of business, and we were eating on credit at Bubsv's Grocerv Store.

I looked down at my first commission check and pondered, Should I take the money and splurge on a new coat, or shouldn 9 t IP Remembering that my dad's first check as his own boss had been his last and that it had taken him ten months to find a new job as a press foreman, I decided I'd better not. I stuffed the check and the apartment list in my bag, and headed up the three blocks to my apartment.

As I walked through the lobby, the building's super was perched at his usual post next to the mailboxes. "Good morning, Mr. O'Rourke," I chirped as I breezed past the potbellied, red-faced, nosy Irishman. Seeing him always made me think that he must be related to Maggie O'Shay from Edgewater. Mr. O'Rourke rightfully boasted of running "the cleanest building in all New York," just as Mrs. O'Shay claimed to "keep the cleanest house in Edgewater."

1957. Edge water.

Although there wasn't a garden club in Edgewater, Mrs. O'Shay acted as its self-appointed president. She paced up and down Under-cliff Avenue inspecting each house while doling out her neighbors' secrets as though they were hers to give.

Mrs. O'Shay watched with raised eyebrows as my mother tried time and again to spruce up our yard, and time and time again met only with failure. One spring, Mom laboriously stacked the yard's rocks to form a retaining wall, only to find it slowly eroding when we kids used the larger rocks as roast beefs in our pretend grocery store.

Next, she planted grass, only to learn grass doesn't grow very well on a rock-strewn hill shaded by a giant oak tree. The following spring, Mom dug thirty-six holes to plant a gladiolus garden. She dusted the bulbs with bonemeal and placed each one carefully in its nest. The next morning, the gladiolus bulbs lay waiting by their holes as though they had never been planted. After Mom's roll call yielded nothing but frustrating Not me's, Prince, our collie-wolf-Chihuahua mix, was found guilty of digging for bones.

With stubborn determination, my mother dug thirty-six new holes and spent all of June watering, weeding, and waiting. Finally, one hot day in July, the green stalks began to unfurl their hot-pink, yellow, and bright orange petals. It was the same day Mom came home from the hospital with our new baby sister, Jeanine. Timmy Tom, the skinny five-year-old Harrison kid, stood at our kitchen screen door with a huge bouquet of nearly opened gladiolus. "These are for you and your new baby, Mrs. Corcoran," he said as he handed my mother the three months of work he had plucked from her yard.

Timmy Tom's flower delivery sent my mother right over the edge and down to the Edgewater hardware store. She came home with a gallon of Sherwin-Williams paint and a new idea. She got out her yellow Fuller scrub brush and a bucket of water and called us into the side yard. We spent the afternoon scrubbing the roast-beef-size

rocks, while Mom followed behind us with her can of semigloss white. That night, we all pressed our faces to the side yard window to admire our rocks. They glistened brighter than our backyard fireflies.

The next morning, during her usual inspection up and down Un-dercliff Avenue, Mrs. O'Shay screeched to a halt in front of our house. "Oh! What a lovely yard you have, Mrs. Corcoran!" she exclaimed, admiring the ordinary rocks turned extraordinary. "What a truly lovely yard!" My mother smiled and waved proudly from the front steps, and a Corcoran tradition was born. Each spring thereafter, Mom would gather her children, her can of semigloss white, and her Fuller scrub brush, and wed spend the day swabbing a fresh coat of paint on the rocks in our truly lovely yard.

I stepped into my apartment and thought about the Giffuni Brothers* check burning a hole in my purse. Should I buy a new coat or shouldn f t IF I looked down at my lavender Georgy Girl outfit; it had walked down the street so many times it no longer looked fancy free. Should I or shouldn't IF Well, I decided, if Mom could cover her old rocks with a coat of white paint, I could certainly cover my old outfit with a new coat!

I high-tailed it down to First National City Bank on Fifty-seventh and Park, cashed my Giffuni Brothers check, made a beeline to Fifth Avenue, and marched straight through the grand stone archway of Bergdorf Goodman. I was going to buy myself the best coat in the best store on the best block in all New York!

J asked the red suited doorman where I could find ladies' coats and took the gold-paneled elevator to the second floor. The elevator dinged open, and I tripped into a full city block of coats. A well-clad, matronly saleswoman offered her help, but I was too intimidated to accept her offer and thought of a really original response: "No, thanks, Fm just looking." I puffed up my chest and dove into the sea of coats.

Suddenly, I spotted her from across the room. She was the flashiest one in the whole place. There was nothing plain about her. She had curly brown-and-white fur around a high mandarin collar and a pair of matching cuffs. Her wool was thick, laid in an oversized brown-and-white herringbone pattern. Down her front she had at least a dozen diamond-shaped buttons chiseled out of what looked like bone. Each bone button hooked through its own handmade loop. Her huge shoulder pads rode high and her hem swung low, almost touching the polished wood floor. Everything about her screamed, "HERE I AM!" And for $319 plus tax, she was mine.

My new coat became my signature piece and I never took it off. In it, I not only looked successful, I also felt successful. My curious customers asked me what kind of fur it was, and since Fd never spoken to the saleslady, I had no idea. "It looks a lot like my old dog, Prince," Fd joke. For the next two years, I marched in and out of buildings up and down Manhattan wearing my expensive coat and new image for all they were worth.

MOM'S LESSON #8: Paint the rocks white and the whole yard will look lovely.

THE LESSON LEARNED ABOUT DRESSING THE PART

In business, Fve learned that people really do judge a book by its cover. When my mother painted her rocks white, everyone bought into the fact that our yard was indeed beautiful. And Fve applied the same principle in my business time and again.

By dressing the part of someone successful. I was forced to measure up to my own new image. Whether or not my customers agreed with my taste, at least I looked successful enough to afford a Bergdorf coat. In it. I felt ready to take on the world. And so I did.

In business. 1 believe the best money spent is on things that create the image of success. I copied the typeface of the famous Tiffany store to make my first business cards and chose a grav ink (no extra charge) instead of the usual black. I rented a pink Princess Trimline phone (one dollar extra per month) because when I picked up the phone, it made me feel just like a big business lady. When my Georgy Girl pants got too tired of walking, I slit the seams, used them as a pattern, and made myself three new pairs of well-cut gabardine trousers (six yards of fabric only forty dollars).

Decked out in my fancy new coat and my French-cut trousers, I offered my customers an elegant business card, feeling like the queen of New York real estate.

Painting the rocks white was my first introduction to the surprising truth that perception creates reality. Most people think its the other wav around.

"... legal action shall be commenced to eric/ you?"" I reread aloud. "Evict me?" I stammered into the elevator, clutching the notice in my hand. I went downstairs and found Mr. O'Rourke nexl to the mailboxes. "Mr. O'Rourke. 7 * I sputtered. "I just found this notice under my door and it doesn't make any sense! I know my rent is paid! I always collect it from Jackie and Sandi and send the checks in myself before the first of the month. Fm never late. Is this some kind of mistake?" I waited for his response, clutching the notice even tighter.

"You'll best be talkin' to the landlord,"* was all Mr. O'Rourke would sav.

I arrived at 9:30 a.m. and walked into the white brick office building at 770 Lexington Avenue. A dusty and elderly secretary reluctantly showed me into my landlord's office. It was decorated in a mix of red velvet and the darkest, shiniest wood I had ever seen. Mr. Campagna was young and shockingly handsome, and I watched him take note of my impressive coat. He offered to take it. I was nervous and felt stronger in my power coat, so I said that I was cold and I'd prefer to leave it on. He offered me a seat.

I sank into the red leather chair and started immediately: "I'm sure there must be some mistake, Mr. Campagna, because I received this eviction notice and I know my rent is paid. You see, I always collect the rent from my two roommates by the twenty-fifth of every month and enclose their two checks with mine in the rent envelope and mail it never a day later than the twenty-sixth of the month. It must arrive at your office on either the twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth, Fm sure never later than the twenty-eighth.'* He sat tapping a pen on his black leather desk pad, returning absolutely no expression, so I kept talking. "Mr. Campagna, we never play loud music, and never ever leave food around. We've never had roaches—not even one."

Mr. Campagna shifted slightly in his chair, but still said nothing, and I felt I was wrestling with air.

I talked faster. "I've never, ever done anything wrong in my life, and would consider myself a fine tenant in every way. I'm proud to be a tenant in your very fine building, Mr. Campagna." No reaction. "Mr. ORourke tells me you and your fine wife and your two fine sons also live in your very fine building." As I stumbled through these last fine words, I realized my mandarin fur collar had overtaken my nose and was interfering with my speech. I took a quick look left, then right, and saw that my shoulder pads had been inching up and were now level with my ears. Mr. Campagna sat quietly, staring at a fast-talking blond tuft of hair and two desperate blue eyes.

Finally, he spoke. "You have had a lot of traffic coming in and out of your apartment, Miss Corcoran, both during the day and evening hours." I agreed that I had a lot of customers, and said that my business relied on word of mouth. I added that I was new at it and hoped to have a lot more customers in the future. He looked shocked, shocked to the point of horror.

"You're dressed rather sophisticated for such a young girl," he said, examining the bone buttons of my coat and fidgeting with his pen.

And then it hit me.

"Mr. Campagna!" I exclaimed, my mouth wide open in disbelief. "You. Think. I'm. A PROSTITUTE?!"

He said nothing.

"If you knew my mother and knew how I was raised," I told him. "Why, Mr. Campagna, I'm almost a nun!"

Dinnertime. Edge water.

Dinner at our house was an event—an event we were required to attend. Daily at six o'clock sharp, we gathered around the plywood-covered table, which grew larger with every new child, and took our usual seats. I sat at the foot of the table near the bathroom, though I thought of it as the head. Mom was to my left and between us was Jeanine's high chair.

Tonight, like every night. Mom went around the table asking each child. "And how was your day today?" Mom always circled the table clockwise, starting with Ellen and ending with me.

"And how was your day today?" Mom asked Denise, who was sulking over her dinner. "You look worried. Is there anything wrong?"

"Nothing," she answered.

Nothing was not an answer at my mother's table. We all stared at Denise, knowing Mom wasn't moving on until Denise reported something about her day. "My new boyfriend is coming to the house later tonight," Denise blurted.

"Why, that's lovely," Mom responded. "Will he be coming soon? We certainly have enough spaghetti for him. What's the boy's name?"

"Bruce," Denise declared. "And he's rich and he's going to see that we're not."

We all slurped our spaghetti in silence.

"He's going to come and see our house," Denise kept on, "and see that we're poor—see that all of us kids sleep in two bedrooms and you and Dad sleep on the living room sofa. And that the sofa is all torn—"

"Stop it! Stop it right there, Denise!" Mom demanded, as she spoon-fed Baby Florence. "/ won't have any of that talk around this table. We're not poor at all. In fact, /think we're rich. It's all in how you look at things. Nana says that if life gives you lemons, make lemonade. And we've got lots of lemonade around here!"

"Lemonade?" Denise sniffled, as the rest of us finished our dinners.

"Yes, lemonade," Mom confirmed, looking around the table. "Are any of vou ever hungry?" We all shook our heads no. "And don't you have good clothes on your back?" We all looked down, not sure.

"Well"—Mom smiled—"you don't walk around naked, do you?"

"Barbara does in the back of Charlie's boat," Ellen chimed in.

•Do not."

"Do too."

"What matters," Mom interrupted, "is that if you look at what we've got, I say we've got a lot. We have each other. We laugh together, play together, help each other. We're rich."

"But, Mom? Denise cried as if it were her one and only chance for a boyfriend in her whole life, "Bruce is really good-looking and he dresses real nice. He's going to walk in and see all the tape holding our sofas together."