Pretty in Plaid: A Life, a Witch, and a Wardrobe, or the Wonder Years Before the Condescending, Egomaniacal Self-Centered Smart-Ass Phase (12 page)

“Let’s get the peach one,” I say.

“Jennifer, you haven’t even tried that one on. Stop being ridiculous,” clucks my mother.

Whenever I disagree with anyone in my family I’m not wrong, I’m
ridiculous
. I’m being ridiculous when I beg not to have to clean the pool until my brother’s finished mowing even though he freely admits to aiming the clippings toward open water. When he plows the strip right by the diving board, he can actually bank half a bagful into the deep end; I’ve watched him do it.

And apparently I’m
not
a savvy young entrepreneur when I take the ten dollars I earn for washing the car and run the car through the five-dollar car wash. Honestly, the car wash is far more thorough than I could ever be with just a hose, bucket, and bottle of dish detergent. The car’s spotless, I turn a five-dollar profit, and can spend the two hours I save working on my tan.
⁷³

Ridiculous?

Yeah, ridiculous like a fox.

According to my mother, I was being
ridiculous
when I argued against driving hours out of our way to pass through Knoxville on our way home from spring break in 1982. Why waste time gawking at a world’s fair that wasn’t set to open for months? We were all tired and I had to go back to school the next day, so voluntarily adding time to the trip seemed dumb.
I
wasn’t ridiculous—the whole enterprise was. I drilled her as we loaded up our station wagon,
What are we going to do there
,
interview the construction workers? Are we going to have them tell us about all the exhilarating rides and fascinating attractions and delicious carnival-type treats we aren’t going to experience because we’re two months early? Why do we want to see a closed, half-built amusement park?

But I was thirteen, and thus not a credible source. Plus I was already grounded for when we got home because I refused to eat the travel snacks my mother had packed. (Hey, I can’t help it if the combination of onion rolls and marshmallow fluff makes me queasy.) We headed to the fair anyway, driving hours out of the way to pass by a closed, half-built amusement park full of construction trailers and men in hard hats. It was precisely as much fun as I predicted.

I am decidedly
not
being ridiculous right now. But if I engage my mother in an argument, chances are I’ll end up with no prom dress at all and nothing to do on prom night but watch TV with my parents. So I counter with the most benign argument I can muster. “The shiny white fabric washes me out. I’m all pasty.”

I try to make my point with a smile in my voice. I have to do my best not to be a smart-ass because my mother says only cheap girls have sassy mouths. My dad hates when I’m sarcastic and takes every opportunity to quash my burgeoning cynicism. He drove this message home particularly hard during the Great Michael Jackson Debate.

“Sissy’s mom will take us up there and drive us back as soon as it’s over. I’m not going to be joyriding with a bunch of teenagers—I’ll be with a parent. What’s the big deal?” I reasoned.

“You’re not going out of town,” my father said.

“Sissy is cheap,” my mother added. Anyone who wears black eyeliner is cheap, in my mother’s opinion.

“Come on! The concert’s supposed to be legendary! This is the Victory Tour—Michael’s gonna be doing songs from the Jackson Five plus performing stuff off the
Thriller
album. ‘ABC’ and ‘Beat It’? ‘Billie Jean’ and ‘Never Can Say Goodbye’? Performed on the same stage? I’m talking the greatest show ever by the greatest group ever.”

My father waved his hand dismissively. “Elvis Presley was a great singer. Michael Jackson sounds like a little girl.”

My dad saw one of Elvis’s first shows in California. He still talks about how crazy the audience went and how random girls stood on his shoulders without even asking permission. Come on,
I
could be a shoulder girl at the concert! Then maybe someday an old Michael Jackson fan can tell his daughters about how
I
jumped on his back. Surely my dad understands the magic of being part of the crowd. The show will be just like Woodstock, only, you know, more explodey. “History’s going to be made on this tour. Don’t you want me to be a part of history?”

Dad shook his head and opened his newspaper. “No.”

“I saw Sissy smoking the last time I picked you up after school. I don’t like you being around smokers.” Then she mouthed the word “hard.” In my mom’s book, being hard is even worse than being cheap.

I may or may not have stomped my foot at this point. “Every single person in your entire extended family smokes,” I argued. “Should I not be around my aunts and uncles and Grampa? Are they cheap? Are they hard?”

“Jennifer, you’re being ridiculous.”
No, really, how is it different?

“I have the money to pay for my ticket. I won’t need anything from you. You can meet Sissy’s mom—she’s really nice. She’s a mom, so she’s automatically responsible,” I pleaded.

My mother cleared her throat and raised a knowing eyebrow at my dad. “She’s a
divorcee
.”

That did it. I hate when my mother gets all judgmental and officious about people she’s never even met based on superficial criteria. Come on, do they judge her because of her peculiar penchant for ponchos?
⁷⁴
“You don’t even know her!” I shouted. “How can you write her off just for getting a divorce?”

My dad calmly closed his paper. “Jennifer, you are not going to the concert. It’s nonnegotiable. Say one more word and you’re grounded.”

Ever see those old Warner Bros. cartoons where Elmer Fudd is hunting Daffy Duck? To draw Daffy out of his bunker in the hollow tree, Elmer only needs to tap out “Shave and a haircut” because he just knows Daffy can’t leave the knock unfinished. No matter the consequences, something compels Daffy to meet the challenge. And even though Daffy’s well aware that if he pokes his head out and sings, “Two bits!” he’s surely going to get his beak blown off?

Yet he can’t resist?

Yeah, me, too.

I glared at my father. “Word!”

And then he blew my beak off. I spent the next two months on lockdown while the dulcet-toned man with one sparkly glove went on to thrill audiences without me.

No way I’m about to miss prom because of my own big mouth, though, so I continue to press my point in a nonconfrontational manner. “I feel like all the white makes me look waxen. Pallid, even. I’m practically cadaverous.”

My mother smirks. “Someone’s been paying attention in advanced placement.”
⁷⁵

Mom and I are standing in the Juniors department at Hudson’s. I’m presently wearing the full-length white Gunne Sax gown that I saw in
Seventeen
magazine. Originally, I’d torn out the ad because the dress caught my eye. However, I’ve since realized it was way more flattering on the model, not because she’s thinner than me but because she has no b-r-e-a-s-t-s.

The dress is shiny and white with a tight bodice and a long A-line bottom. The top is divided into two pieces—there’s a binding strip of fabric that hits about midchest and then there’s an overlaying piece that comes up in a U shape, forming a white satin canyon or possibly a moat. The gap is large enough that someone could store her lipstick or a compact in there.
⁷⁶
For a flat-chested girl, the cut would add volume. For those of us who don’t need the help, it’s . . .
breastacular.

I started to “develop” in fourth grade, and by sixth I wore a B cup. I stopped getting taller in seventh grade, but that’s the only place my, um, expansion was stunted. Now I’m close to a D and have a strict
don’t ask, don’t tell
relationship with my chest. The deal is I wear binding bras and loose alligator shirts and they comply by making themselves scarce. One time last summer my friend Veronica came over to swim and she couldn’t get over the way I filled out my bathing suit. She kept calling me “stacked” and swatted me in the chest, asking, “Where the hell did these come from?” I spent the rest of the day with a T-shirt over my suit.

The idea of a garment that not only informs the rest of the world I have b-r-e-a-s-t-s but in fact squeezes them together so much they form an ass-crack’s worth of cleavage
⁷⁷
makes me extraordinarily self-conscious. Plus, if we purchase this dress, I’ll spend all of prom night grasping the top of the bodice, trying to lift it up past my lips because it rides at about half-mast. This won’t work at all.

“I love you in white. You’ll look so beautiful on your wedding day! I can’t wait to walk you down the aisle!” my mother coos. Well, you’re pretty much going to have to wait. Really, would Joan Lunden have gotten her gig on
Good Morning America
if she were a child bride? I think not.

Why’s she so anxious to see me married, anyway? I only recently packed away my Barbies, and that’s just because Jimmy thought it was weird for me to have them. The only way I’m getting married any time soon is via gunpoint. Also? If my mother sends me off to the dance n-a-k-e-d from the waist up, I won’t make it through the night intact, let alone through college. Seriously, I’ve extorted enough pie out of my long-suffering boyfriend. At some point, he’s going to demand it in return.

I scowl at my pasty, busty reflection. And that’s when I notice what might be my salvation. Two thick, floor-length black satin strips of fabric are sewn right underneath my ass rack. I bet I could take them and tie them around my neck like a halter, providing lots more coverage and support. I grab the strips and begin to pull them up and around until my mom stops me. “Jennifer, you’re being ridiculous. Let go.” I release the fabric and watch as my mother fashions the ribbons into an enormous saggy bow that detracts from my chest almost as much as a big neon sign blinking
Tits! Tits! Tits!
might. Perfect.

My heart in my throat,
⁷⁸
I retreat to the dressing room. I tear off the gross white one and don the peach-colored dress whose ad I also admired.

Now
this
is a dress! The top only shows my collarbones and smashes everything else down nicely. And check out how wide the skirt is! I bet this wouldn’t even fit into a car! Shoot, I barely fit in this dressing room! Remember how in
A Christmas Carol
one of the ghosts-of-Christmas-whatever had those mini-wraiths hiding in her petticoats? I could totally stuff them under here! (Not that I’m planning to smuggle any child-ghosts into prom under my skirt, but it’s nice to have the option, you know?) I love this! I’m like a fabulous Barbie birthday cake or a really pretty embroidered toilet-paper topper. Better yet, with all the ruffles and the giant hoop, I’m a complete ringer for Scarlett O’Hara! Fiddle-dee-dee!

I strut over to my mother, proudly displaying the skirt’s twelve-foot diameter. I spin and accidentally take out an entire purse display.

While we place all the handbags back on the stand, I say, “What do you think? So much better, right? I can even wear a bra under this one.”

She takes a step back and assesses me with a critical eye. She touches the lace draping from the portrait collar and fluffs out the ruffles. “I agree, it’s nice, but you can’t wear this for the pageant. Take it off before you get it dirty.” With that, my mother helps me with the zipper and sends me back to the fitting room.

Shit. With all the end-of-high-school stuff happening, I keep forgetting about the stupid beauty pageant. Oh, wait, excuse me, I mean
scholarship
pageant. (In which we will be judged based on our beauty.) I begin to ruminate as I wedge my way out of all the lacy layers. My mom saw the pageant notice in the paper a couple of months ago and convinced me to sign up. I can’t believe I let her talk me into it. Sure, I like the
idea
of being in a beauty pageant, but I imagine the reality will suck. I’ve already gotten my preliminary schedule and there’s stuff on it like dance classes and etiquette lessons. I hate dancing and I’m totally already polite. I chew with my mouth closed and usually remember to say thank you—what’s left to learn?

The pageant information pack also contained information on wardrobe requirements. The director was pretty specific about not picking anything promlike for the evening wear competition.

Damn.

Wait—brainstorm! Sure, I’ll have to go all Marilyn for the pageant, but I can still be Scarlett for the dance. I’ll simply get
both
dresses! This is a genius solution—why didn’t I come up with it sooner?

I meet my mother at the counter with the gowns under my arms. “We’ll get this one for the pageant and this one for the prom.”

My mother snorts. “Wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not getting two dresses.”

“I need them both.” If I have to wear the white one to prom, Jimmy will have to bring three corsages—one for me and two for my friends.

“Jennifer, you’re being ridiculous. You’re getting one dress.”

“Okay, I want this.” I place the Southern belle dress and its eight thousand yards of intricate peach lace and taffeta on the counter.

“You can’t wear this in the pageant. You have to get the white one. That’s final.” My mom hands her credit card and the white dress to the cashier.

The problem isn’t that my mother’s being unreasonable. It’s that these are the only two dresses we’ve found in all our shopping expeditions that fit me. Today is our very last chance for me to find something that isn’t an Izod to wear. Nothing is cut for my figure—I’ve spent weeks trying to squeeze my top half into size thirteen/fourteen dresses, while the rest of me completely drowns in fabric. I suppose I
could
have something tailored, but I’m opposed to wearing a size thirteen/fourteen dress on principle.

“How about this? How about I just quit the pageant?”

“You really want to quit before you even try? Doesn’t sound like you.”