“Let’s see what else is on,” interrupts my dad. “Ty, can you find something else?” Tyler’s too zoned out, too comfortable, to notice. “Tyler! Ty! Change the channel.”
My dad, on the other hand, looks like he is going to be sick. We’re watching Booby McBoobface being interviewed, and he is desperate to change the channel. I can tell he’s trying not to look at me, and it dawns on me: He’s embarrassed. He’s embarrassed to be watching a guy roast a woman because of her big breasts because I’m here. Because he is imagining some guy talking about me like that. About my big breasts.
Now I’m embarrassed, too. And suddenly so, so tired.
“I’m going to bed.” I leave the boys to the TV.
CHAPTER 52
“No, no. That’s not true at all.”
Mom and I are at a coffee shop (not one named for an astronomer; one named for whatever a Starbuck is), having just returned everything my grandparents sent for Hanukkah. A couple of tweeny girls at a nearby table are wearing elaborate outfits, including layers of necklaces and chunky-heeled boots, like what you imagine a kid imagines a supermodel would wear on her day off. I have just claimed that I must have been born without the gene that makes you interested in clothes, and Mom is disagreeing.
“What do you mean?”
“You used to dress up just like all the other little girls we knew. Or most of them, anyway. Sometimes you’d change three times a day.”
This doesn’t sound like me. I’d prefer to change no times a day. If I could just sleep in a sweatshirt and yoga pants, I’d be dressed for tomorrow, too. “When was that?”
“Up until you were four. Four and a half, actually.” She is fidgeting with her new sunglasses, folding and unfolding the bows. Once Tyler told her she looked like an old lady, she ditched the bedazzled ones.
“What happened?”
“We went to the mall. You had picked out your own outfit, of course. It was like a Greer Greatest Hits day. The top was from a Disney Sleeping Beauty Halloween costume. It was this cheap, knock-off satin, bubblegum pink. It Velcroed in the back, but the Velcro was ‘scratchedy’ so you made me cut out the Velcro and safety pin the back.”
“You let me wear that in public?”
“Let you? I’m telling you, you were very particular about your clothes.”
“What kind of pants go with a Sleeping Beauty costume top?”
“No, no. Not pants. We were going to the mall. But not the skirt from the costume, either. You had this skirt from Hanna Andersson. Maybe my favorite thing you ever wore. It’s in tons of pictures.”
“The bright one with all the flowers?”
“That’s it. It was orange and red and blue, with this Scandinavian floral pattern, and big balloon ruffles? I had to pretend not to like it or you wouldn’t have worn it. We used to say it had good twirlability.”
“Did it look pretty good with the pink satin princess costume?”
“You sure thought so. But you’d had it since you were two, so it barely covered your butt. I told you if you didn’t wear something under it everyone would see your undies. You wouldn’t have cared, except that it was a Friday, and your Friday undies were in the wash and you had to wear Tuesday. You thought if people saw your undies, they’d think you couldn’t read.”
“I was worried that people would think I couldn’t read my own underwear?” That sounds exactly like me. “I guess that would be kind of embarrassing. So I wore tights?”
“Flamingo bikini bottoms.”
“Of course. What kind of shoes did I wear? Stilettos? Moon boots?” I still can’t believe she’s not making this up, because it seems so unlike me, but now that I think of it, in all the preschool pictures I’m pretty fancy. I just assumed it was Mom’s fault.
“Just tennies. You’ve always been very practical about shoes.” I look down at my feet and laugh. I’ve permanently taken over Mom’s Keens because they are so comfortable and worn in. She is not making this up.
“So, what happened? Why was that the last time I dressed up for the mall? Did I see myself in a mirror?”
“No, actually.” Mom has been having fun with this story, especially, I think, since I have been, too. We don’t do this a lot, where just the two of us talk about something that’s not logistics, or one of us asking the other for something, or one of us disappointed/angry/annoyed at the other. There’s been a lot of family time this break, but today is nice. She changes here, though, gets more serious. She smiles to herself, remembering, and I can’t tell if it’s a happy smile or a sad smile. “We went to the Lego store. They used to have these big barrels of Legos out and a ramp set up, so you could build a car and race it.”
“I remember that! And then you’d shower me in Purell!”
“It was you and a bunch of little boys, building cars. The boys would make these massive things with extra wheels and windows and guns and ladders and all kinds of things sticking out of them. And then they’d crash to bits at the bottom and they’d rebuild them even dumber. Yours was streamlined. After every run, you’d make adjustments: add weight, reduce drag, bigger wheels, rebalance. I mean, you didn’t use those words. You just figured it out. And pretty soon, your car—actually, I think you called it a rocket car—no wait, a rocket boat—yours was beating everything. Even when the other kids tried to cheat—they’d give theirs a shove or blow on it or try to put something in the way on your track—yours beat them all, and it stayed together.”
I’m proud of little Greer.
“And then the clerk from the store came over and watched some of the races and saw that your rocket boat was beating everything else by a mile. And you know what they said?” Mom looks like she’s turning something over in her mouth. Something she wishes she could spit out. This memory has gone from fun to something else.
“What?”
“‘Aren’t you a pretty princess? Did you pick out your outfit yourself?’”
This question sits between us for a while, and for once Kathryn Walsh resists the urge to lecture me on what exactly it means, because we both know very well what it means. It means I could have built a working space station, but all anyone else saw was pink satin and a twirly skirt.
Finally, I say, “Did you tell him off?”
“Who?”
“The guy from the store?”
She looks up at the ceiling, then down at her hands. “It was a woman, Greer.” Very quietly, like it hurts her to say this, she adds, “And the only thing I said was, ‘Say thank you, sweetie.’”