26
That is, wholesome and well-adjusted.
Mom took me to the BP department of Nordstrom because Grandma Suzette gave her a gift certificate there for Christmas. Also, I suspect, because Nordstrom is safely in the mall, where there are no vintage shops for me to wander into.
We strolled through the aisles of fresh, brightly colored sweaters and stacks of jeans. Mom waved an aqua turtleneck at me. It was decorated with an appliqué of a poodle. "This is your style, isn't it, Roo?"
"It's aqua. Have you ever seen me wear aqua?"
"It would bring out your eyes."
"And have you ever seen me wear a turtleneck?"
"No," she admitted. "But my neck is always cold in the middle of winter. Isn't yours?"
"No."
"I thought you'd like it because it's vintage-y. See, with the poodle? People used to wear skirts with poodles on them in the fifties."
I took hold of the foul turtleneck. Next, she showed me a white wool coat decorated with brown anchors and curlicues of nautical rope.
"This is very you," she said, smiling proudly at her find. "Isn't it?"
Anchors?
"It has a sense of irony," she continued. "I know you like irony. Plus it'll be warm around your neck. Try it on."
It didn't have a sense of irony. Those were completely unironic anchors.
While Mom was grabbing fuzzy pullovers in colors
27
that radiated solid mental health, I picked up a navy blue hoodie and a plain black cardigan, in case she was going to insist we complete our shopping here.
She shoved herself into the dressing room with me, her mane of frizzy dark hair so close that when I took off my shirt I actually brushed against it with my bare body. She clucked her tongue upon seeing me in the poodle turtleneck. "You look beautiful!" she told me. "Oh, it clings to all the right places."
Ag.
"I don't know why you're always covering your body with bowling shirts that used to belong to some old plumber," my mother went on. "It's self-sabotage, don't you think?"
"No."
"You should talk to Doctor Z about it."
"About how I like vintage clothes?"
"Old things, things other people have discarded. Stuff that's shapeless and falling apart."
"And that shows what?" I prodded.
"That you feel discarded! That you don't feel light and sunny. You never wear pink or yellow, Ruby."
"Mom."
"What?"
"Look in the mirror."
She looked. "I'm wearing all black, so what? That's not the point. I'm forty-five years old."
"You're forty-seven."
She harrumphed. "Whatever age I am, it's an age where black looks good on me. And besides, all black is
28
very stylish. You, you buy these old dresses that have practically no shape and the buttons falling off them, when you could spend the same money on this poodle sweater that shows off your breasts so nicely." Did she have to say breasts?
"You get your breasts from my side the family," my mother said. "I have nice breasts."
She owned a book called Empower Your Girl Child, which I had secretly read. It told her that as the parent of a teenager she should role-model bodily self-confidence. "Grandma Suzette has no breasts to speak of," Mom continued. "She's flat as a table. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It can be very attractive. Now try this coral angora one with the cute bow. Look, it says 'fresh' on the collar in rhinestones. Isn't that similar to those beaded sweaters you like?"
I pulled off the turtleneck and my mom reached out a clammy hand and grabbed my naked arm.
"What?"
She stood to examine my shoulder. "Do you know you have some pimples on your back?" She ran her hand over the area.
Did she have to say pimples? Couldn't she just say I was breaking out or having some skin trouble?
Pimples. Breasts. Pimples. Breasts. It was like the woman was walking around with a vocab list and consulting it regularly: Uncomfortable Words Relating to the Physical Changes of Adolescence.
"You don't need to fondle them," I told her.
29
She removed her hand and sat back down. "It's normal to have pimples when you're sixteen."
"Thanks for the tidbit. And you wonder why I have to go the shrink."
She barked with laughter. "It's not because of me, you can be sure of that."
"Right." I pulled the coral angora rhinestone thing over my head so as not to be standing there in my bra anymore, giving her an eyeful of my bad skin.
"Really. It's your father. He's inconsistent with you. I'm sure you've noticed that. And I love him, but he does have quite a few inhibitions of his own. There's no denying it. Ooh, look at yourself in the mirror!"
I resembled a tulip with bling.
"Try it with the anchor coat," she commanded.
Fine. I put on the anchor coat.
"Roo, you have no idea how beautiful you are," Mom gushed. "Now, did you see they have this same angora in lime? It says 'Charmant' on the collar, though."
Ag, ag and more ag.
"Run out and it get it, why don't you?" she said. "I want to see how it looks with your eyes."
"Why don't you go?" I whined.
She had her cell phone out. "I'm calling Dad, that's why. I have to tell him to check the raw peanuts that are soaking in the fridge. Did you know my recipe actually says to take them out when they're the size of border collie testicles? I swear to you, I'm not making that up. It's straight out of the peanut goulash recipe."
30
If she wanted me to go away, discussion of peanut goulash and border collie testicles was a good way to make it happen. I went to look for the "charmant" angora, tags from the unironic anchor coat flapping behind me.
I had just found the table where the lime green excrescence was folded neatly in a stack and was searching for my size when a voice murmured my name, near my ear.
"Hey there, Roo."
My ex-boyfriend. Jackson Clarke.
Here in the BP section of Nordstrom. Wearing the jacket I bought him for Christmas a year ago.
We generally avoided each other as much as possible.
"That's Ms. Roo to you," I said.
Why, oh, why did I have to be blinged-up-angora-tulip-unironic-anchor person just when Jackson was wandering the BP? Because even if a girl is completely over her ex-boyfriend, and even if he has a girlfriend he's been with for ten months, and even if he's not even the person she thought he was, back when they were together-even if all those things are true, she still wants to be gorgeous and desirable every time she sees him.
She still wants him to look at her and think, Oh, man, I messed that up. She is unbelievably hot.
Jackson looked me up and down. "Shopping?"
"For superhero disguises," I said, to explain my outfit.
He raised his eyebrows.
"You know," I went on, "how superheroes need to have nerdy alter egos that help them go through life with no one suspecting their secret awesomeness?"
31
He nodded. "Like Meimi in Saint Tail." Jackson had a thing for anime.4
"Like Superman," I said. "So what do you think? Will this outfit delude the average men and women of America into thinking I couldn't possibly wield superpowers?"
He laughed. "You do look funny," he said.
Ouch.
Jackson leaned in to read my rhinestone collar. "Or should I say, you look fresh?'"
"Why are you here, anyway?" I asked him.
But before he could answer, I realized what the answer had to be.
He was here with Kim. She was probably changing in the dressing room next to mine, listening to my mother talk about my breasts and my pimples and my psychological problems and also border collie testicles.
"Oh, I'm looking for a coat with anchors," he told me. "Do you know where I could find something like that? Something nautical, with maybe some curly rope on it?"
"Shut up."
"Don't be fresh with me."
"That's not even funny."