#51, spring
The Dress You Wear | HANNAH THURMAN
On the day of her first playdate with the Sophies, Mindy takes the train downtown to do the only thing that makes her less nervous: shop. She buys a Dora book for Ava, a new wall calendar for her office, and a bottle of nail polish designed to be worn, admired, and complimented on by women. It’s called You Go, Girl Green and is the color of coconut curry. She applies it in the store.
As she gets off at 86th street, she panics that she’s left one of her bags on the seat and turns, catching the eye of a woman she didn’t seen before. The woman is wearing the same dress as Mindy is, and glares at her.
Her twin is short and curvy, half something—Italian or Latina—with dark skin that stands out against the white lace. She continues to scowl, looking Mindy up and down. Then the train whooshes off and Mindy is left alone, feeling nervous. Snap out of it, she tells herself. But a foreboding feeling remains as she shoulders her bags and fights the wave of people up the steps and out onto the street.
Two years ago, Sheila would have fought that bitch. Drunk or sober, she would have got all up in her face until the woman left the car or she ripped that motherfucking dress right off her. When she got upset, anger zipped through her like a row of dominoes, and she was ready for blood when the last one fell. Poor impulse control, her grandmother called it, signing her out of juvie at 14, 16, and 17.
But she is different now. Although she still gets angry at times, she clenches her fists and says to herself, I’m not that person anymore. She has a good job now, friends who don’t shoot up, an expensive dress to wear on days when she’s doing something important. Like this one.
The train emerges aboveground as it speeds into the Bronx. It is sunny out, and each covered platform is indented with a block of stained glass that shines muted colors onto the sidewalk. Behind the lonely platforms, great brown buildings shackled with fire escapes butt up against warehouses. Sheila does not recognize some of them: she has not been to visit her grandmother in almost two years.
The train doors open at East 149th and she gets off, climbing the metal stairs down to street level. The road is empty but not quiet; traffic buzzes in her ears and a late-September wind flaps her dress against her knees. She is nervous, sweaty. But, pushing forward against her fear, she turns left and crosses the lawn of her grandmother’s two-story townhouse. The patch of grass in front is greener than any other on the block.
Sheila approaches the door, knocks, and retreats. Her grandmother’s sensible shoes click across the floor, and then there she is, tall and permed, imposing even through the gray muddling of the screen.
“Sheila,” Harriet says, as if it’s been weeks, not years, since they’ve seen each other. “Come in.”
Their playdate is at Make Believe, a brightly-colored storefront on East 79th street with a white board propped up outside that says HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NOAH AND STERLING in green dry-erase marker.
Ava starts pulling at Mindy’s hand when she sees the door. She has just turned five, and her tiny grip is surprisingly strong. Mindy is almost knocked off balance.
“Wait up,” Mindy says. “You have to stay with me.”
“Daddy lets me run.”
“Daddy does not let you run.”
“He says I can run to the door if I don’t run inside.”
Mindy looks at her daughter. “Really?” Jeremy never told her about that. She feels suddenly guilty. Since Jeremy works from home, he spends much more time with Ava than she does.
Instead of answering, Ava twists away and pushes open the glass door, heading straight to the water table where a crowd of toddlers is racing boats. Mindy freezes, trying to decide if she should run after her or try to pay first, when someone calls her name.
“Mindy?”
“Oh—hi, Sophie—hi, Sophie.” The women are standing by the coat cubbies wearing matching baby slings, jeans, and Tevas. Their two older children, Kyle and Madison, sit quietly on the floor in front of them.
Mindy feels immediately self-conscious of her white dress, painted nails, and disobedient kid.
“Hey…” she says. “Let me grab Ava, I’ll be right back.”
“We can watch her while you pay,” Sophie M says. “Meet us over at the water?”
“Sure!” Mindy says too loudly. When they leave, she lets out a long breath. Make Believe is not a large building, but it’s packed with children, all screaming as they run from the firetruck to the costume stage to the pretend bank. The prospect of staying here for an hour and a half makes her antsy. She feels like she is being stared at. Stop it, she tells herself again and hands the woman behind the counter her Amex.
When she gets to the water table, the Sophies both have smocks on and are helping Kyle and Ava dam up a chute with squelching rubber blocks. The air smells like chlorine.
“I’m so glad you could make it,” Sophie M says, bouncing her baby as she talks. “I feel like we never see you outside of school.”
“Me too,” Mindy says. She wants to tell them that their babies—who must be within weeks of each other—are cute, but she doesn’t know their names and thinks she should. “How have you guys been?”
“Busy,” both of them say at once, then laugh.
“It’s been a crazy year,” Sophie W says. “I can’t believe it’s September.”
“I can’t believe the kids are already in elementary school,” Sophie M says.
Mindy shakes her head. “Crazy.”
“So how’s your job?” Sophie W asks. “Remind me what you do again?”
“I’m a senior product manager at Pfizer,” she says, trying not to sound too proud of the promotion she received last year. “I’m overseeing the launch of an MS drug.”
“That’s great,” Sophie M says. “Really great.”
“Must be so rewarding,” Sophie W says.
They turn and watch the children, who are pushing Styrofoam turtles under the water then releasing them to pop up with a splash.
“I’m glad they’re all getting along,” Mindy says. “Ava can be a little shy sometimes.”
“But she’s so bright,” Sophie M says. “When I was in class last week, she was the farthest along in her reading log.”
“Have you been in yet?” Sophie W asks.
“No,” Mindy says, “But Jeremy’s coming in next week.”
“What a good dad,” the two say in unison.
Harriet leads Sheila into the parlor that had once been her bedroom. Now, it’s back to its original use: filled with faded easy chairs and a couch. They face inward in a circle.
“Sorry,” Harriet says. “They’re still set up for AA.” Sheila’s grandmother has not had a drink since the Bay of Pigs invasion, but her daughter, Sheila’s mother, died choking on her own vomit at 19. Sheila was two. Her grandmother has run meetings ever since.
“Please,” Harriet says. “Take a seat.”
Sheila sets her purse on the table and lowers herself into a chair. She feels the sudden urge to run.
“Would you like something?”
“I’m fine. Water, I guess. I can get it.”
“No, no—” Harriet starts to stand but Sheila springs up first, walking quickly into the kitchen. Being in her grandmother’s house makes her feel as if she is deep underwater, crushed by pressure in all directions.
She fills two glasses with cubes from the freezer. The ice smells familiar. As she waits for the stream of water to crackle to the top, she pushes around the pictures on the refrigerator door. Harriet’s sister, Emy; Emy’s children and grandchildren; Harriet’s son David and his daughter Patti, Sheila’s younger cousin; Sheila’s mother in a blue dress at her high school graduation; and Sheila at fourteen, scab-cheeked and scowling. Leave it to Harriet to display a photograph of her at her most awkward stage.
She comes back into the parlor and hands her grandmother a glass.
“I should send you some new pictures for your fridge,” she says. “I can get a bunch off Facebook, it’s this new website where—”
“I have a Facebook,” Harriet says.
Sheila blinks. It’s funny to think of Harriet sharing status updates about her life: AA meetings, literacy tutoring, trapping feral cats in her backyard—all on top of her job at the office for Veteran Affairs. But isn’t it a little odd that Harriet hasn’t asked to be her friend?
Sheila stares at the faded carpet as she drinks. Her grandmother is silent. “How is everyone?” Sheila asks.
“Good,” Harriet says. “Patti left for college.”
“Oh, okay.” Ten years younger than Sheila, Patti is the perfect granddaughter Sheila frequently prayed would get a DUI. She tries to quell her jealousy as she asks, “What college?”
“Dartmouth.”
“That’s a good one.”
“It’s fine.”
“Bet Uncle David’s sad to see her go.”
“It’s close. She’ll visit.” Harriet’s tone is light but it still makes Sheila squirm. This is not the conversation she’d imagined.
Sheila swallows. “Sure has been a while,” she says.
“Sure has.” Harriet purses her lips as she meets Sheila’s gaze, and does not look away.
When Kyle tugs at them to go to the pretend store, they dry off the children with paper towels and walk over to the bookshelves filled with plastic tomatoes and laminated boxes of cereal. Without a word, the Sophies crawl behind the cash registers and start chatting with each other in affected Valley Girl accents, pretending to be annoyed when the children present them with food. It’s a game they all seem to know well, and it sends the children shrieking. Mindy stands to the side, unsure what to do.
“Can I buy this lettuce?” Ava asks.
Sophie M tosses her hair. “Like, whatever.”
“Can I buy a hot dog?” Kyle holds out a plastic bun to his mother.
“Like, totally. I guess.”
“Can I buy a hummus?”
“Can I buy a milk?”
“Dude, no way!” Sophie W feigns distress. “This is totally too much.”
The children giggle. “I want a milk,” Madison says again.
“I want two,” Ava says.
“I want a million!” Kyle says.
“Aaaah!” Sophie W throws off her apron. “What are we going to, like, do?”
“I don’t know! I quit!” Sophie M crosses her arms.
“No, I quit first!” They both turn to look at Mindy. She feels the heat rise to her face. The children look at her blankly.
“Can I help?” she asks. She looks at Ava. Her daughter is pulling on her lip with a finger. Kyle and Madison look away. Mindy’s mouth feels dry. Then, Sophie M breaks in.
“Hold it right there,” she says. “You can’t work here!”
“I…can’t?”
“I know you, you’re Mad Mindy—wanted in three states for… stealing pool noodles!”
Sophie W shakes her head. “You kids’d better take her down to the station.”
The children squeal as they pull Mindy up and across the hall to the miniature precinct.
“You’re in trouble,” Ava tells her.
Mindy resists the urge to grin. “Not if you can’t catch me!” As she darts away, she smiles at the Sophies, who are helping Kyle and Madison put on police hats. The two women smile back.
Sheila’s throat is too dry to swallow. “Well,” she says, “I actually came here to tell you some good news.”
No response.
“I got promoted.”
Harriet nods slowly. “Congratulations.”
“It’s just—you know—assistant manager, but I’m salaried now. More responsibility. I’ll probably take over when the manager has her baby and—that’s it. I just thought you might like to know.”
Her grandmother stares back at her in silence. Sheila feels hot. Say something say something, she prays, but Harriet leans back instead and raises her glass to her mouth. It’s so quiet, Sheila can hear the gurgle of water as she swallows.
“So?” Sheila says.
Harriet nods. “Thanks for telling me.”
“You don’t seem excited.”
“Well,” Harriet stretches her thin arms like she’s about to go running. “What about college?”
Sheila beams. “That’s the best part. Next year, I’ll have been there three years and they’ll pay for me to take classes at CUNY.”
“I offered to pay for you to attend CUNY.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“What’s changed?”
Sheila grabs balls of her dress in tight fists, then, changing her mind, stands up. Switching position often helps her calm down. She turns away from her grandmother and runs her hand along the shelf where Harriet keeps vases. When she picks up her palm, she can’t see even a trace of gray. But she can feel something prickling, as if she’s touched acid.
“Come sit,” Harriet says.
Resisting the urge to swipe all the porcelain onto the floor, Sheila turns back around.
“So tell me about the rest of your life. Do you have a boyfriend?” Harriet asks.
“No.” “Donna’s son is your age.”
“I don’t want to go out with Donna’s son.”
“Don’t get angry. It was only a suggestion.”
“I’m not angry. I just don’t want to talk about boys,” Sheila says.
“Then what do you want to talk about?’
“I told you about my job but you didn’t seem to care.”
“I do care. I think it’s very nice.”
“But you’d rather I go to college.”
“Well, yes.”
Sheila stands up. “Well, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m such an idiot. I’m sorry I stupidly thought you’d be proud of me.”
Harriet drains her glass until the ice clinks against her teeth. “Please sit down,” she says.
“No,” Sheila says. “I’m leaving.”
“Well.” Harriet frowns. “I could have expected that.”
They move from police station to puppet stage to hospital, where Mindy and the Sophies hang back while the kids climb into the wooden ambulance.
“So, what are you doing this weekend?” Sophie M asks.
Mindy blushes. “I don’t know.”
“We’re thinking of taking the kids to the beach,” Sophie W says. “Do you want to come?”
As Mindy is saying yes, please, the kids come running up, drowning in purple surgical scrubs. “Tie me, please!” Ava says, turning around in front of her mother.
As Mindy knots the back of the costume, Ava says, “This is my favorite station.”
“Oh? You want to be a surgeon when you grow up?”
Ava nods.
Kyle, who is picking through a box of bandages, says, “I want to build computers.”
“Oooh,” Mindy says. “Big money.” Feeling giddy, she winks at the Sophies. “What about you, Madison?”
Madison bites her lip and looks back at her mother. Sophie W is dangling a stethoscope in front of her baby, who grabs at it. “Tell Mindy what you told me last week,” Sophie W says. Madison still won’t answer until her mother says, “She said—”
“I want to be a mommy!”
Mindy laughs. “That’s great,” she says. “But what else do you want to be?”
She wishes she could take it back as soon as she says it. She looks away, praying the Sophies will ignore her. Silence. Even the babies stop gurgling. “Anyway…” She tousles Ava’s hair. “Who are you guys operating on today?”
The Sophies look at each other, then at her.
Mindy bites her lip. “Sorry,” she says. “I don’t know why I said that.”
Sophie W crosses her arms. “I think you should apologize to my daughter.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“Not to her.”
Mindy feels anger replacing her embarrassment. “I just asked her a question.”
“Apologize!” Sophie M says. “You’re setting a bad example for the kids.”
Mindy’s chest feels tight. She’s so pissed at herself for screwing this up. “Don’t fucking tell me what to do.”
Sophie W covers Madison’s ears. “I can’t believe…”
Mindy unties Ava’s costume and pulls it over her head. “Honey, it’s time to go.” Ava won’t hold her hand, so she picks her up. Ava starts to cry.
“You’re hurting her,” Sophie W says.
Mindy doesn’t trust herself to speak. She turns around as fast as she can and walks towards the entrance. Ava begins to scream, “I don’t want to go, I don’t want to go” and it feels like all eyes are on the two of them as Mindy drags her out.
The door’s slam behind her is like a gun at a horse race and Sheila flies down the steps. Why had she thought this would be a good idea?
She stomps across the perfect lawn and into the street, pushing knives into the forces that make her want to cry. Fuck Harriet. She doesn’t know anything.
Except everything Harriet said was true.
Sheila sweats through her cap sleeves as she walks on, trying to fling off the memory of this morning. She is so focused on the rhythm of her escape that she reaches the train station turnstile before she realizes she’s forgotten her purse.
Fuck.
She almost keeps walking. She could sneak onto the train. Get her roommates to let her in. Write or e-mail or fucking Facebook Harriet to mail it to her. She is so close to doing this that she begins placing her hands on the turnstile, ready to hoist herself over.
But she doesn’t want to rip her dress, it was too expensive. This is not who you are anymore.
She bites her tongue hard with the sharp point of her canine and turns around. Even the voice in her head sounds like Harriet’s.
“I’m sorry,” Mindy says as she carries Ava down the street. “I’m so sorry.” She holds her flailing daughter to her chest as she waves for a cab. None stop. Her throat pulses.
“Let me go!” Ava shrieks.
Mindy puts her down as they walk towards the edge of the park.
“I’m really sorry,” she says again.
Ava doesn’t say anything.
“I know this is probably hard to understand, but those moms—”
“They were being mean.”
Mindy stops, surprised. “Yeah, they were.”
“You said a swear.”
“Sometimes, grownups say swears.”
Ava is silent.
“Do you want some ice cream?” Mindy asks.
“Okay.”
Mindy buys Ava a push pop from a cart as they walk down the sidewalk. The snakes in her stomach are starting to loosen. It’s too hot to feel anything. She holds tight to Ava’s hand and marches forward, replaying the morning in her head. Shame prickles through her, but underneath that, she feels a tendril of pride.
She looks back down. Ava has smeared push pop all over her face. Mindy sighs, and bends down, using her hem to wipe away the sticky orange mess.
“Mommy!” Ava says. “Your dress is getting dirty!”
“I don’t care.”
“Really?” Ava begins to giggle and Mindy laughs too, slowly at first then louder, until she scoops up her daughter and twirls her again against the white September sky.
Her grandmother is waiting for Sheila on the porch, purse dangling from a thin finger. Sheila pauses on the grass.
“I’m not going to throw it,” Harriet says.
Sheila walks up the stairs. When she reaches the top, Harriet lurches forward so fast she puts up her hands.
But Harriet only hugs her, holding her so close Sheila can feel the old woman’s heartbeat flutter against her skin.
“It was good to see you,” Harriet says, handing over the bag.
“You too.”
“Come back soon.”
“I will.” Anger dissipating, Sheila feels close to her grandmother. It seems like, for the first time, they’re made out of the same material. She looks down, embarrassed. “Well, I’d better—”
“Yeah, you’d better.”
Sheila turns away.
“Sheila?”
“Yes?”
“Your dress,” her grandmother says. “It’s tucked in in back.”
Sheila reddens and tugs at the fabric behind her. “Better?” she asks. Her grandmother nods. “Thanks,” she says, then walks away quickly.