Aftermath of Dreaming(63)

“That headband. It looks ridiculous in your hair. Curly-haired girls can’t wear headbands.” Her face contorted from the honey-sweet American dream to a deep ugly sneer. “You look stupid.”

The green plastic hair ornament had become tighter and tighter with each of her words. My face felt hot, and I didn’t want to look at her anymore. She made a nasty laugh, again said, “You look stupid,” then walked away, leaving me standing there. I didn’t just feel stupid, I felt dumb, a word Daddy wouldn’t let us use about anyone, but there I was using it about me in my head. None of the other girls seemed to have heard her, but I figured they already thought the same thing and just hadn’t said it.

I went to the bathroom into the farthest stall, closed and locked the door behind me, and broke the headband with my hands, the sharpness of the plastic hurting me with each break. Pieces of green flew out onto the hexagonal tile floor, as I kept bending and breaking until the headband was just tiny bits of bright shards lying on the dingy white tile. My hair was all wrong and I hadn’t even known it. If that wasn’t dumb, what was?

I was about four when I noticed that my hair was curly without the pin curls that Momma laboriously put on Suzanne every night before bed. When I asked Momma why I didn’t need those, too, she told me that I was blessed, that the angels curled my hair every night while I slept. I tried to stay up a few nights to meet these angels and talk to them, to see if the pin curls they made were the same as the ones Momma did on Suzanne or better—maybe they used golden pins from heaven. But as I stomped on the already broken pieces of green headband on the bathroom floor, I wondered why those angels couldn’t’ve picked on someone else.

“Yvette, Yvette.”

My sister was calling me, rescuing me from this memory as she couldn’t when it happened.

“Come meet Betsy, my wedding coordinator I’ve been telling you about.”

As I walk down the two steps into the sunken living room, Suzanne turns to the older, conservatively dressed, and professionally happy looking woman sitting on her left and, pointing at me, says, “See her height? Now don’t you think her bouquet can be taller?”

I make my way through the ocean of estrogen, hug Suzanne, then move to the empty chair next to them, slipping into it like a life preserver. “It’s so nice to meet you,” I say to the wedding coordinator. “I’m Suzanne’s sister, Yvette.”

“Legs apart!” Betsy bellows.

“What?” I jump in my chair, suddenly worried some odd animal is on the loose that only attacks feet that are close together.

“Your legs, you have to keep them uncrossed and apart or you’re out of the game.” Her silver-haired head is close to me, watery blue eyes peering into my face. She is grinning madly.

“The game.”

“Whoever keeps their legs uncrossed during the whole bridal shower wins the prize! Of course, Suzanne here has already won—she’s the bride!—but you ladies—”

“Have to—” I smile and nod at her.

“That’s right—keep those legs apart!”

“Right, well, lucky for me I’m not wearing a skirt.”

Betsy’s licensed and official smile quickly turns into a frown as she notices my black pants for the first time. She looks as if someone just told her that the wedding march was legally banned.

“I need to have a fitting with my veil,” Suzanne says, leaning past her still-in-shock wedding coordinator. “I’ve waited long enough; the wedding’s just over a month away, for God’s sake. How’s next week?”



I wake up in a scream. The black clothes I wore to the bridal shower are on the floor next to my bed, and I try to remind myself that nothing else was there, but it feels as though something just left my room. I am still for a few moments, sitting straight up in bed, barely daring to breathe, as I listen, trying to hear anything, anyone, some tangible evidence of what scared me, but the apartment is quiet.

As I sink back onto my pillow, I am relieved no one was really there, but I’m still flipped out. My praying to Mary before going to sleep clearly did nothing to keep the dream away. I consider calling Michael to ask him to come over, but it’s after three in the morning, and even though it’s Sunday, he probably has a long work day ahead. I don’t know where he gets his energy. I wish more of it was spent on me. He almost called me his girlfriend the other night. Kind of, at least. He phoned on Wednesday in the late afternoon, wondering if I wanted to hang out later, then showed up at nine P.M. with Indian food and a video of The Phantom of the Opera with Lon Chaney. Even though it was a silent film, Michael insisted we not speak. “The music, after all,” he said, which was fine with me. I love Lon Chaney in that role—taped-up nose and dreadful wig, so desperate for the love of someone plainly annoying as hell. Like Gone With the Wind, sort of. Though with that story, I had no patience. I couldn’t stand Ashley, and found Scarlett a fool for wasting her time and thoughts on him. One rainy summer day when I was ten, in the middle of reading the book in my grandmother’s attic-playroom, I literally threw it down in disgust and tramped loudly down the stairs, my critique coming out in my feet. My grandmother was in her sitting room, embroidering pillowcases for a cousin’s bridal trousseau.

“I can’t stand Ashley,” I declared, flouncing onto the couch, but carefully so as not to jar her needlework.