We Run the Tides(32)

“I just hope I look more alive,” I say.

“You do,” she says.

“Well, that’s good!” I say. The two women stare at me. Then the one on the floor manages to wrestle the dress off the mannequin. She hands it to me. “The dressing room’s that way,” she says. “Behind the pink curtain.”

In the dressing room is a poster of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, with Venus rising up out of a half shell, and maybe the poster has something to do with it, but when I put on the dress and look in the mirror, I imagine I look like a better version of me. A future me. This is what I’ll look like when I’m older, I think, and this reassures me. Maybe I am meant to wear dresses with small polka dots.

“Let’s have a look,” one of the women says.

I exit the dressing room, hoping the spell holds.

“Wow,” they both say, and I know it has.

“You have exactly the right body for that dress,” Zipper Skirt says.

“It’s not too low-cut?” I ask, hoping she won’t say it is. I know it’s on the cusp of revealing too much.

“Definitely not,” she says.

“If you’ve got it, flaunt it,” Bow Tie says. And this makes me laugh. I’ve never had, never flaunted.

“Do you happen to have a bowler hat?” I ask.

The two women look at each other, then shake their heads, and look at me. But my request for another item has inspired them.

“Do you need shoes?” Bow Tie asks. She’s wearing very high heels.

“I think I can just wear these with the dress,” I say looking down at my Doc Martens.

“No!” they both cry out in unison.

“What size are you?” Zipper Skirt asks.

“Six and a half,” I say.

“Okay,” she says, searching the shelves of shoes.

“Try these. They’re used.” The shoes she offers me are silver and delicate—the opposite of my Doc Martens.

I sit on a low velvet couch and change shoes. The Band-Aids are falling off my heels, and I have to push them back into place. Then I stand, trying not to wobble.

Bow Tie whistles.

“I wish I could whistle,” Zipper Skirt says. “But I can’t. It’s genetic.”

I look in the mirror.

“See how nice they make your legs look. They’re e-lon-gated,” Bow Tie says, elongating the word itself.

“I’m afraid to ask how much everything is.” And suddenly I’m very afraid.

Zipper Skirt gets out her calculator and presses some buttons and then tells me the total including tax, which is substantial, but not as much as I feared. I have enough money with me, all of my Svea birthday money. If I spend it, I will only have three dollars to my name. I know I can run errands for the old people in the neighborhood and earn it back. I pay, and the dress and the shoes are delicately wrapped in tissue and then stuffed ungracefully in a paper bag.

I thank the women and step around the inert and naked mannequin on my way to the door. A bell rings as I exit the store.

*

I GET OFF THE BUS one stop early so that I can walk past Keith’s block. He’s there, on the street, on his skateboard. And he’s alone. I walk toward him, trying to be casual. I make sure my record bag is facing him.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey.”

“What’d you get?”

“The Furs,” I say.

“No way.”

“Yeah,” I say. “And guess what? I have this friend who’s older and she gave me two tickets to their show.”

“Seriously? Cool.”

“Yeah,” I say. I stand there, gathering up the courage to say what I say next: “Do you want to come?”

“Pardon?” he says. He says “pardon” instead of “what” and I love this about him—like he’s from the South or the past or both.

“Do you want to come with me?” I repeat. “I have two tickets.”

“Maybe,” he says. “When is it?”

I tell him the date and he says he’ll check with his parents later and let me know.

“Cool,” I say. Before I can mess anything up, I turn away. I hope he’s watching me as I walk down the street with my record, my dress, my shoes, and the three dollars I have left to my name. I feel a loosened Band-Aid release itself from my ankle and fall off, but I don’t turn around to pick it up. I don’t care about litter because I am immortal.





19


At dinner I bring up the concert.

“I think it’s a good idea for you to go,” my mother says.

I know she means I think it’s a good idea for you to have a new friend your age. She likes that Ewa and I get along so well, but I can tell she’s worried that the phone never rings for me anymore.

“Wait a second, Greta,” my dad says and puts down his fork. He turns toward me. “You’re going to a concert with a boy?”

“It’s not a boy,” my mom says. “It’s Bonnie and Fred’s son. You know, from Sea View.”

I think of correcting my mother. Keith is a boy. But pointing this out won’t help further my case.

“What is this band all about?” my dad asks.