I turned to the salesgirl. Surely, somewhere out there, there were white girls with meat on their bones, and surely these chunky white girls went to prom, were introduced at cotil ions, and got married at Cal anwolde. “Where do they have the kind of dresses we are looking for in our sizes?”
The salesgirl flushed again. “There’s the catalog store cal ed the Forgotten Woman —”
My mother said, “I am not buying my dress at a store cal ed the Forgotten Woman.”
The salesgirl said, “It’s not a good name, but they have real y nice things.”
My mother shook her head.
“Let me cal my mama,” the salesgirl said. We must have looked confused, because she added, “It’s a family business,” before disappearing to the back.
Mama and I sat on an upholstered bench, not sure exactly what we were waiting for. Across from us stood a three-way mirror, and I saw what we must look like to the salesgirl. We didn’t belong here — my mother in her embel ished tracksuit and me in Dana’s rainbow tube top. Mama reached over and plucked a lace garter from a table of fril y underthings. “Do you think I could get this thing to stretch enough to get around my toe?” She laughed, but her face was half anger and half sadness. “Before I got married, I had a teeny waist. I wasn’t a pretty girl, but I was nice-looking.”
I wanted to say “You are nice-looking now,” but looking in the three-way mirror it was clear that neither of us was much to look at. We were both too fat, our faces round. Mine was threatened by a double chin and my mother’s had already reached that point. She didn’t have to worry about acne scars like I did, but unlike me, she hadn’t had the benefits of orthodontia. As I leaned my head on her soft shoulder, the dol -baby fibers of her wig tickled my nose.
The salesgirl popped from the mysterious back room, fresh and bright. “It is your lucky day, after al . We had a special order that was returned.
There’s nothing sadder than ringing up a return on a bridal. But this is a happy ending. Do you want to see it? It’s up-sized.”
We agreed but without much enthusiasm. My mother and I were not lucky people.
“I think you’l like it,” she said, unzipping the vinyl garment carrier.
It was perfect enough to make you believe that God real y keeps his eyes on sparrows and overweight colored women alike. The dress wasn’t pure white, but it wasn’t that self-conscious beige that brides wear when they want to make it clear that they are not passing themselves off as virgins. This dress, more
“Try it on?”
The pale almond gown may have been up-sized, but it was stil a bit snug for Mama. Later, back at the Pink Fox, she made the episode into a funny story, joking, “It took Chaurisse, a ninety-pound white girl, and a crowbar, but they got me into it.” Mama had been up against the dressing room wal , hands splayed against the wal like she was getting patted down by the cops. I pushed the sides of the dress together, using my index fingers to poke down the rebel ious flesh, while the salesgirl coached, “Empty out your lungs. Shal ow breaths! Shal ow breaths!”
The plan was that Mama would lose a pound and a half each week until the soiree. In addition, she would wear a serious long-line girdle and a pair of control-top Hanes. And last but not least, neither Daddy nor Uncle Raleigh could see the dress until the special day.
“Mama,” I said, “it’s not a wedding dress.”
“Stop being so negative,” she said.
WHEN TEENAGERS THROW parties, much of the thril comes from deciding who to invite and who to ignore, but for my mother the delight was in including everyone she knew. The party was the only conversation in the Pink Fox ever since the double-enveloped eagles had landed. At dinner, my father patted himself on the back. “Looka there, Buttercup. I forgot that the ladies going to the party were going to have to pay your mama to get them ready to go! This thing is going to pay for itself!” It was a happy time in our household, even though Raleigh was a little down in the mouth when he thought nobody was watching him. He and Daddy had recently stopped working Wednesday nights, so we gathered together and watched
Mama said she thought his mopiness was because al the party talk reminded him that he didn’t have a wife or kids of his own. He didn’t even have a date to bring, saying he would just escort me. I told her that I thought that he was stil shook up about the scene at the gas station. Dana’s mama had cursed him to his face. Mama said, “Missing Dana is what’s got
Three weeks in, my mama had dropped five and a quarter pounds. To celebrate, she had me heft a sack of onions. “Imagine this much lard, removed from my behind.” It had been tough going. For two days, she consumed nothing but lemonade sweetened with maple syrup, made even more disgusting by a dose of cayenne pepper. One week, she ate turkey slices rol ed in lettuce as lunch, but by bedtime she’d convinced herself that a little frozen pizza wouldn’t hurt anything. She didn’t ask the ladies at the Pink Fox to tote around a bag of onions, but she worked one finger, then two, into her waistband to show her progress.
“Show us the dress,” said Mrs. Grant, mother of Ruth Nicole Elizabeth. She was getting her roots done.
“I’m not even halfway to my goal,” Mama said.
“Just try it on,” said Mrs. Grant. “We know you are a work in progress. We can use our imagination. Am I right, ladies?” She clapped her hands, nodding at the women sitting in chair no. 1 and chair no. 2, asking for their support. They waited a moment and then started clapping, too. Mama looked at me. “What do you think, Chaurisse?”
“Go for it,” I said.
While Mama was gone, the Pink Fox was quiet. The TV, mounted on the wal like in a hospital, was broken, so there was nothing to distract us from each other. In chair no. 1, one person was ready for a relaxer. The lady in chair no. 2 waited for her curls to be combed out. Mrs. Grant, under the dryer, cal ed out to me. “Are you looking forward to graduation?” Ruth Nicole Elizabeth had been given an honors scholarship to Emory University.
