In my early to mid-teens, I was big into vintage clothing. I had this one dress that I LOVED. It was a size 18 – I was a size 8 back then and I’m a size 6 now, no major changing of poundage, they just keep going down over the years to make fat people feel better about themselves. Yeah, I said it. Anyway, it was leopard print, zipped up in the front so you could show as much or little cleavage as you desired. One could image its previous owner with the zipper down all the way to her belly button, eyes caked in charcoal liner, dropping acid with Andy Warhol. I’m fairly certain I have a picture of it somewhere; I’ll be sure to post it. So what shoes are worthy of this dress? What shoes did you picture? Matching leopard print boots? Well I didn’t have those. What I did have was a pair of strappy heels that were of a dark, bronzy hue, with a sort of swirly pattern. I thought they would go perfect with the dress.
I couldn’t wear it to school. I was limited to my regulation Mary Catherine Gallagher uniform, and even if I wore it on a “civies day” I would probably end up the subject of ridicule by that clique of total bitches who loved getting laughs at my expense. Actually, my mother probably would have flat out refused to let me to wear it to school. I needed an event. The public school was putting on A Midsummer Night’s Dream and my best friend Eric was part of the lighting crew, so I decided it would be a perfect occasion to debut the outfit. I asked a boy I liked to go with me and he said no. Fine, I said, screw it, I’ll go myself. That righteous anger led to me tarting myself up more than I probably would have if he had said yes. I put on a ton of makeup, without any real knowledge of how to put on makeup. This was freshman year, and being without a date or a driver’s license, I had to get a ride from my mother. I was 14, so we were at odds about pretty much everything, but the two big points of contention were I shouldn’t like boys “like that,” and she didn’t like the way I dressed. On rare occasions, it was “that is WAY too revealing!” but was mostly, “Beppy, that just looks . . . it looks . . . weird.” So I came downstairs with my makeup and the leopard dress and the strappy heels and said, “Okay, I’m ready, can we go now?” The look on her face was priceless.
After a few moments of stunned silence, she asked, "That's what you're wearing to the play?"
I said, with that classic contempt teenagers have for adults, "No, I just put it on 5 minutes before we left so I could change out of it."
My mother's eyes narrowed. "You're not going anywhere with that attitude, Missy."
"Okay, I'm sorry, can we go? We're gonna be late."
She looked me up and down with confusion and disapproval, and stopped at my feet.
"You don't have other shoes?"
"Not that match this dress."
"But those shoes don't match that dress."
"Well I think they do and I don't have any other shoes, so can we please go?"
She sighed and got her keys.
The car ride was quiet except for the music. My mother has this habit of buying a new CD and then listening to it over and over again in her car until someone - myself, my father, or my brother - can't take it anymore and snaps. That week it was Cyndi Lauper's "She's So Unusual." You almost don't need to get a "best of" CD for her, because almost all of her hits are on that album - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Time After Time, and that classic little ditty about masturbation, She Bop. I picked up the CD Case and looked at Cyndi's outfit. Her dress was crazy. The skirt was bright red flared out like a Spanish dancer's, its shape kept by layers of pink tulle underneath. The top part was a vintage-looking corset, pink with frilly red lace. Her hair was a bright orange-red mullet, which sounds hideous but it worked on her. She was barefoot except for fishnet stockings, with a pair of red heels lying on the ground next to her as if she had kicked them off so she could dance. I held the CD case up to my mother. "Look, Cyndi Lauper's got a way crazier dress and she seems to be doing all right." She sighed again and kept her eyes on the road. I got out of the car when "All Through the Night" was playing and walked into the school making a point of looking straight ahead and not back at her.
The first thing I did when I got inside was scan the lobby for the boy I liked, like maybe he realized at the last minute that he loved me and was going to come surprise me. I wasn't very rational when it came to boys. I bought my tickets and wandered around the lobby, still visibly upset from my spat with my mother and hiding my face with my hair when I saw some of my middle school bullies that had inspired me to switch to private high school, until a line started to form. My mother's comments had gotten to me more than I liked to admit; I kept staring at my shoes and wondering if other people were staring at them too. Then a sweet looking old lady with a long skirt and a cross around her neck got in line behind me.
"Dear," she said, "I just have to tell you I love your outfit."
That was the last thing I had expected to hear from anyone. It caught me off guard. "Uh, thanks," I stammered. I thought her compliment was odd in light of my mother's disapproval, but the next thing she said astounded me even further.
"And I love those shoes! Those are the perfect shoes for that dress." I just stood there and stared at her for a few seconds. She asked me if I was all right and I mumbled something about my mother not liking them, and she said again that she thought my shoes matched my dress perfectly. Once I got over the initial shock, I smiled and thanked her again. This would be a great story to tell my mother, I thought - as long as I could get her to believe me.
Fast forward a few months. It was summer and I was working at my father's law firm, moving boxes in the basement for $6.00 an hour, when I felt a sharp pain in my lower abdomen. I told myself it was just gas, but when I woke up the next morning the pain was excruciating and the area looked bruised and swollen. So I went in for a sonogram and they found a cyst the size of a grapefruit on my right ovary. Awesome. The next week I had it surgically removed and had to stay hospitalized for the next 24 hours (I got zero sleep, lying there thinking "somebody died in this bed"). The day after the surgery, Eric and my other friend James came to visit. We goofed around and took funny pictures and they left. I was alone with my mother, watching TV, when a sweet looking old lady with a long skirt and a cross around her neck entered the room.
"Hello," she said, "are you Beppy?"
"Yes, that's me," I said, trying to figure out where I had seen her before.
"I'm Sister Rosemary. I'm here to bring you Communion." (Contemporary nuns don’t usually wear the habit outside of the Abbey.) My mother must have listed me as Catholic on some form when I was admitted. I thought it strange that someone would come to bring me Communion on a Friday, but I guess they just did that with all the Catholic patients. She asked me what church I went to, and when I told her, she said, "Oh, do you know Eric Greene?"
I let out a laugh of surprise and stopped abruptly when it hurt. "He's my best friend! He was here; you just missed him!"
It turned out she was an old friend of the Greene family, and had known Eric "since his mother was crying because she couldn't get pregnant with him."
"Do you go to his high school, then?" she asked.
As I was telling her I went to an all-girls Catholic school, I suddenly realized where I had seen her before. "Did you go see 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' at Eric’s school?"
"Why yes, I did. Eric was -"
"doing the lighting," we said in unison.
"You were next to me in line! You told me how much you liked my outfit and how my shoes matched my dress."
She smiled. "Oh, of course, you had on that leopard print dress with the strappy heels. Well isn't that something?"
"It sure is," I said. "You know that was exactly what I needed to hear that night. I had just gotten into it with my mother about how she didn't like the outfit and especially didn't think the shoes matched my dress." At this point I had sort of forgotten my mother was in the room, until Sister Rosemary turned and looked at her.
My mother, looking embarrassed, sighed and said, "She's my little Cyndi Lauper, I guess."
"Ha," I thought. "I win." After that, my mother still complained about my outfits from time to time, but not nearly as much as before. Oh, and ten years later I found out that boy I liked was gay.
I couldn’t wear it to school. I was limited to my regulation Mary Catherine Gallagher uniform, and even if I wore it on a “civies day” I would probably end up the subject of ridicule by that clique of total bitches who loved getting laughs at my expense. Actually, my mother probably would have flat out refused to let me to wear it to school. I needed an event. The public school was putting on A Midsummer Night’s Dream and my best friend Eric was part of the lighting crew, so I decided it would be a perfect occasion to debut the outfit. I asked a boy I liked to go with me and he said no. Fine, I said, screw it, I’ll go myself. That righteous anger led to me tarting myself up more than I probably would have if he had said yes. I put on a ton of makeup, without any real knowledge of how to put on makeup. This was freshman year, and being without a date or a driver’s license, I had to get a ride from my mother. I was 14, so we were at odds about pretty much everything, but the two big points of contention were I shouldn’t like boys “like that,” and she didn’t like the way I dressed. On rare occasions, it was “that is WAY too revealing!” but was mostly, “Beppy, that just looks . . . it looks . . . weird.” So I came downstairs with my makeup and the leopard dress and the strappy heels and said, “Okay, I’m ready, can we go now?” The look on her face was priceless.
After a few moments of stunned silence, she asked, "That's what you're wearing to the play?"
I said, with that classic contempt teenagers have for adults, "No, I just put it on 5 minutes before we left so I could change out of it."
My mother's eyes narrowed. "You're not going anywhere with that attitude, Missy."
"Okay, I'm sorry, can we go? We're gonna be late."
She looked me up and down with confusion and disapproval, and stopped at my feet.
"You don't have other shoes?"
"Not that match this dress."
"But those shoes don't match that dress."
"Well I think they do and I don't have any other shoes, so can we please go?"
She sighed and got her keys.
The car ride was quiet except for the music. My mother has this habit of buying a new CD and then listening to it over and over again in her car until someone - myself, my father, or my brother - can't take it anymore and snaps. That week it was Cyndi Lauper's "She's So Unusual." You almost don't need to get a "best of" CD for her, because almost all of her hits are on that album - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Time After Time, and that classic little ditty about masturbation, She Bop. I picked up the CD Case and looked at Cyndi's outfit. Her dress was crazy. The skirt was bright red flared out like a Spanish dancer's, its shape kept by layers of pink tulle underneath. The top part was a vintage-looking corset, pink with frilly red lace. Her hair was a bright orange-red mullet, which sounds hideous but it worked on her. She was barefoot except for fishnet stockings, with a pair of red heels lying on the ground next to her as if she had kicked them off so she could dance. I held the CD case up to my mother. "Look, Cyndi Lauper's got a way crazier dress and she seems to be doing all right." She sighed again and kept her eyes on the road. I got out of the car when "All Through the Night" was playing and walked into the school making a point of looking straight ahead and not back at her.
The first thing I did when I got inside was scan the lobby for the boy I liked, like maybe he realized at the last minute that he loved me and was going to come surprise me. I wasn't very rational when it came to boys. I bought my tickets and wandered around the lobby, still visibly upset from my spat with my mother and hiding my face with my hair when I saw some of my middle school bullies that had inspired me to switch to private high school, until a line started to form. My mother's comments had gotten to me more than I liked to admit; I kept staring at my shoes and wondering if other people were staring at them too. Then a sweet looking old lady with a long skirt and a cross around her neck got in line behind me.
"Dear," she said, "I just have to tell you I love your outfit."
That was the last thing I had expected to hear from anyone. It caught me off guard. "Uh, thanks," I stammered. I thought her compliment was odd in light of my mother's disapproval, but the next thing she said astounded me even further.
"And I love those shoes! Those are the perfect shoes for that dress." I just stood there and stared at her for a few seconds. She asked me if I was all right and I mumbled something about my mother not liking them, and she said again that she thought my shoes matched my dress perfectly. Once I got over the initial shock, I smiled and thanked her again. This would be a great story to tell my mother, I thought - as long as I could get her to believe me.
Fast forward a few months. It was summer and I was working at my father's law firm, moving boxes in the basement for $6.00 an hour, when I felt a sharp pain in my lower abdomen. I told myself it was just gas, but when I woke up the next morning the pain was excruciating and the area looked bruised and swollen. So I went in for a sonogram and they found a cyst the size of a grapefruit on my right ovary. Awesome. The next week I had it surgically removed and had to stay hospitalized for the next 24 hours (I got zero sleep, lying there thinking "somebody died in this bed"). The day after the surgery, Eric and my other friend James came to visit. We goofed around and took funny pictures and they left. I was alone with my mother, watching TV, when a sweet looking old lady with a long skirt and a cross around her neck entered the room.
"Hello," she said, "are you Beppy?"
"Yes, that's me," I said, trying to figure out where I had seen her before.
"I'm Sister Rosemary. I'm here to bring you Communion." (Contemporary nuns don’t usually wear the habit outside of the Abbey.) My mother must have listed me as Catholic on some form when I was admitted. I thought it strange that someone would come to bring me Communion on a Friday, but I guess they just did that with all the Catholic patients. She asked me what church I went to, and when I told her, she said, "Oh, do you know Eric Greene?"
I let out a laugh of surprise and stopped abruptly when it hurt. "He's my best friend! He was here; you just missed him!"
It turned out she was an old friend of the Greene family, and had known Eric "since his mother was crying because she couldn't get pregnant with him."
"Do you go to his high school, then?" she asked.
As I was telling her I went to an all-girls Catholic school, I suddenly realized where I had seen her before. "Did you go see 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' at Eric’s school?"
"Why yes, I did. Eric was -"
"doing the lighting," we said in unison.
"You were next to me in line! You told me how much you liked my outfit and how my shoes matched my dress."
She smiled. "Oh, of course, you had on that leopard print dress with the strappy heels. Well isn't that something?"
"It sure is," I said. "You know that was exactly what I needed to hear that night. I had just gotten into it with my mother about how she didn't like the outfit and especially didn't think the shoes matched my dress." At this point I had sort of forgotten my mother was in the room, until Sister Rosemary turned and looked at her.
My mother, looking embarrassed, sighed and said, "She's my little Cyndi Lauper, I guess."
"Ha," I thought. "I win." After that, my mother still complained about my outfits from time to time, but not nearly as much as before. Oh, and ten years later I found out that boy I liked was gay.
