You Cannot Mess This Up

by Amy Weinland Daughters

  We had come in through one of the women’s fashion departments, snaking our way through dozens of snap-posed mannequins modeling everything from gaucho pants paired with something called a “hooded blouson” (perhaps the son of a regular blouse), to polyester coordinates with shiny-gold translucent belts and geometric jewelry. One displayed high-waisted, baby-blue corduroy “jeans” with gold stretchy belts AND glittering-gold cowboy boots. The ensemble was made complete with a matching crewneck sweater and wide-collared shirt.

  Though the list of fashion atrocities compounded as we walked on, what really struck me was the number of man-made fabrics, each offered not as an offensive, low-rent alternative to the real thing, but instead as a marvel worth paying extra for. Missing were organic cotton, natural bamboo, Alpaca fleece and boiled wool. In their stead were a list of vile textiles that were worlds away from being sustainably sourced, ethically made or even ten-percent organic. Qiana nylon, acrylic knit, velour, double knit, lustrous-cotton velveteen, satin of acetate—which was, based on price, a step up from satin of polyester—Dacron, Fortrel (wasn’t that a programming language they taught in business school?), brushed/flocked rayon, Kodel, Orlon, Trevira, Lurex, Super Suede and my personal favorite, rayon chiffon.

  If that weren’t enough, these unnatural, chemically spawned materials were further treated to become even more useful, and perhaps more dangerous. These magical processes earned the garments additional honors like Wonderfeel, Superwash, Perma-Prest, Flame-Resistant and Easy-Care.

  Among the few natural products that I could find, only in passing, were a sweater made from angora rabbit hair and what was advertised as a “natural” fur-collared coat featuring, of all things, opossum. So, while yes, these were sourced from nature, in this case that meant slaughtering and skinning furry friends— not necessarily a practice well thought of back in 2014.

  I pulled out my notebook and quickly jotted down, “Man-made fabrics, what’s still available? Have things really gotten greener or has marketing and advertising changed?” Also, “Were skin irritations more prevalent in the ’70s?”

  Passing through the shoe department, we entered the main arcade of the store. It was glorious, a two-story courtyard with dark-wood paneling, disco lighting and long, orange and red banners that mirrored the walls we had seen earlier. Two escalators stretched from the main floor to the second level, which featured a wraparound glass balcony with chrome railing.

  Then there were the Christmas decorations. On the one hand, they were shiny and oddly colored (again, it was all about oranges and yellows), but on the flip side, there weren’t quite enough of them. The wow factor of late ’70s design was balanced by a different approach to quantity.

  Passing through the jewelry department, perfume and makeup counters, we were in sight of the mall proper. As we approached the edge of the world, where Foley’s met the great beyond, it was obvious that we needed a plan. Mom looked pensive. Sure, we were at the mall, safe from having to talk directly, for too long, but what in the world was next?

  “Do you have anything you want to see or shop for specifically, Amy?” Dad asked. “Greenspoint is an incredible shopping mall, it has everything.”

  “Yes,” I responded, peering down the passageway leading away from Foley’s. It was a seduction of the senses. The sounds of gentle fountains and waterfalls enticed my ears. Long lines of Ficus trees, draped and then draped again with lights called hither my eyes. As for my nose, it was treated to a scintillating mix of tobacco, chlorine and Brut cologne.

  “Well … What I’d like to do, as a thank you and because I never get to see these guys …” I continued while placing my hand on Kim’s shoulder, “is to buy each of the kids something … something they’ve picked out here at the mall.” Not only would this give me a chance to repay Dick and Sue’s kindness, it would give me an opportunity to have a precious few moments alone with each of the younger versions of my people. While I hadn’t digested even half of the events shoved down my throat in the last twenty hours, I could feel the end coming.

  Selling the plan to my parents wasn’t as easy. “These kids have everything they need,” Dad rightly asserted.

  “That’s just too much!” Mom chimed in.

  “Well,” I said, “it’s the least I can do, after all, you put me up on Thanksgiving. Gave me a place to stay, a family to celebrate with … Plus, when in the world will I get another chance to buy my little cousins a Christmas present, in person, in the greatest mall in America?”

  “Well, I suppose,” Dad said, looking down at the three kids, a firm hand on Little Amy’s shoulder as she did her usual squirm routine. “I guess it would be OK … as long as you stick to a reasonable amount …” He wasn’t going to define the number, the reasonable one—that would be taking it too far, that would be getting too personal. I got that, and I would have handled it the same way but would have still felt awkward no matter what amount of money was ultimately spent. This knowledge basically gave me carte blanche.

  “Great!” I said, glancing down at the kids, who looked shocked. This was 1978, not 2014 when expectations were way higher. These poor people didn’t even know what Costco was. My parents had been beyond generous to us materially speaking, but never, ever had I remembered an event like this, in a mall where everyone dressed up like it was the traditional service on Sunday morning, the one with lots of old people and actual hymnals.

  “If it’s OK,” I continued, not sure of the correct approach, “I could take Kim first, then Rick, and leave Amy for last.”

  Little Amy wasn’t happy with this, but Kim, on the other hand, was thrilled.

  What Little Me didn’t know was that I was trying to do her a service by leaving her until last, until I could see what I could get away with spending on the others. But, as she would continue to do for the long haul, much to her own disservice, she assumed that she was getting the total shaft. I ignored that, as did Dad and Mom, but her siblings basked in Amy’s perceived predicament.

  “Should we say we’ll meet back here in thirty minutes?” I asked. “And then give each kid the same amount of time, moving the meeting point if we need to?”

  “Sounds fine. And again,” Dad said, “be reasonable.”

  “As for you kids,” he said, “your cousin Amy is being extremely generous, so let’s not take advantage of her, and ask for something ridiculous.” Mom nodded her head in agreement.

  “Don’t worry, Dad,” Kim said, with a twinkle in her eye. “We know how to act. Don’t we, Amy?” She gave Little Amy a gentle yet bombastic shoulder shove, whispering something in her ear.

  “Yes,” Amy agreed, wiggling with delight. “We understand.”

  “Well, Kimber,” I almost sang, using her full name on purpose, because I could and she couldn’t stop me. “Let’s go!”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  THE BEST NINE BUCKS I EVER SPENT

  As the rest of the family turned into the mall—with Amy desperately being pushed onward, as if in a forced march —I looked down at Kim. “So, what are you interested in getting? Think of something you really, really want.”

  It reminded me of shopping with Rick’s kids in the future, the possibilities were endless—we couldn’t be stopped, not by parents or decorum. It was the essence of the aunt-niece/ nephew relationship.

  “Well …” Kim said, testing the waters before jumping in. “Could we look at say, maybe, well the accessories at Foley’s?” I had thought she would ask for shoes, like YoYo’s, or at least vinyl boots, so I wasn’t sure what she was after. “Accessories” was such a broad category. But I had to give her credit for starting off on the right foot, vaguely.

  “What is it you want?” I asked. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell you if I think we shouldn’t.”

  “Well,” she said, “everyone at school is wearing those stickpins … you know …”

  “Oh!” I said, remembering the gold lapel pins that were the epitome of 1970s fashion. “Yes, oh, I’ve seen those, aren’t they beauti
ful?”

  “Yes!” Kim almost gushed. “I have always, always, always, always wanted one.”

  “Great!” I said. “Let’s go have a look! Should we try Foley’s or a jewelry store?”

  I knew she would know the answer to that, she would have known it before I ever concocted the “let’s buy everyone a gift” idea. Inasmuch as seeing the Goodyear Blimp was in my dream sequence, the procurement of gold stickpins was in hers. It pretty much summed up who we were now and in the future.

  The thing about Kim was, at all ages, she was generous. One far-off day, but sooner than she could ever imagine, she’d pick one niece or nephew, or a combination of them, and take them out for hours, buying them as many “specials” as she could afford. This made me want to treat her, if I could, in advance of her treating the small people of our collective futures.

  “We could look at Sweeny’s, it’s there,” she said, pointing down the corridor leading away from Foley’s, an area dominated by a huge sculpture, like something you’d see at an upscale city park. “Or,” she continued in earnest, her finger resting on her lips, as if we were deciding where to house our elderly parents, “we could go to Miss Bojangles or, we could just go back into Foley’s. Really, lots of stores have them, even Sears, but, you know, Sears …” her voice trailed off, cautiously, hinting at the slightly down-market nature of a serious jewelry purchase at Sears and Roebuck. I had to give it to Kim, she was retail savvy and way ahead of her time. Sears was still in fashion in this decade, a fine retailer with a huge catalog following, but that didn’t stop this young fashionista from detecting a waft of future wrongness.

  This was the same Kim who would refuse to go into stores to look at clothing because the smell was off. The same Kim who didn’t feel as if the Weiner’s department store in Spring, Texas, was quite up to her high standards. I guess Kim was already who she was, and who she would always be. It was just the lack of a car, and a paycheck, and some distance and time that separated the 1978 version and the woman I knew and loved, and was still jealous of, in the future.

  “Well … which place do YOU recommend?”

  She was as pleased with this statement as Little Amy had been with my visit to her office, in a closet.

  “I think Foley’s is our best option …” she said, looking back to the jewelry section behind us.

  “OK, let’s do it!” I said, almost a little too enthusiastically.

  Turning around, we retreated from the Ficus tree forest and back into the wood-paneled Mecca. Working our way around the chrome display cases, shimmering in the disco light, we finally located the stickpins. The selection was generous: traditional pins, bar pins and even golden safety pins adorned with everything from butterflies to keys. They were all displayed in a burnt-orange, deep-pile carpet, deeper than anything you would have seen in any other period in history. It was amazing how the jewelry didn’t get lost in the carpet. Instead it almost floated on top of it, like it was levitating.

  “Which one do you like?” I asked. “They have hearts, apples, owls, love knots, doves, stars, the word ‘love’ spelled out and roses … Oh look,” I said, motioning toward the right end of the case. “They have birthstones, which is yours?”

  “Mine is the garnet … or ruby,” she said. “Amy’s is the diamond, for April.” Her voice trailed off wistfully. “But she doesn’t care about that, even though she’s got the best one …”

  “Would you like one with your birthstone?” I asked, thinking she would go for that for sure.

  “I do like that …” she said. “But what I really want is one with my initial.”

  Scanning the display, we found the monograms, but we didn’t see a K. Looking around, I wondered if there was a salesperson we could ask. It was crowded, but eventually I caught the eye of one of the two women working the section.

  “Excuse me,” I asked, trying to play my best adult for Kim, who was suitably impressed with how I could handle such important business matters. “Do you carry a stickpin with the letter K?”

  The woman—dressed to kill in what looked like a curtain fashioned into a green sateen dress—kneeled down to the drawers below the display and began rummaging around. Eventually she re-emerged with three boxes. “We have three choices in the K monogram,” she said.

  Now that she was directly in front of us, I noticed that she was wearing four thick gold chains. Each hung lower than the one before, from a choker all the way to a breast-length rope— the effect added dazzle to her shimmery lips, sparkly green eyelids and platinum blonde Dorothy Hamill haircut.

  Kim was as mesmerized as I was—this woman was everything Kim wanted to be, and would become, and everything I wanted to be, but knew I would fall way short of.

  Opening the three boxes, Debra, as per her aquamarine Foley’s name tag, presented us our options. “First,” she said, “we have a gold-tone monogram, it’s five dollars.” This pin had a smallish K only about an inch and a half long from the bottom of the pin to the top of the initial. “It’s popular with younger girls.

  “Next,” she continued, “we have the ‘gold-filled’ twelve-karat stickpin, it’s six dollars and ninety-nine cents.” This option was about two inches long in total, offering not only higher-grade materials, but a bigger K.

  “Finally,” she said, presenting the remaining box, covered in mustard-colored velour, “we have our finest option, a full fourteen-karat stickpin, its nine dollars.” This, Foley’s finest, had a block-lettered K that was a full half inch high on its own and fatter than the other choices. It was noticeably superior.

  “What do you think?” shiny Debra asked.

  “Well, what do you think, Kim?” I asked, already knowing which one I would purchase.

  “Umm … well, we should probably go with number one or number two,” she said. “They are the best price …”

  “But which one do you like best?” I asked, “Which would you pick if you didn’t know the price?”

  “Well …” she said, pausing to look at me, at Debra and at the pins. “I like the third one, the finest option, but that’s just too much.”

  “We’ll take it!” I said as I pushed the nine-dollar box toward Debra.

  Looking down at Kim, I was pleased to see her beaming up at me. “Are you sure? Mom and Dad will …”

  “No, this is my treat.” I said, “And I’m happy to do it!”

  Kim was enamored with me, something that pleased me so much that I almost yanked the jaunty scarf off the neck of the patron next to me. I wanted to wave it about in a celebratory fan dance. I had no idea it would feel like this.

  “How will you be paying for this?” Debra asked, as she turned to put the two unwanted boxes away. “With your Foley’s charge card?”

  “No, no …” I said almost calmly, dipping into my huge purse, realizing that I had no idea how I would pay for this or anything else. Crap, I thought, panicking, but keeping it real for Kim’s sake. How was I going to pay for anything? I hadn’t even packed this freaking purse? Fishing out my wallet, I was relieved to find a healthy stash of folded cash, a checkbook, and three credit cards. One was a gold-and-white Texaco card, another from the well-heeled Diners’ Club and the last, thank God, was a really old MasterCard. Hopefully, that would do the trick. Again, whomever had hallucinated this had done a damn good job of covering the details.

  Debra took the card from me and moved to the center of the octagon counter. Even though there was plenty of crowd noise, I could hear her violently whacking the credit-card machine back and forth. I wondered how much money I had just spent. Pulling out my handy notebook, I jotted down “Nine dollars in 1978 money today, how much did the stickpin really cost me?”

  Re-emerging with the form—purple and distressed from being swiped within an inch of its life—I noticed that Debra had filled out the financial particulars by hand, in blue ballpoint ink. I was amazed at how much extra work, and muscle power, each transaction would have taken. I took her pen and signed the form, pressing hard to en
sure it went through all the copies.

  “Thank you,” Debra said, as she retreated back into her chambers, reappearing almost simultaneously with a Foley’s gift bag. Handing the bag to Kim and the receipt to me, she said, “Merry Christmas and come again!”

  “Merry Christmas!” we replied, in unison, looking at each other and giggling. Hell, I didn’t even approve of giggling, but I was enjoying bonding with the young Kim so much I didn’t care. I seriously, totally and completely wished the forty-eight-year-old Kimber could be here too. Maybe she would be as uncomfortable with her little self as I was with mine. But maybe, just maybe, she too would find something out along the way, something she didn’t already know, or something she had forgotten that she knew. And then maybe, just maybe, we would drink six glasses of wine together and try to forget it all over again.

  Walking back toward the mall, I looked at my watch, which was so small I could barely read the numbers. “We’ve still got about five minutes,” I told Kim, who was suddenly looking at me with even more awe.

  “Can I see your watch?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I said, throwing back my wide Qiana sleeve.

  “Oh my God!” she said, freaking out. “YOU HAVE A DIGITAL WATCH!”

  “Oh yeah … I do …” I said unenthusiastically, looking down at my Phasar 2000 watch, complete with a golden mesh bracelet.

  “CAN IT LIGHT UP?” Kim asked, enthusiasm bordering on hysteria.

  “Well, yes …” I fumbled with the two buttons on the right side of the small face. “Yes, it does.”

  Cupping my right hand around the watch, I drew Kim in and activated the light using the tiny button. All it did was dimly light the crystal display, nothing more than four black numbers, separated by a colon, against a gray background.

  “I have never seen somebody actually wearing one of THOSE!” Kim continued, impressed with the watch regardless of the fact that it wasn’t attractive nor was it made out of anything near a precious metal. I supposed that the face, at least the part surrounding the numbers, would have been considered stylish at the time, browns and golds smeared together in a shiny, brushed look.