Pretty in Plaid: A Life, A Witch, and a Wardrobe

by Jen Lancaster

  A current of air lifts my sash practically to eye level. I might only be eight, but damn it, I know when fate is trying to get my attention. So I square my shoulders and tuck my order sheet under my arm. My mission is clear. I adjust my beret and begin to march down the hill toward the wealthy neighborhood. Maybe I didn’t earn all these badges legitimately.

  But it’s not too late to make up for them.

  When I receive my next badge at our scout meeting, I demand my mother sew it on properly. I wear it like a medal of honor. When anyone asks what the big brown patch on the back of my sash is for, I gladly tell them it’s for selling more cookies than anyone else in the region. I win!

  I canvassed the rich people one block over, hounding them mercilessly until their names filled every blank on my order sheet. I was far more aggressive than any bill collector or repo man. I didn’t even care that it was going to take me ages and ages to deliver all those cookies when the time came.

  Because I know that I legitimately earned that patch on the back of my sash. And I am proud.

  The Green Badge of Courage

  (Kelly Green Speedo Tank Suit)

  Donna and I are at our Tuesday night swimming lesson at the YWCA. She’s working on getting her Athletics badge. Technically, I already have one, but I’m going through all the steps anyway. I don’t have to; I want to.

  Besides, I love swimming lessons! I dig everything about them—carpooling with Donna and her sister, smelling the chlorine on my stretchy green Speedo bathing suit18 later when I get home, watching the steam form at the top of the natatorium where the air meets the freezing cold glass, floating along in warm water even though it’s the middle of winter, and best of all, hitting the vending machine after the lesson.

  Every week I bring a quarter to buy ice cream from the machine. My mother monitors my coin situation because she realizes that given the opportunity, I would eat dessert until I collapsed on myself like a dying star.

  Usually I choose an ice cream sandwich because I can never properly wipe all the Fudgsicle residue from the corners of my mouth. I’m not a huge fan of the vanilla stuff covered in a thin chocolate layer, either. One bite and the coating falls on the ground, and five-second rule or not, I won’t eat a treat off of a place where ten thousand bare feet have trod.

  I insert my quarter and hold my breath, exhaling when I open the trap door to find one sandwich. Once earlier this winter I put in a quarter and got two ice cream sandwiches, so I’m perpetually hopeful.

  We had a great lesson tonight. We worked on backstroke so I got in plenty of quality ceiling-viewing time. I particularly like when the water surrounds everything but my face and how muffled and muted all the gleeful screaming and splashing becomes. Maybe I’m getting more mature now that I’m nine, but I’m beginning to recognize and appreciate these small moments of Zen. Plus, I’m the fastest at backstroking and nothing pleases me more than beating the Speedos off everyone else.

  Donna, her sister Leslie, and I are all dry and dressed after our lesson, my wet suit stuffed in a plastic bread bag inside my satchel. We’ve got our towels wrapped around our damp heads and we sit in companionable silence on a bench in the front entrance, enjoying the last of our ice cream as we wait for their dad to pick us up. My favorite bit of this ritual is when the sandwich melts into my fingers, leaving just enough bonus ice cream and cookie shell to lick off afterward.

  “Hey, look, Tony’s here!” Leslie exclaims.

  “Who’s Tony?” I ask.

  “He’s a friend of my daddy’s,” Leslie tells me. “He hangs out in his bar.”

  “He’s real nice,” Donna adds. “Hi, Tony. What are you doing here?”

  “Hey, girls! Your dad asked me to come and get you.”

  “All right, let’s go!” They grab their stuff and begin to follow Tony. I am none too thrilled to be riding with someone I don’t know, but Leslie and Donna seem comfortable so I grudgingly toss my wrapper in the trash and pick up my tote bag. I would simply call my mother but I only had the one quarter and obviously I just used it.

  We ride to Donna’s house and I position myself next to the door, just in case. I figure if anything weird goes down, I can get out first. My rationale is I don’t have to be faster than Tony; I only have to be faster than Donna and Leslie.

  I’m not quite sure why we don’t just swing by my house first because it’s closer to the Y, but all my worrying is for naught when we arrive at Donna’s house minutes later. Both her parents are there and all the grown-ups greet each other and then go downstairs to their rec room. It’s still kind of early, so Donna and I head into her parents’ bedroom and watch some of The Man from Atlantis.

  Half an hour later during a commercial break, I tell Donna’s mom I should probably go home, to which she replies, “Great! I’ll let Tony know.”

  “Excuse me?” I ask.

  “Tony’s going to leave so I can have him drive you to your house.”

  Um, hi, I’m only nine,19 and even I know this is the worst plan ever to be uttered out loud by an actual adult. She wants me to catch a ride in the dark alone with some guy who hangs out at her husband’s bar?

  Is she crazy? (Or is this payback for the egg salad?)

  I gawp at Donna’s mom for what seems like an hour before I finally reply, “No.”

  She bends toward me like she didn’t hear me. “I’m sorry?”

  I fold my arms and raise my chin in defiance. I’m not going to be bullied into doing something that makes me uncomfortable. “I said no. I’m not riding with him. He may be your family friend, but he’s not mine. My parents have never met him and I don’t know his last name.”

  She sighs. “Jennifer, his last name is—”

  I interrupt. “I don’t care what his name is or that it’s just three blocks. I’m not getting in a car with that stranger by myself. If you don’t want to drive me, then call my mom and she can come get me. Or else I’m staying here.”

  Resigned, Donna’s mom gets her keys and silently leads me out to her little gold Toyota wagon. Donna and Leslie tag along, too, and the atmosphere is festive as we drive up the hill to my house. I arrive home safe, sound, and in plenty of time to see the end of the show. 20

  I tell my mother what happened and she makes a quick, heated call to Donna’s house. Later, as she tucks me in and kisses me good night, my mom tells me I just earned an unofficial merit badge in courage.

  What I don’t tell her is that I knew if I’d taken that ride, anything could have happened, and none of it good.

  And that would have ruined ice cream sandwiches for me forever.

  Miss New Jersey Has Everything

  (Brown Tasseled Clogs)

  Today I’m taking the shortcut home. Often I go the long way so I can stop in the park and pay a visit to the swing set (or hot dog stand), but this afternoon is not about dawdling (or sauerkraut). My dad’s finally home after his extended business trip to Indiana and I suspect there’s a present in his suitcase with my name on it.

  (Dear God, please let it be candy!)

  My friend Beth and I make a beeline through the woods across from school. Her house is on the cul-de-sac right by the tree line on the other side and mine is a couple of blocks past that. Beth’s house is kind of famous because the Prudential Insurance people once picked it to be in a commercial. At the last minute, Beth’s mom decided she didn’t want a film crew crashing a tree through her big living room window even if they promised to fix it right afterward, so the director used the house next door. We got to be there for the filming anyway. I loved when they used that snappy black slate thing and shouted “Action!”21 When the commercial ran during Happy Days a few months later, we could see Beth’s garage in the shot.

  I’m delighted by my friendship with Beth because she used to not like me. Hers was the first birthday party I attended right after we moved here from Boston in third grade, and my mom made me give her a Mrs. Beasley doll for a present.

  Mrs. Beasley. From the uber-cr
eepy show Family Affair.22

  And what little girl doesn’t want to play with an astigmatic senior citizen doll outfitted in a bib and an apron? Oh, wait. All of them. Had I not been so utterly charming when we went on our first Girl Scout camping trip in fourth grade, Beth would have never given me a second chance, and who could blame her?

  However, we’re close friends now, especially since my bestie Stacey moved to Arizona last summer. Walking home together has only improved our bond. We haven’t been able to cut through the woods for the past few months because the ground was squishy and I didn’t want to get my clogs muddy. Granted, all those people in Holland wear wooden shoes because it’s damp, but I assume theirs aren’t adorned with jaunty leather tassels and hammered brass tacks. Considering I had to get straight As on my report card in order to convince my parents to buy them for me, I’m loath to put them in any mortal danger.

  Beth and I scurry down the dry wooded path, recounting our Field Day victory last week. We were on the red team and I had the genius idea to get a red T-shirt with the word “Red” spelled out on it in iron-on letters. I wore white jogging shorts with red trim and I snagged a pair of Todd’s red-striped tube socks and I tied a red bandanna around my pigtailed hair. Seriously, when I showed up to school that day? I pretty much blew everyone’s mind. My theory is the blue team was so astounded by my fashion savvy that it weakened their defenses and we were able to pull off the win. Or possibly they thought the whole competition was dumb and didn’t try terribly hard. Either way, we won.

  The best part is that I was recognized as one of the most outstanding students in the fifth grade after the competition. The principal called all my favorite people in class—Donna, Beth, Tracey, Andrea, who’s let me use her lip gloss on more than one occasion, Nancy, who in addition to having a basement full of games also sports a Dorothy Hamill haircut, Joe Major, who I would totally have a crush on if boys weren’t yucky, and George, who wears shiny silk shirts and lets me borrow his pink marker.

  Anyway, I was worried for a second as I watched the elite members of the fifth grade claim their spots onstage, but thankfully the last name the principal called was mine. Donna and I were so thrilled to both be part of the group that we were hugging and jumping up and down! Afterward, Nancy invited me over to play board games in her basement23 and Tracey decided that I simply must try out for cheerleading with her. Without a doubt, it was the best day of my life so far, even surpassing the time I found a giant box of sixties Barbie dolls and girls’ books in the neighbor’s garbage.

  We get to Beth’s house and I say good-bye. I yank up my striped socks (with individual toe slots!), adjust my Mickey Mouse backpack, and hike up the hill.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Jennifer! How’s this fine day treatin’ my favorite granddaughter?” calls Mike, the sweet old Irish crossing guard who’s been working this corner ever since he retired from the New York City police force. Last year we had to do a Girl Scout project with a grandparent, so I asked him to be my adopted grandfather since my Noni and Grampa live in Boston and my Nanny and Gaga had passed away.

  “Hi, Mike! I’m great! I got an A on my spelling test and my dad’s home today!”

  “You’d best hurry on home to see him then! But not too fast, m’dear—I don’t want you to twist an ankle.” He points at my clogs. The heel’s not even an inch high, yet every time I put them on I feel as glamorous as Kristy McNichol.

  “Okay, I’ll see you later, Granddad!”

  I know he’s not really my grandfather, but sometimes it’s nice to pretend.

  I stroll down Prospect Avenue, enjoying the feel of the June sun on my face. Our street is quiet, so every time my wooden heel hits the asphalt it sounds like the clip-clop of horses’ hooves. I’ve only gotten to ride a horse a couple of times in my life, but I love them so much. I want to pet their glossy fur and scratch their broad muzzles and hug them around their strong necks and braid their manes. (One time my cousin Stephanie was mounting a horse at camp and it stepped on her thigh. She had a bruise the size of a watermelon. I don’t really want that.)

  I always get in trouble for handing in my homework with horses drawn in the margins of my notebook paper. Plus, National Velvet is my favorite movie and I’ve read Misty of Chincoteague ten times already. Recently my Girl Scout troop went to Washington, D.C., and on the way we spent one night camping in Assateague.24 I created an elaborate plan to sneak up on one of the wild ponies (preferably black with a white patch between his eyes) and tame it and make him my own just like the Beebe family. Mrs. McCoy promised me before we left that if I caught one, she’d transport it back to New Jersey in her station wagon. She was totally on board.

  I grudgingly accept that she was humoring me, as all the shaggy ponies bolted when I got within a hundred yards of them. I guess Girl Scouts aren’t ninjas, after all, particularly when clog-clad.

  You know what? Even without my own horse or pony, my life is pretty great. Our neighbor works for a dairy and he’s been giving us these fantastic fruit-on-the-bottom yogurts, which are almost like ice cream, but healthy so I’m allowed to help myself. (I put them on a plate and flip over the container so it comes out looking like an ice cream sundae.) And lately, Dad’s been generous with spare change every time we pass the Carvel.

  Since Toad got involved with after-school sports like football, he’s had an outlet other than me for his aggression and our hand-to-hand combat has greatly diminished.

  My grades are good, my friends are excellent, and my Girl Scout troop has five overnight excursions planned for next year. Can they top the outstanding adventures we’ve already had in our nation’s capital and at Rutgers ballgames and in a deluxe lodge in upstate New York, where we shoveled off a bit of the lake for our own private skating rink and made maple syrup candy in the fresh snow? My guess is yes!

  How lucky am I to already have my life so figured out? I mean, we’ll probably spend the summer in my grandparents’ old place up in New Hampshire again and I can go to the beach every day, and when my dad comes up on Saturday, he’ll take me to the bookstore to buy some paper dolls. Then, next fall I already know I’m assigned to Mr. Lockwood’s class, as are Donna, Beth, and Tracey, and there’s an excellent chance I’m going to make cheerleader, considering Tracey’s stepmom is the coach. Then I cheer through junior high and high school, go to college at Pepperdine so I can be there when they film Battle of the Network Stars, which will allow me to meet Henry Winkler and thus become Mrs. Arthur Fonzarelli. Perfect!

  In the immortal words of both Laverne and Shirley, nothing’s going to stop me now.

  Even though he didn’t bring me any candy, I’m still glad to see my dad. He’s been in Indiana for weeks at a time off and on for the past year. He’s out there so much his company even rented him an apartment, where we visited him over spring break. We flew out of New York, and when we got into Indiana airspace I was shocked to see nothing but a massive expanse of white when I peeked out the window. Where were all the big buildings? Where were all the people? And what was up with those enormously empty snow-covered fields?

  After spending a week in Cow Town, Indiana—the highlight being attending a high school basketball game25—I put Indiana on the States I’ve Visited list with the notation “I see no reason to ever return.”

  When Todd gets home from baseball practice, my parents call both of us down to the rec room. Our rec room is in the basement, which is the most interesting part of our house. The upstairs is all cramped and tiny. Only one person fits in our kitchen at a time and you have to walk through my parents’ bedroom to get to the backyard. However, our basement is ridiculously, luxuriously expansive. We’ve got a rec room with a whole separate bar area at the end of it, another room where we keep our pool table, and an entire second kitchen, which is way bigger than the kitchen upstairs. (Don’t ask me why we don’t just use that one.)

  The basement’s where our color TV and cable box live, too. It gives a girl a comforting feeling to return from a taxing d
ay of fifth grade and know she has enough channels to find The Brady Bunch any time she wants to watch. Sometimes if my parents aren’t paying attention, I can sneak glimpses of R-rated movies on Home Box Office, too!

  So we’re all in the basement for a family meeting. I’m intrigued because we’ve never had a family meeting before. Normally, if my parents have something to say, they just say it. No need for pomp and/or circumstance.

  My dad slips behind the bar to fix himself a small glass of something brown over ice while my brother and I spin around on our bar stools. My mom doesn’t yell at us for “wrecking the seats” by twirling in them, also another first. And she doesn’t even shoot me a look when I accidentally kick the bar with my wooden clog. Huh.

  Then, without any warning or warm-up, my father looks us in the eyes and says, “I fired the man running the distribution center and now I have to take over. We’re moving to Indiana.”

  To which I reply, “Pfft. Maybe you’re moving to Indiana, but I’m not.”

  I’ll spare you the details of my clichéd expressions of grief—the rending of garments, the wailing, the gnashing of teeth, the kicking of the bar really fucking hard with wooden clogs, etc. Trust me—I made my displeasure known.

  I’m about to call my favorite librarian at the Bergen County Public Library to have her locate a book that will tell me how a ten-year-old can legally emancipate herself when I’m struck with a thought.

  “Hey . . . ,” I begin. “If I agree to move to Indiana, will you buy me a horse? We could live in an actual farmhouse and have a barn.”

  My parents exchange glances and then my dad answers, “Absolutely. I will absolutely buy you a horse.”

  “Then I’m in,” I agree. “How soon can we leave?”