Margie Kelly Breaks the Dress Code

by Bridget Farr

  After she had complications from the first surgery and lost some sight in her right eye, Dad decided she had better move in with us. Uncle Jeremy lives in a New York City studio, so there was no way she could live with him. It took Dad two weeks to empty her house and move all her rose teacups and picture frames and old copies of People and Entertainment Weekly into what used to be his office. Jeremy didn’t even come down to help her move. He was too busy with work. Dad said he was too busy with Jeremy. Now Grandma is here with us, sipping tea, gushing about the Kennedys as if they’re still famous, and criticizing practically everything I do. All. Day. Long.

  I try not to roll my eyes since it’s disrespectful, but Grandma isn’t making this whole thing any easier. She hasn’t taken a single fashion tip from any of the celebrities she reads about. Her idea of fashionable is a perfectly pressed white blouse with a pale-green sweater draped over her shoulders. She’s the opposite of Daniela’s abuela, who is all about bright patterns and big sunglasses. Sometimes people confuse her for Daniela’s mom. People sometimes think my grandma is a nun.

  Dad smiles like a goofball when he sees me. He looks me over, the ruler in his freckled hand. As he stares at my curly hair, my pointy nose speckled with a few freckles, the eyebrows I would pluck if it didn’t hurt so bad, and of course the skirt, he gets that smile when he’s thinking about Mom. He doesn’t say it so often that it means nothing, but some days he’ll see me and get that smile and say, “You look just like your mom.”

  Honestly, I look more like Dad. He’s short, not much taller than I am, with cropped brown hair that’s thinning at the top and lots of freckles covering his thick arms and legs. We both wear glasses, but his are nerdy black frames while mine are more of a subtle blue. We look Irish, as Grandma tells me all the time—blue eyes, sunburn-ready skin, and tawny brown hair—so I don’t know what he sees of Mom in me. She had hazel eyes and hair that went gray in her twenties, so she always dyed it, usually shades of red. She was really tall—almost six feet—and could rest her chin on Dad’s head. He said he hated and loved when she did that. I often stare at the pictures of her on my dresser, trying to find ways we’re similar, comparing our eyebrows, the way our eyes crinkle when we smile. I don’t have any real memories of her, but I miss her just the same. It’s not missing exactly, since I have no idea what it would be like to have a mom, but there’s a hole, a space inside me that remains unfilled.

  Sometimes Dad reminds me of other things I got from her: my habit of forgetting cups of water around the house, my hatred of anything coconut flavored, my tireless ability to argue. And he says we both have hearts too big for our bodies. Mom was a social worker who helped homeless clients find jobs and housing. She brought communion to church members who couldn’t come to mass and was constantly attending rallies in Austin on the state capitol steps. I do volunteer at the nursing home with Junior Catholic Daughters and cry whenever I see abandoned animals, but I don’t think my heart is as big as hers. Maybe when I get my growth spurt.

  “This one looks like it’s going to miss the mark,” Dad says, as he holds out the ruler he found in the kitchen junk drawer. “But I love this skirt on you. I remember when we bought it.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Just measure it,” I say. I turn around, and Dad measures the back of the skirt.

  “As I suspected, Watson, this skirt is one half inch shorter than the requirement.” His fake British accent doesn’t make this any more fun.

  “I can just slide it down a little bit.” When I do that, it almost reaches the top of my kneecaps. “But it doesn’t really fit anymore anyway. Look.”

  I show him the button.

  “I can fix that,” Grandma says, taking another sip of her tea and readjusting her dentures with her tongue. So. Gross. Apparently when you get old, you have to move your teeth around sometimes.

  “Nope. It’s not in compliance. Put it in the weekend pile if you want Grandma to adjust the button.” Dad gestures to the three piles of clothes: one for school, one for weekends and vacations, and one for Goodwill. Only three skirts and one pair of shorts have survived to be worn in the halls of Live Oak Middle School.

  “Such a waste,” Grandma grumbles. “Perfectly good clothes. We should give some to that little friend of yours.”

  “Daniela? No way. She doesn’t wear skirts.”

  I drop the skirt on the giveaway pile, wishing it a fond farewell before it heads off to its new life at Goodwill. Even if Grandma adjusts the button, it will be too tight soon anyway.

  Dad yawns, covering his mouth with his hand before taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. “We need to wrap this up, kiddo, so we can eat before nine. Is this it?”

  I nod, slumping onto the chair across from them.

  “Seems like a lot of clothes for a little girl,” Grandma says.

  “Wait. Go put on the offending skirt. I want to measure it for myself,” Dad says, and I shake my head. “Come on. It’ll be the last one. I have to see it.”

  “No! You know it’s too short already.”

  “You told me it was, but I haven’t seen it. And I really liked that skirt. We picked it out together, our father-daughter bonding.”

  Heat rushes to my eyes as I think about our day at the mall, the first time in weeks we got to spend the whole day together. Standing in front of the mirror at the store, I felt invincible. I felt brave.

  “It’s too short,” I say, sinking into the chair’s oversized cushions.

  “Go get it,” he says, his voice getting deeper.

  “No.”

  Dad frowns. “You’ve now said no three times in two minutes. I get that you’re upset, Marge, but I want to measure it myself. Maybe the school was wrong.”

  “Fine!” I huff and storm out over Grandma’s grumbling about me respecting my father. Despite what she thinks, I don’t need another parent. I’ve been doing fine with just one.

  In my room, I grab the skirt off my laundry pile. It’s wrinkled from having been rolled up in my backpack all day. I lay it out on my blue floral comforter, sliding my hands across the three tiers. The fabric is so soft, almost like pajamas. I pull it on, and it still looks great with my “Fabulous” T-shirt. This morning in front of the mirror, I felt so ready in this outfit, as if the skirt was the final touch in all our preparations for middle school. Dad and I have picked first-day-of-school outfits every year since pre-K, but this year it mattered. Everyone tells you how horrible middle school is: lonely lunches, the drama, hours of homework. This skirt was going to keep me from having the middle school nightmares everyone else experienced. But it doesn’t feel perfect anymore. I don’t feel perfect.

  Dad beams when I walk back into the living room. “That is a killer first-day outfit.”

  Even Grandma nods. “It’s classy. Like Meryl Streep.”

  I don’t say anything as I turn around so he can measure. For the tenth time today, the ruler lies against my skin. My throat tightens as I remember standing behind Ms. Scott’s desk, feeling the eyes of all my classmates on me. I think about the gym shorts and the stares and Marcus calling me “Dress Code Girl” and the way my first day of sixth grade could have gone. Should have gone.

  “Yikes, this one is an inch and a half too short. It didn’t look that short when we bought it. I guess it was a couple of weeks ago.…”

  I start to sniffle, a teardrop falling onto my bare feet.

  “Oh, honey, what’s wrong?” Dad says, turning me toward him. “You can wear this one at home, and we’ll get new skirts for school. I’ve got to get some work done this weekend, but you can go with your grandma.”

  Shopping with her would be worse than wearing those gym shorts. I’ll end up looking like a ninety-year-old lady from one of her rosary prayer groups.

  “I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” I whisper, already pulling away. I scoop up the piles of skirts and shorts, ready to stuff them all in the trash. For now, I’ll throw them in my closet, so I won’t see them and be reminded of the wor
st first day of school ever.

  Chapter 5

  The next day, I am back in Ms. Scott’s class, this time in a pair of cropped jeans. I didn’t have the energy to risk shorts or a skirt today, even though they’ve all been measured. When I walked in, Ms. Scott looked at my pants, winked, and gave me a thumbs-up. I was just glad she didn’t say anything as I slunk to my desk. Thankfully, the girl between Daniela and me is absent so we can talk.

  “Do you think we both made the team?” Daniela whispers as she writes her warm-up. “I wish they would have told us how many new kids they’re taking.”

  “I know,” I whisper back, no longer confident enough to say, “We definitely made the team!” I thought yesterday was definitely going to be amazing, and it definitely wasn’t. Daniela has to make the team; she didn’t take one day off from studying—unlike me, who spent a few days watching Netflix and swimming at the pool. I don’t know what I’ll do if she makes the team and I don’t. I didn’t imagine middle school without us being the Queens of Quiz.

  “We have to go see the posting together. Right after school,” Daniela says, and I nod as I put a period on my last sentence. A timer buzzes, and Ms. Scott calls Dylan, a boy from our fifth-grade class, to the front of the room. Everyone but Daniela had a crush on Dylan at some point in fourth or fifth grade. He was the leader of all sports games at recess. He was bigger than everybody in fifth grade except Ashley M., but she had really pale skin and could never be in the sun more than a few minutes, so she never participated. He has this swoopy brown hair that sometimes falls in his eyes, and he can run so fast. That’s why I liked him for the little bit of time I did. My legs are strong but not speedy, and there was something about watching him sprint across the playground with his flowing hair that just got to me.

  Dylan walks to the front of the classroom, and Ms. Scott hands him a ruler to point to the goal for the day. I didn’t think we’d have to do choral reading like this in sixth grade, but he points to “Students” and we all begin reading “Students will review the literary characteristics of plot.” Before we get to the end, I see it.

  Dylan’s blue plaid shorts are too short.

  Suddenly I’m panicked for him. There’s no way he’ll make it back to his desk before Ms. Scott notices the enormous gap between the end of his shorts and his kneecaps. Ms. Scott talks about homework, and Dylan smiles at the class, winking at one of his friends and swinging the ruler back and forth. He’s like a baby antelope in one of those National Geographic shows Dad watches with me. He doesn’t know the lion is lurking. Ms. Scott moves on to the agenda, and my heartbeat races as Dylan’s ruler taps each item. I’m not friends with Dylan, and I don’t have a crush on him anymore, but I wouldn’t wish the ruler on anyone.

  “Look,” I whisper to Daniela.

  “What?” she asks, and Ms. Scott shoots us one of those teacher looks: wide eyes and raised eyebrows, a silent “shhh.”

  I can’t bear the weight of watching this alone. But how can I tell Daniela without getting in trouble? Again. I flip my notebook to the back and write, “Dylan’s shorts” with an arrow pointing to where he’s still oblivious at the board. He has mere seconds before his job is done and Ms. Scott calls him over to the desk of doom.

  Daniela looks down at my notebook, then at me, her face all scrunched up in confusion. I point to the shorts and make my eyes really big. She looks down at the words and then up at him, and then her head snaps back to me, her face registering understanding.

  “Too short!!!!” she writes in her own notebook, and I nod.

  Together we wait.

  “Thank you, Dylan, you may take a seat,” Ms. Scott finally says, and he walks back to his desk. I wonder which gym shorts he’ll wear since the extra-extra-large pair is still in my bedroom. Were there more options, and Nurse Angela just showed me two? People won’t be crushing on Dylan when he’s wearing those dorky shorts, but maybe his parents can bring him something else to wear. I remember his mom bringing kale cupcakes to school a lot, even when it wasn’t his birthday.

  Dylan takes his seat next to a kid from a different elementary. Ms. Scott hands out short stories, explaining the assignment for the day, but I’m hardly listening as I wait for her to get to Dylan. She’ll put her hand on his shoulder—I can feel it on mine now. “Come see me at my desk,” she’ll say with a sad face, feeling sympathy for this poor, foolish boy, and he won’t know what’s happening. Well, maybe he’ll remember me from yesterday, but probably not or he would not have risked those shorts.

  Daniela and I stare as Ms. Scott reaches his desk. She lays down the short stories and pauses. Here it is. The hand should be reaching… and she’s walking away. Daniela looks at me and I shrug. Maybe she’ll wait until we’re working?

  She does nothing. I watch her for the entire forty-eight minutes of class, waiting, waiting, for the moment, but she never pulls Dylan over to her desk. She never asks him about the handbook. She never places the ruler on the back of his legs. Dylan and his blue plaid shorts are safe. He is not a distraction.

  That is so unfair!

  “Fourteen,” I tell Daniela when we get to lunch. I point to the columns I’ve made in the back of my notebook. “Fourteen boys wearing shorts way above their knees. Two girls with questionable skirts and five girls wearing the ugly gym shorts. Do you know how many boys were wearing them?”

  Daniela looks at me over her taco salad. “One?”

  “Zero!” I shout, loud enough that the nearby assistant principal points up at the stoplight in the front of the room indicating our volume should be yellow, for our neighbor only.

  “Really? None?” Daniela argues. “Maybe you just missed them. Or they’re in the eighth-grade building.”

  I take a bite of my egg salad, choking it down because I’m so mad. (I actually love Grandma’s egg salad.) Daniela always has to play the lawyer opposing my case, but I don’t want to debate. I want to be outraged.

  “I didn’t think this sort of sexist stuff would happen in middle school. No one cared what we wore in elementary. And remember how Ms. Mackenzie never let us split into boy and girl groups? Don’t they know about women’s rights here? It’s not fair. I started counting after third period, in class and in the hallway, and the evidence speaks for itself. Besides, look,” I say, gesturing toward the full cafeteria. “Let’s count here.”

  “Can we do this tomorrow?” Daniela says, looking down at a book on airplanes. “I need to prep a new area for Quiz Bowl. If we make the team, we’re really going to have to prove ourselves, especially as sixth graders.”

  “Fine, you prep. I’ll count.”

  I scan the crowd, focusing on the lines of kids pressed against the wall, waiting to fill their trays with today’s hot lunch: taco salad and a cup full of strawberries. An even mix of boys and girls wait in line, though they’re all clumped together by friend groups, kids not even facing the right direction as they talk. I start with the boys since they’re the ones getting off scot-free in this whole situation. Jeans, jeans, black gym shorts, really big gym shorts, skinny jeans, jeans showing some boxers.

  “Look! Right there!” I shout, and Daniela chokes on her milk.

  “What? Who?”

  “That boy by the ‘Be an Upstander not a Bystander’ poster. In the bright-blue polo. His shorts are way too short.” We stare down the sixth grader I don’t recognize who is wearing khaki shorts as if he’s going on safari. They’re actually not that different from the cargo shorts Daniela is wearing, but there are definitely… five… six… too many inches of brown skin between his shorts and his kneecaps.

  “But he is wearing tall socks,” Daniela says, and I scoff.

  “So? It’s not about how much leg is covered. And watch. He’s going to walk right by that assistant principal in three… two… one…”

  Again, we wait. And then the assistant principal gives him a high five. A high five! Are you kidding me?

  “That is so unfair,” Daniela says, sighing as she finishes her last
bite of taco salad. She writes down a fact in her notebook.

  “No wonder we don’t have a woman president.”

  I stuff down the last of my egg salad. “Life isn’t fair,” Dad would tell me.

  Life isn’t fair… yet.

  Chapter 6

  After school, a crowd of students has gathered outside Mr. Shao’s door. It’s all the same faces as yesterday, all the same boys, and they’re lunging over one another like obsessed fans at a concert.

  “Enough! Chill!” Marcus yells as he leaps over the stair railing behind Daniela and me. We both jump back and quickly follow him. “One at a time.”

  The huddle breaks like the universe expanding after the Big Bang. Marcus stands in front of the team roster hanging beside the door. Sean meanders over, snacking on an apple. They’re clearly not freaking out like the rest of us.

  “You first!” Marcus calls, pointing at José, who is again wearing a meme T-shirt, this time with Pikachu looking shocked. He’s now in my third-period science class. José lifts his chin, pulling down on the straps of his backpack before taking a step toward Marcus. He doesn’t reach Marcus’s chin. They stare at each other for a minute, all of us waiting. Do we have to battle him to see it? Give him a bribe?

  Apparently not, because Marcus steps aside. José scans the list, his finger running down the names. “Yes!” he cries, fist flying into the air. Marcus nods and gives him a fist bump before Sean opens the door to the classroom.

  “You next,” Marcus says, pointing at Daniela. She squeezes my hand before quickly doing the sign of the cross, pressing her thumb to her lips as she walks toward Marcus. She must have been praying the same prayer as me: please, Lord, may my name be on that list. My stomach hurts as I watch her finger slide down the paper. For a second, I hope she doesn’t make the team if that means I do. I want us both to get it, of course I do, but if it can only be one girl, I hope it’s me.