Tall, Thin and Blonde

by Dyan Sheldon

  A sudden flash of lightning lit up the sky. I think I might have screamed, but my attention was caught by something on the roof. Right where the attic window should have been there was this odd-looking wooden box. “What is that, Marva?” I asked, pointing. “Is it some kind of bird house?”

  Marva didn’t even look up. “It’s not a bird house, it’s my brother’s bat roost.” She said it as though everybody had a bat roost on their house. Maybe Marva really was Countess Dracula.

  I squinted into the rain, looking to see if there were any bats circling the chimney.

  Marva put a hand on my shoulder. “You know, Jen,” she went on, undaunted by the fact that I had changed the subject, “you don’t have to dissect this frog, no matter what Mr Herrera says. You do have options.”

  Options? “I do?” I tore my attention away from the bat roost.

  She nodded. “Sure you do. For instance, you could just miss that class.”

  “You mean cut it?”

  She waved one hand dismissively, bracelets jangling. “No, of course not,” said Marva. “Not cut it exactly. I mean wake up with a really bad headache that morning.”

  Oh, no, not cut the class, just wake up with a headache. “I couldn’t do that,” I said. “First of all, it’s going to take up at least two or three lab periods. I’d have to get more than a headache to miss it. Pneumonia, maybe. And second of all,” I explained, “if I don’t do the frog, Mr Herrera will give me an F.”

  Marva didn’t blink. “So?”

  “So?” I echoed. “So science is what I’m interested in. I can’t afford not to do well in biology.”

  “Go to Mrs Loomis then,” suggested Marva. “File a formal complaint.”

  Mrs Loomis was our principal. Everyone called her The Terminator. I’d rather dissect a live iguana than complain to her about Mr Herrera. Where did Marva get these ideas?

  “That’s what Chris did.”

  Oh, Chris. That was where Marva got those ideas, I should have known.

  “And what happened?” I asked. “Did it help?”

  Marva shrugged. “Not exactly. But Chris probably went a little over the top, as usual. He was very upset. I think he told Mrs Loomis that Mr Herrera would have made a good KGB agent. He may have even said that Mr Herrera would have been better off working in the Spanish Inquisition than in a high school science department.” She gave me an encouraging smile. “But you’re not as temperamental as Chris. I’m sure she’d listen to you.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I promised. Meaning no. I looked at my watch. “Good grief,” I said, “is that the time? I’d better get going. I have to fix supper for my parents.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” Marva said as she handed me back the umbrella. “I’ll ask my brother what he thinks you should do. He’s always full of ideas.”

  I looked over at the bright blue house with the bat roost attached to it. “Terrific,” I said. “I feel better already.”

  I let myself into my house through the kitchen. Neither of my parents was home from work yet. I kicked off my sneakers and left them by the door. I hung up my jacket so it would dry, put my umbrella in the sink and threw my things down. The sound of my boots hitting the table woke up Percy. He leapt off the couch (where he wasn’t allowed to sleep) and came racing in to say hello. He jumped into my arms. He’s not supposed to jump into my arms either, because he’s too big really, but he does it anyway. I kissed the top of his head and told him he was a good boy, and then I put him down. I looked at the clock on the wall. I had at least an hour before I had to start supper. Time for a snack before Percy’s walk.

  I had just sat down with a glass of juice, a bowl of corn chips and Percy when the phone rang. It was Amy. To tell you the truth, I’d completely forgotten about her during my walk home with Marva. But the second I heard her voice, I remembered. And I remembered how annoyed I was. “Oh, it’s you,” I said. “I thought maybe you had amnesia.”

  Amy laughed. “I did. I had temporary amnesia.”

  I chewed on a couple of chips. Loudly. But I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to give in too easily.

  “I’m sorry, Jen,” Amy apologized. “I really am.” She did sound sorry.

  “I stood in the rain for hours,” I complained. “I couldn’t believe you didn’t come.”

  “Jen, I’m really and truly sorry. What more can I say? I didn’t do it on purpose, you know.”

  I could feel myself weakening. “You were going to do something with my eyes,” I reminded her. “And my hair. Now what I am going to do about the dance?”

  “I’ll make it up to you, Jen. You can come over early on Saturday and we’ll do it then.”

  I weakened some more. “Well, I guess we could do it Saturday,” I said slowly. “If I have the time.” I tossed a few more chips into my mouth and crunched. She sounded sorry, but I didn’t want to completely forgive her until I’d heard her excuse. “So where were you?”

  She stopped sounding sorry. “It was the cheerleading try-outs today,” she said quickly. She sounded excited. “And in all the rush and everything I forgot I was supposed to meet you.”

  I stopped chewing. I swallowed. This wasn’t the excuse I’d expected. “I didn’t know you were going out for the cheerleaders,” I said. I knew how I sounded. I sounded amazed. When we were in third grade, Amy used to fool around playing football. I always wanted to be the referee and Amy always wanted to be fullback. Neither of us had ever wanted to be a cheerleader. “You’re my best friend,” I said. “I can’t believe you went out for cheerleaders and you didn’t say one word to me.” I sounded amazed and hurt.

  “Well,” she said slowly, “I wasn’t going to. I mean, you know, I’ve never really been the cheerleader type, but everyone convinced me that I was a natural. So at the last minute I decided to give it a try.” She laughed. “Nothing ventured nothing gained, right?”

  I didn’t need to ask who everybody was. Everybody must be Kim and Amber. “And are you a natural?” I asked.

  The excitement came back in her voice. “Well, yes,” she said, “I guess I am. I made the squad.”

  My best friend not only had curly hair and no hips, my best friend was a cheerleader. Things were changing a little fast for me. “Well, congratulations,” I said. I had to say something. “That’s great.”

  “Thanks,” said Amy. “I knew you’d be pleased.”

  How had she known I’d be pleased? I looked at the bowl of corn chips. I smiled. I didn’t feel pleased. I felt that if that bowl of corn chips had been a bug, I would have stepped on it. “Yeah,” I said. “I’m thrilled.”

  No tutu for you

  Probably the best thing about the Saturday dance was that worrying about it took my mind off other things, like frogs and cheerleaders.

  Not that I wanted to worry about it. I didn’t. I didn’t even want to think about it. It wasn’t important, I kept telling myself. It was stupid to spend so much time trying to decide what shoes you were going to wear or whether or not you should wear a skirt. It was a waste of time and energy. But I worried anyway. I worried Thursday night. I worried all day Friday.

  What should I wear? What would everyone else be wearing? What if Amy’s make-over didn’t work? What if I looked the same After as I did Before? Should we get there on time? Or should we get there late? What would I do when someone asked me to dance? Were you supposed to talk while you danced? Or were you supposed to dance and talk later? Not that it really mattered, of course, because I couldn’t dance. Not socially. I used to be into ballet, when I was younger, but it wasn’t the same thing. And even if I could dance, which I couldn’t, no one was going to ask me to dance. Which brought me to another problem. What did you do when you weren’t dancing? Did you just stand there, or would there be someplace to sit down? Would the people who weren’t dancing talk to one another, or what? And then a really awesome thought hit me. What if some geek asked me to dance? Then what would I do? How could you tell someone that you didn’t want to
dance with him without letting him know that you didn’t want to dance with him not because you didn’t feel like dancing, but because you’d rather have your teeth drilled than dance with him? Would there be refreshments?

  Saturday was worse.

  It took me five hours to get dressed for the dance, not counting the two showers and the bath I took.

  The main problem was that I really did have nothing to wear. Most of my jeans were baggy and most of my shirts were flannel. You know, great for camping in the wilderness, but not exactly right for the first big dance of the year. I had a few dresses and skirts and blouses at the back of my closet, but they were mainly things my grandmother and my mother had given me for presents. Amy, Kim and Amber wouldn’t have been caught dead in any of them.

  On the other hand, it was just as well that I had so little choice. Because my second problem was that I couldn’t make up my mind. I’d try something on. Then I’d go into my parents’ room to see how it looked in my mother’s full-length mirror. Then I’d go into the kitchen, where my mother was fixing the washing machine, and I’d ask her what she thought. Then I’d go back in the bedroom for a second look. Then I’d try on something else.

  It was the first time I realized how unreliable mothers are as judges of fashion. No matter what I put on, my mother said it looked nice. She didn’t care if it was green or had bows on or made me look like Miss Piggy. “That looks lovely, dear,” she said. Unless it was something that was almost passable. Then she’d say, “Honey, don’t you think it’s a little … um … short?”

  The only thing my father said to me all afternoon was, “Jenny, you aren’t still in the bathroom, are you?”

  Finally, just when I was about to start crying, my mother threw down her wrench and rushed me to the mall. She helped me pick out a stretchy black skirt and a deep yellow top. My mother and the salesperson said the yellow brought out the rich brown colour of my hair and my eyes. When I was all dressed, I went to show my parents.

  “Really, honey,” said my mother, “you look great.”

  My father said, “Isn’t that skirt a little short?”

  “That’s the way they’re wearing them now,” said my mother.

  When I got to Amy’s, the first thing she said to me was “Hi! Isn’t this going to be great?” She was wearing her new blue skirt and a pale pink silk shirt. She looked like a model. An eighteen-year-old model. For some reason, I started to feel short and chubby and not much more than twelve.

  The second thing she said was, “Do you want to change into your clothes for the dance after I make you up or before?”

  “This is what I am wearing to the dance,” I said.

  “Oh,” said Amy. “Oh, of course.” She smiled as though she’d been kidding, but I could see in her eyes that she’d been perfectly serious.

  “What’s wrong with it?” I asked. I glanced at myself in the mirror. “Does it make me look fat or something?”

  Amy shook her head. “No, no, it doesn’t make you look fat…” She drew her eyebrows together in that way she has. I could tell she was debating whether or not she should tell me the truth.

  “What is it?” I pushed. “Is it too long?”

  “No,” said Amy, “it’s not too long.” She was chewing thoughtfully on the end of a strand of her hair. “It’s just that no one’s wearing those black skirts any more,” she said at last.

  I looked down. “They’re not?” Why hadn’t anyone told me? Or the saleslady? And why were they allowed to continue selling them if no one was wearing them? “Well, there’s not much I can do about that now,” I said. I looked at Amy. Her eyebrows were still drawn together. “What?” I asked.

  She looked pained. “It’s the top,” she said slowly. “It’s not really your colour.”

  “It isn’t? You don’t think it brings out the rich brown colour of my hair and eyes?”

  “I think it makes you look like a plague victim.” She laughed so I’d know she was making a joke.

  “Ha ha,” I said.

  “Maybe you can wear something of mine,” Amy suggested. She frowned. Her eyes went from my head to my feet. I looked down. But I didn’t get as far as my feet. All I saw were my knees. They were white and pudgy. They looked like un-iced cupcakes. My father had been right. The skirt was too short.

  Amy wasn’t too impressed with what she saw either. “I must have something that would fit you,” she sighed.

  Oh, sure, I thought, like a cardboard box or a garbage bag, something like that.

  “You don’t have to go to any trouble,” I assured her, wishing I had worn jeans after all. Jeans and stilts. “I’m OK wearing what I have on.”

  She didn’t say anything, but she gave me this look. That’s what you think, said her look. She smiled bravely. “If only you were an inch or two taller,” she said. “Or a little … you know … smaller…”

  “Or someone else,” I suggested.

  Amy gave me a wink. “That would help, too,” she said with a laugh.

  She stopped laughing when she tried to do something with my hair. “You should curl it,” said Amy, rubbing gel into it to “give it some body”. “Nobody wears their hair like this any more. It went out with bell-bottoms.”

  I winced as she rubbed a little too vigorously. “But I don’t want it curled,” I protested. “I like it straight.”

  She gave me a slightly pitying look. “It’s too bad it’s so dark,” she said. “You can’t even have it lightened.”

  “Maybe I should just wear a wig.”

  “It works for Beyonce,” said Amy.

  Amy wasn’t laughing while she made me up, either. “Stop blinking, Jen,” she ordered. “How can I do your eyes if you keep blinking?”

  “I can’t help it. It’s a reflex action. That’s how your eye protects itself from foreign objects.”

  “There’s nothing foreign about eyeliner and mascara,” said Amy.

  I didn’t exactly agree with that. “I feel like my lashes are glued together.”

  Amy stepped back. She put her head to one side and pursed her lips. She looked like an artist deciding whether or not she had gotten the blue right in the sky.

  “Well?” I asked. She’d put so much lipstick on my mouth that my lips made a noise when I moved them.

  “Not bad,” said Amy. She passed me the hand mirror. “See for yourself.”

  I stared at myself in the glass. My hair seemed to have been electrocuted, my skin was an unnatural shade of pink, my eyelids were an unnatural shade of blue, and my mouth looked as though I’d been sucking blood.

  “Well?” asked Amy.

  I couldn’t answer. If this were After, you had to wonder After what?

  We weren’t at the dance for more than three minutes before I began to wish that I really were someone else. Someone who lived in Alaska or Iceland. You know, a place where it was cold and dark a lot and they didn’t have many dances. Someone whose best friend had found her something else to wear instead of the short black skirt and yellow top her mother had told her she looked so nice in.

  We walked through the door. “Gee, doesn’t it look great?” asked Amy.

  It was nothing like my dream. It looked like the gym decorated with balloons and streamers. Instead of a live band there was a DJ. The DJ was Mr Mantin, the music teacher.

  She looked around the room. I looked around the room, too. There were a few couples dancing, but mostly kids were just standing around in groups, boys in one huddle and girls in another. I didn’t see anyone I knew. Not to talk to, anyway.

  But Amy did.

  “Look!” she squealed. “Look! There’s Amber and Kim and Samantha Wister, the co-captain of the cheerleaders.” She jabbed me in the ribs. “And look!” she breathed. “There’s Rosie Henley!” Except for Rosie Henley, they were all waving at her. Rosie Henley was too cool to wave. She just smiled like a queen greeting a peasant.

  Amy grabbed my arm. “We’d better go over and say hello,” she said.

  “What?�
�� I don’t know why, but I wasn’t prepared for this. I’d thought Amy and I were going to hang out at the dance together. By ourselves.

  She waved back. “They’re waiting,” she hissed. “We can’t just stand here…”

  “But, Amy—” I began. She was already walking away. I pulled myself up to my full height, and I strode after her. I might not be part of her new crowd, but I wasn’t going to stand there all alone.

  They were all happy to see one another. They hugged each other. They started talking and giggling. I smiled. Amy told each of them how great she looked. She loved Rosie’s hair. She loved Samantha’s earrings. She loved Amber’s dress. She couldn’t get over Kim’s new shoes. They told Amy how great she looked. Samantha loved Amy’s skirt. Kim loved the way she’d done her eyes. Rosie used to have a blouse in exactly that shade of blue.

  No one said anything to me. I just stood there, smiling. I could feel my skirt shrinking and my knees swelling. I was getting shorter. I glanced at my watch. Why hadn’t I ever realized before how hairy my arms were? I looked like a jungle girl. I clasped my hands behind my back. Amy said something that made everyone laugh. I smiled harder. And then I remembered that we’d had spaghetti for supper. My mother always put garlic in her spaghetti sauce. And I’d eaten it! I’d eaten garlic before the dance! I stopped smiling and clamped my mouth shut. My feet began to sweat. Good grief, that was all I needed. I lowered my head a little to see if I could smell anything. My contact fell out. I didn’t usually wear them, because they never really fit right, but Amy had convinced me that I couldn’t go to the dance in glasses.

  These things don’t happen in real life, I told myself. They only happen in the movies. As casually as I could, I got on my knees. Someone – Amber, I think – wanted to know what I was doing. “Listening for buffalo,” I said.

  I knew they were exchanging looks above my head. Someone – Samantha, I think – said, “Was that a joke?”