Authors: Ellen Gilchrist
“I wasn’t expecting this,” Annie said. “How much does this dress cost?”
“This is for the Queen of Sheba,” Gabriela agreed. “How are we going to wear this on a sandy beach?”
“Shit,” Annie added, turning to see the back in the three-way mirror. “We look like a bunch of hibiscus flowers by the well.”
“Fucking merde.” Gabriela went to stand by her taller friend in the mirror. Even then the dresses looked perfect.
“Fucking-A,” Annie agreed.
“Well, let’s try on the gloves and shoes,” the owner said. “We sent Roberta all over town to find shoes. We think white patent
sandals since it’s by the water.”
The saleslady named Roberta began to open the shoeboxes that were stacked in the corner. “Every size they could possibly wear,”
she said proudly. “I looked all over town. We aren’t going to be outdone by anyone in California. They will arrive with everything
they need.” Except mouthwash, she was thinking, and then chastised herself for being mean. Everyone in Oklahoma City knew
the Williamses’ story.
Annie sat down on the sofa and allowed Roberta to try the shoes on one by one. “You might consider shaving her legs,” Roberta
said. “I started shaving mine in the sixth grade.”
Annie bent over and looked at the elegant little sandals on her feet. She examined the small, light-colored hairs showing
along her bones. She pursed her lips.
“Her legs are perfect,” Jennifer was saying. “She doesn’t need to shave her legs.”
“She’s right,” Annie muttered. “That looks like shit. I know how to shave it off. I seen a girl in the home doing it. You
get me a razor and a bar of soap and I’ll take care of that.”
“Do you like the shoes? Is that pair comfortable? Get up and walk around in them.”
Annie got up from the couch and began to parade around in front of the mirrors. What would it be like, being in a wedding?
The priest would be fixing the wine. The altar boys would be swinging incense. Everyone would be looking at her. She stood
very still, lost in thought. Gabriela moved across the room and took her arm. “Don’t start getting moody,” she said in a whisper.
“Ask them if we’re just going to wear these dresses, or if we’re going to get to keep them.”
“I need the shoes with the heels on them,” she said in a louder voice to Jennifer. “If I wear those little ones I’ll look
like a midget.”
It was seven that night when Jennifer and the girls got home from the store. They had gloves and hats and shoes in an assortment
of sacks and boxes. The dresses had been left to be altered and hemmed. “So now do you think they would get rid of you?” Gabriela
asked Annie,when they were alone in their room getting ready for bed. ’After they got you a dress that cost about two hundred
dollars and all that other stuff that matches it?”
I’ve got to get me a razor,” Annie answered. “I’ve got to shave these fucking hairs off my legs.”
It stormed in the night. A huge thunderstorm that roared in about twelve o’clock and woke up the town. Jennifer and Allen
lay in bed listening to the hail hit the roof. Then they went into the kitchen and got out food. They got out potato chips
and sliced chicken and mayonnaise and lettuce and tomatoes and chocolate chip cookies and Gatorade. Since the girls had been
there they had completely altered their diet and gone back to eating things that tasted good. “Something’s bothering Annie,”
Jennifer said. “She’s worrying about something and I don’t know how to ask her what it is. I don’t know if I should wait for
Doctor Cole to find out or ask her. I don’t know how far to pry into her mind. What would it be like, to be here with us,
to think you were on probation, whether you were or not? What else can we do?”
“She’s been knocked around from pillar to post all her life. How could she keep from worrying? If she’s breathing, we’re
ahead. But I don’t like her taking Ritalin, Jenny. That’s a class four drug. Ever since we went through that business with
going to the drugstore I’ve been reading up on it. I don’t think they ought to be giving her drugs for anything, even to make
her do better in school.”
“Did you ask your brother?”
“He agrees it isn’t the best idea but Cole is the only child psychiatrist he could find us on short notice. He said it would
be all right to let her take it for a month or so until he can find another doctor.”
“It seems to help.”
“Drugs are for sick people. She’s not sick. I thought we weren’t going to care if they didn’t act like normal children. I
thought they were going to tear things up. I was hoping they’d break some of that bric-a-brac of Mother’s in the living room.
I hate that bric-a-brac. I was looking forward to seeing it in piles on the floor.” Allen brandished his chicken sandwich.
He added more mayonnaise and took a bite.
“I didn’t know you hated the bric-a-brac. I hate it too. If you hate it, let’s go take it down. We have those boxes the encyclopedia
came in. We’ll take it down and put it in them.”
“Okay. Let’s do it.” Allen ate one last bite of his sandwich, grabbed a couple of potato chips, and led the way into the living
room. There, behind the sofa, was a wall of shelves holding the remnants of his childhood, little cups and saucers and figurines
and glass statues and vases and bookends. “I used to be late for baseball practice because I had to dust that stuff on Saturdays,”
he said. “Now I shall have my revenge.” He began to take the things from the shelves. Jennifer brought in a bag of newspapers
they were saving to recycle and began to wrap the pieces and put them in the encyclopedia boxes. They were almost finished
removing every piece when Annie appeared in the door.
“That rain woke me up,” she said. “You guys have the noisiest weather I ever heard in my life.”
“No mountains,” Allen said. He went to her and put his arms around her shoulders. He pulled her with him over to where Jennifer
was packing a kneeling Cupid into the last box. “Jennifer thinks you’re worrying about something,” he began. “So we’re worrying
about you worrying. If you worry, we worry. We know something’s worrying you because we love you and we are thinking about
you. You want to tell us what’s wrong, so we can worry about the right thing?”
“Why are you taking all this stuff down?” she asked.
“Because I’m sick of looking at it. We’re going to put it in the garage. You don’t want to talk about if something is worrying
you?”
“I’m worried about going on that plane,” she answered. “I don’t see what holds it up.”
“I’ll show you what holds it up.” Allen hugged her tighter, then let her go. “You have come to the right place with that question,
Miss Annie. Did you know that I just so happen to know how to fly airplanes? Did you know that I also know how to fly a helicopter
and flew them for three years in the United States Air Force?” He took the little girl to a table and opened a volume of the
new encyclopedia which was still stacked in a corner waiting for him to get around to assembling the bookshelf that had come
with it. He spread the encyclopedia down on a table and began to teach her the principles of aeronautics.
Two weeks went by. In Berkeley, everyone was busy getting ready for the wedding. The guest list kept expanding as friends
Nieman and Stella hadn’t heard from in months kept calling and asking where to send gifts. The gossip columns were full of
the news. Also, the story of the girls from the home in Potrero had leaked out, adding to the public’s interest.
In Salem, Oregon, Stella’s mother was working out at a gym every afternoon hoping to lose weight so she wouldn’t embarrass
Stella by being fat. Stella’s father was reading back issues of the
National Geographic
and pretending to ignore the whole thing. Nieman’s mother was so mad she couldn’t sleep. She had intended Nieman to marry
a wealthy Jewish girl, preferably from New York City, and instead he had chosen this thirty-seven-year-old woman who didn’t
even wear eye makeup. “You can barely see her eyes,” Bela Gluuk told her friends. “I doubt if she’ll have her hair done for
the ceremony…No, of course not. No rabbi, not even a minister or a priest. Some woman judge, just to make me miserable, no
doubt. What else has Nieman ever done?”
In Oklahoma City the day finally arrived to board the plane and fly to San Francisco. Annie clutched Allen’s hand and climbed
aboard the plane. She had the cape slung across her shoulder. “Why are you bringing that?” Jennifer asked. “They have blankets
on the plane.”
It’s something lucky we have,” Gabriela explained. “I let her carry it for luck.”
“Fine with me,” Allen said. They found their seats on the DC-9. Allen and Jennifer were together with a seat in between them
and Gabriela and Annie were across the aisle. “There is nothing to fear on this plane but the food,” Allen whispered. “Don’t
lose that sack with the sandwiches and cookies.”
“Allen,” Jennifer said. “Keep your voice down. Don’t let the stewardess hear you.”
“At least I know it’s my lucky day.” Gabriela reached underneath the cape and took Annie’s hand. “At least I lived long enough
to have a vacation.”
Annie squeezed the hand Gabriela had put in hers. She pushed the sack with the lunch around until she was holding it with
both her feet. Allen and Jennifer tried not to laugh out loud. “She lived to go on a vacation,” Jennifer whispered to him.
“I have to start writing down the things she says.”
Stella and Tammili met the Williams family at the airport. Lydia had not been able to come as she had a class on Friday afternoons.
“So, how was your flight?” Tammili asked. She picked up Gabriela’s backpack and carried it. Gabriela picked up Annie’s pack
and carried that. Annie carried the cape.
“I threw up,” Annie said. “Allen told me why the plane stays up, but I stopped believing it when we were halfway here.”
“I made her look out the window at the mountains. That’s when it happened,” Gabriela added. “I thought you had a twin sister.
Where’s the other girl?”
“She’s at an acting class. We have to take a lot of classes so we’ll have different interests. I don’t do it anymore, but
Lydia does every-thing they think up for her. So, how are things going in Oklahoma? You all getting along all right?”
“Except for storms,” Gabriela answered. “Just when I thought I was going to live someplace that doesn’t have earthquakes,
I get adopted by some people who live in Tornado Alley. That’s what they call it there. It’s okay, though. People wear a lot
of colored clothes. Like all these old ladies have these pink outfits they wear to the mall. Do you all have malls around
here?”
“We have Chinatown. Did you ever go to it when you lived out here?”
“Are you kidding? The nuns never took us anywhere. So, where’s this wedding going to be anyway?”
“At our house. That’s the best part. We don’t have to ride in a car in our dresses and get them wrinkled. All we have to do
is put them on and walk out to the patio.” They had come to the baggage carousel and were standing beside the grown people,
waiting for the luggage to come. Tammili moved nearer to Annie. She reached up and touched the cape. “That’s weird,” she said.
“My sister and I had a cape like that. We lost it on a camping trip when Dad broke his arm. Where do you get those capes?
Did you buy it in Oklahoma?”
“It’s magic,” Gabriela said. “It’s got powers in it.”
“So did the one we had. Listen, it stayed dry in this terrible rain. This synchilla blanket we had that’s supposed to wick
faster than anything you can buy, got wet, but that cape was still as dry as a bone.”
“She thinks some monks in Nevada probably make them.” Annie moved the cape until it was around both of her shoulders. “Gabriela
thinks they make them and sell them to people to give them luck. We seen some monks in Potrero. A bunch of them came and stayed
with us on their way to Belize. We had them there for a week but that was before Gabriela came. She never got to see them.”
“I saw them. Where’d you think I saw monks if it wasn’t for that bunch that came and stayed at the home? I got there the day
they were leaving. I saw them all sleeping on the ground. This cape is just like the stuff they were wearing.”
“We’re Jewish,” Tammili said. “We don’t have any monks.”
The bags arrived and a man in a uniform appeared and helped them carry the bags outside to a limousine.
“The limo’s just for fun,” Tammili said. “My dad thought you’d like a limo, so we got you one. There’re things to drink inside.
Get in. See how you like it. Lydia and I adore limousines but we never get to get them because Dad usually says they’re for
movie people and Eurotrash.”
The grown people got into the back and the girls got into the seats facing backward. Tammili was sitting next to Annie. She
reached out and touched the cape again. She felt the softness of the weave caress her hand. “This is going to be the best
wedding anyone ever had,” she said. “I’ve been waiting all my life to be a bridesmaid. I don’t care if it’s bourgeois or not.
I think it’s the best.”
“Well, I’ve never been in a wedding. I never even gave it much thought. I just hope I don’t do something stupid.”
“My parents’ friends almost never get married. They just cohabit and have serial monogamy. So we are lucky this happened.
You see, the groom is our godfather. He means a lot to us.”
Annie and Tammili were deep in conversation, their heads turned to each other. Gabriela started getting jealous. “Did you
take your pill this morning?” she put in, leaning toward them. “Where are they, Annie? Where did you put them?”
“I don’t know,” Annie answered. “I don’t know where they are.”
“Dad found this article in the
New York Times
about these people who have been getting orphaned babies from China,” Tammili was saying. “We saved it to show you. Lydia
and I are begging Mom and Dad to adopt some to go with the baby we’re having. They said if we both made the honor roll for
a year they’d think about it. Anyway, we saved the article for you. I mean, what you’re doing is not that unusual. Well,
this is San Francisco. That’s the Golden Gate Bridge up there. We have to cross it to get to our house.”