Til the Real Thing Comes Along (22 page)

But one day that stopped being enough. Maybe it was when Rosie began to change. A bust. The place where a bust should be growing
was very sore, and the rest of her body was getting hair in places that had always been smooth. And at night, when she was
sure Bubbe was asleep, she
touched herself where she was afraid she shouldn’t be touching herself, and sometimes while she did she kissed her pillow
hard and pretended the pillow was James Mason. It was behavior she was certain that even if she knew the Yiddish words to
describe it, or any words for that matter, the would never talk about with Bubbe—a woman about whom Rosie had once overheard
her mother confide to Aunt Sasha: “Imagine. They had nine children and our father never once saw our mother naked.”

Rosie stole curious glances at the other girls in the crowded dressing room at school as they took off their skirts and blouses
and put on their royal-blue cotton gym suits to go outside and play field hockey. A few of the girls already wore brassieres.
Rosie wore the same undershirts she’d been wearing since the fourth grade. Bubbe got them for her by the package at the wholesale
store downtown. They were called “seconds,” just like her underpants and socks. And her clothes were all hand-me-downs from
her cousin Ruthie, who was a slob, so despite Bubbe’s efforts to fix them, every blouse had a stain that would never come
out, and every skirt was all stretched out around the middle because Ruthie had a fat belly.

Now she came home from school, went to her room, looked at the collection of yarn dolls Bubbe had made her, put her face against
the face of Bubbitchke, the doll that had always been her favorite, and cried. Bubbe had a nickname for people who were misfits.
She called them “Kuni Lemmels.” Rosie knew the girls at school thought that
she
was a Kuni Lemmel. And why wouldn’t they? She was twelve years old and her only friend was her grandmother. And she still
wore pigtails.

And never mind the girls. What boy would ever like a Kuni Lemmel? Want to dance with her the way Fred Astaire danced with
Judy Garland in
Easter Parade,
or look into her eyes the way Gene Kelly looked into Leslie Caron’s eyes in
An American in Paris,
or tell her that he waited for her kisses all day, the way James Mason—oh, God, that James Mason—told Judy Garland in
A Star Is Born?
Or said, the way Jackie Welles did to Lily Daniels, in
Woman On The Run:
“Do you love me… ? Well then, maybe my life was worth something after all?” Not one boy would ever say that to her, unless
she could change. Be like the others. And she didn’t know how. Bubbitchke’s face was soaked when Rosie set
her down on the bed, wiped her own face on the sleeve of Cousin Ruthie’s blouse, and tried to figure out what to do to fix
her life. Maybe it was too late. Maybe some people stayed a Kuni Lemmel forever. Rosie shivered at the thought. No. She wouldn’t.
She would do anything she could think of to change.

There was a seventh-grade barbecue coming up on Saturday night. Maybe she should make herself go to that. A ticket was only
fifty cents. She had fifty cents in her sock drawer left over from Chanuka
gelt
her father had given her. She would go to the dance and then what? Talk to herself? What if there was dancing? Who would
ask her? And what would she wear?

For a week before the barbecue, after she did her homework, Rosie would hold up one or another of Cousin Ruthie’s hand-me-down
outfits, trying to decide which one would look the best. None of them. Finally she chose a beige cotton blouse with a ruffle
around the top three buttons, and a brown plaid skirt. It would have to do.

The night of the barbecue she showered and washed her hair and let it hang dry; then, instead of braiding it she pulled the
sides back into two white barrettes. Then she put on a clean undershirt and underpants and the least-yellowed pair of socks
she had in her drawer. She had ironed Cousin Ruthie’s beige blouse and the brown plaid skirt by herself the night before and
hung them in the front of the tiny bedroom closet she shared with Bubbe. She could hear her mother and Bubbe laughing about
something in the hallway outside the bathroom. That was odd. Her mother rarely came up from the store at this hour. Just before
dinner. This was usually the time when the store was the busiest, with shoppers who were buying last-minute ingredients for
their dinners. Rosie opened the bathroom door. Compared to the steamy bathroom, the chill of the hallway gave her goose bumps.
Her mother and Bubbe stood there expectantly.

“All ready?” her mother asked, smiling a strange smile at her as if she expected Rosie to say, “Yes, I’m ready. I’m going
to the barbecue in my underwear.” Bubbe was wearing the same strange smile.

“Have to get dressed,” Rosie said and walked into the bedroom. Her mother and Bubbe followed her. What was going on? As she
opened her closet door to get out Cousin Ruthie’s skirt and blouse, Rosie’s mother and Bubbe giggled
and a bright-red flash caught Rosie’s eye. There on the back of the door hung a skirt and sweater in her size which had obviously
been made for her by Bubbe as a surprise.

“She made it in three days,” Rosie’s mother said, beaming. “When I told her you were going to go to the seventh-grade barbecue,
she felt so bad that you had nothing to wear but Ruthie’s used things that she went to Mr. Zagerson’s store and told him she
would teach his daughter to knit if he gave her the wool for cheaper.”

Bubbe was nodding at all of this, as though she understood, though Rosie’s mother was speaking in English.

“She would wake up at night and do some, and then do the rest while you were in school,” her mother said, with awe in her
voice the likes of which Rosie had never heard. “In between making the meals and cleaning the house.”

Rosie forced a smile. She was afraid to look back at the red skirt and sweater, because the first time she’d looked at them,
only one word had gone through her mind.
Yechhh.
It was the ugliest outfit she had ever seen. Horribly out of style, bulky and strange. And the color. It was sort of red
but sort of orange, and oh, God, what was she going to do? How could she tell her mother, who obviously thought this was the
greatest gift anyone had ever given anyone, and Bubbe who had slaved night and day and even bartered her knitting talents
to get the wool—how could she tell them she didn’t want to wear the skirt and sweater? Couldn’t wear it. Would be laughed
away from the barbecue if she did.

“Try it on,” her mother said. “We know it’s perfect because she measured it against the
shmattes
you wear every day.”

Shmattes.
Rags. It was true. Rosie had never once been in a clothing store even to try on a new dress, let alone buy one. But at least
Ruthie’s hand-me-downs had once been store-bought, not made feverishly from begged-for “for cheaper” yarn by an old woman
who had no idea about today’s styles.

“Nu?”
Bubbe said. “7fctf
dos un.”
She wanted Rosie to put the horrible thing on so she could see how it looked. Rosie glanced at the dock. Six forty-five.
She should be leaving for the school by now. She couldn’t leave without at least trying the outfit on. Maybe she would be
lucky and
when she got it on it wouldn’t fit. It would be too late now for Bubbe to alter it, and Rosie could say, “Some other time,
Bubbe. Maybe to the next barbecue.” Then she could put on Ruthie’s skirt and blouse and go. She reached up and took down the
hanger, stepped into the skirt while her mother held the sweater, and then both her mother and Bubbe helped pull the sweater
over her-head, the way she had seen wardrobe people in the movies help the star get dressed.

“A
zey sheyn,”
Bubbe said. So beautiful.

The only way Rosie could get an entire mirrored view of herself was to stand on her bed and look at her reflection in the
mirror that hung over the chest of drawers she and Bubbe shared. Her first glimpse of herself in the outfit made her weak.
Not only did the orangeish-reddish-colored outfit make her olive skin look deep green, but the way it hung on her body made
her look lumpy in all the wrong places.

“A zey sheyn,”
Bubbe repeated.

“Say thank you, Bubbe,” her mother said.

“Thank you, Bubbe,” Rosie managed.

Five minutes to seven. Rosie looked longingly over at the open closet at Cousin Ruthie’s beige blouse and brown plaid skirt.
Never before had her fat cousin’s hand-me-downs looked so good to her.

“You’ll be late, Rosele,” her mother said, helping her daughter down from the bed. “Here’s your pocket-book. Your father left
an extra dollar this morning in case you should maybe need anything, so I put it in already.”

“Thanks Ma,” Rosie said. Trapped. She was into wearing the orangeish-red outfit. What could she do? The only way out was to
tell the truth, and that would hurt Bubbe terribly. Not just a little hurt, like the time Rosie told her how when she didn’t
have her teeth in she looked like Gabby Hayes. No, this outfit was the result of very hard work, with love in every stitch.
She was probably already a little upset that Rosie wasn’t squealing with excitement over the outfit.

“I love you, Bubbe,” Rosie said, hugging the ancient wrinkled woman. She gave one last shake to her unbraided hair, and headed
for the front door.

* * *

Mrs. Gallagher, who was the seventh-grade music teacher, stood in front of the big brick barbecue pit, turning pieces of chicken
over and over with a long fork. Her face was sweating and she kept pushing a lock of her auburn hair away from her wet forehead
with the hand that wasn’t turning the chicken. All the girls Rosie admired and feared were standing together on one side of
the courtyard, laughing and talking. All the boys she longed to have like her and was afraid to talk to stood on the other
side doing the same. Rosie felt certain that the orangeish-red skirt and sweater would cause an immediate outburst of ridicule,
but not one of them even noticed her entrance. Or if they did, they didn’t acknowledge her. If she had been afraid just to
go over and talk to the others in the past, now she felt so self-conscious she wished they couldn’t even see her. She was
orange and bumpy. Maybe she would just go and talk to Mrs. Gallagher.

“Rosie dear,” Mrs. Gallagher said. “How nice you look.” Rosie could tell that Mrs. Gallagher was surprised to see her at the
barbecue. It was the first school function she’d ever attended.

“Thank you,” Rosie said. “I just thought I’d come over and see if you needed any help with the chicked!” She couldn’t tell
Mrs. Gallagher that she was afraid to talk to anyone else.

Mrs. Gallagher’s sweaty face lit up. “Rosie,” she said, “you are the only person at this party even to bother to offer any
help. And you know what? I’ll take you up on it, because I’m desperate to go to the little girl’s room. Please keep an eye
on the chicken for me and I’ll be back as fast as I can.”

And she was gone. Rosie held the big fork and turned the pieces of chicken again and again over the fire. Now she felt a little
better. Important even. As if she were doing this because she didn’t have time for the silly giggling and carrying on that
the others were doing. Besides, it gave her a great vantage point from which she could watch the others. Plaid skirts. Practically
every one of the girls was wearing a plaid skirt.

A big burst of laughter erupted from the boys’ group and the girls all turned toward them in unison to see why. But the boys’
circle remained closed, and even from where Rosie was standing she could see only their backs. Especially
the one that belonged to Ricky Lesser. He had dark-black thick hair—like James Mason—and a blue Ivy League shirt, and those
big shoulders, and…

“Rosie.” She jumped, afraid Miss Gallagher had heard her thoughts. “Thank you,” Miss Gallagher said. “Maybe you would like
to continue turning the chicken while I pour the punch.”

“Yes, Miss Gallagher,” Rosie said, spearing a piece of chicken and watching as the juice spurted out of it and rolled onto
the coals, where it sizzled. Maybe one of the others would see her over here and walk over to talk to her. But no one did.

When everything was ready, Miss Gallagher used the same method she used when she was trying to get her music classes to be
silent. She picked up a triangle and hit it with a little stick. When everyone stopped talking she said, “Soup’s on,” and
then laughed a little laugh at her joke, since they weren’t having soup. She walked over to the long metal all-purpose table
that the school had used the day all the students came to get their Salk vaccine. Tonight the table was covered with a paper
tablecloth, on top of which was a giant bowl of cole slaw, another of potato salad, some knives and forks, paper plates, thirty-five
cups filled to the top with red punch, and the huge platter of chicken. Miss Gallagher stood next to the platter. She would
serve each person a piece of chicken, and then they would move down the line to get their salads.

The boys and girls raced hungrily toward the table. Now the two groups, the boys and the girls, merged, and they laughed and
flirted with one another playfully. Not one of them even said “hi” to Rosie. Giggling and teasing, some of them began to push.
Rosie still stood quietly at the barbecue, waiting.

“Do not push,” Miss Gallagher said, enunciating her words in the same rhythm that she used in music class when she said
do-re-mi,
but the boys and girls continued to push anyway.

“Now,” Miss Gallagher said, as if she were about to make an important announcement. “I think that fair is fair and that the
first person who should be served tonight is the only person who walked into this barbecue and, unlike the rest of you who
are too busy to care about others, said, ‘May I help you, Miss Gallagher?’
May I help you.
Four
words which all of us could use more often, for if we did we could make a better world.”

A voice like a monster’s came from somewhere in the line. “Hoooongnxy,” it said, and all the seventh-graders laughed.