Waking Beauty (4 page)

The self-deprecating, let-me-be-your-John-Belushi shtick deflected far more hostility than the sweet ‘n’ nice combo, but it made me feel smarmy, like an organ-grinder’s trained and chained monkey, or like a member of the Buchenwald orchestra. Eventually I became so disgusted with myself and the powerful morons all around me that I gave it up and grew silent. Amazingly, pride won out over personal safety. I say “amazingly” because at the time, I detested almost everything about myself. The fact that I was able to muster an iota of self-respect still impresses me. Thinking back on it, I can conclude only that even though I was consumed with a fervent self-loathing, I must have hated everyone else just a teensy bit more.

Boutique Eloquio
. It could have been designed by my father—all blond wood, chrome, mirrors, and clean lines. The clothing was displayed like works of art. And for the size and airiness of the store, there seemed to be hardly any clothes in there at all—three or four skirts, five or six blouses, a few dresses, an evening gown, one silk scarf. Of course, everything was absurdly expensive and the sizes ranged from zero to eight. Eight was as big as you could get at Eloquio.

I was relieved to see that the usual snobby salesgirl wasn’t there. A different snobby salesgirl, another tall job, another supermodel wanna-be had either replaced her or was covering
her shift. When I walked in she glanced up with an expectant smile, instantly appraised my appearance, then went back to what she was doing: adjusting, with long, pale fingers, the lacquered chopsticks that held her elegantly tousled hair in place.

“How are we doing?” she said to the freestanding full-length mirror outside of the fitting room.

“Be right out,” came my mother’s muffled reply.

I touched a white shawl, displayed with virtuosity on a blond wood pedestal that had been lathed into a seductive Henry Moore-ish shape. The Tall Job looked my way, protective of the shawl’s pristine whiteness. She was waiting for me to eyeball the price and hightail it out of there. I turned the tag over: $750.
100% Pashmina
, it said on the tag. Pashmina. What a creamy, decadent-sounding word. Here’s what it didn’t say: 100% beard fluff of a smelly Tibetan goat. I considered draping the shawl over my hunched shoulders to torment the salesgirl, but just then my mother emerged from the dressing room, decked out in a ridiculous frock.

“Oh, it’s perfect,” said Tall Job.

“You think?” said my mother, mincing in front of the mirror, obviously delighted with the effect. “Of course, I’ll have my hair curled and scooped up.”

“And you have to get big hoop earrings to go with it,” said Tall Job.

Yeah, I thought, if you really want to look like an extra in the tavern scene in
Carmen
, better get those big hoop earrings to go with it. And maybe a jug of wine instead of a handbag. I sidled over to get a better look. The dress was red with black polka dots-some kind of “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves” affair—the sleeves were pulled down to sit off the shoulders, a built-in bustier pushed the breasts up and out. It sucked in tight at the waist, then puffed out to mid-thigh in the front and trailed down to the ankles in the back-like a mullet.

“What do you think?” my mother asked, prematurely basking in my approval.

That episode of
I Love Lucy
, the one where she crushes the grapes with her feet, came to mind. “Um…where are you going to wear it?

“To the Brazilian Ball, of course.”

“Oh.” Of course, the Brazilian Ball.

“Am I too old?” said my mother, twirling around. “Is it too young for me?”

Yes, I thought. Mutton dressed up as Lambada.

“Don’t be silly,” said Tall Job. “You have a dynamite body. I’d kill for that cleavage. Wouldn’t you kill for that cleavage?” she asked me.

“Don’t be silly,” said my mom. “I’d kill to have a long, willowy figure like yours.”

“Oh, no,” said Tall Job.

I suddenly felt like killing them both. Not for cleavage, just for fun. Instead, I made for the door. “I’m going to go get the car,” I said.

Mercifully, by the time I hoofed it a quarter mile to the Audi and wheeled it back around in front of Eloquio, my mother was outside, smoking, with her boxed frock clutched tightly under one arm.

Next up was the shoe department at Holt Renfrew, then to Creeds to pick up her dry cleaning, then to the MotoPhoto to have new passport pictures taken. She had the attendant snap them three times before she was happy with the result. Throughout this time, she uttered maybe ten words to me. When I asked why she was getting her passport renewed, she said: “Because it’s time.” When I asked her if she was thinking of going on vacation, she said: “Maybe.” When I asked her how her addiction treatment was going, she said: “Fine, thanks.” I think that was about it. No, wait…when a Miata lurched in front of me from the right-hand lane, causing me to brake abruptly, she said, “Allison!” as if I were the one who had failed to signal and veered crazily through traffic.

Finally we got to the last leg of the errand journey. The supermarket. It was almost one-thirty. As we entered the vast
grocery emporium, we had to pass through a faux-street-market area where prepared foods were sold under quaint umbrellas: muffins, sandwiches, pasta salad, pizza, fresh-squeezed juices, and smoothies. By this point I was famished, and the aroma of fresh baking convinced me that I had to eat something, no matter how distressing it was to my mother.

“I’m just going to grab a muffin,” I said. “Do you want anything?”

“No,” she said, glancing sternly at her watch, as if my muffin purchase was going to put a big dent in her day.

They had blueberry muffins and carrot muffins, neither of which I like. I opted instead for a slice of pizza. Since I didn’t want to hold up the expedition, I put the pizza on its paper plate in the front part of the cart. I would eat it while I shopped, as I had seen many people doing on previous Fridays. Mindful of not disturbing my mother, I consumed the pizza in small, delicate bites, dabbing a napkin to my lips after each swallow. I pushed the cart while she consulted her list and filled it with selected items (mostly processed and prepared foods, mostly frozen).

I was well aware of the fact that a fat person in a grocery store is inherently comical to some people. Whenever I went shopping, there were at least one or two individuals who smiled smug at the bag of chips or container of ice cream in my basket. I’ve even had people, ostensibly concerned about my health and welfare, comment on my purchases, as if it were any of their goddamn business. So I knew the drill. Still, I was surprised by the sheer number of indignant, amused, and disgusted looks I received as I rolled the cart down the aisles while simultaneously nibbling the pizza slice. I felt conspicuous and acutely aware, like I had ESP, like I could actually hear the
ha-ha
or
tsk-tsk
thoughts of the passing shoppers: The cute twenty-something guy with the border shorts and the goatee:
Just couldn’t wait to get the grub home, Jumbo?
A CEO’s overaerobicized and direly tanned trophy bride:
Maybe if you ditched the pizza and picked up an apple once in a while you wouldn’t be in such
a state
. The sad-eyed old man in the porkpie hat:
Such a shame. That poor girl will never get a husband
. The bulimic teenage whore-girl with
Perfect 10
emblazoned across her pop-top chest:
Oh, gross, I think I’m gonna, like, hurl
.

It was a relief to get out of there, and get my mother home.

“Keys,” she said when we had finished hauling in the groceries.

I handed them over. The car would now be a piece of driveway sculpture until the following Friday. Still, it never occurred to her to offer the use of it to me. Or probably it had and she had decided against it. Either way, I was too meek to inquire. She was obviously feeling prickly-lips clenched, shoulders tight—and I didn’t want to incur her fury or end the outing with a blast of wrath. Maybe next week, if she was feeling calmer, I would ask her.

Maybe next week things would be different.

2    

For the seventeenth Friday in a row, I took the subway
home from my mom’s place, feeling disconsolate and burningly alone. For the seventeenth Friday in a row, I fantasized about hooking up with my birth mother. It was Fantasy #9, one of the more ludicrous but popular in my roster of about a dozen. In this one, it comes to light that I, and not Kilauren Gibb, am the long-lost love child of Joni Mitchell. It doesn’t matter that the dates and details don’t line up, not to mention the cheekbones. In the fantasy they line up. I am tracked down by a private detective, hired by Ms. Mitchell, who is determined to find the baby she reluctantly handed off when she was a twenty-year-old art school student. As I said, the particulars line up, but the clincher, the way the detective—a rumpled Colombo type-really knows that I’m the one, is when he hears me sing. “That’s the ticket,” he says,
with a rumpled Colombo smile, his eyes moist, betraying emotion. The next day I fly to California. A poignant reunion ensues. Laughter. Tears. More laughter. We have so much to talk about. We can’t stop clutching each other. The blood tie is mysteriously powerful. We bond instantly. We discover that both of us love jazz, ice skating, liver and onions. Joni is stunned to learn that “Little Green” has always been one of my favorite songs.

Before she can apologize for giving me away, I tell her that I understand completely. She was poor, practically a child herself, and just beginning to forge a career. It was a time when single motherhood carried a terrible stigma. She was doing only what she thought was best for me. Joni appreciates my empathy. She tells me what a joy and relief it is to have found me. I tell her what a relief it is to have found myself, to have found out who I am. She understands. She writes a song about it for her next album. I sing backup vocals. The voices blend beautifully…. Fantasy #9.

Ludicrous. Absurd.

In reality, it probably wouldn’t have been very difficult to locate my birth mother. My mom had the original documents and had let me know that she would be happy to hand them over. I just never could muster the guts to go through with it. I figured if my real mother didn’t want me around when I was a cute little tyke, she wouldn’t have much use for me in my current state. Perhaps if I had accomplished something grand I might have been bolder. If I were a team leader mapping the human genome, a gold medal Olympian, an astronaut returning with data from a distant planet. Violin virtuoso. Pulitzer playwright. Filthy-rich Midas-touch-type entrepreneur. But I was none of those things. I was Allison Penny, high-school dropout—just before graduating from grade twelve, a particularly nasty year for social ostracism. I was a cleaning lady. A cleaning lady who spent most of her time alone in a peeling ceiling room. Destitute, depressed, and almost universally derided.
Hi ya, Ma. Long time no see!
No.
Clearly, if my birth mother had any desire to contact me, she would have already done so. More rejection was definitely not something I required, and so, for the seventeenth Friday in a row, I shut it out of my mind.

The post-fantasy portion of the commute was odious. I cursed myself for neglecting to bring my Discman along. Rush hour started preternaturally early on Fridays, and the subway was already too packed with humans for my liking. Every chatty couple, every shapely exposed limb, every tightly packed blue-jeaned butt seemed like a personal attack on my psyche. I felt hostile, grimy, and unkempt. Also tremendously hungry.

I stopped at Aida’s on my way home and got four falafels to go-two for dinner, two for later when I would take my break. I bought a couple Snickers bars and some Twizzlers for dessert. I was really, really hoping that Virginie wouldn’t be home when I got there. I just needed a couple hours to decompress before I had to go to work.

Here’s what I heard when I opened the front door of the flat: Serge Gainsbourg singing “Je T’aime, Moi Non Plus.” Loud. Here’s what I saw when I passed through the vestibule and glanced to my left into the living room: Virginie, buck naked except for Buddy Holly glasses, high-heeled shoes, and a flashing light embedded in her navel—I’m not kidding, it looked like a tiny bicycle light—sprawled on the sofa with her legs in the air. Fraser was holding her labia open with two fingers, and quick-flicking his tongue on her clitoris. Her vagina had been shaved bare except for a tiny Mohawk strip down the middle.

Gross anatomy.

Life imitating porn.

Thankfully, I was neither heard nor noticed. I went to my room and ate my
falafels—feel-awfuls
—with the image of Virginie’s splayed crotch and the music crowding in on me.

I took a long shower, thought about opening up a vein, and pictured the blood swirling down the drain. Then I toweled
off, combed out my hair, and blow-dried it. I stayed in there until I heard an insistent rattling of the locked door-knob-someone wanted in, which meant it was safe to come out. The sexcapade was over. Both urge and Serge had been silenced

“Are you in there?” said Virginie.