"Your father can pick up some overtime," she told me when I showed her the tag.
"I don't need anything this expensive, Mama."
'Of course you do," she said. "The better you look Saturday night, the nicer you'll be treated. He's not going to take you to any Denny's in this," she said laughing, "That's for sure."
"Maybe he can't afford to do anything else. Mama," I said. After all. I didn't know anything about him and Mama really didn't know much either.
"That doesn't matter," Mama said. "When a woman impresses a man, he doesn't think of budgets and bank accounts and what he can and can't afford. He just thinks about one thing: impressing her. I know men. honey. And before long now, you're going to know them too, know just what to expect.
"Your education is starting a little later than mine did, but you have the benefit of me." she decided. nodding. "'Truth is. I wish I had me when I was younger. I didn't have an easy time of it. My mother thought sex was such a dirty word, she had me and my sister and brother thinking we had been born through some sort of pollination, you know, like flowers? It got sprinkled on her stomach and we got created."
I smirked at her attempt at a joke, but she laughed,
"I'm not being funny. All she knew was the birds and the bees and that's what bees do; don't they spread the pollen? Bet you didn't think I knew so much about science. huh?
"I got a lot of surprises up my sleeve. Ice." Suddenly, I was afraid she was telling the truth,
My heart ticked like a time bomb as Saturday night drew closer. That night after we had done all our shopping, Mama made me put on the outfit we had bought so I could model for Daddy. First, she worked on my makeup. She sat me in front of her vanity table and stood behind me gazing at my face in the mirror. scrutinizing. She decided I needed a little eye shadow. I thought it was too much, but she claimed my eyes were my strongest feature and I should do all I could to make them stand out.
"You have a natural pout," she told me, and decided to enhance it by dabbing a sliver of lip gloss onto the center of my lower lip. She showed me a trick to prevent lipstick from getting on my teeth. I was to put my finger in my mouth and close my lips. When I withdrew my finger, it removed any excess color.
"Someone once told me a beautiful woman's face was like an artist's palette. The artist sees the picture there and brings it out. You got to do the same with your face. Ice. Make it a work of art. That's what I do." she said softly, but with deep feeling.
I remember looking up at her and thinking with surprise that she had more depth to her than I had ever imagined. Looking at myself in the mirror and at her behind me, standing there so proudly. I realized my mama had nothing but her good looks to rely on to give her meaning and purpose in life. Most of her girlfriends did look at her enviously and wanted to be in her company because her beauty had a way of spreading to them, embracing them, keeping them under wing. People, especially men, looked their way because Mama strolled along in the center. Maybe with the right management and some lucky breaks Mama could have been a model. As she sat there night after night, thumbing through those beauty magazines and gazing at the women who advertised beauty products or fashions, she had to be tantalized, taunted and frustrated knowing how much more beautiful and special she was.
It was funny how all this came to me in those moments before her vanity mirror. We had never had a real mother-daughter conversation about such things. Through the endless flow of complaints and moans she voiced in our small world. I was burdened with the task of understanding what she really meant and really felt. I had to read between all those crooked lines until I suddenly realized who she was.
Mama was a beautiful flower that had been plucked too early and placed in the confines of some vase where it finished blossoming and then battled time and age to keep from losing its special blush. Now she was looking at me and thinking I would complete her. I would do all that she had been unable to do and be all that she had dreamed she would be.
"Children are our true redemption." the minister told us all one Sunday. "We believe they will redeem us for failing to be all that we had hoped to be, that they will do what we dreamed we should do and be whom we thought we should be. That's a healthy thing. . .Go forth and multiply,'" he recited.
The burden of such responsibility was heavy and something I didn't want, but I didn't have the hardness in me to turn around and say. "All this is your world. Mama, not mine. I don't need to be in the spotlight. I don't mind being in the chorus. It's the music that matters most."
Of course. I kept my famously shut-tight mouth zipped.
"All right," she declared when we were finished. "Put on your dress. Let's show your father how blind he's been by treating you like a little
I was almost as nervous dressing for Daddy as I was to be dressing for Shawn on Saturday. Mama came into my room to make sure I had everything right. She had bought me a pair of shoes to complete the outfit and had given me her precious pieces of jewelry to wear: her pearl necklace on a gold chain with the matching pearl earrings..
"Turn down that music, Cameron Goodman." she cried from my doorway. "and get yourself ready for a real surprise."
I felt like I was a runway model when I crossed from my room to the living room. Daddy obeyed Mama's command, turning down his music, and then she brought me into the living room. When he looked up from his big cushioned chair, his eves did a dance of their own, enlarging, brightening, blinking and then suddenly narrowing with a kind of dark veil of sadness. I could see it clearly in his face. It was as if his thoughts were being scrolled over his forehead in big white letters: My little girl is gone and in her place is this beautiful young woman who is sure to be plucked like her another and taken off to be planted in someone else's garden. All I will have are the memories.
"Well?" Mama demanded. "Don't just sit there acting mute too. Cameron Goodman. Say something. I spent a lot of time and energy on all this."
"She's... absolutely beautiful. Lena."
"You like the outfit?"
"Yeah," he said nodding emphatically.
"Good. You're going to need to remember that when you see the His smile froze, but he didn't show any anger or displeasure.
"She reminds me a lot of you, Lena. when I first set eyes on you." Daddy said.
Mama absolutely glowed.
"Told you," she whispered and squeezed my hand. "She's prettier than I was, Cameron. I didn't know anything about hair and makeup then."