My Life in Clothes

by Summer Brenner

She wrestled on. “I can’t get it off.”

  Like most children, I was thoroughly cognizant of the minute shades of difference between taking, borrowing, lending, and stealing. In defense of my mother, I rationalized. Perhaps, she had asked permission. Perhaps, the antique (and likely worthless) fixtures would not be missed. Perhaps, my mother knew that the proprietor intended to replace the “old things” with modern, dependable ones and had enlisted my mother’s help.

  Marguerite wiped her forehead, dripping with effort. She had broken a fingernail, and her elbow was bloody from pressing down on the chipped drain. “Get over here and help.”

  I hung back.

  “Hold on while I tug.”

  I slouched to the sink. Outside was my escape into a valley of flowers. However, I lacked the requisite courage to jump onto the cobblestone courtyard and run away.

  “I’ll wait downstairs,” I attempted, but the words stuck in my throat.

  She steadied my hand and pushed it forward as a vice. Finally, she succeeded in loosening a rusted screw. “That’s quite a lot of work,” she sighed, balancing the object on her palm. “But it’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  I puzzled over the question. My appreciation of beauty did not include bathroom fixtures.

  “What are you staring at?” My mother’s voice shrilled with its familiar accusation that I was always staring off at something.

  “Mountains,” I mumbled.

  Mother gave the scenery a dismissive glance. “I shall paint our shutters blue, too,” she announced in reference to the old-fashioned stone and brick house she and my father had recently bought. Its architecture, in fact, was identical to a chalet with shuttered casement windows, a slate roof, beamed ceilings, and a stairway encased in a circular tower. “That exact blue,” she pointed to a wing of the genuine Swiss chalet that extended along the winding drive.

  By now, she had the other handle. “These,” she said, holding up the spoils, “will go in the powder room.” Indeed, the powder room was the most extravagant corner of the house, decorated with a silver leaf dressing table and oval mirror swagged with crystal ropes.

  She stuffed the two handles into her purse. It was time to leave. Closets and chest of drawers had been emptied and suitcases repacked, including the coat from Harrods.

  “You haven’t forgotten anything, have you?” mother asked.

  “No,” I faltered. On the contrary, if only I could retrieve the whatchamacallits and screw them back in place.

  “Why are you standing around?” Mother poked me with an umbrella. “Pick up the bags and get downstairs.”

  Underneath the bus, the luggage hatch was propped open. Everyone had settled into their seats, some preferring the front next to Oskar, others stretched out in back to snooze.

  “Good morning, madame, mademoiselle,” Oskar greeted us cheerily.

  We nodded and took our customary seats midway down the aisle.

  “Ready?” he asked, counting the passengers again.

  The bus door slammed shut. The engine turned over. Several nauseating wafts of diesel smoke drifted through the open windows as the behemoth rolled backwards into the parking lot. The driver then coasted towards the gravel road that wound across a bright, spring green valley and down to the highway.

  “Stop!” A ruddy-faced man yelled from the hotel verandah. “Stop the bus!”

  Through the windshield, everyone watched an oversized figure leap down the chalet stairs, waving his arms like the blades of a windmill.

  The driver pressed the brakes. The concierge dashed up the steps of the bus, through the door, and gasping for breath, bellowed, “There is missing.”

  While he and Oskar consulted in German, the genteel tourists from Georgia tried to decipher what he meant. “Missing?” Bewildered looks raced from front to back.

  Oskar shuddered. It was very unpleasant news. “The bathroom hardware in one of our rooms has been removed,” he grumbled.

  An explanation that only increased everyone’s confusion. “Bathroom what? Removed from where?”

  A humiliated Oskar said, “We cannot leave until they’re returned.”

  Still puffing, the concierge concurred.

  An oceanic murmur rose. “More than one?” No one could imagine.

  I shut my eyes, wishing to be whisked away, transported to a mountaintop where I might spend my remaining days with Heidi, Grandfather, and the goats. Anywhere but on this bus.

  When my eyes reopened, Oskar and the concierge had not budged. They stood stolidly in place, eyeing each passenger in turn.

  “The room number is 217,” they finally said.

  “Wasn’t that you, Marguerite?” one of the bank presidents asked.

  “I didn’t notice,” she shrugged.

  “I was in 215,” someone asserted.

  Coolly, Marguerite felt inside her pockets. Coolly, she checked under the seat. Then, pausing as an afterthought, she opened her purse and groped inside.

  “You mean these?” She yanked out two antique brass and porcelain handles, engraved with chaud and froid.

  The concierge nodded icily as they were passed to the front of the bus. Two dozen censoring eyes fell upon us.

  Mother rose. She laid a hand on my hunched shoulder.

  I recoiled, clasping and unclasping my fingers, bowing my head in a futile prayer.

  “Sue, can you tell us why you took them?” Her voice quivered but within seconds, it was strong and certain. “Can you tell us why?”

  The bus idled as if it were waiting for the answer, too.

  My numbness was deeper than an Alpine crevasse, but like an understudy called to her first leading role, I said firmly, “I don’t know why.”

  “Sue doesn’t know,” Marguerite repeated in case anyone had failed to hear.

  Then, rising slowly, I dragged myself to the back of the bus as the engine shifted into gear.

  My Life in Clothes

  Early on, my cousin, Peggy, discovered that her greatest talent was the ability to turn a boy’s simplest request into the world’s biggest marvel. “Peggy, can I walk you home?” they begged. “Peggy, can I sit beside you at the picture show?” In response, Peggy’s chin would tilt, her gaze lift, her lips moisten, her calves flex, and her breasts rise. Peggy was irresistible.

  By the end of high school, after she had been squeezed, groped, rubbed, pounded, and humped, she eloped (out of sheer exhaustion) with the next young man who asked. (It was her third proposal of the summer.)

  Fifteen years later, she returned to Atlanta, a divorced mother of two. Buckhead was no longer a small suburban center. It was its own center, bursting with commerce and style. The owner of a popular bar (that prided itself on imported beers) was a local boy, glad to hire Peggy. The patrons of the Acme were glad, too. They were from the old crowd.

  Peggy recognized their names and faces, but what they recognized in her was sacred. They had never given her up. They were still seeking a way to leave their mark on Peggy, for above everything else, she represented the moment when they believed they would leave their mark on the world.

  “I never saw a girl who attracted so many boys,” her mother reminisced nearly everyday. “Remember whosit who tried to climb down the chimney? And the night Charlie Key drove over the lawn? There were so many corsages in the fridge, we couldn’t find room for leftovers.” Edith’s voice choked with admiration. She had conceived a blond, willowy wildcard in a gene pool that normally favored short, heavy, and mousy brown.

  “Men don’t court women anymore,” Peggy informed her mother. “If a man has money, he doesn’t spend it on a woman. He expects her to have her own money and spend it on herself.”

  “The night Wash Smith invited a string quartet to play under your window? And Cyrus Temple, etching your initials on his arm with hydrochloric acid?”

  “They weren’t my initials,” Peggy protested.

  “His mother said you ought to be banished from the state before you wrecked another boy’s sanity. It was
wonderful,” Edith sighed nostalgically.

  “It isn’t fashionable now to be romantic.”

  “Pooh!” her mother said. “Men are as primitive as they have always been.”

  “I saw Charlie last night,” Peggy reported. It made her feel fifteen to say his name.

  “He ruined my camellias. He ran that blue Impala around my yard like a monkey on a trike.”

  “He’s looks the same.”

  “Don’t be vague, Peggy. Is he available?”

  “There were grease stains on his tie.”

  “You weren’t so critical then.”

  “He pals around with Wash.”

  “I suppose he made something of himself.”

  “He’s a drunk.”

  Edith shook her head despairingly. Peggy had had every opportunity, natural and otherwise, to make a good catch. It wasn’t too late. “You ought to do something productive with your looks while they last. Damnit, Peggy, you rode the senior float and now you’re a barmaid.”

  “Waitress,” she corrected.

  “I thought the job would take your mind off your troubles, but it’s making you bitter. And you’re irritating your wrinkles when you smile. Tell me more about Wash.”

  “He wrote a screenplay. He says it’s going to be a movie.”

  Cocking her head like an ingénue, Edith asked, “Is he going to put you on the silver screen?”

  “It’s about four gay men who die of AIDS.”

  “Wash is a fairy?” Edith’s celebrity future melted into a blur.

  Peggy’s past was springing up with ardor. Charlie Key sent her a dozen roses wrapped in an expensive silk scarf. Over the weekend, Zip Feinstein stopped in town for his father’s birthday and offered to give her money (lots of money) for a new car. Wash invited her to visit him in Hollywood (the film was going forward). And Jim Gerber telephoned from Santa Fe, wanting to know what happened to the school’s best-looking girl. He offered to fly her out. “To get a look,” he said.

  “Guess who came up to me in the store today?” Edith tittered. “Cy Temple introduced himself in the produce department. He even showed me the scar from the acid.”

  “He showed you?”

  “Pooh! It’s nothing. He apologized up and down for the trouble he caused back then. He is the nicest man. He is just your type. He loves to travel. He loves kids. He’s got a steady job.”

  When Cy walked into the Acme, Peggy didn’t recognize him. He sat in her section and ordered a Corona.

  “Remember me, Cyrus Temple, the weirdo?” He giggled and lifted his glass in a toast. “I saw your mother, did she tell you?”

  “She told me,” Peggy said.

  “I bet it happens all the time. Boys stopping by, swearing that you’re the prettiest girl in the world. You haven’t changed.”

  “I’ve changed,” she said wearily.

  “Remember your fuzzy white sweater?”

  “Angora blend,” Peggy mused.

  “The round-collared blouse with little flowers?”

  “Liberty of London.”

  “And tasseled?”

  “Bass Weegens,” she interrupted. She remembered every article of clothing from high school. Some of it, she had kept.

  Cy pushed up his sleeve. “And this?”

  Peggy looked at the lump of scar tissue. She was surprised. It did resemble her initials.

  Cyrus Temple drank five beers. He stayed until closing, lingering outside the bar, hoping to drive her home.

  “The prettiest girl with the biggest freak, who would believe you’re talking to me?” He pinched himself.

  “That nonsense doesn’t matter now,” Peggy said.

  “We never had a chance to talk. I mean, really talk.”

  “Nobody did. We were going through the motions. Like clothes, trying things on, taking things off.”

  “I adored you,” Cy whimpered. “That’s a fact.”

  Peggy turned away. She didn’t want to hear it. She had heard it enough.

  Mustering his courage, Cy swivelled Peggy around and smacked his lips against hers. When his tongue darted into her mouth, she clamped down her teeth as hard as she could.

  “Aieeeee!” he shrieked.

  Peggy had already started to run. Into the darkness, past the shops and restaurants of Buckhead, she ran like a panther, the most desired animal in the world.

  The Wallet

  I should have been home asleep with the baby, but in the late afternoon, my supervisor called to ask if I could help with a presentation. After dinner, I put the baby down at her house, and since the work took longer than expected, I didn’t leave until midnight.

  The main street of town was deserted. I drove along slowly, dreamily until a phantom rose out of the sidewalk. It was Peter (my husband), walking slowly and dreamily too, with both his arms draped around a strange girl. At that instant, my love for him drained away. Later, I wished (with all my heart) I had run the car over the curb into his body. But instead, I went home and threw up.

  The next morning, I discredited what I saw. I called Marco where Peter sometimes spent the night so they could rehearse without disturbing the baby.

  “Marco?” I asked calmly. “Could I have possibly seen Peter in town late last night? With his tennis partner?”

  “Lisa McElduff?” Marco sounded calm, too.

  “Maybe it was Lisa McElduff. I don’t really know Lisa.”

  “Hasn’t Peter told you about Lisa?”

  I hung up. For a few minutes, I waited for a plan of revenge to formulate. The plan was trite (since The Count of Monte Cristo, there’s never been anything original about revenge). I vowed to leave Peter and never let him see our baby again.

  I attacked every drawer and closet, piling up in Peter’s studio whatever I had made or given him: lovingly hand-sewn shirts, beautiful crocheted mufflers, an embroidered denim jacket, darned socks, many books of poetry, sable brushes, a bagpipe, and two pairs of silk boxers. All of these, I methodically (and gleefully) tore, shredded, crumpled, and cracked. Then, I dumped a can of red paint over the lot.

  Next, I burned his letters to me. And tossed out a box of memorabilia, the items that had initiated me into womanhood: my first bra (28 AAA), my first garter belt, the empty but still stinky first pack of cigarettes (Winston box), a stained Kotex belt, the blouse I had on when I French kissed Steve Fink, a straw pillbox hat pinned with dried rosebuds that I wore when I married Peter, and a green plastic wallet from sixth grade containing my Buckhead library card, a lucky silver dollar, and a picture of me taken in a photo-booth at Myrtle Beach.

  I traveled light to California. Suitcase, diaper bag, baby.

  “Peter called,” my cousin announced at the airport. “He asked if I knew where you were.”

  “And?”

  “I told him you were on a plane.”

  “And?”

  “He started to cry. He said you destroyed his life and his studio. He wondered if I knew why.”

  “Because it felt good,” I said without guile. Harsh as it was, it registered as less severe than what Peggy did when she left Freddie Mason. After she found Freddie in bed at home with his lab assistant, she cut the left arm off all his sweaters, jackets, shirts, and coats and snipped the ends of his ties.

  In California, I cried, too, for weeks, the baby and I both. Sometimes, Peggy joined us. Once we got started, there was no end of inspiration and regret. And the baby just couldn’t help herself.

  Peggy helped me find a cottage in the Berkeley hills. We took walks to the park. We relaxed in cafés. It was a serene, uncomplicated time.

  Peter often called. He wanted to know how I had transmogrified into a vengeful person. I told him people were capable of anything. He only had to read the newspaper (once in a while) to know that. When he said he was coming to California, I tried not to react. I tried to be what the Buddhists call detached.

  “Don’t you want me to come?” he asked.

  “I don’t need you to come,” I told him, think
ing of the past tranquil months with the baby. “What about McElduff?”

  Peter called me a fool. A week later, he arrived with whatever belongings I hadn’t ruined. Stuff enough to shatter the peace inside my tiny space. He was happy to see us, and as it turned out, we were happy to see him, too.

  Years have passed since that period of separation and reunion. Peter and I have fought, reconciled, and fought again. Through our child, time has assumed a forward propulsion. She has gotten bigger, stronger, louder. While the changes in our lives appear minute, hers have been colossal.

  We have stayed in Berkeley. We now live in a bigger cottage in a less attractive area. Peter works as a handyman. I’m a receptionist at a gym. Rents have escalated, and we aren’t sure we can afford to stay much longer. Although crime rates have fallen, fear has risen. Parents are urged to have their children finger-printed (in case of kidnaping). The faces of missing youngsters appear on milk cartons, staring at us every morning over breakfast. Our neighbors spend substantial sums on alarms, window bars, and guard dogs. Everyone has grown paranoid.

  When a small box arrived from an unknown sender, I observed it cautiously. It was poorly taped, and my full name, large and tentative, was written as if someone didn’t know how to spell. It was post-marked Atlanta, but the return address was Owen Huff in Roswell, Georgia.

  I put the box outside on the porch until Peter came home.

  “Do you know anyone in Roswell?” he asked.

  When I was growing up, Roswell was a distant outpost, synonymous with banishment itself.

  “Huff doesn’t ring a bell?”

  “Maybe, my cousin sent a bomb.”

  “Impossible,” Peter said. My cousin, Malcolm, had recently initiated a nasty lawsuit with his sister, Peggy, over their inheritance.

  Peter picked up the rectangular box, the size of a pair of children’s shoes. He gently shook it. “Do you want me to call the police?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Then we’d better open it.”

  When Sarah ran across the yard, I ordered her to stand back on the sidewalk. “It might be dangerous up here,” I advised.

  She plunked down on the curb, squirming with excitement while Peter took out a Swiss Army knife and cut the tape. He shook the box again. Gingerly, he pried open two top flaps. Underneath a sheet of the Dunwoody Crier were several folded layers of bubble-wrap which made it impossible to see anything.