I don’t know what Nat said to her grandmother, but it did not sound polite. Grandma muttered, but she finally took Nat’s hand and climbed out of the little pool and dried off.
Reverend Pinkney offered to pray for us. Nat told him that was very kind and helped Grandma down the steps. I pulled him aside and gave him my list. We needed prayers for Nat’s grandmother (obviously), for our prom, for me graduating, and for my parents, who needed all the help they could get.
“Is that everything?” Reverend Pinkney asked.
“Why don’t you throw in an extra one for me, just general-like. You know, to make sure all the bases are covered. I’m stressing a little these days. Thanks.”
81.
I made bologna sandwiches at the Shulmenskys’ while Nat took Grandma upstairs to change. I set the table nice and laid the sandwiches on plates with potato chips and homemade pickles I found in the fridge.
Grandma came downstairs wearing a long red skirt I never saw before. Nat led her to the table, and she sat down without any fuss. I wolfed down my sandwich. Nat tore her crust into little pieces. Grandma nodded and jabbered at me; then she started singing.
“She’s happy because she got to go swimming,” Nat explained.
“Can’t blame her for that,” I said.
The kitchen door opened, and Nat’s father came in. Mr. Shulmensky always reminded me of a bald snowman with glasses—round head, round belly, big round butt, and a friendly smile that always made me feel better. He put his newspaper on the counter. “Well, hello, Ashley. Good to see you at our table. How are your parents? Baby come yet?”
Nat cut in and told her dad about the dunk tank. He stopped smiling and switched into Russian. Grandma took her pickle into the living room. Nat and Mr. Shulmensky followed her. The Russian got loud.
I cleared the dirty dishes off the table and loaded them into the dishwasher. When Nat started to cry, I went home.
82.
I knew our kitchen would still be a wreck. Dad’s projects took months, sometimes years. We’d be living with torn-out walls, tools on the floor, and dust for months. Ma would spend the next six months complaining, and Dad would finish the job in time to call it her Christmas present.
That’s why I was so confused when I opened the back door.
The walls were done . . . perfectly finished and painted margarine yellow. The floor was mopped, the counters wiped down, and there weren’t any tools in sight. The chairs stood neatly around the table. There was a vase of daffodils—real flowers—in the middle of the table.
I reached for the door. I was in the wrong house.
“Is that you, princess?”
Dad walked in, toweling his hair dry. He was wearing clean jeans and a shirt with buttons down the front. He had trimmed his beard and was grinning like a pirate. “Looks pretty good, don’t it?”
I had to sit down. “What happened?”
He threw the towel down the steps to the basement and combed his fingers through his hair. “What do you mean? We finished. Not a big deal, is it?”
“You’re going to hurt yourself, you keep smiling like that.”
“You should have seen your mother’s face.” He shook his head and chuckled. “Priceless.”
“No offense, Dad, but how did you do it? I mean, it took you a month to put up the shelf in the bathroom.”
He leaned against the counter and crossed his arms. “Truth? It was TJ.”
“TJ? My TJ?”
“Yep. He got his cousins from Jersey to help. They do a lot of construction around Cherry Hill. You shoulda seen them, Ash. Those guys just flew.”
“My TJ?”
“Yeah, maybe you should have been nicer to him. I’m telling you, Ash, he really came through for us. And he has a big night planned for you two tomorrow. Said he’d pick you up around six.”
“My TJ helped with this?”
“Couldn’t have done it without him. He left that card for you on the table. A real romantic, isn’t he?”
I ripped open the envelope. It was a mushy card, with a picture of two little kids holding hands on the front. Inside, TJ had drawn a heart with our initials in it: “TJB + AMH 4eva.”
I could feel the mad in me leaking out like water between my fingers. Damn.
Dad chuckled again. “I’m out of here, kiddo. Got a hot date with your mother.”
“Do I have to babysit the boys?”
“Nope, they’re staying at Linny’s again. You going out?”
“I’m going to sleep. I’m beat. This prom stuff is wiping me out.”
He winked. “We’ll try not to wake you when we get home. Gonna be a great night!”
“Ew, don’t say that. Parents should not have sex. You two are disgusting perverts.”
“Yeah, I know. Ain’t it great?”
83.
The next morning, I woke up to the smell of perfume and the sound of a flock of crows. I rolled over. Perfume and crows, must be a nightmare.
Perfume. Crows. Ma was home.
A woman giggled. It sounded like a poodle with hiccups.
Ma was home and she had Aunt Linny with her.
Another laugh. This one sounded like a live chicken being shoved in a blender.
Aunt Joan.
And then a laugh that turned into a hacking cough.
Aunt Sharon.
I groaned and pulled the pillow over my head. They were all here.
A herd of screaming buffalo pounded up the stairs and burst into my room. Billy jumped on my bed. “Wake up, wake up!”
Steven followed him. “Ma says you have to get dressed.”
Billy climbed on my rear and bounced. “Get up, big butt.”
“TJ’s called three times already,” Steven said. “You have to go out with him tonight.”
“Get up, big butt. The aunts brought—”
Steven covered Billy’s mouth with his hand. “There’s a surprise for you downstairs. You better hurry before Ma explodes.”
Downstairs, Aunt Linny giggled.
84.
My mother and her three sisters were waiting for me in the living room, like something out of a sick fairy tale. Ma was plopped in the middle of the couch with a box of chocolate doughnuts on her belly. Aunt Linny was on her left, and Aunt Sharon was on her right, closest to the door. Aunt Joan filled the recliner.
The four of them screamed when they saw me. Aunt Sharon jumped up and gave me a hug, rocking side to side. “We are so excited!” Rock, rock, rock. “This is gonna be great!” Rock, rock, rock.
Ma waved a doughnut at us. “Let her go, Shar. You’ll make her seasick.”
Aunt Sharon turned me loose, and I stumbled over a pile of dress shoes. That was weird. We never had dress shoes in the living room before. I blinked and looked around the room. The coffee table was hidden under a huge heap of dresses, and the entertainment center was covered by hanging garment bags.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“My baby is going to the prom,” Ma said.
She knew.
Aunt Linny pulled a hideous green dress off the table. “The prom,” she sighed. “Oh, Ashley . . .” She petted the dress. “The prom is everything.” She bit her lip and blinked hard. “Just everything.”
“No waterworks,” Aunt Sharon warned. “You promised.”
If I walked over to Bonventura, I could join the army. Better yet, if I called the recruiter and invited him over to meet my family, I bet he’d give me a signing bonus because he’d feel so bad for me.
Aunt Sharon leaned forward to put out her cigarette. “This is going to be the best night of your life, Ash, swear to God. I can remember every minute of my prom.”
No, I shouldn’t walk. I should run screaming all the way to the recruiting office and beg the army to take me.
Aunt Joan lit two cigarettes and handed one to Aunt Sharon. “You’re going with TJ, right? This is going to be so freaking romantic. Is he going to wear a tux? He should get one of them tall hats, you know?”
Of course, with my luck, I’d get assigned to something like sweeping minefields. But I’d take it. I’d volunteer, even.
“You should have seen your mother’s face when she found out,” Aunt Sharon said. “She didn’t know if she should be pissed off or overjoyed.”
That comment hit a nerve. “How did you find out? Wait a minute. . . . ” I whirled around. “Steven!”
A voice answered from the kitchen. “It wasn’t me!”
“Relax, peanut,” Ma said. “It wasn’t your brothers. Your father told me the news. Last night.”
“Bless his heart,” said Aunt Joan.
“Bless his heart,” echoed Aunt Sharon.
“You shoulda heard her,” added Aunt Linny. “As soon as she finds out: ‘Ash needs a dress. Omigod, Ash needs a dress. Thank you, Jesus, she needs a dress.’”
“Linny called us right away,” Aunt Joan said. “We rounded up all the prom dresses we could.”
“Bridesmaid dresses, too,” added Aunt Sharon. “And shoes. And my friend Carmen has a closet of purses, oh my God, you should see it.”
“Where is Dad?” I asked. “I need to kill him.”
Aunt Linny petted the green dress again. “The hardware store. He’s on a roll, he said. Wants to finish the basement for you. When he’s not being an asshole, your father is a truly wonderful human being.”
Aunt Joan reached for another doughnut. “He told my Joe that he’s got your ride all lined up. Slick, he said.”
“Enough yakking,” Ma said. “Sharon, pull the blinds. Ashley, try these on. You can change in the dining room.”
“But Maaa,” I whined.
Four sets of steely blue eyes pinned me up against the wall.
85.
Somewhere in America there was a girl who had nobody. No mother getting buzzed on chocolate doughnuts and secondhand smoke. No aunts who kept their prom dresses twenty years too long. No relatives or friends of relatives or neighbors of relatives who heard that the girl was going to a prom and had a sister whose daughter went last year and I’m sure we could borrow the gown, because you never know, it could fit.
I hoped that girl knew how lucky she was.
86.
The first dress I was handed came from somebody named Stacey Wiggans, whose mother worked with Aunt Joan. I never met Stacey Wiggans, but I’ll know her if I see her on the street. She has boobs the size of Alaska.
I zipped it up and stepped into the living room. Ma took one look and said, “I can see all the way to your belly button. Take it off.”
Aunt Linny handed me something black and velvet. “Try this.”
“Black is for funerals,” I said.
“Black is sophisticated; don’t argue.”
I took off the Stacey Wiggans Big Boob Special and shim mied into the black dress.
“Ta-da!”
Aunt Joan snorted smoke out her nose. Ma cracked up. “Okay, sophisticated you’re not. Next.”
Next was a blue polka-dot disaster, then came something that looked like a bedspread, then a gold shimmery thing that wouldn’t go over my hips, and then a dark purple beaded strapless that was pretty except that it fell down every time I raised my arms.
“Again with the boobs,” sighed Aunt Sharon.
A black dress with white stripes around the hem made me look like a lounge singer. The brown and gold thing made me look like a stripper. The pink one that came with matching gloves reminded me too much of a confirmation dress. There were two skintight dresses that looked like mermaid costumes, without the tails. I refused to touch Aunt Joan’s collection from the seventies. You looked at the dresses and you thought “bonfire.”
Ma unzipped a garment bag. “This one,” she said. “The color is right for you.”
She was right. It was a soft shade of dark green, the color of the leaves in the park when the sun is going down. The fabric was lightweight velvet. I stepped into it and held my breath as I worked it up over my thighs (should not have eaten ice cream for the last month) and my butt (too much pizza). It was tight, sexy tight.
“Turn around,” Ma said. “Let me zip you.”
I pushed all the air out of my lungs and pretended I had a twenty-three-inch waist.
Ma zipped. “Suck it in.”
“It is sucked in.”
She pulled the zipper up a little farther.
“Smush your ribs together.”
“What?”
She grunted and zipped me all the way up.
“It’s a little tight,” I squeaked.
“You’ll lose weight,” Ma said. “Turn around.”
“Ooooooooh,” said the aunts.
“This is definitely the one, honey,” Ma said.
I looked down. The dress fit like green velvet skin. I had a waist and hips and boobs, and it didn’t show the fat on the tops of my thighs that I hate more than anything, even my freckles.
“Ooooooooh,” said the aunts again.
Ma checked me out head to toe. “You might need a different date.”
“Why?” I asked.
“TJ Barnes is not good enough for that dress. You need George Clooney.”
“That’s sick. He’s older than Dad.”
“You know what I mean. Twirl around.”
I stepped over the shoe pile and—rii-iiii-iiip.
The aunts gasped.
“Oh, well,” Ma said. “Easy come, easy go.”
“Give it here,” Aunt Linny said. “I’ll fix it.”
Ma unzipped me and studied the tear. “It’s hopeless, Lynn. It’s not a seam, the fabric tore across her ass. Take a look.” She handed it to Aunt Linny, who sighed. The perfect green dress was dead.
Ma pointed to a pink bridesmaid’s dress. “That one has a stain, but we can get it out.”
I dragged the pink thing into the dining room and pulled it on. “I’m done after this, Ma.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. Show me the dress.”
I inhaled so I could pull the zipper to the top and stepped into the archway.
“You have a very unusual figure, know that?” Aunt Sharon said. “I never noticed that before.”
Aunt Linny squinted at me. “She’s built like her father’s family.”
“How many days till this prom again?” Aunt Joan asked.
“Six,” I said.
Aunt Sharon finished her doughnut. “You’re screwed, honey.”
87.
There was a knock on the front door. It opened and Nat stuck in her head. “Hey. You ready?”
“Natalia, come in!” Ma said. “You remember my sisters.”
Nat stepped in, her grandmother close behind. “Hello, everyone.”
The aunts said their hellos and nodded at Grandma.
“You look busy,” Nat said.
“We’re finding her a prom dress,” Aunt Joan said.
“Don’t laugh,” I warned.
“And shoes,” added Aunt Linny. “You got to have the right shoes.”
“I am not trying on other people’s shoes,” I said. “That is too nasty to think about.”
Nat eyed the shoe pile. “You got any fives in there?”
“Be my guest,” Aunt Joan said.
While Nat pawed through the shoes, Grandma squeezed between Ma and Aunt Linny on the couch. Grandma leaned over and stared at the rip Aunt Linny was trying to fix. She muttered, snagged the sewing out of Aunt Linny’s hands, and tore out the stitches with her teeth.
“Hey,” Aunt Linny said.
“Leave her alone,” said Ma. “It’s easier that way.”
Nat held up a pair of silver stilettos. “I like these. Is that the dress you’re gonna wear, Ash?”
I pulled down the zipper. “Shut up.”
“You should see her in that one.” Aunt Joan pointed to the bedspread dress hanging off the entertainment center. “She looked like a vision.”
I stripped off the pink thing. “A vision you get after a night of Jell-O shots.”
“What do
you know about Jell-O shots?” Aunt Joan asked.
“Nothing,” Ma said. “If she knows what’s good for her, she knows nothing. Put on another dress, honey.”
“That was the last one.”
“What?”
“I tried them all on, Ma, I’m done. Show’s over.”
“I’ll call my friend Marnie. She has a huge closet.”
“No, you won’t. I don’t need a dress. I’ll wear my black skirt or khakis.”
“Anything but khakis.” Nat inspected the heel on a pair of red open-toe sandals. “How much does it cost to dye shoes?”
“Who dyes shoes?” I asked. “I’ll wear my black skirt and I’ll help, but you’re wasting your time trying to find me a dress.”
Grandma handed the green velvet dress back to Aunt Linny.
“Will you look at this,” Aunt Linny said, holding the repaired rip up to the light. “She’s good.”
Nat buckled the red sandals on her feet and stood up. “She was a seamstress in Russia.”
“She was famous,” Ma said. “Got sent to jail.”
“They sent her to jail for her sewing?” Aunt Linny asked. “And I thought Republicans were tough. Watch it, honey. You could hurt yourself on those things.”
Nat teetered dangerously on the high heels and grabbed for the back of the recliner. “She was in prison because of politics.”
“That sounds like the Republicans,” Aunt Linny said.
“Don’t start,” Aunt Joan said. “The Democrats are no better.”
I pulled on my shorts. “We gotta go. Nat and me are going to the mall.”
Nat wobbled from the recliner to the couch. “Grandma’s coming, too.”
“What do you need at the mall?” Ma asked.
“Prom donations,” I said.
“Like what?”
“Decorations, lights, tablecloths, favors.” I put on my shirt. “Pretty much anything that will make it feel like it’s not a middle school dance.”
“So where are you going?”
“King of Prussia.”
Prom Page 9