“It’s too far, I’m gonna fall!” I screamed, looking down some twenty-five feet below me.
“Wait two seconds and I’ll come and get you,” she shouted back as she looked at herselt in the mirror, comparing shades.
Bonwit Teller on Chestnut Street had the best jewelry sale bin. the game would be to see how many bracelets and necklaces I could get on my body before Arlene noticed. “I can’t take you anywhere !” she’d shriek. “Now, take those off!”
Strawbridge & Clothier had a Snoopy Barn, and my Snoopy doll needed a new pilot’s jacket so he could face the Red Baron. Arlene felt instead that I needed new undershirts. My mother had insisted she was in too much of a hurry to get into a dressing room, but to this day I’m sure it wouldn’t have been such a time-consuming ordeal to walk the two feet into privacy. Instead she insisted, “Oh, come on, no one is even looking” as she took my shirt off in the middle of the children’s section and shamed me by exposing my eight-year-old nipples to almost all of the other kids from Belmont Hills Elementary who were shopping with their mothers that day, especially . and most regrettably Robby Weinberg, my third-grade crush.
The worst, though, the most wretched and evil of all the department stores in the Philadelphia area that I hated above all, was the John Wanamaker’s in Wynnewood. While I disliked the store for its gray walls and lack of pertness in the children’s section, it was to become the birthplace of a fear that still affects me to this day
My mother needed some new pantyhose on our way home from school one day, so she dragged my brother Michael and me into the store with her. By the time my mother got really into the collection of panty hose as she was wont to do, my brother and I eyed our savior from boredom ... the escalator.
Here was the plan for the big race: Climb the escalators two floors up to the housewares section, do one lap around the Le Creuset pots, touch the blue pot, and head back down to the ground floor. The finish line would be the mannequin of the lady torso wearing the shaper bra. Touch that, and you would be the winner. Since Michael was three years older than me, I would have the advantage. Michael would be climing up the downstairs escalator (the wrong direction) and I would take the upstairs escalator. We would, of course, switch on the way down so that I would again have the advantage.
The 1977 First Annual John Wanamaker escalator competition was on. Michael and I charged up both escalators, and even with my advantage, Michael took the early lead.
“Come on!” Michael shouted to me, slowing down and trying to make the race more even. Michael has always loved competition.
With all the strength I had in my eight-year-old body, before the escalator stair had time to compact under the rubber track, I surged forth. It was then that tragedy struck.
Leaping forward to get off the escalator to the second floor, I was suddenly shot back. The hem of my right bell-bottom jeans leg had lodged itself inside the rubber track, locking me in place and getting even tighter as the escalator continued to roll.
I let out a shrill cry of agony, calling for my brother, who at this point was more than halfway up the down escalator to the third floor.
I could see Michael from the top of the up escalator streaming down to my aid (and, just in case it was a trick on my part, getting to the housewares section and touching the blue Le Creuset pot before coming to my rescue).
By this point, a small crowd had gathered. A security guard tried to stop the escalator to no avail as I screamed on. Michael pulled at my pants to no benefit. My only hope was a superhero of the supreme kind and, luckily, she had finally finished picking out the pantyhose she needed.
“OH FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!” I heard from the crowd, “WHAT HAVE YOU GOTTEN YOURSELVES INTO NOW?”
I cried out in response to that familiar voice and called, “Mommy, Mommy!” As I saw her cross face appear through the crowd, she threw down her John Wanamaker bags, pushed my brother aside, and positioned her arms under my shoulders, yanking me so hard that the bell-bottom jeans slid halfway down to my knees. Then she shook me from side to side until the jeans fell off altogether, leaving me pantsless. Luckily, Robby Weinberg was nowhere in sight. I threw my arms around my mother as the crowd cheered. Just then, the security guard was able to stop the escalator, so she yanked the pants from the conveyor belt, fully intact. Then she looked at my brother and me and shouted, “A MOMENT’ S PEACE, THAT’S ALL I’M ASKING! ONE MOMENT!”
For the next few weeks, every time we went to a department store, my mother would stop me before we walked in and say “Now, look, I need one thing in here. The whole process should take no more than ten minutes; we’ll be in and out. If we make it in less, you get ice cream; if you start to cause trouble, I’m going to feed you to the escalator!” I had no choice but to accept the offer.
Without my usual modus operandi to make up for my boredom I began to help my mother pick out clothes and makeup and jewelry. Slowly, I started to enjoy it. She liked it when I told her I hated a particular eye shadow she was trying on, or when I told her she looked like a princess in a sequined Albert Nipon strapless dress. Pretty soon, asking my opinion about clothes was no longer her way of keeping my interest so I wouldn’t get into trouble—mine was an opinion that counted. This way of life continues to this day. It was also where an endless bond began.
In the early eighties, while shopping in Bloomingdale’s during a day trip to Manhattan, walking over those black-and-white-checked tiles, following my mother back and forth and back and forth, I came across a pair of incredibly cool Fiorucci electric sky blue jeans. They were soooo Debbie Harry and I was sure if my mom just tried them on, she’d see they’d be soooo Arlene Halpern. My ten-year-old begging pursued throughout the various departments. “I just want to see what they look like,” I nagged, and as my pleading began to grind on her nerves, she grabbed the pants from me and threw them over her other tweed and turtleneck possibilities.
Once inside the dressing room, Arlene, who had always gone for Anne Klein classic suit looks rather than Fiorucci trends, grabbed her first item, an Ellen Tracy camel colored skirt that went with a white brocaded top. My anxiousness couldn’t take it anymore.
“No, try these first,” I said, handing her the jeans.
Begrudgingly, Arlene put her first leg into the pants. It was already clear that they fit like they were made for her. Visions of my mother picking me up from school in front of all the kids in her Fiorucci electric sky blue jeans danced in my head. Everyone would be so jealous that my mom was obviously the chic mom. She watched herself as closely as I did in the mirror as she slipped her other leg into the pants Maybe she’d even give up the forest green Oldsmobile and get a Datsun 280ZX or a Porsche like Aunt Gail Sernoff had. My mother held in her stomach as she buttoned and zipped up the jeans. There she was: Arlene Rudney Halpern, the with-it, most modish dressed mom in the entire Main Line suburbs of Philadelphia. With those pants, she wouldn’t even care anymore when my brothers and I begged for Cheez Doodles and SpaghettiOs She would be too busy fending off those talent scouts who wanted her to come out to Hollywood and be in a movie with Burt Reynolds or, dare I even dream, be the fourth of Charlie’s Angels.
“You know what,” she mumbled to herself within the confines of our minute dressing room, “after three kids,” she continued, turning to catch a glimpse of her butt, “I could still wear a pair of pants like these.”
“YOU HAVE TO GET THEM!” I screamed, causing a woman a few doors down to let out a “Shhhh,” as if we were in a library or something.
“Oh, please.” Arlene grimaced, unbuttoning my dreams and slipping off our glamorous future. “I’m a doctor’s wife.”
We left Bloomingdale’s that day with my mother’s purchase of two turtleneck sweaters and a corduroy blazer. Whether it was my perseverance or Arlene’s realization that she had been suffering from an acute case of negative body image, she purchased for herself a pair of Gloria Vanderbilt jeans, much to my euphoric delight.
Two weeks later, Arlene was sho
pping in a plant store and tripped over a mislaid garden hose. As she fell to the concrete, the force of her fall tore holes in both knees of the jeans. My mother had chipped the bone in her right kneecap and was forced to wear a cast for six weeks. When I saw her throw the ruined jeans into the trash, I feared the worst; there would never be flash in her wardrobe again. The day she got the cast off, however, we went directly to Saks, where she bought a brand-new pair of Calvin Klein jeans. My opinion had counted.
These days, the Los Angeles Barneys department store is my home away from home. I love to arrive at Barney Greengrass, the restaurant inside Barneys, at 1:10 sharp to meet a friend for lunch. One o‘clock lunch is the busiest time at Barney Greengrass, and I need to see who’s lunching with whom and who’s wearing what. That’s why I like to get there a fashionable ten minutes late. Dressed in my most au courant (without looking like I mulled over outfits for an hour prior to lunch, of course), I send a kiss over to someone sitting at one table, tell another how fabulous she looks and ask if she’s lost weight, and finally sit down at my table, where the gossip comes to me.
After lunch, I consider it exercise when I take the long winding staircase through the floors of the department store. I stop at each department and take a once around: first floor, shoes and accessories; second floor, women’s couture; fourth floor, men’s ready-to-wear; and so on. Most people eat mashed potatoes or slip on some flannel pajamas to feel those bygone days of childhood comfort. The Los Angeles Barneys is my version of mashed potatoes and meat loaf.
Sometimes I see something that would look perfect for my mother, so I call her back in Philadelphia on my cell phone and describe it to her.
“It’s frilly, but it’s not. It’s simple yet frilly,” I tell her.
“It’s not too trendy, is it?” she asks.
“Trust me.”
“Send it out,” she tells me.
My mother and I don’t wear the same styles; we don’t share the same tastes, but we know which pants or skirt or blouse says “Arlene” or “Adena,” or “the new and improved Arlene” or “Adena.” It is a language that only she and I can speak, a bond between my mother and grandmother that began many years before I was born, which in turn was passed on to me.
The Devil Wore Treetorns
have the perfect solution to ending wars: Send the most popular tween girls from middle schools around the world to duke it out. Rather than using guns, explosives, and heavy artillery, all these girls need, these days, is a computer with IM capabilities, a phone, and most important, the must-have fashion item in the m ust-have color.
Back in my tween days we had the phone, scraps of notebook paper passed around a classroom and, of course, our vicious mouths to torture one another. Although I didn’t know it at the time, I now consider myself fortunate to have lived in that era, given the advancements in tween torment technology We didn’t have to have the right Prada bags or Manolo Blahniks that would have forced our parents to take second jobs. In 1981, we had ribbon belts and penny loafers and Levis and Treetorns with the boomerang logo or Stan Smith Adidas (short for “All Day I Dream About Sex,” we’d tease one another) with the black three-stripe accents and shoelaces with blue whales or green frogs printed on them.
I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life in the fall of 1980. I complained to my parents that my feet were in pain. My parents took me to an orthopedic surgeon friend of my dad’s who said that I had flat feet, which required a higher arch than my usual sneakers could provide. After the visit to the doctor, and much to my chagrin, my mother bought me deep blue Puma sneakers with a deep yellow swoosh logo. To be honest, I didn’t hate the sneakers. I actually thought they were kind of cute. I knew, however, that this was not the right fashion look that was required in the sixth grade at Welsh Valley Middle School. Curses to my feet for not allowing me to wear the white Treetorn tennis sneakers with the boomerang logo like all the other girls had. I had an inkling there would be trouble when I wore the Pumas to school. Had I known the pain I would have gone through as a result of having the wrong sneakers, I would have chosen the foot pain.
“Are they your brother’s hand-me-downs or something?” Fern Schwartz, head of the popular girls, asked one day as I gave her an idol-worshipping hello in the hallway.
“They’re so retarded-looking,” Ali Rose commented.
“I know,” I said with a laugh. “They’re so ugly, but I have a corrective problem and when my parents took me to the hospital, the doctor said I couldn’t wear anything else,” I explained, hoping my doctor’s excuse would work.
“So you’re a retard and you need special shoes,” Anna Klem concluded as she laughed with the other girls. “Duh! Everyone knows that!”
This was what I meant in the beginning. Send these girls to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Anyone would beg to surrender under this torture.
“LOOK, SHOES ARE SHOES!” My mother had shouted, putting her Stan Smith tennis shoe—clad high-arched foot down when I refused to go to school the next morning. “YOU CAN’T WEAR WHAT ALL THE OTHER GIRLS ARE WEARING! YOU HAVE FLAT FEET! NOW, GET TO SCHOOL!”
“But I can‘t,” I said through real tears. “Fern Schwartz and the other girls said I was retarded because I didn’t have the shoes that they did.”
“WELL, YOU TELL THEM THAT THEY’RE RETARDED BACK!” My mother was never good with the comebacks.
That afternoon, Ali Rose drew a picture of me and passed it around math class. My blue Pumas in relation to her depiction of my body were four times the size. The caption on the top of the page read I’M RETARDO HALPERN, AND MY DOCTOR SAYS I HAVE TO WEAR THESE GAY SNEAKERS.
If this girl couldn’t have taken down Mussolini, I don’t know who could.
By Friday night, we got four phony phone calls between the hours of five and seven asking for “Retardo Halpern.” At 8 p.m., someone had ten large pizzas sent to my house. I was a mess from the abuse. I sat in my room, crying in fear of what would happen to me on Monday. By Saturday I was comatose.
At about eleven that Saturday morning, I was still in bed in the fetal position, clutching my Snoopy doll with my head under the covers when my father, Barry, knocked on the door.
“Do you want to talk about who you think sent the pizzas?” he asked, taking a seat on my bed.
“No, thank you,” I politely declined.
“Mom said some girls were being mean about your sneakers. Do you want to tell me who they were?”
“No, thank you,” I politely declined again.
I could sense Barry was at a loss for words.
“Hey,” he said with a little more energy as he rubbed my back through the comforter, “your brother and me are going into Ar-den-more to get a new net for the basketball hoop. Wanna come with us?”
“No, thank you,” I politely declined again.
“Come on,” he said, taking away the covers, “I think you need a present. Isn’t there something you want?”
“No, thank you.”
“I’m sure there must be something you want,” my dad almost begged, “what about that purse that Tracy had? I know you said you liked it. Come on, come with your brother and me.”
Truth was, I kind of did want a Bermuda bag like my friend Tracy Soss had, with that cool short wooden handle and interchangeable purse covers. Tracy went to a different school and told me that everyone at the Shipley School had one. “All you do is unhook these buttons,” she’d said, referring to the ones attached to the wooden handles, “and then they have all different colors and patterns that you can get. You can wear a different bag every day.” When I asked my mother about it repeatedly, she said, “Maybe,” but we never got around to it.
Ardmore, Pennsylvania, is a town outside Philadelphia, which to us suburban Phillites is the shopping mecca of the Main Line. I’d always called it Ar-den-more, which I thought was its actual name rather than the two syllable Ard-more, which became a Halpern in-joke and the only way we’ve ever referred to it to this day. The shoppi
ng areas are divided into two sections, which, when I was a kid, were only allowed to be visited on separate occasions because Lancaster Avenue, the busy thoroughfare that divided the two sections, was too dangerous to be crossed without parental supervision. This actually never made sense, since Lancaster Avenue didn’t actually cross the two sections, but we listened anyway. “Up Lancaster” was the phrase used to refer to the upper section, formally called Ardmore West, and the better-suited shopping area for the five dollars your parents gave you to use in the six or so hours they dropped you off.
Everyone from the nerds to the popular kids went Up Lancaster on the weekends, as there was never much to do being a suburban kid. My best childhood friends, not quite the most popular, but certainly not nerds, were Amy Chaikin and Julie Pelagatti. We’d spent countless Saturdays there shopping and flirting with the sixth-grade boys we liked at the time.
The first stop Up Lancaster was what had become the Birdcage of my tween days to see and be seen—the Roy Rogers fast food restaurant, for hamburgers, french fries, and gossip:
“Marci Kleinman went to second with Warren Patruli in the woods behind Mr. Frank’s English class,” Brooke Lewis whispered to us one day.
“What a slul,” we concluded.
Next we’d hit Sam Goody for 78s of Donna Summer’s “On the Radio” or Shaun Cassidy’s “Da Doo Run Run.” Baskin-Robbins 31 Flavors was next door for chocolate-mint ice cream; a hobby shop for a paint-by-numbers set; the leather goods store to buy scrap strips of leather with your initials embossed into them; the MAB paint store to buy white cloth paint hats for twenty-five cents; a Wawa convenience store for Cokes and Cheetus; and our favorite, the Crystal Collage, a gift shop that sold Smurf figurines and pens with fuzzy pink or orange troll-like “hair” and glued-on plastic eyeballs on the tips. Fern Schwartz once told us that we could sit at her table in the cafeteria if we stole a Bonne Bell Lip Smackers from Crystal Collage for her. I was all ready to do it, but Amy Chaikin, forever the one who would never do anything dishonest, was completely against it. Julie Pelagatti couldn’t have cared less either way. She was the only tween who didn’t care if she was in the popular group or not, a source of strength I have forever admired.
Target Underwear and a Vera Wang Gown Page 2