by Jana Casale
At CVS she bought the paper plates and a bag of Skittles. The girl who rang her up smiled a lot and chatted about nothing in a fast, breathless way. For whatever reason the interaction emboldened her, and on her way out of the store she smiled at the guy who wouldn’t look at her. He still didn’t look at her and she thought, Pretty soon the only men who will notice me will be the imaginary men by my bedside. By now it had stopped raining. Birds bathed in nearby puddles and she thought maybe she’d make lasagna that night, an ambition that was meritless in the context of having a broken dishwasher. I hope there’s a heaven for that pigeon. Her mind drifted to herself on her bike as a child, whizzing over suburban sidewalks, feeling accomplished and anticlimactic all at once. These are the things you do, she thought, ride bikes, tell time, save birds, and fix dishwashers.
On her walk home she’d pick a daisy for Annabelle, and six years later she’d make a daisy chain for Annabelle to wear in her hair; many years after that, as an old grandmother lying in bed, she’d open a book to a daisy pressed between the pages and remember her mother, who cut a fresh bouquet each spring. How unaware she was of the little pieces of her life that fit together seamlessly and without touching. It was as spectacular as anything, really, as little as it was anything at all.
CHAPTER 39
A Conversation with a Three-Year-Old About a Barbie
By the time Annabelle was three virtually everything she played with was pink. There were Barbies, and baby dolls of all kinds, castles, and dress-up clothing so sparkly that it shed glitter all over the house. Leda had tried very hard to avoid these sorts of cliché girl toys. All along she gave her other toy options. For her second birthday she gave her a truck and for Christmas a toolbox. Annabelle only ever used the truck as a way to pull Barbie’s horse trailer around. The toolbox was literally never opened. Every time Annabelle said her favorite color was pink or that she wanted to be a princess, Leda told her that girls can play with whatever they want and that they don’t have to be princesses and that there was nothing wrong with liking blue. Annabelle would always make the same kind of expression whenever her mother would say these things. It was as if she’d already considered everything she was saying and knew that her mother was wrong but was too polite to really get into a discussion with her about it.
“I don’t want her to be one of those girls,” Leda said to her mom.
“What girls? You loved pink too, you know, and you aren’t one of those girls. Let her be. She’ll grow out of it,” her mom said.
Leda reluctantly agreed with her mother. She too remembered when she loved pink and owned Barbies and more My Little Ponies than was reasonable, but she wanted something better for her daughter. She didn’t want her to ever question herself, or to think that prettiness was a thing. She wanted her to know she was perfect just as she was, free from the torment of “female” and whatever definition it bore.
Around Christmastime Leda took Annabelle with her to do some shopping. She had been running late this year and didn’t have any gifts for her parents yet, let alone for John. Generally she avoided shopping with the little one and tried to confine her trips to weekends, when John was home, but she just no longer had that option. Annabelle was being good for the trip. Partly it was just good luck on Leda’s behalf at picking a day when she’d slept through her entire nap, and part of it was bribery. She promised that if she were a good girl that they’d stop in at the toy store and pick out a toy. Annabelle was so enthralled by the prospect of this that she kept reminding her mother of her commitment.
“Mommy, I get a toy if I’m good, right?” she said.
“That’s right, honey.”
“And I’m being good, right?”
“Yes, you are, you’re being very good.”
Annabelle sat quietly as Leda raced through Target and then through Macy’s.
“Do you think Daddy would like a watch for Christmas?” she asked her.
“Hmm, probably not,” Annabelle said with judicious fairness.
Leda was amazed at how easy the whole trip was. It was the first time in being a mother that she could envision a future with her daughter where their relationship would grow beyond the neediness of babyhood.
“You’re such a big girl,” she marveled.
“I know,” Annabelle said. “I can dress myself.”
After she got the last few things on her list, she and Annabelle headed to the only toy store in the mall. The store was called Catch a Star and at one time had only sold educational toys and games, but over the last year or so Leda had noticed that the educational toy section had grown increasingly smaller, so much so that now it only inhabited one corner at the back of the store. The rest of the store was the typical plastic junk you could buy anywhere. It was disappointing, but it didn’t stop her from shopping there; after all, there was only so much social justice one could consider with a schedule that hardly allowed time to shower.
Annabelle was so excited that she was jumping instead of walking as her mom led her into the store.
“I get to get whatever I want!” she shrieked.
Leda walked around with her, looking at baby dolls of all kinds: one that peed and one that cried and another that crawled mechanically across the floor. Then there was a purse with a puppy in it and a magic wand with glitter floating around in some kind of liquid substance on the inside. Annabelle seemed very considerate of what she wanted. This was the first time that she’d ever been allowed to wander around the store like this and choose from anything (Leda knew that this promise held budget restrictions, but the good thing about three-year-olds was most of the time the toys they wanted weren’t all that extravagant). She tried to steer her to the educational toy corner, if only just for a second.
“Look at the wooden castle,” she said.
“Oh, yeah!” Annabelle said, and pulled down a drawbridge.
Leda carefully took the castle off the shelf and turned it around to look for a price. Education and wood generally weren’t cheap. Just as she found the price and thought, $49.99, who are they kidding? she heard Annabelle screech.
“Mommy! I want this!”
She turned from the castle to her daughter, who proudly stood holding a bright blond Barbie in a bikini. Where the child manifested this toy from in the few seconds she’d turned away was hard to imagine, but Annabelle was gleaming as if she’d found the prize.
“Why do you want that?” Leda asked her.
“’Cause it’s Barbie.”
“I know it’s Barbie…” She took the doll in her hand. Annabelle had many Barbies at home. Originally John’s older aunt had given her one for Christmas, to Leda’s dismay. She’d planned on taking the doll away at some point, but Annabelle was so excited by it that it seemed like more damage would be done by taking it from her than by just letting her have it.
“Okay, one Barbie is fine, but that’s it. I don’t want her to get any more than that,” she said to John on the car ride home from the family Christmas party, Annabelle asleep in the car seat with her Cinderella Barbie tucked under her arm. Of course she didn’t just have the one Barbie. She needed a brunette one, and then she asked for the Mulan one at Target, and was her mother really going to say no in the face of Barbie multiculturalism? And after that there was Barbie’s little sister who had a fluffy dog, and after that there really had to be at least one Ken (there ended up only ever being one Ken), and after that who even cared? All bets were off, but this bikini Barbie, this was something new. Generally the appeal (from what Leda was able to tell) had always been the elaborate dresses. Most of her Barbies were ready to go to some kind of ball or wedding or luau, so what the child saw in this nearly naked, freakishly proportioned figure she couldn’t understand.
“I know it’s Barbie, but why do you want this Barbie?”
“’Cause she’s pretty.” Annabelle answered her mother with such matter-of-factness that it was ha
rd to disagree with the child.
“Why do you think she’s pretty?”
“’Cause she just looks like she is.”
“But what about the castle?” Leda was ready to spend the $49.99 at this point.
“No, I really want her.”
“But look at all the fun you could have with the castle. You could open the drawbridge and put your toys inside.”
Annabelle paused and turned to the castle for a second with a look of great deliberation.
“Can I get both?” she asked.
“No, honey, you can’t get both today.” After all, Christmas was coming, and she still needed to get that watch for John.
“Okay, then the Barbie.”
Leda felt desperate. It was one of those times in motherhood when she just didn’t know how to reconcile her complicated idealism into the earthly concerns of her child. She wanted to explain it all to her, to tell her about patriarchy and beauty standards and how Barbie was really an image of oppression that held women back from being president and getting paid the same amount as men did.
She knelt down by Annabelle and held the doll out so they could both look at it.
“She is pretty, Anna-B, but you know, being pretty isn’t really an important thing to be. There are so many toys here that are important, and this toy is only about being pretty. It’s better to be important than pretty.”
Annabelle looked at her mother and back at the Barbie.
“Wouldn’t you rather have something important?” Leda said.
Annabelle thought for a moment. She pinched her bottom lip with her thumb and forefinger, a habit that was endearingly her own.
In another cluttered attempt Leda added, “You know you can do anything you want when you grow up, right? You don’t just have to be pretty?”
“Yeah,” Annabelle said.
“So do you want to go maybe look for something else?”
Annabelle looked upset, like under the right circumstance she could have started to cry. “No, I really want it.” She grabbed hold of the box as her mom started to move it away. “I just like it. ’Cause I like it for me,” she said.
“But don’t you want to like something important?”
“No, I just want to like what I like.”
Leda’s first reaction was to tell Annabelle that she couldn’t have the Barbie. That there would just have to be something else in the toy store and that that was the end of it, but then she thought about what her daughter had actually said. She knew that her child did just want to like what she liked. And really, wasn’t that enough? Was there anything wrong with her daughter sporting a hyper sense of femininity that was centered around princesses and ponies and bright floral bikinis? Could she really condemn the child for being herself and for just liking something? How was it fair to tell her that everything she loved wasn’t important? She tried to imagine a scenario where a mother of a boy would ever try to discourage him from his hyper sense of masculinity. Where she’d lean down and tell him what made him happy was garbage. Skateboards held on a higher pedestal than dance shoes. Legos over sewing. Leda couldn’t bear it. And most of all, looking down at her fiery little girl whose hair was a bit matted and whose expression was rich and thoughtful. Who woke up one morning and said, “Birds don’t really sing, do they? It’s not a song, really. That’s just something people call it.” Who didn’t like Cheerios under any circumstance and who could laugh at adult jokes even when she didn’t know the meanings because she could tell when something was really funny. She knew that her daughter would be whatever she wanted one day and no Barbie, even one so naked and disproportionate, could take that away from her.
“You know what? Let’s get you this Barbie,” Leda said. “She is very pretty. What’s her name?”
“Celia!”
“Well, I’m sure Celia will be very flattered. Come on, let’s go.”
That Christmas Annabelle got six new Barbies and a Barbie Dreamhouse. The following year she’d go as a policewoman for Halloween. When questioned on her choice she’d say, “I like to tell people what they should be doing. And my favorite color is blue.” Leda was happy for the change but a little sad also. Somewhere she hoped her daughter saw the everlasting strength inherent in the color pink. Somewhere she hoped she’d never forget it.
CHAPTER 40
Lunch with Elle
Leda hadn’t seen Elle in quite a few years. They hadn’t kept in touch all that much through text, so when Elle e-mailed her and asked if she wanted to meet up for lunch, she was surprised. From what she gathered through social media Elle had married a rich financier and had three children. She lived in New York and had a summer house on Martha’s Vineyard. The last time they’d really spoken she was working at a little-known, fairly prestigious literary magazine. At around this same time, Elle met her now husband. The last text conversation between them went:
LEDA: That’s so sweet! He sounds great!
ELLE: Yeah, he’s really cute! We’ve been spending every day together.
LEDA: That’s fantastic! What’s his name again?
Elle never responded.
It wasn’t all that surprising that Elle would meet a rich guy and be living in New York. Her family was very well-to-do, and she was so skinny, after all. Leda had suggested they meet at a nearby diner, but Elle insisted on a fancier restaurant downtown.
“What about the kids?” Leda texted.
“Sabrina can watch them,” Elle answered. “My nanny.”
“At the restaurant?” she asked.
“Probably at a park. Sabrina can take care of it. She’s fabulous.”
In the car ride over to meet Elle, Leda tried to explain to Annabelle that she’d be with three new kids and Sabrina for the afternoon.
“But where will you be?” Annabelle said.
“I’ll be at lunch with their mommy.”
“But shouldn’t they be with their mommy?” Annabelle said.
“Probably, my love. Probably.”
They walked into the restaurant, and she saw Elle and the three children immediately.
“Elle,” she said, waving.
“Is that the children?” Annabelle asked, holding tight to her mother’s hand.
“Yeah, let’s go say hi.”
“Oh my god! Leda!” Elle got up and opened her arms for a big hug.
Elle looked as skinny as she ever had. She was wearing a poncho that looked expensive and dwarfed her tiny frame. Her face was as pretty as Leda remembered it, although she’d aged considerably. No longer could she pass for nineteen, as she had so often complained about in her twenties.
“People always card me!” she’d say, holding a drink and looking chic, everyone marveling at her youth, saying things like, “Well, it’s no wonder! You have such a good figure, like a sixteen-year-old!” or “Your thighs are like my arms!”
There was no doubt now that Elle was not a teenager. Her face looked tired and gaunt. She had wrinkles around her eyes. She looked older than the thirty-some-odd years that she actually was.
“This must be your daughter!” Elle said.
“Yes, this is Annabelle.”
“Hi, Annabelle! These are my three, Brooklyn, Declan, and Rowan.” Sabrina stood holding Rowan, waiting expectantly for either orders or an introduction.
“Hi, everybody,” Leda said. “And you must be Sabrina?” She offered her hand out to the woman.
“Oh yes, so sorry. This is Sabrina. Sabrina, Leda. And Annabelle.”
“Hi,” Sabrina said, nodding in a passively dutiful way that was uncomfortable to be around. How does she have this person in her life and just tell her what to do as if she were nothing more than a capable houseplant? As if she weren’t just another woman, just like herself, trying to make this all work? Leda thought.
After a few seconds of chitchat with the c
hildren, Elle sent them all off on their way.
Leda hugged Annabelle tightly. “You’ll have fun,” she said, but she was more hopeful than sure in saying it.
Once the children were out the door the women sat down at the table together.
“Ugh, I’m so happy to have some free time away from them!” Elle said. “I love them, but please, I need time for myself.”
“Yeah,” Leda said, but she was missing Annabelle already.
“Have you ever been here before?”
“Yes, John and I came here for our anniversary last year.”
“Oh, that’s nice. How is John?”
“He’s great. Working hard as ever.”
“I haven’t seen him in ages. By the way, they have a great kale salad here. Are you into kale?”
“Not really, but I’ve heard it’s very healthy, isn’t it?”
“I’ve been doing nothing but kale juices in the morning for the last two weeks. It’s kind of like a cleanse but a bit more substantive. I’ll e-mail you the routine. It goes, kale, kale, kale, squash, kale, banana, repeat.”
“And these are all juices?”
“Yes, all juices. It helped me lose the baby weight from Rowan.”
“I’m sure you didn’t have any baby weight.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised. I gained about thirty pounds with each pregnancy. My thighs were chafing when I’d wear a skirt. Can you imagine?”
Leda wanted to explain that thirty pounds wasn’t a lot and that thigh gap was something that the vast majority of women never experienced, let alone during pregnancy, but instead she just nodded, silently gaining perspective on Elle and the ever-growing distance between them.
Both women ordered the kale salad, but Leda also ordered a mushroom flatbread pizza to eat alongside. She no longer starved in order to impress friends. It was one of the many privileges of maturity. Elle, on the other hand, didn’t touch her salad. Leda tried to count how many bites she actually took. It was three and a half (the half being if you counted when she sucked the lemon slice from her iced tea). Is anyone ever naturally thin? Leda wondered. Thin enough where their thighs are like arms?