Dress Codes for Small Towns

by Courtney Stevens

  A little after three, Davey tosses sixty, maybe seventy more roses on the desk and cusses a hand cramp. “This is starting to come together,” he announces. “In fact, this might be the best costume I’ve ever been part of. We could win. Billie, we could win.”

  “Of course you will,” says Woods, who knows less about LaserCon than I do.

  And because Davey has won five straight years, and Woods is never wrong, I believe them.

  28

  Tawny is not at church the next day. “See you Sunday” was a lie. I am super relieved. So is Dad. He doesn’t say it, but he shows a new couple with a baby to her regular seat, and that tells me he’s thinking about her.

  I use every boy in the Hexagon as a barricade between Janie Lee and me in the front pew. I do not speak to her or make eye contact, satisfying myself with only a single glance at her during the Lord’s Prayer. My silent treatment is unfair, but I just . . . I look up at my father, in his robe and stole, living the single greatest dream in his life, and I need him to know I’m trying.

  His eyes ricochet from her to me, and we both cower.

  Mash punches me in the thigh when I nearly nod off. This has not been a weekend for sleep.

  After lunch, we go door-to-door, selling KickFall tickets and spreading our Save the Harvest Festival message of joy. Me and Mash. Davey and Fifty—they, of course, argue over taking Fifty’s Jeep or Davey’s Camaro. We spend three hours driving every road in the county.

  Landscaping is the only item left to do at the elementary school, so Woods and Janie Lee spend that time transplanting chrysanthemums, daylilies, and Japanese anemones from behind Mr. Nix’s shed. When I asked Woods about the pairings, he said, “Mash and Davey are the grandsons of Tyson Vilmer. People need to see them.” But I hadn’t meant that. I meant, Thank you for giving me space.

  We sell five hundred KickFall tickets and recruit nearly enough people for two teams of twenty. The committee might not think we can do this, but the town is voting otherwise.

  At five o’clock, we straggle into Youth Suite 201, dirty and hopeful. I’m avoiding Janie Lee. She’s avoiding me. She walks straight through the door and takes the farthest seat from the couch where I’ve thrown my tired body down.

  “Let’s talks about our glads, sads, and sorries,” Dad begins.

  And when it is my turn, I lie. And in doing so, I realize, we all lie, every week. This exercise is nearly pointless. No one wants their minister to know the real shit. Especially not when the minister is your dad and he already knows the realest of real shit.

  He doesn’t call me on the lie, but he looks so sad.

  Scriptures are read. Prayers are said. The benediction is given, and I have survived another encounter with the living church, Scott McCaffrey, and Janie Lee Miller. She leaves without a good-bye.

  I am hurting her.

  And I hate myself for it.

  We should be pinging texts back and forth about how sorry we are or how awkward this is, but neither of us starts the conversation. I want to. What do I say? I promised my father I wouldn’t kiss you anymore. That would just make things worse.

  I slip from the youth room, down the steps, and into the sanctuary. The organ pipes are three stories tall, lining the back wall. The streetlights push through the stained glass, coloring the rose carpet a lighter shade of pink. The cavern-sized room is neither light nor dark, but something in between. So am I.

  I sit rather than kneel at the altar. I fold myself into a ball, ashamed of the stockpiling emotions. On the cushion beneath me is an embroidered scene of David and his slingshot. Smooth polished wood I once held as Dad touched water to my forehead is at my back. There are splotches of wine on the carpet dripped from the crusts of bread during communion. All these things are a comfort. Years of tradition and faith.

  I know what I want. I want to be able to look God in the face and say, “I did my best.” I want to know that kissing Gerry or Janie Lee didn’t change how He loves me. I want to be committed to Him and feel free to be myself. But I am terrified that I will always be trapped between my beliefs and my desires.

  “What do I do?” I ask. The question lifts above the banners to the top of the organ pipes and through the ceiling.

  Someone clears a throat on the other side of the altar. It’s chesty, old, female. “You forgive yourself.” From here, these words are a shadow behind the drum set and baby grand piano, but they are music.

  Maybe God is in this room. And this voice is somehow his proxy. Whoever it is leaves before I take my head from between my knees. But I have heard the answer I came here for?

  I pull out my phone and text Janie Lee. It’s not much, but it’s a starting place.

  Billie: I’m sorry I’ve been quiet.

  Three little dots appear on the screen, but whatever she’s typing, she does not press Send.

  Mom’s minivan waits on the curb to drive me home from youth group. She asks no questions. We have our own Save the Harvest Festival sign posted at the end of our driveway and a bumper sticker as well. Woods. Always coming up with something new and better.

  Mom deposits me in the garage and returns to her studio. We often retreat into cracks. But she shows up thirty minutes later and lands on the fridge. Her perfume wafts over the smell of epoxy. She sips her Diet Coke through a straw. My mother is dainty. Small-boned. Pixie-ish. She has steel-gray eyes and a hard-lined nose that’s easy to draw because it’s so damn straight. I look more like Dad in the face, but I have that same nose.

  After several moments of silent sipping, she asks what I’m working on.

  This question is taboo among the artists at our house. Her presence is nearly taboo as well. See, hear, and speak no evil. The spare bedroom is her studio. I don’t go there; she doesn’t come here. My choice. Art is subjective, and I’ve never been able to stomach her opinions. Every suggestion she makes, I take. Eventually, we realized that her chin over my shoulder meant I’d never create anything uniquely mine.

  “Costumes,” I tell her.

  “You want some help?”

  I raise my safety glasses. “Seriously?”

  “Sure.”

  “Dad put you up to this?” I ask unfairly.

  Dad rides everyone about something. The church members about holiness. Me about clothes, behavior, attitude. Mom about spending time with me. By his thinking, I’d be more like her—an improvement—if she spent more time and had more influence on me. He can’t see that I’m already like her on the inside. His life exists in human exchanges, physical bartering. Mom and I, well, we exist in much more incorporeal space. I don’t measure her love in hours spent with me. I measure it in hours spent understanding me.

  “Oh, honey, Dad doesn’t put me up to anything anymore. Tell me what I can do to help,” she says.

  Tell me I’m going to be okay.

  The papier-mâché designs are in top form. Davey’s shoulders fit easily inside Beast’s coat. I’ve installed zippers for Belle’s dress, my dress. The top is an exact pattern of her yellow Disney outfit; the bottom ruffles to the floor. It remains to be seen whether it can be worn more than once. Papier-mâché is stiff. I imagine I’ll be able to get it on but will be cutting it off.

  The remaining work is tedious.

  “All these have to be covered,” I tell her. I’ve written what textile goes where on the papier-mâché. A color-by-number costume. Blue roses on Beast’s coat. Yellow Starbursts up the lapel. Soft yellowed book pages over most of Belle’s dress. The Hexagon got everything prepped, but I have the laborious task of sticking everything down and Mod Podging the hell out of it.

  Mom strokes the fur pieces from Mr. Nix’s coat and the slippers. I’ve sewn paws and claws that look relatively authentic. “Halloween?” she asks.

  “LaserCon.”

  I had a pediatrician before we moved here, last name was something I couldn’t pronounce. One night when I had a severe stomachache that Dad was positive presented as appendicitis, he bundled me in a blanket and tore o
ff to the doctor’s house. They laid me out on his kitchen counter, between the KitchenAid mixer and the toaster. The doctor ran his hands under warm water, and then pressed very gently around on my tummy, asking, Elizabeth, does this hurt, sweetie? Mom does something akin to that now. Presses gently. “You doing okay?” Press. “I see your brain working. You’re struggling.” Press. “You can talk to me.” Just like with that doctor, I am deeply aware that she does not intend to hurt me.

  While we glue and cut and trim, the story is pieced together too. My feelings for Davey. Me kissing Janie Lee. Tawny and Dad seeing. Me being so damn confused. Surely Dad has already told her, so it doesn’t matter what I say.

  I feel emptied out.

  She adds a Starburst line to Beast’s coat. I ask a question. “Are you angry with me?”

  The glue pauses midair. “Billie, I have a million emotions right now. Anger isn’t one of them.”

  “Disappointment?”

  “No, sweetie.”

  Her lack of judgment opens a door I assumed would be dead-bolted. “What do you think I should do?”

  “In this case, your life is your art, and no one, no one but you can tell you how to finish this piece. You just have to live it and see how it turns out. And if you don’t like it, you do what I do when I’m working on a canvas that goes south.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You paint over it,” she says. Such a simple solution.

  “Will the church really let me do that?”

  “This has nothing to do with the church. God? Sure. Ask Him what He wants if that’s something you wish to do. But He and the church are not necessarily the same on this.”

  We work alongside each other for several more hours. I haven’t said much since I said everything. We’re okay with the silence, semi-okay. “You really don’t care who I date?” I ask.

  “I care that you find someone kind and loving. Someone who won’t let you hide. Someone who pushes you to be a better person. But there is nothing I’ve seen in Janie Lee or Davey that worries me.”

  “But Dad said—”

  “You’re not talking to Dad. Baby, I went to art school. I have many friends who have chosen many different lifestyles. They just don’t live here.”

  I hadn’t thought of it that way. I argue, “You married a preacher. Do you really think it doesn’t bother him?”

  “I married a preacher, not a saint,” she says. “My faith in God is useless without trust. Maybe that’s naïve, but I believe things will work out. With this costume. With Davey. With Janie Lee. With the Corn Dolly and the Harvest Festival. Even with your father and the church and the fire. All you have to do is be yourself.”

  “I don’t know how to do that anymore.”

  “Sure you do. You’ve always known yourself really well. But someone’s made you doubt that. I want my kid back. The one who set the church on fire.”

  I stop gluing. “You yelled at me about that.”

  She tsks. “It’s a metaphor. You do you, sweetie. The rest will take care of itself.”

  By midnight, the costumes are finished, and I can feel my fire coming back.

  29

  Today is the first day of LaserCon: the day we win a thousand dollars.

  We rendezvous at Molly the Corn Dolly at seven a.m. Then we pile into Woods’s mom’s Suburban.

  In every other yard we pass, there is a promotional sign for the Harvest Festival. Woods has outdone himself. I’ve stolen him for moral support. I’ve stolen them all. Woods and Fifty in the front. Janie Lee and Mash in the middle. Davey and me in the back. Belle and Beast in the cargo hold.

  When we decided to skip school as a group, Woods had Doc Robbins write Janie Lee an excuse.

  “But what about you all?” she asks, accepting a powdered doughnut from Mash.

  “Hell.” Fifty giggles, steals the doughnut from her hand. “We can’t all have heavy menstrual problems.”

  “It does not say that.” She unfolds the doctor’s note, reads for herself, and crams it into a pocket of her backpack.

  Woods is turning onto the interstate, admitting he suffered from an unfortunate loss of imagination when he spoke with Doc Robbins last night. Janie Lee is as red as a channel bass, and we’re all ripping with laughter. Sounds about right to me. Sounds much better than the awkwardness of this past week.

  I am not worried about my excuse to Otters Holt High School. One for Dad? Well . . . that could be a problem. He can always be a problem. Especially right now, when he is eagle-eyeing my life for signs of Janie Lee. I could have told Mom, should have after she helped me with the costumes, but no one else told their mom. Which meant I stole a piece of bacon from the plate this morning and said I’d see her later. She’d told me she was excited about KickFall tomorrow, and I’d said, “Me too.” All truths.

  Pastureland becomes fast food exits become Nashville. The Music City Center wows from the interstate. The wavy roof sits low on the skyline, well beneath the Batman building, just as imposing. It is two, no, three blocks wide. Woods exits.

  I am unprepared for the overflow of LaserCon attendees. Inhabitants of Middle-earth, post-apocalyptic Georgia, Asgard, and many more crowd the sidewalk. Three stormtroopers and a herd of guys and girls dressed as characters from 300 draw the attention of every vehicle on the road.

  They are all a thing of beauty. A world apart from Otters Holt and Nashville.

  “Crazy-ass people,” Fifty mutters.

  “What a wonderment,” Woods says.

  “These are my people,” Davey comments quietly.

  Janie Lee steals a glance in my direction. I wink. She winks back. All week long we have been attempting normalcy. Not postkiss us. Not kiss us. The us that has existed from the moment I hauled her ass out of Kentucky Lake. It’s been a bit like climbing Everest, but the dual winks are a good sign we’re coming back.

  Police barricades block the front of the convention center. “I think, children, I’ll have to drop you off and park,” Woods announces. “Can I trust you not to get into too much trouble?”

  Horns blare, urging him to pull away from the curb. Everyone hops out. I shoulder two duffel bags of accessories and Davey balances Belle and Beast on the sidewalk. “Text us,” I say to Woods.

  He’s already pulling away from the curb, driving as if he knows where he’s going when he most certainly does not.

  Gerry and Thom’s last text swears they are heading our way. This convergence excites me. We are in a hive of superheroes. People who must meet here every year are hugging and dueling and drinking and striking poses. Three Dragon Ball Z friends chat about attending a manga session. A gang of Marvel characters talking up Stan Lee, who is rumored to be attending. Every third or fourth person is a Potterhead. There are no ages, no genders. Bodies are hidden completely, or totally exploited. That’s the peculiar thing that happens when you pretend to be someone else: you are someone else.

  I get to be Elizabeth McCaffrey, born 1999—d. ? R.I.P.: Princess. Who the hell saw that coming? But I think I can do it. And it will not be like Billie Wears a Dress to School Day. I’m doing this because I want to. Not because I feel obligated. And I made this costume myself.

  A deep, booming voice calls out, “Hey, McCaffrey, who you gonna call?” The yelling Ghostbuster is Thom. Gerry’s dressed as Lara Croft, and damn. She’s dyed her green hair as black as Janie Lee’s. I make the introductions.

  Davey is easy today. Relaxed. He has none of the pensive energy from the time when we didn’t know how to navigate each other. We are in his playground, and he is confident.

  Thom puts Beast under his arm, chides me with mock-worry. “I’m not sure you’ve done enough work on these.”

  We all laugh. I want to thank Thom for saying this. For making Davey smile so broadly.

  There’s so much concrete. So much gray. Even though I am happy to be among the mill of humanity, I can’t imagine living here in all this noise. Davey will probably live here again soon, and I’ll return to the tre
es and the majesty of Kentucky Lake. I hope.

  “You okay?” Davey asks.

  “Yes,” I say. “I’m excited.”

  “Belle and Beast are amazing,” he says for the millionth time.

  We follow Thom, juggling the duffel bags while Thom calls over his shoulder for Davey to come along and be useless inside the convention center. Woods knocks into me—he’s just joined us without needing a text—and says, “I like him.” So I say, “Who doesn’t?” Because it’s true. With their combined forces, Thom and Woods could take over a small country by lunch.

  We check in and register for the costume contest. Fairly simple rules of engagement. Davey and I are assigned a photo booth time when we will strike a pose. The photo will be judged. Fifty candidates will be chosen to appear in the ballroom. Showdown at high noon. Our assigned photo booth time is 10:45. Twenty-five minutes from now. There is no time to waste.

  We get cracking, taking over a family bathroom on the second floor to assemble our twosome. Gerry tells me, “You’re gonna be so effing hot in this. You’re like one of those exploding stars.” I like to watch Woods watching her, analyzing how she became the creature she is. Janie Lee nudges his arm so he’ll stop staring, and Gerry tells them both that she is taking my boots while I’m wearing Mom’s terrible yellow high heels. And then she says, “Shall I kiss them, Billie?”

  “It is your standard greeting,” I say, knowing she is trolling the boys.

  Fifty says, “Well, I’d like that.”

  It was a very Fifty thing to say until Mash says, “Uh, yeah, me too,” as quiet as a confession. Thom gives Mash a little fist bump.

  Davey catches my eye in the mirror. He’s pleased our friends are getting along so smashingly. He’s excited about LaserCon. He says, “When you said you’d help, I had no idea you’d pull this off. I should have. I mean . . . you’re you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. We’ve only got one shot at putting them on,” I say.

  After some maneuvering and strategizing, Thom picks Davey up at the waist and sets him neatly inside the Beast’s pants. Fifty does this for me, telling me I am never allowed to make papier-mâché clothes again and to eat more lettuce.