Dreamsleeves (7 page)

I
decide to test out my Dreamsleeves idea with a small but important wish. I take one of the Hello labels from my father's desk. Last year my dad won “most humorous” speech at one of his meetings. People say my dad is such a funny guy. There's a picture of him on the wall. He looks maybe seventeen. He's lying on his back on the roof of a car, his arms making a pillow behind his neck, gazing up at the sky. It's summer, just before dark. My dad is smiling. He looks happy.

In my room I cut the
HELLO MY NAME IS
part off the label. I print
New Bathing Suit
on the white space, peel off the backing, and stick my dream on my T-shirt sleeve, up top, facing out.

When my mother gets home from work, she slumps down on a kitchen chair. Her ankles are swollen and her face is flushed and sweaty from the heat.

“Get me a Tab and some chips, will you, A?” she says.

“Sure, Mom.”

She takes a long drink of soda and eats some potato chips. I get the portable fan from the living room and plug it in so it faces her.

“Thanks, honey,” she says, “you're so thoughtful.”

She closes her eyes and I stand there in front of her watching the breeze blow wisps of damp brown hair from her face.

Finally, after a while, she opens her eyes. She sees the dream on my sleeve. “What's that?” she says.

“I need a new bathing suit, Mom. Last year's is way too small for me.”

“Okay. We can go pick out a pattern at Woolworth's Saturday.”

I sigh, no. That's not what I had in mind.

My mother makes a lot of our clothes on her Singer sewing machine in the dining room. When I was younger it was fun going to Woolworth's with her and picking out patterns for a sundress or a Halloween costume. But I'm a teenager now! I don't want some babyish bathing suit with strawberries and a big poofy ruffle across the chest like last year. I would die of mortification wearing a bathing suit like that to Sue-Ellen's country club party. I'm sure Sue-Ellen orders her clothes from Sears.

Mom and I turn our heads at the sound of footsteps on the porch. The knob turns, the kitchen door opens. Dad's home. He's dressed in a light blue jacket, white shirt, striped tie, and gray pants. My dad always dresses like a million bucks. His fake Coppertone tan is looking a bit orange, and he's got a potbelly and is losing hair on the top of his head, but he's still handsome.

As he moves past me I smell his Old Spice Cologne and the cinnamon Dentyne gum he's always chewing. Dad walks straight to the cupboard and takes out a glass. He opens the freezer, crack-twists some ice cubes out of the tray. They tinkle as they slide into the glass. He opens a liquor bottle, almost empty although he just opened it new on Saturday night. He fills his glass nearly to the top, and then splashes in some ginger ale.

My mother watches all of this without a comment. She used to tell him to be careful, not to drink so much because of his stomach ulcer — his doctor warned him it was getting bad — but that just made my father angry and end up drinking more, so she doesn't nag him about it anymore. She eats another potato chip. She keeps the peace.

“What's for dinner?” Dad asks to no one in particular. His eyes rest on the potato chip bowl and he scowls at my mother. He's always saying sarcastic things to her about her weight. My mom is forever trying some new diet, but now that she's pregnant again, she can't go on a diet even if she wanted to. Now she has to eat for the baby, too.

“Hamburgers,” Mom says.

“Again?” he says. “Don't make me one. I'll find something.” Dad hardly ever joins us for dinner anymore. He prefers to eat alone, with a drink, in front of the TV in the living room.

Beck comes into the kitchen wearing his favorite Yankees cap.

“Hey, buster,” Dad says to him, turning the cap so the lid's facing back.

Beck glows with the attention.

I move closer so Dad will see my dream.

“What's that?” Dad says, taking the bait.

Beck moves in to look. “What's it say?” he asks my mom.

She reads it for him.

Beck looks at me and smiles, interested.

A little white lie pops up like a spring crocus from the mud in Nana's garden. “I was thinking about how we're going to Uncle Tommy and Aunt Flo's camp pretty soon, Dad, and how all my girl cousins will be there, too, and how they always have brand-new bathing suits from …”

“Buy your daughter a bathing suit, will you?” Dad says to Mom in a mean voice. He takes another sip of his drink and nods disgustedly at the potato chip bowl. “And lay off the junk food, will you? You're breaking the scales as it is.”

“I told A we'd pick out a pattern,” Mom says, quietly. “We can go Saturday.”

My dad takes a drink and then sneers at my mother. “I don't want my kids looking like hoboes at my brother's house again this year. Don't embarrass me again, Maggie. I work hard for this family, I bring in a good salary, the least you can do is dress these kids right.”

Mom works hard, too,
I shout inside myself.
And she has two jobs! Taking care of this family
and
working full-time. When you come home from work, you relax. Poor Mom comes home from work and has to cook dinner and …

“And buy yourself some decent clothes when you take her shopping,” Dad says, his eyes looking from Mom's swollen feet to her faded print blouse. “Flo always looks so sharp.”

That's 'cause Aunt Flo doesn't have to work
, I want to yell at him.
She has lots of time to flip through fashion magazines and get all the new hairstyles and clothes….

And I'm about to speak my mind to my father, sticking up for my mother now when it's still safe, before the drinks seep in and the mad sets in, when a little voice inside me shouts, “No! You're going to get a new bathing suit!” and I don't say a word.

I betray my mother for a bathing suit.

After dinner, Dad says to me, “Ready to go, monkey?”

We drive to Hoffman's Playland. I didn't want to go, but now I'm in a hopeful mood. I'm going to get a new bathing suit for the party! And besides, I feel bad that Dad's friend died and he has to go to his wake tomorrow.

At the amusement park, people are loading onto the little train at the stop.

Dad buys the ticket book with the least amount of rides. “Which first?” he says.

“Bumper cars,” I say. And,
surprise
, when I stand back against the clown-faced measuring board, I'm finally tall enough to drive one by myself.

I choose a blue car. Dad chooses red. The race starts. I get rammed from behind. It's a boy a few years older than me. I hear a laugh and then a girl with long black hair rams into him. “Gotcha!” she shouts and he swerves off after her, smiling.

“Here I come!” he says. She laughs. They are probably a couple, on a date. I wish I could come here with Mike.

The little train chugs by and heads under the tunnel. People shout “ooh-ooh” like it's scary in that short stretch of dark before the train comes out the other side.

At the Ferris wheel, I quick climb into a seat and pull the bar locked. “I want to ride alone,” I say.

“Oh, okay,” my dad says, looking hurt. He gets in the cart behind me. I feel bad. I didn't mean to hurt his feelings. I just wanted to try it out alone for once.

When the ride's over, Dad says, “Scrambler, monkey?”

“Sure!” I say. This is the Dad I used to know. This is the Dad that's fun.

We climb into a seat together and he pulls the door closed tight. He nudges my elbow and smiles at me. “Ready?” he says with excitement.

This was always our favorite ride.

“Yep,” I say, enjoying this, too.

The music starts up and we're off, whizzing forward, then zigzaggy side to side, my hair blowing wild in my face. “Woo-hoo!” Dad shouts and we laugh.

The tickets are done. “Ice cream?” he asks.

I glance at a little girl with blond curls pumping up and down on a merry-go-round horse, her father standing guard by her side. I remember how important it was to get the right horse. How high up I felt on that saddle. How fast we rode. How safe I felt with my daddy by my side.

Not anymore, no. Tonight was just him trying to get back on my good side after saying I couldn't date till I was seventeen. Tonight was just a fairy tale.

“Aislinn … I said do you want some ice cream?”

“No, thanks.”

“Cotton candy?”

“No.”

“You all right?” he says.

“I'm fine,” I say.

We walk to the car and head home. We drive past a row of beautiful houses. Something catches my eye on the road up ahead.

It's a hubcap.

I look quick at my father. His gaze is straight ahead, lost in thought. He doesn't see the hubcap.

I don't point it out.

 

Lying in bed that night, looking up at the chicken-wire frame of Callie's bunk above me, I feel bad I didn't tell Dad about the hubcap, but no way as guilty as I feel for betraying my mom. I'm sorry, though. I need a new bathing suit and besides, I'm sick of defending my mother. She's supposed to look out for me, right? I'm done taking care of her. She's the mother; I'm the daughter. It's high time she realized that.

Just before I fall asleep, hugging my elf, Jeffrey, I think to myself, good for you, A. You tested out your idea. Dreamsleeves works! I bat Jeffrey's green cap and the little brass bell on the top jingles.

I can tell he's happy for me.

O
n Saturday morning Mom and I drive to Two Guys for a bathing suit. I don't complain about why we're not going to Sears or Montgomery Ward. I'm sure I'll find something nice here.

“Hurry back,” my dad says as we leave. He doesn't like having to watch all the little ones by himself. It's morning and he's not drinking yet, so I don't worry too much about him losing his temper with B, C, D, and E while we are away. I turn on the cartoons and line them all up on the couch before we go. “Be good,” I say.

Mom and I are the first shoppers in the girls' department. It only takes me a few minutes to spot a bathing suit I like, a shiny bright pink and white polka-dot two-piece. The top crisscross-ties in the front, making me look more …
more mature
than I am. I look at the price tag. It might be too expensive.

Mom doesn't make me try on the suit for her approval. She respects my privacy. “I'll wait here, go ahead,” she says. When I come out of the dressing room smiling, she smiles, too. “Okay, good. Now go ahead and pick out a cover-up.”

After I do, Mom helps me find a matching shade of pink flip-flops and then says, “Let's get you a hair band and some sunglasses.” Our shopping cart is filling up nicely. When Mom sees my eyes rest on a tropical-island straw beach bag with pink and yellow trim, she says, “We'll need one of those, too.”

“Are you sure?” I say, worried about how much this is all going to cost.

“Yes,” Mom says. “You deserve it. Now, let's see where the beach towels are.”

When the clerk rings up our purchases, I remind Mom that Dad told her to buy herself some new clothes, too.

“I know what he said,” she replies. “And I know what I look like in the mirror. I've got my maternity bathing suit from last time. I'll wait and get myself some new things after the baby's born and I can get myself back on a diet.”

That's the story of my mother's life. Baby. Diet. Baby. Diet.

“How about a cone?” Mom says as we come out of the store.

“Sure!” I say.

We drive up to Wilson's and we order vanilla and chocolate soft-serve twists and sit at a picnic table to enjoy them. It is rare that my mother and I ever have time alone like this. I want to tell her about the pool party, but what if she says no? Letting me bike to the store behind my father's back is one thing, but the pool party might be too much.

“Isn't this nice, A?” Mom says. “Just you and me.”

“Yeah, Mom.” I look at her face. “I'm sorry I didn't stand up for you when Dad said those mean things in the kitchen yesterday.”

“That's okay,” Mom says. She smiles. “That was a pretty clever idea you had putting what you wanted on that sticker.”

I smile, proud. “It's Dreamsleeves,” I say.

“What?” Mom says.

“I call it Dreamsleeves. I was noticing how people put their wishes in that silver box at church where no one reads them and I thought maybe you could try wearing your dream on your sleeve where someone could actually see it and help make it come true.”

Mom hands me a napkin. “You've got chocolate on your chin,” she says.

Driving home, Mom says, “I like it.”

“What?” I say.

“Your Dreamsleeves idea. It's catchy.”

 

The little ones all want to see what I got shopping.

Callie holds my bathing suit up to her body. Dooley tries on my sunglasses.

“So it worked,” Beck says, staring up at me, eyes wide.

“What worked?” Callie asks.

“She wanted a bathing suit, so she wrote her wish on a sticker and it came true.”

“Really?” Callie says. “I want to try.”

“Me, too,” Dooley shouts.

“Me first,” Beck says. “I'm the oldest.”

“O …
kay
,” Callie says, rolling her eyes, “but then me, I'm next.”

Dooley stamps his foot. “No fair. Why am I always last?”

“You're not,” says Callie, “Eddie is. Be patient, you'll get your turn.”

“Where'd you get the sticker from, A?” Beck asks.

“Dad's desk,” I say, “but just take one each.”

 

Maizey calls. “Can you meet me in the park?”

Dad left right after Mom and I got home from shopping and so the coast is clear.

“Sure,” Mom says, “go ahead.”

Maizey is sitting on our bench by the fountain eating a Sky Bar. That's our favorite candy bar. I stare at her face for a minute … trying to see if she has changed … trying to see if we're still best friends.

Maize-n-A. We've been friends since kindergarten — right from the first day we met at the bus stop and sat in the first seat by the driver and held hands, feet not touching the floor, telling each other not to be scared, that school would be fun. And it was.

Maizey breaks off a square and hands it to me. I take a bite.
Mmm
… it's the one with the vanilla cream inside, my favorite.

“What have you been doing?” I say.

“Not much,” she says, “but listen. I've got a plan for the pool party.” She breaks off another square for me, it's the dark chocolate one, and she pops another square in her mouth, chewing quickly. “Tell your dad my family invited you to our camp up in North Creek for the weekend. Tell him my mom will pick you up Friday night.”

“Your mom is going to lie for me?” I say, shocked.

“No … A,” Maizey says, rolling her eyes, “of course not. She'll just think you're coming to stay at our house for the weekend. No big deal. You've stayed over before. You're my best friend.”

That last bit makes me feel so good I almost cry. My best friend.
Best friend
. Take that, Snoop-Melon. “But what if my father …”

“But nothing,” Maizey says. “Your dad's let you come for a sleepover before. Right?”

“Right.” Two times in my whole life, both times for Maizey's birthday.

“And he doesn't belong to the country club, right?”

“Right.”

“So how could he see you there?”

“True.”

“And your parents don't know the Dandridges, so it's not like they're going to find out from them, right?”

“Right.”

“Good. Another Nancy Drew mystery solved,” Maizey says, clapping her hands together like she's closing one of those yellow-jacket books we buy at Woolworth's when we have money.

I laugh.

“And stop worrying,” Maizey says. “All you need to think about now is getting some sun before the party. You're whiter than Eddie's diapers.”

“His clean diapers, you mean.”

We giggle. I tell Maizey about my new bathing suit.

“Sounds sexy,” she says.

“Sexy?” I say. “No, just …”

“Well, in a glamorous Marilyn Monroe–Jackie Kennedy sort of way,” Maizey clarifies. “But you need a tan and some makeup and why don't you squeeze some lemon juice in your hair when you're out in the sun to make it blonder?”

“Good idea,” I say. I finger some strands of my long, straight, used-to-be-curly-blond hair that gets browner and straighter each year.

“Yeah,” Maizey nods, opening another candy bar, this one nearly melted. She licks the chocolate off of her fingers. She gives me half. “Sue-Ellen taught me about the lemon juice. She's got loads of beauty tips.”

I eat the candy bar. I decide to be nice. “Thanks, Maize. Got to go. See ya!”

 

Later that afternoon, right after confession and on the way to the liquor store when my father's in his best mood of the week, I say all casual, “Oh, Dad, by the way, Maizey invited me to her camp July twenty-third for the weekend. Can I go?”

Dad's only half listening to me as he turns the dial searching for a song he likes. “Guess so,” he says. “Unless something comes up in the meantime.”

“Thanks, Dad!” I say. That was easy.

And I didn't even use Dreamsleeves!

When we get home, Mom is at the table typing, fingers fluttering like butterflies across the keys, clickety-clack, clickety-clack.

“I'm going to take a nap,” my father says. “Wake me up in an hour, Mags.”

I go to my room, then back to the kitchen, where I peek around the refrigerator to see my Mom's happy face writing.

What are you writing, Mom? Is it true or made-up? Am I in it? Are you almost finished? When you're done, can I read it? Can I please be the first?

So many things I want to ask her, but like always I hold back. The GANE is my Mom's dream and she has to decide when she's ready to put it on her sleeve and share it. For now I'm just content to see my mother's face.

Happy
.