Stripped Down (15 page)

“Iris, it's so good of you to come,” she said.

“Hello, Grandmother,” I said.

She opened her arms for a hug, but despite her size, I felt as if I was holding a piece of cardboard. I pulled away. Without much decorum, she sized me up. I could tell by the look in her eyes that she didn't approve of the length of my brunette hair or my light blue sweater with the pearl beading, the one Marissa had given to me last Christmas. It had been accidentally washed and shrunk, and it probably accentuated my breasts far too much for her, but it was still the nicest thing I owned.

“Your mother couldn't make it. She's at one of her alternative women's retreats and she couldn't pull herself away,” she said.

I wasn't surprised. My mother stayed away for many of the
same reasons that I usually did, mostly because of the disapproving glances and criticisms. The only one who didn't feel it was my sister, Becky, my grandmother's perfect pet.

“I'm sorry to hear that,” I said.

“Well, come inside then,” she said, holding the door open for me.

I stepped inside.

“You could have made it on time,” she said behind me.

I glanced over my shoulder at her. She raised a critical eyebrow at me and then left me to join a group of women in the kitchen, giving one woman a very sweet smile, probably a new addition to one of her home decorating clubs. Abandoned as a punishment for being late, I looked around for a familiar face, but seeing no other, I decided to look for my sister.

Becky was in the living room, chatting with some distant cousins I barely remembered. Seeing me, she nodded but made no move to get up. Obviously, her feelings hadn't changed since the last time I'd seen her.

As always, she was immaculately dressed. She lived by the three
Ps:
poised, polished, and professional. She once told me she didn't even own a pair of jeans, and I believed her. She never left the house without her makeup and jewelry. You would never have guessed we shared the same freckles on our foreheads. Hers were obliterated by foundation. Every fiber of her being was committed to being the polar opposite of our mom. Becky wouldn't drink herbal tea if you paid her.

Unlike her, I frequently drank herbal tea, and I wore blue jeans, peasant blouses, and sandals to work every day at the Wisdom Bookstore, which specialized in spirituality and psychology. There was also a coffee shop, which served organic muffins and cream-cheese-frosted carrot cakes.

Everyone thought I got this love of the spiritual from my mom, but I didn't. It was from my grandfather. I loved his stories about his adventures before he met my grandmother. He'd hitchhiked all over the Far East, exploring Hindu temples, exotic cultures, and spiritualism.

My mother wasn't spiritual—she was trendy. She went to spas and retreats where they wrapped her in seaweed and gave her yogurt enemas. Before all this, she had written a best-selling cookbook, its recipes loaded with fat and calories, but she had a heart attack after it was published and she freaked out. Now, with the royalties from her cookbook, she chased after her health like a rabid bunny.

Feeling awkward standing there alone, I moved into the dining room where a buffet was set up. Avoiding the cheese plate because it reminded me of Marissa, I selected a couple deviled eggs and looked for somewhere to sit. There was an empty spot along the window seat, but an elderly woman said it was already taken, so I sat on the stairs leading up to the two guest bedrooms.

I took a bite of a deviled egg and frowned. Too much sugar in the mayonnaise, I thought. I put the egg back on the plate and studied the dining room, noticing a few new things. On the wall was a collection of antique fishing flies in a distressed frame, though I knew my grandfather hadn't liked fishing. He used to say he hated watching the fish suffer once they were out of the water.

What he had liked to do was take long walks around their property. I remembered him on one such walk, back when I was little, catching me in the woods rubbing my two naked Barbie dolls together in a fury of same-sex lust. He hadn't told on me, but I had been so ashamed that I gave my dolls a
funeral in the backyard. I let them sleep in the dirt until morning, when I retrieved them, unable to part with them any longer. Their hair was heavy with dirt, and no matter how hard I tried to wash it out, it never felt like it was gone.

I hadn't really thought about the tenacity of dirt again until I met Marissa. She had been a manicurist in Paris but one day she quit, came to America, and got a job at a greenhouse. That was where I had met her. I was having trouble with bunnies eating my marigolds, and I stopped at the greenhouse to get some advice.

After we moved in together, I used to look at her short rough fingernails while she was sleeping. It was hard to believe she had been a fancy French manicurist when her nails were so rough and stained.

Even with her greenhouse nails, I'd never met anyone who stirred so much passion in me. When I was younger, I used to hold hands with girls in the backseats of cars and steal kisses in the back rows of movie theaters. I was very happy just kissing girls, not even going to second base, but when I met Marissa, she opened a whole new world for me.

Then my sister Becky found out. One day Marissa and I were having a tussle on the floor with the front door partially open when she stopped by. She saw us and fled. I didn't know what to do. I'd never told her I liked girls, and I couldn't explain this away. Grown women didn't roll around on the carpet together giggling and trying to get their hands in each other's pants.

Nothing was ever said to me, but I knew she had told the rest of the family and they didn't approve. There were fewer invitations to family functions, and birthday cards were signed
best
instead of
love.

At the time, I told myself I didn't care. I had Marissa. She was the love of my life, but she had other things on her mind. I should have known that something more was going on. Those long distance phone calls to France hadn't been to her family. Then one morning, I woke and found she was gone.

Suddenly, there was a creak on the stairs behind me. I looked over my shoulder to see a young woman descending behind me. She was very pretty with an angular face, high cheekbones, blonde hair, creamy skin, and big blue eyes.

Moving aside to make room for her, I waited for her to pass, but she didn't.

“You're Iris?” she asked. “The granddaughter who works in the bookstore. I saw you outside.”

I nodded.

“I'm Lucy. Judy's daughter,” she said, as if expecting me to know who Judy was.

“It's nice to meet you,” I said.

“Come upstairs with me.”

 

Without a second thought, I left my plate on the stairs and followed her. It was better than sitting there alone, I thought.

She led me to the white bedroom where my mom used to stay when we visited for the weekend. It hadn't changed at all. There were still the full-size gabled bed, the ticking-covered armchair, and the hardwood floor with the braided rag rugs.

Lucy walked across the room and stood by the window, where the sunlight streaming in gave her skin a luminous glow. I studied her: she looked perfectly dressed in a white blouse with a black skirt. Her hair was pinned up in a makeshift French twist.

Now she smiled at me. I had no idea why she had asked
me up here. Normally, the only time my grandmother allowed anyone up here was when company stayed and I didn't see any suitcases.

“I don't think my grandmother wants anyone up here,” I said.

“What she doesn't know won't hurt us.”

She looked me up and down.

“I like your sweater,” she said. “You've got a great sense of style.”

I looked at my sweater. After I had accidentally shrunk it, I had hidden it from Marissa, not wanting her to know what had happened. She hadn't even noticed it was missing.

“I'm a fashion design student,” she said. “I should know. You look great. It really goes with your eyes.”

Feeling flattered, I smoothed the cuff.

“I saw you outside, sitting in your car. You didn't want to come in did you?” she asked.

I shook my head.

There was a pause. I didn't know what it was about her, but she seemed so different from the other girls I'd met before. There was a charming quirkiness in her voice.

“Is your mother friends with my grandmother?” I asked.

“Best of buds. Peas in a pod. Bridge partners for life.”

Lucy sat on the bed and crossed her legs.

“Did you like the deviled eggs?” she asked.

I hesitated.

“Be truthful. Everyone raves about Judy's eggs, but what did you think?”

“I didn't like them. There was too much sugar.”

“I agree, but it's her recipe.”

Moving around the room, she paused by the dresser and
lifted a costume pink-pearl choker from a bowl and examined the clasp.

“Oh, my god, these are vintage early sixties. Look at the clasp.”

Holding it up to her neck, she looked at herself in the cloudy mirror over the dresser.

“Most of the stuff up here is from the late fifties and early sixties,” I said. “My grandmother says it was the best time her life.”

Lucy put down the choker and opened the closet door. I'd always thought it was a strange closet. It connected two bedrooms, the poles running lengthwise over the empty space. My grandmother had filled it with her old clothes. Becky and I used to sneak through the closet from the other side to surprise our mom in the morning.

“Look at these clothes!” she exclaimed.

She pulled out a dress and examined it.

“This is a pink sheath dress with the matching pink jacket. Look at the rhinestone closure. We just studied this era at my school.”

Digging deeper into the closet, she found an elegant ivory suit. Suddenly, she was changing into it. I averted my gaze, feeling a little flushed at the sight of her cleavage. She had a nice body, even nicer than Marissa's. Her breasts were full, her rib cage narrow, and her stomach flat. She wore a plain white slip that looked incredibly sexy next to her creamy skin.

The suit fit her perfectly. My grandmother would have had a stroke if she'd known someone was wearing it.

“Go ahead. Try something on,” she said. “You'd look wonderful.”

“Nothing would fit me. I'm too tall,” I said.

Lucy smoothed the suit around her hips.

“Who would have guessed your grandmother was once my size?” she said.

I watched her undo her blonde hair and finger-comb it as it cascaded to her shoulders.

Without warning, Lucy pushed aside the hanging clothes, darted through the closet, and opened the opposite door. Not wanting to go through there, I joined her by way of the hallway.

In the other bedroom, there was still the old sewing machine against the wall, the children's rocker with a needlepoint pillow, and the full-size bed with the blue bedspread. This was the room where Becky and I had always slept as kids.

“I don't like this room,” I confessed. “I've had bad dreams in here.”

“Why's that?” Lucy asked.

“Becky and I used to think the attic was haunted. She used to keep her teddy bear in the rocker so nothing could come out and sit in it.”

 

Walking over to the attic door, she opened it and stepped inside the dark room. I cringed, remembering my childhood monsters, but there was only silence. Curious, I followed her. Lucy pulled on the light string. I startled, but there were only some cardboard boxes and a dress dummy.

“Honestly, I don't think we should be in here,” I said. “And if she finds out you're wearing her dress, she will blow her top.”

“Okay,” said Lucy.

To my amazement, she started to unbutton the suit. I didn't
mean for her take it off right here—I'd meant she should go back in the other bedroom and change back into her own clothes.

Looking me in the eyes, she inched off the jacket and lowered the skirt. Once it was off, she put the suit on the dummy.

Now she was just standing there in her slip, looking incredibly sexy. I could see the rise of her breasts as she inhaled and then let her breath out.

She crossed the floor and kissed me on the mouth. Her lips lingered against mine. There was a tentative, gentle movement. Seconds seemed to stretch out. I started feeling that whole naughty, butterfly thing in my stomach, the feeling I used to get when I kissed girls in the back of movie theaters.

Gently, she held my bottom lip between her lips. She knew how to kiss a girl, I realized. All sorts of emotions started raging through me, things I thought I'd buried with the memory of Marissa. I couldn't believe I was feeling this with someone I barely knew. I broke the kiss.

“Why did you do that?” I asked.

Lucy looked a little dazed. She bit her lower lip.

“I've had a crush on you for ages,” she said, “ever since I saw your pictures in your grandmother's photo albums. Then I heard those stories about Becky finding you with your girlfriend. You broke up with her, didn't you?”

I nodded.

She cupped my face in her hands and kissed me again. This time her tongue touched mine. There was a sizzle. My knees went weak. She pulled away. I leaned toward her. I didn't want her to stop.

Kissing me on my second favorite place behind my ear, she
brushed her lips against my skin. I felt as if I was melting into her arms. She started to unbutton my sweater, the little pearl buttons letting go of the blue wool. I let her. My cleavage was exposed. She pressed her hot mouth to my skin, pushing my sweater off my shoulders with her hands.