For the second Saturday that month Clara was deposited at her sort-of best friend’s house. She and Bailey usually “played movies,” a game Clara devised because Bailey could only watch one movie a week; the rest of the time was for homework, and her self-improving extracurriculars. There were no such torturous constraints on Clara’s time at her house, but then at home Papa was sick.
Clara’s awe of Bailey’s immaculate home, serenely blond mother and stylish big sister never lessened. The swing set in the backyard was rarely used, so Clara always commandeered it, and they took turns playing at ghost hunters, Moses and Rameses, and scientists and dinosaurs. Occasionally they debated at playing out a fairytale movie, but the Toys-R-Us princess dresses were getting too tight and the scratchy glitter fell off in the still-sullen September heat. This particular day Clara was trying to get Bailey to punch her for dramatic effect.
“I’ll give you a raccoon eye!”
“No you won’t! It’s not real—pretend there’s a tarantula next to my ear and hit that, not me.”
Bailey nodded and drew her arm and knitted hand back like a spring. The problem was she closed her eyes right before she let loose.
Bailey’s mother was mortified. Nothing like this had ever happened to a precious Sunday School child in her house before, she kept saying over and over. Bailey cried but Clara didn’t. In between trying to explain that it was all her fault she relished the undivided maternal attention and the cool ringed fingers on her face. Suddenly Bailey’s sister Brittany descended the stairs, with combat boots, ripped jeans and midriff shirt—all expressly forbidden and thus dazzling. Brittany coolly surveyed the chaos and dropped a plastic bag on the kitchen table.
Clara appealed to her directly. “I stepped over…it was my idea…it was all my fault!”
Brittany actually smiled at her with her newly brace-released teeth. “This is sorta big for you, but you’ll grow into it.”
She took a deep purple velvet coat with some sort of fluffy collar out of the bag and draped it around Clara’s shoulders. “This was from my Mary Kate and Ashley phase; remember the fights we had over it Mom?” Clara didn’t notice Bailey’s mom’s acute wince; she was too busy stroking her new coat with gentle grimy hands.
When delivered back home, her mother barely glanced at the coat; she scowled over the uninteresting black eye instead.
“What is the collar made out of?” Clara asked.
“Alpaca. Hmm.” Her mother’s face looked pinched, but then it always did now. “Do you think it’s pretty?” “It was very nice of Brittany. I suppose. I hope you said thank you. Now go lay down and rest your eye. Does it hurt?” Her mother said this not quite looking at her; already she was edging back to the bedroom where Papa was. No, it didn’t hurt.
Nana visited several days later. While she and her mother talked in low whispers behind a closed door, Clara went and got the coat from her closet. “You’ll pass out if you wear it to school—it’s too hot,” her mother had been repeating ever since Saturday, so Clara took to wearing it sitting on the floor vent in the living room while she watched movies. It made her feel grown-up and daring. The air conditioning kept her ventilated, and she twisted her fingers in the dyed straggly collar until they went numb. Now she stood over the vent until Nana entered; she stopped in her high-heeled tracks.
“What do you think Nana?” Clara quivered like a puppy hoping to be let free outside, or like an old dog hoping to be gently petted. Nana was glamorous and made a point of saying she’d had her clothes tailored to fit her since the good-old-days in 1948. She pursed her Estee Laudered mouth.
“Well honey…”
Nana didn’t like it; Clara didn’t hear the rest. She wasn’t allowed to wear it to Piggly Wiggly or on any of their other errands that day.
“Dillard’s always has a good sale around Labor Day; we’ll go and find you something a bit less…out there. Something a little more you.”
“But it is me!”
“Oh no sweetheart—”
“But it’s soft! I like the velvet.”
“That coat is 100% polyester,” Nana sniffed. She patted the wedding rings around her neck reassuringly; she’d begun wearing them on a chain since arthritis began crawling into her hands like termites in fine wood. “You don’t need to look like…like you don’t come from a good family.”
Clara had heard that before. The last time she asked what exactly it meant the grownups were reticent. As far as Clara could tell bad families had to do with either divorce, loud music, voting Democrat, or a combination of all three. To Clara, death was the only thing that was really bad, and that was so nearby nobody could bring themselves to talk about it.
When they got back Nana realized she had forgotten something, so Clara ran to get her coat.
“Absolutely not. NO.”
“I’ll stay in the car!”
“It’s much too hot—”
“I’ve got my shorts on! Please just let me wear it?
Nana uneasily consented. When they got back to the store she parked in the shade of a crumpled tree and rolled all the windows down.
“I won’t be two minutes,” and Nana trotted off. Clara wished her grandmother liked the coat, could admit that she saw her, she didn’t know why she wanted it so much.
Clara heard booming loud music get louder and closer and another car pulled up. A Black lady got out with shiny white boots, ripped jeans, and a midriff shirt. She looked over and saw Clara.
“Are you okay, honey?” She asked in a low, musical voice.
Clara wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers, but she liked the lady’s gleaming brightness.
“Yes ma’am, Nana will be back in two minutes.”
The lady smiled, then leaned against her car, setting her purse on her hip. “Well, then I’ll wait here a while under the shade till your Nana comes back. Phew.” She fanned herself with a hand, then looked over at Clara. “I like your coat—why that’s stellar.”
“Do you think it’s pretty?”
“I think it’s really something, but you make it even better than pretty, baby.”
Clara beamed. She hoped it wasn’t wrong to have wanted to hear that almost as much as wanting Papa better. It sounded like the truth.
