Target Underwear and a Vera Wang Gown (4 page)

An hour later, the assessment was completed and I had fallen asleep on a stepladder in the back of the puzzle and paint section.

“We’re ready to go,” my dad said, waking me. “Do you want to get that purse you wanted, or should we just go home?”

“No,” I said coming to consciousness, “I could go and look at the purse.”

Since I had parental supervision, we crossed Lancaster Avenue (or bypassed it, as it were) and went into Suburban Square, where we headed to Strawbridge & Clothier. Into the ladies’ purse section we went, which was too much for Michael to handle, so he waited outside in the square, leaving Dad and me to go together. As I went to grab the deep blue one with the light oak handle, a voice from behind called out my name.

“Hey Dean!” I heard as I turned around.

To my delight it was Wendy Mason, who lived down the street from me—a popular eighth-grader whose dad was a golf buddy with my dad and therefore was a friend of mine. She was standing with some other eighth-grade girls, Jen Albert and Nicole Thomas.

“Whatcha doin’?” she asked as I put the purse back on the rack. Remember, I had already made a huge faux pas that week with the sneakers. If a popular eighth-grader like Wendy Mason hated the Bermuda bag, well, I might as well just move out of suburban Philadelphia altogether and change my name.

“Hi Dr. Halpern,” she said, giving my dad a hug, which I thought was so cool. She didn’t seem as shy in front of my dad as I would have been with anyone else’s parents but my own, but I supposed it was because she was a mature eighth-grader.

“Dean wanted to look a these purses,” he said, pointing at the rack.

“The Bermuda bag!” Jen Albert shouted. “That’s so cool that your dad is getting you a Bermuda bag.”

“Yeah,” my dad said, proud and excited, “and look, they go with her sneakers!”

The sneakers. In a rare moment of calm, 1 had forgotten about the deep blue Pumas with the yellow swoosh. Oh God, now the eighth grade was going to be on me about them. And then Wendy, the most popular girl in the eighth grade, said the one thing I needed to hear to end all my troubles.

“Wow, really cool sneaks!” Wendy exclaimed.

There it was, the single defining moment that would end my flat-footed woes. Wendy, head of the eighth-grade gang; stronger, leaner, and faster than Fern and the sixth-grade crew, thought my deep blue Pumas with the yellow swoosh were cool. Life was taking a sharp turn for the better.

“Yes, you should get the deep blue bag,” Nicole said. “I’m going to get the pink one. We’ll be purse buddies.”

Purse buddies with an eighth-grader. I could hear the choir singing “
Hallelujah!”
in my head.

As my dad paid for my purse and Nicole paid for hers, Wendy thought aloud about getting some Pumas in deep blue.

“They’re so different from the white ones everyone wears,” she said.

“I know,” Jen Albert added, “the white ones get dirty so fast.”

As we walked out of the store, bags in hand, my dad turned to me and said, “Hey Dean, do you want to stay here and shop with your friends?”

“Yeah,” Wendy said, “come with us; my mom will bring you home.”

The thought of shopping with the eighth-grade girls was too good to imagine. Why-oh-why was Fern Schwartz at the car dealership test-driving new Fords?

“Go ahead,” my dad said, kissing me on the forehead.

It wouldn’t be until years later that I found out that my dad had called Wendy’s dad for advice about the girls who sent the pizzas. Since Wendy and her posse were going to Suburban Square anyway, they promised Wendy’s dad they’d look for me. Wendy, wherever you are, with all my heart, thank you.

By that Monday, word spread that I was spotted with the eighth-graders in Suburban Square. My Bermuda bag became the must-have item, and since I was the first to have it, it gave me a step up in my popularity. I had taken down Fern Schwartz in a clean swipe and she would never bother me again. I was friends with the eighth-graders and, moreover, Nicole Thomas and I were “purse buddies.”

I know my dad didn’t realize the grand gesture he’d bestowed on me by having the eighth-graders come to my rescue, but he saved me from an imprisoned life that only tween girls were capable of making worse than purgatory. Thanks, Dad.

I still have flat feet. Given the advancement in shoe technology, though, I can buy any sneaker I want and throw an orthotic in. Who knew that advancements in foot technology could have saved a pizza place from wasting all those extra pizzas?

he thing about puberty is that it springs up on you so fast, you don’t have time to get your bearings straight.

I was in the seventh grade at Welsh Valley Middle School outside of Philadelphia. Fair Isle sweaters with their garland-style necks were the “it” sweaters for 1982. You might as well have just dropped out of school altogether if your polo shirt was sans alligator on your left breast (not to mention the time spent making sure that its soft collar stuck straight up at all times, which was virtually impossible but, nonetheless, give it the old college, er ... middle-school try). The summer of sixth grade, though, was all about the Dolphin shorts, and since
everyone
who was
anyone
at Welsh Valley Middle had the satin-white-on-the-front, blue-on-the-back short shorts, I had to have them too. Thankfully, my mother obliged and bought me two pairs, which I wore all summer long at Camp Akiba, where the craze had also hit.

Where Julie Pelagatti’s boobs became the envy of all the girls and a source of adoration from the boys, I got barely a bump. Where Amy Chaikin’s thighs got longer and leaner, mine formed into one uni-thigh. Frankly, by 1982, puberty had turned me into a pimply, no-chest, chubby mess with two sausages for legs.

The first warm day of spring in 1982 meant nothing to me aside from the fact that I had gym class. That morning, instead of packing my sweatpants, I took out the old satin Dolphin shorts that made me feel so chic just a matter of seasons before. We would be running the mile that day, and I knew I had to bring something light to fight the humidity the day had brought.

As the girls in my gym class got ready in the locker room, modestly holding their shirts to their chests so as not to let on what had happened to them that year, I threw on my Dolphin shorts, which I noticed were a little snug, but who cared, and my favorite MY FRIEND WENT TO MIAMI AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT shirt that my friend Tamra Wachs had bought me, and headed out to run that mile.

As I skipped across the indoor basketball court and outside to the track, I felt a strange airy sensation between my legs.

“Oh my God!” Julie Pelagatti shouted as she grabbed me. “Your shorts split,” she whispered, “your shorts split!”

Oh my God; my shorts split. The one seam on the shorts, which was sewn right in-between my crotch, had split, leaving me with two patches of satin—a white one in the front and a blue one in the back. Even a slight breeze, or less, an errant sneeze, would blow those two patches right up into the air. What was I going to do? I had missed two gym classes already due to fake illnesses I’d come up with. Mrs. Willard, the gym teacher, had said that if we missed more than three classes, she’d fail us immediately.

I told Julie to go over and ask Mrs. Willard to meet me inside the gym as I kept both sides of my shorts down, being careful not to let my crush, Seth Bonney, know what was going on.

Luckily, everyone in the class was already outside as I waited for Mrs. Willard to meet me inside.

“So what is it, Halpern?” the sporty, lean, and tan Mrs. Willard asked me as she entered.

“Well,” I said, showing her as I lifted both sides, “my shorts split.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have eaten so much this winter,” she said with a laugh.

“Do you think I could skip the mile today?” I asked, suddenly looking at the silver lining. “I don’t have anything else to wear.”

The burly Mrs. Willard looked down at the clipboard she was holding.

“Halpern,” she said, “you’ve already missed two classes. If you miss this one, I’m going to have to fail you.”

So here were my options:

“It looks like a skirt anyway,” she said. “Now, come on; we’ve got a mile to run.” She put her arm around my back and led me outside.

“She’s making me run,”
I mouthed to Julie Pelagatti.

Julie crossed herself, kissed her Saint Jude (the patron saint of lost causes) medal, looked at me somberly, and mouthed,
“I’ll guard you.
”

I situated myself in the center of the pack. My plan was to stay within the confines of the crowd, and that way everyone would be too busy and too close to see my shorts.

As Mrs. Willard screamed “Go,” the kids started jogging. I heaved along, trying to make sure I stayed in-between Julie and Amy Chaikin, both of whom had promised to cover my secret. The problem was that the weight I had gained, in addition to the fact that I had not exercised the entire year, left me huffing and puffing so hard, I was finding it next to impossible to keep up with my shields.

Back into the pack I went; everyone was passing me by. Stuart Klempner, who was even fatter than I was, passed me. Steven Harper, who only that morning had gotten the cast taken off his broken leg, passed me. Joyce Sullivan, with her scoliosis back brace strapped onto her body, passed me. I was all alone. That is, until Ritchie Jacobs lapped me altogether, and then Amy Braun, and Lisa Kool. All the while, my split Dolphin shorts were waving in the wind, white satin flapping up in the front, blue satin flapping in the back, MY FRIEND WENT TO MIAMI AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT plastered on my rolls of heft.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I was sure I was about to suffer a massive coronary. Oh, the embarrassment my parents would have felt at the funeral from all the whispers! “Such a young girl has a heart attack?” the mourners would ask each other. “What were they feeding her?” I had to stop, just walk a couple of steps; I didn’t care if Jeanie Songheart, the class asthmatic, was lapping me as she ran, sucking from her inhaler.

Soon enough, I was in dead last. Half the class had already finished, and I still had two laps to go.

“What’s with her shorts?” Ritchie Jacobs screamed as I neared the bend in front of the resting class.

“What’s going on there?” Sarah Miles shouted. “Hey, she split her shorts!”

Pretty soon the whole class, including Seth Bonney, who I now knew for certain would not be asking me to Spring Dance, pointed and laughed as my Carter’s underwear exposed themselves to everyone.

“Come on, Halpern,” Mrs. Willard shouted. “Just pack it in; you’re finished,” she said both literally and figuratively.

I walked off the track, gasping for air as Julie and Amy came to my aid. They said nothing as they rubbed my back and uttered sounds of teenage angst and distaste.

That day at lunch, word spread fast that my shorts had split. Some versions acknowledged my white Carter’s underwear. Another version had me not wearing any underwear at all. Somehow, I just had to let the whole thing roll over me, but it took years for that to happen.

The following week on gym day, it was one hundred degrees in the shade. I wore my brother Michael’s red sweats, which were three sizes too big.

I got a C—in gym that year, which suited me fine, since the following year Mr. Lowell, the eighth-grade girls’ soccer coach, had an affair with Kara Ellison, a ninth-grader, and my split Dolphin shorts became a distant memory.

’ve always been envious of my girlfriends who grew up with sisters. Both Julie Pelagatti and Amy Chaikin had sisters, which afforded them double the wardrobe. I was not as fortunate. I had two athletic older brothers who could not have been less concerned with the clothes on their bodies. A shirt was a shirt to be worn, even if it had holes in it or hadn’t been washed in weeks.

“I don’t know which one’s worse!” Laner, our housekeeper and second mother, shouted to them as she surveyed both their rooms blanketed in clothing and other debris. “You boys wanna be the death of me?” They ignored her as they did their daily situps. “Because I’ll tell you something. I’ll walk right out of this house right now and never come back before that happens! Now, clean up these rooms before I set you both over my lap and beat you till I see the whites of your eyes!”

The thought of Elaine “Laner” Womble—all 4’11” and ninety pounds of her on a good day—throwing my varsity-wrestler brothers over her lap and beating them senseless always made for a good laugh. The thing was, whether it was the threat in Laner’s words or the respect she commanded, the boys inevitably picked up a couple of shirts and threw them in a drawer or emptied a trash bucket. Their efforts usually made no difference, but to Laner, it was the principle.

“That should teach them a thing or two,” she grumbled under her breath as she nodded to herself in satisfaction.

It was the truth, though. For my brothers, David and Michael, their worlds were not about fashion or cleanliness or respectfulness. In David’s .senior and Michael’s freshman year at Harriton High School, the boys wrestled at 105 and 126 pounds, respectively. Since I was the chubby little sister, and basically weighed the same as my oldest brother, David, even though he was seven years older than me, I was elected his grappling partner for training purposes. David had spit, sweat, and exercised relentlessly to get down to his weight while I ate Jiffy Pop popcorn, french fries with cheese, and Ring Dings to reach mine. No sooner than I would say “Please don’t hurt me,” David would have already grabbed me in a half nelson, flipped me and my red Sassoon jeans over his shoulder, and thrown me onto the wrestling mat set up in our basement, his elbow knifelike in my chest. No matter how much I screamed in pain, he’d want to try it again as Michael stood along the side of the mat, coaching him.