“It’s okay,” I said. “And you have.”
“Have what?”
“Been a jerk. And impossible.” I smiled at her. “But I’m used to that from you.”
“Shut up,” she said, staring at me. Then she looked down and added, “Okay. You’re right.”
“I know,” I said.
She stood up and walked to the door, turning back to me as she stepped out into the hallway. “You know, you’re going to be really grateful someday.”
“For what?”
“Being tall.” She looked at me, her eyes traveling from my feet to my face. “You don’t think so now, but you will.”
“I doubt it,” I said. “But thanks for making the effort.”
She scowled at me, halfheartedly, and I listened to her tiny feet patter back down the hallway to the stairs. Ashley had two weeks left in the bedroom beside mine, with a wall so thin between us that I always knew when she cried herself to sleep or had nightmares and tossed in her sleep. I knew a lot more about Ashley than she would have allowed me to if she could have controlled such things. There was a strange bond between us, however unintentional: the divorce, the wall, the years that separated us or didn’t. My sister was leaving the house, and me, in just two weeks. And regardless of it all, good and bad, I would be sad to see her go.
The fitting that afternoon went the way they all had. I stood on a chair while Mrs. Bella Tungsten, seamstress, crawled around on the floor beneath me with a mouthful of pins, mumbling through her teeth to “Stand still, please.” She wore a measuring tape around her neck that she could brandish in a second, slapping it against my skin or around my waist with one flick of her wrist. This was the fourth and final fitting, and we all knew Mrs. Bella Tungsten a little better than we’d ever thought we would.
“I have never in all my life seen a child grow so fast.” That was Mrs. Bella, tape in hand, tugging at the hem of my dress. “It’s gonna have to be shorter on her than on the rest. That’s all I can say.”
“How much shorter?” My mother got up from the one good chair in Dillard’s fitting room and came over to inspect for herself. “Noticeably?”
Mrs. Bella tugged again, trying to make length where there wasn’t any to be found. “There’s nothing I can do. I can’t let the dress down.”
Ashley sighed loudly from the corner of the room, where one of Mrs. Bella’s assistants was unfurling her train, her arms full of white, silky fabric.
My mother shot Ashley a look and squatted down beside Mrs. Bella, staring at my hemline. “No one will be looking at the bottoms of the dresses, anyway. Right?” She didn’t sound so sure.
“Well,” Mrs. Bella said slowly, spitting out a few pins, “I suppose. You can hope for that, at least.”
Meanwhile I just stood there, arms crossed over my chest to hold the dress up, which was missing the zipper as well as the white ribbon edging and bow that Ashley had added to personalize the pattern. It was bad enough to be standing in Dillard’s with my mother and Mrs. Bella tugging on my hemline and staring at my ankles; but the employee lounge was in the next room, so people kept passing through, carrying brown bags or cups of coffee and stopping on their way. They all knew Ashley, fellow employee, and stopped to coo and make a fuss over her and her dress. They just stared at me, the giant on the chair, too tall for the pretty pink bridesmaid dress that would now make me look like I was expecting a flood, not falling gracefully across my ankles as originally planned. I just stared ahead at a clock over the water fountain and pretended I was someplace, anyplace, else.
“Okay, Heaven honey, drop your arms so I can check this bodice.” Mrs. Bella had been corrected several times about my name, to no avail. It was one detail too many to keep straight.
I dropped my arms and she slapped the tape across my chest, then pulled it around to the side. Her hands were dry and cold, and I felt goose bumps immediately spring up and spread, my snap reaction to any contact with Mrs. Bella. She was my mother’s age but already had that thick, musty smell of old women and old clothes. She dragged a stepstool around to stand on and climbed up to inspect the tape.
“I do believe there must be tallness somewhere in your family, Mrs. McPhail,” she said as she pulled the tape tighter, then let it drop. “Or maybe on your husband’s side?”
“No,” my mother said in the light voice she used whenever she wanted to encourage something to pass, “not really.”
“It has to come from somewhere, right, Heaven?” She pulled a pincushion from her pocket and fastened the back of the dress, inserting one pin after the other.
“It’s Haven,” my mother said gently, trying to get me to look at her so that I could see her please-be-patient expression. I kept my eyes on the clock, on the second hand jumping around the face, and concentrated on time passing.
“Oh, right,” Mrs. Bella said. “It’s probably one of those—what do they call them, recessive genes? Only pops up every other generation or so.”
My mother murmured softly, trying to move Mrs. Bella along. Ashley was walking around the room in her dress and bare feet while the assistant followed, fixing the train behind her. More employees were passing through now, with the clock nearing twelve-thirty. I could feel my face getting red. I felt gargantuan, my head almost brushing the ceiling, my arms dragging past Mrs. Bella to the pins on the floor. I had that image of pulling down the banners in the center court of the mall again, my hands clutching the fabric as it billowed before me. I imagined myself monsterlike, plodding like God zilla through the aisles of Dillard’s, searching out Mrs. Bella with her pin-filled mouth and recessive genes and hoisting her above my head in one fist, triumphant. I envisioned myself cutting a swath of destruction across the mall, across town itself, exacting revenge on everyone who stared at me or made the inevitable basketball jokes like I hadn’t heard one ever before. My mind was soaring, filled with these images of chaos and revenge, when Mrs. Bella’s voice cut through: “Okay, honey, the back’s unpinned. With a little creative sewing I think we can get this dress to look right on you.”