Bras & Broomsticks (8 page)

“I look revolting,” Miri tells her.

Yes!

STB almost chokes on her coffee. “What kind of thing is that to say? How can you insult Judy like that? Judy, I apologize.”

Personally, I think it was the material Miri was insulting, not the craftswoman, but hey, why defuse a situation that’s working in my favor?

Prissy is sitting crossed-legged on the floor, caressing the bottom of Miri’s dress. “It’s so pretty and pink and pink is pretty and my friend Nora has a pink dress and a purple dress and . . .”

STB motions for Prissy to be quiet and then turns to me. “Let me guess; you’re not happy either.”

Actually, I’m in a terrific mood. “Hard to tell before it’s finished,” I say diplomatically.

Miri gives me the evil eye in the full-length mirror. She’d better not retaliate and
suggest
I fall on my butt.

“But,” I add, “I’m not sure if I’m crazy about the material.”

Both Judy and STB gasp. “What do you mean?” STB asks. “It’s lace and raw silk. The material alone for each dress cost three hundred dollars.”

Three hundred dollars? For doilies?

“Money,” Miri says, “which could have been better used in Somalia to help feed starving children.”

Or to purchase an Izzy Simpson dress.

STB ignores her and fingers a swatch of the material. “Rachel’s right. You can’t judge the dress before it’s finished. You’ll both look adorable. Like dolls.”

Does she realize that doesn’t help?

“I have sixteen dolls,” Prissy pipes up, and then starts counting on her fingers. “Sandy, and Mandy, and Randy and Dandy and Princess.” When she runs out of fingers, she stops reciting and remains quiet, contemplating her dilemma.

“Fantastic,” Miri snaps. “I’ve always dreamed of looking like Barbie.”

I wouldn’t mind that. Barbie has excellent measurements.

STB takes a long swig of her coffee, then places it down on a table. “Miri, how are your fingers?”

Miri clamps her hands shut. “Fine.”

STB picks up Miri’s right hand and pries it open. She does another one of her gasps. With all her heavy breathing, you’d think she was on the StairMaster. “What am I going to do with you?”

Miri shakes her off. “They’re my nails, and I can bite them if I want to.”

She’s getting angrier by the second. This is amazing! My sister doesn’t dislike anyone the way she does STB. Before my dad started dating STB, I don’t think I ever heard Miri tell anyone off.

STB and Miri embark on a stare-down worthy of a Hollywood action movie. Neither blinks.

Meanwhile, Prissy has finally stopped talking to herself and is now doing what she always does when she thinks her mother isn’t looking: carefully picking her nose. It’s kind of cute to watch because she has such small fingers. You’d think STB would be more concerned with that than with Miri’s nails.

Suddenly, I feel the newly familiar rush of cold, and I look back at Miri and notice that her lips are doing that pursed thing. Uh-oh. I twist my head back to STB as her iced coffee slowly rises from the table beside her. Yikes! I leap toward the plastic cup and haul it down to safety before anyone can see.

The stare-down is over, because everyone’s eyes are now on me.

I take a long sip. “This is delicious,” I say while narrowing my eyes at my blushing sister. “My turn to change now, right?” And then, before anyone can respond, I hurry to the dressing room.

Crisis averted. And minus the STB cooties, the coffee was tasty.

I take off my jeans and drape myself in my very own pink life-sized doily. Despite the hideousness of the dress, the truth is I’m finding the whole from-material-to-dress process intriguing. Maybe I’ll learn to sew. How awesome would that be? I’d be able to make anything I want, rip off all the hottest designs. People would think I spent hundreds—no, thousands—on my outfits. I gingerly kick off my shoes so I won’t step all over the material. I could even make my own labels—
Rachel
—and sew them inside. Or on the outside like all the expensive designers do.
Rachel
would come to mean chic.
Vogue
would feature my creations, and I would become internationally famous. Jewel would beg to be included in my televised prime-time biography.

Ouch. It feels as if I just stepped on a pin. Ouch, ouch, ouch. That killed. I hate anything that pricks the skin. How am I supposed to become a world-famous seamstress when I hate pins?

Maybe I’ll get Miri to poof up the designer clothes for me, since magic is practically flying out of her these days. But I suppose she’ll want to share the glory. Fine, we’ll call the label Michel. I step outside, careful to avoid more pin foliage.

Miri gives me a sheepish smile as I pass her.

She’s definitely almost primed for the plan.

“Arms out,” Judy says when I stand in front of her. I comply like a scarecrow. The truth is, I’m relieved to report, my reflection isn’t that scary. The dress makes me resemble Glinda from
The Wizard of Oz
. I look kind of pretty. Except for a small zit above my eyebrow, my complexion is relatively clear. My nose is small. My eyebrows have a nice arch. I wiggle them in the mirror. My eyes are pretty big. Too bad they’re boringly brown. My teeth are straight and white, so despite my too-thin lips, I have a niceish smile.

“We don’t need boning for you,” Judy comments, interrupting my critical analysis.

“We don’t?” I ask, watching myself purse my lips. That’s how I’ll look when I’m finally kissing someone. Or casting a spell when my powers kick in. “Why don’t we?”

STB sighs. “Because you don’t have breasts.”

Well, I never! “But I might have breasts by the time of the wedding.”

STB snorts. “Rachel, it’s in seven weeks.”

“These things happen fast, you know. One day you’re flat and the next day, boom, you’re bursting out of your double-D bra. Do what you think is best, but don’t get angry at me if we have to scrap the dress and start again at the last minute because of my inevitable blossoming.” These people need to have some faith.

STB throws up her hands. “Give her boning.”

“Can I have some too, Mommy?” Prissy asks. “I want boning!”

“Yes, sweet pea, you can have whatever you want.”

If she gets breasts before I do, I’ll use the boning to make myself a noose.

The nails argument resumes the moment we’re in the car.

“I want you to try that special polish again, the kind that tastes bad,” STB tells Miri.

I’m sitting next to STB in the front seat, Prissy is singing some highly inappropriate pop music lyrics to herself in the back, and Miri is sitting behind me, staring vacantly out the window. “No,” she answers. “It doesn’t work.”

“If you stopped biting, it would. I don’t know how you nibbled through that polish.”

It was pretty gross. Well, I had to try some, didn’t I? I just put a drop on my thumb and licked it. And then again on my pinky, in case size affected taste. “If she stopped biting,” I explain with forced patience, “then it wouldn’t need to work.” Come on, STB, you can be meaner than this. “But it’s not just the biting that’s the problem,” I say, goading her. “She rips them too.”

STB gasps. Miri kicks the back of my seat.

“You rip them? They’re not old checks; they’re your precious hands! This has
got to stop.
”

Miri stays silent for a few seconds and then explodes. “Why do you care so much? They’re my nails! Mine! And I can do whatever I want with them!”

Yes!

STB reaches over her seat and wags her finger at Miri. “No, you can’t. You don’t always know what’s in your best interest.”

Since Miri could turn STB into a toad at any moment, STB obviously doesn’t know what’s in
her
best interest.

“You can’t tell me what to do,” Miri grumbles. “You’re not my mother.”

Ah. The infamous not-my-mother line. Silly, Miri. Turning her into a toad would be far more original.

When we return to the house, Miri runs up to our room and slams the door. I’ll give her some space to seethe privately. Get her really worked up. Maybe a half hour or so. And then I’ll strike with Part One of The Plan. (Insert evil laugh. I would do one, but I’ve tried it and I sound like a constipated frog. My dad can do a great one, but this is hardly the time to ask him, and anyway, he’s at the office, even though STB hates for him to work when we’re here. She hates having to entertain us all day without him. Not that she’d ever tell him that. Oh, no, she prefers to fume silently as though it’s our fault.)

I decide to give Miri thirty minutes, tops, of solo stewing time. Maybe I’ll watch some TV. I plop myself onto the couch in the living room and turn on the tube. Flip. Flip. Flip. Nothing but infomercials, reality TV, and reruns. Hey, maybe
Bewitched
is on. I’ll be able to give Miri some pointers. Nope. Just
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
. Forget that. I don’t want to give her any dangerous ideas. What to do, what to do? I guess I could start my homework. I have an English assignment for Monday. I’m supposed to analyze Yeats’s poetry for techniques such as alliteration.

Dull, dreary, drudgery.

Plight, plan, plot.

I know it’s been only six minutes, but honestly, I think Miri has had more than enough time alone. I enter the room to find her lying on her bed, legs at a right angle straight up against the wall, A
²
propped upright on her lap. I know this is a weird way to read, but we’ve both been doing it for years. It does seem a little batlike, now that she’s a witch.

“I can’t believe Dad is marrying her,” she complains as I lie down beside her.

Perfect. She’s primed for Part One. “He doesn’t
have
to marry her,” I say in my casual voice.

She smirks. “Then when will we wear our pink doily dresses?”

Aha! Here’s my opening. “If the wedding is canceled, we will never have to wear them. Ever. Except on Halloween, if we’re so inclined. You can dress up as Glinda, the Good Witch of the North.”

She raises an eyebrow. “And why would the wedding get canceled?”

When I was seven, I begged my mom to let me dress up as Glinda for Halloween, but she insisted that the Glinda costumes were all sold out and that I’d have to settle for going as a fairy princess. At the time I believed her. Now I know different. She was afraid that if I dressed like a witch, I would somehow
will
my magic into being. I can’t believe she tried to thwart my powers! I can’t believe a lot of what my mother did. Or didn’t do.

She’s a witch. She could have cast spells to make me happy. Like the time I wanted to get tickets to a concert at Roseland, but they were sold out. She could have whipped up two more. Plus backstage passes! She should have stopped me from ever getting hurt! She could have stopped my dad from divorcing her. The back of my neck stiffens. I haven’t forgotten that early morning conversation about experiencing the good and bad, but still . . . why not make life picture-perfect?

“Because,” I say now, taking a deep breath, “we’re going to put a spell on Dad.” If my mom wants to ignore the tools available to her, then that’s her problem. Not mine. And not Miri’s, if I can help it.

Miri raises the other eyebrow. “We’re?”

She has to rub it in, doesn’t she? “Fine,
you
put a spell on Dad.”

“How did I know that would be your solution?”

“Because you’re psychic as well as a witch?”

“Or because Mom warned me that you’d try to get me to use magic.” She shakes her head. “No. I can’t do it. I can’t use spells to manipulate our father. It’s not right.”

Strike out.

Okay, no need to panic. Obviously, a goody-goody like her needs time to let the idea seep in.

And plenty more STB aggravation is sure to come.