Dumplin' (20 page)

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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When I pick my mom up from work the next day, she's got a dress bag draped over her arm. She holds her hand up as she gets into the car. “Before you say anything, hear me out.”

“Okay?” But I can't hide the apprehension in my voice.

“Debbie and I hit up a few thrift stores on our lunch break, and I knew you hadn't gotten a dress yet. And well, you have to get the dress approved in a few weeks, so you don't have much time. You may not realize it, but you can't just buy a dress off the rack. That's not how it works.”

I know I need a dress, and I know I'm dragging here. But there is no recipe for disaster so guaranteed as my mother clothes shopping for me. We've been there. We've done that. We still have the bruises.

“It's a little on the simple side, but that means we can add our own touches. Like it was custom made.”

I promise myself that I'll at least try it on. I will give her the benefit of the doubt.

Mom lets me get dressed in her room so I can use the big mirror. The door clicks shut behind her, and I realize
how odd it is that she doesn't stay. She roams the house all the time in various states of undress, searching for a stray sock or ironing her scrubs. It's not as if she ever instilled modesty in me. But there came a point, maybe around the time I was eleven or twelve, when my mom stopped sitting in fitting rooms with me or brushing her teeth while I was in the shower. I guess it could be that she was trying to be intuitive to whatever privacy needs she figured I might need. But the thought tickling in the back of my mind says that she's not interested in being reminded of this body I wear.

Whether or not it's true, it still hurts.

I have to give it to her: the dress isn't horrible. It's red—the perfect shade of red that's reserved for sexy nail polish and fast cars—with a sweeping neckline and straps that hang off my shoulders on purpose. My shoulders don't create the sharp lines I've seen on actresses and models. Instead they slope at the edges, but still I like the dress.

Until I zip it.

It zips.

But that doesn't mean it fits.

Christ. The fact that I'm able to get the zipper over my hips is a lesson in inertia or just willpower. The fabric pulls against the seams, threatening to tear if I even look at a chair the wrong way. And the top is pretty huge. I can actually tuck my arms in. (In case I get cold or something.)

“All right,” I call to my mom. “Come on in!”

My mom stands behind me, and I can see both our
reflections there in the mirror. I watch as her gaze travels over me, and her lips dip down at the corners when she sees the way the fabric stresses against my hips.

Our eyes meet, and she catches herself. Her mouth presses into a smile. “Surely we can let it out a few inches,” she says. “And tuck it in up top.” Her voice is too high and her smile too big, but I don't care. I can ignore those things. Because she's making an effort to meet me where I am. “What do you think?” She pulls the top of the dress back, bunching the spare fabric in her fists.

I can almost imagine what it might look and . . . I like what I see. “It's good. I'm only going to wear it for twenty minutes, right? We can make it work.”

I sit in the third row of the school auditorium. Millie sits beside me, reading a paperback romance, and beside her sits Amanda, her feet bouncing as she drums her fingers on her thigh.

Today is the day we all have to have our talents approved for the pageant. All I've got is the one magic trick I learned from the book Mitch gave me. The rules state that a contestant should prepare a sample, so I'm hoping this is enough.

Hannah squeezes down our aisle past Amanda and Millie. “I'm out of here as soon as they give me the okay.”

“Don't you think it would be polite to stay for everyone else's talents?” asks Millie.

Hannah plops down in the seat beside me, but doesn't bother to answer.

Millie's patience for Hannah is slowly slipping, and I get this sick joy from that. I would love to see cheerful little Millie lose it on Hannah's grumpy ass.

Once the crowd settles, my mom gives her spiel and says that costumes for the talent portion will need to be approved at the same time as the rest of our wardrobe. “The surprises,” my mother says, “are for the audience.”

First up is Bekah Cotter who—ta-da!—twirls a baton like a freaking superhuman. This time, however, Bo's name is not stamped to her butt cheeks. It's really not fair how much I can't stand her. She's maybe said twenty words to me, but the thought of Bo, in a tux, escorting her at the pageant turns me into this version of myself that makes my eyes burn.

Then there are five girls in a row who sing songs from either
Les Miz
or
Chicago
. Karen Alvarez's
Chicago
performance is deemed too sexy and she is given one week to come up with another song. She slinks off the stage, holding her songbook to her chest. I can tell she's mortified, but it smells of pageant scandal and I kind of love it.

“Amanda Lumbard?” calls Mallory Buckley.

Millie pats Amanda on the back as she reaches down under her seat for a duffel bag. Once she's onstage, I notice that she's not wearing her Frankenstein orthopedic shoes. I mean, these still have a thicker heel on one side, but they're more athletic-looking.

“I guess this isn't very traditional, but it's what I'm good at.” Her voice shakes a little. She squats down and opens her gym bag to retrieve a soccer ball. Without any further
introduction, she begins dribbling the ball back and forth between her knees. It's kind of amazing. She head butts the ball a few times and even kicks it over her head, but the ball never hits the ground.

Here she is doing something I could never even dream of doing with my two legs of equal length. After a few more tricks she tucks the ball beneath her arm, grabs her bag, and walks offstage.

Millie and I clap like madwomen, while the rest of the auditorium is quiet as the committee makes its decision.

It takes doubly as long as it has for everyone else, but finally my mom says, in a not-so-impressed tone, “Well, that wasn't our usual fare, but it'll do.”

“So I'm approved then?” asks Amanda.

My mom nods.

Amanda smiles, all goofy and relieved as she sits back down.

Next is a monologue from
Much Ado About Nothing
, which is actually pretty good, but will be totally lost on the judges.

“Willowdean Dickson?”

I reach into my backpack for my prop and walk down the aisle to the stage.

As a kid, I remember standing onstage during school productions. The intense lights always made it impossible to see the audience, and that always made the whole thing bearable for me. But today the theater is lit and the stage lights are dormant.

“I can start now?” I ask.

I try not to count all the girls sitting in the audience because if I start I might not stop.

Mrs. Clawson, who sits next to my mom, nods.

I hold up an empty water bottle and pull a quarter from my pocket. “I'll be doing a magic trick.” My mom's face is unmoving. “I plan on doing other tricks, too, but this is just a sampling.” I wait for someone to tell me that that's okay or that I shouldn't worry, but I am only greeted by silence.

So here's the quick and dirty of how this trick should work: I take an empty water bottle, which I've sliced a sliver of an opening in. I am to hold the water bottle so that the audience cannot see the cut in the side. After banging on the bottle and proving how normal it is, I hold up a quarter and slap it through the small cut in the water bottle. Bada bing. Bada boom.

“Here in my hands I hold a perfectly normal water bottle. One that I drank out of this morning to take my vitamins.” If I can make my voice sound all magician-y, maybe no one will notice what a hack I am. I tap the water bottle all over. “Totally average water bottle.”

I hold up my quarter. From the front row, my mom squints. I uncap the bottle to show that I cannot fit it through the top. The room is so quiet. Is this why magicians always tell jokes? Or play really intense music that sounds like lasers? I display the quarter once more before gripping it between my fingers like the book said and slapping it into the side of the bottle and through the crack I had created.

“Voilà!” I say, which might be cute, except I've spoken too soon. I shake the water bottle, but besides the few stray drops from this morning, it's empty. I hadn't checked to make sure that I was hitting the right side of the water bottle.

“On the floor,” calls Callie from the third row where she sits beside Ellen.

Ellen. She chews on her bottom lip.

Her in the audience. My shitty talent. This fully lit auditorium. I'm wasting my time with this pageant. I don't think this is what Lucy imagined when she stashed that old registration form away in her room. And it's no one's fault but my own. Tears threaten at the corners of my eyes, but I force myself to hold them back.

I look down, and there at my feet is my quarter. Quickly, I bend over to pick it up before shoving it through the other side of the bottle.

Worst magic trick of all time.

The only applause comes from Millie. Of course.

“I'm still learning,” I say.

I stand at the edge of the stage as the committee members—my mom included—converse back and forth. Finally my mother says, “Approved.” But her face says it all. Disappointed. Underwhelmed.

I squeeze past Hannah and Millie to get to my seat. “Weak sauce,” whispers Hannah.

“Oh, like you have anything better planned,” I snap.

“Hannah Perez,” calls my mother.

Hannah stomps across the stage in her army-navy surplus boots.

Then—thanks to the kid in the sound booth—her music begins to play. It's a song I remember hearing on Lucy's record player: “Send in the Clowns.” It's the type of song that settles in your bones and makes you sad for a reason you can't quite pin down.

Hannah's voice isn't even all that amazing, but she really sings it. Like, she wrote it herself. The music crescendos and so does her voice. I stop seeing Hannah with her usual sour face and her huge teeth and her fading black clothes. And all I see is this girl who sings this heartbreaking song because she gets it even when the rest of us don't.

The music cuts out in the middle of it fading, and there's a brief silence before every single person in the auditorium claps.

When the applause fades, my mom says, “Hannah, that was lovely.” And she says it in a way that says,
Now, that is how you do it, Dumplin'.

Hannah nods and takes the steps two at a time. She doesn't say thank you. Just grabs her backpack from where it sits at her feet and leaves.

I watch every single talent. Callie signs to the
Titanic
song, which I've got to admit is kind of a surprise. Millie plays “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” on the xylophone, which isn't incredibly impressive, but suits her still. And Ellen clogs to some German folk music. She was on a clogging team all the way up until seventh grade, and she's as bad at it now as she was back then.

It makes me smile, and she sees me, but doesn't acknowledge me. When she's done, I clap too loud and even my mom turns around.

As my mom and I are driving home, she lowers the volume on the radio at the stop sign before our house and says, “That talent approval was the only favor you'll be getting from me.” She pulls a deep breath in through her teeth. “I get that you don't take this pageant seriously, but maybe you could at least pretend to.”

She's right. It's not fair to her or Amanda or Millie or Hannah. When I get home, the first thing I do is sit in front of my computer with Riot curled around my feet as I compose an email. The subject line reads: SOS.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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In the light of day, the Hideaway is nothing more than peeling paint and sticky floors.

Beside me Hannah teeters back and forth in three-inch heels. “I'm not wearing these in this pageant.”

Lee Wei has us all lined up on the stage in high heels while Dale, the bouncer/owner, sits at the bar sipping on a tall boy. The email I sent to him was as transparent as I'd been in a long time. I told him about finding the old registration form in Lucy's dresser and about Millie, Amanda, and Hannah.
I've gotten myself in too deep
, I told him.
And not only am I going to make a fool of myself, but I'm taking these girls down with me. We need help. The kind you can't find in Clover City.

Because, the truth is, we have no idea what we're doing. We don't know how to walk or pose or present ourselves. I don't want to go up there and be the fat girl who fell on her ass and fumbled her way through some magic tricks. I'm not naïve. I know I won't win. I don't even want to. But I want to go up there and prove that there's no reason I can't do this or shouldn't be able to.

On my other side, Millie is surprisingly silent with her knees locked in place.

“Are you okay?” I whisper.

She concentrates on the dark spotlight above her. “I'm trying to concentrate on not falling.”

“Bend your knees!” calls Lee.

Hannah yanks a thumb in Amanda's direction. “I don't get why she doesn't have to wear these spiked torture devices.”

Amanda grins innocently.

“Hannah,” says Millie. “You know—”

Lee interrupts with a no-nonsense tone. “Because life is not a river and we're not all headin' in the same direction.”

Hannah rolls her eyes.

“And, sweetheart,” Lee adds. “Your attitude needs a makeunder.”

I asked Lee and Dale to sacrifice their Friday afternoon, and here we are, moaning. “Come on, y'all.”

“Let's get this over with,” says Hannah.

Lee clears her throat. “The first thing you've gotta nail down is your walk. Your walk makes you a queen. Because, ladies, it ain't anything that comes out of your mouth that counts as your first impression. It's all”—she swings her hips to the right and then the left—“about the motion in the ocean.”

From the corner of my eye, I spot Millie chewing relentlessly on her nails.

Lee instructs us to sit down while she shows us exactly what she means, and all of us sigh as soon as our asses hit the
chairs. She struts up and down the stage, her heels making a distinct thwacking noise with each step. “You see how I'm walking with one foot
in front of the other. Pretend you're taking a sobriety test—”

“They're in high school,” grunts Dale.

“Then they should know exactly what I'm talking about, right, girls?” The only one of us who nods her head is Hannah. “So you act like you're walking down a yellow line. And none of those baby steps. Your stride should be as long as your forearm, at least.” She takes another lap. The way she moves in her silk robe and endlessly tall heels transforms her from some short chubby guy dressed as a woman into a glamazon. Maybe I'm seeing what I want to see, but it's hard to think she's anything less.

“You can't hold all your weight on your heel. It's not fair to make those poor little spikes hold you up all on their own. Distribute the work to the rest of your foot. Now, one of y'all try.”

I raise my hand. I can do this. I can so do this.

Dale whistles.

Carefully, I take the steps.

Lee sweeps her arm out, lending me the stage. “Give the girl some music, Dale!”

I pull in a deep breath. I don't recognize the song, but it's enough for me to ignore the way my toes pinch together and how the balls of my feet feel like they're on fire. My first few steps are long like Lee said, but slow and tentative. She's right about walking toe to heel with one foot in front of the other. It makes your hips swing, which sets your whole body in motion, like a downhill bicycle. Once you're going, you can't stop. As I turn around at the other end of the stage, Dale whistles again. I walk with purpose and with the knowledge that if this room was packed, every eye would be on me.

Lee claps for me and wraps her arms around my waist. Her head presses against my boobs, and for a brief moment, I remember that she is a he. I wish every day of my life could be this absurd. I want Lucy to see this. To see that I've connected the dots of her fragmented life, and here I am.

I watch as Hannah trips across the stage, falling not once but twice. Halfway through her walk back across the stage, she tears her heels off and throws them into the empty audience. And the whole time she's laughing, which isn't something I can say I've seen her do much of.

Millie's walk is measured and careful. Lee reminds her over and over again to keep her eyes on the horizon and not on her feet. A few times she holds her hands up for balance, but she makes it. And Amanda, she's so comfortable in her own shoes that she barely requires any coaching.

Before we drive home, the four of us sit at the bar while Dale makes virgin cocktails for us and not-so-virgin cocktails for Lee.

Lee tells us about stage makeup and what kind of clothes make statements until she's had so many cocktails that her head is slumped against the bar. “I wish I'd known girls like you when I was in high school.”

“Why?” asks Hannah. “You like being made fun of?”

Lee shakes her head. “No. No, I wish I would've had friends that were going after things they weren't supposed to have. I was so scared of myself at that age. I was so scared that all the big things I wanted would never be anything more than wants.”

Dale comes around the other side of the bar. “I better get you home before I have to open tonight.”

Lee sits up. “It got better,” she says. “Look at me. I'm living my dream. I'm in love. I'm happy. But I waited for that to happen to me. And y'all are making it happen now. Y'all are going for it.”

We sip our drinks for a moment. I don't say anything, but her words bring something inside of me to life. Like, I'm using a muscle I forgot I had.

“Thank you for helping us today,” says Amanda. “Even if I can't wear heels.”

With the help of Dale, Lee pops off her bar stool. “Child, you don't need heels. You're fierce all on your own.”

She walks down the row of us and kisses each of our cheeks. Millie reaches to hug her, and Lee doesn't pull away. As Dale is getting her in the car, we gather our stuff and load up into Amanda's mom's van.

The drive home is quiet. Not even Hannah has anything snarky to say. Millie makes us stop at a grocery store for a thank-you card. We each sign it, and Millie promises to drop it in the mail.

There's something different about us. I can feel it. It's not a walk. Or a makeup tip. It's not anything you can label
or take a picture of, but I feel it like you do a birthday—nothing you can see, but something you intuitively sense.