It's All Relative (27 page)

“OMG!” I screamed. “Where'd you get that? I didn't see it before.”

“A woman in line, who was shopping for her daughter's homecoming dance, gave it to me. She said it would look better on you anyway.”

I slipped it on. Barely. It was tight. I couldn't breathe. The straps dug into my shoulder blades. It was perfect.

As I stood in front of the mirror, smiling through the pain and loss of blood to my extremities, I asked myself the question every American woman has asked herself at one point in her life while standing in front of a full-length mirror illuminated by fluorescent lighting:
What price beauty?

And yet I proudly walked out of that dressing room and spun around to show the line of waiting women. They gasped. And then spontaneously burst into applause.

“Honey, it's perfect!” said a woman who looked as though she hadn't bathed since the bicentennial.

“You look like a dream! Are you getting married?” asked another as she slid a Twinkie into her mouth.

I turned back to look in the mirror.

I
was
beautiful.

I
was
in severe pain.

Especially after Gary brought me a strappy pair of three-inch silver heels.

Still, I knew I made the quintessential American dumb blonde, and this made me happier than receiving my master's degree had.

To showcase our outfits—and to celebrate Halloween and friends' birthdays—we threw a massive party. It started at seven, meaning Gary and I began getting ready at three. And between the
shaving, the plucking, the powdering, the spraying, and the fluffing, we needed every minute of those four hours.

Gary walked out of the bathroom first in a cropped white wig, strand of pearls, pink sweater, retro skirt, and apron having turned back the calendar some fifty years to become June Cleaver.

“Ward, you were a little hard on the Beaver last night,” Gary said, lifting up his skirt and apron to reveal his visual punch line for the night: He had shoved one of Marge's stuffed toys—a PetSmart beaver—under his pantyhose and between his legs.

“No wonder I'm gay. I always knew these things had teeth!” he said, fingering himself and pointing at the beaver's faux-fanged mouth.

And then June set about perfecting her daughter's pageant hair, culminating with the installation of a sequined crown atop my head and the placement of a Miss Teen South Carolina banner over my shoulders.

When he was finished, he stood back and nearly began to cry. “Now you can look!”

I turned to face the mirror.

I looked just like Caitlin Upton.

Okay, I had an Adam's apple and a little underarm hair, which I refused to shave, but I looked pretty, albeit a touch more like Linda Hamilton from
The Terminator
than a teen queen.

Gary was sniffling. “My God, you make a pretty woman. I'm kinda proud and kinda freaked out, all at the same time.”

Still, I knew: This year I was finally ready for the gays.

In essence, our Halloween party—like every gay Halloween party—consisted of a throng of drunk men in drag. There was an army of Amy Winehouses, a pack of Palins, a Carrie Underwood, a Jessica Simpson, an Elvira, the Lennon Sisters, Dame Edna. And while the costumes were fabulous, the looks spot-on, I knew from the gay gasps and requests for photos that I had no competition this year.

That is, until I saw a woman I firmly believed had ovaries standing at the bar, sipping champagne from a fluted glass.

It was Sophia Loren.

Young Sophia.

Sultry Sophia.

I watched her turn slowly, giving the crowd a bitchy once-over, and then she proceeded to walk directly up to me. She lowered her giant Italian eyewear menacingly, and—in front of twenty or so partygoers—said in an Italian accent that was as thick as rigatoni, “Who are you supposed to be? Miss Teen … 
1985?
”

The crowd gasped, just as host Mario Lopez had done when the real Miss Teen South Carolina flubbed her question.

Oh, no, she di-unt! Not at my party!

Still, I knew that this was my moment.

My moment to not be a baby.

My moment to shine, to establish myself.

I remembered what my mom had told me all those years ago on Halloween: “You always need to take a chance in life.”

I finally had.

“Just as I thought,” Sophia suddenly said, sounding both sexy and disgusted, before I could even utter a word. “Too old to talk. Afraid her dentures will slide around in that old mouth.”

The crowd roared.

Sophia started to turn, leaving me humiliated. Gary strode up, ready to save me, ready to flash his beaver to distract the crowd.

He began to lift his apron, but I shook my head no.

“Is that backless?” I asked Sophia as she walked away.

“But of course it is!” she said with a snarl. “Do you have cataracts, too, my darling?”

“I wish I did,” I replied in my best Southern accent. “Then I wouldn't be able to see all those exposed fat rolls. Perhaps you should do a back row ever' now 'n' then, sweetcakes, to add a little definition
to your lats. We Americans call it ‘exercise.' Oooh, but I forgot that all y'all Europeans like to be a little meaty.”

Sophia turned, spitting mad, but not before I reached out to pinch a layer of her exposed back fat and said, “Can y'all say, ‘Pasta'?”

Sophia lifted a hand, ready to slap me or knock my crown off or destroy my makeup, but I had worked too damn hard to crack this Halloween glass ceiling, so I said, grabbing her hand in midair, “Listen, be-yatch, you know in your heart Audrey Hepburn deserved to win that Oscar for
Breakfast at Tiffany's
.”

The crowd roared.

And then Gary showed them all his beaver.

But not before I had learned exactly—just like my mama and all those gals before me who had sacrificed their bodies for beauty—what it took in this world to be a strong, proud, pretty American woman.

G
ary works as an innkeeper at a bed and breakfast that is consistently ranked as one of the most romantic in the nation, the fact of which he never ceases to remind me.

“A couple celebrating their fiftieth anniversary renewed their vows at the inn today.”

“A husband surprised his wife by leaving a trail of rose petals that led to a bottle of champagne and a candlelit dinner.”

“A man pampered his partner with breakfast in bed followed by a massage.”

I rolled my eyes at all of this because I knew the person doing the surprising clearly didn't do anything whatsoever, except use his opposable thumb to pick up a phone and dial Gary, who then made all these miracles occur just like a Keebler elf.

And then I made the mistake of saying this out loud.

“You don't have any clue what day this is, do you?” he said.

“Sure do,” I replied. “Saturday.”

“I'll see you tonight,” Gary said, leaving to inn-keep for the day.

“Okay,” I said, thankful he wasn't mad. “Have a good day.”

Gary's job was hard on me because I was more of what I like to call a practical romantic, meaning I paid the electric bill and
went to the grocery store, gestures I considered sweet and necessary, thoughtful yet functional.

I mean, you try having breakfast in bed with no food; and I bet it's no picnic to eat by candlelight simply because your power has been shut off due to late payment.

Still, I realize that I am not a classic romantic.

This third Saturday morning in October, I headed to pick up a caramel Silk latte from the local coffeehouse—part of my very important weekend routine—when a barista informed me that it was Swedish Day.

“Did you do something sweet for your man this morning?” asked the barista, who always kept me in the loop, especially before I am fully caffeinated.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, strumming my fingers on the counter. “And give me an extra shot.”

“I bet Gary's working at the inn today, isn't he?” she said. “And I bet it's a full house.”

“He is. It is. How'd you know?”

“It's Swedish Day. It's huge in the Great Lakes region.”

“What on earth do I do for Swedish Day? Rent Ingmar Bergman movies?” I asked, sipping my latte. “Oooh, coffee's strong and sweet, just like me.”

“Just be really romantic when he gets home,” she said. “
Really
romantic, got it?”

I nodded, but left baffled.

I had never heard of Swedish Day.

Still, I lived on the coast of Michigan, which was made up of an odd amalgam of resort towns with weird histories and bizarre celebrations like the Blueberry Festival, the Goose Festival, the Mac-and-Cheese Festival. And I lived due south of a Dutch town called Holland, which was absolutely giddy about its ancestral namesake. Holland was a highly conservative little town, the polar
opposite of our little resort towns, which worshipped all things Dutch: tulips, windmills, wooden shoes, and, of course, a very vengeful Lord. I figured that Swedish Day was just some sort of Dutchy Valentine's.

But what did one do for one's lover on Swedish Day?

I did a little online research but could find no “Swedish Day,” so I studied a little about Sweden and then went shopping, hitting the “international aisle” of our local supermarket, which consisted mostly of refried beans and sauerkraut.

Still, I persevered, and then spent the afternoon cooking.

When Gary walked in after inn-sitting all day, I screamed, “
Valkommen!
”

He jumped.

And then screamed when he saw that I was wearing a Viking helmet.

I ushered Gary to a candlelit table, where a Swedish Day feast of herring, Swedish pancakes, and Swedish meatballs was waiting. Baking in the oven were pepparkakor, bona fide Swedish ginger cookies.

Gary stared at me, touching the end of my helmet's horns.

“They're sharp!” he said. “What on God's green earth is going on?”

“Happy Swedish Day! I bet you're surprised, but I wanted to go all out for you.”

I tonged a couple of meatballs and then forked a few pancakes and placed them on his plate. And then I joined him, still wearing my Viking helmet. “I just wanted to do as much for you today as you did for everyone else.”

“It's
Sweetest
Day! Sweet-est Day,” Gary enunciated, slowly, “not Swedish Day. Sweetest Day is like a second Valentine's Day, except more for couples instead of young romantics. Husbands surprise their wives with flowers and then take them out for a romantic dinner. That type of thing.”

I shoved a Swedish meatball—which I must say was delicious—into my mouth and immediately wanted to cry out of absolute humiliation, like when a kid wets his pants at school.

“Don't,” Gary said, laughing. “It's okay. Really. I love that you tried. You really went for it. Made an effort. And that's all that matters to me.”

He smiled, ate a meatball, and said, “You know, I can't say that I've ever had an authentic Swedish meal.”

He then took a bite of his pancake and said, “Not bad.”

Although Gary passed on the herring, he did lead me into the bedroom, where he told me to take off everything but my plastic Viking helmet.

“Thanksgiving is an emotional holiday. People travel thousands of miles to be with people they only see once a year. And then discover once a year is way too often.”

–JOHNNY CARSON

T
here was a homeless man I used to pass many fall Sundays in downtown St. Louis as I made my way to Rams home football games.

This particular homeless man was hard to ignore because he had no arms or legs but was, rather, simply a torso in a rusting wheelchair.

Make that a drunk torso in a rusting wheelchair.

The man was always drunk—
very
drunk—making every word he uttered sound exactly the same:

“
Ouwannadoobledie?!
”

It was a disturbing sound or word—I could never really discern the difference—made doubly so by the linguistic dilemma of whether he was asking a question or making a statement.

I must admit that my grammatical compass was off-kilter those Sundays as well, because I was usually drunk
—very
drunk—considering I had been tailgating since early in the morning.

My favorite phrase, usually screamed in a thunderous roar, was “GOOOOORRRAMMMMSSSSHHHH!”

On our way to and from the game, one of my best friends would always toss a couple of dollars into the homeless man's cup as we passed.

He did it against my protests.

“He's just going to use it to drink,” I would say.

“No shit!” my friend would reply. “Can you blame him? And you know he needs the cash. I mean, he's not faking it. Just look at him.”