That something else thrilled and frightened me. I’d always known that I
would grow differently than my brothers, but I’d never thought about what
that might mean. Now it was all I thought about. I began to look for cues to
understand this difference, and once I started looking, I found them
everywhere.
One Sunday afternoon, I helped Mother prepare a roast for dinner. Dad
was kicking off his shoes and loosening his tie. He’d been talking since we
left the church.
“That hemline was three inches above Lori’s knee,” Dad said. “What’s a
woman thinking when she puts on a dress like that?” Mother nodded absently
while chopping a carrot. She was used to this particular lecture.
“And Jeanette Barney,” Dad said. “If a woman wears a blouse that low-cut,
she ought not bend over.” Mother agreed. I pictured the turquoise blouse
Jeanette had worn that day. The neckline was only an inch below her
collarbone, but it was loose-fitting, and I imagined that if she bent it would
give a full view. As I thought this I felt anxious, because although a tighter
blouse would have made Jeanette’s bending more modest, the tightness itself
would have been less modest. Righteous women do not wear tight clothing.
Other women do that.
I was trying to figure out exactly how much tightness would be the right
amount when Dad said, “Jeanette waited to bend for that hymnal until I was
looking. She wanted me to see.” Mother made a disapproving tsk sound with
her teeth, then quartered a potato.
This speech would stay with me in a way that a hundred of its precursors
had not. I would remember the words very often in the years that followed,
and the more I considered them, the more I worried that I might be growing
into the wrong sort of woman. Sometimes I could scarcely move through a
room, I was so preoccupied with not walking or bending or crouching like
them. But no one had ever taught me the modest way to bend over, so I knew
I was probably doing it the bad way.
Shawn and I auditioned for a melodrama at Worm Creek. I saw Charles at the
first rehearsal and spent half the evening working up the courage to talk to
him. When I did, finally, he confided in me that he was in love with Sadie.
This wasn’t ideal, but it did give us something to talk about.
Shawn and I drove home together. He sat behind the wheel, glaring at the
road as if it had wronged him.