Everyone laughed.
I’d memorized all my lines, but at rehearsals I sat alone, pretending
to study my black binder. When it was my turn onstage, I would recite
my lines loudly and without hesitation. That made me feel a kind of
confidence. If I didn’t have anything to say, at least Annie did.
A week before opening night, Mother dyed my brown hair cherry
red. The director said it was perfect, that all I needed now was to finish
my costumes before the dress rehearsal on Saturday.
In our basement I found an oversized knit sweater, stained and hole-
ridden, and an ugly blue dress, which Mother bleached to a faded
brown. The dress was perfect for an orphan, and I was relieved at how
easy finding the costumes had been, until I remembered that in act two
Annie wears beautiful dresses, which Daddy Warbucks buys for her. I
didn’t have anything like that.
I told Mother and her face sank. We drove a hundred miles round-
trip, searching every secondhand shop along the way, but found
nothing. Sitting in the parking lot of the last shop, Mother pursed her
lips, then said, “There’s one more place we can try.”
We drove to my aunt Angie’s and parked in front of the white picket
fence she shared with Grandma. Mother knocked, then stood back
from the door and smoothed her hair. Angie looked surprised to see us
—Mother rarely visited her sister—but she smiled warmly and invited
us in. Her front room reminded me of fancy hotel lobbies from the
movies, there was so much silk and lace. Mother and I sat on a pleated
sofa of pale pink while Mother explained why we’d come. Angie said
her daughter had a few dresses that might do.
Mother waited on the pink sofa while Angie led me upstairs to her
daughter’s room and laid out an armful of dresses, each so fine, with
such intricate lace patterns and delicately tied bows, that at first I was
afraid to touch them. Angie helped me into each one, knotting the
sashes, fastening the buttons, plumping the bows. “You should take
this one,” she said, passing me a navy dress with white braided cords
arranged across the bodice. “Grandma sewed this detailing.” I took the
dress, along with another made of red velvet collared with white lace,
and Mother and I drove home.
The play opened a week later. Dad was in the front row. When the
performance ended, he marched right to the box office and bought