Little Children

  “Have you seen a little girl?” she asked. “She’s got a Band-Aid on her knee.”

  Then, out of nowhere, she remembered the posters—There is a pervert among us!—and panicked. Still wearing the bathing suit, its price tag bouncing off her right thigh, she burst out of the dressing room and began running up and down the aisles of the store in her bare feet, calling out, “Lucy? Where are you?” Whenever her fellow shoppers looked at her with the puzzlement she deserved, she’d clutch her head and wail, “I’ve lost my daughter!” She imagined Ronald James McGorvey patting her on the head and offering to buy her an ice-cream cone. Lucy loved ice cream.

  “Lucy? Where are you?”

  In the electronics section, she was accosted by a young black security guard who took her by the shoulders and told her to please calm down. He explained that her daughter was safe, and waiting by the cash registers.

  “We’re watching her,” he said. “So why don’t you just go back to the dressing room and put your clothes on.”

  When she told the story to Jean that night, she left out the part about Lucy getting lost. She just talked about how hard it was to buy a bathing suit under the best of circumstances, let alone with a little kid in tow.

  “I really need a new one,” she said, startled by the level of emotion in her voice. “The old one doesn’t look right.”

  “Why don’t you just order a bunch from a catalogue?” Jean suggested. “That’s what my daughter-in-law does. You can try them on at home when Lucy’s asleep, and send back the ones that don’t fit. Save you a lot of trouble.”

  Having worn solid color tank suits for most of her adult life, Sarah was bewildered by the cornucopia of styles and colors featured in the catalogue. Bikinis were back, apparently, with numerous variations on the basic theme—bandeaus, tank tops, underwires, plus a variety of bottoms, each offering more or less in the crucial area of “rear coverage.” Once she wrapped her mind around the options, though, she found it liberating not to be restricted by the limited inventory available in a particular store, or inhibited by the scrutiny of her fellow shoppers or the salesclerks, who never failed to raise a disapproving eyebrow if you lingered too long in front of an item they considered inappropriate for a woman of your age or body type.

  Her selections were bolder and sexier than anything she would have dreamed of trying on in a department store (or actually wearing in public for that matter). Her mental audience as she flipped through the catalogue was Todd and Todd alone. He was sitting shirtless on a towel in the grassy area adjacent to the Town Pool—the whole complex was mysteriously deserted except for the two of them—watching with unconcealed pleasure as she emerged, dripping, from the deep end, Aphrodite in a black underwire bikini with hipster briefs, size medium or maybe small. She placed her order over the phone with a feeling of almost shameful excitement, her voice trembling as she recited the numbers on her VISA card.

  But the suits took six business days to arrive—she should have sprung for the expedited shipping—and by then her fever had broken. The farther away she got from the kiss itself, the more bizarre and inexplicable it seemed. How could she have let something like that happen? What was wrong with her that she allowed a stranger to do that to her in front of the other mothers, and more importantly, in front of her own child? Luckily, Lucy seemed strangely unfazed by the kiss, had never even mentioned it, but even so, there were times when Sarah actually found herself sympathizing with Mary Ann and Cheryl and Theresa. Why should they talk to her after what she’d done? How had they explained it to their own children?

  And who was she to assume that a guy like Todd actually wanted to see her in a bikini, if she ever found the courage to wear one to the Town Pool? She imagined him wincing as she approached, disappointed by her small breasts, repulsed by that little roll of fat below her navel. What if he treated her the way Arthur Maloney had? What would she do then?

  Arthur Maloney was a scrawny high school theater nerd with bad skin and a habit of laughing nervously at his own jokes. But Sarah had seen him in a student production of Death of a Salesman in the fall of their junior year—he was an oddly convincing Willy Loman at age sixteen—and decided that he needed to be her boyfriend. Having had little experience in this area, she tried to follow the rules of flirtation to the best of her limited understanding. She stared at him obsessively in English—the one class they shared—and memorized the rest of his schedule, so she could arrange to “accidentally” bump into him several times a day. On the rare occasions when she managed to exchange a few words with him, she made sure to compliment an article of his clothing or remind him of something clever he’d said. Sometimes she’d ask if he had plans for the weekend, or had seen a certain movie; but her signals just bounced right off him, as though he were encased in some sort of invisible protective shield.

  After enduring several months of these vaguely humiliating encounters, Sarah’s luck finally changed at the Spring Dance-a-Thon for Muscular Dystrophy. The event had a Fifties Sock Hop theme, and Sarah showed up in a pleated skirt, fuzzy sweater, and saddle shoes. Arthur was there, too, looking like James Dean’s not-so-cool cousin—he had an empty cigarette pack rolled up in the sleeve of his T-shirt—but he spent the whole night hitting on Beth D’Addario, a sophomore with a big chest and an even bigger laugh, so the whole world could know just how much fun she was having at any given moment. But when Beth blew off Arthur for a soccer player, Sarah saw her chance. She hurried over—Arthur was shrugging on his jean jacket at the edge of the bleachers, looking angry and rejected—and volunteered to walk him home. He said okay, but without even pretending to be enthusiastic about the idea.

  He cheered up on the way, though, probably because she kept brushing against him as she talked about what a big famous movie star he was going to be and how the town would throw him a parade down Main Street when he won his first Academy Award. Finally, when she figured she’d softened him up to the appropriate degree, she asked the question she’d been choking on all night.

  “Why don’t you like me?”

  “I like you,” he protested.

  “Don’t lie,” she told him. “You think I’m okay. But you don’t like me like me, not like you like Beth.”

  “I don’t like Beth,” he said angrily. With his hair slicked back, Arthur looked even more weaselly than usual, but at least his pimples weren’t so conspicuous in the dark. “She’s such an airhead.”

  “You talked to her all night. You didn’t talk to me.”

  “I didn’t even know you were there.”

  “See?” she said. “If you liked me, you would have known. I was watching you all night. I didn’t dance, I didn’t do anything. I was just waiting for you to look at me.”

  Arthur seemed startled, and even moved, by this declaration.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and to her amazement, he hugged her, right there on Summer Street (no one was around, but still). It was all she could do to keep from bursting into sobs.

  “Let me make it up to you,” he said.

  He made it up to her on a cold metal bench inside a Plexiglas shelter at the commuter rail station, which was closed for the night. The intimacy of their first kiss—she could taste the broccoli he’d eaten for dinner—was one of the few genuinely shocking revelations of her life. My God, she thought, I’m sucking on Arthur Maloney’s tongue…And I like it! It was disgusting and thrilling at the same time, a combination so overwhelming that it didn’t even occur to her to object when he slipped an icy hand inside her sweater and squeezed her right breast, a little less tenderly than she would have liked.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “For what?”

  “They’re so small. Beth’s are so much bigger.”

  “Would you shut up about Beth?”

  When he got tired of examining her breasts, he tried to reach up her skirt. She stopped him, not because she didn’t want him to—she wasn’t sure what she wanted in that respect—but because it was all starting
to feel like so much so soon, more than either of them really needed.

  “Sorry,” she said again.

  “It’s okay.” He sighed. “I better get going anyway. Gotta rest up for the SATs.”

  “Oh my God,” said Sarah. “I forgot all about them.”

  “It’s the most important test of our lives,” he said. “How could you forget?”

  “You made me,” she told him.

  Arthur looked troubled by this statement, as if it were a dubious honor at best to distract someone from the Scholastic Aptitude Test. But he walked her home, holding her hand all the way, and kissed her good night at the edge of her lawn.

  Of course she couldn’t sleep after that, couldn’t even look at her breakfast in the morning. She felt weak, nearly delirious in the car with her father, who kept rattling off test-taking advice she’d heard a thousand times—answer the easy ones first, eliminate the obviously wrong answers, never leave anything blank—while she had to restrain herself from sticking her head out the window and screaming her new boyfriend’s name to the sleeping town.

  Dozens of her classmates were lined up outside the main entrance to the high school, but her eyes went straight to Arthur without even trying, the connection between them was that strong. He was standing near the front of the line, involved in what looked like a serious conversation with his best friend, Matt. He’s talking about me, Sarah thought proudly, and she walked right up to them without having to ask permission, the way a girlfriend could.

  “Lugubrious,” said Matt.

  “Mournful,” replied Arthur. “Melancholy.”

  She chose that moment to tap him on the shoulder blade.

  “I’m so happy,” she announced. “I can’t stop smiling.”

  Arthur stared at her for a few seconds, as if he were having trouble remembering her name. He had shaved that morning, and his skin was freckled with blood.

  “Can we talk about it later?” he asked. “I’m kinda busy right now.”

  He turned his back on her—he was wearing the same jean jacket as last night—and she understood, as clearly as if he’d punched her in the stomach, that she didn’t have a new boyfriend anymore.

  The doors opened, and Sarah followed the rest of the sheep inside. But all she could think about as she filled in the blanks with her Number 2 pencil was what had gone wrong. Wasn’t I pretty enough? Was I a bad kisser? Should I have let him touch me down there? All of the above?

  Oddly enough, it all worked out okay. She did fine on her SATs, way better than she expected. And Arthur got his heart broken by Beth, after which he came crawling back to Sarah, who went out with him for the whole summer between junior and senior year, and then had the vengeful pleasure of breaking up with him on the day before school resumed in September.

  That was what baffled her. Arthur Maloney was not an important person in her life. At best, he was a minor footnote in her romantic history, a teenage boy—not even a cute one—who’d kissed her one day and regretted it the next. She’d barely given him a thought since the day she graduated from high school. So why, she had wondered, in those strange days while she awaited the delivery of her bathing suits, was she suddenly thinking about him all the time?

  The floral bandeau was a bad idea, that much was obvious. It squeezed her chest like a tourniquet and possessed none of the “bust-enhancing” qualities boasted of in the catalogue. Not to mention the fact that Sarah always felt extremely self-conscious in flowered clothing, as though she were surrounded by quotation marks. Hello, I’m wearing “flowers.”

  The black underwire top was more flattering—and less embarrassing—but she must have ordered it a size too small. The supports dug into her ribs without mercy, mortifying her flesh like a whale-bone corset. How odd to be reminded of bustles and hoop skirts while wearing such an un-Victorian article of clothing.

  She did like the tank top. It was casual and alluring at the same time, revealing a modest but still provocative glimpse of midriff. Unfortunately, the color was all wrong. They could call it “blush sunset” if they wanted to, but it was really just pink. And Sarah didn’t wear pink.

  My God, she thought, what is wrong with me? I don’t wear flowers, I don’t wear pink. She recognized the debilitating voice in her head, the one that said no to everything. It had been lurking there all her life, holding her back, keeping her from taking chances and breaking free of unproductive patterns.

  In grad school, Sarah had written a paper criticizing Camille Paglia as a “false feminist” for celebrating the sexual power of a few extraordinary women instead of focusing on the patriarchal oppression of women in general. She was especially irritated by Paglia’s worshipful take on Madonna. What did ordinary women—secretaries, waitresses, housewives, prostitutes—have to learn from a rich, famous, beautiful, egomaniac who’d gotten everything she’d ever wanted?

  But lately Sarah had come to the conclusion that they—or at least she—had a lot to learn. Madonna didn’t say, Oh no, I couldn’t possibly wear those cones on my chest. Oh no, I couldn’t pose as a nude hitchhiker. She just said yes to everything. Cowboy hats—sure! Sex with Jesus—why not? Motherhood—that’s cool, too. When one role got old, she just moved on to the next one. That was a form of liberation in itself, Sarah realized. Only temporary, and not for everyone, but real enough for the lucky few who had the imagination to pull it off. And the fact was, women in general weren’t about to get released from patriarchal control anytime soon, so in the meantime, it was every girl for herself.

  The fourth suit she tried on was a red bikini, the color of a candy apple. The top was skimpy—“unconstructed,” according to the catalogue—but her breasts fit nicely inside the two cloth triangles. The bottoms came in a style called “boy shorts,” which promised “ample coverage.” Somehow the boyishness of the shorts brought out the womanliness of her body, accentuating the curves of her hips and ass, while concealing the problem area at the top of her thighs. Amazingly enough, she looked okay. Maybe even better than okay, at least for a woman pushing thirty who’d gone through childbirth.

  I should wear red more often, she thought, pondering herself in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door.

  Jean and Lucy looked up together as she stepped into the living room and struck a model pose, one hand on her hip, the other behind her head. Lucy squinted. Jean’s mouth dropped open.

  “Wow,” she said to Lucy. “Doesn’t Mommy look sexy?”

  Lucy mulled this over for a moment or two, with an oddly reflective air. Then she nodded, but there was something tentative in her assent, as if she wasn’t quite sure she’d understood the question.

  Exhaling sharply, Jean raised her dumbbells overhead.

  “Funny you should mention Dostoevsky,” she said. “We’re reading Crime and Punishment in our book group.”

  “Crime and Punishment?” Sarah huffed, struggling to keep pace. “That’s pretty highbrow for a book group.”

  “Not for us.” Jean pressed the weights straight out from her chest. “We only read the classics. Last month we did Sister Carrie.”

  “Good for you,” said Sarah. “Some mothers from the playground tried to get me to join a group last year, but all they ever read were those Oprah novels.”

  “We’re schoolteachers,” said Jean, as if that accounted for the difference.

  “I went to one meeting, and half the women hadn’t even done the reading. They just wanted to sit around and talk about their kids. I mean, I went to graduate school. Don’t call it a book group if you’re not gonna talk about books.”

  “We have some very stimulating discussions,” said Jean. “You should come next month. We’re doing Madame Bovary. You could be my little sister.”

  “Little sister?”

  “We’re trying to get younger women involved. We call them our little sisters.” She waved her hand, as if it wasn’t worth discussing. “I’d love it if you’d be my guest.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Sarah said, g
roaning inwardly. The last thing she wanted was to spend a night talking about Flaubert with a bunch of retired schoolteachers. “I’m sure I have a slightly different critical perspective from the rest of you.”

  “That’s the whole point,” said Jean. “We could use some fresh blood.”

  They did their usual three-mile loop, through the park and around the new developments, Jean pumping iron and talking about the book group the whole time. She described the other members in unnecessary detail, sketching in their educational and family backgrounds, and making sure not to neglect their charming personality quirks. Bridget spoke three languages and had traveled everywhere. Alice, attractive but very demanding, was working on hubby number three. Regina’s son—he was always a high achiever—was CFO of a Fortune 500 company. Josephine was funny and very opinionated, but her memory wasn’t what it used to be. Laurel only attended during summer and fall. The rest of the year she was a golf widow in Boca.

  “I tried to get Tim to take up golf,” she said, as they turned back onto their street, “but he wouldn’t do it. He’s too busy sitting around the house all day letting his brain turn to mush. It’s hard to believe, but twenty years ago, he was considered to be a charming and intelligent man.”

  Once Jean got started on the subject of her husband, it was hard to get her to stop. A lot of their walks ended with Sarah inviting Jean inside for a glass of ice water, then having to listen like a therapist to an hour’s worth of complaints about Tim’s failure to cope with retirement. That night, though, Sarah was saved from this ordeal by a surprising development: Theresa from the playground was sitting on her front stoop, obviously waiting to speak to her.

  “You’ll have to excuse me,” said Sarah. “I think I have a visitor.”