The Smell of Other People's Hou - Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock Page 0,3
that it made this cool scritchy-scratchy noise across the mesh fabric of my tutu when I swung my head from side to side. It was the tutu Daddy had bought me Outside. You couldn’t get a tutu like this in Fairbanks, and I don’t think Gran knew that it was special, or she never would have let me have something the other girls didn’t. I was so excited, and as I came up to the studio, I remember another girl and her mom going inside, too. Alyce was wearing a black leotard and plain pink tights. I could tell she was jealous, eyeing my tutu as she held open the door to let me in, and her mother said, “You have the prettiest long hair I’ve ever seen.”
“I know. I’m pretty all over,” I said to her without a second thought.
Alyce’s mother smiled at me, but then her face changed quickly as Gran’s fingers gripped me by the arm and yanked me inside. I didn’t even have time to wonder what I’d said that was wrong. Gran marched me into the bathroom, and said through gritted teeth, “Oh, you think you’re something special, do you?”
She pulled a huge pair of orange-handled scissors out of her bag, as if she carried them around waiting for moments just like this. They looked like a bird with a silver metal beak. And they were loud. I can still hear the sound of my hair being chopped off with just a few mad snaps of the bird’s jaws. Then Gran made me walk out of the bathroom and go take my place on the piece of tape that Miss Judy put on the floor marking my spot. Nobody looked right at me, but there were mirrors on every wall, so I could see their sideways glances. I could also see my hair sticking out in all directions, as if it had been caught in a lawn mower. No more swishing for me. I never went back to that class. And Gran never mentioned it again.
Even after all these years, I know that a stroke of good luck, like a rich, popular boyfriend whose family likes you, means you just have to hold your breath and hope it lasts—and never, ever brag or feel too good about yourself.
—
That’s why I stole one of Ray’s white T-shirts and took it home to sleep with under my pillow so I could pretend my world smelled of cedar, too. No one ever suspected anything, because at Birch Park, where the sound of cockroaches chewing saltines is deafening, I just kept my head down and let Lily make all the mistakes.
—
“Bunny says we’re poor,” Lily announces as she and her best friend, Bunny, clatter through the door, letting in a gust of cold air. They drop their mittens and snowsuits into a big pile and trip out of their boots, knocking each other over trying not to be late for dinner.
Gran is reheating food left over after another Catholic Social Services luncheon. She works part-time typing for the archbishop, so we get first dibs on whatever food is left from their functions. Tonight’s meal was delivered to the door by Father Mike himself, with his little white collar choking him.
Selma is over and we’re setting the table. I can see Gran looking at the food, wondering if it will be enough to feed two extra mouths. She reaches for a can of Spam to stretch it out.
“I didn’t say you were poor. I said you were poorer than me and Dumpling,” Bunny says. Dumpling is her older sister.
I watch Gran sigh, which is a sign that we’re aging her. We’re always aging her, but especially Lily, and now Bunny is helping. Gran says if she didn’t have to take care of us, she’d still be a young woman. I look at her sagging boobs, then down at the tuna casserole. Too bad for Lily, there are peas in it again.
“What makes you so rich?” she asks Bunny as they jostle each other at the sink, fighting over the Joy soap.
“Fish camp,” says Bunny, “We get tons and tons of salmon at fish camp.”
“My cousin goes fishing every summer,” Selma chimes in. “She doesn’t think salmon are so special. In fact, Lily, I’m sure Alyce would trade places with you—she would love not to have fish this summer.”
Selma’s cousin Alyce is the same Alyce from that fateful ballet class. It was her mother who told me my hair was pretty.