littleblackdressgirl

While perusing the Atlanta Journal Constitution over a plastic bowl of Lucky Charms, my seven-year-old self honed in on a small, black and white ad:

“You could be the next Little Miss Georgia Peach!”

From what I could tell, the Little Miss Georgia Peach pageant was a local beauty contest that would surely lead to world renown. By the time I got to the fine print, “Peach queens serve as official ambassadors of the Georgia Peach Festival,” I was sold.

Peach Queen! Ambassador!  Little Miss Georgia Peach!  As far as titles go, what could be better than Little Miss Georgia Peach? In just four words it spoke to my size, gender, origin, and favorite fruit. I had to have it. I had to be the Little Miss Georgia Peach.

So I hopped up from the table, nearly tripping on my tattered bunny slippers in excitement. Just moments earlier, my parents might have glanced over at their daughter, sleepy-eyed, reading up on the state of the world, and thought to themselves, we must be doing something right. But what I was about to propose would reassure them that that they were actually doing something very, very wrong.

“Mom! Dad! Look! Little Miss Georgia Peach! It’s a contest! Please can I do it?!”

I might as well have run around screaming, “I want to be objectified! I want to be judged on my smile and how delicately I can move about wearing taffeta! Please, won’t you subject me to traditional beauty ideals!?” All of which would have been bold statements for a pint-sized, stringy-haired blonde with approximately three front teeth, one of which boasted an unfortunate brown spot from too much Kool-Aid.

Also, what was worse, the subtext: “I am adorable! Don’t you think the judges will just LOVE me?!”

My mom glanced down at the ad, shot my father a look and said, “See, I told you we should have taken her out of self-esteem class.”

And who could blame her? Every Wednesday for weeks a counselor with coke-bottle glasses had been coming to teach my second grade class how to feel good about ourselves.  And every Wednesday for weeks I had rushed in from the bus with my bag full of “Warm Fuzzies,” or brightly covered synthetic puff-balls from some cheap craft store, each representing a compliment a classmate had given me.

“This one is because I’m pretty,” I said as I pulled out a little green puff. “Wait, no, this one,” holding a blue one now, “this one is because I’m pretty. The green one is because Charlotte loves my sweater with the horse mane on the sleeves. The purple one, that’s because I can read out loud really fast, and the orange one is because I’m smarter than everyone!”

Just one week of this and my mom considered calling the school to ask if I could be taken out for an extra recess or sent to the nurse’s office for a nap instead. My father pointed out that the self-esteem gurus would probably give me more attention if they thought I had some cruel and twisted mother who didn’t want me getting any compliments. Unwilling to risk this possibility, she decided to let me stay. But this moment confirmed that my mother’s original instinct had been correct. I had turned my blanky into a makeshift boa and was stretching it behind my head, shimmying back and forth while singing, “Start spreading the news!!! Little Miss Georgia Peach!!”

Maybe it is here that my mother saw her chance to reverse the damage all that silly self-confidence talk had done.  Or maybe, because my mother is also a woman who has never once gifted me a journal without inspirational quotes inscribed within, she couldn’t bear to stand between me and my dreams. But somewhere between my sliding across the kitchen island flashing jazz hands, resting my chin on my fist and shooting her a snaggletoothed grin, she said yes. She let me cut the ad out of the paper, write my name and address on it and send away for a full application.  One of the application questions was “What’s your favorite pastime?,” and I answered, without a doubt in my mind, “5pm.” My journey towards world peach harvest domination had officially begun!

The subsequent months were spent making important wardrobe decisions, trying to discover my talent, and learning to speak like a beauty queen. To this last point, my father offered one very key piece of advice.

“Never say yeah. When they ask you questions, it is yes, or no. Yes. Never yeah. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah,” I said. It did make sense.

According to my contestant packet, which I memorized as if it were the new Tiffany album, there were three stages to the competition, each requiring a different outfit.  As a child who managed to work 2 to 3 wardrobe changes into every ordinary day, this thrilled me to no end. Finally, somebody understood. The same outfit one wears to play in the front yard is simply not suitable for the back yard. The front yard called for a favored pair of hot pink leggings with neon suspenders that popped enough to be seen from the road, while the backyard allowed for a more laid back, sandbox chic, like my faded purple OshKosh B’Gosh overalls with a solid pocket tee.  I had tried to explain this to my mom so many times before, as she begrudgingly deposited more than three times the laundry my brother or sister required at the end of my daybed each week. But now here was a world where I was actually required to wear three outfits in one day. I felt vindicated. Lofty title aside, this was a dream come true!

The first outfit I had to choose was “Sportswear,” which would get me through my introduction, the group performance of “Tomorrow!,” and the casual interview.  For this, I chose a stone-washed denim mini skirt with a matching jacket that had little bows as buttons. My dad, who was way more into this than he should have been, suggested I top it all off with a hot pink baseball cap.

“It’s sporty,” he rationalized to my mother, “it will make her stand out to the judges.”

Another clue my father was starting to take things a bit too seriously was that he began referring to me in the third person, as if I were a pig they were fattening up for the county fair.  While my mom tried to keep a straight face as I stumbled over test interview questions, he looked me right in the eye and said, “We’ve got three months, she’ll be ready.”

Disappointed to learn there was no bathing-suit competition, I thought I’d found a loophole when I suggested I wear a Hawaiian print bikini with ruffles on the butt and a pair of turquoise heart-shaped sunglasses for my talent act, whatever it might be. When I bent over to touch my toes and moved my backside in a circular motion to show my mom how cool the ruffles could be, she shook her head in disapproval. In a rare show of good judgment, she flatly refused. “It’s too much, Elizabeth.” The next day she came home with a boring black leotard and opaque white tights.

Finally, there was the evening gown which I insisted be as large and as difficult to maneuver as possible. With my usual eye for excess, I found the dress of my dreams. It was a glittery pink gown with a white ruffled neckline that actually had a hoop in the skirt. With my limited frame of fashion reference, I determined it to be very Glenda the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz. As I twirled and imagined a troupe of munchkins popping out from beneath my skirt, my mother got that now familiar “too much” look on her face and tried to distract me with a boring velvet party dress with a dainty sash.

“What do you think of this one, honey?” I waved an invisible wand in her direction and quoted my inspiration, “You have no power here! Begone, before somebody drops a house on you, too!”

While I was a natural at making wardrobe choices, the talent portion did not come as easily. This is because I clearly had none. I couldn’t sing or play an instrument or gyrate with any sort of rhythm while yielding a feather boa. I wasn’t a tap dancer, a magician or a ventriloquist. I wasn’t particularly flexible. The only thing I could do that was actually remarkable for my age was tuck my chin into my chest and completely deprive myself of oxygen so that I sounded exactly like Anthony Perkins’ character in Pyscho when he pretended to be his mother. I liked to repeat the refrain, “Kill her, Norman, kill her.”  It was uncanny, really, and adults found it hysterical. But something about Hitchcock felt a little too dark. If I must play down to the audience, I thought, I could recite The Wizard of Oz from start to finish. But that took too much time. Or I could tie a cherry stem in a knot with my tongue. But that didn’t take long enough (that’s what made it so impressive).  So my talent remained a blank not to be filled until just before the pageant.

Finally, the big day arrived. I brushed my teeth furiously, as I often did, hoping that little brown spot would suddenly disappear and then, upon realizing its unyielding prominence, practiced smiling without letting any teeth out, which, as excited as I was, was a bit like trying to stuff a bunch of helium balloons into a garbage can. Then I folded each outfit into a perfect pile and packed them in a small, pink duffle bag we had purchased for the occasion. I tossed it over my shoulder, on the same side as my perfectly curled ponytail, and strutted out to our grey Chevrolet Celebrity. I felt every bit the star. My parents exchanged nervous looks in the front seat, as I belted out “Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya! Tomorrow! You’re only a daaaaaaay awaaaaaay!”

“Don’t worry,” my mom whispered to my father, “It’s a group number.”

The pageant was held in an auditorium in downtown Atlanta and the dressing room was a converted collegiate classroom with Little Miss Georgia Peach scribbled across a dusty chalkboard. Immediately upon entering, I felt like a local fair pony that had been thrown into the rink at the Hofburg Palace and expected to do dressage with the Lipizzaner Stallions. The other girls had make-up and costumes with sequins and that skin-colored mesh stuff I had only ever seen on television during the winter Olympics.  Their mothers wore whistles around their necks and screamed things like, “You’re still slouching on that last turn, Felicity. Let’s start from the top.”  My mother said things like, “Honey, fix your leotard. It’s going up your butt.”

Across the room, I spotted a tiny brunette wearing crushed velvet and a bow as big as two slices of pizza. She was studying a page of sheet music. My mind flashed back to the application. In addition to whether or not you wanted to be considered for superlatives like “prettiest dress,” “prettiest hair,” and “best personality,”—check, check, and check!—there was also a box to indicate that your act required a piano. Why would anyone need a piano, I had wondered, when boom boxes are so much cooler? Only now did it occur to me that some of these girls could actually play the piano. This was trouble.

After the interview portion went as well as it could have—my question was, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I answered succinctly, “A movie star,” and did a curtsy—it was time for the moment of truth. The talent competition. I was starting to regret the gymnastics routine I had prepared to Debbie Gibson’s “Out of the Blue.” Gymnastics routine is a term I use loosely to describe my squirming around on a gray plastic mat we bought at Wal-Mart. Lest anyone be confused as to what this mat was for, it was covered in sketches of a woman performing various stretches in the correct posture. As the competition rushed on stage in a flurry of feathers, a blaze of a cappela glory, I stood behind the curtain, shaking.

When it was time for my big moment, my grand entrance consisted of me walking on stage with my boom box. I unfolded my little mat, pressed play, snapped my fingers and bent my knees in time with the music.  This went on for some time until, with no warning at all, I abruptly stood on my head.

A headstand. That was my talent. Not even a handstand, which required some measure of balance, or upper body strength, or something else I didn’t have. After 15 seconds, my face turned so red that the mc, a scary brunette with cavernous cleavage and Lee press on nails, rushed on stage and cut me short out of fear I might asphyxiate myself.

“Let’s hear it for Elizabeth McDonald, everyone!” She had been calling me this the whole time, even though it was NOT my name, and only now did I resent her for it. As the blood drained from my face, I started to hate her.  But as any respectable beauty queen would do, I smiled through the pain. I rolled up my mat, and gave the judges a wink and a close-fingered wave as I walked off stage.

In the end, having failed to land one of the top 3 spots, I came in 17^th because that was where Elizabeth McDonald fell in the alphabet. There were only 23 people in the competition.

Sometimes I defend this moment in my mind with the fact that Deborah Gibson was still Debbie then. We were all still coming into our own.  And just like when Deborah looks back and thinks, I can’t believe I ever went by Debbie and wore scrunchies in my hair before I got all sophisticated, changed my name and started posing nude, I do sometimes think back to that day, and wonder what, exactly, I was thinking.  Why the sad little gray mat? Why the pilly white tights? Why “Out of the Blue?” Why not something a little more up-tempo?

But I was 7.

So I have to look to the woman, the rational adult, who helped me make these decisions. My mother.  What was she thinking?

It has taken some time to realize she knew exactly what she was doing. The bedazzled competition, the plain black leotard, the headstand that might have resulted in public death, here was a lesson that counselor with the coke-bottle glasses never could have taught me. Humility.

More than twenty years have passed and my mom still thinks it’s hilarious.

“You know,” she is fond of saying anytime there is a beauty pageant on television, “I still think you could really blow these girls out of the water. If only you had any talent.”

Sober now, a cup of coffee, pages stained with tears.
Oh! Thank God! My phone just rang!
I’m heading out for beers.

Having proven absolutely incapable of refraining from calling my ex at all hours, I decided to pay a little visit to my friends at Verizon Wireless during lunch.

“Thank you for choosing Verizon Wireless. How may I help you?” A thin, pimply guy in a pair of pleated black trousers with his cell phone holstered to his hip and a shiny red vest boasting the company logo rang out from behind the help desk.

“Well, I was just wondering, well, actually, a friend of mine was just wondering… if it’s possible, ummm, to block a certain number from my-err-her phone?”

“You little heart breaker! What do you have some maniac ex drunk dialing you at all hours of the night? Gettin’ tired of it, are ya?” Red vest was taking a flirty tone now and twirling his name badge cord with his right hand while tilting his chin towards his chest and grinning like the Cheshire cat.

“Umm, well, no, not exactly. My friend, well, she actually wanted to be able to keep from dialing a certain number. It’s not that she has someone calling her. I mean, don’t get me wrong, she has a LOT of people calling her. A LOT of really important people. There is just one little number she would rather her phone not be able to dial out.”

“But it doesn’t dial on its own, honey. Our phones are good, but they’re not that good.”

“Right, well, anyway, are they good enough that they can be programmed not to dial certain numbers? I mean, there must be something that can be installed to make the phone spontaneously combust if a certain number is dialed, or some new function that might refuse to connect to that number and will instead play a self-recorded message like, for example, oh, I don’t know, “You idiot. Go to sleep. He doesn’t love you.” Or something like that? No?”

“You could just stop calling him.”

Apparently Red Vest thinks self-control is something you can just add to the plan. Like unlimited text messaging or “I don’t particularly feel like chasing my phone down to the taxi lot in Queens again” insurance.

I wanted to scream, “Let me tell you something, mister, self-control is not something you can just add to the plan! It is something that I now realize—as adults stop hiding their secrets from me because I am starting to look like one of them—most people never attain! In fact, self-control seems inversely related to age as the older one gets, the more one drinks, the drama of it all wanes and the less things seem to matter in general. Self-control, as it turns out, exists only in movies with Sean Connery and Ralph Fiennes so that freakishly restrained actors can play to their full potential!”

Instead, I said, “Hmm. Really? Nothing? That’s interesting.” I tried to sound less personally invested and more curious as if I possessed a keen, hobby-like interest in cell phone function development like those men who are always reading consumer reports and weighing the pros and cons of the latest gps gadget.

“Well, you could stop drinking so much. Ha! Just kidding!”

What nerve. This guy was really getting too big for his pleated britches. It took all I had not to take that name badge cord and wrap it around his skinny little neck.

“But no, honey, to answer your question, there is nothing we can do. I’m sorry. But thank you for choosing Verizon Wireless. NEXT!”

I stood frozen. I felt helpless. This meant there would be no limit to the number of mornings I would have to wake up and count how many times I had called my ex on the cab ride home. Nothing to save me from the call log that would inevitably show a connection to his phone that lasted only 25 seconds, which doesn’t mean I got his voicemail—that registers at 45 seconds—but rather that he answered and promptly hung up. Again.

Fighting back tears on the sidewalk across from Bryant Park, I couldn’t help but notice that a number of responsible cell phone users from all over midtown had settled on little green folding chairs to engage in mutual, adult conversation. I immediately called my best friend and told her all about my devastating lunch hour.

“My attempt to make my cell phone work like self-respect has failed miserably!” I wailed. “They said there’s nothing they can do!”

“Well, of course there’s nothing they can do,” she laughed.

“But don’t let the trip be a total waste. Go back in there. Add insurance to your plan. You don’t want to have to chase your phone down to the taxi lot in Queens again, do you?”

Do not be fooled by a pocket square, dear.
On a lad less than forty, it should only inspire fear.
For men who take such fashions in stride,
are far too pretty, or have something to hide.
Yes, best choose the man whose blazer is bare.
But do insist on a blazer– that is only fair.

All the hip barista girls hate me. You know the ones who wear bandannas on their head and sheer floral blouses beneath their aprons. Sometimes they wear ironic t-shirts with no irony at all. They have skin fit for a Noxzema commercial and dainty tattoos adorn some piece of anatomy their skimpy tank top doesn’t cover. They tie their hair into perfectly disheveled buns—they would call them chignons– that sit atop their heads like sacred monuments to effortless, impromptu beauty everywhere. They laugh and say things to each other like “This espresso machine’s not big enough for the both of us” in feigned husky voices and then seem slightly imposed upon when you interrupt to order a cappuccino with skim milk, please.

The baristas at the coffee shop just below my apartment, my coffee shop, are no exception. In fact, they seem to despise me more than most. I’m not sure what it is that makes them hate me so. Is it the Longchamp purse I sometimes carry? It was from a friend and it was free, I want to mention casually as I sprinkle a teaspoon of sugar in the raw into my coffee because I know that they are watching. Maybe it’s my penchant for wearing black dresses or that I use my debit card for $5.15 purchases? Somehow, it’s like they just know that I’m on my way to a job where I earn an income I report to the IRS, a slave to the system they elude with their overflowing tip jars and sketchy payroll practices.

“Yeah, well, I steal your wi-fi,” I once announced to an incredulous pixie-haired nymph. She responded by rolling her eyes back in her head to that spot just before it becomes dangerous and uttering what must have been the most tedious sentence in the history of the spoken word, “Have you been helped?”

But how I have labored to win their affection. How I long to be a regular, to walk in and have the rosy-cheeked brunette put on that funny Irish accent she does and say “Top of the morning, Liz, one cappuccino with skim milk and a whole wheat bagel coming right up!” Even just a glimmer of recognition would suffice. A look, a nod, a seven-step secret handshake that incorporates a wink, just something that confirms my delusion that this is my coffee shop, my neighborhood, my city. Something that says, you, my friend, belong here.

I am afraid this may never happen.

And I have to wonder: did the six months I spent unemployed when I could afford nothing but a bagel and a cup of coffee while typing away in here eight hours a day really get me nowhere? Then I remember the little sign scribbled in crayon on recycled manila paper. It says, “Patrons, we now have a table limit of 1 hour per visit. Thank you for your cooperation.” They put that up shortly after I started staying there eight hours a day ordering nothing but a bagel and a cup of coffee. Still, it was by far the closest I have come to the inner circle. I traded pencil skirts for skinny jeans. Sometimes I wore the same thing two or three days in a row. I borrowed Breakfast at Tiffany’s from their bookshelf and read it a second time. Suddenly, Holly Golightly went from glamorized prostitute to a girl who knew a thing or two about making it in this city. I looked around for a gentleman to give me powder room change so that I could get a refill but found only stocking caps and plaid. One thing the baristas and I would never share, I realized, was a taste in men. But I was sure that we were bonding. “Did you see that story in The Onion?” I offered, to yet another blank stare. “The one about the barista who smiled and the whole world smiled with her?”

But I have tried. I always put a dollar or maybe just spare change in their tip jar that says “Tipping makes you look younger,” which I think is a little manipulative, and obviously directed right at me. So I inevitably feel a tinge of resentment as the quarter or maybe just a dime drops to the bottom of the bowl when the thought crosses my mind “So you’re saying I look old? Just because I don’t wear skimpy tank tops and a bandanna on my head?”

Then there was the time I wore a skimpy tank top and a bandanna on my head. It was a classic red bandanna bought for a friend’s dog at a vintage shop on Greenwich Avenue. He is a black lab and I thought it would just be adorable on him, because, to be honest, I am the type of person who thinks bandannas are more suitable accessories for dogs. As if it makes more sense to adorn one’s canine with a bit of retro fabric so that he looks cool without trying too hard. But as I went to wrap the bandanna in wrinkled tissue paper as a gift, it occurred to me. This could be the ticket. I tied it on my head and put on a pair of jeans cut off at the knee and my own little skimpy tank top.

I studied myself in the art deco mirror found at a neighborhood thrift shop. I wished I could somehow work the mirror into my outfit, because I knew that they would love it. Having exhausted all possibilities- a rather large pendant? a not so compact compact? Oh, this old thing? I’m just taking it to have it cleaned–I decided to save it for when I first invited my new friends over for a nice banana flax loaf.

As I adjusted the bit of hair between my forehead and bandanna once more, I noticed the small square picture of myself taped to the mirror. In the photo, I am almost 5 and it’s my very first day of school. I am wearing pleated khaki shorts and keds with socks that fold over into a ruffle. It is unclear if I am standing akimbo to be cute, or if the large red backpack I am carrying is in the process of doing permanent damage to my posture. In the same second that I wonder what the hell I could have in that book bag on the first day—as a kindergartner—I recognize the look on my face. It was the same look of unbridled hope, optimism, and possibility I was wearing at this very moment. I tried on my best smile. They will like you. I took a deep breath and ran downstairs with a classic case of the first day jitters.

Making my way from my stoop to the door of the coffee shop, I shook with excitement. I even toyed with the idea of ordering an iced green tea and a curried tofu breakfast burrito, so limitless were the possibilities of who I might become today. Because this was the new Liz! The free spirited yet serious one who set aside trivial worries like “was it really okay to steal a gift she got for a dog?,” (was it okay!?) so she could focus on larger issues like her carbon footprint and universal health care. I imagined they might all cry out, “How cold-hearted we’ve been, how silly, how wrong about you!” Then we’d all ride off into the sunset like a clan of motorcycle men heading to Sturgess. Only we would ride vintage bicycles with baskets on the front.

I had to resist the urge to burst in with all my bandanna wearing glory. In a rare show of restraint, I turned my back towards the counter and fingered the random business cards stacked on the bar on the opposite wall. This would allow them to admire me from behind, building a “Who’s that girl?” sort of mystery. I lingered for a moment, and pretended to concentrate on a flyer advertising meditation. Finally, I gained the courage to turn my head slowly and glance over the dusty cookie jar half-filled with chocolate covered pretzels. I was so certain that my eyes would meet the blushing brunette’s and finally, there it would be, that glimmer of recognition, acceptance, love.

And our eyes did meet. I smiled. I adjusted the strap on my skimpy tank top and tilted my head to draw as much attention to the bandanna as possible without actually pointing at it. The brunette prepared to speak, and then, there it was, the moment of truth. And then those fateful words again: “Have you been helped?”

I couldn’t believe it. I immediately flashed back to that cold day in my past when I learned one of life’s most difficult truths. “The opposite of love is not hate,” my mother had relayed, “indifference is.” And what could be more coolly indifferent than “Have you been helped?” What?

Shocked and dejected, I ordered my usual whole-wheat bagel, but with butter and jam instead of cream cheese, please. I chose a round table in the back corner and waited. The strawberry blonde with her oversized round, Disney heroine eyes and that chignon, plopped the bagel on the counter and called “Whole wheat bagel with butter and jam.” So detached. So impersonal. So indifferent. It hurt me to retrieve my breakfast.

Upon returning to my table and hurrying to take my first bite (only an hour!), I opened the bagel and observed that there was a laughable amount of jam. It was hardly a measure of jam appropriate for someone who had ordered a bagel with jam. It would have been the perfect amount had I ordered a bagel with butter and bitten into it and thought, oh, they must have used the same knife they had used on another bagel with jam, because I can taste just a hint of strawberry. Really, it was hardly any jam. And I knew that this would cost me any chance I had of becoming one with the baristas, but I did want some more jam. And maybe on another day, I would have let it slide. But not today. This was the final straw.

So I stood up and marched back to the counter. I waited to be acknowledged. What seemed like a week passed. I grew a single grey hair and thought of the message on the tip jar.

What is wrong with you women, I wanted to scream? Does the tattoo needle inject ink into your skin and suck your heart out at the same time? Because I really don’t think that fading Minnie Mouse is worth it. And I come here every day. Do you remember the time you all ran out of coffee? Because I do. And this is a coffee shop! But I still come. Do you know how many coffee shops there are within a one-block radius of this place? Your quinoa salads and lentil soup are a dime a dozen around here. You are not special! And I hate that you have a smoothie named the Greenie Meanie. Stop projecting your cruel nature onto innocent vegetable mixtures. I pay for your overpriced attitudes and sit at your undersized tables. But for what? Where is the kinship? Where is the camaraderie? Where is the proper amount of jam?!

Finally, she looked at me, and I said “May I please have a little bit more jam on the side?” She shot me a look that conveyed, “I am far too busy considering my carbon footprint and universal healthcare to worry with allotting you the proper amount of jam.” Then she slid a small plastic cup with a dollop of pink across the counter without a word.

I spun on my heel and returned to my solo table. I spread the extra jam across the warm bagel and savored every bite. I untied the red bandanna from my head and stuffed it in my Longchamp bag. I accepted that I would never be one of them.

On my way out, I put my sticky plate into their sad plastic bin without bothering to wipe the jam off.

“You know what?” I said to the blushing brunette. “Your t-shirt is right. If it’s a vegan thing, I wouldn’t understand.”

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