Essays
Marilyn Monroe Blouse
© Sande Boritz Berger
Sometimes,
but never aloud, I call them my chocolate and vanilla girls: my blonde,
blue-eyed older daughter is a clone of me, and my dark-skinned, curly-
haired youngest daughter the image of her father. Our Russian/ German
heritages combine in a mysterious way to make them what I’d always
wished I had— Sisters.
They share
a special language: subtle nuances, weird observations about people’s
peculiarities in their ever-changing world that may send them hiccuping
in hysterics, making me feel a little bit excluded. But mostly I am thrilled
by the powerful magnetism that draws them together. I find comfort knowing
they’re a team, that they can depend on one another.
As they leap
over the threshold entering their teenage years, I’m reminded of
a sudden gust of wind slamming a door shut. The cozy calm I once knew
is shattered as the desire to be separate human beings becomes evident.
Although this transformation makes life more interesting, it becomes more
challenging to be their mother. A response or suggestion used successfully
when parenting one daughter, can fail horribly when applied to the other.
Overnight,
they develop varied interests, choose different friends, express opinions?
sometimes aggressively. I thought the strong magnetic pull would stay
with them forever. I believed in the line “opposites attract.”
At thirteen
and fifteen, Jennifer (there are at least 5 Jennifers in her class) and
Bari (she likes and hates her name on alternate weeks) have both everything
and nothing in common.
The everything is their shared obsession with the smoothness of their hair and the never-
ending search for the highest wattage blow dryer in America. And I can’t
forget the ten foot yellow plastic appendage they grow from their shoulders
known as the telephone cord. We keep the yellow princess phone in Switzerland,
which is what we call a small patch of occupied hallway just outside their
bedrooms. Whenever the phone rings, their doors open simultaneously as
they make a jackknife dive for the receiver. The quicker of the two, at
that moment, yanks the phone into their room to talk in PRIVACY PLEASE!!!
The nothing is their totally different tastes in music: Jennifer has tried out for
Annie, as in Orphan Annie, as well as had the lead in a camp production
of Annie Get Your Gun. Bari prefers acid rock and bands that end their
concerts by blowing themselves up on stage. Her clothes are often an eclectic
mix of plaids and stripes reminding me of the colorful swatches my father
used to peddle around as an upholstery salesman. Jennifer chooses whatever’s
in vogue or hanging off the skeleton mannequins in the local mall. Or
in other peoples’ closets.
They shared
a bedroom until their constant bickering turned to screaming and screaming
turned to bleeding. “It was just a little mole I scratched off her,
Mom, no big deal, it would have been removed anyway.”
Too often,
the dining room chandelier trembles leaving me to expect, at any moment,
a fluffy-slippered foot protruding through the plaster ceiling. Hadn’t
I suffered enough growing up in a household with two rowdy younger brothers?
What happened to my two pig-tailed pixies in matching Healthtex overalls?
Finally, I decide it’s not too big a price, really, to give up my
writing room so they can have separate bedrooms. There’s a closet
right off the laundry room with my name on it. I’ll have privacy
one day, I’m sure, perhaps when I’m 70.
Their bedrooms
become different forks in the road with bold non-trespassing signs. Bari
spends hours in hers, working on crafty projects like jewelry design or
reading books and writing stories, while Jennifer is usually on the telephone,
mediating some major fracas that occurred between friends that day at
school. Every night, before bedtime, she plans her next day’s wardrobe.
This entails the need to crawl past me, as if she’s a tiny soldier
avoiding gunfire, while I lie in bed, reading my book, dozing off.
One night,
she sneaks past me, enters my closet and finds a blouse that I’d
warned was never to be touched, tried on or borrowed. Both girls refer
to it as my Marilyn Monroe shirt (they give a lot of my clothing names).
This particular shirt is pale pink with rolled-up sleeves, in the style
of the 60’s. One of my favorite garments, not because it was expensive.
It wasn’t. It just fills me with nostalgia every time I wear it?
reminds me of the time when I played my 45’s and sipped egg creams
without worrying about my waistline. I guess it makes me feel young again?a
lot like them.
I search
everywhere for the blouse. While driving Bari to her after school bowling
league and Jennifer to dance class, I try to sound nonchalant and ask,
“girls did either of you see my Marilyn Monroe shirt?” I peek
at them through the rear view mirror. Bari looks directly at Jennifer,
which gives me my first major clue. I wait. Jennifer, right then and there
deserves an Oscar. She makes me feel awful that I’ve even suggested
such a thing. I make a mental note to check the dry cleaners. Maybe I
forgot to pick it up.
Weeks later,
while searching the bottom of my closet for a pair of boots, I discover
a pink wad of fabric— my Marilyn Monroe shirt rolled up in a ball,
sporting stains unidentifiable and indelible. Lunch room pizza perhaps?
Kraft macaroni and cheese. Not in my diet!
I am furious.
My fingers are trembling as I put the blouse on button it up, stains and
all and march into the den where Bari and Jennifer are sprawled out? in
a rare moment? sharing a bean bag chair, watching TV. Seeing me, Bari
gasps. Covering her mouth, she flies up the stairs, leaving me face to
face with Jennifer, who begins throwing out apologies as fast as curve
balls. But it is too late. There were two crimes here, first the lack
of respect for my personal property and second, the deceit.
My youngest
daughter takes her punishment well, although she campaigns for me to PU-LEASE!
reduce the amount of her telephone-less days. She doesn’t mind having
to clean up the kitchen after dinner. Somehow, she manages to employ the
aide of her older vanilla sister, who had witnessed her mischief and urged
her to come clean. All the time promising that she’d never, ever
tell?reminding me of the way they had been?and could be again. And then:
Some weeks
later, on a windy, rainy morning the two flavors miss the school bus.
Okay, I’ll drive them on my way to the train station. Sure, I’ll
pick-up Wendy, too. She’s Jennifer’s best friend who lives
down the block. At a traffic light, I glance at Wendy noticing how pretty
she’s become. Is that lipstick she’s wearing? And boy, that
aqua sweatshirt she has on, sure looks familiar. “Wendy,”
I ask, in an improbable non-intimidating voice, “Is that my shirt you’ve got on?”
A shivering
silence holds my answer.