I stole a lavender hair brush from my friend when I was nine years old. I can’t even remember her name, but I vividly remember two things about spending the night with her.
She scooped oddly small dishes of ice cream. We’re talking Barbie shot glass size. She put one tiny bit of Neapolitan ice cream into my bowl and then started folding in the sides of the rectangular ice cream carton. I must have given her a look. Her hands froze as she said, “Oh. Did you want some more?”
I immediately said, “Oh, no” like I couldn’t imagine eating more than a thimble size scoop of ice cream. I don’t even think it was real ice cream. I bet it was ice milk.
Not only do I remember feeling uncomfortably gluttonous around her, she had an irritating way of reminding me of my affinity for sloth. We finished our two bites of ice cream, took them into the kitchen, rinsed them off, and actually put them in the dishwasher. Freaking goody-goody. What kind of weirdo third grader doesn’t want to gorge herself on sugar and fat and then leave the mess for her mother to pick up? I could almost catch a glimpse of the halo forming above her neatly parted pigtails. I began thinking of ways I could escape before she tried to get me to attend church with her in the morning, but they all involved walking home in the cold rain in my flip flops and my soggy sleeping bag. At least church is warm.
Next came envy. After loading the dishwasher, it was finally time to play. We headed to her bedroom. Her lovely lavender bedroom. So frilly and lacy and lovey dovey girly girl. Lavender walls. A lavender bedspread. Lavender pillow cases…and shams...laid atop her neatly made bed. She turned on the lamp with the lacey lavender shade next to her bed. Her dollies in their lavender outfits were arranged neatly on her lavender shelves. Stuffed animals placed in a row on her bed were only white or lavender. Her white wooden canopy bed with lacey lavender netting matched her other white wooden furniture. A desk. Her own desk in her own room. No wonder she got good grades. If I bothered to do my homework, it wasn’t at a desk but on the couch in front of the TV. A dresser and night stand. Even a toy box, with toys inside it. Then the most amazing thing of all: a white wooden vanity and stool with a lavender cushion. She let me sit at the vanity. I stared at my sweaty, sunburned face in the oval mirror.
I don’t remember looking at myself in the mirror very often as a kid. Maybe because I was always seeking other people’s opinions of me rather than forming my own opinions about myself. But also, up until then, I never thought much about my appearance. I had recently been escorted to Montgomery Ward by my sister Hazel and our mom to pick out my first bra. I found punching the cups so they sat inverted on the table much more entertaining than paying attention to which kind of bra I got. Hazel pointed out that my first bra was already bigger than hers even though she’s nearly eight years older than me. I was used to it. Mom always reminded us that when Hazel entered kindergarten she weighed only 35 pounds and I weighed 65. Hazel favored her dad’s mother, who was short and petite. I favored my dad’s mother who is the reason I learned the word cankle far earlier than I probably should have. I wore the clothes my mom brought home from her job at Kmart or I wore Hazel’s hand me downs. Although by the time I was nine I was bigger than seventeen year old Hazel, so the hand me downs stopped being handed down. Most of my polyester pants and shirts were Blue Light Specials. The ponchos and acrylic sweater vests were the results of my mother’s voracious need to craft. She went through a wild crocheting phase in the mid to late Seventies. Quaaludes weren’t my mom’s thing, man. Her idea of unwinding was winding yarn around a big hooked needle.
But there I sat, sweaty and red, thinking, “Lavender Girl will probably ask her mother to wash this vanity seat cushion now. No, she’ll probably put it in the washer herself.”
It was the first time I remember feeling self-conscious. I looked down at the vanity. Lotions and kiddie perfume were aligned on the left side of the vanity. On the right side by a white comb, clean, no sand in it from deciding the Barbies needed a vacation and brushing their hair for two hours in the sand box (beach) next to my backyard kiddie pool (ocean). Oh. That’s why I was sunburned. Next to the clean white comb lay a lavender hair brush.
I have no memory of my thoughts before I stole the brush. All I remember was picking it up in my hand. I remember nothing more of the sleep over. Did I call my mom and ask her to come get me or did I stay the night and I just can’t remember where we slept or what we did the rest of the night thirty-one years later?
After a couple of days, Hazel noticed the hair brush inside our underwear drawer while she was searching for her pot stash. She asked me about it. I lied. Who cares, I’m a sinner already. “A friend gave it to me.” I stared at the plastic lavender handle and wondered what I should say or do next. Hazel grabbed her stash, smiled and said, “Oh. Cool. That was nice.” She kissed me on the forehead and turned to leave. Kevin, her future husband of going on twenty-seven years now was waiting outside in his big blue boat—that’s what my dad called it. Whenever Kevin would pull into the driveway, Calvin would say to his step-daughter Hazel, “There’s that big blue boat. I bet it’s a gas guzzler.” His one contribution to parenting ticked off the list inside his head, he’d go sit in his chair and watch TV.
As Hazel left the room to go on her date with Kevin, I looked at the picture of Jesus that hung on our bedroom wall just above the light switch next to the door. It had waxy lip prints covering Jesus’ forehead. Come to think of it, I might have snagged one of Lavender Girl’s lip balms from the vanity too.
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