Chapter 3

Miss Celine

Not a week after Rose thought of it, my mother brought up my coming out ceremony. Rather than bothering to discuss it with me, she told me she had found a woman to come in on Saturday afternoon with dresses for me to choose from. I didn't mind, I didn't have anything planned for Saturday anyway.

When Saturday came, I watched a pretty, short woman walk in through the door. She looked to be in her twenties or thirties, but it was difficult to tell because of the way she was wearing her makeup. It wasn't as if she had too much on, it was just that it was applied so that it perfectly accentuated all of her favorable features. I couldn't tell if she had any unfavorable facial features, but if she did, the makeup hid them perfectly. She was followed into the house by at least nine or ten men carrying huge boxes that I could only assume held dresses.

I was right. I waited a little while to let them set up before following one of the last men upstairs to my bedroom, and when I got there I found more dresses than I had ever seen in one place hanging up on portable hanging bars on wheels. I could only figure that the bars had unfolded from those boxes that I had watched the men carry in. As I watched the last man unfold his box, I found that I was correct. I couldn't figure out how it had been done, but the boxes folded and unfolded in such a way that none of the dresses so much as wrinkled.

My mother showed up in the doorway moments later. "Emily dear, this is Miss Celine, she'll be assisting you to pick out your dress."

"Okay," I said, going with the flow, although I didn't feel that I needed the assistance. My mother usually had some old woman pick out her outfits for very formal, important events, but this was definitely not her. I was actually happy about this though, I had never liked my mother's woman much. She had never given me the impression that she liked children much, and my mother's clothes seemed to be the only thing that had interested her.

I didn't know what had happened to the other woman, but this woman, Miss Celine, was actually interesting, I liked her a lot. Apparently she had picked out clothes, or "advised on wardrobe concerns," as she put it, for many of my favorite movie stars and celebrities. She had met Audrey Hepburn, for example, on a number of occasions, which impressed me the most. She was one of my favorite actresses of all time.

It seemed that for every dress I tried on, she had a celebrity to compare me with, whether in a good way or a bad way. Many of the names she came out with I had never heard before, but I pretended I had for the sake of looking like I knew more about the world of Hollywood than I truly did. It was true that I had seen many movies, but I didn't know all that much about the actors themselves, although this woman did.

It seemed that any time I liked the looks of a dress on the hanger, Miss Celine told me it looked terrible. It wasn't as if I disagreed with her either. Almost every time she compared me to somebody who had once played the bride of Frankenstein, I agreed with her. I wouldn't have called myself the bride of Frankenstein, but I usually agreed that it looked bad.

I didn't have much confidence that what seemed like the hundredth dress I had tried on would work out for me, but it was one of my favorites I had seen so far, so I tried it on anyway. It did seem like I had been having better luck with the dresses I didn't like at first, but this dress was pretty. It was all white, with the skirt made up of layers of fabric, the layers closest to the top the shortest. Small white flowers were embroidered on the top of the dress in all the right places so that, at least on the hanger, it didn't look like a flower shop window. It came with white gloves with the same flower pattern as the dress.

I put it on behind the curtain that had been assembled by the men that had brought all of the dresses in. There was a full-length mirror back there so that I could see what it looked like, and I didn't think it looked bad. I assumed that Miss Celine would probably have a different point of view, if for no other reason than the feeling that I had that I would be trying on dresses for the rest of my life. Once I stepped out from behind the curtain, I was under Miss Celine's scrutinizing eye.

She frowned for a moment, as if concentrating. After a moment, she raised her eyebrows and said, "You're Judy Garland."

One strange thing about Miss Celine was that she never said I looked like somebody, she said I was that person. It had confused me at first, but now I was used to it. What was confusing me at that moment was the way that she had said it. She had said it with a kind of energy, but I couldn't tell whether she had meant it as a good thing or a bad thing. Her face remained expressionless a moment later, so I asked, "In the Wizard of Oz?" I didn't have anything against the movie, it was a good movie, I just didn't particularly want to look like Dorothy for my coming out ceremony.

"Easter Parade," she said.

"Oh, well, that's better I guess," I said. It was better, that was one of my favorite movies.

"It's excellent," she said. "That's the dress."

I couldn't believe it. I had been in my bedroom trying on dresses for at least two hours, honestly I had lost all track of time, and just like that, I was finished. "So I'm done?" I couldn't help but ask. It felt strange.

"You're finished," she said. "You may go, I'll have the boys pack up. This dress, of course, will stay."

"Thank you," I said, almost automatically.

"You're very welcome dear, but this is my job," was her response.

I started to say something, although I didn't know what. Goodbye? See you… when? Rather than bothering to think of a polite thing to say upon exit, I just left the room.

Walking down my hallway in my coming out dress felt like the oddest thing I had ever done. It wasn't as if I was only in the dress either, my hair was perfectly brushed, and I wore the whole package, complete with gloves and shoes. I was used to walking down this hallway in jeans, or now shorts as it was summer, or in my school uniform or a casual after-school or weekend type skirt. Now however, I was in my coming out dress.

I entered the central most room on our floor, which was nobody's bedroom, but had a bed in it, to an overdramatic gasp from my youngest sister and overenthusiastic clapping from the other two. I remembered doing the same for Totsie and for Rose, but it felt strange to be on the opposite end.

I'm telling you we have far too many rooms in our house. This was the room that, in a way, belonged to the five of us. If we were ever all together, aside from Friday movie nights, we were usually in this room. If you were to go into the room, you would see it as a fairly ordinary, if not boring, room. There was one twin bed, with a very standard floral print on the sheets and wall border. The walls themselves were white. This room was different though, in the way that it tended to be all or nothing. I had never been in the room without at least three of my sisters. It may sound completely cliché, but in a way, when we are all in this room, the situation is anything but boring. There is always enough personality in the room that we either clash or mesh, or sometimes both at the same time.

Much of what I just said might not make sense, but this room was sort of special, in its own way, to the five of us. It's the one thing that five girls, who throughout our lives have had to share very little, actually share. It's the one place that one of us never goes without the others. These thoughts are not mine alone, and I know this. These thoughts are mutual, equal among all of us. I'm not guessing at this, I know it. In a way, it's nice.

"Em, you look so pretty," Hopie said, in her immature, almost whiny voice. "I love your dress."

Isabelle caught my slightly pained expression and put in some of her own insight. "It is a good dress Em," she said. "It looks really nice on you."
"Judy Garland in Easter Parade," I said, quoting Miss Celine, although I knew none of my sisters would understand. When all three looked at me blankly, I filled in. "That's what Miss Celine, the new dress lady I guess, told me."

"Did you know the old dress lady died?" Rose asked.

Obviously none of us knew this. "No way, the crazy lady?" Hopie asked, ineloquently as she could have. In spite of her crudeness, or maybe because of it, we all laughed. Although young and seemingly immature, Hopie could make us laugh at times.

"She died?" I asked Rose, "Wow, I figured there was some reason Mom got a new dress lady, but I wouldn't have guessed that."

"Why not? She was like a thousand!" Hopie said.

We all laughed, as if we didn't know how to respond. Isabelle and I exchanged glances, knowing full well that we had spoken just as crudely on every Friday within at least the past few years. As much as we pretended not to, we understood Hopie full well. As much as we wished we were, and we said we were, we weren't that much more mature than she.

I realized then that Rose didn't seem to share the same immaturity. I realized that she didn't gossip as Isabelle and I did, at least not that I ever saw. I realized that I would be coming out shortly, within the next few weeks, and wondered if I should be more like Rose and Totsie and less like Hopie and Isabelle. I was about to become a woman in the eyes of society, shouldn't I act like one? I wondered then, for the very first time, if I only disliked Totsie because I misunderstood her maturity. I wondered if she thought of the rest of us as I thought of Hopie, as immature. I wondered if the reason I usually didn't get along well with Totsie and the reason I usually didn't get along well with Hopie were one in the same.