Chapter 5

Coming Out

For the second time, I was wearing my dress, gloves, pearls, shoes, the whole ensemble. This time, however, I felt totally in place. I was surrounded by about thirty girls primping, making sure their hair and makeup were perfect. I was doing the same, tirelessly getting ready for the time, I glanced up at the clock, only ten minutes later, when I would be coming out into society.

I pictured the whole thing in my mind, trying to see mentally what it was going to be like. "Emily Abbott," Mary Chaplain, chairman (or chairwoman, more accurately) of the DAR would say. I would walk out onto the top of the staircase confidently, standing up straight and smiling ever so slightly. I would meet my father, and together we would walk down the stairs. He would smile sincerely, proud to have yet another daughter bridge the gap from childhood to womanhood. At the bottom of the staircase, he would stop and bow, kissing my hand, just as he was supposed to. I would curtsey, and then my escort, who happened to be the son of a friend of my parents', Robert, would take over. He would stand beside me and take me by the arm, and we would walk across the room, following the procession of the maybe one or two other girls who came before me alphabetically.

I have to admit, it was a little embarrassing that I had to get Robert to be my escort. If I had a boyfriend of my own I wouldn't have to force friends of my parents to force their sons to escort me.

I glanced around the room after finishing my third, and finally successful, application of eyeliner. I had kept putting it on either too thick or too thin, but I had finally achieved the perfect line.

I remembered my mother and sisters warning me about girls sneaking alcohol into dressing rooms, a feeble attempt to calm their nerves. My gaze rested on two girls in the corner of the room passing a white bottle back and forth. From the faces they were making after each gulp, I was able to make a pretty good guess that it wasn't orange juice, as the bottle advertised. Some things never changed.

"Five minute warning, girls," Mrs. Chaplain announced, peeking her head into the room. "Oh, you all look so pretty," she added, a bothersome, motherly touch that hadn't been necessary.

None of us replied, but a few complained to each other about not having nearly enough time, and many became far more spastic in the fairly basic task of applying makeup.

The girl in the chair next to me, Jacqueline, became so nervous that her hand shook so badly that she could barely put on her blush. "Let me help," I offered as I watched her fight with her eyeliner pencil. "Don't want to see you take an eye out." At that moment, I wouldn't have been surprised if she had stabbed herself in the eye, so vigorously was her hand shaking.

"Thanks," she said, handing me the pencil. She didn't seem too embarrassed by being unable to apply her own makeup, and I didn't think any worse of her. Coming out was a nerve-wracking process, although it wasn't effecting me in quite the same way, due possibly in part to the fact that I had watched two sisters go through it already.

I was better at applying eyeliner on others than I was on myself, and after all the practice I had had on my own eyes, I achieved a perfect line for Jacqueline on the first try.

"Thank you so much," she said graciously. "You're really good at this, you should be a makeup artist."

"Not really. I had to redo mine three times, so I've just had recent practice."

I noticed that this made Jacqueline laugh. Maybe it loosened her up a bit. "Aren't you nervous?" she asked me.

"I am, I just… I have two older sisters, I've been through it with both of them, and so I guess I'm familiar with the process. I am nervous though, doing it myself. It's nerve-wracking, it definitely is."

"You're lucky you have sisters. I'm an only child, so I have no prior experience with these things whatsoever."

"I know," I said. Although we didn't always get along, I had never felt misfortunate because of my sisters.

I didn't get a chance to say anything else, because Mrs. Chaplain came in at that moment. "We're going to start girls. Everybody ready?"

Surprisingly enough, it looked as though everyone was ready. Nobody complained, at that point it seemed as if most of us just wanted to get it over with. It turned out that I was first in the line up, nobody having the misfortune of having a last name before Abbot alphabetically. It was just as well that I went first as opposed to some pinhead that didn't know what to do, as I was very familiar with where I was to walk and who was to be there.

It went perfectly, just as I had imagined. My father looked proud; Robert didn't look as if he was visibly unhappy. I was actually very happy with Robert's conduct. Nobody in the audience would have been able to guess that we weren't truly seeing each other.

My least favorite part of the evening was the fan dance. We had to divide in to four small groups, each group gathering in a corner of the beautiful, spacious room and dance in a circle, waving feathery fans up and down. Quite frankly I didn't see the point, but it was a tradition, so I didn't complain.

We had a little get together at my favorite restaurant, a rather prestigious Italian place whose name I never had been able to pronounce. It was actually enjoyable. Both of my parents, all four of my sisters, and Robert and his parents all gathered around a fairly large table.

For once I didn't sit beside Isabelle, I sat between Rose and Robert, as he was my escort and it was proper for me to sit beside him. Totsie sat on the other side of Rose, and seemed to find it necessary to continually lean over Rose and ask me obnoxious, unnecessary questions about how it felt to be a woman.

Rose saw my uncomfortable expression and leaned over and whispered to me so that Totsie couldn't hear, "Don't mind her. She did the same to me after my coming out."

I didn't remember Totsie ever being as bothersome to Rose as she had always been to me, but when I thought about it, I couldn't really remember Rose's coming out very well. I thought for an instant that Rose had made this up to make me feel better, but I could tell by the way she had said it that she was being truthful.

Robert kept continually talking to me as well, but not like Totsie was. He was talking about what was best to order, and school, and where I saw myself going. It was strange, Robert and I had known each other almost all of our lives, but didn't usually converse much. I thought at first that he was being polite, but he showed an unusual interest in my responses for someone making small talk.

It didn't dawn on me until later that night at home, when Isabelle and I were sitting on my bed discussing the evening. "I think you might have some potential boyfriend material again, Em," she said to me.

"What do you mean?"

She just looked at me as if I was acting oblivious to something completely obvious. She raised her eyebrows, and what she was trying to say dawned on me.

"What, Robert? No. No, Is, it's Robert."

"And? He's good looking. He likes you. I'm not sure, and I don't think you are either, but you might even like him."

I hesitated. I did like Robert, sort of. As long as I had known him, I didn't really know much about him. We had played together when we were very young, but my sisters had always been there with me. More recently, I had preferred the company of my sisters, primarily Isabelle, when he was around. I had never thought of him as good looking, he was just there, a minor character in my life, just Robert. I had absolutely never thought of him as a dating candidate. "Maybe," I said thoughtfully. "I don't know."

"Think about it."

I nodded slightly. That, I knew I would. As I lay in bed that night, my mind was abuzz with thoughts. Thoughts about my coming out, about becoming more mature, about my sisters, and now, thanks to Isabelle, about Robert, an old friend but a potential new player in my love life.