"She don't know what she's doing. Get this room finished. I need to get ready to go to work at the Canary. Go on before I put your grandfather on you." she threatened.
Alanis took back the vacuum cleaner.
"You better go see your great-aunt or something. I don't need my mother on my back." she said. "I'll come look for you after dinner and we'll go down into the basement and talk and you can tell me all about that puberty thing and your brother and all. Your great-aunt will probably fall asleep watching television. Most nights she don't even go up to bed."
"How do you know?"
"I know." She smiled, "Chad's not the first boy I brought to the basement. It's like having my own apartment. Boys are impressed with stuff like that."
She turned on the vacuum cleaner. I watched her a moment, then walked out and up the stairs. When I looked in on Great- aunt Frances. I saw she had put on one of the old dresses. It was too tight around her bosom. She couldn't button it all the way up in the back, but she twirled about in front of her full- length mirror, smiling as if she saw a completely different woman wearing a dress that fit perfectly.
"Why, Miss Melody Ann," she cried when she saw me in the mirror. She spun around. "Shouldn't you be preparing for the gala dinner? You need to start on your clothes and your hair."
Who's Miss Melody Ann? I wondered. I actually turned to look behind me.
She laughed and twirled and then she flopped on the bed, the wide, long skirt falling around her. For a moment she just stared at me. Then she shook her head and dropped her arms to her sides as if her arms had turned into lead pipes. The smile flew off her face like a bird frightened off a branch.
"You look too much like my sister when you scowl like that. Jordan. Don't you want to have fun, be happy?"
I nodded.
"So, smile, don't scowl," she said. She looked like she was about to start crying. "Emma would never pretend when we were children. She never appreciated her toys like I did. None of her dolls meant anything to her. You know what I told her once? I told her one day you were ten and the next day you were twenty. I bet she's sorry now. I bet she wishes she could be ten again and wait until she was twenty." She pulled her shoulders up, folded her arms under her breasts and narrowed her eyelids. "Okay, who do you want to be more like. Emma or me?" she asked.
The question terrified me. She sat there, waiting, not moving her gaze off my face.
If I said Grandmother Emma, which was what I imagined Ian would want me to say. Great-aunt Frances would be sad, upset, maybe even angry at me. On the other hand. I didn't want to be like she was.
"I don't want to be anybody else," I said, and she clapped her hands and smiled.
"What a bright reply. Oh. I'm so happy you didn't say Emma. That means you can be either one of us anytime you want to be. Tonight, you can be like me," she said, rising.
She went to the pile of clothes on the floor and pulled apart dresses and skirts and blouses until she settled on a dress she wanted me to wear. It was blue and white with pink swirls through the white. It had frilly sleeves and a frilly collar. When she held it up. I thought it looked more like a costume than a dress.
"Go try this on. It will be too big and too long. but I'll fix it for you. Come back as soon as you get into it," she said. handing me the dress.
She returned to her mirror and began to undo her pigtails. "I have to do my hair in the meantime. Go on." she said. waving, at the door.
I looked down at the dress. I couldn't imagine wearing, it, but I went to my room and took off what I was wearing to put it on. I was swimming in it. The bodice fell forward, the sleeves were too long and the skirt dragged on the floor. It was like wearing a sheet. I lifted the skirt so I could walk and returned to her bedroom.
She turned away from the mirror and
immediately smiled.
"Oh, it's nearly perfect!" she cried. "Come on in and let me make some small adjustments for you."
Nearly perfect? Small adjustments?
I stepped in farther, and she went to her vanity table, opened a drawer, and came up with handfuls of safety pins.
"C'mon, c'monon. Don't be shy. I mean, don't be too shy. A young lady of quality should be shy. Bold women get reputations very quickly, you know."
I realized she was speaking in a Southern accent. It didn't sound phony either. She was good at it, and it made me smile. I saw she liked that. She started to pull gobs of the material together around my body and use the safety pins to keep them folded. I watched her face as she worked. She seemed to glow with pleasure, little girl pleasure, the smile deepening around her lips and eyes. She used dozens and dozens of pins until she had the dress tightened and formed so I could move about with it on.
"There," she said finally. "Perfect. Go look at yourself. Melody Ann Pinewood."
"Melody Ann Pinewood?"
"That's your name tonight. And I'll be Louise Parker Farthingham. Both of us have beaus. too. You know what a beau is?"