“How about popcorn, Dad?” I said quickly, as my father stopped one of the vendors.
“What a good girl you are,” gushed Clarice. “But I’m going to have cotton candy.” So did Dad, to be polite, I guess. But Jeff and I stuck to popcorn. We weren’t ready to go into polite sugar overload for anyone.
Two cotton candies and two popcorns later, we stopped at the end of the midway. My father looked at his watch. “Well, time to go,” he said.
“Oh, Schaf, really. I was having such fun,” said Clarice.
“Aw, Dad,” said Jeff.
I frowned suspiciously at Jeff. What was he up to now?
Jeff pointed at the Scrambler. “Couldn’t we just ride on that?”
“Let’s all ride it!” said Clarice, clapping her hands.
I winced. “No thanks,” I said. “It’s too wild for me.”
“Chicken,” said Jeff.
My father said, “I hate to say it, but it’s probably too much for me, too.”
“Aww,” said Jeff. “It’s no fun alone.”
Clarice took the bait. “I’ll ride it with you, Jeff. Schaf, you and Dawn don’t mind waiting here, do you?”
“No problem,” said my father.
But it was a problem. Poor Clarice staggered off the Scrambler and into the nearest restroom and was sick.
“Gosh,” said Jeff. “I didn’t know she was going to barf.”
My father said, “That will be enough, Jeff.” Jeff must have realized he was pushing his luck, because he didn’t say anything else, not even when Clarice emerged, looking a bit wan.
“Are you all right? Is there anything I can do?” my father asked.
“I’ll be fine,” said Clarice. “Just give me a minute.”
Poor Clarice. She must have felt awful. She was quiet all the way to the car and almost all the way home. I was actually feeling sorry for her — until, as we passed the mall, she sat up and said, “You know, Dawn, we should go shopping together.”
“Uh, sure,” I said.
“And soon,” Clarice went on. “For those things that just us girls can shop for.”
“Uh …” I said.
“Schaf, I don’t know what you were thinking of, letting Dawn go buy a bra on her own. It clearly isn’t the proper fit. You need a woman’s touch for that sort of thing.”
I was mortified.
“Oooh, Dawn,” said Jeff. I gave him such a fierce glare that he stopped. “Oh. Sorry,” he muttered.
My father said, “Dawn’s grown-up enough to handle quite a few things herself. I think this is one of them…. Here we are.”
He pulled the car over to the curb and got out to walk Clarice to her door. When he came back, I said, “Dad?”
My father started the car and said, “I know, I know.” He sighed. “Too bad things didn’t work out. She’s a nice person but …”
This dating stuff was wearing me out. I didn’t see how my father kept it up.
I did mention that he was an eternal optimist, though, didn’t I?
Exactly nine days later we were out on another family date.
Barbara Hinkley. My father had met her at the dentist’s office, which should have been a clue. That and the fact that she showed up for the date — to Cap’n Frank’s Fun Fish Fry, where the waiters and waitresses are dressed like buccaneers, the food is served in plastic pirate ships, and the dishes all have cute little nautical names — wearing a suit.
Don’t get me wrong. It was a great-looking suit, a pinstripe with a long jacket. She was wearing a beautiful silk wrap blouse under it, gorgeous gold earrings, and carrying a soft leather clutch purse that matched her heels.
My father was wearing chinos, a Polo shirt, and a windbreaker. Jeff and I were in nice jeans with cotton sweaters and sneakers.
My father seemed disconcerted when she walked through the door of the restaurant (she’d told him she preferred to meet us there) and surveyed the room.
Barbara looked downright disapproving as she walked up to the table and sat down. But all she said was, “What an interesting place, Richard,” in a cool, polite voice that said, NOT.
The evening went downhill after that.
“I’ll have the Shiver Me Timbers Platter,” Jeff said, “with double fries …”
“Double fries? That’s a fried seafood platter, Jeffrey. Surely you’re getting enough. You don’t want to waste food.” Barbara’s tone was totally disapproving.
“Dad?” Jeff appealed to our father, who was sitting there looking uncomfortable.
“Jeff can handle it if anybody can, Barbara, believe me,” Dad said.
“Double fries,” repeated Jeff triumphantly, “And the Whale of a Soft Drink-size Coke.”
I got the Schooner Sandwich (with broiled clams) and a green salad (the SeaGreen Delight), which was the healthiest thing I could find on the menu.
Dad got the Deep Six Claws Platter (crab and lobster).
Barbara said, “I’ll have plain broiled fish, lemon on the side, a small green salad, oil and vinegar dressing on the side, and a seltzer with lime.”
The waitress, who was wearing a pirate hat said, “The Shoreline Special.”
“No,” corrected Barbara. “I don’t want french fries. I don’t want slaw. I don’t want your special sea sauce, whatever that is. Plain broiled fish, lemon on the side, a small green salad, oil and vinegar dressing on the side, and a seltzer with lime. Period. And, young lady? I will send it back if it is not as I asked for it.”
“Oh!” The waitress’s cheeks got pink, but she wrote it all down and said, “Certainly. Anything else?”
That was it. For the entire evening. If you don’t count Barbara correcting Jeff and me on our table manners, commenting on what we were eating, trying to prevent Jeff from ordering dessert, urging me to drink some milk because it was especially important for adolescents to get enough calcium, and generally being picky and uptight.
By the time the meal was over, I would have been glad to make her walk the plank. And I was as glad as I’ve ever been to see her shake my father’s hand, say, “Well, it’s been an interesting experience,” and walk away.
My father stood there for a moment, watching. Then he turned. “Oh, well,” he said. “Can’t win them all, can you, guys?”
“It’s okay, Dad,” said Jeff. “The food was great!”
“So long, Dad!” shouted Whitney cheerfully.
Mr. Cater made a face, then smiled. “You sound like you’re glad to see me go,” he teased gently.
Whitney gave a snort of laughter and threw her arms around her father so hard he rocked backward. “No,” she said, giving him a huge bear hug. “But Dawn came to visit.” She suddenly straightened up and said very formally, “We will see you later.”
“Okay. ’Bye, Whitney, Dawn.”
“Good-bye,” said Whitney.
“ ’Bye, Mr. Cater,” I said.
We listened as Whitney’s father’s footsteps crossed the hall. A moment later the front door closed.
“Too bad people have to work,” I said, looking out of Whitney’s bedroom window at the bright sunshine. “It’s such a great day.”
“Great,” Whitney echoed.
I looked around the room. Through the half open door of Whitney’s closet I caught a glimpse of familiar lime-green. It looked like the green panda that Clarice had won for me on the disastrous family date to the carnival. I’d given it to Whitney and she had put it proudly on the chair in her room and named it Buster.
“Is that Buster in the closet?” I asked.
Whitney nodded without looking toward Buster.
“Why?”
Her eyebrows snapping together in a frown, Whitney said, “Because Buster is for babies. I’m too grown-up for him now.”
“Oh.” Surveying the room, I realized that all of Whitney’s dolls and stuffed animals had disappeared — into the closet, I suspected. “I see. Well, so, what do you want to do today?”
Whitney’s frown stayed in place. “
Something grown-up,” she replied. “I want to go to the mall.” She sounded as if she expected me to disagree with her. I wondered briefly if it was something that was a special treat for Whitney, or something that her parents didn’t do at all. But I couldn’t imagine why, nor had they mentioned anything about it.
“Well, we can’t go to the big mall because it’s too far,” I said. Whitney frowned harder. I went on, “But we can walk to the one near here. That’d be great.” I watched the frown disappear from Whitney’s face as if by magic.
“Great!” she echoed, and made a dive for the piggy bank sitting on her dresser. She emptied it out on her bed, then pulled a large old leather shoulder purse from the top shelf of her closet.
“My mom gave me this,” she explained. “It’s a grown-up purse, see? It has a zipper pouch inside and its own matching coin purse.”
Whitney crammed the money from the bed into the change purse, then stuck the change purse into the zipper compartment.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Whitney excitedly.
“Then let’s go.”
The mall wasn’t far away at all and the walk through Whitney’s neighborhood was a pleasant one. When we reached the big intersection to cross to the mall, I remembered how flustered Whitney had gotten once before at an intersection, so I linked my arm through hers as we waited for the light to change. “We’re almost there,” I said.
Whitney nodded. When we reached the other side, I slipped my arm free of Whitney’s and pretended to adjust my backpack so Whitney wouldn’t think I had been treating her like a baby, leading her across the street.
But Whitney’s eyes were focused on Hudson’s department store ahead. She kept snapping and unsnapping the clasp on the purse.
“Ready, set, spend,” I joked as we reached the walk outside the mall. Whitney just nodded again.
We went to Hudson’s. The first things we saw as we walked in the door were the makeup and perfume counters. Whitney made a beeline for them.
She picked up a sampler bottle. “Pretty,” she said. “What’s this?”
I looked at the label. “Poison,” I read aloud.
Whitney’s eyes widened and she set the bottle down quickly.
“No, no, Whitney. It’s not really poison. That’s the name of the perfume, see?” I picked up the bottle, turned Whitney’s wrist over and sprayed a little on it.
Whitney sniffed her wrist, then wrinkled her nose. I sniffed it, too, and had to agree.
“It’s strong,” I said. “Phew.”
We walked from counter to counter, smelling the different perfumes.
“Look,” said Whitney. She pointed to the Chanel counter. “That’s what my mother wears.”
“Chanel?” I said. “Very classy.” We walked over and I picked up the sampler bottle. “Wait a minute, Whitney! You’re out of wrists. You’ll have to put some on my wrist.”
I was about to hand the bottle to Whitney when a frosty voice said, “May I help you?”
I turned my head and saw a thin woman with frosted hair and a ton of blush on her cheeks staring at us. Her eyes went from me to Whitney’s and widened. She stared at Whitney and I felt a flush of annoyance. She was so rude!
“We’re sampling the perfumes,” I said in my most grown-up voice.
Without warning, the woman grabbed the bottle from my hand. “Here, I’ll do that.” She sprayed a tiny amount on my wrist, then said, her voice even colder, “Will there be anything else?”
Whitney looked puzzled.
“No, thank you,” I said, making my voice as frosty as hers. “We’ve had quite enough of your help. Come on, Whitney.”
I turned and stomped away.
“Dawn?”
“Sorry, Whitney. She made me mad. I guess … I guess she doesn’t like her job.”
Whitney accepted that. “Can I smell your wrist?” She bent over and sniffed. “My mother’s perfume!” she exclaimed in a loud voice. A pair of women standing at a nearby discount makeup table turned and stared. One leaned over and whispered something into the other’s ear.
I knew they were talking about Whitney. I glared at them and they saw me and turned quickly away.
Good grief. How could people be so rude? It isn’t as if Down syndrome is all that uncommon. Hadn’t people ever seen anyone like Whitney before? Hadn’t they ever seen anyone who was a little different?
I had told Whitney how some companies test makeup on animals and hurt them, but I didn’t think she’d remembered. However, I realized she had when we next stopped by a makeup counter (where the sales clerk didn’t, for a change, stare at Whitney or act as if Whitney might do something weird). She just smiled and said, “The newest in this line of lipsticks. I’m wearing that color. Do you girls want to see anything?”
Whitney said, “Do you do things to animals with those?”
The clerk looked surprised for a moment, then said, “Oh, you mean animal testing. No, we don’t do animal testing with any of our products, including the perfume.”
“Good,” said Whitney. With the clerk’s help, she tried two of the lipsticks on the back of her hand. “Pretty,” she said.
The clerk nodded. “It wears well, too. It will last a long, long time.”
I bought some lotion with a sunscreen in it and before we left, the clerk reached under the counter and pulled out two tiny vials attached to cards. “Here’s a sample of our perfume for you,” she said. “Oceanambre. I think you’ll like it.”
“Thanks!” I said.
Whitney beamed. “Thank you very much,” she said in her best grown-up voice.
People weren’t so bad, after all, I was deciding as we walked out of the store. I lifted my face to the sun coming through the skylights above and was feeling pretty good as we walked beneath the potted palms. But it was too soon to relax, as I quickly discovered.
At least half the people we passed stared at Whitney. A lot of them whispered to one another or giggled or both. It was disgusting.
“Look!” cried Whitney.
People turned, people stared, people giggled and whispered. How could Whitney not notice? Didn’t it hurt her?
But she didn’t seem to associate the reactions of those around her with herself. She pointed at the hair-bead store and practically dragged me in.
Now it was Whitney’s turn to stare. The proprietor of the store had dozens and dozens of beaded braids of hair all over her head. They made a clicking sound when she moved. It was really spectacular.
“Ohhh,” breathed Whitney. She pointed. “I want my hair to look like that.”
“Don’t point, Whitney. It’s rude,” I whispered automatically, as if she were one of my regular baby-sitting charges. Oops.
But she lowered her arm obediently and the proprietor smiled.
“It took me a long time to get my hair this way, sugar,” she said. “And you need good strong hair to do it. Yours might be a little thin for that. But come on over here and let’s see what we can do.”
After much deliberation, Whitney picked out a set of beads and the proprietor wove them into a strand of her hair. Whitney examined herself in the mirror and said, “It’s beautiful. Isn’t it beautiful, Dawn?”
“It sure is, Whitney,” I said.
The proprietor nodded. “They’ll all slip off if you undo the bottom part of the strand, here,” she explained. “But you can keep them in while you wash your hair if you want. Some beads you can’t, of course, but these you can.”
Opening her purse, Whitney carefully counted out her money.
“Thank you,” she said as we left.
“My pleasure,” said the proprietor. “Come back soon.”
From the bead store, Whitney zoomed into the earring store. She immediately wanted to get her ears pierced.
“No,” I said flatly.
“Why not? You have yours pierced, Dawn. I want my ears to be pierced, too.”
“Whitney, I had to get my parents’ permission to do this. I tel
l you what. If your parents agree that you can get your ears pierced, we’ll come back and do it, okay?”
Whitney sighed, but she said, “Okay.”
“Meanwhile, what about some stick-on earrings?” I asked.
Bending forward, Whitney peered at the sheet of stick-on earrings to which I was pointing.
Suddenly the woman beside us turned. She stared at Whitney, then jerked away so quickly she bumped into the counter behind her. Then she began to back up, still staring.
Staring at Whitney. Acting as if Whitney had some kind of contagious disease, or was dirty or something.
Beside me, Whitney said, “I want these,” and opened her purse. She never seemed to notice.
After she bought the earrings, Whitney stuck a pair of red flowers on her earlobes. Then we went to try on hats with her new look: big hats, silly hats, baseball caps. It was a lot of fun.
Or it would have been, if I hadn’t been so aware now of how awful people were acting. At last I couldn’t take it anymore. I had had enough.
I took off a big straw hat with a giant flower and put it back on the hat stand. “Time to go, Whitney,” I said, trying to make my voice cheerful and unconcerned.
“Really?” Reluctantly, Whitney took off a sequined baseball cap and put it back.
We walked out into the mall and headed toward the exit. At the last minute, Whitney veered away.
“Whitney,” I began.
“Just one more store, Dawn, okay? Please?”
“Well …”
“Please, please, please?”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Okay.”
Whitney grabbed my arm. “By myself. I want to do this by myself.”
Seeing my objection in my face, she hurried on, “I’ll just go right there. You can wait here for me.” She pointed at a store that had a neon “Wild Things” sign above the entrance. Through the glass I could see stacks of multicolored socks, shelves of troll dolls, and a conglomeration of miscellany.
“Okay,” I said.
Whitney thrust the bag holding the sheet of earrings into my hands then hurried off, her arms swinging and the purse whirling by her side. She looked happy and excited.
At least to me. I wondered what she looked like to all the rude people who whispered and stared as she rushed by.