Wallflower

“Stand still, dear,” Mrs. Cooper murmured around a mouthful of pins as she expertly pinchd and tweaked the slippery hem into place, smoothing out the puckers. Betty felt a frisson of excitement ripple through her stomach and shiver its way up her spine. Her palms skimmed over her abdomen, stroking the shimmering chiffon, smiling sheepishly at her mother’s impatient look. Mrs. Cooper smothered a groan at her daughter’s fidgeting.

“Mmph…I’ll never get this hem taken up if you don’t stop wriggling, sweetheart, stand still!”

“Sorry, Mom,” she murmured. Despite her warnings, Mrs. Cooper continued to tuck and pin her way around the long, gently flared skirt. The room was warm enough for comfort as mother and daughter labored over the fitting of a project that lasted six weeks of stolen Saturdays normally allotted for Alice’s league night at the Riverdale Lanes and Betty’s karate classes and booster club bake sales.

Mrs. Cooper leaned back on her haunches and sighed with satisfaction, admiring their work. “Beautiful. It’s perfect on you, Betty! You have such an eye for color, you need to start doing this for a living! This will be your bread and butter one day, just wait.” She reached out and tweaked the folds of the skirt, and Betty swished it around, padding in her bare feet to the full-length mirror. Her eyes glistened as she held the skirt out, spreading it and then letting it drop.

:I love it,” she gusted, turning back to her mother and rushing over to fling her arms around her neck. Puckery, smoochy kisses found their way to Mrs. Cooper’s round cheek. “Thank you, thank you!” Mrs. Cooper smiled as Betty released her before packing the scissors into her sewing box.

“Now we just need shoes.”

“I already put a deposit on a pair at Miss Bertie’s boutique. I took her a fabric swatch last week.” Betty dutifully stepped out of the garment and handed it gingerly to her mother so as not to disturb the hem.

“Sounds like you have everything, then.”

“Just about.” Betty felt that familiar creeping sense of guilt washing over her again.

Everything but the boy. She still didn’t have a date.

Betty changed back into her beat-up Dickie’s jeans, red Keds, and a navy and white baseball tee with the Riverdale High school crest before heading downstairs. Her father rustled the paper from his favorite recliner, peering out from it as she trotted into the kitchen for her denim jacket.

“Where are you headed, kitten?”

“I have to stop at Ronnie’s before I go to campus. We’re building the arch tonight in the gym.”

“Be back by curfew,” he reminded her.

“I know, Daddy,” she chided him, taking the sting from it by prying aside his paper and kissing the top of his head. “Love you.”

“Love you, kitten.” He fished his keys out of his pocket and pressed them into her palm. She skipped out the door and backed the sedan out of the driveway.

Mrs. Cooper came downstairs and sat on the arm of his recliner, reaching out to knead his neck. His voice rumbled out in contentment as he leaned into her caress. Warm blue eyes creased with faint laugh lines smiled up at her in the way she loved before he reached for her hand, kissing her fingers.

“She doesn’t have a date yet, does she?”

“Nope.”

“Shit.”

“HAL!” She smacked him lightly on the shoulder.

“She’s holding out for that Andrews boy, isn’t she?”

“Mmm.” She knew a bit about waiting in the wings, once upon a time.

“Fred Andrews was always such a stand-up guy when we were in school,” he muttered, tsking and retreating back into his sports section. “How did he manage to raise such a lugnut?”

“He’s not so bad,” she argued faintly, as she perused the contents of the freezer. She selected a family-size package of skinless chicken breasts and inserted them into the microwave, hitting the thaw button. It thrummed to life as she extracted rice and other ingredients from the well-stocked pantry.

“He’s not so great,” he corrected her. “He’s nice, granted. He even ‘means well;’ I just hate watching him string my little girl along like that. She’s wasting her time on him.”

“It takes two to tango,” she sighed. “I have no doubt in my mind that he loves the attention. “He’s treat her better if she didn’t het him get away with it. She’s eighteen, sweetheart; we can’t just pick and choose who she dates. It wouldn’t hurt to play the field a little, though. I keep telling her that…As long as she isn’t bringing home someone with a pierced septum, green hair, or a tattoo that says ‘Mom’ across his chest, who are we to complain?” She started a pot of rice and began chopping a crown of broccoli into florets.

“We’re her parents. Guess that doesn’t mean much?” he deadpanned. “Earth to Alice? He’s always late. He lets her dangle until the last minute. The overage on her wireless bill is killing me, since she always calls him on his landline. I don’t know why she bothers; if he’s keeping his phone turned off, who is he spending his time with?”

“More than likely that Lodge girl. The pretty, shallow one she used to follow like a puppy in kindergarten.” Alice knew they were still friends. She’d come across enough of Veronica’s borrowed clothing in the wash and occasionally makeup in darker colors in Betty’s vanity that she didn’t recognize. She’d protested, however, when she discovered the issues of “Cosmopolitan” in her backpack. Lord help them all…she didn’t raise a Sunday-schooled Girl Scout and honor student just to watch her lap up bad advice from trendy rags, such as “Learn How to Drive Your Man REALLY Crazy in Bed, Using these Ten Simple Hints.”

Twenty years of marriage had taught Alice that nothing about love and sex was simple. She wouldn’t let her daughter gather that ridiculous assumption and rot her quick mind with that nonsense, and the magazine had gone back out the door to Veronica the next morning after a lecture about “why you don’t want boys to only like you for your body.” Betty hadn’t been able to stomach walking past the glossy covers in the pharmacy racks since.

“Iccchh…that little snot that made her cry on picture day just because she had her hair in pigtails instead of those stupid ribbon barrettes that were so popular back then?”

“That was my fault,” Alice admitted. “Betty asked me to finish making them especially for that day, but Aunt Ruth called the night before, wondering if we had gotten that blue velvet dress she sent for her birthday. She nagged me endlessly, ‘Alice, you just HAVE to braid her hair into pigtails to wear with that dress, or it won’t be the same!’”

“She pouted like Donald Duck in that that photo,” Hal chuckled. That didn’t stop it from being one of his favorites. “All I remember was Betty dragging her feet in her good shoes up the front walk, whining ‘Veronica had the hair pretties with the red ribbons, andher NAME on them, and I didn’t have my BLUE ones, and this was the worst picture day EVER!’” Hal mimicked, his own face painted in mock, girlish anguish. Alice reached over and swatted him again. “Veronica Lodge is just so flighty, and seems so spoiled.”

“We can’t pick her friends.”

“Maybe not,” he muttered. “Back in my day, though, you didn’t bring home just any old friends to your parents. And definitely not any old boyfriend.”

“He’s not ‘any old boyfriend,’ Hal,” she sighed. “Maybe then this wouldn’t have gone on so long.” Namely since grade school.

“If he hurts her, Alice, I’m going to Fred’s with a baseball bat.”

“That’s pushing it,” she pointed out. “My old broomstick, on the other hand, would work fine.”

“I never treated you like that when we were going out. No guessing games, no watching cobwebs growing on the phone…”

“Bullshit, Hal. We both know you married me for my boobs and my meatloaf.” They exchanged a look; then Hal flashed his teeth and growled at her with transparent intent. Alice giggled.