MAYBE TOMORROW ... gilmore girls

chapter ten

I'm led towards the changing rooms with Emmy, her arms stacked with green dresses in all sorts of shades. I'm not so sure if any of them will suit me. But, I am pushed into the brightly lit changing rooms and the dresses are all lined up on the wall for me, a row of green shining in the three mirrors I cannot hide from. Emmy rushes to attend to my mother, already perched on the edge of a cream sofa, and I am left alone behind the ivory curtain.

I stare at the woman in the mirror and pretend it isn't me. Her dark hair is starting to grow a little longer than she usually lets it. Slipping past her chin so that it reaches the middle of her neck. Soon, it will touch her shoulders and she will be a completely new person. Someone with longer hair, who can flip it out of her way, and show off a row of earrings nobody knew was there. It will grow choppy and she will use one hand to fluff it up and people will turn to stare because this is a woman who knows what she wants. She will wear large gold hoop earrings and get a tattoo and wear low-rise jeans and platform boots. She will look more like her sister than she ever has and yet nobody will comment on it because nobody will know she has a sister. She lives in a small town where everybody knows her name and has a cat who stretches out in the sun and dates the man next door who shows her all of his favorite movies because she can never pick one.

Maybe I should grow my hair out.

Maybe not.

I grab the first dress I can reach and turn away from the mirrors to change into it. I don't want to watch myself undress. Months of not caring have started to catch up to me. Of forgetting to eat dinner because nobody is there to tell me to. Of drinking too much coffee and smoking too many cigarettes. My mother said I looked like a model this morning. My breakfast had been a cigarette swallowed down with an espresso and covered by perfume so she couldn't tell. I did not take it as the compliment she meant.

The dress is a dark forest green, easy to slip into. It stops halfway down the calf with a loose neckline. A little silky and a lot stretchy. I turn to the mirror and stare. The fabric clings to my too pointy hip bones and shows off every curve of my collarbone. It is too loose around my stomach because there is nothing to stretch it. I am fourteen again and trying not to cry as the girls in the locker room laugh about my boy-ish body shape. They know I can hear them.

My mother calls on me and I step out behind the curtain.

She tuts and shakes her head. "Absolutely not. You look like some sort of college floozy."

There is something wrong with every dress I try on. Too loose. Too clingy. Too much skin. That shade of green is awful. Too high neckline. Cheap beading. Too much pleating. I rip dresses I like and dresses I hate from my body with the same vitriol, fueled by my mother's scowl. Soon, I stand half naked, staring at myself in the mirror, picking at a freckle above my old underwear that I can never rid myself of.

The last dress hangs behind me and yet, I can't pluck up the courage to put it on.

I like the color. Emerald green. It's a color that would suit Lorelai so well, I'm surprised she doesn't wear it more. I reach out to touch the fabric. Satin. Soft and pretty. I loved satin dresses when I was younger, the way it slipped onto the skin, kissing every inch as if it loved me back. It has long sleeves that end with a cuff, buttoned up with shiny pearls to match the pearls that button up the front of the dress, from navel upwards.

I don't look in the mirror as I try it on. Matched with a set of pearly white heels my mother slid under the curtain. I refuse to look at the low v-neck that most likely shows off more cleavage than I'm used to, knowing that I'll hate it as soon as I turn around.

I step out from behind the curtain and let the satin swing around my knees.

My mother's scowl disappears. She doesn't hate it. I don't think she loves it either, but she nods slowly as she stands. When I used to go dress shopping for Harrison, I would twirl while he clapped and cheered and we would fall about laughing, holding onto each other. He never said anything bad about the dresses I tried on, leaving the decision entirely up to me. But, it was nice to have somebody on my side.