The Book of Bright Ideas by Sandra Kring

Author:Sandra Kring
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780440336143
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2006-08-24T04:00:00+00:00

15

After that pajama party, I started watching Ma more, and wondering who she was besides just my ma.

The day after our party, she was all squirrelly, like she half-expected the police to come and arrest her for showing her understuff, or Daddy to find out and have a hissy fit. She cleaned all day like she couldn’t clean fast enough, or good enough, like she was trying to be extra good to make up for being extra bad. After a few days, though, she was like Uncle Rudy’s cows when they got let out of the barn in the spring after a long winter of having their heads stuck in those metal stanchion things; when they got all happy and hopped around the field, running and kicking and making moos that I think meant, “I’m free! I’m free!” in cow-talk.

Ma started doing things she wouldn’t have done before too. And doing them like a newborn calf who was trying to find her legs. Like one evening when she called me into the sewing room (which was really supposed to be the guest bedroom, except that it never had guests) and asked me if I wanted to see her new dress.

I stood just inside the door, sniffing, because I liked the metally smell that hung in the air when the sewing machine was turned on. “I’m making this dress here, with a few modifications,” she said, picking up the Spiegel catalog and pointing to a fancy blue and white dress. She read the description of the dress out loud to me: “Sheer nylon ruffles ’n lace beneath a boned petal bodice and filmy nylon net stole. Taffeta cummerbund, rayon taffeta lining, nylon net crinoline.” She set the catalog down on the little table to the side of her. “It’s last year’s catalog, but when we were looking at styles Freeda said it was the perfect style for me, if I cinch the waist a bit more. She says it will give me an hourglass figure. Of course, I have no idea where I’ll wear it.”

Ma looked up. “You can come in, Evelyn,” she said, so I stepped inside the room. “I’ve got the skirt done. It’s on the bed.”

I glanced over at the bed, where a wide skirt of ruffles and lace was spread out like a fancy fan. It was black! Ma flicked the little handle, and the part of her machine that looked like a tiny robot’s foot let go of the top part of her dress. She pulled it out and swung her knees out from under the sewing machine so she could swivel and show me the half-made top held up against her. It was black too! “What do you think?” she asked.

“It’s the color of sexy!” The minute those words came out, I clamped my hands over my mouth.

Ma looked at me, her eyes stretching wide, and she said, “Evelyn Mae Peters!” She looked down quickly then, the corner of her mouth lifting up a bit

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