Written by Mary Kay Feather
Gleaming black patent-leather with nickel-sized white polka dots,
the handbag was a “must-have” wardrobe addition for the back-to-
college coed. I tore the page out of Mademoiselle and daydreamed of my
school wardrobe punctuated with polka dots. Large enough to hold a
slim volume of poetry, rectangular with reverse polka dot lining and
inset handles, I coveted that carryall with a thirteen-year-old’s
acquisitive intensity. If a bag could transform me into a cover girl, this
one would.
Already enchanted by the world of fashion portrayed in magazines
of the era, Seventeen, Mademoiselle and Glamour, I scrutinized the
photos and pictured myself wrapped in camel hair or cashmere, traipsing
the corridors of one of the Seven Sisters all-girl schools featured in the
College Issue.
For me, those fashion magazines were dream books. I pored over
them, spent my allowance to buy them, coveted their contents and knew
all the models by name the way my classmates knew rock stars. I cut out
dreams for my scrapbook seeing my future self, already quite tall,
transformed into runway slimness with good bones. I worshiped the
fashion models: Veruschka, the fabulous Russian whose cheekbones
were said to be able to slice beets, or the classic Grace Kelly look of
Suzy Parker. The Dior model, Dovima, was famously photographed by
Richard Avedon in 1955 with elephants. My polka-dot bag would be my
entree to Avedon and those elephants, to ivy league schools.
One Saturday my mother told me to pull on my gloves and good
loden coat and take the bus downtown to the Bon Marche to buy a purse
for school. I boarded the No. 24, with the twenty-dollar bill she’d given
me and immediately ripped off the white gloves. There was time to drink
a Green River at the teen-bar in the Starlet Circle where Frankie Avalon
crooned his latest, and then I headed over to Accessories and Handbags.
Bucket bags with secure flaps were the craze that fall and my intended
purchase. But, stumbling over myself, I looked up at a display in back to
see the actual Mademoiselle bag on a pedestal above the counter. My
heart fluttered, my mouth turned dry.
“How much for the polka-dot purse?” I asked the clerk. She
stretched up to bring the beauty down to show me the tag: $19.95. I
cradled it in my arms, petted the silky lining and handed over the money.
Coddled in tissue in a dark brown Bon shopping bag, I carried the
magical talisman home on the bus. From time to time, I peeked into the
bag. I was proud of my shopping acumen, my heart’s desire within
budget. I could feel the indelible grin spreading across my face when I
walked up the steps of our front porch.
“Oh, Mama, I found it! Just look at my new bag. The very one
from Mademoiselle!”
She glanced at it, shook her head curtly. “No, that’s not appropriate
for school. Polka dots. Some kind of beach bag. You’re going to have to
return it and get the bucket bag. That was our agreement.”
“But, Mama, please…it’s the Mademoiselle bag. You don’t
understand. Here, I’ll show you the magazine. It goes with everything,
see, it’s patent leather, you can even wash it. How neat is that? It wasn’t
expensive, within our budget, and I’ll carry it for the rest of my life.”
She frowned and set her mouth in such a way, tight and straight,
that I knew I was lost. I wept most of the afternoon face down on my
childhood bed, the waffle weave spread imprinted on my cheek. I felt
robbed, and I had suffered a red-letter defeat in the battle of mother-
daughter wills. My mom, no stranger to efficiency, put on her coat and
gloves, tucked her own navy leather pocketbook under her arm and took
the car downtown to return my purchase to the Bon. She exchanged it
for a red leather bucket bag, just like every ninth-grade girl was
carrying. I refused to look at it.
My mother made many of my clothes in fine fabrics using Vogue
patterns. She ordered Capezio flats from New Rochelle, New York for
my Size 12 feet so I could wear something other than soap-and-water
saddle shoes guaranteed in my size. She helped with costumes, skits and
essay ideas for every school project I undertook but on these polka dots
we hit an impasse. The incident also stressed how far afield I felt from
my family at that age. My hormones stewed and burbled, and certain
things were so important to me: my fashion world and the books
reviewed therein from Sagan, Colette, even Picasso’s mistress had
written her memoirs, and my Michel Legrand record. These ideas my
family never could grasp in their fondness for meat and potatoes,
Canasta and TV’s Hit Parade. I was destined for higher aims which they
would not understand until my first work was published in Paris where I
planned to live.
Thirteen was the year I had my pink birthday party. All guests
wore pink. We ate salmon and strawberry cake and ice cream. The
favors were pink, and we played a pink pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey game.
Clearly, I struggled between childhood and sophistication, thrilled at
pink Jordan almonds and pink Capezios, devastated to lose a symbol of
fashion savoir faire represented by the purse.
I think my mother had an idea of appropriate in her mind and the
tote galvanized her to reassert her authority. Possibly she wanted to
remind me that she was in charge in a household where my father was
the real lawmaker, not that we would bother him with a fashion decision.
Before she died, I asked her if she remembered this tragic incident of my
youth. She did not.
.
Mary Kay Feather is a Seattle native and former bookseller/librarian. She can be found curled up with Jenny Diski, Helen Garner, Ali Smith and other wordsmiths. She is writing a memoir called THE TROUBLE WITH FUN: A BOOKWORM LOOKS BACK AT SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK ‘N ROLL. Her work has been published in Ruminate, Literary Woman, Moria, 45th Parallel, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes and New Plains Review.