Cecile Callan

When Kate and her mother were a team, they watched TV together. Jack Lalanne and The French Chef. James Franciscus in The Investigators and Mike Connors in Mannix, with his dark physicality in a business suit coming right down that chute during the opening credits. Mike was her mother’s favorite, a secret boyfriend, and she would shove her hands between her gripped thighs and nestle deeper into the couch like an excited young girl. 

Kate liked Mike Connors, but it was James Franciscus who went with her to Kim’s house in the afternoons when they got together to play Girlfriend/Boyfriend after school. James was the one who saved her from the Bad Guys who frequently kidnapped her at Kim’s house, locking her up in the doghouse, or under the back deck stairs, no matter how hard she fought them off, or how desperately she cried for help. And it was James who stood there like a beech tree after the Saving Part, when Kate thanked him by bawling out loud, grateful tears, wrapping her arms around his smooth bark and kissing him close-mouthed. She’d turn her head this way and that, pretending the rough texture against her soft lips was his whiskers. The rule was you weren’t supposed to watch the other person after the Saving Part; that was the Private Time, between the Girlfriend and the Boyfriend. But Kim was two years older, and Kate had learned the head-turning technique by sneaking glances at Kim as she thanked Dr. Kildare for saving her from her kidnappers, as well as from a rare disease, all while reclining with him on the slide.

When Kate and her mother were a team, they baked cakes together. There was one perfect cake pan and one very beat up one that didn’t match it. Kate’s mother showed her how to trace circles onto wax paper and cut them out, then oil both sides and place them in the pans so the cakes wouldn’t stick. Kate also learned how to beat the batter just enough so it stayed light and fluffy. They always made lemon cakes or spice cakes, Kate’s mother’s favorites. Kate learned how to zest a lemon but leave the pith, and how to grate nutmeg without barking her finger tips, because doing these things was superior to using fake ingredients. Those cakes were delicious.

Sometimes Kate’s mother said she could choose what kind of cake to bake next. When Kate insisted on chocolate her mother went along with it, but not without making it clear she would have chosen differently— meaning spice cake or lemon cake. When Kate pointed out that would then not be her choice, her mother apologized and said Kate was right, but in a voice that said not really. When she ate the chocolate cake, Kate’s mother pronounced it “nice,” in the same way you tell someone you like her dress but you don’t, or tell a mother her baby is cute when it looks like a weird old man. 

Things began to feel like they had hidden meanings. 

Kate hated, absolutely hated, the dark brown polyester remnant her mother picked out at Fabric Discount for the dress Kate was going to make in home ec class, and she told her so in as many ways as she could think of. Mr. Greene stood there with his black moustache and kind eyes, listening with patient interest as they went back and forth, waiting for the verdict with a pair of large scissors in his hand. Kate’s mother was a good customer of Mr. Greene’s, and he was always very friendly. 

“So you’re following in your mother’s footsteps, good for you,” he said to Kate with an open face and his eyebrows raised. “You have a fine teacher, that’s for sure.” He said this hooking his thumb her mother’s way. 

Kate’s mother was holding the brown material up against several other bolts of dark solid fabrics to eye the differences. She was wearing a warm orange shirtdress she had run up recently, with the cuffs turned so that the inside hot pink part showed. She had on her gold knot earrings, fresh lipstick, and her sweet personality. Her round face brightened at Mr. Greene’s compliment, and her eyes showed him a soft, knowing mother look when she smiled and said, “She’ll make mistakes. So why waste quality fabric on her first attempt at sewing?” She turned to Kate. “Make the dress, make the mistakes, and then we can buy pretty fabric when you know a little something.” 

This suggestion felt crazy to Kate. She had expected her mother to be thrilled when she came home and told her the class was going to make dresses at school. Her mother was an expert seamstress. Kate had imagined excited conversations about what kind of fabric to get, and what color thread to use; whether to use buttons or a zipper, since zippers were tricky to get right. She’d already decided on buttons because learning to sew button holes would be challenging enough for her first attempt. When she imagined wearing her finished dress, it was made from fabric with little flowers on it, a two-pronged choice because it would be spring soon, and also because if there were any crooked seams the flowers would hide them. With the extra help her mother could give her Kate was sure she’d do a good job, possibly even the best job of all the girls in the class. Dark brown double stretch polyester fabric that she wanted to throw up on had never entered the picture. Kate’s mother stood there with a big smile on her face. 

Mr. Greene said they had some cottons on sale and maybe they’d like to see them. Kate’s mother said yes in the voice she used for Kate’s chocolate cake. 

The bolts of fabric he showed them in the back of the store were blah. They were leftover colors like yellow and beige, and kind of an army green. And the patterns were tonal plaids like you’d see on Bermuda shorts someone’s father would wear. But they were better than the brown polyester. In the front of the store, Kate had seen new bright calico cottons just in for spring, not on sale, with dragonfly patterns and finches and buttercups. Those flowery designs were really pretty and the colors were subtle and pleasing, many in the shades of blue that looked good on Kate because of her auburn hair. But one look from her mother when they entered the store told her all she needed to know; they would stop and appreciate the new fabrics in a way that meant they would never buy them. 

Her mother rubbed the thickness of each back-of-the-store sale cotton between her fingers. “Nice weight for spring,” Mr. Greene said, his voice upbeat and positive. “Yet not too light for a first project.” He looked at Kate directly, nodding. “Your mother knows. You’ve got to have enough body in the fabric when you’re first learning, something to hold on to that doesn’t stretch or get caught too easily.” 

The fact that he assumed Kate knew enough about fabric so that he could talk shop made her feel good and smart. He looked at Kate’s mother. “And come to think of it, Ellen, these cottons might be a better choice than the polyester. Maybe it’s a little too stretchy for her to begin with. What do you think?”

Kate’s heart jumped a little when she realized Mr. Greene was trying to help her. Then the store phone rang and he excused himself. When he went to answer it, Kate’s mother turned toward her, and brought the price tag of the tonal plaid sale fabric and the price tag of the brown polyester remnant close to her own body to show Kate there was still a price difference she was not going to pay for.

In the following weeks, as the remnants of cold February days slipped off their grey, and brilliant green crocus spears punched through the thawing earth, the girls in Kate’s home ec class worked on their projects. They began by spreading out their colorful fabrics on large flat work surfaces, cutting out the tissue-thin paper patterns, and pinning them to their fabrics, carefully folded inside out. With sharp shears they followed the pattern lines closely, the sound of each cut amplified from the shears staying in contact with the table, the best way to keep the fabric flat and the cut true. 

Kate’s mother had bought an eighth of a yard less than what the pattern called for. “They always tell you to get more than you need, it’s a waste. You’ll figure it out. I always do,” she said when Kate objected. Then whispered out of the side of her mouth as Mr. Green rang them up, “You said you hate the brown, but you want me to buy more?”

Now Kate’s teacher stood there with a yard stick trying to figure out why her pattern pieces weren’t fitting. She told Kate they’d made a mistake and bought too little fabric. Kate’s face grew hot, and she said she was sorry. The teacher giggled at her somber tone, then put her arm around Kate. “No need to be sorry. We’re a team. We’ll use our brains and figure it out.” Which is what they did. As her mother said they would.

Secretly, Kate was impressed that her mother was right, but also felt scared by that. How could you be so right about something, but also so wrong? And why didn’t her mother use her brain more and quarrel less? At least her teacher didn’t pretend the fabric was something it was not. She and her teacher saw the same thing, which made hating the dark brown material that was to become her dress less awful somehow. Another girl in class, a girl with long blonde hair who had a little brother at the grade school next door, actually had the fabric Kate had seen and admired most—a teal blue flowered, full price calico. Kate looked at her blonde hair and thought the fabric would look better on her anyway. And she meant it. Now that she figured out with her teacher how to solve a problem, it seemed she could see other things more clearly without making her feel angry or sad.

As the classes were x-ed off the calendar, pins and scissors and patterns began to fall away as each dress or shift or skirt took shape, step by step. For the other girls, planning and getting down to work brought welcome new things: pretty fabrics that caught the sun and grew brighter, mistakes that taught you how to redo it right, a garment taking shape even after problems you thought would ruin your project were given sewing solutions that showed you everything was going to come out all right. The blonde girl, who had never sewn anything before either— most girls hadn’t— made a halter top maxi dress that turned out just beautiful. Even her timing was good. By the last class she was hemming her dress, which was how it was supposed happen. 

For Kate, it always felt as though the clear steps the other girls followed disappeared when it came to her. There were no steps to make the ugly brown material go away, or to change feeling mad every time she thought about how her mother went about choosing it for her. There was something shadowy in her mother that wouldn’t let Kate make a dress the way she wanted to, a dress she would feel proud to wear. The straps of the dark brown double stretch polyester shift came out crooked because the fabric was too flexible, and the buttons she used were white ones her mother already had at home. Kate never finished hemming her project.

“See? It’s a good thing we didn’t buy that expensive calico after all,” her mother said as she sat in the afternoon sun skimming the newspaper. “Sometimes mothers do know best.”June 1st came and the weather turned summery, right on time. Just like that you could hear crickets at night whirring in the trees. On the last day of school Kate saw the blonde girl, whose name was Amber, get off her bus wearing the halter top maxi dress she made in class. She was talking to the drummer in the school band, a tall boy Kate had a crush on, who kept his sticks in his back pocket. As they headed toward the entrance they walked right past where Kate was standing. Amber had on green strappy sandals with scallop shells on top and her toenails were painted pink. The color of the leather sandals, her toes, and the creamy white scallop shells picked up nicely the highlight colors in the teal blue flowery fabric of her dress. The drummer said something that made Amber laugh. He had green eyes and freckles and a smile that made Kate’s knees go warm. Amber was all ready for summer, and Kate knew she would have a good one.