Goldsmith’s Department Store
Goldsmith’s Department Store
Memphis, Tennessee
“Just make it through the summer. You can do it. It’s only three months of hell.”
Chanting my mantra over and over, I drove ten miles over the speed limit toward work.
Union Avenue was my best route—it had three lanes going east—so I wove in and out of traffic like a madwoman, keeping my eye out for cops.
I’d overslept. Stayed up till three in the morning savoring my new library book.
The Godfather was the most titillating novel I’d ever read.
It lived under my mattress whenever I left the house.
No possible way I could take a chance on my parents finding it.
As usual, the mantra quickly dissolved into a rumination on why I hated my life.
Why I wanted to scream Get me out of here!
at the top of my lungs, ten times a day.
I had just completed my sophomore year of college, yet my austere, old-as-Methuselah dad still believed he had the right to manage my every move.
With a glance at the Hole of Horror in my Mustang’s dashboard, I yelled, “You were right, Ron! Our father is a royal asshole!”
Not only was Dad a Korean War army colonel, but he used every rigid core tenet from our church as our family’s guidebook. No drinking. No smoking. No cussing. No dice. No premarital sex. But the worst church statutes for me were no rock and roll—especially the Beatles—and no dancing.
Music nourished my soul. It kept me breathing. Yet Dad took it away. “Rock and roll is devil music,” he often lectured. “Immoral and harmful to the spirit. You’ll go to hell if you give way.” Going to hell scared the daylights out of me. The Bible called it a place of everlasting punishment.
“Home is a place of everlasting punishment!” I yelled.
The employee parking garage was nearly full by the time I arrived.
I whipped into one of the last spots, jumped from the car, and then flew lickety-split to the entrance.
With only two minutes to spare, I raced through the front door and up the escalator, skipping steps past coworkers.
After hustling between the nightgown rounders, I made it to the stockroom and punched my time card. Safe.
As embarrassing as it was to admit, I worked that summer as a bra clerk.
A. Bra. Clerk. At Goldsmith’s—Memphis’s fine department store.
There are not enough words in the English language to sufficiently explain my embarrassment.
By the time I’d applied, both Juniors and Ladies’ Dresses were full, so they stuck me in Lingerie.
I’d seen and touched more old-lady bosoms in two months than if I’d worked three years at a nursing home.
“Lean over and drop,” I’d tell the ladies before hooking their bras, but some never got it.
The first time I had to lift a boob and gently place it inside a brassiere, I broke out into a cold sweat.
No other young girls worked in Lingerie, so my only friend was a sixty-two-year-old lady named Gertie, short for Gertrude.
Despite our age difference, we actually had a little fun together.
She was already on the floor hanging nightgowns when I yanked back the curtains to the stockroom.
“Good morning, Gertie,” I said. She’d insisted I call her by her first name. She said it made her feel young.
“I declare. Those liberal bra burners are liable to burn me out of a job.”
This was the tenth time I’d heard her rag about girls tossing their bras into a burning trash can at last year’s Miss America pageant.
“That’s a myth,” I told her, for the tenth time.
“The cops wouldn’t allow it. They were scared the boardwalk would catch fire.
Remember? I told you I read about it in Life magazine. ”
Gertie pretended not to hear. Perspiration beads dotted her hairline. Her face flushed as red as a tulip. She scurried over to her purse and opened her Japanese hand fan. “Hot flash,” she announced, then proceeded to fan herself like she was sitting next to a bonfire in the summer.
“How was your evening?” she asked, fanning harder.
“Uneventful. As usual.”
“I declare. When are you gonna have a little fun? You’re in the prime of your life, Miss Suzannah.”
“Fun is not allowed in my family. Unless you consider Parcheesi a good time.”
She pressed her lips together, holding her tongue, but I knew what she was thinking: What the heck is wrong with your family? “Any word from your brother?” she said at last.
My shoulders clenched as her words burned a hole in my heart. I lowered my eyelids. “No ma’am.”
She sidled up next to me, wrapped an arm around my shoulders, and gave me a squeeze. “Overseas mail is as slow as a caterpillar. You’ll hear from him soon.”
A forced smile was all I could muster. Ron hadn’t written me, or our parents, in months. Not that I could blame him. Even still, I missed him with every fiber of my being. We were Irish twins, only eleven months apart, and had never known life without the other. Until Vietnam. Until my mistake.
“Say, would you mind taking your lunch break early?” Gertie asked.
An odd question. She always lunched first. “Sure. Is everything okay?”
“Lazy Wayne forgot to pay the utility bill,” she said with a loud groan, the way she did when her bunions were bothering her. “Now I have to drive way downtown to MLGW when the lunch rush is over.”
“Why can’t he do it? I thought he retired.”
“He claims his sciatica is acting up. Don’t even get me started. He makes me madder than a wet hen.”
At eleven thirty on the nose, I grabbed my brand-new macramé purse, bought with my store discount, and tossed it over my shoulder.
Gertie’s plump face lit up like a jack-o’-lantern. “Where ya dining?” She asked the same question every day. Food was her favorite subject.
“Not hungry. I’m going over to Kress for a bottle of Love cologne. I wish they carried it—”
“Only high-dollar brands sold at Goldsmith’s.” Gertie pressed an elbow into mine, raising her eyebrows sky-high. “Say, would you mind picking me up a can of Aqua Net Super Hold while you’re there?”
“No ma’am. Need anything else?”
“I don’t suppose.” She moved over to her purse, hidden under the checkout counter. Gertie made a swishing sound when she walked. I didn’t know if it was her thick-as-mud hose or her thick-as-mud girdle, but I’d know her anywhere, even with my eyes closed.
When she bent down to riffle through her wallet, I held my breath, afraid her skirt might split.
As soon as she stood up, two quarters in hand, her gaze dropped to my legs. It wasn’t the first time.
Before she started the lecture, I cut her off at the pass.
“I know what you’re thinking, and I appreciate your concern.
Truly I do. But I don’t wanna wear support hose.
They’re hot.” I stopped short of saying They’re ugly.
After all, Gertie wore them. Suntan was her shade, sold right there in the lingerie department.
You couldn’t even see your hand while tucked inside the tester.
Gertie lifted a finger to punctuate her words, then singsonged, “You’ll be sor-ry when varicose ve-ins pop out all over those pretty little le-gs.” The way her voice rose and fell sounded like she was performing a recitative in an opera.
I sang back. “Varicose ve-ins aren’t high on my wor-ry list.” I plucked the quarters from her palm. “See you in an hou-r.”
“My, you have a nice voice,” she said, hands pressed against hips. “Have you considered a major in musical theater?”
Of course I’d considered a major in musical theater.
I thought about music almost every hour of the day.
My senior year in high school I’d played Amaryllis in The Music Man, and the year before, I’d played Aunt Eller in Oklahoma!
Not lead roles, but I’d enjoyed them. Immensely.
Nonetheless, a major in musical theater would have been impossible.
Dad would have never allowed me to major in anything that might take me to a lewd place like New York City, full of sinners bound for hell. I settled on liberal arts.
“No ma’am, I have not.” I spun around hastily, hoping Gertie would take the hint and drop the subject.
As I wove through the bra racks toward the escalator, the sound of her heavy Southern drawl rang out through the department. “If you reconsi-dah, you could become a star on Broadway.”
I ignored her. Although I had to admit hearing Gertie mention the word star struck a major chord. My true life’s calling—the passionate one Dad forced me to bury—was to become a folk-rocker like Mary Travers from Peter, Paul and Mary. Or a pop rock singer like Dusty Springfield.
But that was before my Beatles disaster. The worst, most shameful day of my life, inflicted upon me by my very own father.
“Why don’t you go somewhere fun this weekend so you can wear that new cologne?
” Gertie called loudly, even though customers in the next department could hear.
That’s another thing. Gertie considered it her job to construct a social life for me.
And find me a boyfriend. She’d been shocked when I told her I’d never had one.
I tossed her a wave without turning around and headed straight for the escalator.