Chapter 6
I have a photograph of me in my bedroom in a red coat with big white buttons. There’s a story behind that coat.
When I was nineteen years old, I had a job manning the counter at a dry cleaner called Tidy Press.
Working at a dry cleaner was not on my lit-up bulletin board of the mind, but I figured it would do until something better came along.
The people who owned it, Mr. and Mrs. Schmitt, were a study in contrasts.
He was as nice as he could be, he was so kind.
His wife, though. I always told my friend Judy McGrath that the wife reminded me of a coat hanger, all hard angles, skinny and stiff as could be.
You’ve heard it said that some people are so unsmiling it seems like their faces would crack if they did smile.
Mrs. Schmitt smiled all the time, but it was thin and vicious.
Seemed like her favorite thing to do was to wait for me to do something wrong.
She yelled at me for dropping things. For mispronouncing a customer’s name.
For not moving quickly enough. For moving too quickly.
For dressing wrong. I didn’t hardly know how to hold my head after a while.
She chipped away at me. I remember one day I came home after work and called Judy and I was bawling on the phone so bad she could hardly make out what I was saying.
But finally she said, Tell you what, come on over to my house and we’ll go out for ice cream sundaes.
Judy was pregnant then and she had a sundae just about every day.
She said the baby demanded it, and I for one was glad it did.
Well, we had a bolstering talk and the next day at work I went into the back to get some safety pins and when I came out Mrs. Schmitt started screeching about my leaving the counter unattended for the three seconds it took me to get the pins.
She had my paycheck in her hand. I snatched it from her and then I said, I quit.
Oh no you don’t, she said. Oh yes I do, said I, right plucky, and I knocked on Mr. Schmitt’s door and I told him thank you for hiring me and I sure did appreciate the work, but this would be my last day and goodbye.
You know he didn’t even ask me why. He knew.
He said, You’re a good girl. I said, Well, I’d always thought so.
I wish you the very best, he said, going back to his ledger and his buzzing desk light, which he also put up with.
I called Judy to meet me at Woolworth’s, and on the way I went to Ebert’s department store, where I’d seen a red coat in the front window that I liked but it was too expensive for me.
I guess you know the rest of the story. Every time I wore that red coat, I felt the strength of standing up for myself.
When I sat down with Judy that day, she said, Nice coat, and I said, You don’t know the half of it.
I had enough money left from my paycheck to buy both our sundaes, and that’s what I did.
And don’t you know I found another, much better, job the very next day.
Seems like sometimes you say, I’ve about had enough, and something else says, Well, why didn’t you say so, then. Here. And here. And here.
I guess I feel like this story might in a roundabout way help you some with your decision.
Oh, Honey, don’t you remember the time your whole family came to visit and you and your husband were standing out in my backyard while your children played Mother May I with me and I saw your husband put his hand to your cheek in a way so tender I had to put my hand to my own face.
Ruthie, when you are recalling injustices, recall the other things, too.