What Should I Wear?

A woman is deciding what to wear. But her situation is a bit different from one dressing for the ball...

Nancy Peterson was looking at a number of clothing items that she had laid out on the small bed. There was a low cut blouse of a sea green hue that would match well with the faded pair of blue jeans. Next to it was a long white dress dotted with tiny blue flowers and butterflies. To battle the summer sun of New York likely to scorch the unprepared, Nancy had thrown in there a wide straw hat with a striking, if faded, blue and white ribbon. Considering the uncertain length of time she would have to stand outside, she did not feel that it was an option to forego the hat. It was hot inside too, the airconditioning being turned off, and when she thought of the long and hard day outside, she perspired a little more.

She reached for the hat and looked at it for a while before putting it on. Her walk to the mirror, on the other side of the hallway was slow. She suffered from a bad foot, on account of tripping on the stairs last week. The nurse at the emergency room had been sympathetic, and had advised her to get a special shoe to keep the foot from bending. Nancy had nodded assent and hobbled back on the bus, she had very little money, not nearly enough to spend on a surgical shoe. What would the shoe do, but to keep the foot from bending? Nancy decided she could do that by placing more weight on the other foot and dragging herself along, as long as it took. On the stairs she would hold the railing as much as she could, put her weight on them and propel herself up.

The mere placing of the hat took ten years off her. Nancy adjusted the bow, and tried tilting the hat at different angles. Her eyes burned with sadness and longing as she recalled how she had come to posses this item, her most cherished in a scant wardrobe. She closed her eyes as the memory took a hold of her; Joshua coming up behind her at the state fair, spinning her around with one strong hand at her supple and yielding hip, drawing her to him while plopping the hat on her in one fluid motion.

Where was Joshua now? Nancy did not know. That had been thirty two years ago, and Nancy had been eighteen. Oh, sweet youth, when life was all about possibilities, an unopened book, with adventures waiting in the wing. Strong passions, and the vigor to dream. Hope, that elusive yet all-important aspect of life fully alive, not having taken a battering by circumstance, that often indifferent master that worries its head with a thousand other things.

The first gong from the pendulum clock, as Nancy knew would be followed by ten more shrill rebukes, jarred her from this merry vision of decidedly better days. With cheeks slightly pock marked and having a sickly palor, hazel eyes glazed with a look so lifeless, lips taughtly pressed on a mouth that turned down at the corners, she looked old, older than her fifty years, but the world had not been kind to her. It had been a year since she was fired from the clothing store, the multi-national giant to which Nancy had given her labor, unstintingly and often receiving nothing in return, for thirty years. "The economics of the clothing industry had changed", was how this had been explained to her by the young couple the company had hired to oversee the restructuring. "Here is my phone number and email, you can call me five days a week, 8 to 5. Eastern Standard." As if there was anything the sweet sounding, smartly dressed girl could do for her, old and worthless, a reject to those that ran the affairs of this peculiar world of ours.

Nancy, sighing deeply, turned back towards the bed and the decision before her. The dress was decidedly more respectable, but would that serve her purpose? She furrowed her brow and paced back and forth between beds. Was a random stranger more likely to be charitable to a well dressed person, or someone looking destitute? This question seems almost trivial to answer in the abstract. Why, would not a more destitute person command more compassion, and so should not the faded jeans be her choice? They were frayed at the seam, and Nancy even fancied ripping them a little at the knees, though she could ill afford to ruin them. However, Nancy was not sure if this would benefit her. Why, on better days, has she not studiously avoided shady looking characters on the street? And then one day, as she was walking to the subway, this young lady had come up to her, clearly embarrassed, asking for a dollar to take her home. Well dressed was she, and her tale was one of miscalculation, an error of youth. Nancy lost no time in giving her the money, with some motherly advise to go with it.

For the past month, she had assiduously studied the sundry assortment of characters that stood at intersections of this sprawling metropolis and appealed to a largely indifferent public. Some of them had become permanent fixtures of the city, and some among them had fallen to such a routine that you could tell roughly what hour it was, if you followed one gaunt old man in a felt cap that made the rounds starting from the subway entrance on Third, moving to the street corner opposite the Starbucks, then walking listlessly along Philly street, cardboard sign hanging limply in one hand while the other touched the cap as a greeting to those who only quickened their step at his approach.

Perhaps the dress would help her more, in this hour of desperate need. Desperate because she had just twenty dollars and no more jewelry she could pawn. Her neckline was bare, and the holes in her ears starting to close up. One night, after yet another unsuccessful job hunt, she had come home to an empty apartment. Empty in the sense of all the furniture being absent. So was the man who had professed his undying love for her. Her jewelry and cash. Oh, how life treated those who fell before its majestic allure? For all its magnificent facade, a jungle it was, with ravening beasts that constantly prowled, their noses tuned to the scent of the weak. And here she was, jobless, homeless and hopeless. How could this happen? To her? To someone who had always lived within her means, working hard with a smile on her face, not taking a sick day if she could help it, covering for co-workers when they had pressing needs. Where were they, anyhow? She did not know, and was terrified she might meet one today, her dignity was the one last thing that she tried to hold on to.

On account of seeing someone from where she worked last, she now thought that she should take the subway north. But she was loathe to part with the five dollars it would take. What were the chances that a handful of men and women out of a few million that pounded these streets would see her? She tried to reason. She would risk it, Nancy decided with a brisk nod; her lips pressed together a little tighter. But oh, but, what to wear? This question was now laying on her a most unbearable burden.

Nancy pulled the rough curtain that separated her bed from the next and proceeded to remove her clothing. She then slipped on the long dress over her head. The worn black shoes fitted her well, but they did not match the charm and elegance of the dress. But it could not be helped as she just had the one pair of shoes. Being homeless meant being on the move on a constant basis, and Nancy had been forced to leave behind everything but the bare necessities. Adjusting the hat with one hand, she stepped towards the mirror to survey herself, glancing around with some self-consciousness as she turned sideways and back. The shelter was empty, its occupants already emptied onto the streets, where they were battling a harsh world that took for granted that everyone had their basic needs met.

Now Nancy imagined holding the cardboard sign in her hands. She was too ashamed to hold it in front of the mirror, in such a public place. She should smile, instinct told her. So she imagined how she would look and tried her best to smile. But the whole ordeal exhausted her mentally that her mouth turned down at the corners and she looked down with a faint sigh. A tear dripped silently down her cheek. She again looked at herself between the lipstick stains on the mirror. "Oh, God. I look horrible", she muttered. The more she looked, Nancy was forced to concede that the dress stood in sharp opposition to everything else: her flabby arms, limp, worn shoes and sallow face that could not turn up a smile.

She moved back to the bed in such a depressed state of mind and started undressing once more. It was better to look the tramp, it will make her look more sincere. Reasoning thus, before her mind could complain, drawing in a sharp breath, she poked her fingers into the thin fabric and tore two large holes on the jeans. Having done this, all the energy left her and she stood gaping at the mutilated jeans in horror. Then she collapsed onto the bed and crumpling the jeans into her bosom, sobbed quietly for a while. With every step she took, on the road to pan handling, the very shame of it started taking an ever more incessant toll. Indeed, each act she was compelled to do, just so that she may make the few dollars needed for the day, seemed to rob her of a little more of the dignity she had. The clock struck twelve. The tall white walls stood impassive, silent. The row of windows lining them let in the mid morning light which fell on her rust colored hair touched by splotches of gray. Her body heaved with the dry sobs, even though no one was here to hear her, Nancy had long since learnt to cry in silence.

Poverty and destitution were wretched things. They did not simply take away a person's physical comforts, but stripped them of so many intangibles. Each indignity suffered, piling on top of the daily insults, actual and imagined. What was it about life that pulled down the poor lower, and lower? A feeling of bitterness gave her a morsel of courage that she stopped crying and shakily got back on her feet. She hastily put on the jeans and blouse, heading once more to the mirror. Her knees shone a pale white through the torn jeans, her legs felt heavy and the walk to the mirror felt painful. Once there, she felt mortified at how she looked. What was she thinking? How could she go to the streets in these clothes? Should not even a pan handler possess some self respect? How could you approach a total stranger and ask for help, anyhow? "Some crazy woman", they might mutter behind her back. "Oh, poor thing, I guess just did not save for old age", some others may think. "I don't see why she can't work! Begging must be easier!" Had not such uncharitable thoughts come to her at different times in her more fortunate life? She stood dejected, contemplating, not wanting to take that step. Truth be told, she was terrified of begging, it felt dirty, degrading and low. But then, how else to get a meal a day, a shower and a bed for the night?

Oh, how little do the poor want? How little they ask for? And yet, how those modest needs are denied them, by people blinded by their own struggle, who see the alluring facade shimmering in the horizon, towards which they must ceaselessly paddle, if they are indeed not to be caught in the same shoes as Nancy! Oh, what folly!

Maybe she did not need to beg. Up north, she may wander into the nicer residences and tap gently on the polished brass knockers adorning those tall gates. Perhaps someone inside such a resplendent house, which always seemed miles away from the gate, had some work for her, oh, how willing she would be, to water a garden, sweep and scrub floors or take care of a young child? Brightened by that thought, she started down the middle of the two rows of beds, careful not to bump into anyone's belongings that sometimes spilled into her path. But by the time she reached the door, Nancy was again made aware of her ruined clothing. She could not go offer her services this way, certainly not to the well-to-do, they would turn her out on sight.

With the door closed behind her, and her hand on the railing on the steep and narrow stairwell, Nancy felt a burning sensation in her chest, a shortness of breath. The stairs swam before her eyes and for a moment, they looked to her like the wide spiralling stairs that curved around the grand piano of her recently lost home. Through the blurred railing, she saw her daughter, now an accomplished accountant, playing "Ode To Joy". She sat down unsteadily, closed her eyes and was transported back in time to an elegantly prepared Thanksgiving Dinner. Her two granddaughters with the short boyish hair with strawberry cream around their mouths. Oh, how they laughed, and the way her daughter turned back to look at them, the love in her eyes, and how the notes she played seemed more beautiful, more poignant and heartfelt, just then.

Hours passed, but she did not hear the clock strike, muffled as they were through the door. The music grew faint in her ears and an utter weariness of body and spirit settled on her, and she did not fight it. It was time to rest.

 

Reviews

[Laura Lynn]

This is a lovely story. I enjoyed reading it. Very measured and carefully written,