9 1/2 Narrow by Patricia Morrisroe

aggressive and wondered what the neighbors would think.
    She was giving the Avon lady the cold shoulder when Kennedy came on TV.
    He looked grim and puffy-eyed, not the way I remembered him when he was running for president and my mother and I saw him in person. Jackie was there, and it had just rained and the grass was soaking wet. I was pleased to see that she was wearing wedgies, although hers were more sophisticated than anything at Reinhold’s. Jackie, who was a size 10, favored low-heeled pumps by Ferragamo or Delman. In a letter to her personal shopper at Bergdorf Goodman, she wrote that she expected her shoes to be “elegant and timeless.” As Kennedy spoke, Jackie stood very still, her wedgies sinking lower and lower into the soggy grass. She didn’t take her eyes off her husband, even as her shoes were totally getting ruined, and afterward, she didn’t even glance down to check on them but continued to smile and shake everyone’s hand.

    With all the talk of nuclear war and the Communists invading Andover, wedgies were the only bright spot in what was shaping up to be a very tumultuous year. With Nancy’s arrival, my parents turned the dining room into a nursery until they cound find a larger house. Not only was sister Emily continuing to find weird things in her food, she now had a weird thing in the dining room, and she wasn’t happy about it. At five, she was no longer the baby, but now occupied the unenviable spot of being the middle child.
    At some point, my mother asked us to clean up our toys to make room for the baby’s paraphernalia. In the process of sorting through our things, my mother told me to put “Betty,” my nearly life-size doll, in the attic. Betty had been my companion for years, and while I was at the age when I didn’t actually play with her, I didn’t necessarily want her in the attic. Before I had a chance to voice my objections, Emily, who’d never shown any prior interest in Betty, decided that she wanted her. In retrospect, I understand what was happening. With a new baby in the house, my middle sister was consolidating her power base. If my mother had a baby, Emily needed a bigger one to equalize things. But as that kind of analysis was beyond me, I refused to yield the doll. We got into a tug-of-war, and in a perfect illustration of family typecasting, I emerged with Betty’s head, my sister with the body. With no one getting Betty “whole,” my mother sent her to the attic, where she remained, in two separate boxes, until she finally wound up at the dump.
    Meanwhile, our dog Buff developed cataracts, a whitish blue seeping through his brown eyes like globs of spilled milk. Even though he couldn’t see, he regularly crossed a busy intersection, impregnating several dogs in the neighborhood. This was too much for my mother, who couldn’t take care of a baby and a blind dog, especially one whose morals were on par with Maria Goretti’s assassin. “That dog’s a sex maniac,” my mother complained. One of them had to go, and even though Emily voted for Nancy, my mother took the dog to the vet’s and we never saw him again.
    With only a week to spare before confirmation, we finally made it to Reinhold’s.
    â€œYou’re a little late, aren’t you?” the salesman said. “There’s been a run on wedgies.”
    He pulled out the Brannock Device to measure my foot, but given the urgent circumstances, I told him not to bother. “I’m a 7AAA,” I said as he disappeared into the back room, while I slumped in one of the metal chairs.
    â€œThis is a disaster,” I said. “I’m not going to be able to be confirmed without wedgies.”
    â€œThat’s ridiculous,” my mother replied. “You think God cares about wedgies?”
    The salesman was in the back room for longer than usual, and I was so nervous I was practically hyperventilating. My