9 1/2 Narrow by Patricia Morrisroe Page A

classmate Mary Kay Phinney, whose father owned the local TV and stereo shop, walked in the door. Though she lacked Hannah Howard’s Hollywood pedigree, she was blond and pretty and always had a tan. She needed wedgies too. I looked down at her feet. Luckily, they were smaller than mine.
    â€œThere’s been a run on wedgies,” I announced.
    â€œThere’s been a run on wedgies!”
she yelled to her mother, who was pacifying her two younger children by shoving nickels into the gumball machine.
    The salesman finally returned from the back room, carrying one box instead of the usual half a dozen. “I have good news and bad news,” he said. “The good news is that I have wedgies. The bad news is that the closest to your size is an 8A.”
    â€œI’ll take them,” I said.
    â€œYou better try them on first,” my mother advised. “It would be terrible if you had to return them.” Even the salesman had to suppress a laugh, given my mother’s habit of returning practically every shoe she ever purchased.
    I walked over to the fluoroscope and back. They felt pretty good. I figured my feet had probably grown.
    â€œThey’re perfect,” I said.
    Afterward, we went across the street to the Dame Shoppe, where women purchased their “intimates” and men rarely ventured, unless it was Valentine’s Day and they were stuck for a gift. I’d never bought anything there, but my mother said I needed “hose.” I hadn’t thought much beyond wedgies, though I had a dim recollection of Sister Superior, after dragging one of the boys by the cheek into the cloakroom, telling us we could wear nylon stockings. I thought nylons were the most useless garments ever invented. My mother would buy a pair and immediately get a run in them. Though she’d try to stop it with clear nail polish, the run would keep running, and then she’d have to throw them in the trash. It was a constant source of frustration. While my father kept his socks for years, my mother, if she was lucky, kept her nylons for a week. There was something terribly unfair about this, but when I mentioned it to my mother, she said it was the price you paid for being a woman.
    â€œCan I help you?” asked one of the saleswomen. She was standing in front of a glass counter containing bras with cups the size of beach balls. I couldn’t take my eyes off them, and my mother said it was rude to stare, but I couldn’t help it. I could have fit ten of my own breasts inside one cup and still have room for
The Complete Jane Austen.
I spotted Priscilla Lane—Mrs. Howard—walking into the store. My mother was shy so she didn’t say hello, but I waved. Mrs. Howard gave me a dazzling movie star smile and a smoky hello. She had a great husky voice that I hoped I’d have one day when I matured, smoked cigarettes, and fulfilled my lifelong dream of becoming an actress.
    â€œWe’d like a pair of nylons,” my mother said as Mrs. Howard perused a rack of lacy nightgowns. The saleswoman showed us several color samples ranging from nude to tangerine. We settled on nude, and then the woman pulled out a plastic box containing garter belts. “Do you want something plain or fancy?” she asked. I wanted neither. Though we’d learned about Newton’s law of gravity in science class, it hadn’t dawned on me that nylons wouldn’t stay up on their own. I selected a plain blue garter belt and just wanted to get out of there, but the saleswoman, staring at my chest, suggested to my mother that I needed a training bra. “You wouldn’t want them to jiggle,” she whispered, bending over the counter to reveal her bottomless cleavage.
    My breasts didn’t jiggle. They barely existed. And what did breasts need to be “trained” for? A sword fight with a baby?
    The saleswoman handed me something that looked like a white wraparound bandage and told me