Triglycerides & Taffeta

By: Sarah Martineau

I am the reason my mother is a failed perfectionist. She taught me everything about what it meant to be not just a woman, but a lady. Unfortunately, I soon learned that embodying a perfect lady is an aspiration I’ll never obtain, given the genetics I inherited meant I’d never fit that frame.

I was walking past the plus size junior’s section in a Scholl’s department store where I had gone to make a return when the pain of disappointing my mother before my junior prom came flooding back to me. We were in my childhood home long ago when my mother’s revelation, that perhaps my baby fat was here to stay, happened. In shoebox sized mobile home my mother dressed in violets and zinnias because to her it wasn’t about ‘the base of the outfit’, rather ‘how you accessorized it’. Yet she seemed to forget the old saying “You can’t put lipstick on a pig.” To her our seedy neighbors were misguided country-folk, and the inside of all our homes was shabby-chic rather than dilapidated - as anyone else would see it.

The evening the awful revelation that I would never be her perfect lady came the Friday before my junior prom, when we spent hours trying to perfect a demure look just right for the pictures that would no doubt haunt me for years to come.

“Lydia try your dress on so I can see where I need to hem it again.” she said pointing at the sad pile of teal taffeta and lace I’d thrown haphazardly onto my dresser days ago.

I reluctantly grabbed the taffeta mess and slipped off my dressing gown and attempted to wiggle into it, fighting my satin slip to not bunch up throughout the process. I jumped around and stumbled like a drunk trying to redress themselves in a snug bathroom stall after using the restroom, and just like any other drunkard I fell on my ass before my prudent mother’s kitten heels.

“Mama this ain’t working, I can’t pull it over my thighs.”

“Don’t be silly, it’ll only take a second. If you weren’t fighting your slip it’d help you slip it right on! After all that’s what slips are for! Turn around so I can zip you up.”

She extended her hand and struggled to pull me to my feet. I whirled around in my taffeta cocoon and watched the pink striped wall paper blur in my twirling vision.

“This is ridiculous! Hold still and let me zip you up!” she said bear hugging me till I finally caught my balance.

My face flushed as I turned slowly, she pinched the bottom of the zipper, fighting the YKK zip pull the whole way through, it almost reached the top as she let out a frustrated huff, tugging on it so hard my body began to sway to and fro.

“Mama this is ridiculous! You took in the waist too much! Why can’t we just put a Scholl’s gown on layaway or credit?”

“We already put your new school clothes on credit! It’s fine honey, just one more pull now, we’re almost there.”

The stitches began to whimper along the fabric before tearing it with her unrelenting attempts to make me fit into this dress. A tear welled up in her eyes as the sudden realization that I wasn’t going to get to be her perfect lady after all hit her. Her ‘labor of love’ was too small, too restricting, and too over the top for me.

“Well… it looks like I’ll have to take you to Scholl’s after all. Pick out some blouses to exchange for a gown.”

I held her arm and smiled to assure her that though I appreciated her effort, I appreciated her giving up on her ego for the sake of my patience so much more.

I snapped out of my reminiscent trance as I finished passing the junior’s section and made eye contact with the gal at the return’s desk, she smiled and asked “How may I help you?” as I approached her.

“I’m making a return.” I said “Some things just don’t work out the way we wish they would.”