Girls in White Dresses - JENNIFER CLOSE [7]
“Did you get me a present, Iz?” Caroline asked.
“Caroline, that’s rude,” Missy said. She patted Isabella’s arm. “Auntie Iz doesn’t need to get us presents.” Missy, still worried about Isabella’s possible poverty, treated her like a homeless person that the family had taken in.
Molly looked over at her girls, and her eyes narrowed at Caroline’s costume. “Is that my bridesmaid dress?” Molly asked.
“No,” Isabella said. “That’s my bridesmaid dress.”
Molly rolled her eyes up at the ceiling. “You know what I mean. Caroline, where did you get that?”
“In the dress-up chest,” Caroline said.
Molly turned to Isabella. “How did that get in there?”
“What else was I supposed to do with it?” Isabella asked. “Goodwill wouldn’t take it.” Brett laughed from across the room and Molly narrowed her eyes.
“They were very in at the time,” Molly said. “You don’t remember, but those dresses were the thing to wear.”
“I’m sure they were,” Isabella said. “That dress has been in the dress-up chest forever, by the way.” Caroline watched Isabella and Molly talk, turning her head as each one spoke.
Isabella could tell that Molly wanted to say more, but she turned away and took a sip of her wine. Isabella took the kids upstairs to get them settled in her room, and she heard Molly talking in the kitchen. “So, Missy thought that Izzy was poor,” she said. She laughed loudly. “I know! Do you believe it?”
There were so many bodies in Isabella’s bed that she was afraid it would break. Little kid limbs were everywhere. Four of her nieces were shoved into the bed, and Isabella kept waking up to feet and hands flying through the air. When she finally fell asleep, she woke up less than an hour later to screaming. Her nephew Connor had been locked in the closet. “You guys,” Isabella said, but she couldn’t get enough energy to really yell at them. Her nephews were blobs of shadows on the floor, and after she rescued Connor, she told them all to be quiet and go to sleep.
In the morning, all of the kids were gone except for Caroline, who sat on the bed talking to her orange teddy bear, explaining how Santa got into the house. Isabella smiled at her. “Where is everyone?” she asked.
“They went downstairs,” she said. “I didn’t want you to be alone.” Caroline touched the top of Isabella’s head with her chubby baby hand, and Isabella wondered how Molly had been able to produce such a sweet child when she was such a horrid person.
There was a missed call on her phone from Ben, but he hadn’t left a message. Isabella had thought it would feel better to be home, away from him. But it didn’t. She called him back and he didn’t answer. She didn’t leave a message.
On Christmas Eve the whole family went to St. Anthony’s to watch the pageant. Caroline was a nervous-looking cow, and waved her hoof as her mother snapped pictures like a spazzy paparazzo. The church was noisy, full of chattering and shuffling, until a pint-sized Jesus and a mini Mary walked out to the manger, and then the whole place became quiet.
Isabella still remembered being chosen to play Mary in fourth grade. Her teacher asked her to bring a doll for the baby Jesus, and she took the job very seriously. She went home and, after careful consideration, picked her Cabbage Patch Kid Rosco. She apologized to the others, and explained that Rosco was little and bald and right for the part. He would make a great Jesus.
Every night, Isabella would wash Rosco’s head in the sink and then carefully dry it. She would dress him in his blue terry-cloth pajamas and tuck him into bed next to her. “You’re going to play Jesus,” she would whisper to him. “Don’t be nervous,” she would say. “You’re going to be great.”
The night she played Mary, she felt holy, as though she were a saint of some