Emma's Table by Philip Galanes Page B

the strange piety of refusing her lovely pork roast. “Damn hippie,” she grumbled, picturing the girl in the long gypsy skirt she’d been wearing when they met on the street—but Emma didn’t care about Melora. She barely knew her. She was only savoring the taste of her anger—like a tasty dripping from her succulent roast, falling safely onto the enameled pan beneath.
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    GRACIE BREEZED INTO HER BEDROOM LIKE A DIMPLY child actress, all sweet and fake, excited at the prospect of “dressing up” later. She swung the door closed behind her, jaunty head lifted high—but the little girl’s shirt was inside out, and her gait all stop-and-start, every step another jerky hitch, as if she were losing her nerve midway through. And when the door slammed louder than she’d ever intended, the dam broke wide: her eyes hopping, panicked, from place to place, and her mouth twitching a little, on the verge of tears.
    She’d been having such a nice time too.
    She’d tiptoed into her mother’s room, as careful as an Indian scout, pressing her ear against the bedroom wall. Mommy’s sleeping still, she decided—as good a guess as any.She’d left her mother napping on the living room sofa, not five minutes before.
    Gracie made a beeline for her mother’s chest of drawers.
    Her Valentine project had inspired her. She was looking for finery—a silky scarf or an old piece of lace—something more to cut up and paste to her handmade cards.
    To make them extra nice, she thought.
    She found a couple of embroidered hankies that she thought would do the trick. From there, it was just a skip and a jump to her mother’s closet. She headed for the frilliest dresses, the ones her mother never wore—all frothy skirts and silky fabrics. She pulled them on, right over her head, in front of the mirror on the closet door, twirling and posing and making slinky faces.
    Nothing fit, not one single thing, but Gracie didn’t care. She just hitched up the skirts with a satiny blue sash and gave them a flick with her chubby wrists.
    So pretty, she thought—like a ballroom dancer—that extra little flourish, just for effect.
    If she had to do it over again, she might not have tried the pink swimsuit. It was at once too big and ferociously small, with its strappy straps hanging down, and leg holes drooping to the middle of her thighs, yet dangerously tight over her big, round belly. She looked like a sausage link in pretty pink casing.
    Gracie studied herself in the mirror—hard.
    The suit looked on the verge of ripping.
    Just needs a belt, she decided, nodding at her reflection in the full-length mirror. She tied the blue sash around her middle, concealing as much of her tummy as she could. She only wanted some high heels then, fishing through an old boxon the closet floor, where her mother had packed the really high ones away. Gracie slipped a pair of white shoes on her feet—like a Miss America with a mistied sash.
    She flipped through a photo album she found in the box, studying herself in the mirror as she did, dipping her left shoulder low—just a little kittenish—alternating looks between her reflection and the pictures in the album.
    The photographs were arranged chronologically, as if the subject—a little girl—were growing up before her eyes: just a baby, first, and then a little older. She knew it wasn’t her, studying the toddler on the next set of pages. She’d seen plenty of photos of herself. She was sturdier than this, and rounder too. There were pictures of the girl at Gracie’s age, and then a little older still.
    I think it’s Mommy, she decided finally.
    It didn’t take much longer—or many more pages—for Gracie to think that she might die. She ripped off the swimsuit and kicked the heels back into their box, tossing the photo album in right after it.
    Her mother had been beautiful, she saw, even