Easter Legs - advice welcomed - Writers Forum

PatriciaDianne · 12-03-2007, 12:52 AM

Easter Legs

Well, it was almost Easter, 1962, time for the annual trip to Sears for a new pair of black patent leather church shoes. All my friends had been allowed to wear shoes with a little heel on them for a year. Not me, flat shoes with a strap, just like the little girls that were still in primary class. This was getting embarrassing. I was even big for my age. Mom argued that I should have shoes with little heels on them this Easter. After all, next year I would be a teenager for goodness sakes. Mom won, a rare event when arguing with Dad.

I loved my new shoes but on Saturday afternoon while trying on my whole Easter outfit one more time, to make sure I would look pretty on Sunday morning, it happened. When I stood on the bed to look at my whole self, it hit me. I looked ridiculous with white lacy socks and shoes with heels. I had not really thought it through, but I realized that other girls my age were not only wearing shoes with little heels, they were wearing stockings too!

I called mom into the room to talk about the problem. We would march right downtown before the stores closed and get me a garter belt and a pair of stockings. It was settled. I remember feeling so womanly, worldly, and slightly wicked as she took me on the safari through women's lingerie. She picked out a little lacy white garter belt, a pair of stockings about the color of my legs and off we went to the house.

Once home, she gave me my first lesson on how to master the obstacle course called women's foundation garments. I'll never forget how strange it felt, tomboy that I still was, to feel the tentacles of the garter belt under my slip. But we had managed to solve one problem that created another.

The stockings were in place, secure and in order. The Easter dress was slipped over my head once again. Then it was buttoned down the back. The bonnet was cocked just right and the little white gloves with a button at the wrist covered my hands. Then I looked down in horror. Before, when I only wore little white socks to church, my legs looked very ordinary. Now, with the nylons pressing on all sides, an obvious fly in the ointment appeared. The long brown curly hairs on my legs, that I had never given a thought to, were now matted and gross looking under the new transparent nylons. To me it looked nasty.

Mom looked at me and I looked at her. We knew there was only one real alternative. And a momentous one it was. Daddy had commented on more than one occasion, as he peeled off the list of things I could not do, that one of them was that I could not shave my legs. There was no sense asking him. In the twelve short years I had known him, I had never known him to change his mind.

Major rebellion number one of the battle between little girl trying to grow up and father wanting her to stay his little girl was about to be engaged. Mom, knowing that where Dad was concerned, it was easier to get pardon than permission, marched me into the bathroom and the shearing began. We could well have gotten away with it but, as luck would have it, the family Saturday night ritual brought the entire sordid affair to light almost as soon as the deed was done.

We had one TV. It was in Mother and Daddy's bedroom. Every Saturday night, my mom, dad, sister and I all piled up on my parents' bed with a bowl of popcorn and watched the Saturday night movie. Dad and I were always rough housing, horse playing, just like a son and his father would do. We would play wrestle on the bed during the commercials. It never occurred to him to ever let me win. That would be as bad as lying because if he let me win on purpose, he would be giving me a false sense of reality.

One of his moves was to hold my fore arm up against my upper arm, make a circular motion at the bend of the elbow, and this would produce matted little knots since the hairs on the arms would stick together and sting as the arm unfolded. I did it to him too. He sometimes also tried to do the same thing on my calves. We had great fun.

That night, during a commercial break, while mom went to the kitchen for more popcorn and my baby sister looked on, Dad decided to give me a good set of leg hairballs. I knew the next move would be for him to stick out his big, old, strong, shrapnel scarred arm, an arm I loved more than any other arm, to let me make hairballs. "Turn about was fair play," he always said. But this night when he reached down to make hairballs on my legs, he touched my leg and then that piercing, deadly, steely, blue God-like stare shot me right in the heart. "You've shaved your legs," he said in a low and disgusted tone.

Petrified, having realized the magnitude of the event, the fact that I had just disobeyed a direct order, I started stammering, and trying to explain about the shoes, and how the shoes led to the stockings and how the stockings led to . . . he would not listen. He got up, put on his jacket and left the house. I really wished he'd stayed and just given me a whipping and we could have called it even.

We never rough housed again. I would have let the hair on my legs grow down to the floor to get back to the way we were.

Aevin · 12-03-2007, 03:03 AM

That's interesting and very sad ...

I like the vision of a girl changing as she grows, and I'm intriuged by the father, who seemed such an overbearing bastard in the beginning, but had that other side to him. I was so convinced the father was a complete jerk that when you told of the fun he and the protagonist had, I was a bit surprised.

My biggest issue is with the phrasing and punctuation. Sentences can be broken up, either with commas or by splitting them up. Generally, I feel like more commas would make the reading a bit more natural. However, there are also spots where you have extra commas, or just incorrect punctuation.

Quote:

I loved my new shoes but on Saturday afternoon while trying on my whole Easter outfit one more time, to make sure I would look pretty on Sunday morning, it happened.

There needs to be a comma after "shoes" and another after "afternoon." However, even with those additions, the sentence feels a bit awkward. Perhaps it should be broken up into two? Something like, "Then, on Saturday afternoon, it happened. I was trying on my whole easter outfit one more time, to make sure I would look pretty on Sunday morning. ..."

Here's another one:

Quote:

One of his moves was to hold my fore arm up against my upper arm, make a circular motion at the bend of the elbow, and this would produce matted little knots since the hairs on the arms would stick together and sting as the arm unfolded.

This sentence seems unnaturally long and confusing. I'd suggest something like this: "One of his moves was to hold my forearm against my upper arm and make a circular motion at the bend of the elbow. This would produce matted little knots ... etc."

I think if you take another look through the story, breaking up sentences and adding and removing commas, you could improve it greatly. This is a good guide on the usage of commas. You may find it useful enough to be worth a look.

Good story. Just needs a little cleaning up. T'was a pleasure to read.

Dave13 · 12-03-2007, 03:31 AM

There are always little clean-ups our stories need. Aevin has done a great job of pointing them out. So let me just say this: a wonderful, powerful story about that uneasy, unfamiliar territory between child and adult that we all pass through before we realize we can't go back.

Absolutely wonderful.