Shop Girls

When I was six years old Denise Austin was my hero. She was so blonde and pretty. She was like a really fit Barbie doll. My mom had a Denise Austin workout record that had this giant fold-out poster of Denise illustrating the different exercises. My mother, sister and I would gather around the poster and sweat to the Banana Boat Song. All the while I would dream of the day that my unruly red curls and freckles would melt away and I would sprout long flowing locks of bleach blonde that I would wear in a side ponytail. Hugging the curves of my lean, fat free body would be a turquoise and white striped leotard. My white high top Reeboks and hot pink leg warmers would 1 and 2 and 3 to the beat of Harry Belafonte.

On one such morning, following our workout, my mother left for a long day of work at the Wrangler factory, leaving my sister Jennifer and me with her best friend Cara. Cara was a regular fixture in our apartment. She was young, like my mother, and fun. Cara always smelled like woodchips, grass and stale beer. Her family owned the Shenandoah River Outfitters; they rented canoes, kayaks, and fishing gear in Luray, Virginia where I grew up. She spent much of her time outside and was always tan and just a little dirty.

The three of us sat down to watch Purple Rain. Purple Rain was my favorite movie. Prince was so beautiful and I always insisted on sitting close to the screen so that every time there was a close-up I could give him a kiss.

Cara must have had a long night, because she was asleep before the end of the movie.

"Now what are we gonna do?" I asked looking at our sleeping entertainer.

"I dont know. Do you wanna play school?" This was Jennifers common response. She always wanted to play school just so she could show me how smart she was. She was two years older than I but she acted like she was 10 years older. Jennifer spent hours upon hours trying to teach me to read. So much so, that when I got to kindergarten, the teacher didnt have anything left to teach me.

"No, thats boring!" I exclaimed. "I wanna do somethin' fun! Lets build a fort."

"No, thats stupid. You wanna make our own store? We could do it in our closet. It would be fun!"

I nodded excitedly and we began to gather our toys. Jennifer and I had the biggest bedroom in the apartment. My mom thought it would be the fairest thing since we had to share the room. Our favorite place to play was the huge walk-in closet. It was always transformed into forts, restaurants, schools, homes, anything that our imaginations could conjure. This morning it was destined to be a store. Barbie, Ken and Skipper were set up in the Barbie kitchen snacking on hot dogs. Legos were stacked into buildings and houses. Our Atari games were arranged in alphabetical order: ET, Pac-Man, Pitfall, and Space Invaders.

Everything was ready. Now all we needed was customers. Jennifer and I marched throughout the apartment complex collecting our friends, asking, "Can Crystal come out and play?" being sure to remind Crystal to bring her allowance. She'd need it for this game. We proceeded in this way until we had gathered all of our friends.

"Guys, remember that Cara is sleeping. So you gotta be quiet or well get in trouble!" Jennifer warned as we arrived at our front door.

One by one we crept by our guardian, asleep on the couch. We led our new patrons through the hall and into our room. There we briefed them on how the game was to be played. The kids began looking around our closet and summing up our merchandise.

"How much do I have to pay for Skipper?" Heather, a tall and gangly third grader asked.

"Thats my favorite. She costs, um, 27 cents." I answered.

"I just got a dime and four pennies."

"Oh. Well you can have Ken for that much cause he doesnt got any hair anyways," I said.

Things continued in this fashion until we were almost out of toys and the other kids were completely out of money. After everyone left, Jennifer and I rejoiced in all of our earnings.

"I hope Mommy will take us to Jamesway when she gets home" Jennifer said.

"Me too! I wanna get a He-Man and She-Ra! They are so cool."

The remainder of our day was spent counting and recounting our riches, fantasizing about all the new stuff we were going to buy.

When our mother got home we pounced on her. "Can we go to Jamesway, Mommy? Please! We got all this money and we dont got toys anymore so we gotta buy new ones!" I pleaded.

"What are you talking about? What are they talking about, Cara?" my mother asked sternly. Cara was just as confused as Mom, still drowsy after sleeping through the days exciting events. Jennifer and I explained to our mother about our recent business venture and how we sold our toys to our friends.

"What in the world possessed you to do that?" she yelled.

"We were booooored, Mommy!" I whined, "And we made lots of money." We presented our hands, full of coins and flashed our most pathetic pouts.

"You will return this money now and I dont want to see you back here until you have all of your toys back!"

Her lips were tightly pursed and her brow heavy. Her glare cut into the heart of Jennifer and she began to cry, "But Mommy, we wanted to buy new toys!"

"GO!"

Jennifer dropped her head and turned to walk out of the door. I gave my mom the meanest look I could muster and shouted, "You are so mean!"

I stomped after Jennifer and slammed the door as hard as I could. The whole time I thought to myself, it just wasnt fair. We had worked so hard. We had earned the money and now she was making us give it back. No one made her give her money back!

We proceeded to go door to door begging for our toys and returning the hard earned money, we had so painstakingly attained. At each we stared at the ground, kicked at the dirt, and muttered, "Can we have our toys back? Our mom is real mad at us."

When we were finished we carried all of our stuff back to our apartment and our mother told us that we had to put everything back where it belonged.

I slammed around the house all evening. I wouldnt eat my dinner. With every ounce of willpower I channeled my energy into staying angry with my mother. She was losing her patience with me quickly and told me that if I couldnt act like a six year old I could go straight to bed. I stood up from the table, looked at her and shouted, "You are the meanest mom ever and I never wanna speak to you again!" I quickly stormed out of the room, threw myself on my bed and cried myself to sleep.

The next morning Jennifer and I, in our usual morning ritual, tip toed out of our room and Jennifer made us cereal. We sat down on the couch and watched our favorite cartoons, The Smurfs and The Snorks, until my mother woke up.

She stumbled out drowsily to prepare her coffee. Jennifer and I waited for her to finish her morning brew quietly. Soon she stood over the couch, looked down at Jennifer and me and said, "Okay girls, turn off the TV. Im putting on the Denise Austin record."