“Shake a leg!” my father is saying, but, I know now, he was praying. How else did his tribe of seven, ever arrive anywhere? We are always late. To schools, operas, planes. And tonight is a holy night, Midnight Mass 1972 at the hospital where Dad is chief of staff. The 11pm liturgy will be chased by 12 am gastronomy: short-bread and tall gingermen, stiff squares of green and white jello and almond cookies heartbroken by the red thumbs of their devout bakers. Dusted with sacred crumbs, I will sleep by the car ride home, and need to be peeled out of my punch-stained and shoeless tights. But now we wait. Passing the time, keeping the peace.
I skip around the pool bobbing like a geisha, my thighs bound together by my torturous white, Danskins. They are never pulled high enough at first, the crotch always hanging a little too low, and, in Hawaii, an entirely excessive, sticky, clingy layer. An early trial on the path of feminine vanity, which my four big sisters have trod ahead of me.
