Strangers at the Feast Read Online Free PDF Page B

me to start wearing a brassiere. Many other girls in school are wearing them, as I am made to see every day in the locker room. And I am one of the only girls without one. Do not get the wrong idea please because I do not think I have big boobs. But sometimes when I wear a t-shirt now and there are boys around, I am uncomfortable. If you do not think I am ready I will understand but I do think I am ready and it would be sad if you didn’t think so too. Also, I read in a magazine that there are health benefits to wearing a brassiere for your spine. I lost the magazine but I could go to the library and see if they have it. Anyway, I will be in my room, waiting for your answer.
Love,
Ginny
    Eleanor arranged a shopping expedition for the next day. She set her hair and put on her best dress and plaid coat. She dressed Ginny in her burgundy gingham smock, and when the saleslady asked, “Is this your lovely daughter? So grown-up!” Eleanor beamed with pride.
    Lavender, pink, ivory, white—they bought four brassieres with adjustable straps. That night, Ginny locked herself in her room for hours, finally emerging as Eleanor was preparing dinner.
    “Do I look like Dolly Parton?” Ginny giggled, twirling into the kitchen.
    “You look positively lovely.”
    At dinner, Ginny eyed her chest, shifting the shoulder straps and scratching at the clasp. She entirely ignored the casserole on her plate, an act for which Eleanor normally would have admonished her, except that Eleanor felt herself the guardian of a magnificent secret. Her daughter was becoming a woman.
    A month later, when Ginny’s menstruation began, they locked themselves in the upstairs bathroom while Eleanor explained the various sanitary options, and the responsibilities of a woman to store these well out of sight, and to dispose of them discreetly.
    This would be the last time Ginny sought her advice.
    If only Eleanor could have pinpointed the day Ginny slid away from her. But no unpleasant incident prompted the change. It was merely, as the parenting books had warned, an adolescent withdrawal.
    “Ginny, would you like to come to the store?”
    Her daughter was busy, she was tired, she found the glare of the store’s white lights oppressive.
    If Eleanor happened to mention (and naturally one had to make conversation) that she wanted to buy fresh-cut flowers for a party, or pick up Mr. Brinkmeyer’s favorite gin so that he would feel at home, she’d say, “Mom, Emily Post runs your whole life.”
    Usually, Ginny was locked away in her room, reading, emerging only to sink into the sofa and observe Eleanor like some kind of scientist. She’d point out that Eleanor spent three full hours each day in the kitchen, that she read magazines but not actual books, that she hand washed items that could easily go in the machine.
    Eleanor thought she’d endure a few years of mild scoffing, after which they’d return to being best friends.
    Once, she surprised Ginny with a Hello Kitty doll. “Bunny rabbit, look! Remember how much you used to love this?”
    Ginny looked confused. “Thanks, Mom. That’s sweet.” And she stood on her bed and set the doll on top of her bookcase.
    “ The Sound of Music is on tonight.”
    “I have homework.”
    “You work too hard.”
    “That’s a very unparental thing to say.”
    “Well, you used to beg me to let you stay up and watch the whole thing!”
    “I was like nine.”
    Eleanor could not prevent a long sigh from escaping her. “Ginny, you’ve changed so much.”
    “Mom, isn’t that what’s supposed to happen?”
    Sometimes, if Ginny was whispering on the phone in her room, Eleanor had the awful sense her daughter was bad-mouthing her. Would you believe my mother wants me to watch a musical? A few years earlier, there had been no friends! It was only the two of them. But with adolescence, Ginny shed her plumpness, her braces came off, and she was becoming an attractive young woman. She no longer needed Eleanor, and the