I have re-read the posting rules and have decided to be a bit more in depth than I originally planned for my first story…so it could suc-k. But if you are expecting a quick dress them up and humiliate them deal…this isn’t it. It will I believe create extreme interest as it evolves and the title is still a keeper for several reasons that will be seen down the road.
Correction: John at 8 years old would be a little more than 4 ft. in height and 58-62 lbs.
STORY:
John would not be the complication that he may have been if Constance’s mother Elizabeth had not agreed to be the ‘caretaker’ as the permanent resident vs. babyitter until Constance could get all of them out of their little train stop town.
What she failed to truly comprehend is that at her age with children and a possible mother in tow, who she was seeking…that 40ish handsome financial district man of self made and inherited wealth was himself saddled with the same exact environment that he and THEY en-masse sought to leave behind each week for their mid town apartments. The CT town itself was as if WWII was still at its height from Monday through Friday, save for the occasional plumber, pharmacist and dentist. No men were waiting at the one local bar that didn’t even open until train time…5-6PM. The eastern educated and reared princesses married to the ‘men of means’ had all been left there in CT with their princes often working in the city Monday through Friday, entertaining no doubt the ‘client’ or closing the deal between legs at the company or ad agency apartment or the ad hoc hotel they would write off on their martini weighted expense accounts. As Ms. Simon would sing so pointedly 20 years later,” The wives were in Connecticut”. Thanks Carly for pointing that out.
Constance cashed the checks, quit her job and situated her mother, John and Emily in a little 5 room 100+ year old home.
It was right off the town’s main strip of boutique’s, cleaners, butchers and bakers, the decades old small shops lined up as soldiers ready to face the eight ...three to seven car trains that inevitably rolled in and out directly across from this little line of proprietorships everyday.
Now what?
She was prompted by her 60 something year old mother to read about the big world thirty miles away, to go there and get a job, or meet people…that there was no magic on the horizon sitting there by the train and the baker's shop all day...no internet 40 years ago, little TV...and there she was...all day.
Contance's mother Elizabeth was a graduate school bar fly in her day and a current combined hearty gin consumption with a remarkable amount of cigarettes, she appeared to be in her late 70s. Her days of socializing were now decades in the rear mirror and Constance saw this maternal figure as a definite possibility reflected in her mirror one day.
Constance found several periodicals at the train station’s modest newsstand. One was called Town and Country and she recalled seeing it on several coffee tables in town and at friend’s homes…even the modest ones were looking to get out of the back seat 'read' or at least appear to read' the social rags of the day.
Through reading, she decided to go to the NYC and to a new place called the Red Door “a day spa”. Though Eliz. Arden was around for many years, it was the idea was she would be pampered for the entire day, not in a ‘fat farm camp” as most spas were in those days, but a beauty palace…. nails, toes, massage, sauna…my god it seemed perfect. It was also a place that she could begin to understand this social strata she so much desired to become one with.
The children were now well into the school year and fall was descending on New England. Of course they walked to school and wore nice play clothes and came home and did their work. They did not need to meet at the train station an hour earlier in the day to catch the small van / bus the private school provided nor would they be driven to the school by the “house help” in the more well appointed Lincoln or Fleetwoods. Just sub-limo class cars like these were pulling out of carriage homes / garages from estates at water’s edge. Garages below, servants apartments above...main house down the road...where the lights didn't get metered and shut off at 10PM each night.
Then there were those precious ones who's parents were struggling to keep up the appearance to those by water’s edge. These children would be driven to the private school in some General Motors version of a station wagon…the favorite was the Buick Electra 225, navy blue, fake pinewood side paneling and beige interiors, luggage racks affixed to the tops and the favorite wide whitewalled striped Vogue tires... simply an automotive must among the housewives.
Maroon and gray were the exciting anchors of the color palette for the local private school’s uniform. Little girls (k-5) would be clad in a “plaid” but not quite tartan scheme of the basic colors. The serge wool plaid was sewn as jumpers, zipped up the back with a all around pleated skirt comprising lower half separated by self fabric, belted mid waist to give the impression the outfit was in two pieces. The mandatory white blouse had a very wide round collar worn outside the jumper's close fitted circular top with lace-trimmed anklets and black Mary Janes rounding out the bottom of the outfit. As was customary then, petticoats were generally worn over slips under the wool jumpers. Their hair had ponytails or pigtails, each combined 'end' was tied with wide satin or the thinner grosgrain ribbons…always white.
� Betty Pearl's Sissy Stories 20.1
Topic: The double edged sword (Read 17826 times)
