Tully finished. ‘I know.’
‘Tully, I know you know, you tell me you know, but you don’t put any less on. Why?’
‘Because I’m ugly, Mom, that’s why.’
‘You aren’t ugly. Where’d you get that idea from?’
Tully looked at her mother’s drawn, broad face; tired eyes the color of mud; lank hair, roughly the same color; thin, colorless lips.
‘Mom, I’m plain.’
‘But Tully, when you wear so much makeup, do you realize how you look?’
‘No, Mom,’ said Tully in a tired voice. ‘How do I look?’
‘You look slatternly,’ said Hedda. ‘You look cheap.’
‘Do I?’ Tully stared at herself in the mirror. Now be very, very quiet, Tully Makker, she thought.
‘Yes, you do. And when you look cheap, boys will think you are cheap, they will come on to you and treat you with no respect. And boys your age, they can be very…’ here Hedda paused, ‘persistent. You may not be able to fight them off.’
Fight them off? Tully thought. ‘Yes, Mom, you know, I think you’re right. Maybe I am wearing a little too much makeup.’ And taking a cotton puff, Tully began to vigorously rub her face.
Hedda stared at her. ‘Are you humoring me, Tully?’
‘No, of course not, Mom, I just don’t want to upset you.’
Hedda said nothing, turning to go. Tully got up out of her chair, then immediately sat back down when she saw Hedda looking at her leathers.
‘Tully, what’s that you’re wearing?’
‘Nothing, Mom, nothing. Just some pants I bought.’
‘Bought? Bought with what?’
With Jennifer’s money. ‘I did some work for Mrs Mandolini, and she gave me a little money for it.’
‘And this is what you bought with her money?’ Hedda’s voice was extremely quiet. She turned on the overhead light in the room to see better.
With my money, thought Tully, saying, ‘Mom, they are just leather, that’s all.’
‘Just leather? Just leather? Do you realize how you look in them? Look!’ And she yanked Tully by the upper arm out of the chair and stood her in front of the mirror. ‘Look! How do you look to boys and to girls? How do you look to Jennifer’s parents? Do you know what they’ll think of me for letting you wear something like this to their home?’
Jen and her mom helped me pick these out, Tully thought. ‘Mom –’
Hedda wasn’t listening. ‘I know what they’ll see. Here’s a girl, a young girl, with bleached permed hair, roots showing. Bright red blush, bright red lipstick, eyes covered with black and blue gop, and those pants. And that shirt.’ Hedda’s voice was stone cold and dead slow. ‘That slinky red shirt, with the first button right between your tits!’
‘Mom! Please!’
‘Are you gonna be…bending over a lot, Tully?’ asked Hedda menacingly. ‘Are you…wearing a bra, Tully?’
Tully threw her hand to the top of her blouse, but too late – Hedda got there first, pulling Tully’s shirt away from her body to reveal two pale, moist-with-sweat breasts.
Hedda’s eyes narrowed and Tully’s widened.
‘Mom, I only have two bras and they were both dirty. I couldn’t wear them.’
‘Shut up, Tully Makker, shut up.’ Hedda’s voice was as slow as before but an octave higher.
‘Who else besides you would know that your two bras were dirty, who?’ Hedda paused, panted, then sprung again. ‘Are you wearing any panties, Tully?’
‘Yes, of course I am, Momma,’ Tully replied, remembering just what she was wearing – a black G-string.
‘Open your pants.’
‘Mom, no.’
‘Tully, you are lying to me? I wanna know how far you stooped, what a dirty trash you become. Now open them.’
Tully uttered a small sound. And unbuttoned her trousers; unzipped them just enough to show her mother the top of her black underwear.
Hedda looked at the panties, then at her daughter’s face. She let go of Tully’s arm, finally, and Tully sank into the chair.
‘Get undressed. You aren’t going nowhere.’
Tully made an inarticulate, throaty cry.
‘Mom, please. I’m sorry. I’ll change. Please don’t do this.’
‘Tully, you’ve done this to yourself. You’re a tramp. My daughter’s a tramp. Where have I gone wrong?’
Tully heard her mother cracking her knuckles. ‘Didn’t I try to raise you properly?’ Hedda said. ‘Didn’t I try to put some values into you?’
Tully’s eyes were on her mother’s hands. ‘You have, and I am, I mean, I have good values, I am moral. Please, Mom.’
‘What you think your father would say if he was here?’
I do not know, mother, Tully thought desperately. I really don’t know. ‘Mom, I’m sure he’d accept my apology.’
‘Oh, you don’t know your father, Tully, you don’t understand how he thinks.’
Hedda’s face was purple-red, and her big German body was heaving.
‘Truth is,’ she continued, ‘what does it matter if you do what I want and wear proper clothes? Truth is, you want to go braless, you want to show off your tits and have boys pull off those leather pants of yours and see that piss-poor excuse for panties you got on. That’s what you want, so what does it matter if to make me feel better you do what I want?’ Hedda’s face got a bit redder. The little blue veins in her hands stood out as she clenched and unclenched her fists. Tully saw another question dawn in her mother’s eyes. Hedda sat on the corner of the wooden table and brought her face so close to Tully that Tully could smell the sausage and sauerkraut of Hedda’s dinner. Well, that’s about as close as we get, Mom, thought Tully, intensely wanting to move back.
‘Tully,’ Hedda’s voice was quiet again. ‘Tell me, are you a virgin?’
Tully moved her head away from her mother and looked down at her hands while the little droplets of sweat collecting on her forehead dripped into her eyes.
Hedda persisted. ‘I mean, all these years I kept you home and sent Lena with you wherever you went and forbade any calls from boys to this
