A BOUFFANT TRAGEDY

All week I have been seeing prom pictures on Facebook and thinking wow we didn’t show that much skin on the beach…and then I see a Mother’s Day wish and think of mom and the dress…“Mom they need chaperones for the 8th grade Spring Ball, which is semi-formal,” I yell as she entered the door from work. 

“Oh, really that’s nice,” she replied (the reply she always made when I said something about school).  “Yeah nice, but I want you to be one of them, Please!”  “Oh Calvin I...a...I have nothing to wear,” she peeped.  “Yes, you do,” I retorted. (Her closet was jammed with clothes)

“I have nice dresses, but nothing ‘semi-formal’- I have had nothing like that since you were born!” she countered.

I didn’t press the issue but I didn’t give up either and after many “discussions” about the merits of being a chaperone and how this was a civic duty and how it would help me with my final grades before high school and how much I would appreciate it and how I would be so proud that the kids would see my mom…she relented.  But said we needed to shop on Saturday for a proper dress  – and I had to help – “I know nothing about what’s in style; I haven’t been to a dance in years,” she said.  And as always when she reminisced – she got misty-eyed.

Saturday, we went to the best ladies store in town Prince’s?  Time seems to have erased the sign over the two large windows filled with mannequins in the outfits of the best dressed Millvillvians.  My mother looked and looked.  She tried on at least a dozen while I sat in a very hard chair.  This was not like we men shop.  Try it on…it fits…that was it.  “Do you like this one? she asked with a look of dismay all over her face.  “Yes, if you are going to a funeral,” I replied. (My mother always thought she was ancient and had to dress like a matron.  In fact she was one of the youngest moms of all my friends.

I had had it.  “For once why not get something in style?  The clerk interjected – “We have many of the new bouffant styles Margaret".  But not here.  They are over here in the younger section of the store.”  (Mom always looked in the plus-size section even though she only weighed in at about 115) Note: The clerk told us that one of the most fashionable Bouffant styles of 1958 was the “balloon dress” – a long shirt, narrow at the waist and then wide as it ended four or five inches below the knee.  Mom tried one in a shiny silky pink and it looked great.  “I could never wear this, it's far too too young for me!” she whimpered.  “YES, YOU COULD” – both the clerk and I blurted in unison.  It's the style!"

And after a half hour of pressure and that’s why we came – mom to my surprise (and to her too) said, “ Put this expensive dress on ‘my charge’ – as we left the shop she warned, “If I look silly it is all your fault!”  “You will look great,”  I said and I meant it.  For once mom was going to look her age instead of like my grandmother.

The big night arrived and I had a new plaid sport coat that set mom back a week’s pay.  Grey and blue and very soft - Frank of Frank’s Men & Boys told me it was called vicuna wool.  Mom surprised me with a real gardenia for my lapel – her favorite flower.  Mom took more time than I could ever remember getting ready.  She even put on eye shadow which I had never seen her wear.  And when we were ready my dad drove us to the ball.  We both sat in the back seat and adhe pretended to be our chauffeur and even popped out of the car to open our door and did a bow..

The Bacon School had a gym that doubled as our auditorium and it us was festooned in streamers and balloons, thanks to our PTA.  Mom stayed at the top of the stairs as I looked for my “date” – Billy Bailey, my latest heartthrob. (Her real name was Bertha)

And then it happened.  As my great looking mom got compliments from many of the other parents and teachers on the stairs, their perfect chaperoning perch – a classmate arrived to my mother’s horror.  Mom spotted her and immediately ran up the stairs - her face white as a sheet.  I excused myself right in the middle of a dance and followed.  “Mom are you sick?  What’s wrong?  Why are you so upset?”  “Calvin this is all your fault!”  “Me, what…why...what did I do” ?

“AN EIGHTH GRADER JUST CAME WEARING MY DRESS, THE SAME COLOR, THE VERY SAME DRESS.”   “Well, that’s great, I told you it was the latest style,” I said trying to keep her from crying.  Then mom whispered,  “I can’t embarrass her…she mustn’t see me…some old lady wearing her gown… I have to hide...I have to!” (Later in life I would learn that this was not bazaar – just a law for all females carried  in their genes and the main reason it took them so long to actually pick out a new frock)

Mom waited over an hour  in the dark hallway until the final dance and decided we should walk home.  Our “Cinderella Ball” did not end like a fairy tale....

Over the years this disaster became a family legend and the story grew with each telling. 

My mom never did try wearing another  "stylish" dress again and stuck to her plain dresses, - usually from the “last season sale” rack nor did I ever suggest a dress for her again. Many years later I bought her some outfits for Christmas, that I never saw on her....Oh well...that was mom.

But there was one positive outcome – even though she may have been tempted, she never said to me... “I told you so!”