My sister was the most beautiful Snow White ever. Only thing was, she had blonde curls, not black, so only the plastic-y smelling material that made the Official Disney Issued costume really indicated that that�s who she was. Still she was beautiful. We�d snuck into my mom�s drawers to find the blush. Karina had looked at the mirror and made a fish face, like she�d seen in our baby-sitters magazine and these two brilliant streaks of red appeared. She un-sucked her face and smiled. She still has that smile.
I was in my ballerina costume, pink tights and beads my mom got at a place called Mardi Gras. She never talked about that place without a mischievous grin on her face. My favorite black Mary Janes too. I had on this white turtleneck under the pink leotard and tutu. She had her hair contained by a diamond crown that had the jewels made into a heart shape. I think that crown broke in one of the two moves that came. But that�s what happens when things get thrown into the costume box, just like the plastic Cinderella high heels. When I reached up to put on that blush though, she snapped it shut. This is for big girls. I pouted. Age wasn�t fair, you couldn�t manipulate it. I almost opened my mouth and shouted that she wasn�t a big girl and if she was, what made her one? But she was more than a head taller than me so I didn�t.
My mom had us come out on to the back patio, with the bricks and the picnic table we still have, though are now looking to replace, eleven years later and about twenty years after it was bought. My sister swept � even at seven she could sweep � down the big front stairs that I avoided like they were taboo, and I ran down the back ones. Heel toe heel toe heel toe. I wanted them to sound just like my mom�s heels did when she came home from work. That�s how I knew it was time to start pretending to sleep � when her black heels started clicking.
We posed for the traditional photos, in front of the old camera, almost as old as the picnic table, except with a few less splinters. It was hot � Virginia heat. My turtleneck prickled under my beads, but I couldn�t take them off now. Ginny would be here any minute driving up in that old station wagon. And my sister would hop in like the Princess she wasn�t to her carriage behind us with Whit. My mom took the pictures. We still have them and I found them when I was looking for photos for my sisters scrap book I made for graduation. I put some cheesy caption under it and considered it a job well done.
In that moment, I�m looking up at the Princess, and my hands are on my hips that hadn�t become hips yet, and buried in the wiry folds of mesh.
That night the princess got her first kiss from a Prince in red footie pajamas, carrying a triton.
And I saw that I had to wait a few years to get that kind of growing up, and to be that kind of a big girl, and when we went trick or treating, not together and in a neighborhood, where we could walk from house to house, I was Snow White. But there was no Devil in pajamas for me.
Isabelle~ July 13th