Nonfiction by Pat Hulsebosch
Scratchy stubble on long muscled legs. That memory from my 12-year old self comes unbidden in a lifetime of moments. Powerful for its uncharacteristic intimacy, and for its peek into a mother I seldom saw.
Our new color TV was reason enough to gather, and Sunday night was special. First came the magical fairy dust over Cinderella’s castle alerting us that Disney’s Wonderful World of Color was about to begin. The Ed Sullivan Show at 9 pm was a stretch, since tomorrow was a school day. But tonight, the star was Topo Gigio. I knew Mom hoped this squeaky-voiced charmer would occupy us while she got things done.
My younger sister and brother watched from the couch’s comfort, leaving me, the oldest at 12, to the maple rocker. Disdainful of that option, I sprawled at my mother’s feet as she perched stiffly in her recliner. A whiff of fresh paint mingled with the smoke of Mom’s cigarettes laced with Youth Dew as I leaned against her legs.
My brother’s and sister’s eyes were riveted as the diminutive puppet skipped onstage, pirouetting and bowing. But I had more important things to think about. My fingertips skimmed Mom’s calves as the sound of opera mixed with Topo Gigio’s giggles filled the air. Mom’s legs softened against my spine and I glanced up, knowing that my explorations could continue only as long as they went unnoticed.
We had recently settled into this new brick colonial. Our Texas to Florida move had followed my father’s fishing business. This house had been the lure that drew my mother across the Gulf, marking her success as a wife as my father’s just-built steel-hulled boat marked Dad’s cutting edge reputation in shrimping. With that boat Dad could now trawl farther and farther out into South American waters, staying for eight or more months at a time instead of the usual three. We barely noticed the difference.
Mom was usually on the move, bustling about, finding work where no one else would know to look, famous for trailing behind us, scrubbing floors as friends entered the front door. But tonight seemed different as she tenderly selected deckle-edged photos, one-by-one, from well-worn shoeboxes. Strange behavior for such an unsentimental woman, a fact attested to by my baby book, blank after the first page.
I was preoccupied with legs since I’d recently started shaving my own peach fuzz. Rumor had it that the razor magically left you with the smooth sleekness that every woman longed for. So far, I only been able to manage bloody nicks. As my hands ran up and down Mom’s womanly legs, I was startled by coarse prickly hair scattered from ankle to knee. Expecting the silken smoothness promised in Nair ads, I felt betrayed.
Ugh, is this what I have to look forward to? I wondered.
Mom glanced down.
“Patty, what are you doing? Stop rubbing my legs!” she scolded.
Caught, knowing I’d violated unspoken rules, I steeled myself to be banished. Instead my mother’s voice softened. A faint smile crossed her face, coupled with a faraway look. I was fascinated. Smiles were almost as rare as touch in our house.
“You know, my legs have always been my best feature,” Mom crooned. “When I was young my nickname was ‘Gams’ because I had terrific legs. See, take a look at this.”
Mom held out a snapshot. I recognized the Jersey Shore beach from summer visits to Grandma’s. A young woman stood on the beach on a bright sunny day, staring boldly into the camera, smirk on her face, hand on hip, as if she was in on a joke told just before the shutter clicked.
That’s my mother, I thought, noting the crisply ironed man’s dress shirt trailing over a barely visible two-piece Miss America bathing suit. Her bobbed brunette hair, flipped on either side to frame her face, seemed untouched by the sun and surf. The jaunty angle of her pose made this woman look ready to take on the world.
Her legs do look pretty good. Lean and strong and very long. Maybe I’ll have Mom’s legs when I’m older.
I was yanked back from the future by Mom’s voice as she continued.
“We were always fooling around, playing ball, hanging out at the beach, wandering around town,” Mom recalled.
“I felt like such a kid with this crowd. I was the baby in the family – really an afterthought,” she added. But I had brothers and sisters who looked out for me, and nieces and nephews who were my age,” she explained.
“How old were you there?” I asked.
“I was 28,” said Mom. “I’d come home from secretarial school in New York City. No job, no ambitions. Just having a good time, playing ball and going to the shore,” she added with a twinkle in her eye. “Then, two years later, your father proposed and friends said I’d better say yes since I this might be my only chance.”
Topo Gigio bowed and left the stage. I held my breath, longing for more, even as I began to inch away, sensing we were done. My mother stiffened as she stood up and briskly shoved the shoeboxes back on shelves.
“Bedtime you kids,” she commanded. The moment passed as suddenly as it had arisen.
As I drifted to sleep, I reveled in the brief transformation from dutiful, detached Mom, husband perpetually at sea, to another mother. Mom as the baby in the family. Mom as an overgrown kid in her twenties. Mom with the gorgeous gams.
Waking early next day I ran downstairs for another peek at the photos, another glimpse at a young woman with her life ahead of her.
Gone. The shoeboxes had disappeared.
But I’d now had a glimpse of possibilities. Possibilities of playfulness. Possibilities of intimacy. I vowed I would be that kind of woman and that kind of mom. Long muscled legs that went on, maybe even danced, scratchy stubble and all.
Pat Hulsebosch is a queer Pippi Longstocking wanna-be who writes about cultures and identities in a never-boring life of teaching and learning. Her work has appeared in literary journals including Columbia Journal, Lunch Ticket, Furious Gravity, Grace & Gravity, Vol. I, and The Washington Post.
