THE TENT DRESS

I was lying through my teeth when I told Marla that a girl's first kiss is likewatching fireworks, only even more magical. I'm still not sure what compelled meto say that to my cousin's thirteen-year-old daughter when I had been soresentful of my mother's wrongly romantic assertions about "knowing when youknow" and "feeling right at the very pit of your existence." What is thepit of your existence? I should have told Marla what it's really like: slimy,awkward, and never ever as climactic as the movies that impregnate andthen abandon your heart want you to believe. But maybe, too, my opinion wasbiased.

I didn't know much about the male species as a kindergartener, but I did knowthat I had a crush on a boy named Kevin. His hair was a silky bowl that almostalways looked like it had been freshly cut. He didn't speak very much and oftencame to school with red boils on his arms, which prompted our teacher, Ms.Sherri, to send him home. I always felt a sense of emptiness when he leftearly—as though my existence at school was pointless and as though I'dwasted my good plaid dress or clean white turtleneck for nothing. On a Tuesdaymorning that I was certain he would be in school (our mothers had been on thephone the night before and I overheard mine say she'd see his at pick-up thenext day) I walked into Ms. Sherri's classroom feeling particularly good aboutmyself. Just after the previous night's phone conversation I had successfullylured my mother into letting me wear my favorite dress to school.

It was reserved exclusively for special occasions such as Rosh Hashanah dinnerat my decidedly highbrow grandmother's house. But standing in my closet, Inudged at my mother's knee explaining why she should let me wear the dress toschool. Even at six years old I understood the fundamental importance ofcalculating cost per wear. In a final fit signaling the brink of exhausteddefeat (losing to a child is hard, I will give her that), my mom tried tothreaten me. "If you dirty it," she warned, "I'm not cleaning it." It wasdifficult to take her scare tactics seriously. She diligently tried to instillthe do-what-you-incorrectly-want-and-you're-on-your-own ethos in all four of herchildren, but when push came to shove we were never on our own. At the slice ofa paper cut, there she was, with Neosporin, Band-Aids, and a phone at arm'slength, should the emergency room need advance warning that we were coming.

"Oh my gosh! What a lovely dress!" Ms. Sherri offered when I got to school thatTuesday. It was lovely indeed; in a distinct hue of burgundy that predated theoxblood craze of 2012, my knee-length, tent-shaped dress featured a Peter Pancollar adorned with embroidered grape leaves, and housed an entire layer oftulle in its underbelly.

"I know! Isn't it the best?" I gushed. Not very humble, no, but I was, afterall, wearing the dress because I had won an argument about it—didn't thatscore me bragging rights? Hopefully, as Ms. Sherri did, Kevin would find itlovely and then subsequently find me lovely, too.

As I walked to my cubby to put my jacket and pink patent leather knapsack awayand to fix my side-parted, side-clipped, shoulder-length hair, my two bestfriends Sarah and Rebecca walked over to me. I waited for them to compliment myfancy dress, but instead they just looked at me dumbfounded.

"You look like a baby," Sarah said. She was wearing a grey sweater tucked into aleather miniskirt, her hair in a half pony that looked like a chignon purchasedin the sale aisle at Duane Reade. Rebecca, donning a similar hairstyle,concurred, and my ego fell to the ground. They were right. I did look a baby. Iguess that's the thing about age-appropriate dressing—it's inappropriate.There was no way Kevin would care about my dress. How could I have been sosilly?

A feeling foreign to me at the time, self-consciousness, reared its vicioushead. For the rest of the day, I did everything I could to cover the dress. Itook my jacket out of my cubby and put it back on. They made fun of me. I gothot, so I took it off and put it around my waist. They made fun of that, too.This was a no-win situation.

I looked at the clock around 11:50 a.m., fretfully dreading what would happen inten minutes, when recess would start and I would have no choice but to face myfriends again. Normally during recess, Rebecca, Sarah, and I would play housewith Kevin. They had crushes on him too, but I was almost certain mine predatedtheirs and, as such, was much stronger. Kevin always played the dad, and thethree of us, or rather the two of them, would fight almost every day over whogot to play the mom. I wanted to be the mom, too; but I'm a lover, not afighter, so I typically took the role of the child to avoid conflict. By then, Iknew that on this day the girls would unquestionably liken my outfit to the roleanyway. I already felt the lump in my throat signaling the imminent cry ofdefeat. I was trying to prepare myself when Sarah said it: "You have to play thebaby because you're dressed up as one already."

I wasn't all that confrontational and thus allowed the following series ofevents to unfold as they would, with me sitting in a corner while they foughtover who should be the mother and why.

"I'm the oldest," Sarah said.

"So? My mom said I'm going to be the best mom there is. I know how to cookvegetables," Rebecca retorted. The kitchen in our game was Fisher-Price, forheaven's sake.

I put my head down, though still paying distinct attention to their ridiculoussquabble, when I saw a set of knees clad in khaki slacks bend and land directlyadjacent to my own. I looked up and there he was: a rash-free Kevin. He movedfrom in front of me to directly next to me, and I felt his scaly hand clenchmine.

The world stopped. I couldn't offer much attention to how coarse and unpleasanthis grasp felt because my heart was beating so damn fast that I had to wonder ifit might explode out of my chest. I was almost certain that I was seconds awayfrom peeing in my pants. Sarah and Rebecca stopped arguing to acknowledge ourbudding romance, and as they looked over, unquestionable rage in their eyes, hekissed me on the cheek. Now I was certain I had peed in my pants, but I was toobusy becoming a woman superior to both Sarah and Rebecca, in spite of mychildish dress, to attend to that situation. We never ended up playing housethat day, but it was clear that in matters of who got to play whom I was mostdefinitely the mom.

"How did it feel?" Sarah asked amicably, as though she hadn't just hours beforestabbed my pride in the heart.

"You're so lucky," Rebecca added.

"I know," I agreed. My aversion toward modesty struck again, if only for twentyminutes before both Sarah and Rebecca resumed their native positions as evilbest friends and plagued me with cooties. For the rest of recess, my entireclass, led by my two best friends, sang Leandra has cooties! Leandra hascooties! It was debilitating, really.

At afternoon snack time a few hours after Kevin had kissed me, Sarah asked himwhy he did it. (Who does that?) And Sarah had no problem sharing the details ofa private conversation she'd held with Kevin and his friends. Apparently, hisfriends had dared him to kiss me when they saw me sitting in a corner, the tulleon the inside of my dress creating a thick, poufy puddle around me. "He wantedto give her cooties!" Kevin's idiotic friend Zachary had chimed in.

Sarah and Rebecca didn't talk to me for the rest of the day. And though mymorale was now a bit lower and I was almost certain that the stress andabandonment had caused a rash to break out on my forearms, I didn'tblame the yet-unfolding disaster on Kevin. Whether or not the kiss had beensincere, it was the most magical lip-to-cheek interaction I had everencountered. And also the only, unless we're cataloging parental affection. Ididn't blame it on my friends, either. No—if anyone was to blame, it wasmy dress.

When I got home that day, I ran to my bedroom, ripped the dress off my body, andproceeded to stomp all over it, wearing only my white wool tights and navy bluepatent leather Mary Jane flats. Hysterical, I explained to my mother that Inever wanted to dress like a baby again. That puddle of tulle that elicited thekiss offered up a generous serving of fresh squeezed humiliation. Why hadn't Ijust worn a white turtleneck and riding pants? My mom looked confused, and evenhurt—it had been not even twenty-four hours since I'd begged her to let mewear that dress—but before we could resolve my despair, she noticed theunusual red blotches on my limbs.

"What's on your hands?" she interrupted my fit to ask, as the rash had quitevisibly spread from my forearms to my hands.

"They're itchy," I told her, as she pulled my arms forward, examining the boilserupting on my skin.

She smelled them, though I'm still not sure why, and then affirmativelyshrieked, "Oh my God! Leandra! You have chicken pox!"

She quickly removed what clothing I still had on and grabbed latex gloves fromher intimates drawer, pulling them onto her hands. "Don't touch anything,especially your face," she cautioned. But why did she have my pediatrician'sgloves in her underwear drawer? She drew me a bath, filled it with baking soda,and while supervising my bath time, asked me to tell her what I'd done that day"detail by detail."

By the time I was through, my mom assured me that Sarah and Rebecca wereobviously just jealous and that I shouldn't fault my most favorite dress fortheir actions. At last my symphony began playing in harmony again. Of coursethey were jealous! Who wouldn't be jealous of a burgundy dress that lends nofavors to the female figure and yet still incites a most romantic first kiss? Iguess that's the thing about a first kiss: it doesn't really matter whyyou get it—what's important is that you have it.

And as for Kevin, "What an irresponsible mother he has," I later heard my momtell my dad. "She sends her son to school in the final stages of the chicken poxand doesn't think to tell the teacher? Then my daughter has to catch it?I'm calling the principal."

Indeed, it seemed Kevin most certainly had given me cooties. I told mymom I hated him for it, that I couldn't believe he'd made such a fool of me, butthe truth is I was pretty thankful. Chicken pox certainly meant I had to spendat least the rest of the week at home, which thereby meant a lot of daytimetelevision. My first encounter with Jerry Springer manifested that week, infact. Maybe in concurrence with my absence, my friends would feel bad for me andcall to apologize, even.

As suspected, I stayed home the six subsequent school days. And also asexpected, by the time I went back, though I was still thinking about the kiss,everyone had forgotten about my cooties. The case had been put to rest and Inever looked back. But it wouldn't be for seven more years, as a freshman inhigh school, that I'd feel a boy's lips so close to my face once again.

By then, I'd learned that my mom had falsely advised me. My peers hadnot been jealous of my dress. For years I didn't know it, though, andevery time I dressed like an asshole (my hair was very frizzy in middle schooland I wore many a gold hoop earring) and someone called me out for it—maleor female—I was certain they were either in love with me or simply wantedto be me. Neither scenario was accurate. Especially the one in which they werein love with me. No one was in love with me. In fact, I was getting rather antsyabout it. All my friends had experienced their first kisses and I'd assumed thatI'd probably been stricken by Judy Blume syndrome: after having waited so damnlong to finally get my period, would I have to wait forever for my first kiss,too? I was the female equivalent of Peter Pan—only I really, really,wanted to grow up. Surely, this spoke volumes to my empathy for his eponymouscollars, but ultimately had little to do with my baby doll tent dress.

One of my newer best friends (I'd long disposed of the malicious kindergartenduo), Rose, had her first kiss a year earlier while she was on a trip to Londonwith her family. The boy was a friend of the family with whom she'd engaged in aminor flirtation for years. I thought he was imaginary, if only because I hadconjured a pretend romance over the previous winter's vacation. (My "boyfriend"was called Kurt, and his skin was so tan, teeth so white, that he needed nothingbut me to make him a better person.) Evidently, her dalliance was vastlydifferent from mine in that her guy actually existed—she showed uspictures and everything. He clocked in at an impressive six foot four over herfive foot six, and we wondered how thrilling it must have felt to fling her longarms across his high neck and embrace in that magical kiss.

Another close friend, Alison, had had her first kiss at camp during the Fourthof July fireworks with a boy who was three years older than we were. They'd beenflirting for weeks, and the kiss was kind of inevitable. When we asked her aboutit, she just said it felt "right." Instantly it seemed that my friends who'dbeen kissed were notably wiser than I was.

Still another, Jessica, my third best friend, had had her first kiss at myhouse. With my brother. Once her parents found out about it they never let hersleep over again. We don't talk very much anymore.

I expressed concerns about my virginal lips to my mother shortly after thesomewhat incestuous fiasco with Jessica. (A word to the wise: even if it is yourbest friend's first kiss and you are naturally inclined to beg for all thedetails—refrain if the other end of said first kiss is your brother.) Mymother told me that when I met the perfect guy I would also meet the perfectkiss. But how would I know when he was perfect?

"You'll just know," my mom assured me, "at the very pit of yourexistence."

I imagined what "just knowing" might be like. "Hello, Leandra, I am the one," mysuitor would say, standing six feet tall in a navy blue Brooks Brothers suit,wearing Alden loafers—the kind with tassels—and a patch inside hissuit jacket that read Values: Leandra, Fun. "I just know you're right,at the very pit of my existence," I would rejoin, and we would kiss. My left legwould kick up, and fireworks would erupt. We would stop to look up at them andthen look back at each other and smile, wholly aware that our minds werethinking precisely the same thing: Gosh, I'm lucky. We would spend therest of our lives together, far too consumed by one another's ardent intellecteven to bear the thought of another relationship, and just like that my motherwould have been right.

Amid this daydream my mom also suggested that my braces might have been slowingdown the process. This had never occurred to me, but it was then and there thatI vowed to wear my rubber bands religiously. Two months later, the braces wereremoved. My mother was a wonderful catalyst.

One Saturday night, just three weeks after my braces came off, promised hope forthe amendment of my social deficiency at a teen night in a grim, wooly New YorkCity nightclub in Midtown called Cream. The event was sponsored by a charitableorganization that tried to raise money for third-world orphanages, but really itwas just an excuse for middle schoolers from all the city's private schools toget together. There would be no alcohol, of course. In spite of the burgundytent dress disaster of my kindergarten days, I opted to wear a strangely similarshort-sleeved brown tent dress that I had purchased from a boutique on 76thStreet called Big Drop to wear for my upcoming birthday party—a monumentalevent, as it would take place for the first time without the supervision of myparents at a restaurant on Madison Avenue called Geisha. Naturally, I needed tolook special. This one replaced that one as the best dress of all time, and Iwas so eager to wear it. It even had a Peter Pan collar, though this timewithout sketched grape leaves. It did not nest a layer of tulle, but that was aconcession I was willing to make. The dress maintained the spirit of itsnotorious precursor, and I simply couldn't wait until my birthday (which was, bythe way, nine months later) to wear it. It fell two inches above my knee. Iwould wear thick black tights under it and a black cashmere boat neck cardiganover it. "If Prada does it, we can do it," Rose's mother said about the blendingof black and brown—though my own mother insisted the colors did not match.I would wear crystal-adorned black Marc by Marc Jacobs flats on my feet.