Born Confused Read Online Free Page A

hiphugger bell bottoms that my mother told me made me look like those hippy-hop boys who’s dhugrees are always sneaking up on them.
    The mall ritual usually followed the same pattern, and today was no different. When we got there, following my mom’s instructions, my dad spent an enormous amount of time circling around the parking lot trying to get a spot two inches away from Macy’s, even though half the lot was empty just a little farther back.
    (I should mention that my mother didn’t like for me to drive when she was in the car. She said she didn’t have the stomach forit—this coming from a woman who’d worked the intensive-care unit and delivered babies, but it was true: The few times she’d been in this unfortunate scenario she’d gripped the edge of the seat so hard her knuckles blanched like almonds, and began invoking gods from all sorts of religions under her breath. Hare Ram, Allah, Jesus. Calling upon other faiths was something she did only when she was very nervous.)
    My father’s reverse parking job was followed by a stroll through Macy’s complete with my mother aaraying and ahhing with equal enthusiasm at anything diamond or cubic zirconia, and graciously accepting every scent sample that fluttered her way from the perfectly eyelined girls swaying around beachily on high heels; she would thank them with a girlish giggle, as if they spritzed for her alone. By the time we exited the cosmetics department she smelled of Obsession on her left wrist (even though she owned it, fittingly, she could never resist), Trésor on her right, and Samsara on her neck—a discordant bouquet coming together to create something more along the lines of eau de nail polish remover than anything else.
    On to clothing, where my dad pointed out what he considered to be a “pleasant” nightgown for me (a Victorian contraption that even Jane Eyre might find constraining). Meanwhile, I was longingly eyeing two-sizes-too-small jeans on mannequins with impossibly slim, nippleless bodies that had nothing to do with my own. By which point my father was already bored and took off to check out spy gadgets, with a plan to meet us in forty-five minutes by the potted palms—thereby liberating me to manipulate my mother, by now woozy and pliable from inhaling all those fumes, into going places she wouldn’t have dared moments before.
    —Ma? I said. We were passing the one way-out store in themall, which sold T-shirts with Bob Marley pictures on them and incense like we bought in India but much more expensive.
    —I suppose you want to go look at the camera schamera business now? she said.
    —Well, actually I wanted to know if we can go to Style Child.
    That was Gwyn’s favorite store; it had just opened, and there was even a Manhattan branch in one of the Villages, so it had to be cool.
    My mother’s face lit up.
    —Clothes! she said.—Now that is the normal teenage girl thing. Let’s go find you a nice outfit!
    The moment we approached Style Child, with its androgynous pink-haired punk rock mannequins reining in (and stepping on) stuffed Dalmatian puppies with snake belt leashes, my mother’s face fell.
    —Are you sure this is where you want to look? she said.—How about somewhere feminine, like the Ann Taylor or Laura Ashley?
    —I’m sure, I said.
    One mannequin was in a white mini with zips all the way up both sides. A studded metallic belt that was itself half the width of the mini (we were getting into nano-fractions here) slunk anglingly down the front. The top was a white skintight one-shoulder-bare deal with a single sleeve. It was the kind of outfit Gwyn could pull off sans problem but that set alarm bells off through my head.
    One step into Style Child and everything changed. My alarm bells were drowned out by the music blaring from the speakers and the general disco inferno ambiance. And I lost all sense; it was a doomed visit from there. I don’t know what it was but when I was in a brightly lit storeroom