Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress Read Free Page B

his pajamas. Saul was my friend Wendy’s father, and he was easily the largest man in the colony—he even made Larry Levy (now Larry Levy of back-brace-emergency-room fame) look somehow insubstantial. He was barrel-chested, with enormous hands and feet and a corona of thick white hair. His baritone made anything he said—whether it was “Get that gerbil out of the laundry hamper” or “Iris dear, hand me a pretzel”—sound like the song “Some Enchanted Evening.” Occasionally mistaken for Walter Cronkite, Saul had special license plates on his car, because, my mother said, when he wasn’t lying on the beach in plaid bathing trunks, he was actually a prominent New York state assemblyman—whatever that was. All I knew was that he was Goliath. He terrified me.
    Now, Goliath was wearing a peppermint-striped nightshirt and a matching, tasseled cap. I thought he’d also been too sleepy to get dressed, but Alice explained that Saul was going to be in the movie with us. The scene, titled “Ode to Innocence,” would consist of this: Edwid and I would dance around the beach at dawn, chasing a butterfly, while Saul stood amid us in his nightshirt and nightcap, playing a flute.
    Obviously, not quite what I’d imagined. But okay.
    Soon, however, we had a butterfly problem. Butterflies, it turned out, could be real divas on a movie set. Unlike the rest of the cast, they could not be ordered to show up. They had to be coaxed; they had to be courted. Barring that, they had to be caught. While Alice set up her tripod, Clifford was dispatched to the marshes with a butterfly net and an old gefilte fish jar. After ten minutes of watching him swing away blindly, Edwid fell back asleep and Alice wondered aloud if she could spray-paint a moth. But then, Clifford’s luck changed. He came upon not one, but two monarch butterflies—
in flagrante,
no less—and easily nudged them into the gefilte fish jar. We were in business.
    Saul took his position at the end of the lake with a tiny plastic flute that looked doubly preposterous in his oversized hands. Carly plopped Edwid down on the sand, “Edwid, enough with the sleeping,” she said loudly, pinching his cheeks until Edwid yelled, “Maaa! All right already!” and stood up unassisted.
    My mother knelt down and combed my hair and fluffed out the tulle of my skirt. I felt regal and prim, very nearly perfect. Then she and Carly retreated to the stone terrace overlooking the beach, where Alice had set up her camera. “Everybody ready?” Alice called from behind the viewfinder. Saul, Edwid, and I all nodded. Then she straightened up, clearly displeased. “Um, could we lose the tutu and the pj’s?” she said.
    I looked at my mother.
    “No tutu, Alice?” she said.
    “Ellie, Ellie, Ellie!” Alice cried. “This is the ‘Ode to Innocence,’ not the ‘Ode to Las Vegas’ and ‘Ode to Corporate America.’ I want children—
naked
children—children like cherubs, dancing around the Pied Piper at sunrise, chasing a butterfly. This is not a place for sequins. This is not a place for trademark cartoon puppies printed on a pair of synthetic pajamas. This is about nature.”
    Hearing this, Carly shouted over to Edwid. “Hear that, Edwid? This is about nature. Take off your pajamas!”
    My mother looked at me, unsure of how to proceed. “Susie, Alice would like you to dance without your tutu,” she said carefully. “Do you want to do that?”
    “What’s a cherub?” asked Edwid.
    “Who cares what a cherub is?” boomed Carly. “It’s a pagan symbol appropriated by Christians for their paintings of the afterlife.”
    “No it’s not. It’s a naked angel,” said Clifford.
    “I don’t want to take off my pajamas,” said Edwid. “It’s cold out.”
    “Oh, Mr. Yitzkowitz, it’s not that bad,” Saul chuckled avuncularly.
    “Easy for you to say,” said Edwid. “You’re wearing a nightshirt and a stupid hat.”
    “Edwid!” shouted Carly. “Don’t talk fresh to