Fandangle

Fandangle

“You go stand outside in that costume for five minutes and if you can tell me its not too cold you can wear it.” My mother struck matches one by one, they made a sound like bike tires on gravel against the brail sides of the matchbox. She didn’t glance up at me once while she deliberately lit the dusty black candles from a box marked “Halloween.” They had hardened rivulets wax on the sides from being lit the year before, like licorice bark on candy trees. I stood in front of her in a polyester ballerinas outfit, a hand-me-down from one of my cousins. The pink leotard had faded to nearly white, and only at the seams could you tell what color it may have looked when my cousin had worn in ten years earlier. The taffeta tutu hung limply at my sides, a mere filmy suggestion of the perky tutu that the ballerina in my music box wore. The crowning achievement of this outfit was a sequined headband with colorful sticks pointing skyward, a few florescent whiskers indicated former glorious plumage. I resembled a retired chorus girl, standing in front of a bartender trying to convince him that I was once a headliner. I felt beautiful.
“Oh, I feel fine, its not cold at all,”
My mother opened the front door, bowed and made a grand sweeping gesture, inviting me to step outside as renegade orange leaves whirled inside to lay their brittle skeletons to rest in a warm corner of our living room. My confident stride became rigid almost instantaneously, I held myself instinctually, and then immediately set my arms firmly to my sides. “I feel very warm actually,”
My mother burst into peels of laughter that rattled our single pane windows. I looked down at my flat ballet shoes, I could feel the texture of cement under my feet, I curled my little toes against the chill. The only thing keeping me warm was the red rage I felt toward my mother for being right. “Sorry Bea, maybe if we lived in California,” my mother wiped away a tear as I stormed passed her avoiding her laughter like hail that rained down on me.
“Bea! It’s supposed to snow, we’ll find you something warm to wear.” “No we won’t!” I objected from the hallway where I crouched over a heating vent that made my tutu float and flutter around me, I imagined trick-or-treating on a sidewalk of heating vents. That would show my mom. “Fine, then you won’t be trick-or-treating this year,”
“No!” “Well, its your choice, a warmer costume or no candy. We’ll just give all the candy to Lester,”
I stood up, the thought of my dad coming home holding my baby brother in his bumble bee costume, spring antennae on his head with little gold Styrofoam balls attached, nodding at me sarcastically, while his plastic pumpkin overflowed with candy lit a green fuse of jealousy within me. “Fine, Ima go watch Bugs Bunny.” I hugged my knees to my chest and examined my pink tights, loving and resenting them at once, why couldn’t they just toughen up and resist the cold for my sake? Something must take the blame for the humiliation I was sure to endure. I turned my gaze back to Elmer Fudd as he walked off a cliff, gravity not affecting him till he looked down, I made a mental note to try that over our window well later. “Bea! Come try on your costume!” I padded into the living room and found my mother sitting amongst a circle of glitter, and ribbons. She held up a snow suit adorned with colorful scarves and feather boas. My heart sunk, and I knew then that any blame my pink tights were to take my for humiliation this evening would be transferred to my mother. “What am I?” I pleaded in front of the three sided mirror in my mother’s bedroom. She fastened several clip on earrings to my coat sleeves and collar. “You’re a Fandangle!” Three versions of whatever the hell a Fandangle was stood dejectedly before me. Costume jewelry haphazardly affixed, paisley scarves strangled my torso and arms. The only light in mother’s room rested on her vintage 1920’s pine vanity, the dark wood paneling on her walls coupled with the subdued lighting made the poor Fandangle look like she had been covered in rubber cement, rolled in a gypsy’s closet then thrown in the back of an old timey circus car. I fought back stinging tears. “Here’s the best part Bea, you can still wear the headband from your ballerina costume!” It was a small consolation, but it made it easier not to cry. Until she wriggled a wool ski cap on my head, yarn pom-poms flailed at my shoulders. She stretched the headband over the woolen dunce cap, the once magnificent sequins winked at me viciously in the dim reflection. “Trick-er-treat!”
I begrudgingly joined the chorus of children at my neighbor’s front step. My parents stood behind me holding my little brother. I eyed the other children’s costumes, they all look so dignified in cotton candy princess dresses, an enchanting curtain of lace hanging from tip of a dignified pointy cap, the superhero outfits with clearly marked insignia’s on their chest, those children would not have to answer any questions tonight. “Oh my! What do we have here? A princess… Uh-oh! Its Batman!” I peered at the living room through the lady’s legs. Examining other people’s houses was a pleasure that took me by surprise every year, I didn’t look forward to it only because the anticipation of it was overshadowed with costume concerns each year. I admired the matching floral couches that the lady’s laughing family sat on. “And what are you?” the lady chirped as she peered over the enormous aluminum bowl she held.
“She’s a Fandangle!” my mother answered for me. “Oh, yes, a Fandangle! Well, here you go Fandangle girl!”
I frowned at the lady as she dropped each candy into my plastic bag, one by one they made a rustling sound against the multitude of Tootsie Rolls that seemed to multiply like the mop in Fantasia. I made a point to frown at each adult that pretended to know what a Fandangle was, I feared if I smiled they would think that I put the outfit together myself. Heaven forbid, if I were to be pitied it was for not being able to be a princess instead of a Fandangle, not for wanting to be a Fan-damn-dangle in the first place. My mother was very fond of nonsense words to explain away things she didn’t have the answers to, or to articulate feelings she didn’t have words for, she called my dad “lug butt”, and when revealing a birthday cake she would sing, “La-duh-da-dah!” When another perplexed neighbor in bunny slippers with graying chins from dirty floors asked what a Fandangle was my mother said,
“Oh, you know, she has doo-dads and sequin powers,” my mother thought she would win me with “sequin powers” , but all I had at that moment on a stranger’s wet porch was “glower power.” All of the women handing out candy loved to indulge my mother, making a showy production in front of me pretending to recognize the word and congratulate me on such a great representation of this creature. The smell of hot wax and raw pumpkins greeted my nose upon returning home. However much I adored the jack-o-lanterns, I always made a point to not look so closely at them at the end of the night, their teeth receding and faces puckering, they made me sad, in the same way Christmas tree’s the day after Christmas would come to make me sad later. “Lester! Stay away! See this line? These are my candies!” Lester giggled while my dad sorted through his candy, pretending it was the most candy he had seen in his entire life. I organized mine into piles of desirability and made plans for my Halloween costume for the next year.