Trash Bag Pants
“I need you to stay quiet over here, okay?” Mama said to me. Her brown eyes were big and her eyelashes thick and clumpy with mascara.
“Why, Mama?”
“I’m working over there. Here, I brought some toys for you. What do we have here…” She pulled her backpack off her shoulder and opened the zipper. “Look, I brought a doll for you and some building blocks and a coloring book.”
“I don’t want to play with those.”
“Well, next time you can pick the toys.” She said and then seemed to think better of it because she smoothed my hair behind my ear. “Don’t be difficult mamas, it’ll only be for a little while.”
“Did you bring crayons?”
She checks inside the small pocket of the backpack, then the big one, then the water bottle compartment. “Hm, maybe you can just look at the pictures. Pretend you’re mommy looking at one of her magazines,” she said.
I don’t say anything, but I pick up the coloring book.
She kisses my forehead. “Good girl.”
The studio was made up of two white walls, one of them more so made up of nearly floor-to-ceiling windows, the other had old concert posters in second-hand frames. Mama was only on one poster but she’d danced with the company since its early years. The other two walls were lined with mirrors that cut off about two feet before hitting the floor. The room seemed so big as I stared at my reflection across the room.
Mama didn’t like it when I watched her dance. She’d told me it made her nervous, but I always thought she was lying, because I did it anyway and she always looked so perfect. In her baggy pants and tight tank tops, she looked like jello, all legs in the air or rolling on the floor.
In the corner, next to the shoes and bags lazily dropped as everyone rushed to strip off their coats for warm-up, I stacked blocks, trying to make something that looked like Mama and her dance partner. I didn’t know his name, but Mama always called him Babycakes when she talked to him. She never talked about him when he wasn’t there, at least not to me.
They danced together every day. His hair was short and had a wave pattern. His skin was dark like chocolate. His eyebrows had a strong arch and I remember thinking his eyes looked like planets.
I used to think he looked at Mama like he loved her.
She would gracefully wrap herself around him and seemed to float into his arms when he’d lift her in the air. They were seamless, and I don’t think I knew how to describe it back then, but it was almost like when they were together, you couldn’t tell which parts were hers and which were his. They fit together so well.
When he’d let her down, she’d said something about how strong he was, saying she was impressed because there was so much baby weight she was never able to shake. He’d wave her off and say, “What baby weight?”
Sometimes they’d look over at me and wave, often resulting in a giggle or an over-joyed smile from me.
When I was really young, I used to try and follow Mama around the dance floor. Sometimes they’d entertain me and let me pretend to be in the dance with them. Other times, Mama wouldn’t even really acknowledge me, and I’d suddenly feel very heavy on my little legs, like I was running through honey trying to catch up with her. Sometimes Devin would scoop me up in his arms and tell Mama to keep going. He was the one who made the dances. He had a voice like a musical number and always talked with his hands. He didn’t always look at you when you talked, sometimes looking off to the side or up like he was gathering his thoughts, looking for the right words. He had grey hair and it stood up in the front like the world’s smallest mountain.
Sometimes, when he’d pick me up, he’d ask what I thought the dancers should do next and I’d say something like, ‘They should roll,” then demand to be let down in order to demonstrate my somersault. Everyone would clap for me like I was the star of the show.
In the corner, I watched and stayed still, brushing a doll’s hair. I was too old by then to run around, they wouldn’t giggle at me if I did, and no one would pick me up or ask for my choreographic insights.
“It’s more of a ka-ka-ka-pooshe,” Devin said, hopping forward on one foot, his knee bent, three times and then swinging his arms out in front of him like he was a child at a party, gathering piles of candy off the table all for himself. His shoulders caved forward, and as his chest seemed to unfold his pelvis moved forward again. I remember thinking he looked like a noodle. A very mobile noodle.
Mama didn’t look like a noodle. She looked more like an eel. Her trash bag pants made swishy noises as she moved, and I always wondered if I was the only one who noticed.
Sometimes when I watched her, I’d catch her looking at herself in the mirror. I didn’t know what to call it back then, but I think now, the look in her eyes was something like disdain. Sometimes, now, I think about how maybe she looked at herself in self-prescribed criticism, thinking her arms weren’t lean enough (anymore), that she had too much skin under her chin (now), and how, you couldn’t see it in her pants, but she had a little belly (because of me).
She could still put her legs really high in the air, though. Sometimes she’d stand in the middle of the floor, or off in the front corner, lift her leg in the air next to her head – no hands – and freeze while everyone else danced around her like she was a single flower in the middle of a field of bees, maybe they wanted to be like her, too, as much as I did. I used to bend my Barbies in all the shapes Mama would make with her body, but they never looked quite right. There was something missing, maybe it was the plushness of her skin, or the light in her eyes, or the way that Mama, even when she was still, seemed to keep growing, moving, reaching further. There was an energy that kept rising off the tips of her fingers and toes. I used to sweat. I could see it, a little bit of light coming off her, electricity.
After rehearsals, Mama and I would walk home. Her hand around mine as we speed walked to the metro. Sometimes, I thought I wouldn’t be able to keep up. I tried to squeeze myself next to her, into her, as we passed people on the sidewalk. Knees and thighs bumped into my chest and shoulders. I wished to be smaller.
On the platform, I watched Mama and I watched people as they watched Mama. Men watched her. I followed the gaze of their hungry eyes to her face, her shoulders, her hips. I remember thinking she must be the prettiest person there. I remember hoping that someday people might watch me like that, too.
We never sat down on the metro benches. Instead, mama would lead me by the hand to a pole and stand behind me, each of us wrapping a hand around the pole. I’d feel her thighs brush against my back as the car moved and we swayed to the rhythm of the route. Sometimes Mama would use her free hand to brush the top of my head and I’d look up at her. Her skin seemed so dark around her eyes and I wondered when the last time she got some rest was. Still, she smiled.
There was a woman in a tight dress that ended at her upper thigh. She had earphones plugged into an MP3 player and she smacked her gum loudly. Her cheekbones were lifted and blush pink. Her curly hair was pulled into a ponytail and sat in a poof at the back of her head, a few strands hanging over her forehead like bands. Her skin, she’d been kissed by the sun. Her under eyes were bright.
She was beautiful. She watched Mama, too.
We got off at 145th and walked the rest of the way to the apartment. Mama’s hand still around mine. Her nails were chipped with navy blue polish. It matched the polish on her toes. It was summertime and her feet were clad with white strappy sandals. The paint on her toes wasn’t chipped, you’d think it was a fresh set.
Before home, there was a McDonald’s and we walked in, almost reflexively. Because we did every day. Mama ordered a happy meal for me: a burger with a side of fries. I whispered to her that I wanted the boy toy and she ignored me. Or maybe I spoke too quietly. I asked her what she was getting, and again she said nothing. I thought my voice must be too small.
When we were home, keys jingled in the doorknob, the door opened and the smell of nursery homes and prune juice filtered in as Nana walked through the room. Her frail body seemed to swim under her scrubs and cardigan. She carried two big tote bags, one on each shoulder. Sunlight leaked in through the cracks in the blinds. A dance of orange and gold.
Mama came out of our room and leaned over the kitchen counter, as if she was waiting for the perfect moment to say hello. I was sitting on the floor in the living room, my homework spread across the coffee table.
Without a greeting, Nana said, “What’d you make for dinner?”
Mama seemed to push her weight into her palms before whipping back around toward our room. “Nothin’ yet.”
Nana huffed, “Figures.”
Mama doesn’t turn around but says from the doorway of our room, “I was working on a new piece.”
“For what?”
“For the company.”
“Why? I thought you were looking for a real job.”
“Dance is a real job.”
“That’s what you’ve been telling me for years, and yet here you are, unable to move out. Relying on the free food and free daycare you get here.”
“Hey, don’t disrespect me in front of my kid.” She stepped forward. It was like a dance between the two of them, stepping in patterned circles around each other in the kitchen.
“Please.”
“What would you know about dance, look what you’ve done in your life.”
“No me vas a faltar el respeto en my propia casa, Isa.” Nana pointed. “You’re wasting your time at the company. If they wanted you full-time, they would’ve given it to you. And they’re not gonna give it to you, not when you look like this.”
Mama scrunched up her face like she wanted to say something else, but she didn’t. She walked back to our room and shut the door.
I watch myself in the mirror now. Nearly three decades later, at the ripe age of 36. Getting dressed in the morning seems like it should be such a simple feat. You do it every day. Just like you brush your teeth in the morning, or start your car, or open the Instagram app on your phone. Mundane. Uncomplicated. Predictable.
But I watch myself now in the mirror like I do every morning, and it is anything but mundane, and uncomplicated, and predictable. I study the curves on my body, the grooves in my legs, the extra skin around my midsection, and under my chin, and I try to remember what I looked like a week ago, or a month, or a year. How much has my body changed? Is this what I’ve always been? Are my eyes playing tricks on me?
I watch myself in the mirror. Topless. The button of my pants undone and my belly hanging out. I think of my mother. I think of watching her dance and watching her watch herself dance. I think of her getting ready in the morning. I imagine the tears she held back when she realized her size two pants would never fit her again. I think of the bin of her old clothes in the back of my linen closet that will never fit my size 12 body. I think of my mother’s mirror. I remember the picture she kept taped on the top right corner. Her, at age 23, sunkissed skin in a bright yellow bikini, linen shorts, and an obnoxiously large sunhat. 23, right before she had me. I think of her voice, a subtle crack as she tried to fight the fluctuation of her tone, as she peeled herself out of those size two pants and said, “I need to get back to that.” I wonder if she already knew then that she never would.
The first time I went to the Olive Garden, or the first time I remember it, I was seven. Mom had just finished two weeks of performances the night before. I don’t think I knew it then but the dance was about mass incarceration and I often watch the old DVD recording on the dusty video player when I miss her. Mama loved the Olive Garden.
She always ordered the same thing. Endless Chicken Gnocchi soup. She used to say she could only allow herself to eat so good after a good show. I used to get spaghetti, even when I got older and my palette could handle more complicated flavors, I got spaghetti. Now, when I go alone after work, or with friends or coworkers, I still order spaghetti.
When my first boyfriend broke up with me, my mom said there was an exception to her rule.
“If you’re really, really sad, you deserve a good, expensive meal.”
We sat in a booth. I was thirteen and James, a boy in the grade above me, had told me he was moving and had to break up with me. The following day, he had a new girlfriend. I don’t remember her name, but I remember her arms seemed so much thinner than mine and eyes seemed elongated and angled upward, like she could put you in a spell with a glance. I kept waiting for the day I could relish in their break up, but it never came. He never moved away.
“I don’t want to eat anything,” I said.
“You deserve to eat your feelings a little, peach.” “No, I don’t.” My mind took me back to my bedroom mirror that morning, realizing how round my hips were compared to the rest of me and thinking I looked like a secretary, thinking I looked like someone else’s mom instead of my own. “Maybe he doesn’t like me anymore because I’m too fat. Maybe that’s why no boys like me.”
“Now why would you think that? You’re perfect.”
I didn’t say anything. But I watched her chase the gnocchi with her spoon. I thought about the tears in her eyes when her size two pants didn’t fit her. I thought about what she must think of herself, and I thought about what she must really think of me.
Katherine L. Serna has been published in Abandon Journal and West Trade Review. She’s originally from a bordertown in Texas called Laredo, and currently lives in New York City, where she works in marketing at One Story.