The Color Red

One day, as my mother was working in the kitchen and I was hanging on the door jam, plying her with questions until she was beyond distracted, she told me to go outside and play with my friends for a while and give her a break. I said there was no one to play with. She said, “Go play with Susie!”

“I can’t. Susie’s in school.”

“Well, go play with Clara then!”

“She’s in school too.”

“What about Judy?”

“She’s in school too.”

Mother suddenly stopped what she was doing and turned to face me with an appalled expression on her face. “How old is Susie?”

“Six.”

“How old is Clara?”

“Six.”

“How old are you?” she demanded.

“Six.”

“Oh, my God. You’re supposed to be in school. Oh, now what shall I do? I’ll have to take you there right now!” She looked me up and down. I was wearing shorts and a little shirt. My hair was going every which way, and I was barefooted. “Go put on a school dress,” she shouted in a near panic.

I ran into my bedroom to comply but was completely at a loss. No one had ever mentioned to me before that I was to go to school, and I had to ask, “What’s a school dress?”

Mother was trying to dress herself at the same time and came in to tear through my closet, moaning, “Oh, I’ll have to iron something for you. Well, wash your face and hands, comb your hair, and find some shoes to wear, your best shoes.”

I washed and combed as she ironed, then I looked through my closet for shoes. Since the climate was so mild in Panama and we seldom went anywhere at all, I almost never wore shoes, but I had a few pairs which I dug out and began trying on. It turned out that I had outgrown every pair I owned except for a pair of red straw sandals with wedge heels and tiny ankle straps that had been given to me by a neighbor woman who possessed very small feet and who had decided the sandals would be perfect for me to play dress-up in. I could barely walk in them, but at least they were shoes, and Mother admitted with a sort of low groan that it was probably better for me to wear them than to go to school barefooted.

So there I was in the biggest dress I owned, which was still a little short and tight, the red, high-heeled sandals, and my hair put back with combs, as ready as I could be to go to school. As I sat beside Mother on the bus, I saw her put her face in her hands and sit there with her shoulders shaking. I feared she was crying, a phenomenon I had never before witnessed, and I gingerly reached out my hand to touch her shoulder. When she looked up, I saw she was laughing so hard the tears had come. “It’s my first day back in a school for years, and I’m going to be in trouble and have to go to the principal’s office first thing,” she said.

And it turned out she was in more trouble than she had expected, for she was not only two weeks and a half late in sending me to first grade, but she (and I) had missed kindergarten altogether.