mommy dearest

Sasha arrived with a suitcase full of delicate outfits my Nanny had sewn. Tennis clothes with bloomers, pajamas with a robe, a bikini and beach towel, a ball gown with real fur stole, and a velvet house gown for Sunday mornings. I was five, and in transition. My mom and I were back in Ontario, leaving a lovely Dane behind to tend to his broken heart and friendly mustache. I had a doll named Bean, and she was my pretend daughter and I was in the process of creating the perfect life for her. Bean was a lumpy baby with a bald head covered in a polyester cap, dirty plastic hands and no feet. Kind of like a square-shaped kid with freckles, eye-flaps, big teeth, and a single mom — in the world of 1980, all of these were equal to Bean.

There was no room for anyone else in the nursery, especially not a high class bit of work like fancy Sasha. Sasha landed with a thump. Sasha was from my Dad’s mom, given like a half-finished lollipop to cover up the gaping hole in the paternal contribution (in my opinion, but I also had a limited grasp on the ways of the heart because I was five years old).

The price Sasha paid for her beauty was high. First off, her wardrobe was immediately pillaged by Beanie. All Sasha was left with was her gingham with the tight cuffs and long arms. Long, willowy arms were the only suitable body type for that garment. Beanie and her compadre Pookie weren’t blessed with those genes so they left it on Sasha and snickered about its colonial neckline and neurotic pleats while they lounged in their tangerine-crate beds.

Sasha couldn’t help being beautiful and swung her corona of ash blonde hair like she was flipping sand off a beach towel. It was sick-making for me, so I gave her a bad case of chicken pox with my Glamour Gran’s high-test coral lipstick. That shit doesn’t come off for, like, more than 30 years. The chicken pox made Sasha look a bit crumbier, but it didn’t erase the inherent poise that comes with high Swiss beauty. So I slapped her around a bit. In front of the others – like a Proto Miss Hannigan. A few times I whipped her in a circle by her leg, because Sasha’s limb articulation made Beanie look like a chump.

There is a small hole in the tip of Sasha’s gorgeous nose. She was poked deep by a pin, the blunt end digging into my thumb and leaving a tiny bruise. Sasha was abused until I grew out of dolls, and still carried the taint of my father’s disregard years later. Sasha was introduced with a mutter and a sigh to my human daughter when she had a passing interest in dolls before moving on to the much safer world of stuffed animals.

My friend was sent her Sasha doll last week, and she sent me a photo of my doll’s doppelganger. I hunted for my Sasha all weekend, uncovering dozens of mouse nests and lost toys and general garbage that had been mislabeled storage until I found her, deep in a trash bag with a pile of Webkinz and baby tools. I apologized and she forgave me.

Now she gets to ride shotgun. Bitch is ballin'.

I am going to knit her a sweater to atone.  If I hadn’t abused her with lipstick and pins, she would have been a keen benefactor the tune of $250 USD. Which would have bought Bean a lot of sneakers — or at least a pair of feet to put in sneakers.