I have noticed that many white people of wealth are often tall. The men that is. Grandpa was tall. Wearing a pale blue v-neck sweater and pressed pants. Father, also tall, was more casually attired, an untucked, striped linen shirt, pressed jeans and loafers. Mama was most interesting. Overweight and overdressed, in a hot pink fuschia bubble dress. And grandma? Nicely thin. Red ballet slipper flats, pressed slim black pants made of some sort of gabardine, and a white poplin shirt with a discreet neck pleat: all pressed just so. She in particular reminded me of a woman I knew very well from back east, the North Shore to be particular. Wealth exuded from their very walk. And after all, we were in a wealthy town. But what marked them as different was that they were in a western beach town, where wealth is worn differently. People here intentionally display their wealth by wearing expensive versions of what used to be called sweatshirts, but are now called “hoodies” their jeans, though they are purchased from barney’s, appear as if they were cut off haphazardly with a pair of crooked scissors. And their t-shirts, so arfully torn at the shoulders to approximate a muscle shirt, are acquired from a boutique inside Bergdorfs.
So this family, they were quite conspicuous. Because if it wasn’t other white mothers with their expensive “street” clothing, it was colored nannies. Either Latino women or Southeast Asian women. and then there was me. Chinese. Not dressed sloppily, indeed, in my version of casual. But since I cannot afford, nor do I care for the intentional “slumming, yet expensive” look, nor do I want to conspicuously stick out by wearing overly nice clothes, I take the Hong Kong approach: no one there ever wears clothing that is not nicely turned out. They respect not only themselves, but others, too well, to do that. Indeed, there was a time in the States when one actually used effort in dressing: that outfits were not merely a statement of defiant, trying-too-hard-to-have-street-cred wealth, but an acknowledgment of one’s position as well as the respect to others. Others are the ones, after all, who are looking at your $200 torn jeans and your ripped tshirts. So there is that acknowledgment as well in my approach.
I know that I was somehow marked because I didn’t look quite like a nanny, but then again, I wasn’t white.
As they passed, the grandfather nodded regally to me and deigned to say, “it’s turned out to be a nice day, hasn't it?” I replied yes, it has. He nodded in approval and continued on.
They all sat on a bench together, three adults, while the mother in her fuschia dress that made her resemble an eggplant, ventured onto the sand with her son, who was periodically called to by Grandpa as “Bud.”
He was the most obvious marker of Boston: white duck pants they had carefully rolled twice so as not to get sand on the bottoms. But the shirt was a triumph. A Polo rugby multi-colored striped shirt. And inside? Another polo shirt, Kelly green. Both collars flipped up. The hair, too, was a bit too well-shaped for most West Coasters.
He wanted to go on the rocking animals in the sandbox. First, he tried the one nearest me and then abandoned it. He preceded to the middle animal. And then, my daughter wanted to get up on the animal closes to me. She is far younger than at only a year and a half, so she needed my presence, both to mount the thing and make it rock. The previous day when I had turned my head away from her, although I was standing right next to her, she had done a faceplant in the sand. She wasn’t hurt and she thought the experience was quite amusing:--kept giggling periodically after. But this morning, I determined not to turn my head to the left, but only look right, past her head if I were to look anywhere other than at her, as I had my hand near her back. I put my foot on the “stirrup” to rock it. This being a necessary component of my job since her cute little chubby legs are far too short. I’ve been told that she is tall, in the 95% percentile, and that her legs are “juicy”, meaning they are quite, quite chubby. While all this is cute, it conspires to a condition requiring me to rock her animal for her.
The little boy happened to look over at me as I began. He espied my foot on the stirrup, rocking the animal. And he began to whine. Vociferously. He looked at his grandmother and then demanded to ride the animal my daughter was on. And then I heard my daughter make sounds, not in response to him, she’s far too young for that and she is quite impervious to other children's whines, but just because she had been playing for quite some time and was tired. I said to the grandmother, well, she’ll probably want to get off soon. But his grandmother demurred and said it was good for him not to get everything he wanted. I thought, yes, I’m certain he is learning how to curtail his desires from you lot. The boy espied my foot again, rocking my daughter, and a look of angry envy suffused his face.
I wonder what he shall be like when he is older.
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