What I was wearing...on a family trip to St Louis.

… were skinny jeans, black ones I’d saved up to buy with my own money. I was 12, two months shy of 13.

I wore the jeans with a white turtleneck sweater and a pair of white Keds I coated, thickly, with Kiwi liquid polish. The polish soaked through the canvas and stained my feet but I didn’t care because the overall effect was, to my near-teenage sensibility, very, very sharp.

I was excited by this outfit. It was the first time I’d consciously assembled a ‘look’, the first time I acted on the idea there were ways to present yourself to the world, that it was something I could do.

I thought, dared to think, I’d pulled it off.

My mother disagreed.

“Chicken legs,” she said. “That’s what you look like.”

What made it worse, she said it in the lobby of our hotel, not bothering to lower her voice. I was pretty sure she was wrong (I had come to mistrust her judgement) but it was still shaming, people swivelling their heads to look at me, chicken leg girl, and then at her, the woman who would say such a thing to her daughter. She was wearing a shirtwaist dress with a pattern of big geometric shapes –orange squares and yellow circles -- and it added to my shame that the people who had turned to look at her kept looking, taking in the loud colours and the way the fabric strained against her belly.

My father pretended he hadn’t noticed, busying himself at the reception desk. He was ordering a taxi to take us to the Gateway Arch. That was our excursion for the day: a

trip to the top of the Arch for its view of St Louis and the Mississippi River. After that, we were meeting his clients for a steak dinner.

We did this every year, combined one of my father’s business trips with what my mother called a mini-holiday. It never felt like much of a holiday to me but I was still too young to be left at home, on my own.

The taxi dropped us off at the base of the Arch. It was a massive steel structure set in a National Park on the banks of the Mississippi. It rose 630 feet in the air, a shining curve shaped like an upside-down ‘U’. Its glass cladding reflected the green of the park lawn and the blue of the sky.

Standing there and looking up at it dizzied me. I was afraid of heights. My parents knew this and when I said, “I don’t want to go up there,” my father put his hand on my shoulder. My mother, though, shook her head. “You’re coming,” she said. She took hold of my arm, wrapping her fingers around the bony bit just above my elbow and leading me into the lobby.

We went and stood in front of the elevated tramcars that took you to the top. The tramcars were glass –ceiling, wall and floor, all of it see-through -- so you got a clear view of everything as you climbed 630 feet. I thought about what it would be like to watch the ground receding under my feet, surrounded by empty sky and the steel girders that held the Arch up.

“I’ll wait down here,” I said. Lowering my voice –people were lining up behind us and I didn’t want them to hear me beg -- I whispered to my father: “Please don’t make me go up there.”

“Don’t indulge her,” my mother said, keeping her grip on my arm.

“Beverley.” My father reached over as if to remove her hand, but without actually doing so. “I’ll stay with her,” he said. “You go up.”

“On my own?” my mother said indignantly. “You’re going to do that to me?”

By now, people were staring, the second time that day. The doors of the tramcar opened and the line behind us tried to move forward. “On or off,” someone said to us. Another voice, impatient, asked, “What’s the hold up?” The buzz of complaint was getting louder and a girl in a green uniform, a park ranger, hurried over, saying, “Can I help you folks?” She was wearing a wide-brimmed hat over long beaded braids.

“Our daughter isn’t feeling well,” my father said. “Is there somewhere she can wait while we take a quick trip to the top?”

“It’s not all that quick,” the ranger said, giving my father a perky smile. “Tell you what. We got a great little museum right here in the lobby. Why don’t I take your daughter through it while y’all go enjoy yourselves?” She smiled again, revealing very white teeth.

My parents stepped into the tramcar, my father shooting me a last look, my mother staring straight ahead. The park ranger put her hand on my shoulder, leading me away. “I like your kicks,” she told me. “Keds, right?” At the front desk she reached under the counter and brought out two cans of Coke.

“We can drink these and then go check out the museum if you want,” she said. “Or not. What’s your name?” According to the badge on her breast pocket her name was Sharelle.

I told her and she nodded. “I got a little sister about your age. What are you, 13, 14?”

“Almost thirteen.” I still couldn’t meet her eyes but I was feeling easier.

“You look older.” She took a sip of coke. “I’m gonna tell you something, Ellen. Couple a years, you’ll be able to leave home, go off to college or find yourself a job. Know what I’m saying? All you have to do is wait it out and then you can get out.”

It was what I was always telling myself, but hearing it from someone else, I was able to come close to believing it.