By Polly Hansen

Agnus wants her daughter to like the leotard. It’s the only one in her size that’s on sale–navy blue with gathering at the shoulders that makes them puffy and lumpy, but the rest of it looks fine. At least it will fit, she thinks. This is how she buys her own clothes, ugly but affordable. Like that brown, gingham blouse with the frilly fringe. The first time she wore it someone said she looked like a teddy bear. She never wore it again. Maybe this leotard won’t be so bad, she thinks.

Agnus is hot and sweaty in her ankle-length, winter coat. Her daughter calls it, “The Green Monster.” It’s hunter green with genuine green fur on the hood and made of real down feathers that keep her toasty warm even when it’s overcast and bitter outside like today. She got it for a bargain on sale. It’s too much to carry over her arm inside the shop, so she shoves the coat off her shoulders and lets the hem drag on the floor. Surrounding her are regularly priced, sparkly, feathered, and sequined leotards she knows her daughter would love, but she won’t even look at them.

Agnus holds the odd leotard in front of her, squinting at it one more time, willing the sleeves to look better, then takes it to the counter. The shop is like a glass box that sits apart from the other shops in the small strip mall. From this distance, her old minivan in the parking lot looks forlorn and small amongst the shiny SUV’s. Over her right shoulder is the Chinese restaurant she’s heard so much about, the all-you-can-eat, specially-priced, lunchtime buffet, and wishes she could go there but even that is out of the question on her tight budget. 

The shop owner has perfectly manicured nails and a huge rock of an engagement ring fitting snuggly next a wedding band on her finger. Probably owns this shop as a hobby, Agnus thinks. Something to keep her entertained while her husband is at work earning six hefty figures. 

The woman smiles at Agnus. “Sale items are not returnable,” she says, “except for store credit.”

But Agnus doesn’t listen. If Sally doesn’t like it, I’ll return it and get my money back. Agnus has been watching motivational DVDs about being assertive and speaking up for yourself. People won’t know what you want if you don’t tell them, the speaker on her DVD says. Take a stand! Use your voice!

But when she gets home and shows it to her daughter, her daughter hates it. 

“Just see if it fits.”

“Why would I do that if I hate it? I won’t wear it. It’s ugly. I don’t know why you bought it.”

Agnus barely pleads with her daughter, knowing she’s right. The leotard is ugly. But it was so affordable! 

She returns to the shop the next day while Sally is at school. The sun is shining so bright it hurts. She squints as she turns away from the windows at the sun glaring on the windshield of her car as she waits in line with her receipt. She smiles at the owner, noticing the slight frown when the woman seems to recognize Agnus. 

“I want to return this,” Agnus says, placing the offending leotard on the counter. The tag is slashed with a red X. 

“This is a closeout item,” the store owner says. “No returns. I explained that when you purchased it.”

“But it doesn’t fit my daughter. She’s unusually tall.” She says this as if her daughter’s size is a handicap for which she should be compensated or pitied. 

The store owner’s polite smile disappears. “You can exchange it for store credit.”

Agnus turns and surveys the inventory. “But there’s nothing here that will fit her. All your items are for little girls.” 

Agnus watches the store owner’s pinched mouth, her eyes trying to remain civil. “I’m sure there’s something. I have a lot of inventory,” the woman says. “Why don’t you bring your daughter with you next time?”

But Agnus thinks, no. She doesn’t want Sally to see all the pretty items she can’t afford. She plants her feet firmly in front of the counter, recalling the instructions from her DVD mentor. Direct eye contact. No flinching. Say it like you mean it. She takes a deep breath, holds her head high, and lifts her chin. 

“I looked. There is nothing here. You expect me to buy something my daughter can’t squeeze into? This is the largest leotard here and it’s too small. I want my money back.” 

She is lying left and right but by god she has her rights. How could this woman sell something so ugly and then put it on sale, enticing people to buy it? And whoever heard of store credit only? How absurd. It was a stupid shop anyway. Agnus can’t think what made her stop in to look around. 

“I want my money back,” she says again, feeling her voice square in the center of her chest. 

The store owner’s face goes sour, her eyes unfriendly. “This is my store. I set the policy here.”

“And I’m the customer. The customer is always right.”

 “Fine,” says the proprietor, spitting out the word as she opens the cash register. “I’ll change my policy this one time, but don’t ever set foot in my store again.”

Agnus stuffs the bills and change into her wallet and walks out feeling slightly off kilter, as if she might slip on the perfectly dry asphalt. She drives home all abuzz, reliving every word she and the shop owner exchanged. Too excited to return home just yet, she stops at her best friend’s house, one who is a little better off financially than she and her husband are, but not by much. Her friend is home and invites her in. Over tea, Agnus relates the story.

“You did what?” 

They are sitting in her friend’s yellow kitchen at the round breakfast table with a view of the treehouse in the backyard and a wooden swing set that is much nicer than the cheap metal swing set that sits in her own backyard. 

“You say yourself that I’m always letting people walk all over me. I’m sticking up for myself.” Agnus doesn’t tell her friend about the motivational DVDs.

Her friend’s face rearranges itself like a jigsaw puzzle coming loose. One minute it was open and receptive, and the next, disjointed. “But you were just being rude. There’s a difference, you know, between standing up for yourself and being rude.”

Agnus is shaken. She’s always admired her friend’s forthrightness. She had thought she was doing something right for once, that her friend would be proud of her, but now she’s embarrassed and confused.

“That was her store,” her best friend says. “She can set any policy she wants to, and she told you that was the case before you bought the leotard. I think you owe that woman an apology.” 

Agnus stands, unable to look her friend in the face and drives home feeling shaky and small. She realizes what she left behind as she walked out of the store wanting to feel triumphant but feeling instead as if something was missing. 

Wandering from room to room, she looks out the windows at the bleak gray sky as if searching for a different answer. Apologize? If she didn’t like her friend so much and trust her judgement, she’d say she was mistaken. But she loves her friend, wants to be more like her. She sits at the dining room table with a box of note cards she takes from the drawer by the telephone. At first, her handwriting looks wild and unstable. She slows down and makes her cursive as neat as possible. Agnus signs with her first name and last initial only. She looks up the store’s address online and doesn’t put a return address on the envelope. She wonders what the store owner will think of her when she reads the letter. 

When Agnus finds herself in the same strip mall a few weeks later she parks the car far away at the opposite end of the lot and walks towards the hardware store. She hopes the leotard shop owner is busy waiting on customers and won’t recognize the Green Monster if she happens to look out the store windows. Holding her head high, Agnus wishes she could apologize in person and demonstrate how she can be a polite and decent customer. But she’s been forbidden to enter the shop. It’s like wearing a scarlet letter, as if she is damned. She hopes the hardware store clerks haven’t been told about the lady in the green coat. 

*   *   *

Polly Hansen’s unpublished memoir “A Minor, Unaccompanied: Memoir of a Teen Musician’s Odyssey,” won Memoir Magazine’s 2022 coming-of-age Memoir Prize for Books. Her work is published in Newsweek, The Sun and numerous other journals. She was a finalist in the 2023 Doris Betts Fiction Prize and lives in Asheville, NC with her husband and two black dogs often mistaken for small black bears on leashes. You can find her at pollyhansen.com and @9ofPentacles.