“Nuh-uh,” Monica said, sounding surprisingly adamant.
“Oh, come on! If you’d just let me try something, for once, you’d see that—”
“Donneven.”
“Monica.”
Monica shook her head slowly. “Bettaquit,” she warned.
Kristy sighed, shaking her head. “She refuses to take fashion risks,” she said, as if this was a true tragedy. Turning back to her sister, she held up her hands in a visualize-this sort of way. “Look. I’ve got one word for you.” She paused, for dramatic effect. “Pleather.”
In response to this, Monica got up and started toward the door, shaking her head.
“Fine,” Kristy said, shrugging, as Monica went down the hallway, grabbing her purse off the floor by the door, “just wear what you have on, like you always do. But you won’t be dynamic!”
The front door slammed shut, responding to this, but Kristy hardly seemed bothered, instead just walking back to her closet and standing in front of it, her hands on her hips. Looking out the window beside me, I could see Monica start up the driveway, altogether undynamically, and as usual, exceptionally slowly.
Kristy bent down, pulling a pair of scuffed penny loafers out from under the hanging clothes and tossing them to me. “Now, I know what you’re thinking,” she said, as I looked down at them. “But penny loafers are entirely underrated. You’ll see. And we can do your cleavage with this great bronzer—I think it’s in the bathroom.”
And then she was gone, pulling open the bedroom door and heading down the hallway, still muttering to herself. My head felt heavy under the rollers, my neck straining as I looked down at the tank top she’d given me to wear. The straps had tiny threads of glitter woven throughout, and the neckline plunged much farther than anything I owned. It was way too dressy to go with the jeans, which were faded, the cuffs rolled up and frayed at the ankle; a heart was drawn on the knee in ballpoint pen. Looking at it, the solid blackness at its center, the crooked left edge, not quite right, all I could think was that these weren’t my clothes, this wasn’t who I was. I’d been acting out against Bethany and Amanda, but I was the one who would really pay if this went all wrong.
I have to get out of here, I thought, and stood up, pulling one of the curlers by my temple loose and dropping it on the bed. A single corkscrew curl dropped down over my eyes and I stared at it, surprised, as it dangled in my field of vision, the smallest part of me transformed. But I was leaving. I was.
My watch said 6:15. If I left now, I could get home in time to be back on my schedule as if I’d never strayed from it. I’d tell Kristy my mom had called me on my phone, saying she needed me, and that I was sorry, maybe another time.
I stood up, pulling another curler out, then another, dropping them on the bed as I hurriedly slung my purse over my shoulder. I was almost to the door when Kristy came back down the hallway, a small compact in her hands.
“This stuff is great,” she said. “It’s like an instant tan, and we’ll just put it—”
“I’ve just realized,” I said, plunging right in to my excuses, “I really think—”
She looked up at me then, her eyes widening. “Oh, God, I totally agree,” she said, nodding. “I didn’t see it before, but yeah, you’re absolutely right.”
“What?”
“About your hair,” she said, as she came into the room. I found myself backing up until I bumped against the bed again. Kristy reached past me, grabbing a white shirt that was lying on one of the pillows and, before I could stop her, she’d slid my arm inside one sleeve. I was too distracted to protest.
“My hair?” I said, as she eased my other arm in, then grabbed the shirttails, knotting them loosely around my waist. “What?”
She reached up, spreading her fingers and pulling them through my hair, stretching out the curls. “I was going to brush it out, but you’re right, it looks better like that, all tousled. It’s great. See?”
And then she walked over to the closet door, pushing it shut, and I saw myself.
Yes, the jeans were faded and frayed, the heart on the leg crooked, too dark. But they fit me really well: they could have been mine. And the tank top was a bit much, glittering in so many places from the overhead light, but the shirt over it toned it down, giving only glimpses here and there. The shoes, which had looked dorky when I put them on, somehow went with the jeans, which hit in such a way that they showed a thin sliver of my ankle. And my hair, without the clear, even part that I worked so hard for every morning, drawing a comb down the center with mathematical precision, was loose and falling over my shoulders, softening my features. None of it should have worked together. But somehow, it did.
“See? I told you,” Kristy said from behind me, where she was standing smiling, proud of her handiwork, as I just stared, seeing the familiar in all these changes. How weird it was that so many bits and pieces, all diverse, could make something whole. Something with potential. “Perfect.”
It took Kristy considerably longer to assemble her own look, a retro sixties outfit consisting of white go-go boots, a pink shirt, and a short skirt. By the time we finally went out to meet Bert, he’d been waiting for us in the doublewide’s driveway for almost a half hour.
“It’s about time,” he snapped as we came up to the ambulance. “I’ve been waiting forever.”
“Does twenty minutes constitute forever now?” Kristy asked.
“It does when you’re stuck out here waiting for someone who is selfish, ungrateful, and thinks the whole world revolves around her,” Bert said, then cranked up the music he was playing—a woman wailing, loud and dramatic—ensuring that any retort to this would be drowned out entirely.