Kita

Lizzie's hands snake around from behind me, sneaking underneath my arms and then unbuttoning the top button of my blouse. I try not to wiggle away as her fingers hesitate, then pop open another button. That's definitely two buttons too many, by my count.

Her head appears over my left shoulder, and she squints at me in the full-length mirror. I watch her eyes skim across the outlines of my body and can't help but notice her sigh of dissatisfaction.

I just press my lips together and raise my eyebrows at her, wondering what she thinks she's going to say next.

She purses her lips to one side, scowling until that single vertical line appears between her perfectly auburn eyebrows.

“Are these your real tits?” she frowns, slapping lightly at the underside of each one of my admittedly smallish breasts.

“What do you mean?” I ask her and reflexively cross my arms over my middle as she steps to the side of me. She nudges me out of the way with her hip so that I can watch her in the mirror. For a few tortuously long seconds, her fingers drift over the key areas of her own body — the D cups, the 23 inch waist, and the wide hips that somehow perfectly fill in the jeans she's wearing as though they were made just for her.

“You haven't had any work done?” She asks, quirking a perfect eyebrow. But her eyes aren't even on me, she is only admiring herself.

I frown at the mirror, noting my substantially less curvy figure next to hers. We look like the before and after shots in a plastic surgeon's office.

“I haven't had any work done," I affirm shyly. “I didn't even know I was grown enough to be thinking about that.”

“No, I mean, it's a good thing,” she fusses as she arranges her coppery locks over her collarbones. She’s still talking to me, I think, but she's really only looking at herself now. “I mean… if those aren’t your real tits, then it shouldn't be any problem to go ahead and get new ones, right? You've got, like, a clean slate or whatever.”

I take a half step back, glancing down at the V-shaped, cavernous entrance to my blouse. A boob job? Me? I'm still waiting for the ones I've got to do their thing, whatever their thing is going to be. I mean, I shouldn’t mess with it, should I?

But it's hard not to think about it, standing here in Lizzie’s room, surrounded by pages torn out of magazines featuring every overflowingly buxom celebrity from the last thirty years. Pages upon pages, taped to the pink walls so densely they’re like wallpaper. All those duckfaces staring at me, like they’re just about to say something. I wonder which ones of these she brought to her plastic surgeon’s office so she could point and say, that's it. Those ass cheeks, just give me those. And these boobs right here, can I get them supersized? And put a little dimple in my chin while you're at it.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can still see me, reed straight. Built like a fencepost. Or like an eighth grader or something. I mean, if I look hard enough I'm curvy, in a certain subtle way. But standing next to Lizzie, not so much.

Finally she gets tired of gazing at the best nipple reconstruction money can buy and casts her eyes back in my direction.

“Do you have anything tighter, at least? We’re not going to a square dance, you know.”

“Do I have anything tighter?” I repeat. Actually, I sort of don't. I'm just small, like my mom and my grandma. A gymnast body, my mom always pointed out: compact and strong. And maybe not as far along developmentally because I spent so much time training when I was younger. But I’m stronger than I look, or so grandma always told me. That always made me feel proud.

I stopped taking gymnastics when I was fourteen after my sixth sprained ankle in one season. The doctor said one more and we would be looking at surgery. My career was over anyway, so we just had to let it go. And that is a lot like my life in general: a list of things that I have to let go that’s way longer than the list of things I get to hang onto.

There's a ghost of me somewhere in an alternate universe who’s just a springy little gymnast, flipping diagonally across a rectangular patch of floor. A little sprite being the best she can be. But somehow I ended up in this weird universe, far away from my home, pledging for this snobby sorority, letting this fashion tyrant tell me what to wear, and feeling slightly less than evenly matched.

“Well?” she asks me again. She scowls pointedly at my lack of cleavage.

“I guess I really don't have anything tighter than this,” I shrug. I don't tell her that finding a top I could tie over my midriff like this, per her demands, was actually kind of a challenge. I don't really have any other options for her at all.

With a sigh, she flings open one of her dresser drawers, yanking out a cloud of see-through and glittery underthings that spill over the side and land on the cluttered, shag carpet. After a moment of rummaging around, she pulls out a slip of fabric that looks like a sock or something.

“Okay, wear this.”

It dangles off her finger like a beanie for an American Girl doll or something. Obediently, I reach out and take it from her, but I'm really not sure what she expects me to do with it. Slowly I raise it toward my forehead and peel the double-layer apart. Is it a headband? I try to smile winningly at her, but she just rolls her eyes.

“I hope you know: you're not funny.” She shakes her head at me.

“So, it's not a headband?” I venture.

What the heck is this thing?

“Geez, Kita!” she bawls. She turns away from me in frustration and stalks to her desk, pushing a dozen lipgloss tubes around from the new Urban Decay collection until she finds the one she wants. I know she wishes I would leave, but I'm afraid of what will happen if I exit this room without solid instruction. Other Chi Rho Pi pledges have been dismissed for less than a headband infraction, after all. And it's not like Lizzie is my biggest fan, if you know what I mean.

“Um…”

She whips around, lip gloss halfway to her parted lips, her eyes blazing with disdain. But after another moment, she seems to collect herself and rearranges her expression into something so sweet it's a little unnerving. She scrunches up her nose and gives me a pained little smile.

“Kita, sweetie, we’re going to be late. I still have to do my smoky eye and everything. Do you think that maybe you could take your fashion emergency over to Claudia for a little look-see?”

“You bet,” I nod, smiling like a cheerleader. At least Claudia is nice, most of the time. I leave Lizzie to her eye makeup and pick my way along the cluttered hallway to Claudia’s room, just two doors down, and almost run right into her as she’s rushing out.

“Oh, hey—what? Why aren’t you dressed?” she asks me urgently, her ebony-black eyes open wide. She reverses course and drags me back into her room with her, holding her hands out in front like a traffic cop.

I actually thought I was dressed an hour ago, I think, but don’t say.

“Okay, stop,” she pants. She takes a couple breaths like she’s going to say something, but nothing comes out right away. I hold out the headband thingy that Lizzie gave me as though it's some sort of clue.

“Oh, okay! Did Lizzie give you this halter? We can work with this!”

She whips around to yank a string of pink and black beads off the bedpost and I stare at the flimsy scrap of fabric in my hand. This is a halter? When Claudia turns back to me she seems amazed that I'm not wearing it yet.

“Just go ahead and put it on. We've got, like, minutes. I’ll turn around if you want me to?”

I shrug, pretending I’m not embarrassed. But as soon as her back is turned again I whip off the black top and my bralette and stretch the pink fabric over my head. It loops behind my neck, forming a crisscross over my chest and leaving me feeling almost completely naked. My nipples poke right out through the fabric, small and hard. It’s just so obvious, and it doesn’t feel very sturdy. I'm not even sure I have enough volume to keep this thing from riding up into my armpits if I lift my arms.

Claudia whips back around again, her gaze seesawing back and forth over me as she nods urgently. “See? You have the perfect body for this thing! You look amazing!”

I stare in the mirror on the back of her closet door. Amazing? Standing next to Claudia, whose dancer-muscular body ripples under her pink and black striped bodycon dress, I don't see it. I look like the little sister she's being forced to take to the grown-up sister party.

“Wow, I wish I had your flat stomach,” she groans.

“Are you sure?” I hear myself say, my voice smaller and less serious than I usually strive to make it. Over the last two months I've done everything I can do to really seem like I fit in here, but sometimes it's just too much. I'm not a homecoming queen, lead cheerleader, or marketing executive in training like all of them seem to be. Sometimes I think I'd rather just go home, and then I remember I don't really have a home to go to.

As though Claudia can sense what I'm feeling, she takes a couple steps to the door and then stops, pivoting on her tall wedge sandals so she can face me again. She claps her hands lightly in front of her a couple of times and lowers her chin, looking me dead on.

“Kita? You know you're almost at the end of this, right?”

I swallow, nodding.

“And as soon as we’re done with the bake sale, you're practically guaranteed to get in. You know that?”

“But —”

“No buts!” she declares and takes my shoulders in her hands so that I can't get away. She stares right into the middle of me with her deep black eyes, so dark I'm practically pinned to the spot.

“Kita, we all believe in you. Out of all the rushes, you're the best one. You're my personal favorite—did you know that?”

I shake my head. Am I really?

“Yes, you silly thing! Actually, everybody's rooting for you. But you gotta do good today, okay? Just do whatever needs to be done, sweetie, and then you will be one of us. Won’t that be great?”

“Yeah.”

She narrows her eyes at me and wrinkles her nose in exaggerated disapproval. “I can't hear you!”

On cue, I give her my cheerleader smile, the one that so wide it makes my upper lip feel like it's going to crack. “Yeah!” I practically yell.

“That's my girl!” she hoots, then shoves me toward the doorway. “Okay, see you in the minibus!”

She releases one shoulder and slaps me on the butt cheek as I leave her room. It stings, but I don't let her know.

The rest of the sorority house is in chaos. At least a dozen of us are all dressed up in black and pink, our house colors, rushing to the minibus before the house mother leaves without us. I just keep my arms clapped over my naked belly and hunch in one of the back rows, trying to keep warm as the cold vinyl of the seat chafes against my legs.

All around me are clones of Lizzie and Claudia, clapping and chanting our songs, apparently unbothered by the brisk September air. Every time one of them happens to glance my way, I make sure my smile is as hard as concrete. Just keep smiling, that's the trick.

When we get to the Crow Bar, there is a black and pink banner stretched over the entrance, fluttering in the breeze. Welcome to the Chi Rho Pi Bake Sale! It's painted with cartoonish hearts and extra exclamation points that glow in the black lights that pulse on and off.

The minibus pulls up in front of the entrance and as we file out, the bouncer pulls the velvet rope aside for us. Huge and broad as a pillar, he stands there nearly exploding from his tight, white T-shirt and shiny, black-washed jeans. He looks each of us over with dark eyes that slide a grueling trail from top to bottom. There's something lizard-like about the way he looks me over, like he's licking me with his eyes.

Glancing behind him, I see the people waiting to get in. It's mostly men — actually I guess it's all men? — and they press forward, peering at us with undisguised interest. There’s at least forty of them there, from frat boy age on up, leaning against the rope like carnivores at the zoo. Instinctively, I flinch back to the safety of my group.

I feel a hand circle around my elbow and almost pull away defensively before I realize it's Lizzie. She tugs me closer, and for a second I'm grateful to be under someone else's care. Feeling so many sets of eyes on me is making me feel even more naked than I am.

“Oh, you're going to do so good!” she hisses in my ear as she jams something plastic against my ribs. “Here, drink this. It'll get you started off right.”

I take what she's handing me and hold it up against the neon glare of the bar signs. It glows faintly blue and I guess it's a bottle of some kind of energy drink, but it looks like she's already opened it.

“No, I'm okay…” I mumble and try to shove it back toward her as the bouncer herds us into the darkened dance club.

“It's for charity,” she reminds me again, raising her voice against the pulsing bass of the dance music, her eyes narrow and dangerous.

I don't even understand what she's talking about. But at this point, can I really afford to just piss her off over an energy drink? As I cross the threshold, I pop the top off and take a long swig, smiling like it's delicious and then I hand it right back to her. The bitterness curdles on the back of my tongue but then my mouth is coated in a film of sugar. She wrinkles her nose at me in approval and nods.

“That's a good girl. Your place is over there. Now, break a leg!”

“Break a what?”

Claudia swoops over to my other side, boxing me in. “You ready, Kita?”

Suddenly, I don't really feel like I’m ready for anything. I look around the room and realize it's nearly empty. The bouncer must have been holding back the customers until we got here. There's a large, empty dance floor with three raised platforms arranged in a triangle with about ten feet between them. On each platform is a barstool.

Lizzie and Claudia start to guide me toward the closest platform. Out of the corner of my eye I see the other two pledges being led to the other two barstools. One of them looks nervous and keeps flipping her long, honey-colored hair over her shoulder and giggling. The other one, Serena, just looks pissed.

What I don't see is any kind of cakes, cookies, or even a candy bar. This is supposed to be a bake sale. What are we selling?

“Claudia, I don't know what I'm supposed to do?” I confide, leaning toward her as she guides me toward the stool. She just rolls her eyes.

“Just smile, cupcake,” she snickers. “You'll figure it out in a minute!”