I stand in front of the mirror tracing the shape of my face with the tips of my fingers: high cheekbones, set jaw, perfectly arched brow. My mom always says I am blessed with good bone structure. I don’t know. I run my hands through my wet hair. Cropped short to my head, this cut is easy… just the way I like things. Easy.
As it turns out, not much in life is so easy.
I step back and look at my whole body. The mirror shows me the container of my self, but I just don’t know what is inside. I’m like a tin can of something with the label removed. Nothing about me says what I’m filled with, what I’m supposed to be made into, where I fit on the shelf.
Bzzz, bzzz. Bzzz, bzzz.
I snatch my phone off the dresser. It’s Janie. Who else would it be?
“Hey.”
“Hey, lady!” She says, “I’m running a few minutes late. Hope you’re not waiting outside. It’s freakin’ cold out.”
Janie snaps her gum. Her energy vibrates right through the phone, like she has her own frequency.
“No. I’m standing here naked in front of the mirror.”
“Wow.” Insert an awkward pause. “Um… Sexy.”
Indie rock is jamming in the background, some band that no one else in high school knows about, but we all feel like we probably should because Janie listens to it and she knows music. Janie is so incredibly… Janie.
“Yeah, right.”
I stumble over a pile of clothes on my way to the laundry basket by my bed and grab a pair of panties–purple boy-shorts with cartoon pictures of pandas chewing bamboo on them.
Janie says, “Whatever, chica. You always look hawt!”
“Shut up.” I feel a blush spread across my face.
“We’re going to rock this dance tonight!” Gum snaps.
“Totally.”
I pull on the panties while cradling the phone between my face and my shoulder. I’m sure I look totally “hawt” at the moment, hunched over with one long leg raised all crooked like a broken flamingo.
I ask, “Where are you?”
“Just pulled onto Pine. Almost there.”
“Kay. Lemme get dressed.”
“Bye.”
I toss my phone on the bed. My dress is hanging in the closet. It looks great on the hanger. Royal blue and tight, it flares out at the thigh with an insane amount of tulle ruffles. I picked it out at the mall last week. Everything looks so great on the mannequins, or on the hanger, or in the magazine. Clothes look good in the dressing room when I try them on and Janie applauds so loud I think everyone in the universe is looking at me. Then I get them home, put them on, and nothing seems to fit me. Ugh.
At least I’m going to Homecoming with Janie. No dates, we are going stag together.
Janie already bought the tickets for her and her former girlfriend, Greta. But when Greta broke her heart, it became Janie and me again.
She and I have always been best friends, ever since Mrs. Alma’s first grade class when she got her butt wet in a puddle to distract people from the fact that I actually wet my pants. So, I was with her every second of the way when she “came out” in junior high. Most people accepted her. I mean, there are always going to be a few jerks, but mostly people just loved her because she was so confident, crazy, fun, talented, gorgeous, kind, sweet… Janie.
God, I love Janie.
I look at myself in the mirror again. I don’t feel right in the bright blue dress. It just doesn’t fit. It fits my body fine, curvy where I curve and showing lots of long leg. But I feel awkward, like I don’t fit in the dress. It is parrot feathers on a pigeon. Pie filling label on a can of green beans. I pull the dres over my head and toss it on the chair by the door.
I slip on a simple black baby-doll dress with a deep neckline, a short hemline, and a high waist. I’ve worn it a ton, mostly over a pair of jeans. But this time I’ll just let it be a dress. I pull on my gray low-top Converse, avoiding the sparkly silver five inch heels that were intended for tonight. My legs don’t need any more length, nor do my feet need the attention. I take a deep breath and tug at the tufts of dark hair that spindle out toward my cheeks.
Do I love Janie?
A tingle runs across my skin. I close my eyes tight.
I don’t know.
A horn blasts three times from my driveway.
“Kate!” My brother screams at me up the stairs, “Your date’s here!”
I grab my phone, my purse, and a sweater, then run down the stairs past my brother as he plays video games in the living room.
“Janie is not my date. Moron,” I punch him in the shoulder as I walk by.
“Whatever,” he smirks.
My parents are nowhere in sight. They’re probably busy cooking up some Thai Shrimp Rolls or something from their cooking class at the community center. So I call out, “Bye, Mom! Bye, Dad! See you later!”
I hear them holler from the kitchen, “Bye, honey. Have fun!”
“I will. Don’t wait up,” I reply, shutting the door behind me.
I slide into the passenger seat of Janie’s little pickup truck. She has the heat cranked and her bright pink faux-fur coat is rumpled up on the seat between us.
“Hey, cutie,” she says as she shifts the truck into reverse. She looks me up and down, then squints her eyes and rumples up her nose. “What happened to the blue tulle?”
“Oh, yeah. You can have it.”
She harumphs and backs out of the driveway. She’s disappointed in me. I knew she would be. I just don’t know how to shine like her.
I change the subject. “So, will Greta be there?”
“Dunno.” Gum snap. “Probably. She’s into that Celeste girl from Northbrook.”
“Seriously? I didn’t know Celeste was into girls. Wasn’t she dating that grunge band guitarist? Mike-o or something?”
“Yeah. I think she’s bi. Whatever. She can have Greta anyway. I don’t care.”
We pull into the already-crowded high school parking lot. A lot of kids have their own cars at our school, nice ones. We drive past a red Beamer, a filthy Jeep with a “10K” sticker on the back, and two motorcycles parked diagonally together in one spot. Janie backs in next to them.
She leaves the car running.
“I love this song.” She turns up the radio.
“Who is this?”
“Arctic Monkeys.”
Oh, right. Of course. Like I have any clue.
I twist myself out of my sweater because the heat is cranked so high it’s fogging up the windows. It feels like a sauna. I sniff my pits. They smell like lilacs, thanks to Teen Spirit roll-on. Janie drums the steering wheel. Her frequency is off, I can feel it.
It almost feels like first date tension. I look over at her. She is tuned in to the music, nodding her head slightly and biting her bottom lip. Her bangs are cut straight across her forehead, and she’s wearing a wide-strapped black dress with huge white polka-dots. She looks like she popped out of a 1950’s film, only punked: a cross between a black-and-white starlet and a derby girl.
My breath catches in my sternum. I gasp a little and she turns toward me. The music pauses between songs, and it seems to pause the whole scene, like life went on hold for a breath. I gaze at my friend, and suddenly I’m doing something I’ve never dreamed of before.
I lean in toward her. My hands are sweating and my heart’s thumping so hard I swear I can hear it. She doesn’t back away, so I part my lips and kiss her cherry red mouth. She is soft and sweet, different from any boy I’d ever kissed. Just as I begin to pull away–
THUNK-THUNK.
The truck shakes! There’s banging at the windows. Then someone cups their hands around his face against the glass on Janie’s side. We huddle together in the middle of the truck’s bench seat.
“Hey, you guys! Let’s watch the lesbos make out!”
Another pair of eyes at the glass. “Aw yeah, totally hot. Hey, let’s see you kiss your girlfriend.”
The first croons, “So sexy!”
Janie pulls away from me and punches the spot on the window where one dude’s face is pressed. She punches it hard.
“Get the hell away from us, you jackass,” she screams. “Before I call the cops!”
They stumble away from the truck, laughing and slapping one another. A bunch of jerks just trying to get a cheap thrill. Not so much the view, but the thrill of messing with someone else. Stupid idiots. I turn and look out the back window. They go into the gym.
As the big brown double doors close shut behind them, I finally breathe again. I didn’t realize I was even holding my breath.
Janie turns to me and takes both of my trembling hands in hers.
I whisper, barely able to find words, “Do you deal with this stuff all the time?”
“Whatever, Kate. They’re a-holes.”
I suddenly recall what they said. They said ‘lesbos’. They were referring to the two of us, me included. I kissed Janie. They saw me kiss Janie.
It was real. Am I a lesbian?
Janie reads me like yesterday’s newspaper. “Dude. Sweetie.”
Her brow furrows. She lets go of my hands and wraps her arms around me. She smells like cinnamon and strawberries. Her skin feels warm against mine.
“It’s okay, Kate.”
I feel my eyes widen, like they’re about to fill with tears. “But, Janie… I’m sorry. I just–”
“Hey. Stop it. If I were you, I’d kiss me, too.” She bats her thick eyelashes. “I’m gorgeous.”
My laughter bubbles up from the place where nerves give way to relief.
She smiles, showing off all her perfect white teeth… except for that one she chipped a little bit on the sidewalk when we crashed our bikes into Old Man Gentry’s garage. But her one imperfect tooth just seems to make her more perfect.
“Kate,” she says in her softer, more serious voice. “It’s okay. But…”
“But… But what?”
“You are my best friend on this planet. I want you to be my best friend.”
I look down. I can’t look at her face. I’m so embarrassed.
“Listen,” she says. “There was a moment there. I don’t know, you did what you felt and that’s cool. I wish you’d do what you felt all the freakin’ time. Maybe then you’d find your sparkle.”
My sparkle. I don’t even know what label I should be wrapped in. I’m a naked tin can.
“Kat.” Janie pulls my chin up with her blue-nail-polished fingertips. I look at her again. She is smiling that half-crooked grin that says she feels empathy. We know each other so well. We’re best friends.
“There was no sparkle in that kiss, was there?” I ask, already knowing.
She shakes her head slowly, still smiling that same smile. “No, Katie. We couldn’t be best friends if there was.”
I reach across Janie and turn off her truck with a quick twist of the key. I take a deep breath, swallow hard, and press the keys into Janie’s palm.
I say, “Then, let’s go rock this dance.”
Janie plasters her big stupid, let’s-get-silly grin across her pretty face. She reaches down under her seat, pulls out a paper shopping bag, and dumps it on my lap.
“What’s this?”
“Just open it, duh.”
I pull out a small white box. I open the top. Inside is a simple, wide cuff bracelet. It’s black, but flecked with tiny bits of glitter. I put it on my wrist. It catches the light from the street lamp above us. For the moment, it will have to be just enough sparkle… until I find my own.