Maybe she shouldn’t have offered to drive to the mall. Margo will surely be mad at her for that. She isn’t blind. She’d noticed the dirty looks Margo shot her. As if every time Jennifer came around, she was trespassing on Margo’s private property.
But what did Margo expect her to do when Rachel and Dana invited her to the mall? They were going out of their way to be nice to her, and Jennifer certainly wasn’t about to refuse their kindness. Anyway, she really did want to go dress shopping, now that they’d convinced her to go to the homecoming dance. And Rachel and Dana could have said no. They could have made up an excuse and waited for Margo.
But they hadn’t. They’d said yes.
Rachel calls shotgun as they approach Jennifer’s car, then searches the radio stations for a song they can sing along to. Dana turns in the backseat to check Jennifer’s blind spot for her as she merges onto the highway. These small things warm Jennifer. They make up for the fact that, for most of the ride, her two passengers talk exclusively to each other. Jennifer chimes in when she feels she can add something to their conversation, to remind them every so often that she is there. Otherwise she keeps her attention focused on the road, like a good and responsible driver, and tries not to take it personally. Things are good. Great, even. And the fact that yesterday she’d been crowned Mount Washington High’s ugly queen and now she’s riding with the cheerleaders to the mall to buy homecoming dresses is still unbelievable.
But it is also a glimpse into the life she could have had if Margo hadn’t ditched her back before high school started. And look, was she such a drag? Would it have been that hard to fit Jennifer in? Jennifer knows she could have done it. She could have made it work. Margo could have been honest with her. Did she need new clothes? A new haircut? To lose a few pounds? Whatever it was, Jennifer would have tried. Only Margo never gave her a chance.
But now that Jennifer’s gotten one, she plans to prove herself worthy.
As they near the mall, discussion turns to strategy: which shops in what order. Rachel turns in her seat to face her. “So, what kind of dress do you think you want, Jennifer?”
Jennifer shrugs. “I haven’t given it much thought. I still can’t believe I’m going.”
“I bet you’d look great in bright yellow,” Dana says.
“Yellow?” Jennifer asks, eyeing Dana in her rearview mirror. She doesn’t own anything yellow. And she typically shies away from anything bright. “Are you sure?”
Dana laughs. “Yellow is, like, the color right now.”
Rachel slips off her sneakers, takes off her ankle socks, and puts her bare feet up on the glove box. They are a little stinky from cheer practice, but it hardly matters, because Rachel’s toes cascade like a staircase, in even steps from big toe to pinky, and the nails are polished a perfect cherry red. Jennifer keeps looking at them out of the corner of her eye. They are so perfect, Rachel could be a foot model. If I had feet like that, Jennifer thinks to herself, I’d never wear any shoes but flip-flops.
“Don’t worry, Jennifer,” Rachel says. “Just leave everything to us. Dana and I will find you the most beautiful dress in the history of homecoming dresses. Promise.”
Jennifer suddenly feels the urge to cry, but she won’t allow herself to do it for fear of looking lame. Instead she turns into the mall parking lot and finds a spot right up front, near the glass doors. “That’s a good shopping omen,” she tells the girls.
They nod like it’s true, even though Jennifer just made it up.
The department store dressing room is empty except for the three girls. Rachel and Dana share the large one designated for handicapped people. Jennifer is across from them, and listens to their voices through the slats in her door.
“Ew,” Rachel says. “Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew.”
Dana’s groans are muffled by the rustling of material. “Yellow never works for me.”
Jennifer stands in her underwear, her back to the mirror, and stares at the last dress hanging from the door. She only brought in two others, which now lie discarded on the carpeted floor.
The first, a lavender sheath with a sweetheart neckline, had looked so pretty on the hanger. But it didn’t sit right, the seams shifting right and left like a winding country road to accommodate her, as if every part of her body was where it shouldn’t be.
The second was a black lace tea-length dress with shimmery peach lining that peeked through. Jennifer felt it was a little old-fashioned, but Rachel and Dana explained that faux vintage was super hot and that Jennifer could definitely pull it off.
It wasn’t true. Jennifer couldn’t even get the thing on.
She’d known it would be too tight, but Rachel had insisted that she try it anyway, after a salesperson informed them that the sizes on the floor were the only ones in stock. As Dana and Rachel ricocheted off the round racks like two pinballs selecting dresses for her to try, their criteria shifted from what was cute to what was actually offered in her size. This is why Dana got to try a yellow dress, and Jennifer did not.
Jennifer tried hard to stay positive. Especially because the girls were picking out lots of other things for her, too — new bras that would be more supportive, a pair of zebra-print flats that would go with everything. The mission was no longer about just a homecoming dress. It was a full-on wardrobe intervention.
She said yes to practically everything they threw at her.
But the shopping spree, now in its third hour, is wearing on her. And it annoys her, the lack of sympathy from the girls. They don’t understand that it’s hard to be her, to be shopping with them.
Like when Dana had pointed out a pair of jeans that Jennifer had to try, before darting into another section. Skinny girls can walk by a table full of pants, piled in high stacks, and peel a pair off the top. Easy. Effortless. But not girls like Jennifer. She had to dig to the very bottom of the pile, upending the neat stacks to search for the large sizes. Even then, sometimes they weren’t on the table, but hidden in cubbyholes underneath the display. Jennifer got down on her knees, her purse slipping off her shoulder, and rummaged like a pig in a trough for them while Dana called out, “Jennifer! Hurry! You need one of these, too!”
But Jennifer is trying to be a good sport. Even though there is no perfect dress, as they’d promised. And as critical as Rachel and Dana are being about their dresses from their fitting room, Jennifer knows everything looks great on them. They could wear any one of those dresses and be gorgeous. The flaws that they see, no one else would. It is as if Dana and Rachel are inventing them on her behalf, to make her feel better. Except it doesn’t. It makes her feel worse. On top of everything, Jennifer is hungry. It is time to go home.
“How are you doing, Jennifer?” Rachel calls out.
“Um, I think I’m done.” She doesn’t even want to try on the last dress. It seems like too much effort.
“Really?” Dana asks, and Jennifer can’t tell if she’s genuinely surprised or sympathetic.
“Come on,” Rachel says. “You have to show us at least one dress.”
Jennifer sighs and pulls the last dress off the hanger, probably harder than she should, considering the price. It is cornflower blue cotton taffeta, strapless, with an empire waist that blossoms into a wide skirt. She slips it on over her head and then holds her breath for the zipper at the side. It takes a bit of a fight to get it to the top, but after some pulling, it closes.
The corners of Jennifer’s mouth lift. She does a little spin.
“This one’s actually not bad,” she announces, no one more surprised than herself.
She opens the door. Rachel and Dana sit on two overstuffed chairs beside the three-way mirror. Each has a lap full of discarded dresses. “Did you guys not find anything?”
“Forget us! Look at you!” Rachel says.
“Wait a sec.” Dana springs up and tucks the hanger straps down into Jennifer’s bodice. “Okay. Now, let us see.”
Jennifer steps onto a platform in front of the three large mirrors. “I think I
love it,” Jennifer says, pulling up her hair in an impromptu twist. She does love it, but she wants the girls to love it, too.
“I think it’s perfect,” Rachel announces.
Dana nods. “A perfect homecoming dress! And with red shoes, don’t you think, Rachel?”
“Yeah! Red heels would be so cute.”
Jennifer pops up and down on her toes. She imagines herself in the gymnasium, with her makeup and hair all fixed, dancing with Rachel and Dana and Margo in a circle. Hopefully, someone will take a picture for the yearbook.
At that moment, a salesgirl enters the dressing room to check on them. She’s dressed in black from head to toe, her hair in a tight ponytail. She looks at Jennifer and bites her lip. She wants to offer an opinion, Jennifer can tell.
Against her better judgment, Jennifer asks, “What do you think?”
The salesgirl pouts and shakes her head. “I don’t like it.” She steps forward and gestures with a manicured hand. “See how it cuts your middle here? The bodice is pinching you. And that makes the skirt fall funny on your hips. It should be a straight, smooth line, not jutting out like that.”
Jennifer stands motionless as the salesgirl points out her flaws in the three-way mirror, the imperfections duplicated again and again and again to infinity. Her lip begins to quiver, her chin wrinkles and dimples and prunes.
The salesgirl, noticing this, steps back apologetically. “You might have better luck in The Salon on the third floor.”
The Salon is where Jennifer’s mother shops. The Salon is for fat old ladies. They don’t have clothes for teens there. They don’t have televisions playing music videos, or bins of bright-colored nail polish at the register. They wouldn’t have anything for homecoming.
Rachel gets up from the armchair and pushes all the dresses she’d been holding into the salesgirl’s hands. “Thanks for your help. I’m done with these,” she says curtly.
“I — I’m sorry, but she asked —”
“I said, thanks for your help. We’re all good in here. So why don’t you go and … I don’t know … fold something.”
The salesgirl turns and walks out. Jennifer feels the tears coming, and this time she can’t stop them. She sits down on the little platform in front of the mirror and cries.
“Jennifer!” Dana says quietly, rushing over. “If you feel good in it, who cares what that dumb salesgirl says?”
“Seriously. People who work retail are, like, the lowest of the low. She hates her life. Clearly.”
But Jennifer keeps crying. And through her tears, she watches Dana and Rachel share sad, pitiful looks. They finally get it. They finally understand. One of them rubs her back.
But even worse is the feeling that Margo had been right. She doesn’t fit in this life, in this world. She doesn’t belong with these girls. She’s failed. Forget the dance. Forget everything.
“You seriously look great in the dress, Jennifer,” Rachel says. She pulls her hand inside her sweatshirt sleeve and gently dabs Jennifer’s tears away.
“Homecoming is going to be amazing,” Dana says, kneeling down in front of her. “We’re going to have so much fun together.”
The we’re and the together is like music. It is an invitation. They want Jennifer to go to the dance with them. With them. Like real friends.
She wonders what Margo will say.
After she changes and wipes her face, Jennifer walks up to the register and buys the dress from the bitchy salesgirl. And it feels like a victory. Or at least like something she deserves.
little before midnight, Candace stands at the lip of her backyard swimming pool. A silvery tarp stretches across the rectangle, pulled taught like the skin of a trampoline. Dead leaves, dropped acorns, and dirt marinate in shallow puddles, the remains of a recent rainstorm.
Her mom’s boyfriend, Bill, closed the pool weeks ago, at the end of August, despite Candace’s pouting that there were plenty of hot days still to come. She hadn’t wanted summer to end. Summer had been entirely too much fun. Her friends had come over nearly every day, depending on whom Candace had been in the mood to invite. There were only four patio chairs to lie out on, and that had been her excuse for being selective. Really, though, Candace liked the power of this musical chairs game, with her stopping the music and her friends scrambling for an open seat. All her friends wanted to be invited, and even if one girl was mad to have been skipped over on a particular day for whatever reason struck Candace, she’d be so happy to be asked the next that she’d forget about the hard feelings. They listened to the radio, shared bottles of coconut oil, passed magazines, rotated themselves in tandem with the sun.
Candace’s tanning drove her mom crazy, and it was probably why she’d been so insistent that Bill close it up. Ms. Kincaid would regularly emerge from the patio door veiled by a straw hat with a ridiculously large brim to lecture the girls on the dangers of the sun, show them department store receipts of how much a good wrinkle cream went for these days, warn them that they’d never look as beautiful as they did right now.
Candace would roll her eyes behind her sunglasses and recall how her mom had looked when she was a teenager spending the summers at Whipple Beach, with tan lines that rivaled the swirls of vanilla ice cream in a caramel sundae. If Candace’s bikini wasn’t wet, she’d even bring out some pictures from the mantel to prove her point.
And then Ms. Kincaid would soften and lower herself to a seat on the edge of Candace’s lounge chair. She’d share a couple stories about the boys who’d tried to get their Frisbees to land on her towel, how Candace’s grandfather had taken to sleeping on the porch swing to make sure no boys came to steal his daughter away, the catalog work she’d done for a now-defunct department store. Then she’d kiss Candace’s forehead and offer vague life advice to the girls, such as “Live like there’s no tomorrow.”
When Ms. Kincaid would leave, the girls would tell Candace how beautiful her mom had been, and how Candace looked just like her. Candace knew her mom listened from behind the venetian blinds.
This performance occurred every few weeks. Each seeking compliments over applause.
Now Candace peels back a corner of the pool cover. She is pleased to find the water underneath still turquoise and beautiful. But despite her being careful, a bit of the slippery muck slides into the pool and clouds it.
Last year, Candace began to wonder if maybe she’d be tapped to make the list before she graduated. She imagined herself getting mailed an envelope with an anonymous note and the embossing stamp, or perhaps an invitation to join a secret society of girls at the fifty-yard line of the football field at midnight or something dramatic like that. She’d do a great job making the list, because she has the confidence to tell it like it is, to be completely objective evaluating other girls. Not like whoever had made the list this year. Putting her as the ugliest sophomore is clearly a cheap shot from someone jealous of her.
She gingerly dips her toe and the chill bolts through her, shaking her as if she’d been dreaming. She takes a small step back, the sight of her bare legs and torso catching her off guard. Looking back toward the house, she sees her pajamas discarded in a pile next to the patio chair. On the cushion, the pages of her open notebook flutter in the breeze. In the sliding glass door, there’s her ghostly reflection, wearing only her bra and underwear, surrounded by the raw colors of autumn and a smoky night sky.
A lump fills her throat.
She’d been online for hours after school. And not one chat window had opened.
No one had said they were sorry that Candace had been on the list.
No one had said it was wrong.
No one had even talked to her at school today.
No one but Horse Hair.
Candace takes a deep breath and leaps toward the water. She jumps too far and her feet hit the pool cover, ripping it free from its tethers and sinking it down with her. When she hits the bottom, a twig pierces the sole of her left foot, and pain momentarily overtakes the squeeze of the bitterl
y cold water. She pops back up, breaking the surface with a yelp, and swims for the edge.
The patio door slides open and her mom darts out, all perfect hair and makeup and perfume and clothes. “Candace! Candace!” Halfway to the pool, Ms. Kincaid clips an ottoman and upends it. She stops to check her stockings for a rip.
Candace pulls herself up and sits on the edge, the cement prickling her underwear, the water streaming off of her. She pulls her foot into her lap and squeezes where it’s bleeding, hoping to push out whatever punctured her. “Get me a towel, okay?”
Ms. Kincaid stands over her in disbelief. She raises her hands, then lets them drop to her sides. Her silver bracelets jangle. “You’ve ruined the pool cover! I’m going to have to beg Bill to come and fix this. He’ll probably have to drain the water, with the crap you’ve spilled in. What in god’s name were you thinking, Candace?”
Candace looks up at her mom. She wants to tell her about the list, about everything. But it’s too embarrassing to try to explain what had happened. Her mom would probably get so worked up over it, she’d go into school and raise hell with Principal Colby. And Candace has already caused enough trouble on that front. She knows the way she acted in Principal Colby’s office only made things worse for her, made her look even more pathetic.
So instead Candace snaps, “Are you going to get me a towel or what?”
Ms. Kincaid walks away and picks up Candace’s notebook instead. “Are you running Spirit Caravan again this year?”
“Yeah.”
“And these are all the girls who want to ride with you?”
Candace knows what her mom is looking at — a column of names stretching down the page. A list of her friends. Girls she thought had cared about her, girls who now celebrated her misfortune.
A list of suspects.
“Who’s Horse Hair?”
“Some new girl.”
“Sounds … cute,” Ms. Kincaid says with a chortle.
Candace shakes her head, grabs her things, and says sharply, “Actually, she is.”
Horse Hair, who’s been transformed overnight into a symbol of beauty and niceness. It had been completely embarrassing how earnest Horse Hair had acted when she’d tried to talk to Candace in the bathroom. Like she was so pious and above it. Like she didn’t care about being on the list one bit.