Sarai Walker - Dietland

“Aww, what are all the kiddies gonna play now?” Rubí said. “Half the fun of childhood is learning how to splatter a prostitute’s brain with a baseball bat.”

Sana read from an article on her phone: “In the wake of the threat, several gaming companies have seen their stock fall.”

Marlowe shook her head, marveling, and handed Huck to Verena while she scribbled some notes. Verena held the sticky baby out in front of her.

“This morning I read about a bunch of teenage girls in Texas who’ve been traveling around to strip clubs,” Rubí said. “The girls hang out in the parking lot and when the men go inside, they slash their tires and break their windows. The police chief in one of the towns said that his force didn’t have the manpower to deal with an uptick in female offenders.”

Sana leaned over and whispered in my ear: “He’s talking about women like you.” I elbowed her away, not wanting the others to hear what she was saying. Sana was the only one who knew about my recent activities.

More NYPD trucks arrived, so I knew we weren’t going to be allowed back home anytime soon. I was being deprived of lunch and growing hungry and cranky, the ice cream cone not keeping my hunger at bay. I picked up my shopping bags. The long strap of my satchel crossed my chest, weighing on my shoulder because of the brick I still carried with me. “I’m off,” I said. “I have errands to run.” I’d been so busy sending books and emailing Kitty’s readers that it had been several days since I’d spent an afternoon roaming the streets, but that’s what I needed to do. Julia’s visit had left me with excess adrenaline. I loved Calliope House, but I needed to get away for a few hours, to escape being enclosed.

“What kind of errands?” Sana asked, suspicious.

“Mailing books,” I said, giving the shopping bags a jiggle.

“And what else?”

“Maybe I’ll do some shopping.”

“You mean you’re actually going to pay for something?” She said it in a playful tone, but there was bite to it. Marlowe, Verena, and Rubí looked up at me, confused, but I slinked into the crowd.

I mailed the packages of books from the post office first so I wouldn’t have to carry them around all day. The woman behind the counter stamped the envelopes, the name of a girl printed on each one. I wondered if Leeta was planning to write to them too, and if so what she would say, but email was probably tricky when you’re on the run from the police.

After the post office, I ate a late lunch. My body was no longer accustomed to waiting for food, and I finished my cheeseburger in four big bites, then ordered another. Outside the restaurant window, I could see V— S— across the street, with the enormous poster of the lilac negligee woman, only this time she was wearing a pink bustier and stockings, her bare ladyparts shielded by the squeeze and tilt of her thighs. Bonerville. They could have put the poster over the doorway and the woman could have spread her legs, welcoming all of Manhattan inside.

I stared at her while finishing my second cheeseburger, then left the restaurant, feeling the heat of the animal protein on my breath, tasting it on my lips. Standing before V— S—, I really wanted to steal that pink bustier. I was feeling jittery with energy that I needed to burn off somehow, and I felt like doing something reckless. I liked writing to Kitty’s girls, but I missed the high that came from action. I walked back and forth on the sidewalk, considering my options. The cover of the New York Daily —with the faces of Leeta, Missy, and Soledad—popped up around me on the side of a truck, on a newsstand, in the hands of passersby, a swarm of black-and-white insects that I wanted to bat away so I could see clearly, so I could breathe.

I decided I couldn’t return to the scene of my original crime, so I settled on a cosmetics store a half block away, a three-story extravaganza of face paint. Inside, I discovered a store that looked like a spaceship, with domed ceilings and bright lights and what seemed like an alien female staff, their hair wrapped tight in buns, giving them instant facelifts. It was like being in the Beauty Closet again, only Julia and Leeta were missing. I waited for an opportunity to slip something into my satchel, anticipating the rush that came with it, but there was a security guard watching me, as if she had a sixth sense. Pretending to be interested in a display of blushers, I picked up a compact of pink powder. I had always associated blushing with shame and embarrassment.

“Something to brighten you up?” A female voice pierced the drone of the spaceship. The saleswoman, wearing a white smock, was plump, a standout among her colleagues. Still being watched, I decided to buy something rather than steal. It would be an act of solidarity with the plump woman.

“What’s the opposite of brightening up?” I asked. I caught sight of a display of eyeliners in shades of black. Leeta black. “I’ll take the darkest one of those.” I asked the woman to apply it for me right there in the store. She directed me to a stool, where I sat as she circled my eyes, but when I looked in the handheld mirror she had given me, the circles weren’t thick enough. “More,” I said. She circled my eyes again, adding another layer, but it wasn’t enough. “More.”

“Are you sure?”

“My goal isn’t to look fuckable. The look I want is Don’t fuck with me. ”

She laughed nervously, unsure if I was crazy. “I’ve never been asked for that before.”

When she finished ringing my eyes, I asked to see dark lip-glosses. I picked through the small pots until I found something that appealed: Darkest Plum. I paid for my items, then applied the gloss with my pinkie, covering the taste of meat that had lingered on my lips. The saleswoman held up the mirror again and I admired my transformation. “I think it’s important that makeup reflects the true inner self,” I said, repeating a line I had once read in Daisy Chain.

On the bus heading back to my neighborhood, more people than usual stared at me. I decided I would wear the eye makeup every day.

I was close to home, but stopped at a bakery to buy a treat for the road. As I made my way over the crosswalk at Seventh Avenue, munching a cherry turnover, I passed a bike messenger who was stopped at the light, checking his phone. He began singing “Big Girls Don’t Cry” and then laughed, a deep-throated cackle. I glanced over my shoulder. When he saw me looking, he sang his own version:

“ Big girls eat pie.”

I turned around and walked back toward him, stuffing the end of the turnover into my mouth. “Do you think you’re funny?” A bit of pastry flew from between my lips.

“Miss Piggy,” he said, cackling again, clearly disgusted by me, the exile from Bonerville. If there’d been a trapdoor beneath me, he would have opened it and sent me into oblivion. As far as he was concerned, if I didn’t make his man parts happy, I had no reason to exist.

“Move it, lard-ass,” he said. I didn’t move, but stood so close to him that the tip of his front tire was wedged between my knees. I sucked a bit of cherry off my thumb. His little song had been intended as a drive-by, a shot fired into the anonymous fat girl as she crossed the street. It was intended to wound, but I wasn’t wounded. It was the intention that infuriated me.

The man was wearing metallic sunglasses and a helmet, which covered his head and face in a kind of armor. Only his mouth and chin were visible, and the skin I could see was sweaty and rough with stubble. I imagined kissing him, the stubble ripping my skin, streaking me with blood.

“I asked you a question,” I said. “Do you think you’re funny?”