Elizabeth Blys closes the door to her newly decorated dorm room and sighs in the aftermath of the night; she notices her roommate hasn’t returned from her date yet. She considers herself as open to new ideas and fun as much as the next person, but attending that rock show put on by the college is not exactly her idea of a good time. Hearing another door close, she presses her ear to the thick cinderblock wall she shares with the two girls next door. She wonders how the new girls have become so close in the two weeks since they moved in and feels a twinge of jealousy deep in her stomach because she is still the outsider, even after three years of attending this college.
She looks around and notices her roommate has put up more pictures of her family and friends on the walls. Elizabeth reminds herself to put up her posters; the oppressively bare white walls can squeeze the life out of any creative muse. Paired with the white ceiling and floor tiles, the dorms could have been asylums in a past life. She swore the screaming girls dancing in the room above hers were practicing for the next rendition of STOMP.
“Mr. Darcy, you like me, right?” she says, bending over to see the beta fish in the small fishbowl.
He swims out from under his plastic bridge and toward the glass. He flicks his tail hello. Mr. Darcy floats almost to the surface, waiting for food and nipping at her fingertips affectionately.
Elizabeth smiles at her blue companion with the red-tinged tail. One day, she hopes to have a romance like the ones Jane Austen writes about. Or, at least, she hopes to find someone who will like her as she is so she doesn’t have to confide in a fish.
“You’d never think me annoying or bookish or boring. If only you could talk back; it’s not the same if you don’t speak because then I look crazy. Oh, Mr. Darcy, what shall we do for the rest of the evening?”
The little blue beta flicks his tail goodbye and swims under the plastic bridge in his fishbowl. Elizabeth straightens herself and walks back to the shared cinderblock wall.
Overhearing the giggles next door getting louder and louder, Elizabeth feels glad that they convinced her to go to that rock concert. She had planned to stay in her dorm and reading her books. She had had a surprisingly good time, but it is nearing 11, and now it is time for the homework she put off in order to enjoy the concert.
Turning to sit at her neatly arranged desk, she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She tucks her straight red hair behind her ears because it refuses to behave in this Georgia heat and humidity. She smoothes her white dress over her curves in the mirror and obsesses over the person she sees staring back.
Thick thunder thighs sit atop the calves of a postman or a streetwalker; “wide child-bearing hips,” as Grandmother Blys used to call them, leading to abs hidden somewhere underneath “that fat.” Too small breasts dwarfed by these man-like broad shoulders. I hate mirrors. But Mama said there was always one redeeming feature. She always said I had a “pretty little face” composed of two sparkling blue eyes, two full red lips, creamy skin freckled just right, all encased by flaming red hair resting on freckled shoulders. I don’t see it. Ugh, I hate mirrors.
“Girl, stop admiring yourself and come get in the car. Addie and Katie are waiting for us.”
The door slams shut, the loud bang resonating through her room. She should probably start locking that door.
“Janet, you scared me! Wait. Car? But we just got back.”
“The band’s leaving tomorrow for the next city in their tour. We’re taking the hot ones to the lake behind my parents’ house. It’s party time, and you’re going to partay with the best of them,” Janet said, shimmying and shaking her hips for added effect.
“Well I’m sorry. I don’t ‘par-tay,’ and I need to do my chemistry homework.”
“Girl, you need to get out. It’s Friday night, you’re already dressed, and that Justin guy was so into you.” Janet pauses to check her hair in the mirror and then turns to Elizabeth as if she had just thought up the most brilliant idea. “You could totally hook up with him.”
“Oh, please, why would he ever notice a girl like me when he could have Addie’s busty little figure? He probably just felt sorry for me, I probably talked too much--”
“We so don’t have time for this right now; girlie, come on!”
Janet grabs Elizabeth by the hand and excitedly pulls her down the cinderblock-lined walls of the hallways, out the squeaky front doors, and into the idling Mustang.
No comments:
Post a Comment