Page 32 of Best Woman
“No friends to cheer you on?” I sneer at her, channeling every girl who ever bullied me. There are lots to choose from. “What’re you gonna do after you lose, Rollerblade home and watchFrozen?” Sounds fun, if I’m being honest.
“What areyougonna do afteryoulose? Untuck your dick from between your ass cheeks and write about it on your blog?”
I’m horrified. “I don’t have ablog,you little bitch.”
We’re in a tense standoff for the next five minutes, neither of us scoring the final goal. At one point my hand slips on the disk and the puck whacks my middle finger, shattering the polish and, possibly, bone.Youalreadyruined your manicure!my mother’s phantom voice wails in my head. I’m losing steam quickly, and conscious of the audience gathered around us. I flash back to my conversation with the twins and nervously scan the crowd, worried I’m going to see this little shit stain’s mother leading security to come apprehend me.
That one moment of distraction is all she needs, and the game is over. The boys pat my back while Ben leads Aiden toward the bathroom, presumably so he can puke. Horse girl comes around the table and eyes me evenly, all malice vanished.
“Good game.” She raises her hand and I’m too stunned to do anything more than shake it and watch her flounce away toward Dance Dance Revolution, where a group of kids her age, all as pimpled and gangly, cheer as she blushes and gives a shy little smile.
Whatever, at leastIdon’t have algebra homework to do.
Aiden is resting his head on our table when I finally make my way back, while Ben insists he drink a glass of water.
“I don’t wanna.” Aiden’s voice is muffled by the vinyl tablecloth. He sounds as petulant as he did when ordered to clean his room at age eleven.
“Just think of how dry your skin will be tomorrow if you don’t hydrate.” Ben rubs Aiden’s back, using the kind of tone you use with children and small animals. Aiden shoots up and chugs the entire glass in one go.
“OW!”
I’m seven years old, in the back seat of our dad’s Honda in a Publix parking lot. Aiden is five, and he’s just bitten me. Dad has been inside for the past twenty minutes buying the ingredients for tuna salad. Dad makes it with celery and raw onions, which I hate.
Aiden’s teeth are sharper than they have any right to be, nearly piercing my skin through the sleeve of my blue cotton summer camp sweatshirt. I roll up the sleeve and see the shape of his little bite imprinted on my skin.
We’ve been fighting over who gets to choose the radio station. Dad left the car on with the basketball game he and Aiden had been avidly listening to still playing, and as soon as he was gone I switched it to a station playing Stevie Nicks, a song I recognized from hazy Saturday mornings when my mother wouldlight candles and clean the small house that seemed so much bigger now that dad had moved out.
My arm throbs and I start to cry. Aiden looks at me with his huge green eyes and starts to cry as well. “I’m sorry,” he shouts. “I didn’t mean to but you were being somean.” I sob harder because Iwasbeing mean, but I hate being stuck with Dad and Aiden. They like all the same things, or rather Aiden likes everything Dad likes on principle, and I never feel as alone as I do when I’m with them.
“Here,” Aiden says, thrusting his arm in my face. “Get me back so we’re even.” I don’t know how to tell him that it doesn’t work that way, that hurting him won’t make me hurt any less. But, with fat tears still rolling down my face, I open my jaw wide to take a bite.
By the time Dad gets back to the car, we’re happily singing along to Whitney Houston.
“Daytona, you knowI can fully see your asshole, right?” I’m a little hungover from last night and five o’clock seems way too early to be looking up my friend’s sphincter. I haven’t even had a cocktail yet.
“You’re welcome,” she says, shimmying above her phone, which is resting on the floor, her leg stretched over it to rest on the edge of her bathtub as she shaves. Daytona’s legs are so fantastic they should be insured: she shaves twice a week and obsessively slathers them in coconut oil, body butter, and other lotions and potions. As far as I know, she does not own a single pair of pants and has her stems displayed in dresses and miniskirts 365 days a year. Last winter, she legitimately almost got frostbite wearing open-toed shoes in a blizzard. “Worth it,” she’d assured me from beneath one of those foil shock blankets.
That’s why I’ve enlisted her help directly rather than calling for a confab to pick my bachelorette party outfit. Kyle is very opinionated and sexy but knows nothing about women’sfashion. River is really only interested in women aesthetically and their advice would be more about showing offtheirtaste thanmybody. Daytona will make sure I achieve my goal tonight, which is very simple: looking hot. Hot enough to blend in with a group of cis women drinking out of penis straws, hot enough to catch Kim’s attention…and maybe, just maybe, hot enough to keep her arm tight around my waist and her eyes on me all night.
“What do we think of these boots? They’re…interesting.” The boots in question are Margiela, with a tabi split-toe.
Daytona peers down at me between her legs. “You’d better leave those hoof shoes in Florida where they belong. Didn’t River pack you a good pair of fuck-me pumps?”
I drop to my knees and search through my suitcase, pulling out Agent Provocateur lingerie (aspirational), Spanx (practical), and granny panties (realistic). “It seems like River packed me enough underwear for the weddingandmy brother’s honeymoon, which I’m definitely not invited on.”
“You have to miss out on whatever Sandals Resort they’re going to? Tragic.”
“They’re spending a week in Italy. Positano, I think. It was a gift from her parents. What about these?” I ask, holding up a pair of Gucci sneakers. “I could do a whole hypebeast moment.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Aha!” I yell, unearthing a pair of Balenciaga knife heels from underneath a pair of leather pants River insisted would be good for “lounging around.” I hold them up to the phone, which is propped up against a lamp on the nightstand. Daytona is gliding a razor up one buttery leg. “Do these work?” She peers at me between her thighs, purses her lips, and gives the barest MirandaPriestly nod of sartorial approval. “Yes. Wear the leather pants, you have the thighs for them.” It’s one of the nicest things she’s ever said to me.
“What’s on the agenda for tonight?” she asks. “Are you girls popping Molly and getting lap dances from gay dudes? Kind of right up your alley.”
“It’s somehow sadder than that,” I counter, wriggling into the pants one leg at a time, wishing I’d thought to bring my own coconut oil, or maybe a tub of Crisco. “We’re going to one of those pottery studios where they get you so drunk on cabernet you think adult pottery is actually fun, followed by a private midnight screening ofThe Wedding Singerto satisfy Rachel’s childhood crush on Adam Sandler.”
“Is she gonna be like, fingering herself in the theater?”
