painting my toenails, a well-adjusted female activity. The red pooled on the tiny nails and made them look like candy. I imagined feeding my candy toes to some sort of salivating boy who liked girl-feet.
Your toes look like Red Hots
, he would murmur excitedly. I gave a bitchy glance at Kristy and returned to my feet, shaping the puddles of polish with the brush, stopping the excessive paint from rolling down onto the skin of my toes.
Wow
, Kristy said humbly, and I relaxed.
You’re painting your toenails.
I shrugged like I did it all the time.
If you want, I’ll do your fingernails for you. A manicure.
Did They Teach You That At The Voke? I asked, and she shook her head.
I already knew it.
Kristy moved to the end of my bedand sat down on it. Many times Kristy has tried to buy my bed frame off me. She’s had jobs forever and has more money than anyone in the house, and she deeply regrets the temper tantrum that caused her own bed frame to crack down the middle, the wooden slats gutting the shabby box spring. She offers me insultingly low prices to part with my bed. I’ll never do it. My primary activity is lying around in bed, so you could call my bed and all its parts my number-one possession. Cash would be nice, but I got by without it. There was always some dried-up ramen bricks in the pantry, waiting to be plunged into a pot of boiling water. I’d never starve. Ma liked to brag about this fact. She’d say,
You kids don’t starve.
She’d say it like she wanted a prize, like she wanted the mother-of-the-year award for not starving her children. But she was right, we didn’t starve, not so long as the big ramen factory kept slapping up those bunched-up nests of noodle. I bummed beers off Donnie when possible, I didn’t need much. Kristy could buy herself her own damn bed frame anyway, if she didn’t spend her money on endless beauty products and douche-bag clothing from Ohmigod!, but she’s got her priorities, I guess.
Trisha, what are you going to do?
she asked me, arranged on the edge of my bed like a little canary. Her voice had a made-for-television-movie heaviness to it, like I’d been diagnosed with breast cancer and she wanted to know what treatments I’d be pursuing. I capped the polish and set the bottle on my nightstand, began wiggling my toes to accelerate the drying process. The last time I painted my toes I didn’t wait long enough for them to dryproperly. I put on a pair of socks and then my sneakers, and at the end of the day the polish had dried with the socks stuck into it so they were attached to my feet by these smears. It looked like something horrible and bloody had happened to my feet and I dramatically limped into the parlor screeching, My Toes, My Toes! and scared the shit out of Donnie and Ma. Ma in particular was affected by the joke and seemed to have a hard time viewing my feet as healthy ever sense. She insists I have athlete’s foot and a toe fungus but really they seem fine, just a little peely. I worried that Ma’s hypochondria might be branching out into Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, like Eminem’s mom. And look how fucked-up he turned out.
Are you going to give me the silent treatment?
Kristy asked. Her voice was tender like a Hallmark card. She loves to play Big Sister.
No, I Just Don’t Know What You Mean, I said, staring at my crimson toes.
I mean, what’s your plan for the summer? Like, my plan is to work at Jungle Unisex and pass my boards and complete my application for
The Real World.
What’s your plan?
She gave me a sisterly smile. I shrugged.
I Don’t Know, I said. The plan I’d just made, to find people intrigued by my essential loner nature, seemed both complicated and embarrassing. Like, my plan is to find a friend. God. Kristy shook her head impatiently, making the layers in her streaky brown-blond hair shift and tremble. Kristy cut her own hair, using an impressive configuration of mirrors. She wouldn’t let any of the girls in her cosmo shop do
Your toes look like Red Hots
, he would murmur excitedly. I gave a bitchy glance at Kristy and returned to my feet, shaping the puddles of polish with the brush, stopping the excessive paint from rolling down onto the skin of my toes.
Wow
, Kristy said humbly, and I relaxed.
You’re painting your toenails.
I shrugged like I did it all the time.
If you want, I’ll do your fingernails for you. A manicure.
Did They Teach You That At The Voke? I asked, and she shook her head.
I already knew it.
Kristy moved to the end of my bedand sat down on it. Many times Kristy has tried to buy my bed frame off me. She’s had jobs forever and has more money than anyone in the house, and she deeply regrets the temper tantrum that caused her own bed frame to crack down the middle, the wooden slats gutting the shabby box spring. She offers me insultingly low prices to part with my bed. I’ll never do it. My primary activity is lying around in bed, so you could call my bed and all its parts my number-one possession. Cash would be nice, but I got by without it. There was always some dried-up ramen bricks in the pantry, waiting to be plunged into a pot of boiling water. I’d never starve. Ma liked to brag about this fact. She’d say,
You kids don’t starve.
She’d say it like she wanted a prize, like she wanted the mother-of-the-year award for not starving her children. But she was right, we didn’t starve, not so long as the big ramen factory kept slapping up those bunched-up nests of noodle. I bummed beers off Donnie when possible, I didn’t need much. Kristy could buy herself her own damn bed frame anyway, if she didn’t spend her money on endless beauty products and douche-bag clothing from Ohmigod!, but she’s got her priorities, I guess.
Trisha, what are you going to do?
she asked me, arranged on the edge of my bed like a little canary. Her voice had a made-for-television-movie heaviness to it, like I’d been diagnosed with breast cancer and she wanted to know what treatments I’d be pursuing. I capped the polish and set the bottle on my nightstand, began wiggling my toes to accelerate the drying process. The last time I painted my toes I didn’t wait long enough for them to dryproperly. I put on a pair of socks and then my sneakers, and at the end of the day the polish had dried with the socks stuck into it so they were attached to my feet by these smears. It looked like something horrible and bloody had happened to my feet and I dramatically limped into the parlor screeching, My Toes, My Toes! and scared the shit out of Donnie and Ma. Ma in particular was affected by the joke and seemed to have a hard time viewing my feet as healthy ever sense. She insists I have athlete’s foot and a toe fungus but really they seem fine, just a little peely. I worried that Ma’s hypochondria might be branching out into Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, like Eminem’s mom. And look how fucked-up he turned out.
Are you going to give me the silent treatment?
Kristy asked. Her voice was tender like a Hallmark card. She loves to play Big Sister.
No, I Just Don’t Know What You Mean, I said, staring at my crimson toes.
I mean, what’s your plan for the summer? Like, my plan is to work at Jungle Unisex and pass my boards and complete my application for
The Real World.
What’s your plan?
She gave me a sisterly smile. I shrugged.
I Don’t Know, I said. The plan I’d just made, to find people intrigued by my essential loner nature, seemed both complicated and embarrassing. Like, my plan is to find a friend. God. Kristy shook her head impatiently, making the layers in her streaky brown-blond hair shift and tremble. Kristy cut her own hair, using an impressive configuration of mirrors. She wouldn’t let any of the girls in her cosmo shop do
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