wasn’t there.
“There are aliens, and they did speak to me. I am okay with you not believing that. But that is my reality.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Don’t judge me,” she said.
“I don’t,” I insisted. “But we just have to smooth things over with the overlords on this planet, parents, teachers, et cetera, so that this doesn’t happen again. The lockup. We can’t be having it. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” she said, and we did our secret handshake.
Visiting hours ended. Mothers said their tortured, guilty good-byes. Siblings, relieved to get the hell out of there, lined up at the heavy locked door of the unit like puppies waiting to pee. I joined them with my mom, who had been waiting for me near the nurses’ station.
We left, and when the door, heavy as the hatch of a submarine, sealed itself between me and Zoe, the depth of this situation washed over me and left me gasping for breath. I turned to take one more peek through the tiny window, and I saw Zoe in the hallway, crying, collapsed, and crumpled into a ball as if someone had tossed her into a wastepaper basket. The nurse guided her to her feet and led her to her room, holding an ominous glinting needle in the gloved right hand behind her back.
“No!” I screamed. “She doesn’t need that!” I pounded on the door. My mom tugged at my elbow, and then I saw a Cyclopsian security camera staring right at my third eye. I remembered to keep my composure or they’d lock me up too.
• • •
That was three years ago. And that’s the last time I heard the
A
-word.
Until last night.
When I took her home from Ethan Drysdale’s house, I was hoping she’d sleep it off, but this morning when I came over, I found her in the basement, and it looked like she’d been working for twenty-four hours straight.
She is in constant motion, scuttling between piles of silks, jerseys, corduroys, satins, and velvets, her mannequins, and her sewing machine. She grabs a voluminous bundle of bright pink tulle spun like cotton candy and glides to the sewing machine. She has pins in her mouth and scissors in her back pocket. A measuring tape around her neck. Her hair is in a tousled ponytail that is becoming one large matted dreadlock. Her eyes are red.
I’ve seen her like this before.
“Try this on. I need to see how long to make the sleeve.”
“Zoe, what is going on?”
“I started a new collection,” she says quickly. Her thoughts are fast. Too fast for her mouth to keep up with them, so she stops trying to talk, waves her hand around, and points to the rack against the side wall, which is bowed in the center from the weight of what’s hanging on it.
The collection relies heavily on some old black three-quarter-sleeve concert T-shirts with cutouts that are laced together with ropes of silver chain. These are paired with tailored velvet leggings the bright-white colors of lightning: white-orange, white-blue, white-lilac. They have intricate, jagged seams and are matched with fitted feminine velvet jackets whose sleeves taper at the wrists and end in fingerless gloves. The tulle is for petticoats beneath full, cloud-colored skirts. A charcoal evening dress seems to smoke and swirl around its subject like a tornado, the collar orbiting around the mannequin’s head in a theatrical hood.
“It’s good,” I tell her.
“I know.” She finishes her seam and rips the thread from the bobbin with her teeth. “I made a new installment for Noah too. It’s about hunger-slash-desire. He has to know how to access it. He has to know what he wants. It’s good to want things. We should know what we want, but society takes away our hunger. At least it does for girls. It takes away our hunger. Our desire. And tells us to be quiet and skinny and supportive. That’s the way it goes. If-you-can-be-skinny-and-quiet-and-supportive-you-may-even-get-on-TV-while-you-watch-from-the-sidelines-as-your-husband-wins-a-golf-tournament.”
She says all of this without taking a
“There are aliens, and they did speak to me. I am okay with you not believing that. But that is my reality.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Don’t judge me,” she said.
“I don’t,” I insisted. “But we just have to smooth things over with the overlords on this planet, parents, teachers, et cetera, so that this doesn’t happen again. The lockup. We can’t be having it. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” she said, and we did our secret handshake.
Visiting hours ended. Mothers said their tortured, guilty good-byes. Siblings, relieved to get the hell out of there, lined up at the heavy locked door of the unit like puppies waiting to pee. I joined them with my mom, who had been waiting for me near the nurses’ station.
We left, and when the door, heavy as the hatch of a submarine, sealed itself between me and Zoe, the depth of this situation washed over me and left me gasping for breath. I turned to take one more peek through the tiny window, and I saw Zoe in the hallway, crying, collapsed, and crumpled into a ball as if someone had tossed her into a wastepaper basket. The nurse guided her to her feet and led her to her room, holding an ominous glinting needle in the gloved right hand behind her back.
“No!” I screamed. “She doesn’t need that!” I pounded on the door. My mom tugged at my elbow, and then I saw a Cyclopsian security camera staring right at my third eye. I remembered to keep my composure or they’d lock me up too.
• • •
That was three years ago. And that’s the last time I heard the
A
-word.
Until last night.
When I took her home from Ethan Drysdale’s house, I was hoping she’d sleep it off, but this morning when I came over, I found her in the basement, and it looked like she’d been working for twenty-four hours straight.
She is in constant motion, scuttling between piles of silks, jerseys, corduroys, satins, and velvets, her mannequins, and her sewing machine. She grabs a voluminous bundle of bright pink tulle spun like cotton candy and glides to the sewing machine. She has pins in her mouth and scissors in her back pocket. A measuring tape around her neck. Her hair is in a tousled ponytail that is becoming one large matted dreadlock. Her eyes are red.
I’ve seen her like this before.
“Try this on. I need to see how long to make the sleeve.”
“Zoe, what is going on?”
“I started a new collection,” she says quickly. Her thoughts are fast. Too fast for her mouth to keep up with them, so she stops trying to talk, waves her hand around, and points to the rack against the side wall, which is bowed in the center from the weight of what’s hanging on it.
The collection relies heavily on some old black three-quarter-sleeve concert T-shirts with cutouts that are laced together with ropes of silver chain. These are paired with tailored velvet leggings the bright-white colors of lightning: white-orange, white-blue, white-lilac. They have intricate, jagged seams and are matched with fitted feminine velvet jackets whose sleeves taper at the wrists and end in fingerless gloves. The tulle is for petticoats beneath full, cloud-colored skirts. A charcoal evening dress seems to smoke and swirl around its subject like a tornado, the collar orbiting around the mannequin’s head in a theatrical hood.
“It’s good,” I tell her.
“I know.” She finishes her seam and rips the thread from the bobbin with her teeth. “I made a new installment for Noah too. It’s about hunger-slash-desire. He has to know how to access it. He has to know what he wants. It’s good to want things. We should know what we want, but society takes away our hunger. At least it does for girls. It takes away our hunger. Our desire. And tells us to be quiet and skinny and supportive. That’s the way it goes. If-you-can-be-skinny-and-quiet-and-supportive-you-may-even-get-on-TV-while-you-watch-from-the-sidelines-as-your-husband-wins-a-golf-tournament.”
She says all of this without taking a
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