Breasts, Hips, and Honesty

I always felt a miniature twitch of uneasiness when my friends wanted to go into a store like The Gap or Old Navy. I mean if I had a good time going to the mall with just anyone, then going with my girlfriends was orgasmic. And I loved The Gap and Old Navy too. Their shirts and the low cut jeans are awesome; no other word is required, just awesome. Even the socks are cute.

The problem for me was the size of the clothes; they didn’t fit.

I guess I was a little taller and broader than the designers intended. When they sat down to sketch at their tiny tables buried somewhere in New York City, they didn’t consider every possible width of shoulder that might want to have a glitter pink shirt or a sky blue tank with yellow beads. Of course, I could have gone into the men’s section of the store to find clothes that lay properly across the length of my back, but those clothes weren’t the same. They were always mud and grass. Or stripes; I hate stripes. You can’t wear a scarf with a striped shirt. I never felt right in those clothes anyway. So I always stayed with my girlfriends and looked for the largest size of anything.

Whether I could stumble my way into them or not, I still enjoyed looking at the clothes my friends could wear with such grace and ease. I would drift off sometimes as they fought over the cutest size six or played rock-paper-scissors to decide who should have the last neon green shirt with ‘Too Hot to Handle’ or ‘Daddy’s Girl’ written in rhinestone across the chest.

When they weren’t looking I would imagine what it would be like to fit the shape of those outfits. I would picture myself walking through the mall with all my girlfriends and when the boys looked at us, they would see me the same way they saw them, as someone they would want to kiss, someone they would be shy around, someone who made their palms sweat. My girlfriends were all very pretty girls. I was always the one to settle their dispute over who should buy and wear which outfit and I was the best at picking out just the right fashion to match her red hair, or her green eyes, or her naturally tan skin. They were my own personal stick figured paper dolls and they never noticed that I swayed and rocked uncomfortable while I was waiting for them to come out of the dressing rooms and show me the outfits that I could never wear.

Sometimes we would find a shirt that was big enough to cover my broader shoulders and without hesitation, I would buy it. The sales girl usually looked at me as if reminding me that a shirt saying ‘Your Boyfriend is a Good Kisser’ or ‘Lil’ Angel’ didn’t fit my body. I always stared back and dared her to say something which she never did.

My girlfriends felt a vicarious thrill with my victory, but I knew that I would probably never wear the shirt. Not on the weekends, no one wants to be ‘2 G00d for U,’ when only their parents will see. I could never find the courage to wear them to school, not without a jacket covering the tightness of the message. I was too nervous, buttoning the jacket to hide the glitter then unbuttoning the jacket because I knew the style looked better unbuttoned.

I didn’t really want the boys from my school to look at me and see me in a shirt made for a stick-figured paper cutout. I never liked the sneers they gave me, or the scoffing laughs that fell from their just-cute-enough faces. Somehow they could sense that I was uneasy about the clothing. Their laughter told me that they knew I was less of a human being than them.

When we went shopping what we usually found for me was scarves. I love scarves. They draw the attention to my eyes. I have long eye-lashes. They’re my most feminine feature. That’s what all my girlfriends tell me; they all wish they had eyes like mine. But I think I mostly like the scarves because they hide my neck and I hate showing my neck. I have an unusually prominent Adam’s apple. My girlfriends say it’s just my imagination, but I still see the lump there bobbing like a drowning cat. So I always wear a scarf to school. I guess it’s kind of silly that I wear a scarf everyday, but still feel strange wearing a girl’s shirt.

But I guess seeing a boy like me in a scarf designed for girls probably gives away the secret that I’ve promised I will never hide but I’m never eager to reveal. I’ll keep wearing my scarves because I like them and they draw attention to the only feature I have that my girlfriends want. When they say they love my eyes, I don’t have any reply. I just shift my scarf up to hide the nervous moving of the bulge in my throat and keep my mouth shut so I don’t tell the girls what I wish I had like them: breasts, hips, and honesty.