Why are all the models in your magazine so skinny girls are so lucky I’ll never be anything but fat ass bitch he said to me after class but I still like him and I know that is crazy cuz he is so mean to me and my friend want to get rid of these gross red bumps on our arms can you help me please cuz my legs look so fat in a swimsuit so should I quit the swim team or what should I do if no guy asks me to the dance cuz my cousin asked me to go with him but is that incest or not every guy likes girls with red hair on my vagina is not sexy tits my history teacher said to me when I wore my purple shirt so he is a perv and now I’m afraid I’m going to gain weight on vacation what can I do if I can’t afford a nose job no guy will ever like me with this nose I am sure of it is a mystery to me how you can sleep at night you fucking bitch but why did he say that to me I am not a bitch so I don’t understand why my mom won’t let me use tampons because I told her I would still be a virgin if I use a tampon will you email her for me and my boyfriend had sex because he made me do it but then he said he was sorry so does that count as rape cuz I still love him but I am confused about why every time I wear red lipstick it gets stuck to my front teeth.
And one last message, from a man in prison: I like to masturbate while looking at pictures of you. Will you send me a pair of your panties?
Delete.
At home there was a package. I sat on my bed, the straps of my purse and laptop bag still tangled around me, and ripped open the puffy brown parcel. Inside was a knee-length poplin shirtdress, white with purple trim. It was even prettier than the photographs in the catalog had been.
In the corner of my bedroom was a floor-length mirror in a brass frame. I kept it covered by a white sheet, which I tossed aside so I could hold the dress in front of me, imagining what it would look like when it fit. When I was done I put it in the closet with the other too-small clothes.
My regular clothes, the ones I wore on a daily basis, were stuffed into the dresser or flung on the floor. Stretchy and shapeless, threaded with what must have been miles of elastic banding, they were not in fashion or out of fashion; they were not fashion at all. I always wore black and rarely deviated from the uniform of ankle-length skirts and long-sleeved cotton tops, even in the summer. My hair was nearly black too. For years it had been shaped into a shiny chin-skimming bob, with blunt bangs cut straight across my forehead. I liked this style, but it made my head look like a ball that could be twisted from my round body, the way a cap is removed from a bottle of perfume.
Inside the closet, there was nothing black, only color and light. For months I had been shopping for clothes that I would wear after my surgery. Two or three times a week the packages arrived—blouses in lavender and tangerine, pencil skirts, dresses, a selection of belts. (I had never worn a belt.) I didn’t shop in person; when someone my size went into a regular clothing store, people stared. I had done it once after I’d spotted a dress in a store window that I couldn’t resist. I went inside and paid for it, then had it gift-wrapped as though it were for someone else.
No one knew about the clothes, not even Carmen or my mother. Carmen didn’t even know about the surgery, but my mother did and she was against it. She was worried about the potential complications. She sent me articles that outlined the dangers of the procedure, as well as a tragic story about children who were orphaned when their mother died post-surgery. “But I don’t have any children,” I said to her on the phone, unwilling to indulge her.
“That’s not the point,” she said. “What about me?”
This isn’t about you, I had wanted to say, and refused to discuss the surgery with her again after that.
After straightening and rearranging the clothes, I shut the closet door. I knew it was foolish to buy clothes I couldn’t try on. They might not fit right when the time came, but I bought them anyway. I needed to open the closet door and look at them and know this wasn’t like the other times. Change was inevitable now. The real me, the woman I was supposed to be, was within my reach. I had caught her like a fish on a hook and was about to reel her in. She wasn’t going to get away this time.