EIGHTEEN

You have to understand, this was supposed to be the best night of my life. 

To guarantee it would be, I burned through all the savings from the bakery I worked at all through high school, just to prove some abstract point to my dad. Something about independence. Something about not really needing him. But my thoughts were too blurred and jumbled for me to grasp them in the moment.

I had escaped to South Tel Aviv. I’d done it once before; it was when that one teacher—the one who always waited for girls at the gate with a spiked metal ruler—declared I needed to go home and change into something longer. I imagined taking that ruler and skewering her right between her two massive lumps of breasts, which probably didn’t let too much oxygen reach her brain anyway.

What I actually did was roll my eyes all the way up. I sat at the bus stop opposite the school entrance and watched her smile at two girls who planned to go on to med school, making sure to study, take notes, and excel. She smiled at their hot, long, dreadfully boring jeans, and wished them a good morning. The bus to Tel Aviv also stops across the street from the street next to my street. I got on, but instead of getting off at my stop, I rode it all the way to Allenby.

I got off there. I watched drunk people, numbed by illicit substances, laughing because the weight of life no longer threatened them. I envied them. It must be nice to laugh at the world like that. At me. I wandered between the shops until a red dress covered in silver sequins winked at me through a dusty display window. I tried it on. I let the saleswoman, a shriveled woman who looked like a pale raisin, shower me with every compliment she could invent. I examined my stomach in the mirror. The dress was one of those dangerous ones—where if I ate a little too much dairy or broccoli, or just got my period, I’d find myself staying home on prom night.

But then again, those curves. The dark cleavage between my pale, squished breasts, which trapped my gaze and demanded I imagine things, even though I already knew them. The delicate layer of tulle that made the whole thing look high-class. Mademelook high-class. My body—the one I’d grown used to hating because it was so boring I had no choice but to wear overly short shorts just to make it interesting—transformed into something else. In this dress, I didn’t have to do a single thing for people to notice I existed.

The saleswoman was so thrilled when I handed her the bills that, for a moment, I felt a desperate urge to try the dress on again, terrified I was being scammed. But I was embarrassed. I didn’t want to make her sad. I didn’t have that friend with me who’d say,Hold on, wait, we’re not leaving here until you’re one-hundred-percent satisfied.

I put the dress on that evening, in front of the mirror in the hallway. Dad had ripped out the mirror in my room after I got back from the eating disorder ward four years ago. It’s a long story, I promise I’ll tell it sometime. Not now. Right now, to my horror, I discovered that my chest wasn’t quite right for the dress. When I bent over, one of my nipples popped out. Right then, the hairstylist I’d insisted on booking knocked on the door. The door to my dad’s room was wide open, but he didn’t seem to have any intention of turning down the TV and answering it.

I smiled and tried to guess if the guy who drew out a long “Hiiii” at the door liked boys or girls. He laid out his tools from his bag on a chair he asked me to bring from the bedroom, and I sat in front of the mirror, praying Dad would turn down the volume without me having to ask.

“You told me on WhatsApp you wanted an updo,” he said in an unnaturally high, feminine voice, gathering my hair and pulling it. “If you ask me, it’s too thin. Better to do it low, like a bride. Here, like this.” He let go all at once, and in an instant, rolled two auburn strands and gathered them into a sort of crown that sat regally atop the rest of my apparently-thin hair.

“Okay, if you say so.” I watched him smear on products, ask questions without really caring about the answers, pin up my hair without thinking. I told him I was in the science track and majoring in physics. People I don’t know usually respect me for that. The ones I do know aren’t impressed; most of them finished a bachelor’s degree before they even finished high school.

“You know what,” I told him, as he started to actually curl the ends of my hair like he’d demonstrated before.

“Hmm?” He froze in mid-air. Three lines of surprise stretched above his dark eyes, making it clear I needed to hurry up or they’d drop. And once they dropped, it would be too late.

I cleared my throat. “I want an updo.”

“But—are you sure? Because babe, I’m telling you, it doesn’t suit you at all.”

“I don’t care. It’s what I want.”

He twisted his lips in a sort of washing-his-hands of the whole issue that didn’t really affect him anyway, released the two strands he’d already rolled, and ruffled my hair with two practiced movements. “Whatever you say, babe.”

Once I was sure our low-flame conflict had completely died down, I went back to wrestling with the top part of the dress. I tried to discover the secret to arranging it perfectly, so there wouldn’t be any chance of some Danny or Roni from my grade snapping a picture of my exposed nipple and turning the perfect night into a nightmare. But as I did, I offered myself a subtle smile that only I had any chance of catching in the mirror. It was the first time I had stood my ground. The first time I was allowed to do it. The first time someone was working for me, for money I had worked for and earned myself. I was eighteen. I was free.

“What, is the bra bothering you?”

“Um—not exactly,” I pressed my lips together in a betrayal of embarrassment. “I just don’t think it’s my size.”

“Didn’t you see when you bought it at the store?”

“I didn’t notice.”

“I have cups in my bag, I’ll fix it for you.”

“That’s... this is all the money I have.”

“What, don’t be silly. It’s on me. Just wait for me to finish the hair.”

I waited. When he finished, he took a step back, like a sculptor wanting to detach from the act of sculpting for a moment and step into the shoes of an innocent bystander. “Honestly, it’s stunning. Way prettier than I thought. You know what you’re doing. Come on, let’s handle those cups. Hold this—”

I grasped the soft fabric that mimicked the skin tone of another woman. A woman who doesn’t hide her body from the sun during hours in a classroom. A woman who is naturally lighter than me, but tanner than me in reality. And still, it fit. I was so focused on my perfect reflection in the mirror. On trying to believe that this was me, Ariel, and to remember it clearly for the next times I’d hate my body—after bingeing on chocolate, or starving too hard the day after, or just when my stomach decided to bloat like it loved to do so much. I wanted to tattoo this perfect image in the red dress inside my head, until it was deeper and stronger than any unwanted version of myself that might pop up.

I was so focused, I didn’t notice the whisper.

“You like it when I touch your soft chest like this? Yeah? You like it?” His fingers, cold and greasy from the products he’d just smeared in my hair, mashed the skin around my nipples, or directly on them. His mouth—which apparently wasn’t gay at all, or only a little bit—warmed and tickled my ear like a fly you want to swat away. But the kind you don’t make sharp or funny sudden movements around, because then it would just be awkward. I mean, who doesn’t deal with flies like that every once in a while? No need to make a big deal out of it.

I peeked toward the door to Dad’s room. A canned laugh track drifted out.Just don’t come out. Just don’t come out.I preferred this hairstylist keep mashing me until tomorrow over Dad coming out, turning that shade of red he gets when he doesn’t know what to do, starting to yell, and losing control. The hairstylist, I thought to myself as I continued to escape into my reflection in the mirror—was in control. He was giving me a test I didn’t know, and I had failed it.

“There, perfect.” In an instant, he stepped back. I stood up from the chair like a frog in a pot of boiling water, suddenly realizing it’s burning and remembering to fight back. But it was already too late. Right?

“You happy with it, babe?”

“Totally, it’s perfect. Thank you so much,” I said, with a smile that was probably meant to wipe away the dirt that had clouded my face a second earlier.

“Awesome. Six hundred, babe.”

“Six hundred?”

“The price—”

“Oh, sure.”

I bent down toward the pile of bills, mortified for some reason. In my dad’s room, people were laughing on TV. The hairstylist packed his things back into his bag in seconds, as if I were just some ponytail he’d styled a million times before and couldn’t bear to think about anymore, even if he wanted to.

I handed him the money. Suddenly aware, for some reason, of every single movement my body made. Is this how you’re supposed to hand over cash? Is it too unnatural? Too angry?

“Thanks, babe. Need a receipt?”

“No need.”

“Awesome! Have fun.”