Two
Upstairs, Clara had stopped trying to eavesdrop on her parents’ boring dinner party.
Instead, she resumed her recent favorite game, where she pretended she was under surveillance from hidden cameras installed behind the bathroom mirror, at the dinner table, in the school hallways.
This state of constant watchfulness by people she imagined as faceless judges, a committee of elders evaluating her life skills, and sometimes as peers (okay, boys) gave her a self-consciousness she leaned into.
Helped hone her awareness of awareness. Nothing made her sadder than the girls in her school who seemed completely oblivious to how they looked to others, as if they didn’t deserve attention.
The game made Clara mindful of her posture and her gait and her smile.
She would never mindlessly pick her nose like Ruth Ambrose or pluck her underwear out of her ass while walking down the school hallway like Pauline Sanders or worry a pimple in public.
Private vigilance would prevent public slovenliness and insulate her from accidentally doing something embarrassing.
When she got ready for school in the morning, she went through her closet miming exasperation, like an actor on a sitcom, never mind that she wore a uniform to school and only got to choose which navy sweater to bring that day.
In the bathroom, she’d brush out her long hair and apply makeup, pretending to give a tutorial to the readers of Seventeen.
She’d make breakfast as if she’d be graded on her efficiency.
And if the game got exhausting, she’d turn the cameras off. Poof! Back to plain old Clara.
Now, for example, alone in her bedroom she had to mentally disable the cameras because she’d been idly, almost unconsciously, playing with her breasts, reassuring herself that she hadn’t dreamed up their recent existence.
To have this gift long after she believed it could happen—at seventeen! —still felt miraculous.
Her parents’ bedroom still felt a little bit like church, hushed and dark, the air redolent with her mother’s perfume and hair spray, something mustier beneath.
The dark and foreboding furniture in this room had been inherited from the grandparents Clara had never met, and her mother hated it.
The rest of the house had her mother’s easy sense of style and airiness.
Lighter wood, lots of plants, homey and elegant.
Clara picked up the phone and dialed the house across the street. Dune answered.
“Sundance?” she said.
“Hey, Butch,” he replied, and she could hear his smile.
Some weeks ago, they’d gone to see Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at a revival house downtown and she’d insisted they call each other Butch and Sundance on the phone when other people might overhear.
Unnecessary but fun. “How’s the party going? ” he asked.
“Fine, I guess. Lots of people called out sick. Your mom and dad are still here. Obviously.” Clara could hear Dune’s sister, Fern, in the background bugging Dune to resume their chess game. “Do you have to go?” They couldn’t say anything interesting with Fern listening.
“Yeah.”
“See you tomorrow. Three o’clock.”
She hung up the phone and decided to shop in her parents’ closet.
She and Nina wore the same size shoe now, so Clara went through the meticulously stacked boxes and tried on some of Nina’s high heels.
They weren’t her style exactly, but she enjoyed the extra height.
Maybe her mother would let her borrow a pair for the New Year’s formal.
She carefully rewrapped the shoes in tissue paper and put them back exactly as she’d found them.
She opened the bottom drawer of her mother’s dresser and pulled out a plum-colored scooped-neck short-sleeve T-shirt.
She went into her parent’s bathroom and flipped the light.
The top fit her like a dream, like a very breast-revealing dream.
The color flattered her olive skin and dark hair and eyes.
She posed in front of the mirror, imagining the audience of editors from Seventeen magazine talking about how perfect she’d be for their next cover.
Her mother might even give the shirt to Clara when she saw how it flattered.
She opened the medicine cabinet and took out a vial of lipstick.
She applied the light pink color carefully and added a little mascara and blush.
It was magic. She looked like herself, only better, a little heightened. Too good not to go downstairs.