Chapter 47 2013
“I think that’s better,” Meryl said, sounding entirely unconvinced.
“How does it feel?” the saleslady asked.
We were in the dressing room of the premier outlet for performance clothes in Prague, trying on a cotton candy–pink skating dress with a thousand bedazzled gems on the neckline and hem.
“It feels fine,” I said, staring at the mirror, set under glaring fluorescent lights, highlighting every deficiency. “It’s not the dress that’s the problem.”
It was the third outfit I’d tried on for my upcoming competition at Worlds, and all the enthusiasm I’d felt when Meryl and I set out that morning had deflated.
The saleswoman stopped smiling, which made her look disappointed but also kinder, her tired eyes softening with honest sympathy.
“Perhaps something with a shorter skirt?” Meryl suggested.
The skirt was already very short, so short in fact that it flared out around my thick hips like a life preserver.
Esma and I had talked extensively about what I should wear for my international debut.
For the local tournaments, I’d always worn the same thing: a perfectly acceptable long-sleeved black velvet dress.
It was the sort of outfit worn for examinations and tests, and I’d never felt the need for anything fancier.
But this was Worlds, and not Junior Worlds.
Because Mother had forced me to return home, I hadn’t skated at Worlds when I was fourteen, and having taken so many months off, I wasn’t good enough to qualify the following year.
So instead of easing my way in, I was making my international debut on the biggest figure skating stage there was.
Esma wanted me to get a dress like the one Yuna Kim had worn in the last Olympics.
Which was quite frankly ridiculous. Swanky and incredibly sexy, she looked like a Bond girl, something I could never pull off.
I wanted something more along the lines of the lilac dress Sarah Hughes had worn in the 2002 Olympics, an outfit both cute and sassy.
Instead, I looked like a munchkin from The Wizard of Oz shoehorned into a shrunken Glinda gown as a joke.
The problem was my proportions. My legs were short and muscular, my shoulders were narrow, and I had a bubble butt and mosquito bites for breasts.
And then, of course, there was my nevus—a large, furry, brown spot that took up the right upper quadrant of my face and which looked far more grotesque when set against a glittery confection of satin and gems.
Tears welled behind my eyes, and I fought to keep them inside.
“Debi Thomas,” the saleslady said almost under her breath.
I turned, surprised she knew who that was. Debi Thomas was the first American Black athlete to win a medal at the Winter Olympics.
“A jumpsuit!” Meryl said, clapping her hands together, and I realized what the saleslady was suggesting.
“It’s brilliant,” Meryl said. “Instead of hiding, we come out guns blazing.” Her cat eyes caught mine in the mirror. “It’s time to shine your light and let them see you.”