“You’re lucky I’ve got trash TV on your DVR to catch up on,” she yells after me.
I take a quick shower and towel dry my hair before twisting it into a sloppy bun. I glance through my closet, and decide it’s too hot to try and instead opt for gym shorts and an old T-shirt from one of my mom’s pageants.
“All right,” I say, jogging down the stairs. “I gotta fill up Riot’s dry food—”
“Already did,” replies Ellen.
I loop around to the kitchen to find her stowing away a half-eaten bag of chips.
“My mom’s going to think I ate all of those,” I tell her. She wouldn’t ever say anything, but she wouldn’t need to.
“Your mom needs to get laid.” Riot hops up onto the kitchen counter and Ellen indulges him with a solid behind-the-ear scratch. “Took my mom’s car and I basically drove here on fumes. Can we take your car?”
“Yeah. Sure.” El follows me out the back door and as I’m locking the gate behind us, I ask, “And what does getting laid have anything to do with my mom and chips?”
She shrugs and pulls on the door handle, waiting for me to unlock the car. Ever since Ellen lost her virginity, she thinks she’s Dr. Ruth—that old lady sex doctor—and the cure to everything is more sexy times. It drives me crazy. I’m a virgin. I’m not stupid.
I unlock the car doors and slide in behind the wheel, both our lips whistling involuntarily as we’re saturated with stale heat.
“Oh God,” says El, “roll down the mother flippin’ windows.”
What I’ve always found ironic about Sweet 16 is that they don’t go above a size twelve. I mentioned this to Ellen once, but I think she pretended not to hear.
The first time I went into Sweet 16 with El, I made a pointed effort to not be a total jerk about how uncomfortable I felt. But after coming in with her every Thursday to pick up her paycheck, I can say with confidence that I have enough evidence to form a scientific opinion of this place.
My Scientific Opinion: This place is a shithole and all the girls who work here are vapid skanks who treat me like El’s charity case friend.
The walls of Sweet 16 are covered with mirrors and mannequins with jutting hipbones, low slung jeans, and tiny T-shirts that say things like, I’m too pretty to do homework. I follow Ellen through the crammed racks, careful not to knock over the whole goddamn store with my hips.
“El-bell!” squeals Callie, who I’ve decided is my sworn enemy. “Mo-mo,” she calls behind her with one hand cupped around her lips, “El-ephant is here to pick up her moolah!” She reaches into a box below the register and hands El a pristine white envelope. “Hi, Willow!” Leaning toward me, she adds. “Oh my God. Pageant boot camp has been a miracle. I almost have a six-pack. But, like, I don’t want to get too muscle-y. That’d be gross.”
“It’s Willowdean,” I mutter, but she doesn’t hear me because Morgan, the too-old-to-be-in-college-too-young-to-be-your-mom store manager, floats out from the break room. She’s tall and willowy, all the things El will be once she grows into herself a bit more. “Oh my gosh, we got all this super cute stock and I am capital D dying over here. Seriously, my paycheck is, like, gone. Bills who?”
El laughs. Which pisses me off, because how was that funny?
“El,” she continues, using my nickname for my best friend, “you’ve got to come back and try this stuff on.”
El turns around and glances back at me.
I nod her on despite myself.
She claps her hands together. “Okay, but I have to be quick!” She turns back again. “I promise this’ll be fast. I bet none of it’ll fit me anyway.”
I smile with my lips closed. Following her to the back, I stop, frozen in place by the raise of Morgan’s brow. “Sorry,” she says, her lips twitching into a smile. The kind of smile that says you’re not really sorry. “Employees only.”
“You okay out here?” asks El, her eyes catching mine.