All the Rage

her cheerleading uniform hugs the smooth contours of her body. Her arms are up and out and her pom-poms are secured tightly to her hands. The megaphone sits between her legs. All that school spirit in all that girl and in a single day, they wasted her. She inspires nothing now.

I’m making my way to homeroom when Brock’s shoulder clips mine and sends me staggering back. The sharp hurt of it radiates out, promising a bruise. He whirls around and I’ve got so many variations of fuck you to throw in his face but I swallow them all when he smiles at me with every single one of his teeth. He glances at Alek beside him. Alek holds his hand out, signaling Brock to stop, so Brock does. Brock shoves both his hands in his pockets and makes himself look almost conversational.

“Hey, Brock,” Alek says loudly, as a group of students pass. They slow. “You hear about how my dad pulled Grey over yesterday night? She was drunk.”

Another few students come down the opposite side of the hall and they stop for this. Brock raises his voice. “No, Alek. I didn’t hear about how your dad pulled Grey over yesterday night. You say she was drunk?”

“Yeah.” Alek steps toward me. “Feet together, hands at your sides, right, Grey? That what he told you to do because you were so smashed?”

“I wasn’t—”

“Swerving all over the road? That’s what Dan Conway says, and he’s the one who called your sorry ass in.” Alek’s eyes gleam. “Like father, like daughter, right? Meanwhile my dad had to waste his time seeing you home, make sure you didn’t kill anyone.”

It’s amazing how bad you can make the truth sound. As long as you keep it partially recognizable when you spit it out, a crowd will eat it up without even thinking about how hard you chewed on it first. They’re all rabid for Wake Lake, all of them, and I’m the bone that’s going to keep their mouths wet while they wait. I let them have it because some things you can’t do anything about. So it’s bell to bell, class to class. They look at me, whispering those words that came straight from Alek’s mouth. Like father, like daughter. At lunch, I pass a guy who calls me Jane and then immediately apologizes with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Sorry,” he says. “All you bitches look the same.”

By the time the last bell rings, three of my nails are chipping.

When I first started with the nail polish, I didn’t know anything about it. The red would flake off before the day was half out, my nails would split and, over time, they turned yellow. And then I learned. Removing polish is a process too.

It’s less of one than the manicure itself, but still. I open my bedroom window and lay everything I need on my desk before I begin. Scrub brush, remover, a bowl and cotton balls, Q-tips, nail strengthener, and a piece of cardboard to protect the finish of my desk.

I wash my hands in the bathroom and start with the scrub brush, working it back and forth under my nails until they feel clean. Next, I unroll a cotton ball and tear it into fingernail-sized pieces. I pour the remover into the bowl and dip the bits of cotton—one at a time—into it and then set them onto the nails of my left hand. I give a few minutes to let the remover do its job, to eat away at the color. When those minutes have passed, I press into the cotton and swipe the polish off. I take a Q-tip dipped in remover for the edges because I never get it all. Repeat with the right hand. I apply the strengthener and wait for it to set. After enough time has passed, I clear off my desk and get everything else I need to finish the job. Cleanser and dehydrator, base coat, polish, top coat.

A ceramic file this time too, to round out edges.

My dad used to say makeup was a shallow girl’s sport, but it’s not. It’s armor. Leon wasn’t at Swan’s last night. Had to trade shifts with someone and the day before that, the diner was too busy and we were two girls short. I didn’t even get my break. The most he and I got to exchange were orders. Every now and then, though, he’d give me this smile I didn’t see him giving anyone else. I brush a thin layer of red onto my last nail, and wait for it to dry before I reach for the top coat. I apply the top coat and then I’m ready.





before the last bell, Principal Diaz comes over the PA and tells us to be safe, be good, be sober. The impossible dream. Everyone’s humming with the excitement of the lake ahead but if they took a minute to think about it, they’d realize they could get drunk and fuck things up anywhere. Everywhere. But I guess it’s not the same. Not as epic.

It’s good for me, though. In a few hours, there will be stolen kisses and fights and after the weekend, everybody will be talking about someone else—at least for a little while. It makes me feel some kind of lightness and that’s nice. I hold on to it until I get to Swan’s and then I let Leon take its place.

“Break later?”

He asks it as soon as I come in and in that moment before I put my apron on, I swear he can tell what’s different underneath my shirt. It makes me feel warm and weird and maybe not as ready for this as I thought—but I’m wearing the pink bra tonight, either way.

I reach behind me, knot my apron strings, and nod.

“Oh, to be young again,” Holly says, watching us.

“You’re not old,” Leon tells her.

“You’re my favorite, you keep that up.”