I heard the street door downstairs open and braced myself for the knock at my apartment door, and then for the stare. Preston would be expecting a thin person—people always expect a thin person—and so I knew when he laid eyes on me for the first time, he would react as everyone reacts, by trying to hide his surprise and disappointment, even revulsion. From the inside I felt small and insignificant, but that’s not what people saw when they looked at me.
It took a few moments for me to overcome my reluctance to open the door. Once I opened it, I saw standing before me Preston, a generic white guy with brown hair, around thirty years old. And there it was: the stare. “Hello. You’re . . . uh. Is Plum at home?”
“I’m Plum,” I said, hating the sound of my name.
“No you’re not.” Preston laughed.
The door was obscuring half my face, the bruise hidden. Preston reached for my arm. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t . . . I mean, sometimes Gina plays these practical jokes on me and I—” He ran his finger around his shirt collar. “Let’s have dinner,” he said.
I went inside to get my handbag, letting the door close slowly behind me as Preston stood in the hallway. He made no move to open it or come inside. I collected my bag from the kitchen counter, but when I went back to the door, instead of opening it, I locked it—the double bolt and the chain.
“Plum?” Preston called from the other side.
“Go away.”
He didn’t argue with me. I heard him walk down the stairs and open the door to the street.
Jack
My next date was with Jack. According to Gina’s notes, he was an assistant professor of literature at NYU. I readied myself in the same way as I had for my first date, putting on makeup and compression garments, though this time I covered up the bruise on my lip with a bit of concealer. My face was finished, my fuck me look complete—except I didn’t think Jack would want to fuck me. He would be like Preston.
My wands and brushes were scattered over the shelf in the bathroom, but I didn’t put them away. I decided to continue. I applied powder to my face, the lightest powder that I could find in my bag of tricks, covering up the foundation and blusher I had just applied. Your skin is white as a rose, Julia had said when we first met, but now it was whiter than that, a shimmery corpse-white. I reached for a lacquered compact with a cake of black powder meant to be wetted and used to line the eyes in a sexy Cleopatra way, but I smeared it over my lids instead, all the way up to my brows and under my eyes as well. I added layers until my eyes were sunken into dark black holes, like the hollow pits in a skull. My lips were already painted with Juicy Plum, the shade that Julia had given to me, but I added some of the black powder so they were purplish and dark, the lips of someone deprived of oxygen. When I stood back to observe, Jack was already knocking.
“Just a minute,” I called, slipping on the white and purple dress with the stained knees.
When I opened the door I saw another generic white guy, this time with blond hair. “Are you . . .”
“Plum, that’s me.”
I couldn’t be sure, but he didn’t seem to notice the makeup. He didn’t seem to know where to put his eyes; they jutted every which way but at me, to the door frame, to his watch, to his feet. Finally he scanned my body, trying to take me all in. He swallowed a lot. We made it as far as the bottom of the stairs before he said, “I heard you work at a fashion magazine.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“No offense or anything, but you’re not really my type. I’m attracted to a different sort of woman. It’s nothing against you personally or anything. I don’t like redheads either, not that you’re a redhead, but you know what I mean.”
We stood at the bottom of the stairs, on the inside of the street door. He didn’t want to be seen with me in public. “Let’s forget dinner. Go home,” I said. Then I added, “You’re not my type either. You look like a girl.”
He wiped a curl back from his forehead. I walked up the stairs and knew he was watching me from behind, my ass cheeks moving, my hand grasping the rail as I huffed my way to the top. “Fat bitch,” he called after me.
I reached the landing and turned to face him, out of breath. “I’m afraid you’ll have to try harder than that to insult me, sweetheart. I’m bulletproof.” Thanks to the New Baptist Plan, my sensitive side was growing a callus.
Once in the apartment, I locked the door and held my breath until I heard the downstairs door shut. I took off my tights and the Thinz and my bra and my dress. I washed off all the Halloween makeup and then rummaged in the cupboards. I didn’t have my appetite back, but I pulled out a graham cracker, broke off a corner (15), and popped it in my mouth.
“Fat bitch,” I said.
Alexander