Kitty never bothers to reply to these messages herself, but maybe I can help you. You’re at a fork in the road, and for argument’s sake, we’ll imagine you taking the path that begins with two silicone pouches being inserted into your chest. You’ve obtained the breasts of your dreams. You max out two credit cards buying revealing clothes, because hey, what’s the point of having huge breasts if you can’t show them to people? The attention you receive from men is exhilarating, and as such, during your first semester at Stanwyck College, you spend more time at parties than you do studying Frida Kahlo. You meet men at parties who rarely look you in the eye because they’re too enamored with your graduation present. You sleep with a lot of them. You repeatedly turn up late for class, hung over, without having done your homework, and before you know it your grades plummet and you’re kicked out of college. You move out of your dorm and into a Torrance apartment complex called Pacific Gardens with two other women and take a job managing a dental practice. Your boss, Irwin Michaelson, D.D.S., a fifty-one-year-old widower, compliments you when you wear low-cut blouses. In between drilling holes in people’s teeth, Dr. Michaelson likes to drill you in the supply closet. Pretty soon you become Mrs. Irwin Michaelson, D.D.S. You move into his condo in Santa Monica and quit your job because Irwin says that no wife of his needs to work. You learn to have a gourmet dinner ready for Irwin when he gets home from work each night; otherwise, he goes berserk. You begin to wonder whether his first wife died in a scuba-diving accident, as he claims. Your Internet searches for “Gloria Michaelson, scuba death” don’t return any hits. You consider leaving Irwin and returning to school, but he knocks you up and the two of you buy a house in Redondo Beach. Before you know it you’re thirty years old, with a son named Irwin Jr. and twin daughters named Maddison and Maddalyn, driving a Kia Sedona, the inside of which smells like stale french fries and baby shit. Irwin, you suspect, is having an affair. You start to drink. A lot. Irwin says you look a bit baggy, so you get a tummy tuck and lipo, but it doesn’t help. He announces the day before your tenth wedding anniversary that he’s divorcing you to marry Angie, a new dental hygienist in his office. You offer to supersize your breasts and he accuses you of implying that he’s a superficial prick. You threaten to take him to the cleaners in divorce court and he laughs. Ha ha ha! You threaten to accuse him of being a wife beater and he throws the tiki statue you bought on your honeymoon to Oahu; it ricochets off your eye and shatters on the fireplace mantel and you have to wear an eye patch, like a pirate. You don’t say anything else, because you fear you might end up at the bottom of the sea like the first Mrs. Michaelson. Irwin leaves and doesn’t come back for three days. When he returns, the police arrest him for domestic abuse. As they cuff him in the driveway, he screams, “What have I ever done to you, you ugly cow?” The whole neighborhood pretends not to hear. Maddalyn cries. Or is it Maddison? You hire a private detective to take incriminating photographs of Irwin and Angie in flagrante delicto, since it’s the only way you can ensure that after your divorce you can continue living the life of an upper-middle-class mother of three in Southern California. Without half of Irwin’s bank account, you’re screwed.
Not a pretty picture, is it, Alexis? Do you really want to end up a lonely, bitter housewife with a drinking problem? Be grateful for your A-cup. Go to Italy next summer. Eat lots of gelato.
Love,
Plum
P.S. If you give me your address, I’ll send you a signed copy of Fuckability Theory.
I stayed at the coffeehouse until it closed, responding to the rest of the girls in my inbox, offering them each a signed copy of Marlowe’s book or Verena’s, whichever they preferred. Then I clicked open the spreadsheet of 50,000 email addresses that I had sent to Julia, which was still on my desktop. I would email the girls in batches, offering to send them books, which we could discuss if they were interested. Even if only a handful of them agreed, it would be worth it.
I had wanted a project of my own. Perhaps this was a better use of my time than stealing underwear. I’d write to Kitty’s girls illicitly, becoming a different type of outlaw.
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