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We sit down at a large table, and I decide that I will never wear nylons again. The things are riding up most uncomfortably, bagging around my heels and chafing my hips. I adjust my skirt self-consciously, thinking remorsefully of the pair of jeans lying broken on my bedroom floor, ordered to be replaced by this hated skirt and awful nylons. It was just a little awards banquet. But at least I hadn’t overdressed. I watch as the rest of the young writers file in, boys in nice shirts and ties and girls in blouses and skirts. Of course, the girls don’t look uncomfortable in the least with their nylons. They glide like swans over the cool white marble to their allotted places, grinning with rows of pearly teeth framed in light pink. Their hair is perfect, not a strand out of place. I discreetly lick my hand and try to flatten the frizz protruding like the spines of a frightened porcupine from the top of my head, to no avail. I give up and wipe my fingers on the skirt to my mother’s disdain, and finger a petal of the roses before me. They smell wonderful, so real and fresh amongst the deadened chemical perfumes and colognes that permeate the room like a bad rumor. I bury my face in them, but I sneeze in a very unladylike fashion and wipe my nose on the back of my hand, checking my watch at the same time. It hadn’t even begun, and it had already seemed like an eternity.
A woman approaches our table. Her hair lays dead against her ears, the color and texture of old straw. She smiles to reveal an embarrassing lipstick mark on her teeth. In a voice I normally associated for use on kindergarteners showing off some terrific noodle art they had made in class that day, she asks if those are roses I have there, then grins stupidly at my dad. No, ma’am, they’re daises, can’t you tell? But I’m able to wring out a strained smile and nod. She makes some horrible joke to my father, which would dishonor this paper were I to repeat it, then laughs. Some people have those laughs that just wriggle inside your stomach and make you laugh too, even though you don’t know what’s funny. This woman was not one of those people. Relating her laugh to that of a car horn honking mixed with a parrot screeching would dishonor both cars and parrots, but that seems to be the closest comparison I can think of. I clench my teeth and glare down at the neatly pressed napkin on the table. She just seems so fake. Everything here seems fake. From the cheap, spray-paint chairs to the glasses of powder mix lemonade sweating beads of water and leaving rings on the flawless white tablecloths, the room carried a sense of overlying unreality. Right now, a bomb could have easily just went off somewhere far away, a mother of seven could have just died from a car crash, and here I watch a group of slim girls in tight shirts agonize how many calories are in this lemonade.
The woman on the podium up front begins to talk, and the stupid woman with the straw hair sits down at our table. I see my dad cringe lightly. The speaker gives her spiel about determination and talent and all kinds of lovely things that we have been supposedly been blessed with by the magical determination and talent fairy. I glance at my watch. Only five minutes down? This was going to take forever! The speaker sits down and another stands. This one goes on for quite some time about what it means to be a writer. More talk of determination and talent, with a side dish of practice and a light seasoning of respect or something. It makes for a deadly bland mix that sends me nodding and fighting back my eyelids as they threaten to descend.
Now it’s time for the awards. A third speaker comes up to the podium. I feel a little bit of me die as he pulls out a smooth piece of paper covered in words. I suppose that no one else would listen to him, so what better way to have an audience than put on a contest, then select a few winners randomly and invite them down so they have to listen to him? I entertain this idea for a while, twirling thoughts of little men hunched over stacks of submissions, drawing one from the pile at random, and laughing manically as he addresses another letter. I’m so lost in his grinning dwarfish figure that I do not realize that it is my turn to go up, and my mother practically shoves me from my chair. I stagger forwards, regretting my choice of footwear. The black pumps are pretty, but pretty things rarely serve the needs of comfort. Of course, comfortable shoes rarely serve the needs of prettiness, so I suppose these things all even out in the end, when the shoes all go to the big closet in the sky and must stand before the great boot guarding the golden doors. I reach the podium and squirm as he begins to read an excerpt from my essay. It’s strange to hear my words on the mouth of this man. He has no place reading my story, especially not before others. I’m here because I wrote it, buddy. Perhaps you could let me read it as well? But I don’t say that. I just dig the toe of my shoe into the obnoxious pattern of the carpet and wrinkle my nose as he reaches that one spot I wished I had tweaked a bit. He finishes, and I gratefully leave the podium, plaque in my arms as I scamper back to my table with as much haste as the pumps will allow, cursing every person that claps to eternal hell. The man calls the name of another girl. She will be up here again, he says with near parental pride. Two writing awards? The room collectively searches around, craning their necks to watch this girl approach the podium. And for a good reason.
Her hair is pink. Not the pink you see on those friendly pigs on kindergarten walls, nor the pink of the “It’s a Girl!” balloons. This is the pink that makes your eyes sting if you look at it too long. Blaring, neon pink, pink that jars against the neat tablecloths and clean glasses of watery lemonade like a red rose in a sea of white. She has on a belt covered in more metal studs than I had ever seen in my life, and her legs are stretched with fishnets and a small skirt. She must be standing up to go to the bathroom, I rationalize, continuing to crane my head for the real winner, the girl with immaculate brown hair and a clean blouse. But the girl strides up the podium, her heavy black combat boots thunking on the stairs. The noise echoes defiantly through the silent room, a drum at a funeral. The man grins apologetically at the crowd of speechless young writers and their parents, then suggests she introduce her family. She smiles and points them out. Brother, best friend, boyfriend, mom. The crowd of people cannot get enough. Some even stand to get a better look.
I had never believed more metal studs could fit on any article of clothing than what adorned her belt, but I suppose you learn new things every day. The boyfriend, brother, and best friend probably have between themselves enough metal to construct a small plane. They glitter as they move, watching the girl with love and admiration. The mother is normal, as my standards go, with a neat suit outfit and slender sandals. She is watching the three black-makeuped youths to her left with an intriguing mix of pride and disappointment. The brother sets another truth for me. I didn’t know it was possible to have a triple mohawk, or have enough hair in each section to make the thing as tall as he had it. Here I am, sitting at this fancy reception at this fancy hotel learning about mohawks. Amazing stuff. But the hair styles are quickly pushed from my mind as she begins to read her winning entry.
It is life on the streets, slinking up and down alleys as your toes clink on broken beer bottles. It is the dark side of the city, the one we like to pretend isn’t there. It is finding hope and friendship and love amidst the darkness. It is brilliant. She stops reading and there is a moment of silence, then thunderous applause. She blushes and shakes the man’s hand, then strides proudly from the podium back to her awaiting club of fans. I wonder if the studded jackets hurt as they squeeze her tightly.
My parents talk of her later during the car ride home. I wonder what her mother thinks. She must have so many problems. Drugs, alcohol, you name it. And she must know the streets. What a terrible situation. Aren’t you lucky, they ask me, that you aren’t in that situation? I stroke the side of one of my roses and say yes. But I do not know for sure. Being surrounded by pain and reality has made her an amazing writer, immune to the fake world we build around ourselves.
That’s what a writer is, I thought. The girl who sits before a three-thousand dollar computer and sighs miserably as she types up a poem for English isn’t a writer, no matter how many awards she wins. That girl was a writer. She did not write because she had to, but because the words were there for her to describe what was most important to her. My parents may laugh, may scorn. But the hygienic, apple-pie world they live in is a far stretch from the reality a person must grasp to be a writer. I think I’ll try to get some of that exposure. Meet some people in different groups, see the other dimensions to my laundered truth.
But I think I’ll leave my hair alone.