DISCARD - The Scheherazade Project

This is my first contribution to The Scheherazade Project. Visitors from Project's roll, you are welcome to comment and/or criticize, and have a further look around if you like - though I will warn you it's been a very sparse summer for writing here. My regular friends - I hope you enjoy my new sporadic writing experiments.



Discard

An unnatural twist of my body to view the dress from odd angles. A flop of the arms and graceful bend of one knee to test how it hangs in a casual stance. A profile study to see how badly my mother's-belly shows. Not too bad.

I absolutely hate trying on new clothes. Hate. Especially dress clothes. If there's one thing I'm not, it's a dress-up person. I had been trying on dresses designed to fit women shaped like no one I'd ever met all day long and had about had it.

But this one. This one's not bad.

The attire for my reunion was indicated as "casual dressy". What the hell does that mean? I'd spent a perfectly good football Sunday hoping that such a piece of attire would reveal itself to me at the parade of stores I'd visited. On the racks and on the mannequins I saw many things I found tolerable. But in the dressing room, everything looked the same. Horrid.

Except this one. This one's really not bad.

It was appropriate, really. Struggling to find something decent to wear now, for a reunion with people to look back on the glory days of when I struggled to find something decent to wear then. I never really fit in. When clothes became important status symbols overnight, people who were once my friends mocked me and my knockoff jeans and my unbrand sneakers. We were not poor, but my brother was in college and we needed to budget our money, so I was told. It's a bitter cup which serves you the brew that despite your heart, despite your loyalty and bonds and memories with others, you are a bird worth no more than your feathers.

I cried. Every day. But I never let my parents see.

By the time I was earning my own spending money and could buy some nice things for myself, it was too late. I was mocked for wishing I could be cool. Sometimes you just can't win. If people decide they don't like you, nothing will ever make them like you. Eventually I developed a real nasty attitude toward everyone in my life, and upon collectively celebrating at our graduation, I looked upon my fellow classmates and thought to myself, I couldn't be happier that you are all out of my life - you can all kiss my ass.

My best friend always kept tabs on everyone after graduation through the grapevine and would keep me updated, as if I cared. She informed me with glee about the cheerleader that gave birth to her own brother the following winter. She could barely contain herself when she heard about the class president getting a botched nosejob. I could barely make out the news about our class cutting buddy's suicide through her tears.

That last one bothered me. A lot.

Another twist. So as to see the opposite angle. A smooth of the hand over the butt. Definitely a thong kind of dress. A shrug of the shoulders to see if the material bunches up around my boobs. It doesn't. It flatters well. It will be nice to display that I actually did end up with boobs, and didn't even have to pay for them like everyone else. Though I'm sure they wouldn't believe that. It would be impossible for me to come into my own.

Hmm. I wonder who's been beaten up by time. Who might be bald now. Fat. Ugly. Who else had plastic surgery gone bad. (Smirk) This might be fun after all.

I feel good about myself these days. I don't care what anyone thinks of me, except myself. And I think I'm pretty killer. I look young for my age - I still get carded. And I make more money than I know what to do with. I credit that to my frugal upbringing - I just can't spend it all, yet I still live very comfortably. Some might even say extravagantly.

Still, I know how it will be. People will ask you, as if they care, as if they'd ever had an interest in you at all, what you've been doing with yourself. But they won't hear a word you say. And before you even finish your sentence, they'll begin rambling about their own lives. And always something to top your successes.

I know, without a doubt, that it'll be just the same as it was.

You know what? I hated every one of those people when I went to school. And I have no desire to see them now.

I carefully remove the dress and lay it on the dressing chair. I put my jeans and tshirt back on and slide my feet into my sandals. I gently place the dream dress on its matching satin pillowed hanger. I let my eyes glide over the buttery sheen of the material.

I then drop the dress, hanger and all, with a silky plop onto the dressing room floor before walking out.

I'm actually glad I wasted my weekend doing this. They can still all kiss my ass.