“Try this over it,” she says, handing me a grey velvet corset.
I fasten the corset over the shirt and all the fabric bunches up in the wrong places. I hold my arms out to show her, but she’s digging in the bottom of her closet.
When she backs out with a pair of black pinstriped pants, she looks at me and laughs. “You have to pull it down.” She drapes the pants around her neck like a scarf so she can tug at the bottom of the shirt. She tugs and looks and tugs again and then pulls both sleeves past my wrists.
“Oh, you know what? Hold on!” She runs over to the kitchen area and grabs a pair of scissors from the drawer by the sink. “Thumb holes,” she says, and I don’t know what she means, but with two quick snips she cuts holes in the sleeves and slips them over my thumbs. “But now I’m not feeling these pants.”
“They’re okay,” I tell her, because I worry if I’m too much of a bother all the good will go away. And this is enough. But Carly has already found a black pleated skirt that’s held together with giant safety pins. I slip it on. She scrounges up two pairs of ripped black tights and tells me to wear both of them. When I put my boots on, she pulls the laces out, stuffs them in my purse, and hands me a ball of rough brown twine to re-lace them.
“There,” she says when I finish tying my boots. She closes her closet door so I can see myself in the mirror. Somehow the whole outfit works in the way Carly’s outfits always work. I don’t understand how she can grab random pieces that don’t seem to go together and find a way to make them fit. I would have just worn the shirt and maybe those pants and thought I had a whole thing going.
She hands me a lipstick and starts twisting the front pieces of my hair in tiny buns. The lipstick is dark and matte and when I smear it across my lips it makes the rest of my face look very pale.
“It needs something,” she says, and grabs a tiny jar of loose black powder and a paintbrush. “Close.” She blinks her eyes shut to show me what she means. “Hold still.” She steadies my chin and sweeps a thick black line across each eyelid with the brush. It makes me look dangerous. Powerful. I could be a villain or a superhero. The emerald green stud in my nose catches the light and sparkles. I smile at myself in the mirror. I can’t even play it cool. It is like having a big sister, and it’s even better than I thought it would be.
Carly ties the last section of my hair up on itself and sprays my head with a cloud of hair spray that makes both of us cough. She studies me, swishing her mouth from one side to the other. Finally she steps back and nods. “Good to go.” She seems more serious, like whatever was pulling her up has started to wear off. I wonder if it was just adrenaline.
* * *
In her car on the way over, she says, “It’s the first time I’ve been out since Rosemary. Since I left Rosemary.” She doesn’t look at me. Eyes on the road.
“It’ll be fun,” I tell her. “You’ll be fine.”
* * *
The bouncer tries to smudge the dates on both of our licenses, but the fixative works. He marks Xs on our hands with a black Sharpie before he lets us in. The ink is wet and cold.
“What’s this?” I ask Carly, holding up my hand to show her my X, but the music is so loud she can’t hear me. The music is so loud I can’t even hear it. I feel the thumping of bass and shrieks of violin in my body. My ears can’t make sense of it. Carly points at her hand and rolls her eyes.
The place is packed, and it doesn’t look like there’s anywhere for us to go, but Carly grabs my hand, holds it low. She twists and turns her way through the crowd, pulling me behind her. We sneak between people until we get right up to the stage.
I think I see the James Dean guy and the girl with the lip ring at the other end of the stage, but everyone is pushing and dancing and they get swallowed by the crowd.
None of the members of the band look much older than me. I can’t stand the way they sound, but I love to watch them. The lead singer is wearing a yellow dress with drippy black paint stripes. She has a tiny round face and a long mess of bright orange hair. She screams, “I ain’t, I ain’t, I ain’t” into the microphone like a little kid throwing a tantrum.
The guy playing the violin has this smirk like he knows he’s making painful sounds. When the lead singer screams “You. Ain’t. You!” everyone else screams along with her. Even me.
* * *
Four songs in, we’re still right up at the front of the stage. I’ve been staring at the guitar player, watching his fingers, trying to figure out which chords he’s playing and what effect the array of pedals at his feet have on the sound of his strings. He’s wearing a kilt, and by accident, I notice that he isn’t wearing anything under his kilt.