My mother made mayonnaise. I watch her as she places the large white ceramic bowl with blue flowers into the fridge. She tells me not to touch anything she prepared, that if I eat something there will be consequences. Tomorrow she’s having lunch with her friends, who are all like her, eight reproductions of the same female phenotype that usually scares me. I don’t answer. I keep scrolling Instagram at the kitchen table, ready, the fabric of my swimsuit irritating my skin beneath my clothes.
When I hear the scooter honk outside, I stand up.
Lucia’s here, I say.
My mother throws me a look from above the cutting board that seems, I think, disapproving. I don’t understand why – maybe it’s Lucia, my best friend, whom she has never liked. But my mother says nothing. She scans me, and as I reach the door I scan myself too in the mirror at the entrance. Maybe I understand now. I pull my T-shirt out from my shorts and try to stretch it down to my thighs, but it won’t reach. I pull at the fabric, trying to widen it, to hide myself, but it won’t reach, and Lucia keeps honking, now insistently. I know she insists because she’s excited to go: she has the new Fuck bikini she wants to show Tommaso, to steal a kiss from him and maybe something more. I meet my own eyes in the mirror and I look desperate. But I can’t despair over things like this, I promised myself. I grab my canvas bag with the towel inside and leave the house toward the end-of-year party, at Tommaso’s pool.
Lucia talks about nothing but Tommaso. She repeats for the hundredth time how they’ve been flirting, recounts their messages, how she found that bikini on sale and begged her mother to buy it even though it’s for older girls. She stops in the street to show me how the cup fits and, when she lifts her tank top and exposes her thin body – her ribs protruding beneath her breasts – I feel anger rising. But she doesn’t notice and keeps talking. Usually I listen to these stories with interest, but today Lucia’s love life seems stupid to me. And when we arrive and I see everyone in the pool shouting and throwing each other into the water, their normal, naked bodies everywhere, I try to hold back a nervous breakdown directed at Lucia, who really talks about nothing else. Then she falls silent because Tommaso walks toward us. He greets us. But he doesn’t speak to both of us: only to Lucia. That extra presence makes my excess obvious, my imposing body even more out of place. My friend glances at me to make sure I haven’t run away, but I can’t stay and I walk off. Now I’m really angry at Lucia, who used me as a sidekick to get to the party; the last party of high school and she spent it acting stupid over a boy. I approach the table where there are bowls of soggy chips and dirty plastic cups. I grab the bottle of gin. I don’t like gin, but it usually helps me in situations like this. Someone comes to talk to me, since I’m strategically positioned at the bar, but I can’t really converse anymore, even though that’s why I stood there. I feel angry, and anger steals my words, makes me curt. Meanwhile, I see Lucia and Tommaso walking away. I decide I need to go to the bathroom, pretend to be busy.
In the living room there’s a boy. He’s alone on the couch, watching me as I pass. He smiles and I smile back. He’s beautiful: blond curly hair, a slightly bored look. Hi, he says, and I say Hi. I look away, but from the corner of my eye I see him watching me the whole way to the bathroom.
I lock the door. I look at myself in the mirror and realise I’m still smiling.
Maybe, I realise, I shouldn’t look at myself the way I do before leaving the house. If you look for flaws, you’ll find them. So I decide to stop. Everyone is in swimwear except me. I take off my shirt and freshen my hair with water from the sink. As I do, I think about boys, how comfortable they seem with nudity – how easily they take off their shirts when summer comes – though maybe that’s a generalisation. As I think this, I open the cabinet beside the mirror and find a blush. I don’t know how to use it, but I take a little and apply it to my very pale cheeks. I think I look good, like this. Maybe I put on a little too much. Still, it suits me. I could do something I’ve never done, like talk to that boy. I realise I was harsh with Lucia, that I didn’t share her excitement. Now that I’m excited too, for the same reason, I understand her. I feel light.
But when I step out, I see the boy kissing someone else. His body covers hers and all I can see clearly are her legs, long and sharp, her skin golden even though it’s only June. Now I feel humiliated by my nudity, by the too-much blush on my cheeks. I feel stupid for having, even for a second, equated myself with Lucia, and the image of her lifting her tank top haunts me as I rush out of the room. I put my shirt back on and pull it down, stretching the fabric again to reach at least mid-thigh, but it always rides up. I feel like I can read people’s thoughts, I see myself through their eyes, pitying all the space I take up, with that pathetic blush badly applied. Lucia is nowhere to be seen and suddenly I’m angry again. My problems have no short-term solution. They are attached to me, stuck to my body. It takes time to free yourself from them, and this awareness – that I cannot be fixed immediately – makes me lose myself.
When Lucia arrives, I am no longer myself. Her face is open and happy, she runs toward me, I’m the only thing in her eyes, she can’t wait to tell me everything. She hugs me while I remain stiff – I feel her dry hands brush against the excess flesh on my back – and then she says, Why are you still dressed?
Because I’m not a slut like you, I say.
We both widen our eyes, but I have no intention of taking it back. In that moment I believe it. I believe she is cruel, that she used me to get to Tommaso and now she should feel as bad as I do. Tears fill her eyes and I say something like There’s no point crying and I walk away and try not to feel guilty but I do, even more when I hear her sob, and that’s when I go home.
I walk four kilometers in silence.
When I arrive, everyone is asleep and I’m hungry. That kind of hunger. I know I shouldn’t listen to it, but I open the fridge almost involuntarily and with the same cold intent I take the bowl of mayonnaise and place it on the counter. From the drawer I take a large spoon. I begin to eat. I don’t even use bread. The metal of the spoon occasionally hits my teeth. I keep ingesting mayonnaise, its creamy texture sticking to the roof of my mouth. I take large spoonfuls, shove them all in, use my tongue to leave nothing behind. It’s not that I can’t stop. It’s that I don’t know how.
When the bowl is empty, I feel sick. I stay there, looking at that elegant ceramic, streaked with the residue of my fury. The bowl seems simple, easy to clean. For me, it isn’t. And with this awareness – that I cannot be fixed immediately – I begin to wash it. My hands grow quiet under the warm water. Then I dry it with a cloth, put it back in its place, and leave the kitchen.
