Excerpt from SELL OUT
by Ebony Wilkins
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I pulled up the front of my pink leotard and turned to the mirror to see my large backside. No change there. I stretched the fabric tightly across my chest and frowned. Almost a sophomore and still no need for a bra. So much for cutting all those carbs, the calories would always hit us black girls in all the wrong places.
I might as well eat the carbs, they made me happy.
I stared into the mirror, letting reality set in. I had curves. I would always have curves. My leotard rode up in the back, piercing the fat in my butt cheeks. But I was used to that. The other dancers were used to seeing it too.
They knew I was different from them, all white and thin as rails. I was dark skinned and ‘big boned,’ but they never cared. They were my friends.
I would never look like them, but my dance skirt was freshly ironed, my stockings were bleached to perfection and smelled like an ice cream sundae on a hot summer day, and there wasn’t a lick of ash on my skin anywhere.
I arched my shoulders back and stood tall. My mom always told me if my clothes were looking nice, then my day would go exactly how I wanted it to. According to the Miriam Jennings School of First Impressions, my ballet recital tonight would go just fine.
I called mom into my room for the inspection.
“You look great, Tash,” she said, standing close behind me in the mirror. She tugged down on the leotard trying to cover my exposed cheeks. She waved her hands for me to turn this way and that. “Is this the new one you girls bought last weekend?”
Her approval was crucial. One mishap and I would be in front of the mirror an extra hour. I modeled like a doll on display while she examined me from head to toe. She stood on her tip toes to look at my hair and twisted her face into a frown.
“Well, you almost look ready to dance your first ballet recital,” she said, “but let’s get started on that head. We don’t want to go and scare off all the attention you’re going to get, now do we?”
Every time I sat in front of my mother to get my hair done, I felt like I was risking my life. The hot iron would dangle close to my skin and she would be lost in conversation about fashion, forgetting all about my hair. She leaned her stomach in against my back, greased my scalp, and once again forgot all about doing my hair.
Tonight she talked about the new collection of earrings she saw at the mall and our neighbor’s bag that she had to have.
“I have to know where she got that bag. You think Macy’s or Saks?” she asked.
I ignored her and focused on dodging the iron to avoid serious burn marks on the tips of my ears and the small groove between my neck and my cheeks.
My mom separated my hair into sections and added a drop of styling lotion to each piece. She steadied my head with one hand and pulled the hot curling iron through my hair with the other. The hair fell softly away from the iron.
I retraced her steps with my hand. It wasn’t long ago that my mom and I would sit for hours while she twisted my hair into a labyrinth of braids, decorating the ends with multi-colored beads. Then after elementary school, my friends and I started wearing our hair down, even though it took more effort to make my hair flow like the other girls.
From Sell Out. Copyright © 2010 by Ebony Wilkins. All rights reserved.
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