“You’ve changed,” Ming says, her way of greeting me when I go into the kitchen for a quick bite before I leave the apartment.
I dip the youtiao my mother fried into the savory congee. Using my chopsticks, I pick up bits of pickled radish, taking my time with my breakfast before I acknowledge my sister’s existence. I was eating before I hung out with Maia and Ainsley so that I didn’t have to pay for obscenely-priced meals. This week, I only had enough money for one expensive item of clothing and I was doing my best not to get more than that. Knowing my friends, they would try to cajole me into buying more, which I wasn’t looking forward to.
“I’m the same,” I say, after swallowing my food.
“No, you’re not. You wear makeup and you dress differently. You act weird too, like you think you’re better than me.”
My eyes narrow at her accusatory tone. “I don’t think I’m better than anyone.”
“You think you’re better than me.”
I take in her messy bed head and rumpled flannel pajamas. Across the table, I smell her morning breath and a faint mustiness.
Ming’s bad hygiene wasn’t entirely her fault. Our father had a rule where we could only bathe once a week so we didn’t run up the water bill. Rui tried to break the rule a few times, but our father blocked the bathroom and yelled at the three of us in retaliation.
“Don’t you know how hard we work to keep you alive? You cannot imagine the things we have sacrificed for you. Can’t you do this one thing for the family?”
I manage to find my way around the rule by using the showers next to the locker rooms after gym class and carrying around a floral body spray. Rui smears copious amounts of deodorant under his armpits and occasionally also wears odious cologne.
But Ming didn’t care in the same way. She would go two weeks without showering, not minding whose nose she offended. It was a miracle that our parents couldn’t smell it. Our mother said it was because of Ming’s laziness she stayed in the same clothes for days or even weeks.
“You don’t get it,” I say to my sister. “I have to be this way. People treat me better if I look nicer.” And smell nicer too.
For a moment, her eyes soften and I think she understands me.
“You look like a priss,” she says snidely, spooning the congee into her mouth.
“I look like a girl,” I shot back, getting up from the table.
I check my appearance before I finally leave the house, making sure my Cartier bracelet, Swarovski necklace, and faux Chanel bag are on display. Like before, I was anxious about Ainsley or Maia finding out about my fake designer accessories. But this time, I feel less afraid. Ainsley already caught me once, but she didn’t doubt my family’s ability to pay for the real thing. She may even admire me for carrying a fake instead so I wouldn’t lose the real bag, but I didn’t dare think that far.
The three of us meet at yet another French cafe on the Upper East Side. I’m late, as usual, commuting all the way from the bottom of Manhattan, but I breeze in as if I’ve just come from next door, committed to the ruse.
I sit down just as three iced drinks are placed on the table, the girls’ antidote to an unusually hot May. Ainsley thanks the waitress for our drinks, elegantly sipping her iced Americano. Maia sucks down her chai latte greedily, sweating in her hijab. I unwrap the straw, plopping it in the middle of my cold milk tea.
“Look who finally decided to show up,” Ainsley says. “Would it kill you to be on time?”
“Give her a break,” Maia interjects. “It takes time to look good. She’s even started carrying bags. Is that Chanel?”
I hold it up for her inspection. Her fingers run over the quilted leather appreciatively.
“You’re developing good taste. This bag is a classic. I have the gold and silver chain versions somewhere in my closet.”
Ainsley rolls her eyes at her best friend’s not-so-subtle bragging. “And yet you never wear it.”
“It's not my fault that I like Louis Vuitton better.” Maia hugs her monogrammed designer bag for dramatic effect.
I relax into my chair, seeing that neither girl knows that I’m carrying a fake. We were gathered at the cafe to do what my friends did best: shopping. The occasion? The end-of-the-year sophomore bash.
Ordinarily, school social events interested none of us. Why would my friends gather around a rented event space when they could host a party that was a dozen times better in their own mansions? And why would I go out of my way to pay for a ticket when I could easily spend the money on something else?
Anyone who attended the bash would get five points added to their elective grade. In a school full of rich kids who cared way too much about their grades, that was enough of an incentive to buy a ticket. If I wanted to be seen as one of them, I had to fall in line.
It was stupid. I didn’t need the five points. With the way my grades stood, I would remain in the top ten ranking even if the whole school went to the bash. But then I think about the girl ranked just one spot above me and suddenly everything I did wasn’t enough.
So here I was, wandering around a stuffy boutique for a pretty dress to have an edge over a girl I was worth nothing to.
Maybe my sister was right. I did change, but not in the sinister way she implied. What happened to me was what happened to all animals when placed in a new environment. I adapted to survive among the rich, snobby students of Two Bridges, blending in with a camouflage of posh designer goods. I learned to be mysterious and reveal little of my family background which was a habit children of the wealthiest families exercised. If my peers knew I was a scholarship student, I would be lonelier than I was during the months after Natalie left me.
Humans are social animals. Shopping is nothing to me without my friends helping me try on clothes, fastening dresses behind flimsy curtains, and strutting in front of the changing room mirror like a model. I remember thinking I could spend the rest of my years in high school alone. And even though I live a lie among my closest friends, I’m the happiest I’ve been in years.
Maia and Ainsley were my best camouflage in Two Bridges’ social hierarchy. They came from well-respected families, the kind that would never let their children mix with poor people. Maia’s father even has a Wikipedia page because of his influence on the palm oil and rubber industries. Their constant presence gives me status, the same way my knockoff Chanel looks real when I’m next to Maia’s Louis Vuitton and Ainsley’s Birkin.
So of course I didn’t protest when they told me what color dress to buy. It didn’t matter that I thought white was an impractical color or that I would dread the effort of scrubbing the stains out of the silk fabric. I was one of them in my ivory A-line dress.
“We should get accessories to match,” Maia says. “How about some earrings for the bash? We could have studs with our birthstones.”
I shake my head. “It’s a sophomore dance, not prom. We’re literally doing this for extra credit.”
“You don’t need any more jewelry,” Ainsley agrees. “But I won’t say no to a pair of shoes. Jimmy Choo, anyone?”
I pretend to consider it for a moment. “I’ll pass.”
“Is your mother still stingy with your allowance? She should know that you won’t be young and pretty forever.”
“She has old-fashioned ideas about what being ladylike means.” I pull the dress out of the shopping bag. “She would hate that this doesn’t cover my shoulders.”
This was true. My mother also didn’t believe in being flashy or showing off for no good reason. Maia’s entire outfit would give her a heart attack.
But it was more than an aversion to the gauche that controlled how my mother, and consequently, how my sister and I looked. For as long as I’ve been alive, my mother seemed allergic to looking feminine. She avoided tight-fitting clothes and shied away from skirts and dresses. The entire family wore baggy, comfortable clothes. Maybe it was a habit she couldn’t shake growing up in communist China or being the only daughter in a family of sons.
Either way, if she knew what I was really spending my money on, she would find everything to be a needless expense.
“I wish your mother loved you more,” Maia says sympathetically.
Me too. “She loves me enough.”
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