Heavy

We need a new guitarist so the singer says we’re going to put up flyers but what she means is we’re going to Hooters. 

“Everyone who works here just wants to be discovered,” she tells me, yells it over the thump thump thump of a Kylie Minogue remix, so much thump it’s unrecognizable. What did Kylie do to deserve this place, is this what she wanted, is this what she pictured when she was starting out, is this what anyone pictures when they’re starting out? 

I am just starting out. I am eighteen. I have black hair. I play the bass.

~

Our waitress has that perfect LA tan, hair the kind of blonde you have to pay for, same nose as the singer. I always thought getting a nose job meant picking out the nose you want but maybe there’s only one option, maybe everyone has to get the same nose. What do I know about plastic surgery? I’m eighteen, what do I know about anything? 

~

I am eighteen. I turned nineteen a couple months ago but they tell me to keep saying I’m eighteen, it’s a better age anyway. The singer is twenty-five but really thirty-six. She has stayed twenty-five for years. How many years will I stay eighteen? 

~

“We’re in a band,” the singer says to the waitress. “We’re looking for someone to join.” 

“Oh cool,” says the waitress, eyes already on the next table. She knows and we know that we will be her worst tippers today. She knows and we know that she wants to be discovered, but not by us. 

“Her tits are way too big,” the singer says to me. “They make her look heavy.”

~

They tell me my tits make me look heavy so we balance them out with bare legs, everything tight around the waist, by losing five more pounds, just to take off what the camera adds. It was hard to get to 115 and harder to get to 110, but even at 110 they tell me my tits make me look heavy. Maybe I should just get surgery they say, make everything smaller. Everyone does it, they tell me. 

~

I have black hair, under the dye it is somewhere between red and blonde but we already have a redhead and a blonde in the band. The redhead is our drummer. She has brown hair and wears a red wig, says that it gets too sweaty and slips when she plays. The blonde is the singer. She bleaches her roots every few weeks, strips out the color so it’s almost white. What color would it be if she stopped doing that? I don’t know, what do I know about anything?  

~

I play bass. Oh, the bass. Five strings and silver glitter paint. The low B shakes the world, rumbles in my chest like a growl. Together we are an animal. 

~

My hair is somewhere between red and blonde and my roommate is cutting the last of the black out, cutting it short to get rid of whatever’s left. 

“You look like Beck,” my roommate tells me. 

I have to look like someone, don’t know how to look like myself anyway.

~

I am twenty-five and I dye my hair black again because weren’t they right, isn’t this better, shouldn’t it be this way, shouldn’t it be anything but what I was born with, isn’t this the way I am supposed to look? 

~

I am eighteen and I dye my hair black. The dye stains the skin behind my ears, turns it gray. My hair soaks in the dye, drinks it in deep so it never fades. It is too dark, like it absorbs the light, looks fake against my skin. The problem is my skin, they tell me. It’s too pink, too pale. We can fix that, they say. 

~

“How old do you think she is?” the singer asks when the waitress leaves. 

“Probably around your age,” I say. 

“You remind me of myself when I was your age,” the singer tells me. 

Maybe that means when she was saying she was eighteen, maybe it means when she was really eighteen. It means she tries to undo her mistakes by keeping me from making them, it means I have rules. Stay single. Don’t get caught in a bar. No cigarettes.

“You can’t smoke,” the singer tells me. “Ever.” 

“I don’t smoke,” I say. “Never have.”

~

I am eighteen and I do not hate the mirror yet but I am learning. I will be better at hating the mirror than at playing bass, it just takes practice. 

Oh, the bass. I play until my fingers feel ragged, until each note is tender, until the strings dig into my skin, until the low B draws blood.

~

“Your top lip is so thin, it almost doesn’t exist,” the singer tells me. “And your eyes are so small. It’d be better if they were bigger.” They tell me I can fix the lip with makeup, with surgery, but we can’t do anything about the eyes, just put shadow on the corners to pretend they are bigger, maybe it will fool people. 

I am thirty-six and I put eyeshadow on but just on the corners to make my eyes look bigger, to fool people but mostly myself. It never works.

~

I am nineteen. I hate how I look with black hair, I hate feeling so heavy, like these 110 pounds are too much to carry. 

I am nineteen but say I’m eighteen. Everyone lies about their age, tells the story they want, knows everyone else is doing the same thing. When I was eighteen it was a rush to tell the truth, like a secret, like the only real thing in LA and they didn’t even know it. But now I’m nineteen, now they’re right, it’s a lie and we’re all liars. Everyone does it, they tell me.

~

I tell the singer I need the bathroom but I keep going out the back door, into the alley where the cooks and the dishwashers smoke. I take a cigarette out of the pack in the bottom of my bag, light it, make myself a liar but at least this one is for me, and anyway smoking helps keep the weight off. So I stand in the alley and smoke with the cooks and the dishwashers, outside the world or maybe back in the real one, where no one is getting discovered. Is this what I pictured, I wonder. Is this what I wanted?