Thin

Chapter 2: Saturday

Chapter 2: SaturdayBeing Black can sometimes suck. Being gay makes life harder. But being thin is the worst. Together, it is a trifecta driving my self-depreciating humour.

“Hello, my name is…stupid.” Or Crazy. People are staring. Shouldn’t be talking out loud.

Hi, my name is Crazy. Pleased to me meet you! I’m just your average worker bee, totally normal, totally sane. Not going to bite your hand off! Rehearing lines in my head, the fear of the encounter with the new hire is mounting. This is my Saturday, my weekend, my day off from work. My job has followed me, hijacking a ride on my brain. New people scare me. Familiar people scare me too. I am on my way to the fabric store without my army of non-similar minded friends to protect me from the horrors I may encounter; horrors such as a casual acquaintance who is prone to barbarous insults at the drop of a hat only because they’ve known me long enough to feel entitled to delivering their uncensored opinions.

What I have to endure for my favourite thing.

Twice a month, on a Saturday, I make my way to East Danforth, a district of Toronto, where I scout the vintage clothing stores, thrift stores, and the fabric dealers for my vice, clothes. I am not after just any clothes but clothes that will fit me, help me find love, and a promotion. Being a normal size would have been an asset, but no! I have to try extra hard to get what I want because the universe has a dark sense of humour and made me narrow! It could have made me plump and perfect like everyone else, but the universe decided that nope, screw it, let’s make a skinny girl and place her in the plane of existence where sumptuous curves are the height of beauty and health and thinness is strange and abnormal. Maybe out in the yawning chasm of intergalactic space there is another dimension where thin is in, not here. What a pipe dream.

Dreams of a paradise full of gangly, waif-like beings are quashed by the smell that is quintessentially Toronto, a miasma of car fumes and warming asphalt. I note that it isn’t as bad as it usually is, probably because of the fall weather.

“Watch it!”

“Ah…! Sorry!” I call out over my shoulder at the man I’d collided into. Come on, Naomi.

I turn down a street. I know where I’m going but despite that I check the signs at the intersections, double and triple checking that I’m at the right location and not down a side street looking for a different definition of a good time.

There it is, there is the fabric store and…Oh no.

I recognize that car, it carries the thing that haunts me in my sleep, the chariot of a devil. The upscale SUV is steel blue in colour, branded with those soccer mom stickers of a mom, dad, two kids and a baby, and then two dogs and two cats, because pets are part of this family too. This particular SUV belongs to one particular person I despise and is parked directly in front of the particular store I desperately long to be in. If fate so allows it, said person will not be in there and I will make it through unscathed.

“Please don’t be inside. Please don’t be inside,” I whisper, a prayer for my safekeeping. I’m lucky the owner chose to park there because there was an open spot and is actually further down the block. Maybe if I’m really lucky someone stole the vehicle, conveniently parked it in front of a place I frequent, and the monster is actually tied up in a dumpster somewhere waiting to go out with the rest of the trash. In all fairness, they are not an absolute monster, but if I had a choice of people I’d like to have infrequent encounters with, suburban soccer moms who don’t know how to keep their opinions to themselves is right up there next to street-corner preachers. I still don’t want to take my chances.

I swoop past the door, racing to the other side where the brick wall and the next building is. Leaning over, I leer, casing out the joint. My nemesis is nowhere to be seen. Coast is clear. I’m going in!

“Hi, May,” I say briskly as I enter the store, beginning my mission of scouting for any fabrics on sale.

The older woman hovering around the checkout takes a few moments before getting in a, “Hi, Naomi.” I can barely hear it as I’m already through half of the store, plunging into the aisles of three metre tall stacks of fabric bolts.

I am looking for yellow tags, the sales stickers. None to be seen here, I push to the back. Even though a discount is what I desire, I have my weaknesses. A plush bolt, perfect scarf material, murmurs to me, to touch it, to play with it.

I succumb to the distraction, fingers tracing through the fake fur, the fibres bouncing back under my touch. I unwind a yard’s worth and toss it around my neck. Without any mirrors, the trusty ol’ smartphone will have to do. What I see does not inspire thoughts of desire and lust. Looking at the phone screen, I am no Barbie. Though I can guarantee I have a better wardrobe than she does.

I’m Naomi. Fashionista extraordinaire! Jacket tailored to fit, pants that amplify my butt, and a tasteful silk shawl that is très chic around my gentle neck. Dressing to impress is my M.O. Because dressing like a slob gets one treated like an outsider, I must do what I can to elevate myself from a size 1 to a perfect 18.

My eyes go back to my phone. I can see another shopper behind me, poking at this and that, assessing her own needs. The woman looks to be a size 16, two sizes small of a super-model 18, the ideal size. She, in her baggy pants and a hoodie, doesn’t have to try as hard to get positive attention.

In the back is a long stretch of hallway, going behind the other aisles. This is where the heavier fabric is. Denim, canvas, tweed, and other weighty materials hang out back here. None are on sale. A faint hooting noise catches my ears. It’s her.

I peer down one of the rows. At the end of the discount aisle, where rolls with less than a yard left live, there is one of the store associates, Rachel, being chatted up by her, the Cecilia. So much for evading her. Cecilia is where I need to be, with the discount items and the table. I contemplate hiding in the back of the store like a coward, but I also don’t want to be stuck here for two hours listening to this self-righteous woman drone on about how productive her crappy side business is and how she is better than everyone else. f**k this woman with a lightning bolt.

Pretending like she isn’t even there, I mosey my way into the discount section and peruse the store’s wares. I laser eye my focus onto each and every swatch with the outward intent of wanting it but the inward intent of not giving Cecilia attention. Given my drive to ignore her, I have failed to notice that I am looking at the see-through sparkly material of made-for-little-girls’-dance-costumes. I side-shuffle towards another selection of like-fabric material and look at those instead. These are mostly trims, generally useless for what I need. What I really want is something with some sheen to it, something expensive.

I turn my head into the centre of the aisle to scout for my choice of fabric, and my gaze meets the brown eyes of Cecilia and her demonstrable, poorly-concealed sneer. s**t.

“Na-o-mi!” The woman’s face lights up, a predator having caught her prey. At least a mouse is capable of flinging themselves under the racks. There is nowhere to escape.

“It’s good to see you!” Cecilia inflects with a shrillness that makes every word that exits her mouth an ice pick to the listener’s ears. “How have you been?”

“Fine—”

“I’ve been doing great and so is my business!” Can’t even get a word in with this one. “The girls are performing in their school recital this year. Two pretty, little angels. I already got their costumes ready, but when I talked to the school, guess what, none of the other moms can sew. Perfect opportunity. I put myself out there and the school is paying me to make all the Christmas costumes. And I was telling Rachel here how sad it is, that the modern-day woman can’t sew. See, I’m smart, and this is why I do my business. People need people with skills like mine.”

Does Cecilia’s masterful skills also include utter obliviousness to how annoying she is? I exchange a sideways glance with Rachel. The look of desperation on her face is so palpable that even the blind could witness it. Save us both.

“I think it’s because a lot of women, they work. Always working, never looking after their kids. Go to a parent-teacher meeting and most have no idea that their kids are behind, not doing their homework. But me, I’m on top of that. Everyone gets proper lunches, their homework is done, they are chaperoned on every field trip, and they are picture-perfect for every play and performance.”

If I think listening to Cecilia is its own special circle in Hell, I can only imagine how the parents who endure her constant henpecking and belittling must feel. Why she leaves her comfy suburban lifestyle to go into downtown Toronto to shop for fabrics, I will never know, all I wish is that she didn’t. I slowly turn towards some silk.

“Always living off of scraps, aren’t you? What are you looking for?” Cecilia purrs, her expression as catty to match. Giving her an answer is giving her ammunition, I engage her as minimally as necessary.

“Just around,” I reply. My hand gravitates towards a nearly empty bolt, the lustre of its silky sheen drawing me towards it.

“Silk? You know that is impossible to clean.”

Boohoo to her. Since I don’t have a rugrats to look after, I have the luxury of buying myself the most inconvenient of fabrics for my own personal tastes. I smile poisonously and tell her that, “I know.”

“Maybe you should try something more durable, something easier to clean. You buy something that is that expensive and one spill, and it’s done for. What a waste of time and money when most people can’t even tell the difference between it and a synthetic. Take it from me, it’s a waste of money.”

“I’d rather buy something nice for myself than something that looks cheap.” Shots fired. Cecilia’s bulbous nose rankles.

Didn’t even have to grab the spool of ribbon on the shelving unit nearby to shut her up. Was considering it since it is the right size that if I plopped it into her mouth it would fit snugly.

I identify a cream-coloured piece of silk fabric and grab it. Behind it, it reveals a beautiful maroon silk. I take that with me too.

Problem. Cecilia has her fabrics in a pile and hasn’t even started cutting, instead standing there yakking away like she owns the place. Table is for handling the fabrics, not using as a soapbox.

“Sorry, can I use that?”

“After I’m finished.” Cecilia waves me off and then turns right back around to Rachel to continue droning her ear off. “So I have been commissioned to do twelve angels and—”

Oh my God! Why!?! Why is she always like this! I am glaring at her, sending her murderous laser stares of death. How can anyone be this self-absorbed and also have children?!

“I need to get home soon. Thank you.” I dump my stuff on the table and start measuring.

“Uh, excuse you. I was using that,” Cecilia remarks, her nose furled as if what I dropped onto the table wasn’t exotic silk but exotic elephant dung.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be quick.” I swiftly dismiss her concerns and begin partitioning out what I need. Use it or lose it, Cecilia.

“I got here first,” she whines. For support, Cecilia turns to Rachel and repeats, “I got here first.”

“She’s not going to take that long. She’s almost done.”

I want to thank Rachel, the beautiful Latina woman that she is, for supporting me in these trying times. She has given me permission to continue measuring and cutting, and to my word, it does not take me that long.

“There, finished,” I announce and grab up my fabrics. I have got what I need and aim to make my way out. May looks over to me from the checkout counter, ready to make the transaction official.

“At least I have a man and kids to look after. Sure, you dress pretty, but underneath that is a selfish, conceited woman who cares only about how she looks.” Cecilia had been holding that one in for a while.

I whip around, lips barely managing to reign in my tongue. Stupid, insufferable woman, I want to scream so many things at her. Instead, I turn to May, swallow my pride, and wait for her to ring in my purchase.

“That will come to $21.66,” May whispers. “How would you like to pay?” The woman is so uncomfortable she barely breathes her words.

“Card,” I snarl, not at her but because of Cecilia. I think May understands.

“Just tap your card to the machine. Would you like a bag?” May engages in small talk, but not today, not after what that b***h Cecilia said.

“No, thank you.” I tap my card and then retrieve a spare reusable shopping bag from my purse.

May aids in depositing the fabric into it. All her movements are stiff. I feel sorry for her that she had to witness that. It’s what we all get for pissing off Cecilia.

“Thank you. Please come again.” May sees me off with a small wave.

As I exit the store I can hear one more jibe from Cecilia, “See, thin people. Ugly on the outside and on the inside too. No wonder no one likes them.”

In one, fell swoop, she knifed my self-esteem and exposed my fragile ego to the world. Everything I do is because I’m small. Fortyish-year-old Cecilia didn’t have to try hard to get a spouse and be accepted as a competent mother and business person. Me, I have to work for it. Every day, never once letting it slip. Complacent and normalized to the point where I don’t think about it, in those rare moments when someone gets through my guard, I can see the world for what it is and why I do what I must.

I will take this silk and turn it into miracles capable of luring men and women alike, and then I will have all she has and more, plus a better personality to boot. I will not only be known as the thin girl, I will be a somebody, just have to work at it and all my dreams will come true.

Confidence renewed, I saunter for the subway and home. Hey, at least in all the nastiness, I got a compliment. Dang right, I do dress good. And unlike most people, my on-again-off-again enemy knows that I made these clothes myself.