Emotional Decorum

CHAPTER FOUR

Viyora left for Dallas on a Tuesday morning. It wasn’t like every other Tuesday morning. The weather was bright and the streets were busy. All the sidewalks were busted with people heading to unknown destinations. Viyora was trying not to get on her mom’s bad side, so she wore a dress Catherine bought her last fall when she visited and told Viyora it wouldn’t have bothered her if she came out a boy because she clearly wasn’t a girl. That was the problem. She wasn’t wrong.

Wearing dresses wasn’t really Viyora’s ideal look. She would kill for a denim jean and a two times extra-large polo any day, any weather. Even her brothers had a better sense of fashion than her. Catherine once blamed her lack of employment on her general view of life. “You can’t just not do nothing and expect to have something; you are addressed the way you dress.

Only unstable men go for a woman who isn’t even convinced about what they think of themselves and only companies in need of a truck-driver accept women in the position where you have placed yourself Viyora!” Viyora hated how her Mom was right about things that happened to her. It was as if she monitored her life, but she was guessing and Viyola is always out of luck.

And this wasn’t even a lie because, Viyora remembers now when she had received an email from a company that told her that the courier and logistics team was more than willing to employ her since the company had been in deep need of a truck driver. This didn’t resonate well with her because she had never told her mom this story.

As a teenager, Viyora dressed to school severely in her brothers’ clothes. There were rumors that she and Klein were lesbians because, while Klein dressed a she, Viyora dressed a He. This rumor held water when a video of Klein kissing Viyora on the lips was anonymously released. This wasn’t an issue for Viyora, she wasn’t a by-s****l, but Klein is goofy and carried her along all the way. The rumors reduced because they moved in together.

Putting all these odds into consideration, Viyora pulled this blue corporate slitted dress out of her closet with so much indignation. She stood in front of the broken seven-year-old mirror that lay in her room, pleading her indulgence. What she saw satisfied her. Her blond hair had added a few inches despite being neglected. She was healthy and that was all that mattered to her. Her nails were outgrown but they seemed nice.

The color of her eyes made the dress look like it was her skin, her eyes were bright blue like the sky in the early afternoon. When she cried she looked like the ocean. Her thin lips were cracked because she never wear gloss. She preferred to bite her lips at the slightest emotional spa; rk. Her neck was bare but she felt the dress had said too much already, she wore very small white earrings that almost looked like they weren’t there,

She forced her hair into a bun without combing it, she hadn’t combed or washed her hair in a month, it was so tangled and itched her every now and then. She used an elastic band to force it up into a bun, folding it all up so it wasn’t obvious. Slipped her leg into one of the white block heels she had looted from Klein after college. Snatched her bag from the book stand and headed for the train station.

As soon as she sat on the train, she tore a sheet of paper from her diary and stuffed it into her shoes. Cushed out as it didn’t help, she tore two more sheets. Bitting furiously at her lower lip, she dug furiously at the shoe. She had to walk bare foot down the station because it made her walk amiss. She had expected her shoe size would be the same as Klein’s, so she didn’t even bother testing them to make sure they fit. She had looted so many other things from Klein that fit her properly, so this had to be a mistake.

Viyora was devasted and disorganized? How was she going to walk down to the coffee shop when the train stopped? She ducked and hissed, contemplated calling her Mom to come pick her up, but that would be asking too much and she didn’t want to be nagged at. She wasn’t sure what to expect in Dallas. Her dad would probably suggest she stays in Dallas or go stay with any of her brothers. But that wouldn’t be good advice for someone turning thirty in a few months.

Her mom would suggest she stay in Dallas and get a government job, something Viyora detested so much. She wanted to stay as far away from home as possible because that was her only shot at freedom. She thought about getting footwear from the station mart, Dallas can’t be that bad. She wasn’t going for an interview, so why was she trying not to upset her Mom?

She had skipped breakfast hoping to grab coffee when the train stopped. When she had made attempts to force-fit the shoe and it failed her, she decided she was going to walk regardless. Picking up her phone, she rang Klein. She wasn’t picking after two rings so she texted Klein, but Klein wasn’t online, which only meant she was in on a plane. They had a rule to not call more than twice or text more than once.

She was anxious about Dallas, hoping her mom wasn’t throwing a party for her; thoughts of losing out on Texas scared her. The magazine wasn’t helping, she didn’t even know what the train looked like, and she was oblivious of her surroundings. She could easily be kidnapped. Looking up from the magazine she decided to observe her environment. There he was sitting right next to her.