Looking Glass Lies

by Varina Denman

  Nina: dude shanty are you a bible thumper?

  After the bingo night, Graham made it clear that I had been silly to imagine a spark between us at Shanty’s barbecue. He continued to go about business as usual, treating me with professional indifference, as though I was only there to get a job done. When I walked into the office every morning, he nodded his head, smiled his tight-lipped greeting, then shuttered himself behind his office door. I only saw him briefly between clients, and if there was a lull in the schedule, he returned to his desk and worked on files.

  His behavior confused me, but somewhere around Tuesday afternoon I began to get irritated. By Thursday evening, I was borderline angry.

  We took a dinner break before Madam X’s appointment, and after Graham inhaled his sandwich, he got up to hide in his office again.

  “What’s up with you?” I asked.

  He paused in the doorway of the break room, frozen like a wild animal attempting to blend into the surroundings. “Um . . . what?”

  “Why are you avoiding me?”

  “I’m not avoi—” He pressed his fist against his mouth, cutting himself off.

  “Yes, you are, and it started after Shanty’s cookout.”

  He stared at me for three seconds, then leaned against the door frame. “Shanty’s cookout was something else, wasn’t it?”

  I squinted.

  “I mean, all that talk about society’s expectations and all.”

  A ball of tension at the base of my neck melted, and with it, all the hope I hadn’t realized I was nurturing. I nodded. “The discussion got surprisingly deep.”

  “Jason was a little obnoxious.”

  I grunted. “Quite a guy.”

  “He had a point, though. Sex sells, and consequently, it’s everywhere.”

  “That doesn’t make it all right.”

  “Of course not.” He shifted his weight to his other foot and looked down at the floor. “It’s just part of the lie.”

  “The lie?”

  “The lie the world tells men. That they ought to want a certain type of woman. That they deserve that.”

  For the hundredth time, an image of him talking to Mirinda flashed across my brain. I crossed my arms. “And women are lied to as well. We’re told we’re worthless if we don’t look like that.”

  His face contorted. “I wouldn’t say worthless—”

  “That’s the lie, Graham,” I snapped. “Absolutely. That’s the lie.”

  His head slowly bobbed up and down. “You’re right. That’s the lie, but every woman is beautiful in a different way.”

  I smiled as brightly as my mood would allow. “The game was fun, though.”

  “Take a Hike?” He chuckled but his eyes didn’t meet mine. “Where does she come up with these things?”

  “Thanks for”—I shrugged as though my words were indifferent—“helping me not feel so awkward during the game. And for walking in with me in the first place.”

  He returned to his seat at the table and sat down, and I thought he sighed. “Cecily?” He rubbed forcefully at a scratch on the tabletop.

  Instinctively, I leaned back in my chair—away from him—bracing myself for whatever he might say.

  “You’re absolutely right that I’ve been avoiding you, and I apologize for it. I guess I thought I was being subtle.” He smiled the kind of smile a nurse gives a child just before sticking them with an immunization needle. “I enjoyed going with you to the cookout, but I hope I didn’t give you the wrong impression.”

  I lifted my nose half an inch. “The wrong impression?”

  “I just . . . I don’t . . . I’m afraid you may have thought I was—”

  “No.” I swept my hand through my hair. “I didn’t think anything.” Another little lie.

  “Oh, good.” Then I realized how urgently he wanted me to understand.

  To understand he wasn’t interested in me.

  I forced a smile, but my insides became jelly, shimmering and shaking with every tremor from my nerve endings. Graham hadn’t wanted to give me the wrong impression, and now it was obvious he was only doing what any good counselor would do—protecting his client. But I wasn’t his client, and the more I thought about it, the less I wanted to be. Imagine how I would feel if I were to sit down across from him in his office and bare my darkest secrets. I shuddered.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  His eyes held a trace of concern—or maybe it was compassion . . . or empathy—and I regretted my flippant behavior. He reached across the table and gripped my hand, a gesture I now recognized as nothing more than touch therapy, and his eyebrows bunched. “But, Cecily—”

  He was interrupted by the beeping mechanism on the alley door, and for a fraction of a second, he only blinked. Then he seemed to remember it was Thursday night, and that I was supposed to be hidden behind closed doors for the protection of Madam X. As he stood, his chair banged against the counter, and he instinctively reached out a hand to steady it before taking long strides to the door of the break room.

  But he wasn’t fast enough.

  Madam X paused in the doorway and smiled at him, but when she saw me, her expression changed as swiftly as a spring storm, and she visibly withdrew inside herself, a veil of forced indifference falling across her face. She flipped her hair over a shoulder, seeming to dare me to mention her presence to anyone.

  I couldn’t think, or speak, or move. I could only stare at the woman who had always struck me as confident, and try to meld her with the woman Graham had described as wounded.

  But I couldn’t do it.

  Not with Mirinda Ross.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Group text from Shanty: TODAY’S THE DAY!!!!! WOOT!!!

  Nina: oh crap

  On the day of Shanty’s demonstration, Nina and I were far more nervous than she was. We trailed behind her, trying to match her bold strides, but when she stopped directly in front of Victoria’s Secret, we positioned ourselves behind a cosmetic kiosk, practically hiding. We were all for promoting body-shame awareness, but we’d both rather do it in a way that wasn’t so visible.

  “Do you think she’ll really do it?” Nina focused her phone’s camera on Shanty.

  “Knowing Shanty . . . she’ll do it.” But did I really know Shanty all that well after only two weeks?

  My stomach roiled as though I were the one about to strip down in public, and I could only imagine what Shanty was feeling. But she didn’t seem anxious at all. She wore a sweat suit and flip flops, and her long braids were pulled up onto the top of her head, falling down around her ears like a feather duster. She stood near a bench and glanced up and down the mall before kicking off her sandals. She pushed her sweatpants down to the floor and stepped out of them, then removed her zippered sweat jacket and moved away from the bench.

  I had never seen Shanty in a swimsuit, but from the way Al talked I gathered that she wore it often enough in the summertime, and it showed in her stance. She held her head high as she propped a sign near her right knee, and then she slipped a sleep mask over her eyes. She held her hands in front of her with a permanent marker on each palm like some sort of offering, and then she became as still as a statue.

  And she looked . . . lovely.

  How she did it, I don’t know. Someone her size wasn’t supposed to look good in a bikini, especially standing in front of a lingerie shop where they might not even sell lacy items in her size. But Shanty’s skin was flawlessly smooth and lightly chocolate, and her turquoise swimsuit and matching sleep mask accentuated her coloring. Her fingernails were strategically manicured and her toenails were tiny and bright. Even her earrings and necklace added to her put-together look. More than anything, though, her attitude was striking because the smile beneath her blindfold seemed humble, not haughty. I decided there was a lot more to Shanty Espinosa than I had imagined.

  I inhaled deeply, feeling as though I might suffocate, and I noticed Nina’s hands trembling.


  “She’s a crazy one,” Nina said.

  People were walking past Shanty now, some stopping to read the sign, others wrinkling their noses and turning away. A middle-aged man and woman slowed to a stop, then a group of teenagers, then a mother with a stroller, and suddenly a small group had formed, nudging each other as they peered around shoulders, trying to read Shanty’s poster board explanation.

  TODAY I STAND UP FOR WOMEN WHO HAVE EXPERIENCED BODY SHAMING, SO THAT OTHERS MAY BECOME AWARE OF THE PAIN THEY ARE CAUSING. IF YOU’VE EVER BEEN MADE TO FEEL INFERIOR BECAUSE OF YOUR APPEARANCE, JOIN ME IN MY STAND BY WRITING YOUR NAME ON MY BODY. TOGETHER, WE CAN FIGHT THIS BATTLE AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE FOR ALL WOMEN . . . NO MATTER WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE.

  The young mother, who perhaps hadn’t lost all her baby weight, was the first to step forward. She took a marker and quickly wrote her name on Shanty’s shoulder before scurrying away with her stroller.

  The group of teenagers stood in a subdued semicircle to Shanty’s left, close enough that she could probably hear them, feel their presence, instinctively know they were staring at her. One boy scratched his head and looked away, another peered at her from head to toe with a quizzical expression. Two of the girls whispered behind their hands, but another one stomped up to Shanty and grabbed a marker. She walked around her once, seemingly to find the best spot of skin, then she flamboyantly wrote her name. As she walked away, I noticed she’d included her last name too. Her two friends bounced toward Shanty and followed suit, giggling.

  The middle-aged woman still stood in front of Shanty with her husband by her side. She stared at Shanty while a few more people wrote their names or rolled their eyes, and then when there was a lull in activity, she walked slowly up to her, placed a hand on each of her shoulders, and enveloped her in a hug.

  At first Shanty was startled by the touch, but then she smiled broadly and hugged back. Touch therapy. The woman spoke into Shanty’s ear, and Shanty nodded and replied, and I marveled at the way my friend seemed to be sharing her heart, not only with the hugging woman, but with every person who walked by her . . . and she couldn’t even see them. Shanty would never know if she passed them later in the day, or next week, or a year from now, but they would most likely always remember the half-naked woman in the mall and recognize her on sight should they run into her again. Shanty was something else.

  “How does she do it?” Nina whispered the words, more out of envy than awe. “I don’t think I could ever feel good enough about myself to risk everything like that.”

  “No reason to.” My cell phone vibrated, but now wasn’t the time to check it.

  “Yeah, no reason,” Nina mumbled.

  Nina wasn’t Shanty, and I thought she shouldn’t wish to be. Nina needed to be Nina, quiet and thoughtful, not bold and fearless, even though I wouldn’t mind having a little of that too.

  “Oh, look,” she said. “There’s Dr. Harper.”

  Sure enough, Graham was striding toward Shanty with an open-mouthed grin, his face and neck tinged with pink. Apparently he was a little embarrassed to see her half-dressed, and I was glad she was blindfolded so she wouldn’t see his discomfort. He started talking to her, and laughing, when he was still two yards away. Shanty’s face lit up.

  She laughed outright then, and her voice traveled all the way to our hideout. “The good doctor himself? Surely not!” And then I realized the blindfold didn’t matter; she knew Graham well enough to know he would be embarrassed, even if she couldn’t see him blushing.

  They talked for a few minutes, still laughing, but fell into a more serious conversation for the last few moments. Graham signed her arm, then patted her shoulder in a farewell gesture as someone else reached for the marker.

  When he backed up to stand near the bench where Shanty’s clothes lay in a pile, I studied him. He still wore the same jeans and plaid shirt he had worn at the office earlier, but his hair now stood up as though he had run his hands through it. He was so kind to have come. I had only worked with him for a short time, but already I could sense his professional compassion. The man had a gift.

  “What’s he looking for?” Nina asked.

  Graham was turning in a slow circle, searching the crowd. His neck stretched as he peered into the store behind us, but then his gaze refocused, and he froze as his eyes locked with mine.

  He held my gaze, and I held my breath. Neither of us smiled or waved, but as he stared at me, I felt like I could hear his thoughts. I wondered if he was regretting his words from the night before, and I wondered if he was admitting that . . . maybe . . . he had felt something at Shanty’s barbecue after all.

  The longer our eyes locked, the more I wanted to abandon my two friends. I wanted to go with Graham and ask him what he thought about Shanty’s demonstration, tell him my concerns about Nina’s tendency to copycat, pick his brain about my own problems. I wanted to hold his hand and to feel its security, the promise of Graham’s protection. I wanted to get to know him, but even more surprisingly, I wanted him to get to know me. And that’s what scared me.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Group text from Nina: that was kewl ur awesome proud to be ur friend

  Shanty: Al’s gonna have a fit when I tell him this is permanent marker!

  Nina: he’s so crazy about u he wont care

  Cecily: I’m pumped. Feeling inspired to catch up on my homework now. ;)

  By the time we had left the mall an hour later, Shanty was covered with names, messages of encouragement, and doodle art. Among all the skin graffiti, there was only one negative scrawl—but that depended on how you interpreted it. A gray-haired gentleman had studied Shanty for ten minutes before kissing the back of her hand and writing his phone number there.

  Shanty had only laughed when she saw it.

  Now I sat in my car in the mall parking lot, copying the directions for the next journal entry at the top of my spiral notebook.

  Write and tell yourself you are beautiful and amazing. Then tell yourself why.

  I frowned at the words. Moments before, I had been filled with confidence, but now I was alone and felt removed from Shanty’s contagious enthusiasm, and I was trying not to think about Graham. In the mall, he had continued to stare at me until I looked away, and after that Nina had pelted me with questions as we huddled behind the kiosk. When we peeked out again, he had disappeared.

  I underlined two words in my notebook. Beautiful and amazing. For an instant, I pictured Brett wrinkling his nose at my enormous pregnant belly when he thought I wasn’t looking, but I forced the memory from my mind, and I thought about my mother instead, gently telling me I was pretty. I may not have been the most beautiful woman on the planet, but I was all right. Seeing all those people write their names on Shanty’s skin showed me the world is not all bad. The media may have been lying to us, but not everyone believed the lies. The shoppers at the Westgate Mall had proven that to me, so I lowered my head and started writing.

  I can’t say I’m beautiful. Or amazing.

  This wasn’t what I was supposed to be writing. I skipped a line and started over.

  Okay. I suppose if you look close enough, I have a few beautiful characteristics.

  I stared at the sentence, and as I did, a burning sense of shame filled my core, but not shame about my appearance. I felt shame for writing that sentence, for thinking so highly of myself, but that was silly. According to Shanty and Graham and Daddy, I wasn’t supposed to tell myself I was ugly, but when I told myself I wasn’t, I felt as though I were buying into the lies that told me I was supposed to think I was beautiful. I sighed and laid my head against the headrest. Good grief, this was going to have to get easier soon.

  A traveling carnival had parked its numerous trailers in the back of the mall parking lot, and some of the crew members milled around their vehicles or walked toward fast food restaurants. By tomorrow morning, there would be rides set up with sticky children climbing all over them, but I had always been sort of afraid of traveling carnivals with the
ir unsafe rides, unhealthy food, and unpredictable people. I locked my car doors and returned my focus to the notebook.

  I really do have beautiful characteristics.

  At least a little bit beautiful.

  I shut the notebook and gripped the pen in my fist. Those words were wrong, and I could tell it by the shadows in my heart. I was holding the ballpoint pen like a dagger, and I had the urge to stab the point into my thigh. It would feel so good if I did. It would release—no, validate—my thoughts. It would complete them.

  But slowly, my fingers loosened, and I slid the pen into my purse.

  If Shanty was confident enough to stand in the Westgate Mall in her skivvies, surely I was confident enough to believe one positive sentence about myself. Even if it seemed preposterous.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Graham’s list of pros and cons for asking Cecily out on a date (neatly written on the back of an envelope in his truck):

  Pros:

  attractive

  fun

  kind

  crazy about her

  makes me happy

  might make her happy too

  admire her dad

  Cons:

  still emotionally fragile

  could cause rumors

  maybe too soon

  does she even like me?

  I might not be good for her.

  Graham was nervous about talking to Cecily, but he was tired of tiptoeing around and not being honest with her, and it was getting harder and harder to hide his feelings. He had turned onto the Witherspoon’s property as Dub was pulling away from the house, so now their trucks were stopped next to each other, windows down, and Graham was fielding questions.

  “You think she’s doing all right?” Cecily’s father asked.

  “I think so.” Graham wished Dub wouldn’t put him on the spot, but he understood his concern. “She’s trying awful hard.”

  “She seems to enjoy working at your office.”

  “That’s a good sign.” Graham pulled on his earlobe. “Is she home?”