Inappropriation

by Lexi Freiman

  In seconds, Twinkles and Ruth are on their knees, foraging among the dense footwear. Her grandmother holds up a pair of suede zebra-striped clogs. She brings them right up to her face and kisses the toe. A faint revulsion seizes Ziggy as she watches Twinkles fawn over the shoes. Behind her grandmother glitters the sequined menagerie of hanging garments; the patterns pulsing under the dim lights. For a moment it seems living, and Ziggy wonders if this is what the animal print is meant to evoke. Not just sex, but a feeling purely physical. A way for Twinkles to confirm the most basic fact for herself—that she is here. A physical being. Still, amazingly, alive.

  On the car ride home, Ziggy notices her parents are being affectionate. Their demeanor is newly docile with lovingness. When Jeff spontaneously kisses his wife’s hand, the siblings share a fearful glance and, possibly their first, sweeter look of allegiance.

  WHEN ZIGGY GETS HOME, Twinkles’s words again start to work on her. Traumatizing Lance Fairfax into enlightenment makes Ziggy feel like a very unsympathetic girl. Lance could hurt himself or jump out a window. Ziggy has heard of people scratching their skin off and trying to catch butterflies in busy traffic. She texts Tim and asks if he thinks they should abort the mission. But Tim, ever the pragmatist, has a simple solution. His therapist once gave him a pill prescription for insomnia. Apparently, in their quest to take on all the world’s pain, a psychic empath must be well rested. If Lance starts self-harming, they will resort to standard-issue rape drugs.

  While she waits for Tim to arrive, Ziggy checks her email. She has ignored all missives from the formal committee, but now she trawls back through them for important logistical information. A message dated two weeks prior has “amaze news” about a special guest who will be appearing at the after party. Girls with gold wristbands will gain access to the VIP room for autograph-signing between eleven and eleven thirty P.M. Ziggy tries to understand how this is possible. Who has bribed the action star and what he or his junior school daughter might have done to deserve such punishment. The eleven-year-old must be under severe threat of expulsion or else her father owes the club owner a favor for unsavory behavior in a toilet stall. Whatever it is, the outcome is an asset to her plan. Now they have a perfect thirty-minute window for the vomiting to occur, unaided, in a bathroom stall. No girls, not even Lex, will be sympathetic to an ailing Lance Fairfax when the midget Earth defender is on-site. The boys, being boys, will be naturally unsympathetic.

  Tim arrives in his customary white two-piece. Ziggy was coerced into borrowing her grandmother’s cheetah-print shawl, which she is wearing with her mother’s black slip and the zebra-striped clogs. With the camera nesting in her curls, she resembles an African safari. Standing beside her, Tim looks like a European colonialist.

  “The girls will probably be bitchy,” she warns her friend.

  “Do we care about that?” Tim asks genuinely.

  “Of course not.”

  Ziggy takes him downstairs into the living room, where she has emptied Ruth’s basket of indigenous headwear and accessories. She fits a feathered headdress on over the GoPro.

  “I thought we could be shamans.”

  Tim holds up a stick with a taxidermy bat fixed at the top.

  “This feels powerful,” he says of probably the stick, possibly the whole endeavor. “But it’s also cultural appropriation.”

  “Can’t it be homage?”

  “There’s no history of homage; there’s only a history of oppression.”

  “I thought we’d stopped subscribing to history?”

  Tim holds up the bat staff, staring searchingly into its glass bead eyes. “I just don’t see which part of this is funny?”

  “You’re right.” Ziggy begins to remove her headdress. “People might think we go to world music festivals.”

  “Or take acid in the botanical gardens.”

  The thought of psychedelics makes her heart quicken. “Did you bring the Temazepam?”

  Tim taps his breast pocket affirmatively.

  Ziggy is suddenly anxious. Her excitement at being the kind of person who would take spiritual vengeance on Lance Fairfax now rings hollowly for what it is: mere ego-identification. She slips out to her bedroom and the drawer where she keeps potentially incriminating objects hidden from her mother. The shampoo bottle is wedged between a half-empty packet of cigarettes and the DVD of Irréversible. Ziggy pulls the bottle out and stares into the cloudy, purple liquid. She hears Gerhard’s voice: Last week I was Tutankhamen, and imagines Lance walking sideways on the bar top, like an Egyptian. Ziggy’s camera isn’t just an objective observer. The watching has always felt more like a telling, and Ziggy’s deeper wish, she knows, is to tell the story. Lurking in that secret subterranean place where ambition jerks itself off to future goals, Ziggy has wanted to film something good, something paradigm-shattering that also goes viral on YouTube. Something to make her a hundred thousand new friends. She pockets the ayahuasca and walks back out to her accomplice.

  Chapter 13

  Most of Ziggy’s peers are standing in front of the hotel, staging selfies around their limos. Along with the established social categories, Ziggy notices many new subgroups. A tight circle of girls she had previously considered academic boarders now appear to be outing themselves as goths. One subset of smart Asians sport matching semicolon tattoos on their exposed shoulders. Three pretty blond girls Ziggy assumed were B-list Cates have dyed their hair green and pinned political badges to their spaghetti straps. One of the sexy druggie girls has brought a female date. Ziggy is surprised then ashamed to be surprised that the rugby players all have male partners; they stand together, but their outfits are incongruous—united only by broad shoulders and high self-esteem. Ziggy tries to imagine how she and Tim appear to her year group. She managed to convince her friend to wear a belt strung with shells and apple seeds—just for ritualistic flare. Under her mother’s silk dress Ziggy’s body is slippery and elliptical. But she doesn’t feel self-conscious—all around her twitters a peaceful, disinterested coexistence. From their tight insular focus and obvious aesthetic labor it is clear that each group is much more concerned with its own appearance.

  Now a pale pink limo pulls into the curb, electronica soaring from the open windows. Cate Lansell-Jones rises from the flung door like a sulfur cloud, a pale nimbus of lemon tulle with bustle and train. But nobody is paying attention. The mood is more tribal—the usual Cate-worship and self-denigration has been swapped for a stubborn sense of earthly belonging. Still, Cate appears intoxicated by her perfect moment, basking in the imagined awe of her peers. Then Cate’s date steps out beside her, a cute sandy-haired boy in a slick navy suit. Toby is a senior at Randalls and the proud owner of a website that reviews men’s luxury retail. Ziggy has perused it. Toby seems to spend his days penning villanelles about cuff links and posting sexist GIFs from Caddyshack.

  Kate Fairfax shuffles out next, her face a haunted pale. Kate also wears lemon with tulle roses pinned across her décolletage. Like Cate, her dress has the dreamy, scene-stealing grandeur of a wedding gown, but unlike Cate, Kate doesn’t radiate this is my special day. She looks like she’s been crying. Ziggy can only assume Kate has been chastised for the eerie doppelganger effect. Clearly, a year-ten formal is no place for the uncanny. Kate’s date—someone known as Little Matty, a colossal oaf and captain of the senior rugby team—staggers out after her with a Grey Goose bottle tucked under-arm, his slicked quiff floppy with perspiration. Ziggy’s attention now flies to Fliss, bounding around from the other door in a more auspicious shade of chartreuse, arms linked with her boyfriend, Declan Yee, another Randalls senior who has modeled men’s suits in Bangkok and brags about his ADHD: “All the great artists had it—Kerouac, Bukowski, Bono.” It isn’t entirely clear what kind of artistry Declan aspires to. Until last year, he was a state skateboarding champion. Now he deejays sweet sixteens.

  The six of them step onto the red carpet, laid out especially for this night and specifically for this moment. Bathed in the
last crimson grill of sun, they shine like icons inside a moiling sea of apostates.

  “Where’s Lance?” Tim says anxiously.

  Ziggy ushers them closer to the limo. The door is still ajar and she can see two shadowed figures shifting around inside. Their movements are jerky; it looks like a fight. A handbag’s gold chain-strap flies out across the seat and then Lex lurches violently from the door. She wears a sleek, black halter-neck with a devastating side-split. Her hair is drawn into a slick bun. She looks so beautiful, a whimper slips up Ziggy’s throat.

  “Lance,” Tim whispers, eyes gleaming.

  As he steps onto the red carpet, Ziggy watches Lance puff out his chest and then lean into an unconvincingly macho hip-tilt. His eyes dart around; he blinks too frequently, tugs restively on his cravat. There is an avian alertness shifting his body through these awkward gestures of manhood, the absurd accoutrements trapping him in time and oppressing the primal spirit beneath. Ziggy almost pities him, sensing that their trauma victim might already be in some sort of psychic pain.

  TIM AND ZIGGY HAVE BEEN assigned seats in the far west corner of the function room. The formal committee is front and center. On every table sits an arrangement of white calla lilies and a cream-colored gourd. Ziggy recognizes these from Suze’s store. On the prix fixe menu she reads that proceeds from the beet salad will go to AIDS. Whatever that means. The running order appears to leave forty-five minutes for thank-you speeches.

  Once everyone is inside, the lights dim and a loud dance track begins its synthy ascent. Pink and green strobe lights saber through the dark, and a spotlight chases itself around the room. Finally, it lands on the emergency exit door, at which moment the four formal committee cochairs come bursting through, and the beat drops. The girls jump around in a circle, holding hands, their little orb contracting and expanding. Then the whole grade is bouncing and grinding at their tables. Even the goths. Even Tessa and her high-brow boyfriend.

  I feel so close to you right now—

  Lance jumps in place with the other boys—arms extended, pumping what looks like the heil in triple time. Ziggy has seen videos for EDM festivals in dark European woods where pastel-colored hordes heil in mindless ecstasy. The way this music unites people through crafted moments of mass emotion feels, to Ziggy, very Third Reich. Tim agrees, giving his ambiguous frowning smile. Even Ziggy is now finding it difficult to know which Nazi jokes are actually funny.

  When the song ends, everyone finds their seats. Ziggy and Tim share their table with the dregs of Kandara’s society. To Ziggy’s right is Cyndi Yang, to her left, Patricia Katsatouris. Vivian Levy, the violin prodigy with the neck hair, sits beside a tiny boy who turtles out of an oversized suit. There are some other plain-faced, bespectacled girls with careful gazes. The Latin electives. These are the girls who always scuttle away from the GoPro, and tonight, Ziggy can tell they are annoyed to be sharing a table with the camera. But now she is on their side. Ziggy doesn’t want them to be self-conscious. She wants them to cure AIDS and invent sustainable technologies and find a two-state solution.

  “Hey, Patricia,” says Ziggy. “Remember when Dr. LeStrange said all Randalls boys were lazy and couldn’t spell?”

  Patricia giggles. Her date’s laughter is booming.

  “I’m at Boys Grammar,” says the massive, hairy man. He puts out a hand. “Brian.”

  “Ziggy, and this is Tim.”

  “I also go to a public school,” Tim says proudly.

  Everyone at their table is grinning. None of these boys are Randalls. In fact, there’s a good chance they are mostly government schooled. Now the tiny boy in the bulky blazer tells them that Randalls’s academic ranking has been sliding steadily for years.

  “Ever since the rugby rape scandal,” he explains, “they lost some funding and couldn’t give out as many scholarships.”

  “I heard it was the new building,” says Ziggy. “Apparently the views are very distracting.”

  Brian nods. “And there was that incident with the female history teacher.”

  “They had that creepy choirmaster.”

  Patricia stabs her filet mignon with a heavy fork. “I heard too many boys had started taking drama.”

  Everyone chuckles with what Ziggy finds a touching solidarity. Sure, Patricia has made a gay joke, but it is for a higher cause. Ziggy winks at Tim and he smiles back. Their goal tonight is conscious transformation. If in the process of its attainment, a few private school boys must be conceptually sodomized, so be it. Ziggy looks around at this clever, hairy, mysterious table of girls. If they are not driven to achieve perfect beauty or fame, their inner workings suddenly strike her as much more interesting. She feels foolish for having never bothered to inquire, and then sad that these girls are not her friends. That they are not a tight-knit group devoted to their own mental and spiritual betterment. Watching the girls laugh and chatter, Ziggy zooms in hungrily on their little ecosystem—so bravely poised. Then she remembers the imminent poisoning and their faces seem to recede. A great gap yawns open between Ziggy and her tablemates. From across the cloth’s creamy expanse, the girls continue their evening at an infinite remove. Ziggy feels pulled in the wrong direction, inward to a dark, apocalyptic tundra.

  “Are you okay?” Tim is tapping her hand.

  But Ziggy can’t explain this to him. That what she wants more than anything is a girlfriend to go to the bathroom with.

  “I’m just nervous about our plan,” she says.

  Tim looks concerned. “We don’t have to do it if you’d rather just be social.”

  Ziggy had never considered this an option until now. The formal was an evening specifically designed to define your difference, your special inner sense of unique chosenness. This was the night you came out as fundamentally incompatible with everyone else in your grade. The night you expressed your way of being and set about defending it for the rest of your life. But it seems now that the night is more about closeness, though Ziggy has no one to be close to. She has alienated herself from everyone but Tim. She smiles gratefully at her friend.

  “It’s okay,” she says. “I’ll just have a shot at the after party.”

  After dinner, Tim takes a long time returning from the bathroom. Ziggy fears he has run into the ethereal Swedish exchange student. When the progressive Northern European arrived late last semester, Ziggy wondered if she might have a new ally. But on her second day, Kristiana told Ziggy point-blank that her camera was a violation of personal privacy, and when Ziggy cried “transhumanism” (weakly), the girl shook her head with such moral superiority and corn-silk-blond hair that Ziggy felt compelled to make the GoPro an ethnic statement. She told Kristiana that the camera was like a religious head scarf. Or the little black box Hasids wore on the tops of their heads. She explained that Australia was not a secular country, and if Kristiana wanted to be surrounded by godless people with white hair, she should return to Sweden. The girl had backed away from Ziggy as if retreating from a rough beast. She suspects the Scandinavian has been petitioning against her ever since.

  But when Ziggy finds Tim, he is holed up outside the men’s bathroom, not by the humorless snow angel, but by an enemy much more dangerous. Tessa is pointing to Tim’s silver glove, speaking animatedly as Eamon listens in. Ziggy can guess what has happened. Tessa must have charged Tim with pseudo-transhumanism, and when Tim explained that the glove was a tribute to transcendent Michael Jackson, Tessa would have berated him for including a child-molesting, skin-whitening cis-male in the woman-of-color category. But the mood seems too buoyant. The three of them are smiling. Eamon suddenly breaks into a virtuosic moonwalk, which Tim enthusiastically applauds. When Tessa sees Ziggy approaching, she takes a step back from Tim. Though her expression is not entirely unfriendly.

  “Nice shoes,” says Tessa, grinning at the clogs.

  Ziggy detects no sarcasm. “Thanks,” she says tentatively, scanning Tessa’s outfit for a commensurate response. The thespian is wearing a heavy velvet gown with blinding
white neck ruff. Something Ziggy imagines she stole from the school drama department. “I like your frills.”

  “Thank you.” Tessa gives a quick but nontoxic smile.

  Ziggy tries to think why her old friend is even talking to her. She looks at Tim. “Did you tell them why Michael Jackson is transcendent?”

  Tim nods. “They also love Michael.”

  “So he liked to share ice cream cones with children?” Tessa shrugs theatrically. “So what?”

  Eamon gives an indignant headshake. “He was a genius.”

  Ziggy doesn’t understand what is happening. Why Tessa and Eamon have taken such a strong liking to Tim and everything he stands for. Including Ziggy. Why it feels like they are suddenly some kind of little group. Eamon leans in conspiratorially. “Did you see Lance Fairfax accuse the waiter of stealing his Cosmograph Daytona?”

  “What is that?” asks Ziggy.

  “A type of Rolex,” says Tessa. She clutches Eamon’s arm. “Lance bullied him so badly in year nine, he had to see a dietician.”

  “I used to be tubby.”

  Ziggy is stunned. She wonders what worked, the bullying or the diet. “We hate Lance too,” she tells the thespian couple.

  Tim nods. “He thinks women should be slaves.”

  “Do they still cane boys at Randalls?” Tessa asks hopefully.

  Eamon shakes his head. “Plus, if you caned Lance, he’d probably enjoy it.”

  This is almost a gay joke, but thankfully Tim stays fraternal. “He definitely deserves some kind of punishment.”

  “A serious fucking trauma,” agrees Tessa.

  It happens in a second or rather a moment outside of time: Ziggy experiences the full emotional download of their friendship and leans toward Tessa with no instinct for self-preservation. “We were thinking of inflicting a trauma,” she says giddily. “To make him a better feminist.”

  “Catcalling trauma?”

  “Date-rape trauma.”