Page 94 of Earth Girls are Easy… To Dominate
INDEPENDENCE ON A STICK
Marilyn Barr
CHAPTER ONE
“Girl, how do you resist the temptation? I would be the size of a house from eating corndogs all day,” Lisa says between bites. Our short break between the lunch and dinner rush is my favorite hour of the weekend. While the North Mall is the best place in the world for people watching, I wouldn’t understand half of what I was seeing without my roommate Lisa.
“Resisting the temptation is easy?—”
“Nope,” she exclaims, putting mustard-coated fingers over my mouth. “Don’t you start with that biblical stuff. Save it for your services tomorrow morning.”
I peel away her hand while giving her a fake laugh. She takes another huge bite of her corndog and dabs ketchup from the corners of her mouth. “I was going to say that it’s easy to resist the temptation when you stand over the fryer all day. Between the stinging splatters, the fumes, and the heat, I may never eat a corndog again.”
“Same with corn chips at Chi-Chi’s. I’ll never look at a bag of chips the same way again.”
“That’s why our arrangement works.” I tap my fork of chimichanga against the stick end of her corndog in a mocktoast. “I get my spicy fix, and you entertain the guys by inhaling a corndog.”
“I do not!”
“Look over there.” I point to the group of guys sitting by the mall fountain. When Lisa turns around, they wave at her. Yeah, she’s the one who captures their attention. The prophet would call this a teachable moment, where I should be grateful my modesty has shielded me from their attention. Somehow, the protection of my church’s mandates wears on my nerves more with each day I grow older.
Lisa’s uniform is a delicate white blouse that hangs off her brown shoulders, paired with a flowing, colorful skirt. She looks like a princess visiting us from south of the border. When I applied to work at Chi-Chi’s with her, the uniform was non-negotiable, so I had to refuse the position because of my beliefs. I make fifty cents less per hour at the corndog stand in the food court, but the manager allows me to wear black pants instead of short shorts. He also doesn’t care that I wear a turtleneck under my polo shirt. The only non-negotiable part is the cone-shaped hat, which luckily, the prophet hasn’t deemed inappropriate…yet.
“Ugh, that’s Roger and his little high school friends,” Lisa grouses with an eyeroll. “We graduated two years ago. You would think he would have made grown-up friends by now. I heard from Jessie, who heard from Molly, that Molly’s little brother’s girlfriend bumped into Roger on the second floor of the teen disco last Saturday. Can you believe it? What a dork.”
I shake my head and shove a forkful of cheesy goodness into my mouth so she will continue her story. Because of my religion, I’ve never set foot inside a disco. Do I regret all those years of resisting Lisa’s begging me to go? While she would probably ditch me in the first five minutes when a guy gave her attention, I yearn to experience what the big deal is with dance clubs.Would it look like the set of a Debbie Gibson video, or would it be more like the set of Solid Gold? If my parents knew that I had glimpsed either of those shows on the TV sets in store windows, they would flip. If they knew I sometimes stole a peek as Lisa watched them in our apartment, they would demand I move back home. They can never know I secretly wish I could dance like that…there’d be an exorcism.
“Come on and walk with me,” Lisa says, pulling me with her as she abruptly stands. “These creeps stole my appetite.”
Eating a Chimichanga with rice and extra cheese in a flimsy paper boat isn’t an easy task to begin with. I’m almost certain to be wearing the thick red sauce if I attempt to eat and walk at the same time, so I toss my lunch into a trash can with a sigh of mourning. I only have three red, white, blue, and yellow striped uniform shirts, and I work five days a week. Since there is always one soaking in Woolite to release the previous day’s grease stains, I only ever have two fresh shirts at a time. And as much as I hate the stiff, smelly shirts, I love what they represent.
My freedom.
“Hello? Earth to Jenny! Are you even listening to me?” I’d missed when Lisa stopped in front of Contempo because of my tizzy about my shirts. “I think Tiffany is behind that potted plant!”
“Oh, Lisa,” I say with a groan. “There would be colored lights, music, and a stage if she were performing in our mall. Just because she’s touring malls across the USA, doesn’t mean she will be in our little town. Nothing ever happens here.”
“Which would give her the best exposure ever!” Lisa shouts, digging through the poor plant’s foliage.
“No lights. No action. No Tiffany,” I reply as I grab her shoulders to keep her from falling into the plant.
“Poo, a girl can hope. Anyway, follow me down this row. I want a second opinion on this dress before I buy it,” Lisa says,looping her arm through my elbow. “Do you think I can pull off neon orange with my skin tone, or should I play it safe and buy the pink one? You know we get paid this Friday, and Johnny is desperate to see me in that.” She points to a pair of dresses in the front window…at least I think they’re supposed to be dresses.
In my opinion, they need stirrup pants beneath their scandalous length. Maybe exposed legs are meant to match the exposed arms, shoulders, and midriff. “Lisa! Those dresses might give Johnny the wrong message?—"
“Or they might give him the right message,” she says with a wink. “I’ve decided to become a modern woman. We already fund our existence like material girls, we might as well collect some of the perks.”
“Perks?”
“Sex,” she whispers in my ear. “We didn’t need marriage to escape our parents’ houses, so we don’t need marriage to seal the deal either.”
“I don’t think that’s what the material girl movement is all about?—”
“Of course it is! Did you see Madonna rolling around on the MTV Music Awards stage? She sang ‘Like a Virgin,’ not ‘Oh My God I’m Still a Virgin.’”
“You know I’m not allowed to watch MTV. I only get to listen to her music because you play it in our place. Maybe consider what Jesus would do. You know WWJD? I think?—”
“This isn’t a WWJD, but a WWMD moment. What would Madonna do? She would get the dress and shop for some fingerless gloves in the same color. Pink or orange?”
