Page 7 of Nothing But the Truth

Just another day.

The unjustness of it all suddenly struck Lucy like a gong ringing too loudly to ignore. How dare he infringe on their pleasant morning, on her big day. On her birthday! Compelled by an invisible force that she couldn’t name or even locate, she couldn’t pretend to ignore him anymore.

She pivoted toward his side of the street but didn’t cross, knowing she shouldn’t actually approach him even though the thought of slapping him in the face made her palm twitch with pleasure. She would verbally slap him instead.

“Hey!” she yelled.

“Oh my god, Lucy, what are you doing?” Nina whispered.

She ignored her.

“Hey! Asshole! I’m so sick of having to put up with shit from men like you! We don’t want your attention, we don’t need your attention, and frankly the fact that you think we owe you something is embarrassing. Whatever power you think you have only exists because women keep quiet, but I’m saying shut the hell up and leave us alone!” Her voice rang up and down the street. The people eating egg sandwiches all the way back at the restaurant probably heard her. She didn’t care about that as much as she cared about the shock on the man’s face.

From the looks of it, he wasn’t used to his victims fighting back.

Lucy threw up a middle finger for good measure just as Nina grabbed her arm and dragged her around the corner. They ran half a block like teenagers stealing their parents’ liquor and stomped to a stop outside of a hat boutique.

“Oh my god, Lucy! You are insane,” Nina gushed, unable to fight her smile.

Lucy’s heart hammered in her chest. She felt lighter than air even though she was shaking. How many times had she wanted to do that? She couldn’t even count—which was testament to just how rampant harassment really was. He was only one guy on the street, but she felt like she’d just stuck it to all the men who thought it was their right to solicit women in public. She wanted to jump in the air and do a superhero kick. Pow!

She smiled at Nina and laughed. “That felt amazing. Now let’s get out of here before that guy comes back and murders us.”

—

Lucy jumped in the shower as soon as she was home. She and Nina took an alternate route in case the man on the street did in fact try to follow them, which left her a few minutes behind schedule. But she was fine with those minutes if they spared her life from a psycho killer.

Nina left her with strict instructions to text her after her meeting with Lily Chu and have a great day, and promised she’d see her on the roof at Perch later, ready to celebrate.

After her shower, Lucy dug through her underwear drawer. Her outfit for the day had been picked out two weeks in advance; she’d bought a new dress for Lily Chu. J&J Public had a high standard for dress code. Joanna swanned around in ready-to-wear runway, her Jimmy Choos clicking on the floors like little hammers. Jonathan, Joanna’s brother and the company CEO, set the standard for the men, wearing laser-cut suits and Ferragamos. There was no such thing as casual Friday at J&J.

Lucy had splurged on a Max Mara sheath dress that required shapewear, but she squeezed into Spanx most days of the week anyway. Of course, the Spanx would be tighter thanks to the pleasant fullness in her belly from breakfast, but at least she wouldn’t be counting down the minutes until she could have a handful of almonds for her midmorning snack.

She reached in her drawer and laughed out loud at the sight of her Spanx, suddenly seeing them for what they were: a torture device. The silky beige shorts looked fit for a child, and Lucy was expected to shove her adult body into them like sausage and deal with the tight band limiting her air supply all day and spend an extra minute to peel herself out of them every time she visited the restroom.

“That’s stupid,” she said to no one in particular. Or maybe to everyone, she wasn’t sure. Either way, she decided to skip the shapewear.

She reached next for a lacy thong, and the tiny scrap of fabric suddenly struck her as absurd. Times had long since changed from the trendy neon string peeking out above low-rise jeans, so what was the point? Sure, thongs meant no panty lines, but was it supposed to be a secret that women wore underwear? Because someone, probably a man, decided a visible seam was offensive, she had to walk around with a wedge of fabric stuck up her butt all day? And on that note, weren’t wedgies the ultimate middle school threat for boys?

She suddenly saw it all: a misogynist who’d been bullied in school sought his revenge by convincing society that uncomfortable women’s undergarments were fashionable.

Just to spite the lunacy, Lucy reached for a pair of cotton briefs from her comfortable undies collection—the soft, stretchy ones in fun colors that she wore under sweats and sundresses with flowy skirts. The ones she changed into as soon as she got home from work, when she ditched the shapewear and lacy floss. The ones she sometimes ate ice cream and watched TV in because she was over wearing pants altogether.

Her intimate region thanked her immediately.

She headed back into the bathroom to do her hair. She lined up her tools for the necessary punishment: blow dryer, flatiron, balms, and styling sprays, ready to set to work.

Except it all suddenly seemed as absurd as the uncomfortable underwear.

Left to its own devices, her hair really was fine, albeit a bit poofy on a humid day. Somewhere around puberty, she bought into the need for her first flatiron and clouds of sticky hair spray. She didn’t hit the hard stuff until college, going from box dyes to triple-figure salon visits every five weeks, and she’d been investing in hair maintenance ever since.

She shuddered at the thought of what a decade of being bottle blond cost her.

And why? she wondered as she unplugged the flatiron, whose ceramic plates had begun to chip from overuse. The heat and the chemicals and the time, when she could just embrace what naturally grew out of her head and spare herself the physical and financial damage?

It was her birthday, and maybe that was reason to wear the hair she was born with.

She removed most of the moisture with a gentle blow drying, then ran some smoothing balm through the loose waves. When she finished, she noted, pleasantly, that she was not sweating as she was most mornings from blasting her hair dry then ironing it into shape and effectively undoing the shower she had just taken.

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