Sliver of Truth by Unger Lisa

Author:Unger, Lisa [Unger, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Shaye Areheart Books
Published: 2011-10-16T09:23:55+00:00

11

I’ve always been attractive—not hot, not gorgeous, but pretty enough to get along, not so beautiful as to attract undue attention. Weirdly, I’ve always been grateful for this. I was never one to wish I looked like the girls in the Victoria’s Secret catalog, with their jutting bones and vamping eyes, or the models on magazine covers, with their airbrushed beauty. I never primped or starved or strutted for male attention—attempts I’ve always found to be somewhat sad and desperate in other women. My mother always said, “You are the one to do the choosing, dear. Not the one who waits to be chosen.” She knew something that most women don’t seem to know anymore, that an awareness of your own worth is the most attractive quality in the world. That a woman centered and secure in her own power need never starve herself or subject herself to self-mutilating surgeries, may not even choose to hide her grays. She’ll always have the kind of beauty that age and changing fads can’t touch.

My mother also said, “If you do things to cheapen yourself, men will think they can have you cheaply and then discard you.” These things included dyeing my hair, getting a henna tattoo, wearing midriff tops and fishnet stockings. Even when I resented these restrictions, even as I railed against them, I think I heard the truth in what she was saying. I was thinking about this because of the leering glances I drew on the street with my new platinum-blond hair peeking out of my cap. I wasn’t used to being leered at on the street, really. I mean, this is New York, and there’s always some lowlife catcalling or making a disgusting noise as you pass. But the most I might get from the average man is a quick glance or a smile. As I walked up Broadway toward the subway, men stared at me with odd looks and disrespectful grins. I walked faster and had to keep myself from running my hand through my hair. Was it the blond hair dye? Or was there something about me now that showed my fear and desperation?

I jogged down the stairs into the Times Square station and waited for the 1 or the 9. When a train came, I got on and walked through the cars to find the emptiest one, then sunk into a seat on the far end in the corner and closed my eyes.

I felt someone sit next to me and I scooched over toward the wall, kept my eyes shut.

“It’s an interesting look for you. A little bit Madonna, the Vogue years.”

I opened my eyes. Jake with an amused smile. I didn’t know whether to slap him or hug him. I opted for the latter. He held me tight, as tight as I held him.

“I’m sorry,” he said into my ear with a low whisper. “I’m sorry.”

We got off the train at 191st Street and found a Cuban coffee shop in the bustle of the busy Inwood neighborhood.

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