Jacket
John has a jacket so white, so puffy that when he puts it on, he looks like the Michelin man. I never let him know how much I hate it because when a man takes something like that to get cleaned at the dry cleaner’s, you know he’s in love with it. The night before Halloween, as we’re lying in a park, we’re pelted with eggs by a car full of reckless, poorly dressed teenage boys. The slippery, abandoned egg whites slide down the slope of his jacket that he covered me with minutes before this happened. John scoops up the yolks, cradles them in his hands. He strokes his jacket, cleans what he can in a water fountain nearby. Later, he touches my body with those same fleshy palms, one hand pressed flat against my cheek like it is a door slammed shut. He locks it as he lays his coat over me again, sighing.
Zipper
Maddy corners me in the cafeteria in seventh grade. She tells me, “Sometimes I dream that there’s a zipper in my back so I can slip out of my body like it’s nothing.” She points down to her brown skin, digs her fingers into it, trying to locate the bronze teeth along her spine. “I have always wanted to be white.” I try to tell her that she is one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen, which is true, but she doesn’t listen. She prints out the articles on Michael Jackson’s bleaching rumors and pastes them into her binder. I find myself wishing that I could peel off the white of my arms and drape it over her to keep her warm, too.
Dress
Mother makes worship flags for church in every color, but she is very specific about which colors she puts together. “They all mean something different,” she says, the light of the sewing machine reflecting in her glasses. “Purple means majesty, green means new life, and white means purity. That’s part of the reason why brides get married in white.”
I ask her, “What if I don’t want to get married in white?”
“There’s no reason you shouldn’t unless you can’t. And, in that case, you still do.”
I pray to God to shield me in a white wedding dress. Do not let anyone see me until the jacket is tucked cocoon-like around my body, until every way I’ve ever lived is unblemished – shame like two rows of zipper teeth conjoined as they thrust out from underneath skin.