Free The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst Page B

hair. She wanted, she said, to make her pain tangible, to feel something on the outside. As she lined up the strands of hair on the sheet next to her, she told me, she felt a sense of accomplishment.
    It was on the night of her senior prom that all those months of unhappiness crystallized into a single moment of action, and she actually thought she would kill herself.
    Lexy had two close friends at the time, Brian and Sara. Brian was gay, and Sara had a boyfriend named Jon who was a year older and in college. Since Sara was going to the prom with Jon, it just made sense for Lexy and Brian to go together. Neither of them wanted to miss out. So Sara and Lexy went dress shopping. Sara wanted something black and sexy, as unpromlike as possible. Lexy wanted to be pretty, in spite of herself. She wanted a prom dress. She found something perfect at a vintage clothing store, a pale blue 1950s strapless gown with a spray of pink roses embroidered diagonally across the dress from bodice to hem. She loved the dress, but she was embarrassed about her hair, about the bald spots that showed in between the few wispy tendrils that were left, so the day of the prom, she took a razor and shaved her head. She was pleased with the way it looked; she liked the way her smooth scalp felt when she ran her hands over it. The effect of the bald girl in the satin evening gown was unusual, to say the least, but it made her feel glamorous.
    The prom was not what she thought it would be. People stared at her newly shaven head with open disdain, and she felt lonely dancing with Brian, good friend though he was. She wanted to be one of the girls with boyfriends, handsome in their tuxes, boyfriends who stroked their bare shoulders and whispered in their ears what they would do to them later on. She didn’t even like these boys, there wasn’t a single one she could point to and honestly say she could imagine being with, but she wanted someone who wanted her back. She thought about dancing with a boy who’d become aroused at the press of her body, who’d close his eyes and touch his lips to the top of her head. She wanted the fantasy of romance and feeling grown-up, not her awkward friend Brian whose hands were light and unsure on her arms and whose eyes kept drifting to look at Michael Patterson, the boy he’d had a crush on all spring. She envied Sara, sophisticated in her sheer black dress and heavy eye makeup, who knew she’d be kissing someone and more when the night came to an end. Afterward, they went to a Holiday Inn where they’d arranged a couple of rooms for the night—Lexy’s mom had even agreed to pay her share, knowing nothing was going to happen between her and Brian—and got drunk, the four of them, until Sara and Jon started making out and decided to slip off to their own room, leaving Lexy and Brian alone together.
    “So that was the prom,” Lexy said to Brian, reaching over for the bottle of vodka they’d gotten hold of. She poured some into her glass of orange juice.
    “Yeah,” said Brian. “Kind of a letdown.”
    “Michael looked good,” Lexy said. Brian ducked his head and looked down into his drink. He was still shy about talking about it, even though Lexy had done everything she could to be supportive.
    “Yeah,” he said. “Do you think he and Bethany are having sex right now?”
    “Probably,” Lexy said. “Probably everyone’s having sex with somebody except us.”
    “Yup.” He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes. “Everyone except the bald girl and the homo.”
    “What would you do if Michael were here right now?” Lexy asked.
    “Probably nothing. I’d probably clam up and be afraid to talk to him, as usual.”
    “How drunk are you?” she asked.
    “Pretty drunk.”
    “Let’s pretend I’m Michael.”
    He kept his eyes closed. “I don’t think it’s possible to get that drunk.”
    She swallowed the rest of her drink. “Sure it is,” she said. “Come on. I’ll turn out the light.”
    She