Free The Vinyl Princess by Yvonne Prinz Page B

schoolgirl.
    I point to the general area of Kit’s chest. “What’s with the bodacious ta-tas?” I ask.
    “Inserts. They’re part of the disguise.”
    “You look a little top-heavy.”
    “You think so? Should I go smaller?”
    “Maybe a little.”
    Kit disappears into her bedroom and comes back slightly smaller.
    “Better,” I say.
    The plan is to arrive after the band has started playing, try to find a table in the back of the club where it’s darker and stay only until after the first break. Kit is convinced that if Niles is cheating on her, the girl will certainly be there tonight. She checked his phone again yesterday and there were two more calls to this Chelsea person. The 415 area code is San Francisco, so she definitely lives in the city.
    The club where Niles is playing is in the Mission District of San Francisco, so we walk the four blocks to the BART station to catch the train into the city, Kit comfortable in her oxfords and me tottering awkwardly behind her in my heels.
    “Wait up! Why do you get to wear the comfortable shoes, anyway?”
    “Sorry. Those boots are the only thing I could find in your size.”
    Kit has tiny feet. Her shoes look like Christmas tree ornaments. Mine are a size nine. My shoes look like commuter ferries.
    On College Avenue we pass a guy pushing a shopping cart with a pit bull puppy in it. He stops to get a load of us.
    “Evening, ladies,” he says, removing his baseball cap and nodding.
    We ignore him and keep walking. By the time we reach the BART station my wig is really starting to itch and I’m overheating. I can feel my makeup melting and I can’t stop scratching my face. When we finally get on the train and find a seat, my makeup needs an overhaul. Kit pulls out a Ziploc bag of makeup first aid from her purse and touches me up while the other passengers look on, amused.
    We get off at the Mission and Twenty-fourth BART stop. The club is called Boom Box. It’s on Mission and Twenty-second. This isn’t exactly a safe neighborhood, especially not on a Saturday night, and especially not if you look like a couple of working girls. There’s a lot of nasty, gang-related crime that happens here. Laz once saw a drive-by shooting happen right in front of him in broad daylight in this very neighborhood. We walk briskly up Mission Street, away from the station. I try not to twist an ankle walking in the boots. That would definitely slow us down.
    Part two of Kit’s elaborate plan is that she’ll go in the front door of the club with her fake ID and then she’ll let me in the back door, because I don’t have ID. She knows the club; she’s been there before and she’s assured me that it will be a breeze. Maneuvers of this nature, in my experience, are never “a breeze.” Being the music lover that I am, I have suffered the humiliation of being told No, Tito, the doorman who’s cool with me, is not working tonight , or No, my name is not on the list as was promised to me by a Bob’s customer , or No, that is definitely not me in the photo .
    I leave Kit at the front door and scamper down the alley to the back of the building, carefully avoiding broken glass, puddles of I don’t want to know what, piles of garbage, a sleeping homeless person and a vast assortment of used condoms and needles. I stand next to a Dumpster just outside the rotting back door of the club, jumping up and down to the pounding bass of the music in an attempt to avoid having to address the raw fear that’s creeping into my bones. My mom thinks I’m at the movies with Kit, and how I wish I were. If I’m raped and left for dead in this alley with no ID, will they know at the morgue to take off my makeup and my wig so that someone can identify me? I picture myself lying on a slab with a Jane Doe tag attached to my big toe. But that’s assuming I even make it to the morgue. What if my lifeless body is dumped into the Dumpster I’m standing next to, left to rot until some Dumpster diver finds