Everything Is Fine. by Ann Dee Ellis Read Free Book Online

Holly.
    I get up and say, “Hi Holly.”
    Holly says, “Hi Mazzy.”
    Mrs. Dean smiles.
    So I say, “I don’t usually shop here.”
    Mrs. Dean stops smiling and grabs my arm.
    I do a karate chop in the air and then we go to the dressing room.
OLD VAMPIRES
    “Colby, what if they’re old vampires?”
    “How old?”
    “Like grandmas.”
    “Are they hot?”
    “Pretty hot,” I say.
    “How hot?”
    “Hot.”
    “And they are vampires for sure?” he asks.
    “Yeah.”
    “Liar.”
    “What?” I say.
    “Your story doesn’t work. When you get to be a vampire, you don’t get old.”
    “You don’t?”
    “No, stupid.”
    “Not at all?”
    “No. You become immortal. You don’t age at all.”
    Colby gets up from the sprinkler.
    “Duh,” he says.
    Then he says, “So no. I would not make out with an old vampire.”
DRESSING ROOM
    In the dressing room I try on a jean skirt, three T-shirts, a pair of jeans, a striped thing, and four pairs of shorts.
    “Well,” Mrs. Dean says, “I love them all. How are we going to decide?”
    I’m standing there in my underwear, which is lacy, and my bra, which has oranges in it. Mrs. Dean hasn’t said anything about
     the oranges again.
    “I like the skirt and the T-shirts,” I say. And I don’t really like them all that much but I guess I should get some stuff
     for school.
    “What about this?” She holds up the pink striped thing.
    “No.”
    “Why not? You looked so cute in it.”
    “No. I hate it.”
    And I’m being rude. Mom would say, “Mazzy, don’t give her the satisfaction.”
    But for some reason I can’t help it. Mrs. Dean is on my nerves. She’s acting like she knows me.
    I karate chop at her and she backs against the wall.
    “What was that?” she asks, like I was really going to hit her.
    “What?”
    She looks at me for a while and I don’t care.
    Then she says, “You heard from your dad?”
    I want to karate chop again so I do.
    She sighs and says, “Mazzy, honey, you’re acting like a little kid. You need to act your age.”
    I close my eyes, and we are both standing there and standing there until finally she says, “Well, I’m going to go buy these.
     You get dressed.”
    “All of them?”
    “Yep. Today is your day and I thought you looked great in everything but maybe not these.”
    She puts a pair of shorts on the hook.
    “I liked those.”
    She ignores me and says, “I think your Mom would agree that these are very flattering clothes.”
    I feel something sick in my stomach.
    She’s folding everything and I’m sitting on the bench still in my underwear and oranges.
    “I’ve been wanting to do something for you and Roxie for so long and this turned out to be a fun idea.”
    I pick at the lace on my panties.
    “Don’t you think it was fun?”
    Fun backwards is NUF.
    “NUF,” I want to say, but I don’t. I don’t want to act like a little kid.
    She starts humming again and then says, “Okay, get dressed and I’ll meet you out by the checkout,” and then she’s gone.
    I wonder what my mom would say if she was here.
    I wonder if Mom would like these clothes even a little bit.
    I wonder if I look like Mom at all.
    I look at myself in the mirror.
    Stand up and look at everything: my face, my arms, my stomach, my legs, my butt, my everything.
    This is everything.
    And I don’t look like her.
    I take the oranges out and jump on them so that juice gets all over the floor.
    I smash them and wipe them all over the walls and then someone says, “Hey, what’s going on in there?”
    Some shoes are outside the door — right next to the door — almost in the stall.
    I freeze.
    A knock on the door.
    “Is everything okay?”
    “Yep,” I say.
    The shoes are still there.
    And then they leave.
    I push all the orange leftovers into a pile in the corner of the dressing room and put the shorts we aren’t buying on top
     of them.
    Then I get dressed and leave.
BACK BENDS
    When I get home from yoga with bags from the Gap, I go straight to