Chapter 4: Champions
On a Thursday night, halfway through the semester, I was sitting at my desk, shuffling my feet against the floor, trying to work my way through John Stuart Mill, for a class in Philosophy, and Kira was lying on her bed, reading a "Roots of Judaism" text for one of her Theology courses. Something had been bothering me all day, and I was finally able to find the words to express it to Kira.
"Hon, can I ask you a question, and have you give me your best impartial answer?" I said.
"Uh huh," Kira answered absently, absorbed in the thick book.
"Well, do you think that I could ever be 'good looking?' I mean, I know I could never be beautiful or anything like that, but do you think that, maybe with, like an extreme make over or something, I could be, uh, maybe not too ugly?'" Kira looked up at me, over the lenses of her reading glasses, something that I always thought looked cute.
"Rachel, honey, I think you're already beautiful..." Kira ventured.
"I know baby, and I love you beyond life for it, but you're not being impartial, and that's what I really need here," I said. "Could I ever be pretty, or good looking, or cute, or, not gross if, say, people taught me to do stuff to look better?" There were tears in my eyes already, and I had a feeling that this was going to be harder for me to discuss than I had expected.
"C'mere baby, Kira said, patting the mattress next to where she was stretched out, her upper body resting against the headboard, her panties-covered bottom and bare legs and feet resting on the mattress. She was wearing a tee shirt with "Cheerleader Squad" in green silk-screened on it, no bra, her hair hanging loose, and a pair of white athletic socks, and of course, her panties had kittens on them, this being Thursday. Kira was sometimes a slave to habit.
I got up and padded over to her, I was a little more formally dressed, wearing cutoffs and an old golf shirt of my father's, that I'd rescued when my mother got around to throwing out his clothes sometime after his death, and my fuzzy cat slippers that I thought were cute, but at which Kira rolled her eyes, something I thought was perhaps just a tiny bit hypocritical, given her 'animals on the panties' issues, and her own fuzzy bunny slippers.
I sat down next to her, and Kira put her arms around me and hugged me, her fingers stroking my long brown hair. I never needed a hug so badly as then, and I felt so warm and safe in her arms there. Of course, that just made me start crying for real, then. Kira held me, and just made quiet little "shshsh" sounds, and rocked me back and forth. The smell and warmth of her hair was comforting to me, and reminded me of the few times I could remember when my mother was a mother, and hadn't been actively trying to fuck with my head.
I kind of cried myself out, and looked at Kira, and I said, "I'll bet I look REAL attractive now, huh?" And Kira said, "My impartial answer is, 'You've looked better.'" I started giggling and said, "This is my serious heartfelt problem for the day, and YOU'RE making me giggle?" I tried to look outraged, but didn't have much luck.
"Okay, seriously Rachel, you really ARE good looking, that's my impartial answer. And the feminist, empowering answer is that looks are a man-generated non issue, and that looks aren't important. But I understand that you want to demonstrate to yourself somehow that you're good looking, at least that's what I THINK you want." Kira looked at me uncertainly, and I slowly nodded my head, as I looked deeply into her soft blue eyes. My fingers nervously flattened the wrinkles in the sheet next to me.
"Yeah, that kind of sounds like it. I'd just like to BELIEVE that I'm not ugly," I said, tears welling up again. I rubbed my eyes to clear them, and sniffled, then looked at Kira.
"Do you think that you'll EVER believe you're good looking?" Kira said, "given what your mother did to you?" She pulled a tissue from the tissue box on her side of the bed, and handed it to me. I dabbed at my eyes and nose. "Think about it. You wonder if you could ever be considered 'good looking,' but you keep defaulting to 'not ugly.' And the longer you talk about your looks, the lower your self-assessment becomes."
"I didn't notice that," I said, mulling over her words. "But I think that I can." A brief smile flashed over my face, and then was gone, like a passing butterfly.
"Well then, it's for sure that you're not going to believe that I can be impartial about your looks," Kira said, thoughtfully, her hand over mine. "And I don't think that you could be impartial about your looks either. So, maybe if somebody else said you were 'attractive,' 'cute,' whatever, then you'd have to believe them, right?" Her eyes remained steady on mine.
"Yeah, I guess so," I said. "But none of our friends would tell us the truth if they thought it would hurt either of us, and strangers would just think I was crazy if I asked them." We both sat there for a while, my fingers absently stroking Kira's bare thigh, so smooth and tan. Kira seemingly went back to reading her Theology text, and had perused a paragraph or two of it, when she suddenly slammed the book shut, making a loud CRACK!, and startling me.
"I know!" Kira said. "The Winter Festival, just before Christmas break. There's always a contest to elect 'Santa's Helpers.' It's supposed to be a charitable thing to raise money, but it ends up being a beauty contest, at least for the girls. The guys usually end up electing a dog, or a wacky celebrity or something as the male Santa's Helpers."
"A dog?" I said.
