“What do you think about this dress? Or this one?”
“Too close,” my little sister Emma says, sounding incredibly bored as she contorts her head to look at the screen. She’s lying on her back in her dorm room in L.A., with a textbook open on her stomach. I have a great view of her newly tightened and neat microlocs and the same poster of the constellations she’s had since she was six on the wall above her dorm bed.
I back away from my tablet so I can get most of both dresses in frame. When she doesn’t have a fast enough answer, I move each one over my body, hoping it’ll help her imagine me in one of them. It works, kinda.
“No,” she says quickly and turns back to her book.
I sigh and drop both arms, glaring at her face on the screen. She’s not even looking at her camera.
“Did you even look at the dresses? Like really?” I whine.
She turns toward the camera, and this angle perfectly accentuates a scar through her left eyebrow from a very unfortunate encounter with a tree branch that I was not involved in whatsoever. She looks at the screen for a few seconds before turning onto her stomach. When she’s right side up, she gives me her full attention. I immediately realize the mistake I’ve made. “You know, if I didn’t know you better than anyone, I’d think you were nervous about this date.”
“I can be nervous,” I say.
“If you’re nervous, then this isn’t a first date.”
“I never said it was.” I’m about to start fidgeting with the hangers in my hands, which would be a dead giveaway that I would love not to talk about this, so I duck out of frame to pick some new dress options. I glance at the digital clock on the reclaimed bedside table by my bed to check how I’m doing on time. Only four hours before the Uber I ordered arrives. I feel like I’m cutting it close.
“I can feel your nerves through my laptop,” Emma says. “Spill.”
I grab another couple of dresses from the dwindling pile of outfits that Emma hasn’t rejected already. I duck back into the frame with a smile on my face. “Okay, which one?”
“Oh! Has my sister caught feelings? I said spill.”
“I like this one,” I say, jiggling the cheetah print dress in my left hand, “because it gives very sexy Fred Flintstone vibes.”
Emma squints in confusion. “Why would that be a goal?”
“But this one is late 2000s white party but like five years after they went out of style and also fast fashion.”
“Are you trying to break up with her tonight or…? Is that what’s happening?”
“No,” I say, much too fast, loud, and emphatically. When it comes to secrets — in particular my secrets — Emma is like a predator. Even thousands of miles away, she can sniff out everything I’m trying to hide from her. Distance and technology cannot save me from my meddling little sister.
“What’s her name?” she demands.
“Nadia,” I whisper.
“And what does Nadia do for a living?” Emma has a way of asking questions where you — me — realize that you don’t have options. We’ve been here so many times before. I can duck and dodge her inquiries all I want, and Emma will maybe let me, but she will always come back to the issue at hand. It might not be tonight, but it will happen, so I might as well tell her what she wants to know now.
“She’s a lawyer, and her husband’s a high school principal.”
Emma’s mouth falls open. There’s a stalemate between us for a few seconds before she jumps up to her knees. She starts jumping on her bed, bouncing her computer up and down. Watching her actually starts to make me queasy, so I dump those dresses on the reject pile and turn back to my bed. One more dress to go.
“Oh shit!” Emma cries.
When I turn back to the tablet, I now have a great view of the popcorn ceiling in Emma’s room. Her face comes into view. She’s smiling and laughing as she pulls her laptop onto the bed again. “So, you found your people, huh?”
“This dress is my Vanity 6 but sluttier fave,” I say in a trembling voice. “But are the sequins too much?”
“Can’t believe that hookup app really worked,” Emma says as if I hadn’t said anything about this dress which cost me more money than any other single item in my wardrobe.
“It’s not a hookup app.”
“For you. I have friends who say otherwise. But now I can’t wait to tell them that there’s something that looks like serious on there as well. How’s the sex?”
I shake my head. “Absolutely not talking about that with you.”
“Since when? Oh my God, you haven’t had sex with them?!”
She’s jumped fully off her bed now to jump up and down on the floor. I can see her just out of eyeshot on the webcam. She turns her laptop. I see her kneeling by the side of her bed, panting. “So, no sex.”
“I didn’t say that,” I screech, finally throwing the last dress onto the bed and grabbing my tablet. I fall onto my back on the pile of dresses and hold my tablet above me. “We’ve had…contact.”
“Very odd to frame it like that, but you do you.”
“We’re taking it slow,” I tell my nosy ass little sister.
“When have you ever taken it slow?” she says. “No slut-shaming.”
“Coulda fooled me.”
“And if you are keeping your legs closed—”
“I’m not,” I whine defensively.
“Then it’s because you really like them. I can tell by the way you’re trying not to smile.”
“I’ve been trying to fuck them!” Wow, I sound like a child.
“But you haven’t. And if you haven’t, it’s because sex with Nadia and her husband— What’s his name?”
“Darren.”
“Ugh, you’re disgustingly happy right now. So anyway, if you haven’t let Nadia and Darren turn you out yet, it’s because they already have, but like…emotionally. And I, personally, love this journey for you.”
“You really don’t have to sound so goddamn smug.”
“I don’t have to do anything but stay Black and die, Miss Ma’am.”
“Please never sound like mom while talking about my sex life ever again in your life.”
Emma giggles. “That’s a reasonable request. So, how long have you been dating Nadia and Darren?” She says Darren’s name as if it’s five syllables. I hate her.
“A few months,” I grind out. Three months and one week today, to be exact.
“And you really like them.”
I can’t even hide this smile. “Yes. But tonight is the night,” I reluctantly admit.
Emma gasps. “And this is why I have to interrogate you. You’re all ‘which dress’ as if this is any old date when you are not setting the mood. The dress you wear to the fair with the dude you met at the club over Labor Day is not the dress you wear to let an experienced married couple make you their whore. No slut-shaming.”
“You definitely need to stop saying that after you slut-shame me.”
“I would never!” There’s a knock on her door, and she turns around. “Come in.”
I can’t see who’s there, but I can see the smile on my sister’s face. My mouth falls open, and I sit up so fast I’m reminded that I hate sit-ups, detest them, they’re the absolute worst. I forget about the sudden pain in my abdomen while I watch my sister talk to someone who has her giggling — GIGGLING — in the middle of the goddamn day.
I need to know who this is. I stand from the bed and move my arms to the right, trying to make Emma’s laptop move as well. I need to see that door. I need to see whoever is standing there, not even flirting with my sister yet making her tongue-tied.
“Who’s that?” I finally ask.
She mutes me. I see her hand move, and no matter how much shit I say to her, she doesn’t react. “Who is she, you whore?” I finally scream just as she unmutes me.
“No slut-shaming?” she asks.
“Depends,” I say. “Who is she?”
“No one.”
“So, we’re lying to each other now?”
She bites her bottom lip, and her eyes shift away. I can see her trying to think of any way out of this, and so, of course, I see when she realizes that there isn’t one. “She’s my new RA. Her name’s Jada. And she has a girlfriend. Are you happy now?”
“And?”
“There’s nothing else to tell!” she screeches.
“No, I mean, so what if she has a girlfriend? Are they looking for a girlfriend?”
“Oh my God, Jourdan. Not everyone is trying to push the limits on a king-sized bed!”
“Because Americans are wasteful.”
She rolls her eyes. “It’s much less fun talking about my nonexistent love life. Wear the white dress. The color says, ‘I’m innocent, are they all that big?’”
I scream.
“But the hem is basically short enough to show all your goods, and I think we both know what that says.”
“No,” I laugh, “why don’t you tell me? Or better yet, why don’t you tell your RA and her little girlfriend?”
“Maybe I will,” she says impetuously.
“I’ll believe that when I see it.”
“Never gonna happen. Anyway, I gotta go, and I suspect you’re gonna do something about your—” She gestures at her face to indicate that I need to do something with mine.
“Bitch, are you for real?”
Emma laughs and slams her laptop shut.
“I’m tellin’ mama,” I say to Emma, even though she’s gone.
I think about calling her back so I can curse her out thoroughly, but my cell phone beeps. It’s on the top of my dresser, and I walk toward it, expecting some childish, gloating shit from Emma.
I see Darren’s name on my screen instead. My heart skips an embarrassing beat, and I smile before I’ve even unlocked my phone.
My smile falls.
“Parent-teacher drama. I think you’re going to have to start without me?”