The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: Boys Buy Me Drinks to Watch Me Fall Down by Anna Dickson James

This selection, chosen by managing editor Krista Cox, is from Boys Buy Me Drinks to Watch Me Fall Down by Anna Dickson James (Whiskey Tit 2023).

Rebound

(excerpt)

“It’s Tru-Color©,” he said by way of explanation.

“Ever heard of it? It’s like a spray tan except with epoxy pore-fillers,” he said as he paid the cover charge with two brand-new, crisp 20-dollar bills. “They’ll last a good 6 hours without breaking down.”

He didn’t mind talking about it. Didn’t seem to be embarrassed about it at all.

“Epoxy? That’s safe to put into your openings like that?” I asked.

He flashed a perfectly white smile. “It looks great, right? Cinnamon Syrup, #492.”

Some people are synthetically beautiful, and they are a product of the products they use. But Brendan came into this world with stunning looks. The orange, pink, and purple lights of the club changed with the pulse of the music and slid across his face and down the sides of his body. Each color highlighted a different part of his beauty. Red, his sculpted cheeks and long, straight nose. Blue, his clear skin.

“Yeah,” I had to admit. “It does.”

“And it’s a natural antiperspirant.”

I imagined him dipped and coated like a candy apple, the deliciously sweet shell holding little orbs of sweat inside.

There wasn’t a single part of his body that I could isolate and say needed work. Beyond tight abs and broad shoulders, the man had his elbows bleached, and the pattern baldness on his shins had been transplanted with Nu-grow©.

And yet there was something unnerving about him, even the way he moved his perfect body on the dance floor. Everything was so smooth that it was difficult for me to look at him without feeling confused and a little bit dizzy. He was an impossible but wondrous M.C. Escher construction come to life. He was an equation where 2+2=5. I could tell you in the moment that he was beautiful, but later, I couldn’t describe any of his individual features. It’s like his whole image was coated in Teflon, and my eyes slid right off of his body. Did he have shiny black hair and green eyes? Or curly brown hair and blue eyes? I couldn’t remember seconds after looking at him, and I wondered if he’d register on celluloid film.

Standing next to a guy like that? There was so much… pressure. And my feeble efforts of colored contacts, false eyelashes, and more than my usual 23 ounces of liquid a day (in the form of lattes and energy drinks) couldn’t hold a candle to his radiance. Even though we’d met at a venue with dim lighting, I couldn’t compete with the way that the lines on his body blurred, or how his skin glowed right at the line of his muscle, highlighting his perfection.

This worry made the creases of my forehead gouge deeper, and the powder on my nose began to cake. My nose. It too was an equation that didn’t add up, thin through the bridge but with a tumorous bulge at the end. Brendan kept looking at it, plucking at my insecurities with his stare.

“I can shade that for you,” he said in a stupidly earnest tone.

Anna Dickson James earned her MFA from Queens University of Charlotte and is an Associate Professor of English at Garrett College in Deep Creek, Maryland. While she hasn’t lived her stories as written, she found that composing them helped her understand a time in her life when she, despite identifying as a feminist, gave up much of her personal power. Now, as a certified mindset coach she helps small groups of women find their strength and claim their autonomy.

Krista Cox is the Managing Editor of Sundress Publications, The Wardrobe, and Doubleback Review. She’s a poet and editor and currently pursuing her master’s in clinical mental health counseling. Mostly, like everyone, she’s just trying to stay hydrated while she fights the system.