Ticktock Love

[3] Peggy Sue Got Dress-Coded

I skipped lunch that day, too nervous to eat. I wasn't the only one – the atmosphere in the whole school was weird, the air tense with self-conscious looks and laden with accusative confrontations. Every second girl was stopped in the hallway and reprimanded because of her outfit. The skirts were too short, their clothes too black, their stomachs too visible. Chris, a senior on the yearbook staff who was supposed to be the editor-in-chief this year, loudly declared the whole operation 'a fascist dictatorship'. She was immediately taken to the principal's office, dragging her feet and rolling her eyes the entire time, scowling at anyone who dared look at her. The majority silently took their punishment, unwilling to risk detention on the very first day.

The whole thing was a bit unsettling. I could sort of understand dress codes – they always assured us it was for our own protection. The world was a dangerous place, and the school was supposed to be a playground, a sequence of trials and tribulations meant to prepare us for the impending adulthood. But as the teachers' eyes stripped each and every one of us, I couldn't help but feel vulnerable. Exposed.

Like my body wasn't really my own.

After my last period – Biology taught by Ms. Morris, who'd spent half the time gushing about her allegedly handsome divorce lawyer – I left the school grounds with lighter feet. Or wheels, to be exact, since I drove off in my 2019 Honda Fit. That car was my baby, and I'm not ashamed to say I treated it as such. Its flashy blue exterior and sleek black interior made for a perfect combination, but what I loved most was that the front seats folded back. If I reclined the back seats and threw a blanket over myself, it basically served as a comfy makeshift bed.

I'd never made use of that neat feature, though. Sometimes I fantasized about all the road trips I could take in this car: just sliding behind the wheel, driving off with radio music on loud, and taking Interstate 10 to LA with just enough gas in the tank to make sure there'd be no need to stop. As luck would have it, despite having had the car for ten months already, I'd never even left Phoenix.

I hit the left turn signal and steered onto my street, thinking about my sixteenth birthday and the day I'd first seen it on our driveway. Dumbfounded and convinced it was nothing but a hallucination, I tried to blink it away. Obviously, when I saw Mom laughing at my bewilderment, I threw my arms around her neck and thanked her about ten million times. "Happy birthday, baby," she said, laughing and wiping off the happy tears. We both had the same image in our heads: me, starting elementary school, wearing second-hand sneakers and an oversized t-shirt, interpreting every passing kid's smile as a mocking sneer.

I shook that memory out of my head as I slowly pulled up and parked in reverse. We were the middle class now; the upper middle class, even. My mom was the CEO of Longevity Enterprise, a company she'd started all by herself when I was eleven. Its main brand consisted of high-quality protein bars, foods that catered to every contemporary diet's particular needs. Gluten-free, Paleo, Keto – you name it, Longevity had it. Unlike most similar products, these were based on all-natural ingredients and, surprisingly, didn't taste like rubber. Before we knew it, our three-person family moved from a one-bedroom apartment to a three-story with five bedrooms and a pool. I guess people really liked knowing what they were eating.

I longingly glanced at the pool now, its calm, bright blue surface glistening in the sunlight like a translucent spiderweb. I wished I had time for a swim, but Julia had already started her shift at Canary, and Amber's Yearbook Committee meeting wasn't going to drag on that long. So instead of launching myself into the cool, clear water, I wistfully sighed and escaped the heat by scurrying through my front door.

A gargantuan yucca welcomed me as always, her sword-shaped leaves pointing toward the collage photo frames of our small family. I carefully sniffed the air. Something smelled wonderful inside, as if our regular air freshener had been replaced by one scented like lemon crinkle cookies. As soon I dumped my shoes for a pair of flip-flops, I heard a noise coming from the other part of the house.