Other Women

Other Women       

        She skitters to and fro across the small black stage in the basement of Blackbird Café, adjusting microphones and scanning the people scattered in chairs and couches in the audience.  Eyes wide, searching, and untouched by kohl or mascara, she sings a few random notes into one of the mics while strumming a guitar in front of another to gauge the auditory balance.  The red handkerchief binding back her nondescript chin-length bob and the paint-and-clay-splattered capri-length overalls adorning her figure make me think of a farmer’s wife, while her diamond-patterned harlequin socks put me in mind of a court jester.  Against the ebony wall behind her, she appears alone and lonely, especially as those in the back of the room talk over her anxious queries, “How does it sound back there?  Can you guys hear?”  The girls on the front couch yell for their attention and she finally gets a vague answer. 

        I remember her, though not her name, from the Acoustic Nights I attended towards the beginning of last semester, attendances which contained performances that eventually lost their quality and therefore their charm.  I am back again in the spring because a few friends are performing and have secured my promise to be a smiling face in the audience.  I have, until now, forgotten about this interesting woman of indeterminate age and questionable style, forgotten that she runs the night’s proceedings. 

        The rest of the audience files in and they also seem to forget that she is now performing, singing and strumming as they gossip and laugh in the back rows and corners, so loud that I lose some of her words, catching only “twine…sticks…stones…cheese…” and wondering wildly where those objects meet and form coherent lyrics.  And after she steps down, rambling about the state of her overalls in a way that shows she knows they aren’t listening, she crouches on her own between chairs and tables, rocking and sometimes rolling to her knees instead.  I look around and listen to the giggling from several different directions, and can’t help but wonder if any of it is directed towards her, her outfit or her demeanor, can’t help but think of the viciousness of that which is womankind.

        My glance is diverted towards my friend Morgan, who is shifting to rest her head on Leah’s lap as other performances begin.  Morgan wrote a suicide note at the beginning of this semester.  A few friends found her with a knife in the graveyard afterwards, and later they took her back to the dorms and bought her a really nice sketchpad and colored pencils.  Most of us didn’t think too much of it at the time.  She sometimes has a penchant for the overdramatic, and we were all out of compassion for various and sundry reasons which seemed marketable at the time, but now I see as kind of petty and shallow.  At the time, I myself said she was incredibly selfish, attention-seeking, and manipulative for doing something like that.  So what if her mom had recently almost died in a car wreck, if she had recently been screwed out of a serious relationship, if she may have needed more emotional support from those she called friends than we were currently giving her.  I wonder if it really matters, if it’s ever okay to say such mean things about someone who is my friend, tossing gossip around like candy at a parade to anyone who will grab it.  Even if it contains even a sliver of truth, is it ever okay to stab a friend in the back with that shard?

        Morgan is very pretty, make-up and complexion generally flawless, and tonight dressed in an attractive fashion, wearing a long blue babydoll shirt as a dress and showing off her small, shapely legs, which are stretched on top of Bob’s lap.  She looks just as lovely, however, in a large, paint-splattered denim shirt that she often wears in just her underwear.  Her hair is brown with blue streaks on the top layer, with platinum blonde peeking through beneath.  She inverts the popular trend of light hair on top and black or dark brown on the bottom, though full-on platinum blonde seems to be a growing trend with celebrities, (a Marilyn Monroe fixation?) from Gwen Stefani, to the Heffner’s Girls Next Door, to Christina Aguilera. 

        I remember once, in CosmoGirl, there was a special featuring Christina Aguilera with her new blonde hair, her “Back to Basics” CD just out on the music market.  One thing that really struck me about it was the picture of her in the center of the article. There was a quote emblazoned across the bottom, something about “women in support of other women,” which is a really interesting perspective coming from someone who has been “dirrty” and has blatantly flaunted her sex appeal in an often demeaning way.  Women supporting other women. 

        I leave the basement soon, complaining of a migraine, and settle down in my apartment to watch Sex and the City while cutting out more pictures of models to add to the vast array of cutouts already adorning my walls.  Surrounding them are faux flowers, the prettiest pink, purple, and yellow flowers I could find in the cheapest section of the floral department of Wal-Mart.  I’ve placed them everywhere, an idea I got from Morgan.  I enclose myself in the femininity of florals and reassuringly beautiful women as I drift off to sleep.