A Dangerous Woman

Money has always been my problem.

If people actually had an Achilles heel, this would be mine. I live in one of the most expensive cities in the world. And I work in one of the most notoriously underpaid professions. I’ve wanted both of these things, desperately, since I was a little girl, but I never really got around to figuring out how it would exactly work out…

I just know that ever since my father took me to New York City at the age of 15, I found exactly what I wanted. And I’m the type of girl who goes after what she wants.

Dad booked a room at a chain hotel in the center of Times Square, with floor to ceiling windows. I would stand at those windows in the middle of the night, wedged in between the curtains and the glass and feel the coolness of the city on my face. Looking down, I would imagine the lives of the people so far below me, living every day in this pulsing, magic town. But most of all, I would look across the windows, to the office buildings. I’d find the lights that were still on, and I’d search for the tiny workers, hunched over their laptops; anonymous cubes of light in this grid of a town, with the whole world swirling around them… and I’d tell myself that someday I would be that lucky.

The next day, awaking to the sounds of taxicabs blaring, I put on two pair of pants and the warmest hat I owned, and set out on what I imagined would be a great adventure. New York was achingly cold and I was unprepared, having lived in Arizona most of my life. I remember my head feeling as if it would split open from one more gust of punishing air whipping around the buildings. I couldn’t find the sun anywhere, and every building looked the same. It felt as if the city was folding in on me. Dad and I stopped in the nearest shop to warm up, and while he made a phone call, I wandered around.

We were in one of the quietest stores I had ever seen. Wood hangers were spaced apart at two-inch intervals. A heavy round table held squares of cashmere sweaters. A lithe mannequin showed me what was possible. I felt as if I was somewhere I should not be, like in my mother’s closet at home. I snuck around while Dad spoke to his colleague, following the oak staircase to the second level, eveningwear.

I will never forget this dress. Black silk, cut along the bias, with the thinnest silk straps I had ever seen. It was practically backless and floor-length and I longed to wear it. I longed to be the woman who could wear it. Dad waited as I took it into the dressing room. My hands trembled a bit as I examined the dress up close. The material was so fine, the stitching so perfect, I knew I would never look at my clothes the same way again. This is what ‘clothing’ meant. This was Plato’s perfect dress.

I inhaled and lifted the slinky straps from the hanger. Carefully, carefully, I lifted it over my head and wove my arms through the straps. I held it up for a second, and then… whoosh. I heard the silk settle to my feet. I opened my eyes. Exhaled. In those moments, tracing the silk over my coltish figure, watching it drape down the curve of my back, I no longer was the too-tall girl that boys somehow still missed whenever a slow song came on. I realized my full potential. I was a woman. And not just any woman- I was a dangerous woman. I saw my future life: with this dress, I could do anything.

This kind of thinking, of course, was to be my downfall.

*scorpio*