Right after you turn 14, you ride the train to the Loop with a group of friends to see a movie. Doctor Zhivago. Frigid weekend. Downtown Chicago deserted. You huddle shivering, bundled into car coats and rubber boots, watching the breath leave your mouths in clouds, wallowing in the movie’s tragic romance: Six teenaged girls as yet untouched by love.
You are awkward and self-conscious. The braces. The frizzy uncool bangs. The wing-tip glasses that make myopic eyes look smaller. Your heartbreaker potential is not something people warn your father about. You are pure second clarinet material.
You cluster there, a gaggle of girls waiting in Union Station for the next train home, when out of nowhere a trio of sailors approaches, full of unexpected cheer. One of them pauses, grinning, presents you with a small two-handled trophy, a replica of something grand on a round brown plastic pedestal.
“We’ve taken a vote and are awarding this to you,” he says. “Most Beautiful Girl in the Train Station.” Off they go, not waiting for reaction, jostling each other, a little boozy, their laughter echoing in the deserted hall, leaving you amidst your gawking friends, staring at the golden gleam of plastic treasure.
Surely they are mocking you. Naomi is prettier, Carole taller. Joyce has a better figure. But for whatever perverse reason, you are the one with the title that makes you a celebrity of sorts: Most Beautiful Girl in the Train Station. You decline to interrogate the notion that this is cruel jest; you choose to claim the moment as a prize.
For some time—despite your father’s teasing—you display that plastic trophy in your room next to your flocked pink poodle lamp. Someone someday will find it carefully wrapped in tissue and wonder if it’s recyclable.
makes up truths, changes the endings, and calls it fiction. Once she learns how to pronounce denouement, she plans to live happily ever after. Her work has appeared in Flash Boulevard, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and Poydras Review, among other places.
