Chương 7
That sentence stayed with me.
“She said that?”
“Not exactly.”
Denise paused.
“But that’s what she meant.”
I looked toward the kitchen table, where one of Emily’s abandoned cereal bowls still sat.
“Did she seem scared?”
“Constantly.”
My chest hurt.
“But she kept going.”
“Yes.”
Denise sighed.
“Rachel, she’s good.”
“I know.”
“No.”
Her voice sharpened slightly.
“You know now.”
I did not answer.
“She was good before Saturday.”
After we hung up, I stood at the sink for a long time.
The bowl remained in my hand under running water.
I had spent years believing attentiveness meant knowing where Emily was, who her friends were, whether she finished homework, whether she seemed sad.
Meanwhile, there had been an entire room inside her that I had never entered.
That evening, she came home irritated.
Not triumphant.
Not glowing.
Irritated.
“Someone took a picture of me eating a burrito.”
Daniel looked up from his laptop.
“What?”
“At lunch.”
She dropped her backpack by the table.
“A girl from sophomore year asked for a selfie, and then some guy took a picture while I was chewing.”
I tried not to laugh.
“Was it a flattering bite?”
“No bite is flattering.”
Daniel closed his laptop.
“Who posted it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want me to find out?”
“No.”
“I can be extremely annoying online.”
“I know, Dad.”
“That’s a transferable skill.”
Emily opened the refrigerator.
Then she stood there without taking anything.
Her shoulders were rigid.
I watched her.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Emily.”
She shut the refrigerator.
“A fashion account called me ‘the body-positive prodigy.’”
Daniel’s expression changed.
Emily folded her arms.
“I hate it.”
I had expected praise to make things easier.
Instead, she looked more uncomfortable than she had standing in front of Lauren.
“Why?”
“Because I designed six outfits, and suddenly the headline is my body.”
She pulled out a chair.
“I don’t want to be brave for being fat.”
Daniel’s mouth opened.
Emily shook her head.
“I know what word I used.”
He closed it again.
“I don’t want every interview to be about confidence.”
She stared at the table.
“I want them to ask me about tailoring.”
I sat across from her.
“Then make them.”
She looked up.
“What?”
“You don’t have to answer every question they ask.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
“They’re the press.”
“They’re people with questions.”
“That is a very mom interpretation of journalism.”
“Probably.”
I leaned back.
“But you’re allowed to decide what your work means.”
Emily looked unconvinced.
Her phone buzzed.
She glanced at it.
Then again.
Three messages came in almost together.
Her expression changed on the third.
“What?”
She turned the screen toward us.
It was from Celeste.
CALL ME BEFORE YOU RESPOND TO ANYTHING.
Underneath was a link.
Daniel opened it on his laptop.
A local lifestyle site had published photographs from the birthday dinner.
There was Lauren smiling beside five girls holding Gucci bags.
And at the far edge of one photograph stood Emily.
Empty-handed.
The headline was worse.
FASHION PRODIGY HUMILIATED BY OWN AUNT ONE WEEK BEFORE HISTORIC WIN.
Nobody spoke.
Emily stared at the screen.
Then she whispered, “How did they get that picture?”
I already knew.
Only family had been in that room.
And somewhere inside that family, somebody had decided the story was worth more once strangers were watching.
Daniel reached for the laptop, but Emily closed it before he could scroll farther.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“I just want to see who posted it.”
“I don’t.”
Her voice was steady, but her fingers stayed on the lid.
“I don’t want to read strangers calling Aunt Lauren a monster, and I definitely don’t want to read strangers calling me inspiring because somebody was mean to me at dinner.”
My phone started vibrating on the counter.
Then Daniel’s did.
Emily stared at both devices.
“This is exactly what I didn’t want.”
Celeste called thirty seconds later.
I answered on speaker.
“Before anybody says anything publicly, please don’t.”
Her voice sounded calm in the deliberate way people sound when they are handling three problems at once.
“We weren’t planning to.”
“Good.”
Emily pulled out a chair.
“Do you know where the photo came from?”
“We’re trying to find out.”
“Trying how?”
“The site credited it as a family-submitted image.”
Emily’s face tightened.
Daniel swore under his breath.
Celeste continued.
“They won’t identify the source.”
“Can they just use my picture like that?” Emily asked.
“It depends on who took it, where it was taken, and what rights they had to the image.”
“So that means yes.”
“It means we need facts before we say yes or no.”
Emily rubbed her forehead.
“Wonderful.”
“Also, two larger outlets have emailed requesting comment.”
“No.”
“I assumed that would be your answer.”
“And I don’t want the fashion house commenting either.”
Celeste paused.
“That part may be more complicated.”
“Why?”
“Because your award is now attached to a public story about discrimination and body image.”
“It wasn’t attached until somebody attached it.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean that literally.”
Emily pushed her chair back and stood.
“My collection is about fit and structure.”
“It can also be about what people bring to it.”
“I don’t want to be turned into a lesson.”
Celeste did not answer immediately.
That helped.
She was one of the few adults around Emily who seemed willing to let silence exist.
“I hear you,” she said finally.
“Let me talk to communications.”
Emily stared at the dark laptop screen.
“Can you ask them not to call me a body-positive anything?”
“Yes.”
“Please.”
After the call ended, Daniel opened the laptop again.
Emily made an irritated sound.
“I’m not reading comments.”
“I’m checking the credit line.”
“That is reading.”
“That is investigating.”
She pointed at me.
“This is where I got it from.”
I almost smiled.
Then Daniel stopped moving.
“What?”
He turned the screen toward us.
May you like
At the bottom of the article, beneath the photographs, was a second image.
It showed the five girls together on my mother-in-law’s couch.
