She was the girl who "wasn't like other girls."
The first thing I noticed was the silver nose ring that hung between her nostrils. That was enough to convince eight-year-old me she was one of those tough girls, one of those rough girls, one of those don't-mess-with-me-or-I'll-fuck-you-up girls. But if the piercing wasn't enough, her self-ripped senior counselor t-shirt did it. That, and the layers of silver rings that decorated her pen-stained hands. I'm not sure why she always had ink smeared all over them or how they even got there, but it somehow enhanced her "look." I tried doing it on myself a few times, but I could never make the smudges look good like hers.
I stared at her shoes a lot when she choreographed our dance for the start-of-summer showcase. Her distressed combat boots matched the color of her sweat-smeared eyeliner and wavy, frizzy hair. She told us she didn't care about what it looked like and that's why she never brushed it. I thought that that was cool.
Her dad came to drop her lunch off once. He was a short man with a receding hairline. He wore an argyle sweater and slacks despite it being 90-something degrees. Something about him looking like he just stepped out of a family photo and her looking like goth barbie made perfect sense. "Hey, Pops," she said in her firm, deep voice as she plucked the rolled-up Chipotle bag from her dad's extended hand. "Just the chips, right?" He nodded and then held up a hand to say goodbye. She gave him a salute and two clicks of her cheek before making her way back to us. I looked down at my thermos filled with the pan-fried dumplings my mom made that morning and felt embarrassed--what's lamer than bringing your lunch in a thermos? Some of the other counselors were unwrapping sandwiches from Crossroads Deli and the rest were hovering over a box of pizza. But not Ashley. Ashley was sitting underneath the shade with her bag of chips, probably thinking of how lame the rest of the staff was, how lame this summer camp was, and how lame my thermos was. And I decided that when I grew up, I would eat a bag of chips for lunch just like she did.
