American Vacanza

a very nostalgic pair of glasses • madison

We were woken from a peaceful slumber around eleven A.M. by unfriendly housekeepers, even though the "Do Not Disturb" sign was hanging uselessly on the door.

I didn't hesitate to let them know how I felt. "Excuse me!" I grumbled, startling the quiet maid who might not have even noticed there was a person under the giant mass of blankets on my bed. "We're, uh, in here. Would you mind coming back later? Thank you."

"All right. Twenty minutes." The housekeeper held up five fingers and pulled her cart out of our room, slamming the white door behind her.

Siena looked at me, her sometimes-blue-sometimes-green eyes wide. "Is she giving us twenty or five minutes?"

"I don't know," I said after a yawn. "Does it matter? We should be getting out of here anyway. The faster we get out, the faster we get to New York."

I attempted to zip up my duffel after a few minutes of struggling. I pulled it off the bed and shook off the pain after it landed on my toe, then made the bed as best I could.

"What are you doing?" Siena asked with a judging sneer, startling me with her bitter tone. Was I doing something wrong? Had I somehow screwed up on the simple -- or so I thought-- activity of bed-making? Relief washed over me when she added, "The maids are going to make it. We just need to gather up all our stuff and get the hell out of here."

"Oh. Right." Happy that I wasn't in trouble, I tossed the covers crossed the bed and scoured the room for things we might have missed. The only thing I noticed was that Siena's glasses were on the coffee table (which was probably why she didn't notice anything else.)

She popped over and grabbed them, then shoved them in her pocket. "Why don't you ever wear your glasses? Mom and Dad spend, like, four hundred dollars on them." I was surprised; th is was the first time I'd ever talked about money as a finite number, something that hypothetically could eventually run out, instead of my dad's billions.

"Because," I remembered having this conversation before. "They make me look stupid. I look nerdy."

"No, they don't!" I insisted. "Girl, glasses are a fashion statement now. If I had bad eyesight, I'd be all over that geek chic look."

"lease never use the phrase 'geek chic' in front of me again. I just don't want to be that nerdy kid with glasses at school, you know?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't know wearing glasses automatically made you a nerd?"  As far as I knew, Siena had always been a huge nerd on the inside- but never the outside. I hated to say it, because she was probably prettier than me, but her sandy hair, her blue-green eyes that changed color, and tiny, perfectly sloped nose made her at least an eight, if I was being extra critical.

"Well, yeah, duh. But if you are a nerd, and you wear glasses, you're just a walking stereotype."

I shuffled into the bathroom and zipped my toothbrush into a toiletry case. "Fair enough."

She nodded sadly, her head bent toward the ground instead of up, making eye contact with me. "It's kinda shitty, like... you know how you have the reputation for throwing great parties and generally being a cool person? I had the reputation for being really smart."

"That's great, though. I mean, it's good to be smart," I added, not ready for a meaningful conversation at this point in the morning. I'd literally gotten out of bed two minutes ago.

She shook her head. "Well, sure, yeah, it's good to be smart. It's the smart girl reputation that's awful. You've got people who only kiss up to you for your study guides. There are people who are intimidated by you, so they never go up and talk to you. People who you've never met, who might be a little jealous, call you a nerd. Never to your face, but you just know. And, like, the worst part, is that when you're smart, all you're known for is being smart. You're not the smart and athletic one, or the smart girl with a kind heart, or the hilarious girl who happens to get all A's. Do you kind of get what I'm saying now?"

"Absolutely," I replied. "But still, what does this have to do with these glasses? You said yourself you don't really think they're that bad."

She sniffled, blinking tears out of her eyes. "I wore glasses all those years I had that reputation. Not these ones. Ugly ones. They were tiny and made my eyes look gigantic. Wearing them now just kind of brings back bad memories. I put on my glasses and I feel vulnerable again. I feel frustrated that no matter how many times I try to break the mold, I'm still just that smart girl. I know it's not a bad label to have, but at the same time, at that school, there was a stigma associated with smart girls, and I hated it."

She was probably wondering why I wasn't moved by her story. "What if I told you," I responded, "that you've been doing this to me for as long as we've known each other, aside from. maybe the last few days?"

She opened her mouth to speak, then something caught her eye, and I knew exactly what it was: my pink hair.

She ran up to me and wrapped her arms around me, apologizing for everything. "I'm sorry for everything. I know you thought I was bratty, but that was because I was mean to you first, and-- oh my God, I'm not any better than those kids in eighth grade."

"Yes you are," I replied. "They didn't have the decency to apologize."

Then, she said, "Actually, they did. When I got contacts and people found out I was cute, it was like everyone was my friend again. I wasn't the nerdy girl. I was the pretty girl who just happened to be smart. But in a way, that was worse. I had friends, yeah, but they were all just fakes, and I knew it."

Just then, at possibly the worst moment possible, the maid walked back in. "I clean now?"

"Yep," I replied, breaking our embrace and smiling, "I think we're just about done here."

I grabbed my duffel and trudged out of the place. In hindsight, I should've brought a suitcase like Siena, because carrying my duffel bag everywhere was giving me sore shoulders and bad posture.

I looked at my cotton candy-colored hair again. Fluffed it up. Ran my fingers through it. Did it really cause people to pre-judge me? And when I dyed it, my dad warned me that it would affect my ability to get into college. I had a trust fund and all, I probably wouldn't have to work a day in my life, but I wanted to go to college, and live a normal life instead of just relying on my dad's billions.

On the other hand, I did love it.

I checked us out at the front desk and paid the $20 fee for not being out on time, then we headed back to the car to conquer the rest of Ohio. "You know," I told Siena, once she was buckled and ready in the front seat, "you're really brave for telling that to me."

"I'm not that brave. I just needed to rant to someone. And moving in with you guys gave me an escape."

"That's good," I replied.

"You know, I still haven't gotten an apology..." she hinted.

"An apology for what?"

"You know, for calling me a brat and all that. I apologized... now you."

Whoa, whoa, whoa. We just had this bonding moment where we were all good, and NOW she wanted an apology? I'm sorry, that wasn't how this worked. Nice try, Siena. Begging for an apology would only make me do the opposite...

question to debate in the comments: do you relate to what Siena is talking about?