American Chordata: Magazine of New Writing Issue One, Spring 2015 | Page 113

A L LY W H I T E

THE PORTRAIT OF

Pricked No. 2, acrylic and collage on paper, 12.75 x 9 inches

BRIGITTE BARDOT AT
THE DOCTOR’S OFFICE
REMINDED ME OF
THERESE, JACK’S
EX-GIRLFRIEND.
In the picture, Brigitte sat in a dancer’s pose on a spotlit stage, her
toes pointed forward, her back arched. Her long, blonde hair hung
over her face like a sexy curtain. Dr. Fuller had gone off to look at
my X-rays, and I waited for him in the sandy, scuffed room that
had seen all sorts of bad news. I wagged my jaw back and forth and
it was loose, a stretched piece of gum that rang with red pain.
It was the end of junior year, and I was looking forward to
spending the summer in Jack’s bedroom, getting some. In pamphlets
at the career center I had learned about artsy colleges on farms—
places where I could go and be myself. All I had to do was get
through another year of high school, another year in these suburbs,
a mall-studded belt that squeezed the nation’s capital. I was planning
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