the wrong length

I know that voice. I have heard it twice now and I will hear it a third time, and the third time I will not pick up. Today the words were rehearsed, which is the worst part — someone coached him, told him to read it slowly, told him "Priyanka preview" would land. Shorter dupatta. As if I am a mannequin. As if my waist-to-floor measurement is a line item they can update like a menu. I dropped the phone on the counter and walked to the bathroom and held the basin until my wrists stopped shaking, and I watched myself in the mirror not recognizing my own face for about four seconds. Four seconds is a long time when you are counting.

At Antop Hill I handed Kabir the text and he printed it under "coercion — appearance" and that word, appearance, made me sit down harder than I meant to. On the way out the junior litigator from Day 14 caught my elbow in the stairwell. Three seconds. His thumb found the soft inside of my arm and pressed until I felt a small pop of nothing give. I did not flinch. I am proud of that and also horrified by it. Yesterday's welt is still yellowing at one edge. Now there is a new one stacked on top, lower down, where the sleeve ends.

I chose the marigold dupatta because the length is wrong. Not charmingly wrong. Architecturally wrong. It will not photograph the way their brief wants. I draped it over my shoulder in the mirror and almost laughed — a real laugh, the first one today, the kind that scalded my throat. My own tiny rebellion in marigold cotton. I am packing it on top like a flag.