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Elective	By : CeeCee Category: Comics > Archie & Co. Views: 3061 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own the Archies fandom. These characters belong to Archie Comics. I make no money from writing this piece of sh- I mean, fanfiction.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
Reinvented
Summary: No one ever said you had to fit into the same, neat little mold you grew up in.
Author’s Note: This was meant to be a one-shot. Didn’t happen that way, much like Beggin’, where I didn’t want to cram over forty pages into one chapter.
Ethel fumed while she scrubbed her short hair, squeezing the apple-scented lather through slick locks. The slap of the hot spray hitting the tile was soothing, almost distracting her from the annoying memory of having to explain herself to Moose.
It galled her that she’d had to explain anything. What she did was none of his business, was it?
“Dumb jock,” she muttered to the shower tiles. “What’s it to him, anyway, if I pose naked?”
Her reverie was broken by the sudden appearance of a shadowy outline of someone’s hand reaching around the edge of the shower curtain. Ethel’s breath caught in her throat and she lurched back in shock as the curtain was quickly whisked aside, the metal shower rings screeching across the pole. “GAAAHH!”
“I thought that was you in there!” Melody sang. Ethel grabbed her washcloth and draped it across her breasts, knocking her knees together and bending forward to shield her crotch from her roommate’s view and the harsh blast of cold air. “Talking to yourself?”
“No. Close that,” Ethel snapped.
“What’s the big deal? We sleep together every night,” Melody reminded her, shrugging. Ethel heard a few of her neighbors chuckling from the sinks and her entire body flushed with humiliation.
“Say that a little louder, Mel, I don’t think they heard you on Mars. CLOSE THAT!”
“Aw,” Melody whined playfully, but she allowed Ethel to swat her hand from the curtain and yank it back into place. Ethel practically drowned herself under the spray as she finished rinsing her hair. “So, did I hear you right? Who else saw you naked, Ethel?”
“MELODY!!” The whole dorm would know her business in ten seconds if the blonde didn’t shut her yap.
“Are you holding out on me?”
“No, just… no. Nothing. I’m holding nothing out. Not a thing, do you hear me?” Ethel began exfoliating furiously, attacking her elbow with the loofah brush.
“Is this about your new job?” Melody sang sweetly. Ethel wondered how many years she would get in the cooler for strangling the blonde, but when she chanced a quick look around the edge of the shower curtain, she had that goofy look on her face, those big, soulful blue eyes looking bright but vacant. There was no one upstairs, Ethel mused. She’d be a monster to harm one hair on her head, wouldn’t she? Ethel fisted the shower curtain beneath her chin, giving her face a window to peek out from.
“Yes,” Ethel hissed. “It’s about my new job. But can we talk about it back in the dorm?” Melody squealed and gave a little hop that set her assets jiggling. She clapped her hands.
“Yay! Cool! We’ll get coffee, and you can tell me all about it!” Ethel watched her dart out of the showers, and she felt like she’d been had.
“Great,” she murmured. All things considered, things couldn’t get much more awkward. Moose Mason, the most celebrated athlete from her alma mater and often a ringleader of the little gang of nasty boys that used to tease her on the playground, saw her in the altogether. Feeling vulnerable was nothing new to her, but he’d made her feel… exposed.
Ethel gathered up her shower caddy and wrapped herself in her large, dark blue bath sheet, shoving her feet into her flip-flops. She tiptoed out into the hallway and back to her dorm. She almost collided with Kumi, an exchange student who transferred to Riverdale during the later part of junior year. The tiny brunette was struggling beneath a loaded laundry basket. “Ooh, sorry!” she apologized.
“S’okay.”
“Ethel, why was Melody asking who saw you naked?” Ethel’s cheeks smarted and turned screaming, beet red. She rolled her eyes and facepalmed.
“Might as well have been the whole world… just kill me now,” she sighed. Kumi giggled.
“Hey, whatever floats your boat. I don’t have anyone that gets to see me naked yet. It’s still too early for me.” Ethel was mildly shocked. Kumi was cute, petite, and had doll-like features and glossy, black, shoulder-length hair in uneven, choppy layers.
“Give it a few days,” Ethel suggested. “See you.”
“Bye, Ethel!”
Ethel keyed her way into the room, and Melody, as good as her word, held out a lidded to-go cup with a recycled brown wrap. “Okay. Dish.”
“Draft over here,” Ethel reminded her, but she gratefully accepted the coffee. The first sip was ambrosia. “Thanks,” she offered.
“So, who was he?”
“No one. No one important,” Ethel insisted.
“Must have been. You’re all worked up.”
“Mel, it’s not like that. We were in public.” Those were the wrong words. Melody’s mouth dropped open.
“Ohmigod, you’re a stripper???”
“NO!”
“But…”
“A model, Mel, for life art drawing!” Melody’s eyes were still huge.
“Wow, that’s… wow. I don’t think I’d even have the guts to do that. Isn’t it… weird?”
“There are weirder jobs out there, kiddo.” Not much, Ethel admitted silently.
“You’re braver than me,” Melody told her. “Wow. Naked in front of other people?”
“Yup. Life art. In the flesh.”
“You don’t have that much flesh,” Melody told her. “Oops… I mean…”
“No. You’re right. I don’t.” Ethel shrugged. It wasn’t the first way, or the worst way, someone had called her skinny.
“I mean… you’re lucky, Ethel.”
“Lucky, how? Are you nuts?” Ethel pulled a face, then gave her a ragged little laugh. “You call this lucky?” She motioned to her torso. “I’m built like an ostrich. Or Sasquatch. Take your pick.”
“No!” Melody shot back. “I’d love to have your build! You’re so tall, like a model. This is the right kind of job for you. Look at your legs, they go on forever! Do you ever wear heels?”
“Sometimes. Just when I have to dress up for something.” Ethel changed into a pair of modest, light blue, boy-cut bikinis and an unpadded triangle cup bra. She’d given up trying to fool nature; Victoria’s Secret wasn’t well kept when a guy tried to cop a feel. Ethel didn’t believe in false advertising. She pulled a pair of boot-cut, dark wash jeans from its hanger, and Melody shook her head.
“You need to spice things up a little. Don’t you have anything cuter?”
“What’s wrong with jeans? I’m working today, I’m just gonna take ‘em off, anyway.”
“Oh. Yeah. I guess so. But still, those aren’t exciting. We need to take you to Hot Topic.”
“Ew. That store’s skanky.”
“No, it’s not! It’s FUN!” Melody folded her arms beneath her breasts. “We’re going.”
“We?”
“Yes, we. When’s your last period?”
“Three.”
“We’ll head to the mall at four-thirty.”
“Mel, seriously…”
“Seriously, Ethel. You’ll thank me.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
“So what about whatshisname?”
“Who? Moose?”
“MOOSE?!? That’s his name? Ohmigod!”
“It’s short for Marmaduke.”
“MARMADUKE? Like the dog in the newspaper funnies?” Melody shrieked, and Ethel winced and drilled her pinkie into her ear.
“Volume,” she pleaded as she got dressed.
“That’s so CUTE! Marmaduke! Moose! Moose what?”
“Mason.”
“That’s adorable! I love it. Ethel and Moose,” Melody pronounced soundly.
“Ethel and Moose… get out of here with that.” Ethel swatted Melody with her towel. “I went to high school with him. I didn’t think I’d run into anyone I know all the way out here.”
“That’s a good thing, right? You’re a froshie,” Melody reminded her. “It’s cool to have a friend from home when you’re new.”
“I know, but we didn’t know each other that well.”
“Did you ever hang out?”
“Not… really. We had a lot of the same friends, but we weren’t close friends.” Like, hardly at all. But Ethel could at least say she’d grown up with him. For as long as she remembered, Moose was always one half of “Moose and Midge.” She wondered how the petite softball player was doing. Were they a successful long-distance couple? Ethel wondered what that even entailed. Seeing someone on weekends and holidays and communicating by texts or Web cam wasn’t the same as having someone you could kiss hello every day… not that she knew. Ethel’s dating experience was limited to a grudging, mostly one-sided “thing” she had with Jughead. She mooned over him since junior high, and after enough wearing him down, he began to call her from time to time. Their first few dates showed her quickly enough that Ethel was being friend-zoned, without him coming out and saying the words. Did anyone ever get away with saying “Let’s just be friends” without the other person hating their guts? Ever? He sometimes kissed her cheek. Ethel might as well have been dating her grandpa.
“So, he’s in the class you’re modeling for?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did he sit right up front?” Melody’s grin was smug. “Bet he wants to.”
“No. Thank God,” Ethel pronounced. “I couldn’t deal with that if he did.”
“What’s the big deal?”
“It would be… awkward. Weird,” Ethel clarified.
“Isn’t being up in front of the class weird, too?”
“Not the same kind of weird. When I sit up there, I just focus on something else. I’m not really there. It’s kind of relaxing.”
“I still can’t believe it. I’m impressed,” Melody assured her as she sipped her coffee. They chatted for a while and Melody began rifling through her closet.
“This is okay. Eh. Eh. Maybe. Grandma. Nah.”
“Whaddya mean, ‘grandma?’”
“This peasanty-looking thing. Ugh. No. Don’t ever wear this. It’s too old school grunge.” Melody chucked the cotton gauze sundress onto the bed. “Better yet, just throw it out.”
“NO! It’s a perfectly good dress, Mel!”
“Maybe if you’re reading angry poetry about government and saving the planet in the quad and shaking a tambourine. There’s nothing wrong with shaking a tambourine, mind you; I do that once in a while. But not in the quad. And not in this.”
“What if I want to take up angry poetry? Mel, don’t!” Melody removed the hanger and chucked the dress into the wastebasket.
“Out. This, too.” She reached for Ethel’s Riverdale High hoodie, royal blue with yellow lettering.
“No. I need that, at least for around the dorm.” Melody gave her the stink-eye. “It’s getting cold out.”
“Okay. Just until we get you a cute jacket.” Melody shuddered as she looked at the innocent sweatshirt, then reluctantly rehung it. “What else can we clean out of here?”
“Um, why are we cleaning out my closet?”
“To make room for the cute stuff.”
“Um… I’m working minimum wage. I’m eating ramen for two out of three meals a day. I’m scrounging quarters for laundry. I can’t afford much.”
“I just got my allowance,” Melody shrugged.
“Don’t you need to feed yourself with it?”
“I bought a mountain bike with last month’s,” Melody pointed out.
“I hate you.”
“You love me. You’re going shopping with me.”
“Penney’s.”
“Hot Topic.”
“Marshall’s.”
“Hot. Topic.”
“Sears?”
“Only if you’re a swinging grandma.”
“I repeat: I. Hate. You.”
“Be ready at four-thirty. Meet me at the student union.”
Moose assembled his portfolio, cramming in his pencil case and charcoals. He slung his backpack over his shoulder and tucked his sketch pad under his arm. Ambrose watched him get ready to go, pausing at his laptop.
“Drawing class?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Let me see what you drew.”
“Nah. It’s not great.”
“Aw, let me see, man!” Ambrose motioned to him to hand it over. Moose rolled his eyes and groaned, surrendering it. Ambrose flipped through a few pages of Moose’s rough experiments.
“It looks like a hand… made out of spaghetti.”
“We use blind contour technique. You hafta draw your hand without looking at it.”
“It almost looks like a hand,” Ambrose agreed, “kinda. Neat, though.” He kept flipping, offering Moose the occasional “Hmm” as he went. He nodded after a few more pages. “Whoa. David.”
“Huh?”
“Michelangelo’s David.”
“You can tell that’s what it is?”
“Yeah! You did an okay job, bub.”
“I thought it kinda sucked.”
“You might start getting good at this, just keep… wow.” Ambrose’s eyes widened and flitted over the next page. “Who’s she?”
“You don’t remember Ethel? Ethel Muggs?”
“That’s Ethel? BIG Ethel?” Ambrose whistled. “Dude. I only remember her from middle school, before I moved away. She was kinda gawky. Look at her now,” he marveled. “Dang…”
“Dude, don’t talk about her like that!” Moose snapped.
“What? I’m just appreciating,” Ambrose grinned. “She’s cute! Ethel wasn’t too bad back then.”
“Pfffft,” Moose huffed. “She was a beast before she got her braces off. She got a little cute, after a while.”
“She’s very cute,” Ambrose insisted. He tapped the page. “She has nice lines, and a kind of different look. I like her cheekbones. And she’s got a great neck. Great legs, too-“
“Gimme that back.” Moose grabbed the sketch pad hastily and flapped it shut. “I’m out.”
“That’s fine. Meet me at the library after dinner?”
“Econ?” Moose deflated. He forgot about his mid-term.
“Yup. Get it over with. Just like ripping off a band-aid.”
“I hate econ.”
“You can sell the book on craigslist when you’re done with it. Some lucky freshman will be glad to have it next semester.” Moose eyed the dog-eared, beat-up text on his desk.
“Maybe not in the shape it’s in…”
“Library.”
“Class.”
“Yup. Tell Ethel hi.” Moose suppressed a growl as he left. Ambrose shook his head and chuckled.
“You don’t think she’s a beast anymore, dude.”
Moose fumed all the way to class, knowing it would be even more awkward than before, especially after Ethel told him off. She didn’t have any business getting pissed off with him, Moose reasoned. Did she just wake up one morning and decide to herself “I feel like taking off my clothes in a room full of strangers now that I’m hundreds of miles away from my parents?”
If it had been Midge, Moose never would have accepted it. It was one thing when Midge took her clothes off for him – and yes, she had, more than once – but that was the two of them. He couldn’t stand it when anyone else even looked cross-eyed at her, fully clothed. Midge certainly wasn’t bashful; she wore what she wanted most of the time, sometimes along the lines of some of the slinky, skimpy things that Veronica Lodge put on every day. He liked how Midge looked when she wore something tiny, but if he was staring at her, everyone else was, too.
But the clothes weren’t the main issue between them. Midge didn’t discourage guys flirting with her, something that occurred to him the longer he pondered their breakup. Reggie Mantle was the most stubborn, testing him every time; a fool and his teeth were soon parted, in Moose’s humble opinion. In hindsight, though, it wasn’t worth it.
Midge dumping him was a bitter pill to swallow. Midge was his first date, first dance, first kiss, and she showed him every intimate thing he knew. She was his world. Of course he wanted to hold on to her, and of course he didn’t want to share. Moose was new to the feeling of being single again, not having text messages to return or someone to call before he went out. Eating dinner alone sucked, and he didn’t feel like going to the movies by himself, something he realized after about his second week of classes. Being on his own scared him a little…
… yet, it was exciting. Freedom wasn’t a bad thing. No one was nagging him off his X-Box. He could eat pork rinds without Midge threatening not to kiss him, or spicy Takis. She wouldn’t keep stealing his tee shirts and take forever to give them back. They wouldn’t have to have “Whatcha doin’?/What are you thinking?” conversations anymore. It was nice to spend time with her, but sometimes they just got together out of mutual boredom, and were just… bored together. She wouldn’t change his radio station anymore to whiny Miley or Britney, Flyleaf or Bjork. Moose could focus on football when he wasn’t in class, and while there was a gaping void after Midge pushed him aside, he could still fill that time pretty easily. What hurt, though, was wondering when he stopped being good enough. The music was still playing, but she told him the party was over.
Moose braced himself when he reached the classroom door, expelling a noisy breath. He jerked the knob and found the same seat he’d had before, thankfully empty. He was fine with staying in the back, in light of his last talk with Ethel.
*
“Um… so, why were you naked in there?” The words left his mouth in a rush, and she blinked.
“Uh…”
“Y’know… totally naked… in front of people?” he pressed, as though she hadn’t understood him the first time. She cocked her head and her mouth dropped open, then clapped shut. Ethel expelled a gusty breath.
“Moose… what does it matter? I was working. Modeling. I answered the ad that they needed a model for this class.”
“They? Who’s ‘they?’”
“The dean of the art department. This is an actual job that I had to apply for.”
“But… was this the only kind of job you could get?”
“Moose… why? Why do you even want to know?” Ethel’s throat was tight and her heart was hammering, both with annoyance and tension. Her cheeks felt hot, and she felt resentment rising within her. “What’s it to you?”
“What’s it to me? What do you mean, what’s it to me?” Moose rocked back on his heels, not believing what he was hearing. Was she getting pissed with him?
“You act like I was doing something… I don’t know… shameful, or something,” she pressed. “People model for art classes, Moose. That’s why they call it ‘life art.’”
“Couldn’t you have just done the portrait class?” Moose tossed back. “Geez, Bee…”
“No. Ethel. Not ‘Bee.’ I don’t go by that anymore.” Ethel’s gray eyes turned into slits and she gripped her purse strap more tightly. “It’s just ‘Ethel.’ It’s ALWAYS been Ethel. Not Big Ethel. Not Sasquatch. Not Stretch. Ethel Lorraine Muggs.”
“I know that.”
“Then act like you remember,” she snapped. “Don’t pick on me about my job. I was lucky to get a job when I needed one.”
“You don’t need money that badly,” he scoffed.
“Not that badly,” Ethel murmured. “Wow. You said that like I was turning tricks on the corner.”
“That’s not what I said! Don’t put words in my mouth! Why? Do you think it’s the same thing?” Moose accused. “I know it’s not!”
“Then don’t stand here and lecture me,” Ethel hissed, realizing people were staring at them as they walked by. Ethel didn’t realize until then that she had quickened her pace, trying to get away from the art studio as quickly as possible. Her long legs flashed in angry strides, both challenging him to keep up and distracting him with their tempting shape. Stan was right about those, even if he’d wanted to kill him.
What was wrong with him? Stan could look at Ethel however he wanted, it was a free country, but… still…
It pissed him off. Heaven only knew why.
“I’m not lecturing you. I’m not your dad,” Moose reasoned gruffly. “Look, if you wanna embarrass yourself up there, go ahead. Don’t let me stop you.” Ethel stopped short, and her posture went completely stiff. He came up short behind her, not realizing until then how closely he’d been dogging her footsteps. She whipped around, and he saw Armageddon rising up in her gray eyes – prettier than he’d realized, before – as she stared him down and made her case.
“Who said I’m embarrassing myself? Seriously?” Moose suddenly felt small.
“I didn’t… I didn’t mean it-“
“Yes, Moose, you did. I’m not embarrassed. Maybe you think I should be. I have nothing to be ashamed of.” Her voice caught for a brief second, but she mastered it with a deep breath. “First of all, I know I’m not anyone’s cup of tea, Moose. Second, I’m not up there pretending to be a Hooters girl or a Playmate. It’s just art. I’m not full of myself. I’m not showing off. Shoot, I know you don’t think I have anything to show off, anyway, and I’m not doing this to impress anyone. And third, going back to my earlier question, what’s it to you?” Every time his mouth opened even a little, the words snapped out of her mouth more sharply, stinging him. “You act like I’m hideous, or something.”
“NO!” Moose flushed and he felt his stomach knot.
“We’re done here. Just… enough. Bye.”
“That wasn’t what I meant!” He called after her, but all he got was her back. She stalked away, and she waved him off in a classic “Whatever!” gesture that used to annoy him whenever Midge did it, too. Her posture was too stiff; he did that. “Geez,” he muttered aloud. Moose lumbered off to his next class, frustrated and feeling like a heel for hurting her feelings.
*
“Dude, help me out here. What’s wrong with women?”
“Women in general?” Ambrose smirked as he looked up from his laptop screen. Moose kicked the door to their room shut behind him, tossed his backpack into the corner and flopped onto his narrow twin’s blue plaid comforter.
“Eerrgh…”
“One woman in particular?”
“Yeah,” Moose mumbled into his pillow, voice muffled. “Should’ve kept my big mouth shut. Stuck my foot into it instead.”
“Nice. Talked to your ex.”
“Nah.” Ambrose raised his brows in interest.
“New girl?”
“No. Old girl. Ethel.”
“Uh-oh. What happened?”
“I made the mistake of asking her about her job.” Ambrose winced.
“You mean her life art gig?”
“Yeah. Her nose got bent out of shape…”
“Ah. Let me guess. You asked her why she was doing it, and she told you to bugger off.”
“Yup.”
“Ouch.” Ambrose leaned back and folded his arms. “Should’ve known better, bro. Better to let it go.”
“Dude… it was just weird, y’now?”
“No. I don’t know.”
“Dude… seriously. I mean, when you’ve seen a girl naked, when you’ve been with her, it’s different.”
“You haven’t been with Ethel,” Ambrose reminded him wryly.
“Well, no shit. But once you’ve seen everything, it’s distracting. Midge and I could talk about everything before we finally did it, and we waited a long time. Well, she made me wait,” Moose clarified when Ambrose rolled his eyes. “And it sucked, I might add. But after that, I’d look at her and keep seeing her out of her clothes.”
“You’ve got a one-track mind, my friend.”
“No shit, I’m a guy.” Ambrose shrugged in agreement. “But it didn’t matter what she was talking about. She could ask me, ‘What do you want on your pizza?’ and I’d hear ‘Take me now, Moose.’ I couldn’t keep my mind off of her, or my hands off of her.”
“Too much information.”
“Yeah, well… I’m just sayin’, Ambrose, it’s weird when you know someone as long as we’ve known Ethel, and one day, just – BAM! Naked. Right out in the open. She was pissed.”
“What did you say to her?”
“I asked her if she could’ve gotten a different job.”
“What? Like the library? Mickie Dee’s? Signing people up for Discover cards in the student union? Perfume squirter?”
“Dickhead,” Moose snorted. “No.”
“If all she has to do is hold a pose or two and get paid, I can see why she took it. There’s worse stuff out there.”
“She’s gonna embarrass herself.”
“Hope you didn’t tell her that,” Ambrose warned. Moose’s lips tightened, and his chest rose and fell with a heavy gust. “Ouch… dude. You didn’t.”
“Maybe I did.”
“You might as well have eaten a shit sandwich and asked her for a kiss. Moose, it’s Ethel. She was sensitive back when we were kids. You practically called her ugly.”
“I didn’t call her ugly!”
“Think of how it probably sounded to her, man. C’mon. Ethel’s not gonna have her feelings hurt, being told that she’s embarrassing herself taking her clothes off?” Moose felt ashamed all over again, being called out by his roomie. “Moose, get a clue.”
*
“You need this,” Melody announced as she tugged a screaming red, plaid school girl skirt with large black buckles laddered down the side off the rack and held it against Ethel’s waist. N.E.R.D. was pumping from the speakers, and Ethel’s arms were already laden with things her roommate insisted she had to try on.
“I do not need that,” she corrected her testily. “No, no, no.”
“Not showing off those stems is a crime against nature. You’ve got it. Flaunt it, fer cryin’ out loud!” Melody gave Ethel’s rear a bruising, savage slap.
“OW!”
“Don’t be a baby.” She dragged Ethel to the changing room and pointed imperiously to the dressing room. “In. Now. Go, go, go!” It was a wide stall, and Ethel flushed immediately.
“You’re not going to hang out in here with me while I’m trying it on!”
“Of course I am!” Melody trilled. “Either that, or I walk back out, and you come out and show me each outfit?”
“Bitch,” Ethel grumbled. She had a point. “Don’t look at me.”
“I’ve seen it already. What’s the big deal? You’ve seen me naked,” Melody told her cavalierly.
“Not so loud!” Ethel swatted at her, and Melody play-swatted back, pretending they were having a slap-fight.
“Just try them on!”
“You’re out of your mind. You know this, right? You’re like the sister I never had, Mel, and I love you to death, but the butter has dripped off your noodle,” Ethel told her, grunting as she hopped into an absurdly tiny Lycra dress, “if you think I’m wearing this out in public-“
“Um. Ethel. Look. Just turn around and look.”
“What? Look at what?” Ethel said sourly, following the path of Melody’s finger from where the blonde sat. Ethel’s eyes drifted to her reflection in the unforgiving changing room mirror.
“Look at that. That’s you, when you’re not covering up what you have. Ethel, you look hot.”
“On the contrary. I’m freezing.”
“No, silly goose. You’re full of shit. That dress looks awesome on you. You’re rocking it.”
“I need more up here,” Ethel whined, reaching up to cup her modest breasts, but her hands smoothed over them briefly, skimming down the length of her narrow torso and over her flat stomach as she assessed the dress. The white knit hid nothing, and Ethel felt truly naked in it. Melody grinned at her in the mirror.
“Flaunt what you’ve got. I’d tap that!”
“Shut. Up!” Ethel was blushing furiously. “Where’s my shoe?” She bent down to retrieve her tennis sneaker and brandished it at Mel, who pretended to duck. Sometimes, she just didn’t know about her roommate…
“Take that one off. I’m taking it out to the register. You’re buying it.”
“No! Ack! Quit it!” Melody got up and began to wrestle the dress off of her, yanking the straps down her shoulders.
“Are you doing okay in there?” The clerk knocked politely, but Ethel heard a hint of warning in her voice at their horseplay.
“We’re fine,” Melody sang cheerfully. Ethel swatted at her hands, but Melody gave the dress one more swift yank, practically tripping her as Ethel found herself forced to step out of it. Melody triumphantly brandished the dress, shoving it over the edge of the door. The clerk accepted it quickly, and Melody called out to her, “We’ll take that one, if you can hold it for us.”
“That’s fine,” she agreed, and Ethel was relieved to hear her retreat.
“That was so uncalled for.”
“Try the next one.” Melody perused the pile of goodies, holding up a pink angora sweater. “I might get this in my size. We can be twins.”
“Um, no.”
“Party poop.” Ethel rolled her eyes, dreading the thought of anyone comparing them in “Who Wore It Best” style if they stepped out in the same clothes. She snatched away the sweater and tugged it over her head.
“Maybe this, with the jeans.”
“No. That with the skirt.” Melody held up a black pleather number, and Ethel shook her head.
“It’ll look like I’m trying too hard.”
“No. It’ll look great. Put it on.”
“I don’t like drawing that much attention to myself.”
“Ethel, get real. You don’t want to draw much attention to yourself, but then you complain that guys don’t notice you. It’s like you don’t want them to. Now, this is me when I want a guy to notice me: ‘LOOK AT ME! OVER HERE! YOO-HOO!” Melody waved emphatically, jiggling for emphasis. “This is you: ‘Don’t look at me!’” Melody lowered her voice to a dramatic whisper with her impersonation, and her posture closed up, covering her eyes with her hands, then peeked between her fingers at Ethel.
“They’re going to kick us out of the store,” Ethel warned.
“Need any help in there?” The clerk knocked again, as if on cue. Ethel shushed Melody, who started to giggle.
“We’re fine!” she trilled back.
“Nutball,” Ethel accused under her breath. She tried the skirt with the sweater, then made a face. “I don’t know.”
“It’s not bad.”
“Maybe it’s the sweater that doesn’t work.”
“By itself, or just with the skirt?”
“It’s too… fluffy. I’m not ‘fluffy.’ You could pull it off, but I just look silly. I almost like the skirt. Almost.”
“I like it on you. We need that little chain belt we saw out there earlier to go with it.” Ethel warmed to the idea.
“Maybe.”
“Try this red top with the skirt, instead. You look nice in red.” Ethel shucked the sweater and passed it back to Melody, slipping into the strategically ripped top.
“My folks will kill me if I ever wear this home.”
“If they don’t do your laundry anymore, they don’t have to know,” Melody reasoned.
“You were one of those girls who used to wear one outfit to school, then change before home room, weren’t you?”
“Well, duh.” Ethel turned back to the mirror, then jerked back.
“Whoa. Wow.” Melody nodded emphatically.
“Yes. That. That’s going home with us.”
“Bad idea.”
“You’re not the one in charge.”
“I’m not? How am I not the one in charge? It’s my body.”
“You lost all decision-making power with that nasty peasant dress thing we threw out. You don’t get to dress you anymore, I get to dress you.”
“But-“
“I’m not finished going through your stuff, either. We never touched your trunk. If I find Doc Martens, those little crocheted granny sweaters, or Molly Ringwald hats with flowers on them, you’re grounded.” Ethel winced. It was going to be a long, looooonng afternoon.
*
Ethel went online a couple of days later and checked her bank balance. When she saw the amount was in the low double digits, she groaned; she’d barely have enough money for laundry and ramen until payday after her little shopping spree with Mel. She glanced at her closet, sighing over the new purchases hung neatly on the rack, price tags still attached. She made up her mind not to regret her new finds, even if she was still wondering where to even wear them. A darkened living room of a frat house, maybe; a classroom, probably not.
She was due to cross paths with Moose again, and Ethel was dreading it. Their tiff still left a bitter taste in her mouth. Maybe she tore into him somewhat unfairly, but the things he’d said brought back all of the old hurts.
Ethel was embarrassed. She argued with herself endlessly after she left him that afternoon, insisting that he had no clue what he was talking about, but the shoe fit too well. If she had to sum it up, Ethel wasn’t ashamed so much of what the other students thought of how she looked, in part due to them not knowing her. She was a perfect stranger, and an object to be drawn. To Moose, she was a former classmate, and to a certain extent, an old target.
Why was she concerned about what he thought? Why was she giving his opinion that much value? They were never really friends. They never dated. She never had a crush on him… thank goodness, she mused. Ethel wasn’t his type by a long shot, if Midge was any indication. Perfect skin, perfect hair, petite, perfect breasts… of course Moose was picky. They’d made something of an odd couple with his ruddy, boyish looks and meaty bulk. Moose with his high standards was a great judge of feminine beauty.
“I sure made him blush,” Ethel murmured to herself. That moment played itself out in her head again, those eyes meeting hers, tearing themselves away from her body with difficulty, seeing the tension in his throat as he swallowed roughly. Her breath had caught with anticipation as it registered who he was, and where they were. Ethel wished, now, that she had been sassier with him, and less… well, not apologetic. No. She wasn’t sorry. He wouldn’t get that from her.
She got ready for her day. Melody was already out, meeting up with her bandmates for brunch and skipping her calculus class, against Ethel’s advice. Josie and Val were just as beautiful as Mel; Ethel wanted to hate them on sight, but they were really nice. Unlike Melody’s girlish love of everything pink and sweet, Valerie’s style was edgy, and Josie was a bit of a tomboy, both of them favoring ripped up jeans, extreme jewelry and tattoos. Valerie’s platinum ear gages made Ethel cringe, but on the dark, curly-haired bass player, it worked. She declined their offer to join them and made her way to the dining hall for a quick bite and a coffee.
Ethel’s steps slowed and became plodding and reluctant as she entered the school of art. She would have to face him, yet –
Not really.
Ethel realized that she didn’t have to even look in his direction. Ethel’s ability to do her job hinged strongly on tuning out the distractions around her and just relaxing. She wasn’t putting on a show, contrary to his opinion. It wasn’t important to act natural, it was essential to be natural. She greeted the professor and nodded to a few of the students as they said hello. Ethel made a beeline into her makeshift changing room. She slipped out of her clothes and shrugged into her robe; by the time she emerged, she saw Moose out of the corner of her eye, setting up his easel. He still sat near the back of the room, which was fine with her. His neighbor – Stan, she thought she recalled – winked and grinned at her. She offered him a tight little smile in return. Okay, him, she could avoid, too.
*
Moose felt himself burning up with the effort of avoiding her glance. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her familiar dark robe and that she had her hair pulled up again. He was secretly pleased; he liked seeing her neck. His professor reminded them that a great figure drawing kept the line of the neck visible and intact. Moose still wanted to get the class over with; even econ appealed to him more than sketching a girl who now likely despised him.
He braced himself and averted his eyes when she dropped the robe, busying himself with getting out his pencils and charcoals. “Charcoals this time, Moose. Try the fine vines this time, I’d like to see how you do with those and how well you can work on your shading.”
“Fine.” Moose hated how messy the charcoals were, how the dark dust ended up all over the place, inevitably wiped on his jeans by the end of the session. He obediently stowed the pencils and got out his blending stump, flipping to a fresh page of newsprint.
He found Ethel seated on a stool on the low platform, all elegant limbs and angles, her pale skin smooth and gleaming slightly from some oil that she’d smoothed on it. Her expression was neutral, and she faced the left side of the room initially as she settled into her pose. The professor got her attention for a moment.
“Ethel? Would you mind facing this way? Bend that arm a little, too, and spread out your fingers. I don’t want anyone to have to simple an angle when they draw your back. I need people to work on foreshortening. There. Better. Let’s work with that.” Ethel fumed. That left her facing Moose, almost head-on. She forced herself to look at a point above his shoulder. “Nice! Great expression, we can work with that. Hold that for five minutes, Ethel.” The professor turned on some low music, and Ethel tried to retreat into her own world.
Easier said than done. Once in a while, his movements broke her reverie, while she tried to think of mundane things. She watched the movement of his hands, large and thick-fingered, smeared with dark gray charcoal dust. He handled the vine awkwardly, as though he were afraid it would snap in his grip. Moose had a hard look of concentration on his face as he sketched, not as relaxed as Stan, or of the older re-entry students in the front row, artists at leisure who were just there for enrichment. Ethel ignored a kink in her neck and mentally counted one-mississippi, two-mississippi while she listened to the low ticks of the timer. The buzzer went off, and Ethel stood and stretched.
“That! Hold that! That’s nice.”
“It wasn’t on purpose,” she argued.
“It works. Go with it. Face that way!”
“Right! Got it!”
Moose was losing the battle with his body not to think of her… inappropriately. Her pose wasn’t helping matters any. Her arms were lifted slightly above her head, bent and relaxed like someone sitting up at the edge of the bed, stretching out the kinks. His brain painted the picture, and everything below the waist was paying attention. Moose tried to ignore a tightening in his loins and the rush of heat to his crotch. The pose lifted her breasts, soft, pouting little mounds whose peaks puckered in the slight draft of the room. Moose counted her ribs and his eyes measured her legs… damn it, they went on forever. His professor picked that moment to hover.
“You have a perfect vantage point where you’re sitting today. Look at that. She’s great. I want you to detail those fingers, Duke. She has a nice arch to her back.”
Ethel almost snickered. Duke? She remembered his full name, but she’d only ever known him as Moose. It wasn’t a bad name, though, she supposed. She was so tempted to see what he had on his sketch pad. One of her favorite things to do was to peruse the students’ work on her little breaks between long poses. Right now, though, she was stuck. The time seemed to drag on forever.
The buzzer sounded again. “Go ahead and stretch,” the professor suggested. “I have some ideas I’d like you to try out when we come back.”
“Okay,” she replied uncertainly. The professor stepped out briefly, and Ethel eased into her robe, strolling around the tiny studio. She peeked over a few shoulders, curious to see what people saw when they looked at her. Each impression surprised her. Some of the drawings were rendered in scribbly style, just capturing her pose itself, where others were complex and thorough, lines capturing every angle and plane of her body. A few of the drawings didn’t include her head, which she found off-putting, but a scant few rendered her expression realistically, as though the artist was sitting right in front of her and sharing a coffee. Ethel appreciated details like the highlights cast over her hair and the arch of her brows, or the tendons and hollows of her throat and neck. She chuckled to herself when she saw how big her feet looked on one sketch pad. She stopped short of Stan and Moose, making brief eye contact with the former before she turned back toward the platform.
“Don’t run off,” Stan beckoned. “Take a break. Hang out for a sec.” Ethel turned around, slightly surprised. Her hand rose, gesturing to herself.
“Huh? Wait… me?”
“Yeah. You. You just work for the art department, or are you a student?”
“I’m a freshman here.”
“How you liking it so far?”
“It’s great. Still weird being this far from home.”
“You’re from Riverdale, right?” Moose gave him a stony look. Ethel glanced accusingly at Moose when she replied.
“Sure am. Born and raised.”
“Small town girl.”
“Best kind of town.” She assessed Stan briefly. His smile was open, and he seemed to be losing the war not to stare at her legs, exposed from just above the knee by the skimpy wrap.
“Ethel, let’s begin again,” the professor suggested. “We have enough time left for another complete sketch. People, I want to see details, proportion, shading and composition. Use the entire page. Remember which direction your light source is coming from.”
“Bye,” Ethel tossed over her shoulder.”
“Stan,” he told her.
“Huh?”
“Stan Gold.”
“Ethel Muggs.” She gave him a little wave and headed back to the platform. Moose held his tongue, but he simmered, taking the time to wipe his coal-stained fingers with a small rag.
Didn’t she notice he was trying to pick up on her? Moose watched the cheeseball next to him continue to ogle his old classmate and felt annoyed. “Learn those lines from your grandpa?”
“Pfft… so what? I was just talking to her, man.”
“Trying a little hard.”
“Who was trying anything?” Stan turned toward him, smirking. “What’s it to you?” His voice dropped as he leaned in, and Moose panicked as he watched it dawn on Stan, light bulb blinking on. “You into her?”
“Shut up!” Moose hissed. Ethel’s head jerked in their direction just as she was about to take off her robe. Moose looked away quickly. She turned her back from them both and dropped the garment off the edge of the platform and approached a small pile of props. She took a small silk rose and instinctively tucked it behind her ear.
“Nice,” the professor encouraged. Ethel spread a brightly striped zarape across the platform and automatically sat on it like a beach towel. She set out a small lotion bottle beside her and was inspired.
“Go ahead.” Ethel mimed putting on sunscreen. “Yup. We can work with that.” She stopped the movement mid-stroke. “Love it. Time set.”
Moose’s mind wandered to recent weeks, remembering his last summer at home with his friends, with his girlfriend, no longer a minor. Every moment that he wasn’t making deliveries for the florist shop, Moose spent at the beach, pounding a volleyball over the net, feeling his soles toughening from the hot sand. Midge played with him and worked on her tan, sending him to the concession shack for diet sodas and ice cream bars, sharing her iPod’s ear buds when they retired to the blanket. They made out surreptitiously, sometimes retreating to his truck or behind the beach house. Moose wished he’d known those days were numbered; the idyll ended too soon, stolen from him by a text message.
He shook himself from his reverie and focused on his assignment. All that was missing from the vision before him was a boy-cut tankini, sunglasses and a few issues of Cosmo. Moose was used to seeing Ethel alone at the beach, no boyfriends in sight. Sometimes he saw her with Betty and Nancy, and occasionally Veronica, but more often than not, she was on the fringes, more of a fifth wheel when they showed up with Archie, Reg or Chuck in tow. When her friends canoodled, Ethel was the one who made the extra trips to the snack bar or waded in the surf. Sometimes she just kept her nose in her beach novel and her ear buds plugged in. Moose wondered what she was trying to tune out.
The Ethel he knew stood at odds with the one before him, but Moose began to draw, with some difficulty. His hand grew more used to her spare lines. There was a shadow beneath her chin that he’d captured before. She sported a tiny scar across one knee, a souvenir from a rollerskating accident when she was ten. Her overbite had been corrected by braces, that much he remembered, but she still had a long, narrow jaw, a tad too extreme for beauty.
It still gave her something.
Her nose escaped him. Its shape was irregular, a common magnet for taunts – including his – and prominent. He couldn’t capture it, and he decided to rough in her features, focusing instead on her limbs, trying to nail the pose this time. Foreshortening was still his worst enemy. When objects were closest to him, he felt like he was making them too stubby, but he tried to force himself to truly draw what he saw. He knew how long her forearms were – her reach was as long as his, easily – but if she reached out and pointed toward him, it would seem to disappear behind her hand.
Drawing wasn’t a cake class, not by far.
She was avoiding his gaze, which actually made it easier for him, but he still felt guilty over their last conversation. It wasn’t like they were friends, but he didn’t want to be on her shit list, either.
The next half hour sailed by, finding him erasing as much as he drew. His professor made a thoughtful sound behind him.
“Don’t overthink it. Don’t erase so much. There are no bad lines, here. If you have to take a breather and come back to it, that’s fine.”
“I think I’ve done as much as I can do,” Moose admitted, slightly defeated. His drawing was a pile of crap in his eyes, and he flipped the sketch pad shut.
“Don’t give up on it!” His instructor’s smile was good natured as he clapped him on the shoulder.
“Right.” Stan shrugged.
“Done for the day?”
“Yeah. Kind of.” There were three minutes left on the timer. Moose flipped open the pad again to his rejected sketch and sighed. It didn’t look right. Her features were blocked in, but he’d failed to detail them properly, and he felt like he’d copped out. Even partly formed, her mouth seemed to grimace and mutter, Asshole. Moose picked up his charcoal and plowed ahead. Why not? It couldn’t get any worse.
*
Ethel was out the door like a shot once her robe was stuffed into her Jansport pack, zipping her jacket against the nippy air. They didn’t need to revisit him telling her-
“Ethel!”
“…shit.”
“Wait. Ethel, wait. Please.” She heard his voice, slightly out of breath, deep and thick as he fell in step with her.
“Whatever.”
“Please?” His tone was plaintive, and she slowed but didn’t stop.
“Why?”
“I just wanna talk to you.”
“So talk.”
“You didn’t have to get pissed at me, y’know.”
“Who’s pissed?”
“You are.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You were.”
“Okay.”
“Well, you were.”
“And why was I missed, Marmaduke?”
“I dunno… you got mad at me because I asked if you couldn’t get a different job.”
“No. That’s not it, and you know it.”
“And what’s this Marmaduke stuff? You never call me that.”
“It’s your name.”
“I know it is. I didn’t know you knew it was.” He was getting slightly out of breath following her – chasing her – and his large hand clapped itself around her upper arm, circling it completely. It hit him how sparely she was built, and he gentled his grip when she glared down at his hand, then lifted chilly gray eyes to his.
“Off.”
“Sorry.” He obeyed, and she stepped back from him, adjusting her pack on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Ethel.”
“Okay.”
“First of all, I didn’t mean to insult you. I didn’t.”
“Okay.”
“When I said ‘embarrass yourself…’ that wasn’t what I meant.” She opened her mouth, but he shushed her. “It wasn’t.”
“Sure seemed like it.”
“Seemed like what?”
“You know.”
“I don’t know.” His expression was clueless.
“You think I’m hideous!” she blurted.
“What?” he grunted. “Says who?”
“Said you,” she accused, jabbing a finger into his chest. She spun away from him, and he stood there, flummoxed for a few seconds. His face twisted into a scowl.
“What?” he repeated, voice raising. “Seriously?”
“Leave me alone, Marmaduke.”
“God, please quit calling me that.”
“It’s your name.”
“Not my choice.” She almost pitied him. Ethel wasn’t the easiest cross to bear, either. No store ever sold personalized key chains, mugs, or charm bracelets with her name on it, did they?
“Just leave me alone.” Her voice sounded resigned. He gave up the chase and watched her sail away from him, buffeted but hardly slowed by the harsh autumn winds. He sighed, long-suffering and defeated.
“That went well.”
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