“Vanity is becoming a nuisance, I can see why women give it up, eventually. But I’m not ready for that yet.” 
― Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye

Kali looked at herself in the mirror.  Yes, they had mirrors–one of the perks of living in an old hotel room.  Who was gonna take that?  Who needed a mirror to survive?  She was sure some nerd would have figured out some useful thing for it, but for Kali it was still a mirror.

A mirror that was screaming at her that she looked like a fucking troll.

Vanity was a powerful thing.

She would start with her hair.  Yes, she’d gotten conditioner out of the Bronco, but without a flat iron or a curling iron or even a blow dryer it made no difference.  Her hair was as blonde as her mother’s, and with the same sort of wavy-not wavy lame curl to it, it hung around her face limply like wet straw.  Waxing her eyebrows was out of the question, and thank the gods for tweezers because she’d inherited her father’s thick brows. His looked like he had caterpillars on his forehead, and she had often groomed them for him.  Not that hers were that thick, but still.  She had makeup but used it sporadically, mainly for work on Friday nights–because Friday.  Because at some point she wanted to feel very much a girl, looked at, admired, wanted.

Kali leaned in and took a closer look at herself.  The dusting of freckles over her nose, her clear blue eyes, her full lips.  She was pretty, at least she thought so.  But the fact that she got hit on even when she walked around in old tank tops and dirty jeans meant nothing.  Men will fuck anything.  Even Leslie got tips and customers–and not to be unkind, but she was NOT pretty, not even with makeup.  She had no ass, her boobs were small, her teeth crooked.  Her skin had been ashen, not dark, not light, kinda yellowish as if she were sick. And she still had customers.

Leslie had been the first of their group to get “sick”.   One of the other girls had walked into one of the upstairs bedrooms to find her feverish and delirious.  She’d called the manager, but instead of him calling an ambulance he’d sent her home.  Later that evening one of the barbacks found her when he went to take out the trash, roaming the back alley, looking weird.  Scared the shit out of him, he began screaming as she lunged for him and everyone ran to see.   Took three guys to hold her down while they waited for the ambulance.  And she still managed to bite two of them.  Of course, they didn’t know back then that the only way to help her was to shoot her head off.

“Ugh!”  She turned away from the mirror in disgust, or frustration, or both, and plopped down on the bed reaching for her notebook.

So I met the Queen B yesterday morning.  She fuckin’ hit on me.  There she was, her hair smooth and shiny, her clothes perfect, her makeup flawless, and me looking like a fucking troll.  No makeup, rattyass tanktop and dirty jeans and she was fuckin’ hitting on me.  I don’t play on that team, and now that Buck ain’t around to make me do it, I ain’t sticking my face in another woman’s crotch.  Like never again.  I used to do that for him.  He said he liked to watch and what the fuck ever but I never did like it, so fuck that.  And who the fuck died and made her Queen?  Buffy? Give me a fucking break.  Now she wants to work out a deal.  Said that chick with the huge tits gave me the wrong message.  Like, seriously?

Kali looked over at the mirror from where she sat on the bed, cross-legged, notebook on her lap.  Funny how this…  this horrible place the world had turned into had given her a new life, and she knew, right then and there that she never wanted to turn another trick.  She’d never cared what people thought.  Well, she’d worried about what her parents would say, of course, her family, she hid that from them even if they suspected or listened to her aunt’s gossip.  But the people around her knew of course.  She’d become one of those girls at the club.  Dancing the pole, taking off her clothes for money, ‘entertaining’ the men Buck introduced her to.  “It’s just business, baby, you know I love you.”  He’d say.  And she’d believed him.  Now there were all these new people who knew nothing, or very little of her old life and she realized she was ashamed, ashamed for them to know.  Oh she’d ‘worked’ since she got on the island.  It was what she knew to do.  But the visits to her room had dwindled to the point that it had been weeks, so long she couldn’t remember the last one, and chances were they knew, or would know.  People liked to talk.  She’d had sex of course, but for free, because she wanted to.  She now had a “family” at Coach’s.  Kind of, anyway.  A ragtag group of people she wanted to hold on to in anyway she could, and she didn’t want them to see her like she’d been.  A whore.

Kei got a fucking dog.  Said she found it in the woods near her camp.  Says she can teach it to sniff out the creepers.  He’s kinda cute, but I don’t know.  I’ve never had a pet.  I’d begged Buck to get me one one time, one of those cute little things like Paris Hilton had to put in my purse and he told me it would pee and shit in my bag so we didn’t get one.  Haven’t seen Niko in two weeks.  Some fucking security he turned out to be.  Glad I didn’t fuck him.  Sky had gone off somewhere for a few days, and it wasn’t until some chick came in the bar yesterday morning talking shit about how she was the only one working at the hospital that I got worried.  Dr. Ash is Sky’s boyfriend.  He’d stitched up Kei.  And her saying no one else worked there made me scared they’d both left the island.  Maynard is a new guy.  Kinda cute in his hipster glasses–but all that fucking ink AND a beard?  Daum.  I don’t know where the fuck Dan hides.  I’m kinda worried about giving him money too.  

We’ll see how things go today.  I’m supposed to go talk to B sometime soon, see what is it she wants besides grope at my tits.  Putting on makeup and shit will make me feel better standing next to her, but I’m worried she’ll get the wrong idea. We cleaned up the upstairs some, but I still need to fix it up.  Bottles are dwindling too.  I need to get my hands on more, so maybe it’s time I paid a visit to Delia too.   Who would have thought that the apocalypse would be so much work?  No TV, no computers, no fucking electric, no cell phones.  

You’d think we would be so fucking bored.  

And you’d think we wouldn’t give a shit about how we looked.