By James Sullivan
Sandra only won second place, but they gave her to the award anyway.
Each year, Colbrite College selected one graduating student whose scholastic achievements and character embodied the college spirit of excellence. The idea was to “capture the essence” of each winning woman. To capture it, that is, within a China doll, customized to her appearance, likes and dislikes, and personality. Her essence. In doll form.
What was the essence of Elenore Tastee, namesake of the Tastee award and first Colbrite College doll in the vast glass cabinet in alumnae hall? Sandra stood in the elegant southern-style welcome room that housed the dolls and searched Elenore Tastee’s glazed porcelain face. Her sandy hair, the hint of rouge in her cheeks, the miniature tennis racket clutched in her doll hands. Could these mere embellishments contain her? Faced with this question—and the doll faces of history—the first-place winner had declined the award. To be a doll, a relic, a literal plaything: that was too much. Despite her grades, perhaps she hadn’t embodied Colbrite’s spirit after all.
Consequently, Sandra had taken her place. Sandra shared the first-place winner’s reservations. Part of her wanted to flee. But she found her second-place-self immobilized before the rows of Colbrite’s Tastee girls of the past. Despite being first chair violinist, Sandra had always felt second fiddle. Wasn’t that why she’d been runner-up? She wasn’t sure she belonged among the finest of Colbrite’s history—or that she wanted to be there. What a weird award! Part of her wanted to go through with it for a laugh—or to satisfy expectations. But, more than that, something in the glossy doll stares beckoned her. Could something of Elenore Tastee truly remain, even decades after her death? Did Sandra, too, have something that could belong in these cabinets?
The dollmakers arrived. Two older women in old-fashioned but elegant office wear. Like Nancy Reagan or Tipper Gore armed with tape measures. They escorted Sandra into a small office, walls paneled in historical photos, hundreds of faces of Colbrite College past peering from every direction. Before Sandra could even speak, the dollmakers had locked the door and begun peeling away her clothes. They stripped her down to her underwear and documented her body one limb at a time. They measured around the thigh. The hips, the waist. The length of each arm, the slight bicep bulge. Sandra held her breath as they assessed her ribcage and bust. One dollmaker held a color gauge up to Sandra’s eye to pinpoint the shade of her irises. The other plucked a hair from her scalp and placed it in a glass vial. One recited a series of figures of indeterminate significance, and the other furiously recorded them on a touchscreen with the cold efficiency of a moving company inventorying boxes of tee shirts. Sandra wondered if they would disassemble her body next, pack her parts in a box, and send her to be reconstructed in some foreign sweatshop. She couldn’t get her clothes back on fast enough.
But even dressed again, monochrome eyes peered directly from every photo—Sandra could feel them. And she was sure they were measuring something else. Her body burned in embarrassment. What exactly were they measuring? They could see it, and Sandra couldn’t. She knew only that it was something she didn’t want seen—not by anyone.
“Sandra?” one of the dollmakers asked. “Are you okay?”
“Miss Sandy?”
Sandy was reclined on an old alumnae hall couch, head on a pillow that smelled like the ‘90s. “Poor girl, you must have locked your knees while we worked. You just collapsed.”
The aura of intense scrutiny had dissipated. The dollmakers smiled and helped Sandy to her feet, assuring her she’d given them all they needed.
~~~~~
When Sandy went to formally receive the award, she dressed as if she were another person. Strange how well the dress she bought hugged her form. As if she had only just grown into her own body. Perhaps the dollmakers had sent her measurements to every tailor in town. She wore heels she feared might send her falling to the floor once again, and, despite the obvious association, she “dolled up” in eyeliner and lipstick—though she held off on rouge, in case the doll likeness would prove too uncanny.
There were addresses, applause, and then the doll was unveiled. Black hair. Icy-blue eyes. A smile like the last light of dusk. In its hands was a miniature violin that, just like Sandy’s, even bore a scar on its body just below the fingerboard. When had they discovered that detail? For a moment, it looked to Sandy as if her doll-self might panic and collapse.
They really had captured her essence. The essence of who she was—who she had been. What was even left of her now, her embodied self? Then the feeling sunk in, like a winter breeze sliding under a coat: she was free of it.
That was undoubtedly her, soon to join history behind glass. A second-place kind of girl, with her supporting role black bob and cold glares, a girl who’d hardened her fingertips against sheep gut strings for over a decade—that person would remain here forever, housed with the alumnae of Colbrite College. Sandy didn’t have to be her anymore.
An impulse whose origin she didn’t yet understand sparked inside, and Sandy deftly pocketed the doll’s miniature violin. Yes, she’d choose what to keep.
Sandy turned and left the essence of all the Tastee Award winners behind the glass of history, her heels clacking as if they might rattle the world. At the edge of the cabinet, just before leaving for good, she gave one last glance to Elenore Tastee. Who, she wondered, had Ms. Tastee become? Sandy’s steps lightened, like those of a toddler, unsure but eager. And where would she go? The world was now infinite.
~~~~~
James Sullivan is the author of Harboring (ELJ Editions). His stories and essays have appeared in Cimarron Review, New Ohio Review, Third Coast, Fourth Genre, The Normal School, and Fourteen Hills among other publications. Originally from South Dakota, he split his adult life between Japan and the American Midwest and now resides in South Carolina. Connect on socials: @jfsullivan4th