Highest Bidder

I opened my messenger and sent a text to Maddie. My eyes caught the time. I was already so late for school. I had just arrived at the underground station when her response came.

Why do you need a selfie of yourself?

My reply was deliberately vague. I don’t know, but I need one now.

She messaged back. Why don’t you just take one?

I called her. “Because I look like shit.”

“You couldn’t look like shit if you tried. Again, why do you need a selfie? What’s it for?”

“Look, I’m going underground, so I’m going to lose reception. I’ll speak to you later okay.”

“Let me search,” Maddie’s reply came. “You used to give me some to edit for you when you still used to care about your Instagram page.”

Yeah, that felt like a lifetime ago. “Thanks, Maddie.” I tucked away my phone and ran down the steps into the subway. The train arrived just as I got onto the platform and I went in. It was just about noon and the carriage looked fairly empty. I let my gaze skirt to the only other occupant. She was wearing particularly unique skinny-heeled boots. Her white collared blouse was tucked into leather trousers, and her short elegant hair with wavy bangs completed the sophisticated look.

For some reason, it made me feel just a bit sadder. She turned and looked at me and I immediately looked away to my dirtied converse and oversized puffy coat. I looked a mess and I knew it. All I looked forward to each day was end when I would once again, be in bed, shielded from everything. I couldn’t wait for this day to end too.

As I arrived at Uni, Maddie’s message came in.

How about this one?

She sent me a picture of a day the three of us had gone zip lining in Lancaster.

The selfie was of me seated atop one of the hills we had climbed to, while the background was of mountains and a dull sky. It had been taken just when the sun had hit me at a perfect angle, and although there hadn’t been much makeup on my face either, my hazel eyes looked as if they’d been set ablaze, and my skin was flushed with an ethereal glow. I looked happy and attractive. This would have to do. If I was rejected, then oh well, my mother and I were basically doomed.

It’ll do, I responded.

Then I sent the picture to the number given to me.

Forty-five minutes later, I arrived at Ealing Broadway and caught the bus to the University of West London. The lecture theatre was already filled and the lesson on auditing already underway. I settled in a vacant seat on the second to last row and tried my hardest to concentrate, but my hand remained clenched around my phone in anxiety. About half-an-hour later, when the last break of the session had just been announced, my phone beeped with a new message.

I peered down at my screen, surprised that I was the girl in the picture. I looked so carefree and happy.

Freya

As it turned out, Mom went to bed early with a splitting headache and since she didn’t feel well, I didn’t bother to cook. I was rummaging through our refrigerator for something to chew on when Ella’s call came through.

“How did it go?” she asked excitedly.

I found a half-eaten avocado and the leftover heel from a loaf of bread. My mother tended to avoid crusts like they would undo all her best anti-aging efforts, so I brought them to the counter and laid them on the cutting board. Going hands free with my airpod, I popped them into the toaster, then began to spread butter on them. “They asked me to go to a studio in Islington tomorrow to have some professional photos done.”

“Professional photos?” she squealed. “Does that mean you’ve been accepted?”

“I think so,” I responded cautiously.

“What? Without a physical examination?”

“He did briefly mention it, so there will be one down the line.”

“Hmm … right,” she said thoughtfully, probably thinking of me with my legs in a stirrup.

“What are you up to?” I asked, as I sliced off the few brown spots in the avocado.

“Worrying about you and folding my three-week old laundry. I really should stop chucking them all in the corner of my room. They look worse than when I took them out of the dryer.”

The recollection of my friend’s disdain for domestic work made me smile.

“Anyway,” she went on. “I inquired a bit more and it seems an auction will be taking place this weekend.”

I inhaled deeply, surprised at how rapidly it was all moving. “It’s once a month, right?” I asked quietly.

“Yeah.”

I swallowed. “I’m just in time then.”

“You can still change your mind,” she pleaded. “I don’t want you to do this.”

I ground black pepper on the sliced avocados and carried the plate up to my room. “Is losing my virginity to some pot-bellied swine with an empty soul that bad?” I asked, and for some reason we both laughed out loud at the image I’d just drawn. I stopped suddenly and dashed away the tears that had welled up in my eyes. An awkward pause followed.

“I just feel you haven’t really thought it through, and I’m worried you will regret it for the rest of your life.”

“I’m yet to hear about anyone who had a blast their first time,” I pointed out. “So it shouldn’t really matter.”