I Believe in Meat by Susan Tepper

So my sister sets me up with this girl straight out of juvie.  I am not shitting you.  Miranda.  The girl’s name.  A situation out of a horror movie, my sister says.  My sister says she’s a very nice girl who got screwed by life.

Anyways… we make a plan to meet at the Chuck E Cheese sign near the movie theater.  

And she’s not bad.  Thin with blonde hair pulled into a perky pony.  I wave and she waves.  We get closer, and she’s got these little stickers stuck on her face.  A few on her cheeks and I count three across her forehead.  

Getting closer, I can see really small letters and numbers on the stickers.  I’m wondering if they’re passes to get in and out of juvie— like they stamp your arm to get in a club.

She looks straight through me like I’m a ghost.  “Fruit stickers, if you must know,” she says.

“What?”

She taps the ones on her forehead: “Lemon from Chile, Sun World Black Plum.”  Then she makes a bunch of taps.  “4038 California avocado.”

“You wear fruit stickers on your face?”

“I only eat fruits and veggies.  It’s my issue.  My silent protest.”  

“Yeah?”  

I scratch under my T-shirt.  In my head I’m cursing out my sister for setting me up with this sticker chick freak.  

“Um.  Do you think you could peel them off before we go into the movie?”

She squints.  “Why should I?”

It is a good question.  I’ll give her that.

She’s waiting; her face looks hungry.

“I believe in meat,”  I say. 

Susan Tepper is the author of nine published books of fiction and poetry.  Her most recent titles are CONFESS (poetry published by Cervena Barva Press, 2020) and the road novel WHAT DRIVES MEN (Wilderness House Press, 2019).  Tepper has received many honors and awards.  She’s a native New Yorker.  www.susantepper.com