Marty was still feeling sorry for herself three weeks after he broke up with her. Her best friend, Olivia, came home a couple of days ago from UCLA.

Squirming on the sofa, Olivia adjusted her short skirt and crossed her legs. “I came home just in time to whip you into shape. My God, girl, you’re addicted to him, that’s all it is. This is not about love. Besides, the guy’s a fucking misogynist. He objectifies you, doesn’t see you as a real person. And you, you perpetuate it, you know. You should have kicked his ass when he said, ‘I love your titties’. They’re breasts, honey! He’s a sexist pig. Fuck him. Just let him go. He doesn’t deserve you.”

Olivia, a rebel, was always questioning the status quo--Marty wished she had half her mettle.

Yet, still incensed by the break-up and indulging in self-pity albeit less so than two weeks before, she bristled at her best friend. “Okay, I get it. Let’s not talk about it anymore.”

The She Warrior, Olivia, shrugged and turned on the TV.

“Let’s go out. I don’t wanna be here right now,” Marty said, grabbing the remote.

The mall, the panacea for ailing spirits, Marty thought, was just the cheap distraction she needed. As usual they would go into perfumed boutiques and just caress and sniff expensive luxurious items. Olivia decided to buy a new skirt for the evening from a chintzy, usually disarrayed store at the other end of the mall. They had planned on going to an 18-and-over club in San Francisco.

On the way Marty noticed guys turning their heads. Always intimidated by attention from the opposite sex, she curled her torso, her chin almost touching her flat chest. Olivia, on the other hand, her tiger-patterned mini shifting, up, down, and sideways as her wide hips swayed, back arched, puckered her lips as she smiled back at the boys. Smirking, Marty mused they looked like a set of parentheses.

She wished she had half of Olivia’s moxie, all right, remembering what she had ardently preached earlier about her ex objectifying her, willing her words to seep in, as if by this act she could be like her.

But by the time they reached their destination Marty raised a brow, recalling how her best friend could be so full of shit sometimes.

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