In the chiropractor’s office, waiting millennia for my mother, I found a redundant commodity. It’s thin glossy papers woven together into a comically large but thin book. Mom told me her teenage years were spent on friends’ beds, giggling over gossip columns. My friends just use phones. Maybe magazines are only important for entertaining the bored youth, loitering in chiropractors’ offices. On this oak table, I found my idol: Zendaya.

Her hips brushed the floor like an hourglass toppled over, her gaunt ribs contorted out, perfectly petite breasts perked towards the fourth wall, her arm tossed over her permed primped hair, exposing its fleshy soft spot. Zendaya, feminizing Lionel Richie’s lounge.

Yet it is not her body that intrigues me. Well, it is. But it’s the pocket where arm joint meets shoulder socket. Perched in the right center of the photo, framing her thirsting face, is a baby-smooth armpit. Her body does not have the ambiguity of youth, but the womanish androgyny of gym memberships and collagen protein shakes. 

Zendaya’s probably not an alien, and is definitely female, so why doesn’t she have armpit hair? Or the black zit-like stubble that my mom hides? How does her pit look like a creamy cocoa cave? 

A pit drops in my stomach as I happen to lift my arm to scratch my head, happen to stretch out my neck, and happen to analyze the state of my inner arm. Spindly black grass winds out as if to taunt me. Eager to grow, my arms are birthing womanhood before my boobs or butt can catch up. It sucks.

The waiting room door swings open, interrupting my self-diagnosis, and I shoot up to my mom’s side. As we exit towards the car, I trail behind, catching glimpses of Dove-white globs under my mom’s arm. 

Follicles tease my brain. Turning onto La Cholla (maybe it was the hair like L’s or the feminine tense), compelled me to ask: 

“Why do some women not have armpit hair?” The car halted with my question; shame swerved into my mind. 

“All women have armpit hair, Lulu,” came a corrective voice from the front seat.

“Not Zendaya,” I grumbled. But to my chagrin, I had overlooked the power of a red light, and my mom whipped her head to look me in the eyes.

“What are you talking about?” She asked. My nostril webs flared. 

“No, Mom. Zendaya really doesn’t have armpit hair. I saw the picture, and she doesn’t have any. There is literally nothing there. You have tons, and she has none!” 

Awkwardness seeped out of the air vents. I looked down, my big toe toupe sneered. 

“Was that on the InStyle cover in there?” My leg fluff recoiled into the sweaty leather seat. 

“Lulu, those magazines are AI. I mean, Zendaya is a real person, but they use AI to adjust her picture. Showing us a fake inage of reality. Zendaya probably has just as much armpit hair as me.” The light turning green rescues my mom from laughing in my face, but the rearview mirror exposes her. 

Why is this funny?

I have heard people talking about imperfection. Now I feel it. It grows.