Candy Apple Red

They were the type Momma wouldn’t let you take one step out of the house in. They would banish every ounce of innocence that the Good Lord prescribed to you at birth. There would be no hiding, no modest air where you could escape the ogling eyes, the double takes, the rubber necks. It was imperative to own the look, to be the audacity that brought them to life, or else slump into an impaired, self-conscious state. But I wore them, often once each week, and I wore them with reckless abandon. I was young and fit and limitless. They were my good luck charm, my invincibility, and my power. It was irrelevant to me how my body appeared in them, whether my butt bulged or my love handles popped, it only mattered where they took me and how fast. Those candy apple red spandex never let me lose a race or fall short of achieving a goal. All of the varsity girls on the cross country and track team were issued them, but no one gave them a name quite like I did. When they were on, I’d run so fast and so fiercely that spectators couldn’t make out the gold HEMET embossed across the upper right thigh. My competitors recognized me by the sheeny red radiance that constituted my ass leaving theirs in the dust. In my glory days they purveyed pride to my school, team, coach, family, and future. There was a time and place for that uniform, both of which are irretrievable like a star burning bright at the edge of the universe. The bold spandex have since lost their luster, now hidden beyond the neurons that spark from the black and white lines that read Ashley Beechan in the Hemet High record book.