She was thrilled to hear the words “Sherri’s here!” when she entered a bar or a party, her hair loose and wild, her arms jingling with bracelets. She’d once been so ashamed of her cleavage that she’d strapped her chest down with Ace bandages, especially after Pete Becker told her that he bet her breasts were saggy like the ones on the naked women he’d seen in National Geographic. Now she smiled to herself when she took a few pairs of the old nylons Ola and Biata washed and left in a basket for the girls to stuff inside their bras for more lift—she had never imagined wanting to look even bigger than she already was. After baring so much of her torso in her costume, she no longer felt the need to be modest in her street clothes, wearing low-cut blouses and tube tops that revealed mountains of carefully padded flesh.

She was looked at now, but she’d never felt less seen, which was just fine by her. After all, that was the point of a costume. Charismatic and confident “Bunny Sherri” took over for the real Sherri. She went out every single night and managed to get by without ever revealing much about herself. Nobody wanted to hear about the organ or poetry or her sad, dead parents. Sherri accepted every invitation to go out—it didn’t matter how tired she was after her shift. Now she had a reputation to manage, a persona to craft that would be different from the one she was saddled with in high school. She wanted to be not just fun but reliably fun. She was the first to shoot back a shot of Rumple Minze or Jim Beam, and the last person to step down from dancing on the bar until closing time.

She felt like she was in a tribe. She had girlfriends. In the morning, they’d come into her room and sit on her bed to complain about their hangovers and rehash the previous evening. They shared clothing and makeup and offered fashion advice. Even their menstrual cycles were in sync. She was part of something. She belonged.