“You know you don’t get to decide what’s feminist,” Nevaeh says, and Taylor sighs. They’ve had this argument before. They both look at me.

“They are very athletic too,” Katherine observes. “Strippers.”

“I am athletic!” I say. “But I—” I’ve let only one guy see me totally naked in my life, and it turns out he wasn’t impressed. “I don’t think I could do that.” Plus how do strippers manage a whole athletic act topless without hurting themselves?

My three friends, none of whom have ever been in danger of hitting themselves in the face with their own boobs when they jog, nod with understanding and a touch of disappointment.

“It’s such a good idea, though,” Taylor says wistfully. “Go-go girl in Vegas?”

“Burlesque dancer in Chicago?” I offer.

“Isn’t that just fancy stripping?” Taylor says. Katherine is tapping at her phone.

“It’s a performance,” Nevaeh says. “With a cool vintage aesthetic. And nipple tassels.”

“And feathers!” Katherine says, holding her phone up, her eyes wide. “Look at her! ‘San Francisco School of Burlesque,’” she reads. We all lean forward to see.

The dark-skinned woman is apple-shaped, snugged into a velvet fringed corset, caught midmotion. Her leg, broad and dimpled, extends gracefully all the way up over her head, skin shining under the spotlight, her bare toes hooked into the loop of the fluffiest pink feather boa I’ve ever seen. Her other arm, sheathed in a pink satin opera glove, is flung triumphantly in the air.

Everything about her is goals, from the perfect arch of her back and the flex of her toes and the line of her throat to how she’s gleaming from head to toe, the dark cloud of her hair a glittering galaxy, and something about her plucks a booming, bright chord in me, right in the center of my chest. She’s got thighs that look like mine, thick and sturdy and tiger-striped, and, I realize with a thrill, her boobs are overflowing her corset. And that’s not a performer’s smile. It’s real. “Oh,” I murmur. It’s a noise of amazement spilling out of me, and a little awe.

Nevaeh sighs at her phone. “No theaters closer than Chicago.”

“Oh, Nevvie, I was joking,” I say to them. “And it’s not like a club would hire a high school student. Even if I’m eighteen.”

“And the commute,” Taylor adds. I snort.

“If only we could start our own burlesque club,” I say. Katherine sighs, puts away her phone, and slips her arm around me.

“We will find a way,” she says. It feels true when she says it.