i.m. Kate Spade
When our Quiz Bowl team of eighteen-year-olds snagged ……..a berth in the finals, held in New York City,
……..my small-town Minnesotan brain cells dizzied— at last I’d be some place that mattered. Swag
was my teammate Anne’s fixation: knockoff bags ……..peddled in Chinatown, affixed with glitzy
……..Kate Spade labels. Anne bought a sack of six, then forgot it on the airport shuttle’s shag
seats; someone swiped it within minutes. Kate, ……..I learned a fact of womanhood that year:
even we knockoff girls, cheap, desperate to look like someone else, to imitate
……..a finer woman, have our value; we’re ……..wanted, wanted, until we disappear.