The thing is, the thing that the writers of the magazines and tabloids don't realize, is that you never learned how to be a real girl. Your sister did – bless her, sweet and bright and quick to sing in that off-tune key, to fill just as much space as she does, no more and no less. Your baby sister with the ragamuffin hair and uneven smile, she figured it out when you couldn't. You're a doll-girl, even before you grew into this shiny, slick body of yours, even before they cut it into it and made it rounded and soft and pleasing to look at. You could blame your mother for this. You could, and sometimes you want to. But that wouldn't be quite the truth, either. The truth is you let them, and by the time you realized you were more plastic than flesh, that you couldn't remember the color of your real hair or your old smile, there was nowhere to run to.

You used to dance for fun. That you remember, the momentum of it, the wild sweep – how you didn't care about moving like water or oil or what-the-fuck-ever your choreographer tells you these days. Now you dance for them. You watch and re-watch the videos so you can time the right moment to toss your hair, curl your hand in a come-hither gesture. You're not sure if they'll like that; too obvious, you can imagine them saying, she's lost her charm already, a flash in the pan, just nineteen and her youth is already leeching out of her skin. Part of you is yelling, let them talk. What the hell do you know, you want to say, what the hell. That Lolita-girl act, that blushing innocence served with a wink, like you weren't a doll then, too. Like you didn't learn how to be thirty while looking fifteen. But that part of you stays quiet, it always will, because you're too stupid to get the words right, and even if you were smart, nobody would want to hear you. They love you for being a fool. You have enough reminders of that; you hardly need another one.

And you are stupid; that's one thing the reporters get right, wearing the snide smiles that they want you to see, so you'll know that not only do they not take you seriously, they're not even bothering to play at it. You aren't smart by any stretch of the word, not even in the things that doll-girls should be when let out of their cases. But there is one thing you have. You know just enough to understand they want you to be stupid, a little girl in her mother's clothes, giggling under her lipsticked smile. Remember: nobody wants to hear you talk. Not your family, not your friends, and especially not your fans. You are a doll-girl, and you will be until the day you lose your expensive glow. After that you'll be replaced by a newer doll, one with skin like silk and a wasp-waist slim enough to break. Until then, you will dance for them.