Shania - "Shania"

Shania is a best friend the narrator remembers having during childhood in the story "Shania." At the time, the narrator was interested in Shania because she was so different from herself, as the story's opening lines make clear: "On the day we met, she told me she was named after the sexiest country music star alive. And that she knew how to fire a gun. And that she was one hundred percent Cherokee" (1). It is this last part in particular that fascinates the narrator, as she recalls fixating on a painting of a Native American man in Shania's parents' bedroom. The narrator's parents eventually forbid her from visiting Shania's house anymore because her father was violent with her mother. At the end of the story, the narrator notes that she saw Shania working at a grocery store when they were both adults, and that Shania was...