The Pretty One (3 page)

Now it looked like it had been hit by a hurricane, complete with mildew stains, peeling paint, and warped floors. My parents wanted Lucy to get rid of it when we moved, but it was agreed that as long as we kept it in our closet and out of the way, she could keep it. Because there is no room whatsoever in the house and our closet is stuffed with Lucy's clothes, every time we open the door we have to keep the house steady with one foot so it doesn't fall out. For the past two years I have been a good sport about it, but my patience is wearing thin.

Lucy is inside the closet, shoving boxes around in a desperate effort to appease me. I glance at my reflection in the mirror on the inside of the closet door. I look from my bulbous nose down to the roll of fat peeking out under my gray hoodie and flopping lazily over the top of my brown cords that, until now, I actually thought looked okay on me. I step away from the mirror. It's not the dollhouse or my foot that has upset me. Nor is it my sister. It's my lousy life. “It's okay,” I say. “Just stick it back in there. I should've remembered to put my foot up.”

Lucy smiles at me appreciatively. “You know what,” she says, stepping over the dollhouse and taking my hand. “I'm thinking this whole going to the dance with a guy thing is pretty stupid. Friends go with friends, right? Why not sisters? Let's just you and me go together.”

Lucy and me? Of course!

I imagine myself entering the dance, basking in the warm and bright glow of my sister's magnificent aura. And then I imagine my sister looking at me with the same tight, miserable smile she had when Mom made her take me to the eighteen-and-under club. And who can blame her? Friends only went with friends and big sisters only took their little sisters when their little sisters were too loser-ish to be asked by anyone else. And as tempted as I might be to drag my big sister down to my level, can I really do that to her?

Why yes! Yes, I can!

Lucy's phone rings. She looks at the caller ID and mouths, “Tommy.”

Oh crap.

“Tell him yes,” I say, as gently as I can.

“You sure?” she asks, wrinkling her nose in a cute, little girl sort of way.

“I'm sure.” I wrap my beefy arms around her size-two body and give her a quick squeeze before she answers her phone. And then I sit on the bed and chew on my thumbnail as I listen to her accept Tommy's invitation to the fall festival.

         

At lunch the next day, Simon is staring at me. Not that this is unusual, since Simon and I always sit by ourselves at lunch, so there's really no one else to look at. “Is everything okay?” he asks. “You seem distracted or something.”

I haven't told Simon I am obsessing about this whole Drew thing, but I'm pretty sure he knows anyway. He can read me like a book. He and I have been inseparable ever since our first day of high school when we met in the nurse's office, both using the same lame excuse to escape the scene in the cafeteria: a stomachache. We immediately launched into a conversation about the difference between Ding Dongs and Ho Ho's and my stomachache miraculously disappeared. By the time the nurse informed Simon that his mother wasn't answering her cell phone, it no longer mattered. We have sat across from each other at lunch every school day since.

“I'm thinking about what Drew said yesterday,” I say, putting down my sandwich. I can't stand the awful-tasting glop they serve in the cafeteria, so I always bring my lunch. “About trying out for a play.”

“And?” he asks.

“I was thinking it might be more fun if you tried out, too.”

Simon laughs. “Not this again.”

I play with the strings on my hoodie as I look behind Simon, toward the corner of the cafeteria where Drew is eating lunch. He never eats lunch in the cafeteria. In fact, this is the first time I've ever seen him in here. He's sitting next to Lindsey and has his arm draped casually around her shoulders.

“I just think it might be fun,” I say.

“No thanks, Arse,” he says. “Or do you prefer Mr. McDoody?”

The thing about Simon is that he really possesses an amazing sense of self. Unlike me, Simon has a life completely separate from school. Every summer he attends band camp, where, according to his stories of all the girls he has made out with, he is the campus stud.

“Miss McDoody, if you please,” I say mechnically, as I continue to stare at Drew.

“What
are
you looking at?” Simon asks. He twists around in his seat, following the direction of my gaze. “Oh,” he says, “dream boy.”

Dream boy.
Ha-ha. I get it. Like it's just a dream that I'll ever be able to go out with him. How hilarious. Slap my knee and hold me back.

I know Simon isn't trying to be mean, because although he's ornery he's actually very sweet (in a kind of bitter, cranky grandpa sort of way), but I still feel like I stepped on a jellyfish. “I'm just thinking about what he said about the dance.”

“Refresh,” Simon says, turning back to face me. “What did he say about the dance?”

“Just that we should go.”

“And that's why you want to go? Just because of some offhand comment Drew made?”

“No,” I say, as the jellyfish becomes a piranha. “I want to go to the dance because I think it'll be fun. And also…because…because I'm tired of sitting home alone.”

“Alone? Excuuuuuse me! I thought we were going to watch
Star Wars,
with Portuguese subtitles this time. In fact, I just bought you a Princess Leia costume online. I was going to surprise you.”

I do my best to crack a smile as I keep my eyes focused on Drew. “I told you I want to be Luke.”

Simon tucks the rest of his cheese and guava jam (his mom has it shipped from Brazil) sandwich into his bag. “All right. If it means that much to you, fine.”

“Fine what? I can be Luke?”

“Fine, we can go to the fall festival.”

“You'll go?” I ask excitedly. I suddenly see myself making the grand entrance, complete with new eyebrows and physique-shrinking dress. “Thank you,” I say.

“On one condition,” he says, taking off his glasses and cleaning them with his napkin. “I get to be Luke.”

That's the thing about Simon: He always knows the perfect thing to say.

three

bleed-through (noun): transformation from a scene downstage to another scene upstage by adjusting the lighting of a thin piece of gauze draped across the stage. Depending on the direction of the light, the gauze can either appear solid or can disappear altogether.

Lucy is beside herself when I tell her that Simon and I are going to the dance. And then she tells me the supposed good news: Dad, not Mom, is taking us shopping for our dresses.

This does not make me happy.

Not that I don't love my dad, but my relationship with him has always been a bit, well, stiff. The problem is that I've always had the feeling that he's embarrassed about the way I look. He's never come right out and said it or anything, but there are subtle things that I've noticed over the years. Like when he opens the kitchen cupboard and can't find the cookies or something, he'll always ask me (in an accusatory sort of way) if I know where “they went.” The “hey, fatso” is implied.

And he's always pointing out the benefits of exercise when he thinks I'm being a slug, like when I'm watching TV. Which is really pretty nervy considering my dad, with his double chin and big belly, is not exactly an Adonis. He oversees all the Lucky Lou restaurants on the East Coast, which has him eating tons of hotel food and the burgers Lucky Lou is known for, not exactly a great job to have if you love food, particularly greasy food. And my dad loves food even more than I do. He was downright fat as a kid, and even though he lost a ton of weight a million years ago, these days he's not exactly thin enough or fit enough to be doling out advice. And in my defense, I'm not fat. At least, not
that
fat. But he doesn't see it that way.

Naturally, he never, ever asks Lucy if she masterminded the cookie's escape or if she finished off the container of ice cream or if she agreed that Jennifer Love Hewitt probably works out. Fortunately, my dad is hardly ever home. Which is good, since my mom has never once suggested that I had seen the cookies hop on the last train out of town.

Still, despite my apprehension, on the morning of our father-daughter bonding day, I arrive downstairs dressed and determined to be cheerful. Lucy is sitting at the table reading the newspaper and Dad is at the stove stirring a giant batch of scrambled eggs with cheese. The fact that Mom has gone grocery shopping at nine in the morning and is not there is extremely suspicious. I must say, this whole father-daughter-shopping-for-fall-festival-dresses has her stamp all over it. Every now and then my mom decides we're in desperate need of some father-daughter bonding time, and realizing that both Lucy and I would prefer to be with her, she conjures up some excuse, creating a situation where it's either my dad or nothing at all.

“What is that thing?” my dad asks, motioning toward my diorama, which happens to be in the center of the table, with his spatula. Even though I've been working on my diorama almost nonstop for two months, it figures that this is the first time he's noticed it.

“That
thing
is Jay Gatsby's living room,” I say, annoyed.

I did my first diorama last year for a set design class and it has become a sort of hobby for me. I make at least one every other month, usually based on the books we are reading in school. Since I can wield a circular saw with ease (even though I pretty much just use hand tools for my diorama creations), they are pretty elaborate, with real wood paneling, dollhouse furniture I pick up on eBay or make myself, and, as in the case with
The Great Gatsby,
wallpaper I design and paint with tiny little stencils. Mrs. Bordeaux always said she was giving me extra credit for them, which was kind of a joke between us, since I always got an A in English anyway.

“Well, it doesn't belong on the table,” he says, totally unimpressed by Mr. Gatsby's varnished wood floors, heavy tapestry drapes, Oriental rug, miniature potted palm, and velvet furniture.

“Well, there's really no other place for it,” I say defensively.

My dad stops stirring the eggs. “
Find
a place,” he says in a tone that lets me know he's about to blow.

Lucy looks up from the paper and shoots me a nervous look like,
Please don't get him all upset on our shopping day!

I grudgingly take the diorama upstairs and set it in the middle of my bed.

By the time I get back to the kitchen, the table is set and Dad is dishing out the eggs.

“None for me, thanks,” Lucy says, waving them away. “I'm just going to have toast.”

“You feel okay?” he asks, concerned.

That's another thing. If I said I didn't want any eggs he never would have assumed I was sick. Instead, he would have assumed I was dieting and congratulated me on my willpower.

“I just don't want to be all bloated when I try on dresses,” she says.

My dad glances at the eggs he has already dished out on my plate, like,
Uh-oh.

I'm half expecting him to rush back over and spoon some off my plate, so I take my seat and (even though I'm not hungry in the slightest) shovel a giant forkful in my mouth. What he doesn't know is that, unlike Lucy, I don't have to worry about bloat. Yesterday I stopped at the mall in the Inner Harbor and purchased some SPANX Power Panties with Tummy Control. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

After breakfast I wedge myself into my father's convertible Cabrio and we drive to the Towson Town Center. Both my dad and I follow Lucy through the mass of stores and into Lucy's favorite, Mein-U. Lucy flips through rack after rack like a cranky Simon Cowell dismissing contestants before finally yanking out a bright fuchsia silk dress with spaghetti straps. I can tell it's for me, since Lucy's dresses involve just enough material to dry a wet dish. I can also tell that I already hate the way it looks on me, even though I haven't tried it on yet. “What do you think?” she asks.

“I'm not sure about the color,” I say, chewing on my thumbnail. Actually, I love bright colors, but everyone knows that they're not slenderizing, so I prefer to stick with basic black.

“I like it,” Dad says from behind us.

I accept the dress from Lucy and hug it to my chest and stand there waiting patiently while Lucy pulls several pastel-colored dresses for herself and two more for me, one black and one red. Finally, she takes her seven dresses and I take my three and we head toward the dressing room, where, even though it is really crowded and Lucy sees me naked every day, I still insist on getting my own room. I don't want Lucy to know about the SPANX, and besides, I have a feeling the dress Lucy chose for me isn't going to work out and I have no intention of humiliating myself any more than necessary.

I walk into the dressing room and lock the door behind me. I take the SPANX out of my purse and step into it, yanking it up slowly. It feels like my butt is in an iron vise and a rubber band is wrapped around my belly. I can't help but wonder if it will even be physically possible for me to wear it more than two seconds. What if I pass out from loss of oxygen?

I start with the black dress first, since it's my official color, not to mention it's the only size thirteen. (The other two are elevens.) I undo the zipper and step into it, pulling it up over my shoulders. So far so good, but the zipper is not up yet. Because of the SPANX it's impossible to suck in my stomach, so I hold my breath as I twist my arms behind me to pull up the zipper. It gets halfway up and stops. This is a size thirteen? Have I gotten too big to fit into a size thirteen? Even though I suspect the answer is a big fat yes, I'm not ready to admit defeat since that would mean having to take a size fifteen off the rack (although it's doubtful it even comes that big) and having to deal with my father's look of shock and horror.

I scoot the dress off my shoulders and tug it down. I twist it around and pull up the zipper. I then wrench it back around, hold my breath one more time, and slowly pull it up. I get it up to my boobs and surrender. It's not even close.

I hear Lucy's door open. “Megan,” she says, “come out when you're ready. I want to get your take on this dress.”

I refuse to ask for a bigger size. I've accepted the fact that I'm six sizes bigger than my willowy, slightly taller than me sister, but seven is simply one too many. I stick my head out, hiding my body behind the door. I catch a quick glimpse of Lucy in a pink slinky silk dress, holding her golden hair on top of her head and slam the door again. “Love it!” I yell over the door.

“You don't think it makes my stomach look, well, bloated or something?”

“No.” In truth, I hadn't had time to notice. I had opened and shut the door so fast my poor overtaxed brain barely had time to register the color of her dress. Still, I found it impossible to believe she could ever look bloated, and even if she did, even if she had a butt that jiggled like two overfilled water balloons, it wouldn't matter. With her beautiful eyes, her button nose, rosebud mouth, and high-sculpted cheekbones, who cares about a little blubber?

“What about you?” she asks through the crack in the door.

“Any luck?”

“The black one made me look really washed out,” I say, even though the color is not my problem. Neither is the size. The problem is my face.

I glance at the other dress. I appreciate Lucy giving me the benefit of the doubt and assuming a size eleven might have a snowball's chance in hell of fitting, but I'm not sure it's even worth the effort. I give a big sigh, yank it off the hanger, and step into it. I manage to pull it up over my belly button before giving up and abandoning ship. I stare at the last dress on its hanger, the fuchsia one with spaghetti straps.

I think about the book with the magical jeans, the ones that look great on every girl in spite of their figure. Maybe, just maybe this is a magical dress. I take the dress off the hanger and right away notice one good thing: no zipper. I feel the material and realize it's got some rayon in it. Rayon definitely has more give than silk. I suck in and yank it over my head.

The dress is on. I open my eyes and look at myself in the mirror.

Oh my God!
It
is
magical!

“Look at this one,” I yell excitedly, throwing open the door.

My sister inhales deeply at the sight of me and smiles. “Fab-U-Lous!” she agrees.

“I know,” I say. I realize that it might sound a little conceited but I don't care. This never happens to me. Ever!

I turn to the side, admiring the view. The SPANX is working perfectly, making my stomach look as if I do fifty sit-ups a day. The dress reveals just the right amount of cleavage, making me look sexy but not in a Pamela Anderson sort of way.

“It didn't look like much on the hanger, but it really looks great,” Lucy says. “If I were you I wouldn't even bother trying on anything else.”

I grin from ear to ear as I sweep my hair off my shoulders, trying to determine if I would look better with my hair up or down. But when I see how round my cheeks are and how big my nose is, no matter what I do with my hair, I feel my enthusiasm take a sizable blow to the chin.

“Wait till Simon sees you,” Lucy says.

“I'm not really worried about what Simon thinks,” I say, letting my hair back down.

Okay, try focusing on the dress and
not
your face,
I tell myself. This perks me back up a bit.

“Not even a little?” she asks with a smile.

“Ew,” I say through a gigantic laugh. When Simon was in the chorus of
The Music Man,
he was changing in the dressing room when I accidentally walked in on him in his underwear. It was a big deal for me, since the only guy I had ever seen in his underwear until that moment was my dad. I can still picture Simon's skinny legs sticking out of his thick white briefs, his scrawny arms, and the sterling silver peace necklace dangling over his hairless chest. “That's like, incestuous.”

Lucy just shrugs and turns toward the three-way mirror behind her. “So what do you think of this one?” she asks, spinning around.

“It's perfect,” I say. Unlike before, this time I actually look at her. Lucy is stunning as usual. “You should definitely get it.”

“You like it better than the other one?”

“Yes.”

Lucy grabs my hand. “Isn't this fun? Dress shopping together?”

“Sure.” The amazing thing is, even though this originally had as much appeal to me as a dentist appointment, I am enjoying this time with my sister.

“Any luck?” Dad asks when we reappear with our chosen dresses in hand.

“Megan found one but I can't decide,” Lucy says, lining the dresses up on the rack. Lime green, teal blue, hot pink.

“You found a dress?” he asks me.

Is it my imagination or does he sound surprised?

“It's a size eleven,” I say proudly, showing it to him.

“Great,” he murmurs, as if he could give a crap. He barely looks at it before turning back toward Lucy's display. “They're all beautiful,” Dad says. “Don't you think, Megan?”