My sister was so beautiful it almost hurt your eyes to look at her — and God, that’s all I did in those early years. She was younger than me. Only by a year, but still. It was kind of awkward to idolize your baby sister. It was hard not to, since the minute she walked into a room, every eye was stuck to her like she had some sort of ethereal fairy magic flowing from her pores. For a long time, I believed that once I hit a certain age, I would get some of that fairy juice — no such luck. I looked like a malnourished, crack ho with braces and twelve hundred dollar sneakers. Courtney made me want to die — especially when she dated and then disposed of all the boys I liked. I could never be mad at her for it. We were a team — Court and Jo — until Jo decided she wanted to be Leah, and then it was Court and Lee. Despite our closeness, as we got older there was no denying the chasm our differences caused. Our friendship wavered for a year in middle school. She left me for the cheerleaders. I watched her make new friends from my seat in the social bleachers, picking bread from my braces and trying to figure out why my boobs hadn’t come in yet.
I am nothing like the rest of my family. Each one of them, with the exception of my mother, had raven black hair. Pair that with the Smith signature olive skin and green eyes, and they look like an army of beautiful Greeks. I was born red: my skin, my hair and my hot, fussy attitude. My mother used to tell me that I cried for a week after they brought me home. She said I lost my voice, and all you could hear was air coming out of me as I made screaming faces.
Our mother encouraged Courtney to do all of the typical, perfect girl things — cheerleading, modeling, and stealing other girls' boyfriends. I, on the other hand, was encouraged to diet, especially during my last year of middle school. I was a little chubby. I started eating my feelings when I discovered boys, rejection and Little Debbie snack cakes. I went from malnourished to fleshy all in a matter of months.
“You’re going to seriously regret this,” my mother said, upon discovering my stash. I’d hidden a dozen assorted boxes in an old Christmas popcorn tin in the pantry. “You already have red hair, now you want to add pounds of extra flesh?” To emphasize her point, she’d grabbed a handful of fat at my waist and pinched it until I’d cried out. She shook her head. “Hopeless, Johanna.” And then she’d tossed all of my snack cakes in the trash.
I bit my lip to keep from crying. When she saw me struggling with tears, she’d softened a little. Maybe she was chubby once, I thought hopefully.
“Here.” She opened the freezer and shoved a bag of frozen peas against my chest. “When you get the urge to binge on crap, eat these instead. Just think of it as a frozen treat … like ice cream.” When I looked doubtful, she’d grabbed my chin and forced me to look at her. “You like boys?”
I nodded.
“You won’t get them if you eat snack cakes, trust me. No one’s ever hooked a man with processed cake crumbs on her face.”
I’d carried my bag of frozen peas back to my room and sat down cross-legged on the floor. Staring up at my Jonathan Taylor Thomas poster, I ate the entire bag, pea by pea.
I was kind of nerdy. I liked boys, but I also liked math and science. But, math and science didn’t give you attention. It was a one-sided, dry love. I wanted people to look at me the way they did Court. I rolled onto my back and chewed on my peas. I kind of liked them.
The next day I asked Court to introduce me to her friends.
“You make fun of cheerleaders,” she said.
“I won’t anymore. I want people to like me.”
She nodded. “They will, Lee. I do.”
Court snagged me an invite to a sleepover, complete with all her giggly friends. Despite her reassurance, her friends had not liked me. They were thirteen-year-old bitches, heavily sedated by their mother’s opinions. They ended almost every sentence with the words sweetie or awesome. I didn’t want to be like those girls. I didn’t want to be like my mother. When one of them asked why I hung out with the math geeks, I’d snapped.
“They talk about more interesting things than you.”
The girl — Britney — had looked at me like I was something detestable. She’d cocked her head and smiled at me. I could almost see her cardigan-wearing mother doing the same thing. “She’s a lesbian,” she’d announced to the room. The rest of the girls nodded, like it was a completely acceptable explanation for my strangeness.
Court’s face had dropped. She’d looked so disappointed in me.