Pretty Is

Until now, I hadn’t thought that much about Monica. She’d always just been there, like our parents. Sure, she was kind of weird—I’d known that for a while. She didn’t get along with people very well, and she’d never had any real friends. Maybe that was why she didn’t like school much, even though her grades weren’t bad.

She liked sports, but she never joined any teams. She watched games on TV with Mama and Daddy, especially basketball and baseball. Sometimes she’d shoot baskets next door, where the Lovingers had a hoop at the end of their driveway; Mrs. Lovinger had told us we could use it anytime. At the pool, she swam by herself.

My bedroom and Monica’s were side by side and just alike—identical beds and dressers and desks, and the same pale pink walls and pink flowered curtains. Both of us had always had our beds next to the wall that separated our rooms, and when we were little we’d lie in bed and knock on the wall, back and forth, pretending to have a secret code or beating out the rhythm of a song. Each of us would try to guess what song the other one was tapping, and we’d giggle and call back and forth until Mama or Daddy would say, “Hush up in there! Go to sleep.”

There was just one big difference between Monica’s bedroom and mine: hers had a wide, shallow wooden box with a chicken-wire cover that took up the whole middle of the floor, leaving only a narrow path from the door to the closet to the desk to the bed. Inside the box were three guinea pigs. They were all the shaggy kind, the ones that look like a cross between a sheepdog and a rat.

The guinea pigs were kind of cute, I guess, but I was never crazy about them. Our dog, Bruce, was the only pet I needed—except a horse, which I knew I was never going to get. Bruce could chase sticks and tennis balls, and he didn’t have to be kept in a cage in the house. When I came home from school he jumped all over me, he was so glad to see me. What good was a guinea pig compared to that?

But Monica adored her pigs. She took them out and played with them a lot, and she was always taking bits of vegetables from the kitchen to feed them. She even kept their box clean, most of the time. Sometimes she seemed to like playing with her guinea pigs better than playing with other kids.

Another thing about Monica was that she always thought she could boss me around. Like being two years older gave her the right to tell me what to do. Once, when I was in first grade, she tried to make me carry her backpack home from the school-bus stop, but I dropped it and just kept walking. She had to go back and get it.

She didn’t try that again, but she was always telling me to clean my room, and if I was folding my clothes or making a paper airplane or peeling an orange, she’d say I was doing it wrong. “You don’t know how to do it. Kid,” she’d say.

Of course, lots of people think their brothers and sisters are weird. But I knew Monica was really strange. People were probably laughing at her all the time. Saying she was ugly and goofy. Avoiding sitting next to her at lunch. She was so weird, it was hysterically funny if she liked a cute boy.

When fall came we’d be in the same school. Everybody would realize right away that we were sisters—after all, we were the only Chaney family in town. Most of the seventh and eighth graders wouldn’t know me at all, but they’d know my sister. They’d probably figure I had to be just like Monica.

A few days after my visit to Kayla’s house, I went downstairs as soon as I woke up, pausing at the window by the landing to see what kind of day it was. Sunny, and Sunday-morning quiet. I could hear a murmur from my dad and a rattle of newspaper. I couldn’t see from the stairs, but I knew that he and Mama were sitting on the screened porch drinking coffee and reading the paper. They did that till church time every Sunday if the weather was good. They always moved slow in the morning, especially Sundays.

Some mornings I ran out and hugged them, and jumped up and down to make the cups and saucers rattle, till Daddy folded up a section of newspaper and pretended to swat me with it. But today I didn’t feel like it. I passed by Monica, who was on the couch reading the comics, and went to the refrigerator for orange juice.

Then I put the juice on the coffee table and flopped into the big brown armchair. I stared across the table at Monica, who had her basket of yarn and knitting needles on the couch beside her. I didn’t know anybody who knitted except old ladies and a few women my mother’s age. And the way Monica dressed and acted was kind of tomboyish, so it was funny that she liked knitting.

As far as I could tell, she knew only one stitch. She never made anything except different-colored squares that she was planning to sew together to make a throw or a bedspread or something.

For now, though, she was concentrating on the comics. I concentrated on her, scalp to toenails, trying to see her the way I would if I’d never met her before. Trying to figure out if you could tell just by looking how weird she was.

Face: kind of wide. Not really ugly but definitely not pretty. Blue eyes, a few freckles, a chin that looked determined. No makeup, but after all it was first thing in the morning. Though Monica never wore makeup, had never even tried mascara or lip gloss.

I didn’t think we looked the least bit alike, no matter what my aunt Brenda said about our matching eyes and hair. Brenda and a lot of other people said we looked Irish like our dad, even though we didn’t have red hair like him.

I looked down at my own pj‘s, printed with kittens playing on clouds. Monica’s, with bunches of flowers, were old and a little tight.

Body: taller than average, and as thin as Claire, but the opposite of willowy—awkward, with elbows and knees always sticking out. For at least a year she’d been wearing a bra and getting her period every month. She was secretive, like I was too young to know about it or something—really annoying. I hadn’t gotten a period yet, even though most of the girls in my class probably had, and my breasts barely stuck out the tiniest bit.

Legs: ordinary—except hairy because she never shaved them, which I was pretty sure all the other seventh-grade girls did. Even a few of the fifth graders, including Kayla, shaved their legs, which Mama said was ridiculous.

Toes: propped on the edge of the coffee table. The usual number on each foot, all in their natural color. My own toes, I noticed suddenly, were lined up on the table, too, directly across from Monica’s, like checkers at the start of a game. I examined the slightly chipped purple polish that Kayla and I had put on a week earlier, and though I didn’t like the color that much, I felt kind of cool compared to Monica.

I didn’t know what all this added up to. What I wondered now was, how come every time I tried to figure out some part of Monica, I ended up talking about me?

An hour later we walked into church, into the education building for Sunday school, right behind Claire and Kayla. This was the biggest of the three Baptist churches in Shipley, and the only one that both black and white people went to. We went practically every Sunday, always feeling a little stiff because we were wearing our best dresses. Mama said we had to, even though some kids just wore regular school clothes.

Mama was dressed up even more than usual for a Sunday, in a new spring dress that was two layers, plain lavender underneath and see-through fabric printed with lavender and white flowers on top. She had a white purse over her shoulder and her old white Bible in one hand. Even though she didn’t look cool like the high-school and college girls, I thought she looked good, for a mom. Her hair was brown like mine and Monica’s, only darker, except for some gray here and there.

Mama’s so lucky—she always looks like she has a tan. Daddy says she must have had a Cherokee or a Choctaw back in her family somewhere, or maybe an Italian. Monica and I are pale, like Daddy, and every summer they’re both after us to wear sunscreen.

“Straighten your belt, Erin,” Mama said, and Daddy said, “So long, ladies,” as they went on down the hall to the grown-ups’ classes. Daddy was wearing the same kind of boring suit he wore to work every day, and his red hair was slicked down, and he shook hands with all the men, and said things like “How do, Sam,” and “Mornin’, Brother Mackesey.”

At least today wasn’t one of his Irish days, when he went around saying “Top of the mornin’ to you” and “Sure, and begorra” and stuff like that. It was so embarrassing. He kind of looked Irish and he liked the idea of being Irish, and that’s why Monica and I got these Irish names. Every now and then in church during silent prayer, I remembered to thank the Lord that I’d gotten a normal Irish name instead of a weird one like Monica.

Monica and I went to the big Youth Room, which had all kinds of games and books, and big soft couches, and small rooms for classes off to the side. Ahead of us, Claire sailed over to three or four other seventh-grade girls. They were talking and laughing and swinging their purses and fiddling with necklaces.

Claire slipped into their group, and they all bobbed around in a loose circle, like goldfish in a plastic bag. Instead of going past them, toward Kayla and some other kids I knew, I hung back, watching. I already knew Monica wasn’t friends with these girls—not one of them had ever been to our house. In fact, Monica never had friends come over. But I wanted to see what she’d say to them and how they’d answer. I wanted to see what middle school might be like.

In a few minutes we’d all have to go to our classes, but for now everybody was in the big room, talking and laughing. A second grader was showing off her ballet steps, and a couple of boys my age were shoving each other in a stiff-armed way that was supposed to be funny.

Monica didn’t hesitate. She marched right over to Claire’s little group, to an opening in the loose circle. “Hi,” she said, to nobody in particular. The conversation, about the new swimming pool that was being built at Melissa’s house, didn’t even pause.

“I have to get a new bathing suit before I get in a pool this year,” said Cindy. “My old one is so awful.”

“They have really cute ones at Barton‘s,” said Madeline. Barton’s was a big, fancy department store in the huge mall in Raleigh. Too expensive for us, Mama said. We always shopped at the local Stockdale’s, a much smaller department store, because Daddy was the manager and we got a discount. Stockdale’s was okay, but it wasn’t glamorous like Barton’s, where pretty women were always coming up to you with samples of perfumes and makeup.

“Well, I love Stockdale’s,” Monica put in abruptly. Like a loyal bulldog. Almost as if Cindy’s loving Barton’s was some kind of personal insult. All the girls knew perfectly well that our father worked at Stockdale’s.

Claire tittered, then Melissa too, and Madeline and Cindy looked down, trying to stifle giggles, darting sideways smirks at each other.

I felt hot all over. Suddenly I wondered how I looked, standing by myself and eavesdropping. I pretended to be searching for something in my purse.

Nobody answered Monica; they went on talking about bathing suits and pools. Monica just stood there in her stiff, square-shouldered way, but she must have realized they were laughing at her, because her face was red and she wasn’t saying a word.

I didn’t have to keep standing there listening. I could go find a friend to talk to—far away from Monica. But I was determined to get the whole picture of how she fit—or didn’t fit—into the seventh grade. Which—after another month of school and then a summer—would be the eighth grade, and me in sixth, seeing them every day in middle school.

Melissa was saying, “Should I invite Tim and Josh?” They were brothers who had just moved here, and they were really cute. I’d heard about them from Kayla, who got it from Claire, of course.

There was just a second’s pause before Melissa said, very sweetly and very fast, “Oh, everybody’s coming, but it won’t be for ages. You know, they’ve barely started digging the hole, and after it’s all done, my parents want to have a grown-ups’ party. So after that. Maybe.”

At that moment Cindy tugged urgently on Madeline’s arm, pulling her away from the group. They hurried past me, arm in arm, almost doubled over laughing, and Cindy gasped, “Monica wants to come to the pool party!” The two of them went out to the hall, laughing harder than ever.

Suddenly I couldn’t stand to watch any more of this. I turned away, looking for a group to take me in. Now, though, it seemed like everybody but me was part of a tight little group. Closed.

I wasn’t about to go up to a bunch of boys, or the little first or second or third graders. I wished Hannah was there, but she was a Catholic. Jane-Marie and Samantha were over in a corner, and I talked to them pretty often at school and sometimes sat with them at lunch. But they were very cool kids, and best friends with each other, and right now they looked like they were having a serious talk. Maybe they wouldn’t want me to come up to them.

Shakara was there, hugging her little kindergarten brother, Clifton, whose dark, tear-tracked face rested against the lighter brown of her arm. I went over to them. “Hi, Shakara. What’s wrong with Clifton?”

“He doesn’t feel good,” Shakara said. “I better take him to find Mama. Come on, Clif, let’s go find Mama.” They turned toward the door, and my one minute of feeling comfortable with someone was over. I looked around again, wondering who I could talk to so I wouldn’t look like a person with no friends.

Kayla! I was relieved to spot her, standing by a window with Danielle. I knew Danielle was her best friend now—it hadn’t been me for a long time—but I was used to that, and really it was okay. Kayla and I were still friends; we knew each other really well. At her house the other day she hadn’t been so nice, but maybe that was my fault for being so cranky about soccer.

“What’s going on?” I said brightly, though I didn’t feel bright. But before I even finished the words, Kayla tossed her shimmery hair, murmured something to Danielle, and slowly, but very definitely, turned her back on me. I stared at the back of her head and the hair fanned out over her shoulders. I glimpsed surprise on Danielle’s face.

My cheeks were suddenly hot. For a moment I couldn’t move, and then I jerked my gaze away from Danielle’s startled eyes and walked off, moving quickly out into the hall and toward the water fountain.

All I did was say hi and “What’s going on?” Was there something wrong with how I said it? Was I butting in? “Butt in” was what Monica did. She could stand in a group all day and never be part of the conversation, just now and then blurt out some dumb thing. Had Kayla decided she didn’t want to be friends with someone who had a dorky sister like Monica? Or had she just decided she didn’t like me?

I lingered around the water fountain, bending down to get a drink whenever someone walked by so that I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone.

Idiot, I said to myself, watching the water swirl down the bright, stainless-steel drain. All this time you’ve been worrying about how people in middle school might figure you’re just like Monica. Never mind that—what if you really are just like Monica?