Pretty Is

That evening Monica and I watched TV for a while, and she knitted while she watched. The show was about a big family, and the two sisters in it were always fighting and teasing each other. It was usually a funny show, but tonight it just irritated me—the things the girls fought about were so silly. In the middle of the show I got up and went to my room.

It was almost dark out, and the bit of sky that showed through my window, above the Lovingers’ house next door, was deep deep blue. The Lovingers had two boys, both in high school, and I could see into one of their bedrooms, lit up, on the second floor. No one was in sight, just the upper shelves of a bookcase, with books and big gold sports trophies and a model battleship. I flipped on my light and the scene vanished.

My own room was kind of a mess. I looked around at the books and clothes and toys scattered on the floor and on the rumpled bed. There was a layer of dust on the framed pictures on top of my bookcase: a family trip to the beach, my cousin graduating from high school, Monica and me on her first day of kindergarten, Monica smiling behind me as I blew out six birthday candles.

There was one picture that my parents used on a Christmas card, and all my relatives said it was the cutest thing they’d ever seen. One of my grandmothers had taken it, and she had three copies made and framed them—a big one for my parents and small ones for Monica and me.

We were probably seven and five years old, and we were sitting on the front steps of our house in Asheville. Monica was reading to me from a book on her lap, and I was looking up at her adoringly. It was a bright day, and red tulips poked their heads up at the side of the steps, and both of us looked sweet and pretty. You could see why parents and grandparents would love this picture.

Monica had read to me, not just on the day of that picture, but lots of other days, too. She had tied my shoes and brushed my hair. We’d shared a dollhouse, and spent hours arranging furniture and making up stories about our dolls. We’d played in the sandbox, under the sprinkler, in a tent we made of a blanket and chairs. She was always bossy, and we fought sometimes, but we had fun too.

I didn’t touch the pictures, but I started cleaning up everything else. Books went on the bookcase, clothes in the dresser or the closet or the hamper in the bathroom. Earrings and bracelets in the jewelry box. I opened a drawer and pulled out the pictures I’d drawn with Kayla so long ago, and shoved them into the trash can.

All kinds of toys were still lying around—Barbies and other dolls, stuffed animals, Pokémon figures, marbles, a kit for making bead necklaces. I hesitated, feeling too old for most of this stuff but not quite knowing what to do with it. Finally I just started throwing it onto the closet floor, and was a little surprised to discover it felt good to throw something. First a couple of rag dolls thumped softly, then a puzzle in its cardboard box. Then I flung in Pokémon stuff, a half-open bag of marbles, a little purse full of key chains. There were shoes on the closet floor and things were landing in them-cat’s-eye marbles, Squirtle and Charmander—but I didn’t care.

Barbies went flying, with their stiff smiles and shiny dresses, whack against the back wall of the closet. Their perfect legs whack. Their perfect hair whack. Ken landed with a manly thud. Barbie shoes with pointy heels, Barbie hair-brushes and bikinis rained down on him.

Next I took my two favorite stuffed animals—Kitty, my old yellow cat, and Ricky Raccoon—and put them next to my pillow. The rest of them I piled on the highest shelf of the bookcase, right on top of the dusty pictures. The monkey fell to the floor, but I fastened his Velcro hands together and hung him over one of the top corners of the bookcase. He didn’t look much like a wild creature swinging through jungle treetops—more like a prisoner hanging from a dungeon wall.

The next day, as soon as I got to my desk, I saw that Kayla had her eye on me. The first bell had just rung, and I was taking homework out of my backpack. Kayla was standing next to her own desk a few feet away, with one hand on her hip, her head a little to one side and that sheet of golden hair falling sideways, too. She was giving me a smug look that I didn’t like at all. For sure, she knew all about Monica being Juliet and all the boys barfing.

I fussed with my books and papers and pencils, hoping she’d stay away. But just as I crouched down to squeeze my backpack under my desk, I saw her pink toenails, her thin-strapped sandals, right beside me.

I gave the backpack a shove and stood up. It wasn’t just Kayla—she had Danielle and Jane-Marie with her. It was like she led them around on a string.

I shrugged. “It wasn’t a play. They just read some of the parts.” The way Danielle and Jane-Marie were grinning, I could tell they’d already heard the story.

“Well, anyway”—she slipped a brush out of this little purse she carried and started brushing her hair—“somebody made Randy Wayman kneel down to Monica like he’s Romeo and she’s Juliet. And then he started throwing up—but not really—you know. Didn’t you hear about it, Erin?”

“Whatever.” I tried to say it like I totally didn’t care. But the one word was drowned out by Mrs. Winsted saying, “In your seats, girls. Now.”

Finally Friday came, the crazy last day of school, and that night in the gym we had the fifth-grade moving-up ceremony. Mr. Stimson, the principal, made a boring speech and gave each of us a book and a certificate. Then we sang a couple of songs that the music teacher had been making us practice forever. “A ring is round and has no end, that’s how long I’m going to be your friend.” And then this “Farewell Song,” like we’d never see each other again, when in fact every one of us would be in the sixth grade together next fall at J. B. Marsh Middle School.

Through the whole ceremony, I felt like I was looking at this ugly old gym, and all of Sandy Creek Elementary, with new eyes, as if I was looking for the first time instead of the last.

The next day I woke and saw the whole summer out in front of me, a big slow drowsy thing, as if I’d stepped onto an enormous air mattress bobbing on the enormous ocean. This was a good comparison, I decided, since an enormous air mattress would be nearly impossible to steer, and I didn’t get to steer my own summer very much, even though I was eleven years four months old and a graduate of Sandy Creek Elementary.

I wanted to go to Camp Mountain Glen, where Samantha and Jane-Marie had gone the summer before. Two weeks, or four or even six weeks, completely away from home, with horses to ride and canoeing and jewelry making and all kinds of cool things to do. Samantha stayed just two weeks, but Jane-Marie went for four, and this summer they were both going back for four weeks. I was dying to ride horses, which I’d only done a couple of times in my whole life. Plus it would be so great to be away from Monica for a month.

Mama looked doubtful the minute I mentioned it. “That’s a long time away from home for a girl your age.” She was putting dishes in the dishwasher and paused with two coffee mugs in her hands. “But you know, maybe if Monica went, too ...” She trailed off, considering, then peered hard into my face. “Well?”

I must have looked horrified, because I was. Half the appeal of camp was getting away from Monica. If she came too, I’d be dodging her the whole time. What if we were put in the same group?

But I couldn’t say this to Mama. She’d get that pained look that she always got when we did something wrong. She’d say I was unkind, that I was disappointing her, that I should be nice to my sister. So all I said was, “I don’t think she’d like it. She doesn’t like horses.” I had no idea whether that was true or not.

The next day she talked to Samantha’s mother and found out how much the camp cost. “Mountain Glen is out, I’m afraid, Erin. It’s way too expensive,” she told me.

So it looked like a pretty dull summer, with a lot of Monica in it. Our family never took real vacations—we couldn’t afford them. Aside from an occasional day at the beach and a week of church camp back in the mountains near Asheville, I’d just be hanging around in Shipley. Mama said if I acted bored and grumpy and whiny, she’d send me to Vacation Bible School.