The Pretty One

The Pretty One by Cheryl Klam




For my sister, Jenny Guttridge—forever the pretty one





Thanks to Esther Newberg, who will always be the first person I pick for my team. Thanks also to the amazing Claudia Gabel, whose energy, enthusiasm, and talent never fail to inspire and astound me. And mega-thanks to Brian Klam, the funniest writer in the world.





one

starstruck (adj): captivated by famous people or by fame itself.

The rodent is staring at my sister Lucy.

In the rodent’s defense, it’s hard not to stare at Lucy. Actually, it’s a phenomenon similar to rubbernecking; only in this case people don’t stare at my sister because she looks like a car wreck. Men, women, children, animals, and zygotes (I’m guessing) can’t take their eyes off Lucy because she is absolutely, undeniably perfect. Like airbrushed “men’s interest” magazine kind of perfect.

“Herbert?” I say, since his real name is Herbert Rodale and I only refer to him as the rodent behind his back.

The rodent doesn’t answer. He’s either ignoring me or so deep in fantasyland he doesn’t hear me.

“Herbert!” I shout.

This not only gets Lucy’s attention, but the attention of the techie geeks who, like me and the rodent, have gathered to help Lucy turn the gym into a “magic apple orchard” for the fall festival. We attend the Chesapeake School for Performing Arts in Baltimore (otherwise known as CSPA), and the fall festival is the school’s lame imitation of a homecoming dance. But unlike in a real high school (where I’ve heard everyone goes to the dances regardless of their position in the high school popularity hierarchy), only the drama, dance, music, and art majors (well, about half of the art majors) attend the fall festival. Us techies stay home and watch Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel.

“Herbert,” Lucy says sweetly as she puts her thumbs in her belt loops and hikes up her low-rise Sevens. “Megan wants you.”

The rodent looks as if someone has just slapped him out of a trance. “What?” he says, wrinkling up his long, pointed nose as his little beady eyes dart around the room.

“This needs to be hung from right there,” I say, shaking a “magic apple” (also known as a red-sequined Styrofoam ball) and pointing to a spot on the wall behind him.

“Yeah, okay,” he mumbles. And then he goes back to staring at my sister again.

I should be used to guys ogling my older sister as if she were a Victoria’s Secret model holding the newest Sony PlayStation. It happens no matter where we go.

Lucy and I are the only kids in our family and she’s the oldest, born eleven months before me. Since Lucy is tall (think model), gorgeous (think bathing suit edition of Sports Illustrated), and blond (think bathing suit edition of Sports Illustrated model with golden flax hair spun by silver-winged fairies), I like to joke that she used up all our mom’s Scandinavian genes, leaving me with Dad’s Mediterranean ones (think bushy-eyebrowed president of some country you’ve never heard of). But although my heritage may explain my stature, thick dark hair, and olive complexion, it’s not responsible for my oversized hooked nose, my nonexistent cheekbones, my oversized chin, and last, but definitely not least, my buck teeth.

Life is so unfair. Which is why I toss rodent the ball, hitting him in the head.

“Ouch,” he says, rubbing the place of impact.

“Sorry,” I grumble.

My aggressive behavior and sour expression have not escaped the notice of my sister, who takes me by the arm and leads me away from the group. “What are you doing?” she whispers.

Even her voice is melodic. Jesus.

“It was an accident,” I say defensively.

Lucy peers into my eyes (brown with a little hazel mixed in, my one and only reasonably good facial feature), and I can tell she’s trying to read my mind. In spite of our physical differences, we grew up as twins: wearing the same blue pinafore dresses Aunt Erma sent us every year for Christmas, getting our pictures taken together at Honeygo Photo Studio, and being toted around in a double stroller. As a result, we have a brain connect that is sometimes downright eerie, if not bordering on psychic. (Or psychotic.)

“I know you weren’t crazy about this whole decorating thing,” she says finally. “But I appreciate your help.”


“No problemo.” I turn away and begin chewing on my right thumbnail. I don’t want Lucy to see inside my head, mainly because I’m not exactly proud of what’s going on in there. I love my sister, I do, but this idol worship gets to me sometimes. I really shouldn’t care that my fellow tech majors have spent the past three hours decorating for a dance that none of them have any intention of attending, all the while acting as if Lucy is doing them a huge favor by allowing them to help her. I should be downright delirious with happy-tude that my sister is getting what she wants, even if she always seems to get what she wants without putting in any real effort. But deep down, I just wave that proverbial white flag of surrender.

“I didn’t have anything else to do anyway,” I add, commending myself on my graciousness.

“That’s true,” Lucy says absentmindedly, pulling the proverbial flag right out of my hands.

“I could’ve gone to Spoons,” Simon announces, not even bothering to look away from his illustration. Simon is an excellent artist who has been given the task of painting the giant backdrop for the dance floor, a life-size illustration of an apple tree. As my official best friend, Simon is the only one of my peers who’s actually here because of me. Simon is short and skinny, but with his big brown eyes and ruffled wavy brown hair, he’s definitely one of the best-looking techs (not that that’s a huge compliment; as anyone with one good eye could see, we are not an attractive bunch). Not many people realize this though, because they’re too distracted by his thick, circa nineteen fifties horn-rimmed glasses; his black, paint spattered T-shirts; his brightly colored Bermuda shorts (that he wears year round—even in the winter); his neon socks; and his silver sneakers.