The List (26 page)

auren climbs out of the back of her friend’s pickup truck. It is overstuffed. Most of the girls are crabby about Mount Washington’s football team losing yet another game. But not Lauren. She’s smiling ear to ear, having had the time of her life. She loved the burn of the wind on her cheeks, that her hair is a tangled mess, that she’d cheered her throat raw.

“So we’ll see you at Candace’s house in a few hours?”

“Yup! See you there!”

“Do you need a ride?” the girl driving asks.

“No, I’ll be okay.”

“I’m not even excited to go over there,” someone groans.

“Let’s go as late as we can. I don’t want to be hanging out there all night.”

Lauren realizes this is the perfect time to discuss Candace. “Come on,” Lauren says. “It’ll be a fun way to start off the night.” The girls still seem doubtful, so Lauren adds, “Candace was really nice to me last night and it’s not because she likes me. It’s because she misses all of you.”

“You shouldn’t defend her, Lauren.”

“I’m not defending her, exactly. I’m just saying that maybe she’s changed.”

“She’s using you to make herself look good in front of us.”

Lauren wants to say no, because she truly doesn’t think that’s it. But she doesn’t say anything. She feels bad for Candace, because Lauren hasn’t changed anyone’s mind. But she
did what she could. She tried. And Candace will still have a chance, at her party.

Her mother is in the shadowy part of the kitchen, looking over some papers.

“We lost!” Lauren announces cheerfully. “But it was the most fun I think I’ve had in my whole life.” She goes to the sink and gulps down a glass of water. “The game was so close, Mommy. We lost it in the last minute, when one of our guys dropped a pass. But it was so exciting! Much more exciting than football on television. And our high school band is amazing. They played songs throughout the game, songs that everyone knew the words to. And all the girls sat together on the bleachers underneath blankets. It was just … perfect.”

Lauren crashes down next to Mrs. Finn. She glances down at her mother’s papers. One of them is the list. The copy that’s been in Lauren’s book bag all week.

“We need to talk,” Mrs. Finn announces.

“You went in my bag,” Lauren says, backing up slowly until she hits the counter. “I can’t believe you went into my bag!”

“What kind of people are you friends with, Lauren?” Mrs. Finn taps the paper.

“My friends didn’t do this.”

“Then who did?”

“I don’t know, Mommy!”

“They certainly don’t speak kindly about Candace. In fact, they pretty much confirmed my impression of her.”

Lauren shakes her head. Candace had been nothing but kind and respectful last night. Which was more than she could say of her mother. “Mommy —”

“Why didn’t you show this to me right away?”

“Because I didn’t want you to worry. I’ve met a lot of really nice girls. My grades are good. Everything’s okay. Everything’s great, actually.”

“You think those girls care about you?” Her mother runs her quivering hands through her hair. “You’ve changed, Lauren. I don’t like who you are choosing to spend time with. And this” — she crumples up the paper — “is beyond anything I would have thought you’d get involved with.”

“Mommy … I haven’t changed.”

“I’m quitting my job.”

“What?”

“This isn’t working out for us, Lauren. I’m going to pull you out of Mount Washington as soon as possible. I figure if I sell the house, which is too big for the two of us anyway, I’ll have enough money to carry us through the last two years of high school.”

The kitchen walls close in. “I want to stay in school.”

“I was always afraid of the way other people would treat you, never that you’d become some kind of mean popular girl. I can’t even begin to say how disappointed I am at the choices you’ve made.”

“You don’t like it because you don’t control my life anymore. Because I’m not afraid of school and other people.” With a shaky hand, she holds on to the back of a kitchen chair. “I’ve got to go get ready.”

“You’re
not
going to the dance!”

Lauren sits down, shocked but still obedient. A second later, though, she stands back up.

“You can’t do that! I haven’t done anything wrong!”

“This is my right as a mother, to intervene when I see my daughter going down the wrong path.”

“Mommy, please. It’s the homecoming dance. Everyone’s going to be there.”

“Lauren, I’ve said what I need to say.”

Lauren storms up to her room. She slams the door and falls on her bed, sobbing. It isn’t fair. She knows that the list had made a lot of girls unhappy, but it is different for her. The list has given her confidence. It’s made people take a chance and approach her. Sure, maybe if the list had never been written, everyone still would have viewed her as the homeschooled girl, but things are different now. She is different now.

Later, Mrs. Finn comes up to deliver dinner. Neither speaks to the other. Lauren eats a little, but not much, and when her mother returns to collect the tray, Lauren has her curtains drawn, her lights out. Again, she says nothing.

But as soon as her mother closes the door, Lauren climbs out of bed wearing the dress she’d worn to her grandfather’s funeral. It is long, black, and surely wrong for the dance. She puts her shoes in her bag, along with a camera. She shimmies open her window, drops out, and runs barefoot across the grass.

t is time to see if the dress fits.

Bridget walks slowly down the hall, robe tied tight around her, a glass of ice-cold water in her hand. She takes a sip, barely gets it down. The fear has collected in her throat like a too-big bite of something gone bad. Moldy bread, sour milk, rotten meat.

With each step closer to her bedroom, Bridget thinks of the things she swallowed this week. The bagel, the bottles of cleanse, the pretzels, a forkful of salad at the mall. It adds up, in her off-kilter mind, to a hundred Thanksgivings.

If the red dress doesn’t fit, if she is too big for it, what will she do? There’s nothing else in her closet to wear. And even if there were, it would be impossible for her to have a good time, knowing she failed. All her sacrifices, all the hunger pains, will have been for nothing.

As Bridget passes the bathroom, she hears Lisa through the closed door singing along to the radio while brushing her teeth. Though she’s doing it earnestly, Lisa’s voice is garbled by the brush and the foam and it makes the whole thing sound wonderfully silly. It breaks through the darkness, the emptiness, inside Bridget. She stops, delays the judgment awaiting her for a little longer, and quietly opens the door a crack.

Steam seeps out and she sees Lisa dressed in a tank, shorts, and her slippers. Her black hair, wet and shiny like oil, hangs down her back, and the dripping water has made the portion of tank top covering the small of her back see-through. White
bubbly paste blooms at the corners of Lisa’s mouth, and she bops from side to side, the toothbrush her microphone, the fluffy bath mat her stage.

Bridget hasn’t seen much of her sister today. Bridget decided to bail on the Spirit Caravan and the football game. She was too tired, and what little energy she had she wanted to save for the homecoming dance. Also, she knew it would be hard to pass up the snacks. Her friends love to hit the snack shed — nachos, soft pretzels, hot dogs, popcorn, cardboard boxes balanced on their laps, hands reaching across one another.

Anyway, Lisa barged into her room, looking for something. Even though Bridget was clearly sleeping, Lisa turned on the light and made lots of unnecessary noise. When she noticed the ice cream bowl that had been left last night, melted soup covered by a skin of curdled milk, she snorted. “This is disgusting, Bridget,” she said.

Bridget knew why her sister was being so sharp. It had all come out last night. Lisa was worried about her. And even Bridget couldn’t deny … it was for good reason.

So instead of getting mad at Lisa, Bridget rolled over and told her to take her spot in the backseat of her friend’s car. Do the Spirit Caravan with the junior girls. Bridget didn’t even have to check with them. Her friends loved Lisa, babied her. They wouldn’t mind her tagging along.

But instead of being grateful, Lisa muttered “No, thanks,” marched out, and got their parents to drop her off at the football field.

When she came home a few hours later, Lisa went right to her room.

Bridget still doesn’t know which team won.

Lisa leans forward to spit in the sink. When she straightens back up, she notices Bridget in the mirror. Lisa’s entire expression changes from happy to pissed off. “I’m in here,” she says, and kicks the door to close it.

Bridget’s grip tightens on the doorknob, and she pushes against Lisa to keep the door open. “Do you want me to help with your hair?”

Lisa narrows her eyes. “No.”

“Are you going to curl it? Or wear it up?”

“I don’t know, Bridge.” Lisa pushes harder.

Bridget uses her foot to keep the door from closing. “What about your makeup? Did you want to borrow my lipstick again? I have a lip liner that goes with it. You really should wear liner. Otherwise it’ll rub off after a few minutes.”

“God, can’t I have some privacy?” Lisa shouts and lunges for the door, pushing against it with both her hands.

Bridget moves her foot and the door slams shut.

She wants to scream about how Lisa could have hurt her, but Lisa switches on the hair dryer. Bridget turns and leans her back against the closed door. From inside, the whirling vibrations send tingles through her body.

She hates you.

She thinks you’re a terrible sister.

Bridget slinks the rest of the way to her bedroom. If Lisa did think she was in trouble, did she have to be so horribly mean? Why wasn’t she trying to make Bridget feel good about herself, instead of worse?

Anyway, it’s over. For better or worse, the dance is here. She’s going to put on that dress and face the music.

The red dress is hanging in the closet. She sheds her robe, sets it on her bed. She exhales all the air inside her, hoping to collapse herself. She pulls the dress up over her chest, slides the zipper up.

No problem.

Yay, Bridget!

Her lip quivers and the tears fall. She pitches forward so they won’t drop on the fabric. She did it. She is even smaller than she’d been this summer. Smaller than that enormous bikini. The smallest she’s ever been. She doesn’t have to lose any more weight.

It’s over.

Bridget lifts her arms up in victory. And when she does, the red dress sags low. Dangerously low. So low, her strapless bra peeks out.

This thrills her.

She sneaks into her mother’s room and finds a box of safety pins in her sewing kit. Then she peels the dress off, lays it on her bed, and starts pinning it tighter, along the back, like she’d seen done to the mannequin at the department store.

Bridget catches sight of herself in the mirror. In her bra and underwear. Hunched over the bed, over the dress, making small even smaller. She looks like the bugs they’d been studying in Bio II. Like an exoskeleton, ribs and bones protruding little nubs and ridges underneath her skin. She smiles.

And then her stomach growls.

You’re disgusting.

Can’t you enjoy this for one minute without thinking of food?

You’re not even that thin.

With trembling hands, she quickly finishes pinning the dress and puts it on. Then Bridget twists her hair up, adds a bit of lipstick. She gets ready without looking in the mirror.

Bridget doesn’t need to see herself. She already knows.

She will never be pretty.