Her Sexiest Mistake

the iron at a cockroach, Mia dreamed about how different things would be when she grew up and left here. For one, she'd have mountains of money. She'd have a house with a tub for bathing and not for soaking clothes. She'd have walls thicker than paper-thin fake-wood paneling and a car that not only started every time but also didn't stall at stoplights. Oh, and leather seats.

She wanted real, soft, buttery leather seats.

'Apple!' This from her momma. Lynnette probably needed to be crammed, shoehorned, and zipped into her jeans for her date, a chore that Mia hated, so she pretended not to hear and instead opened her diary.

Notes for when I'm somebody, she wrote.

1. Don't wear do-me red lipstick (like Momma). It smears and makes you look mean even when you're not.

2. Don't tease your hair higher than six inches (also like Momma). It looks like you're wearing a cat on your head.

3. Always wear high heels, because height makes a woman smart and powerful.

Above all, Mia wanted to be smart.

'Apple!'

And powerful.

'Apple, baby, get your ass in here. I can't zip!'

Coming.' With a sigh, she closed the diary and hid it in the fruit drawer of the fridge, where no one I her ever looked.

She could hear her momma and sister chattering in the bedroom, and she headed that way past the tiny spot they called a living room, with worn carpet and yellowing ceilings and secondhand furniture packed into it like sardines, every inch covered with knickknacks.

The bedroom was more of the same, stuff crammed into every square inch, with white lace everywhere because her mother had a love affair with lace. Her momma had never met a garage sale she hadn't loved.

Sugar was a chip off the old block and, at eighteen, looked it. She and Mia had never gotten along, but mostly that was Sugar's doing. She didn't like to share Momma, and whenever she could get away with it, she was as mean as possible to Mia.

'Why don't you just spray-paint those jeans on?' Sugar asked Momma, who leaned into the lace-lined mirror over her dresser to admire her makeup job, which looked as if it might have been applied with a spatula.

'I would if I could. Finally, Apple,' Momma said and climbed onto the bed, stretching out on her back, her pants unzipped and gaped wide.

Mia reached for the zipper, Sugar tugged the pants as closed as she could get, which still left a good two-inch gap, while Momma sucked her body in. 'Zip it up,' she gasped.

When Mia got it, they all sagged back, breathing heavy from the exertion. Sugar eyed Momma's hair as she popped her gum with the frequency and velocity of an M-80. 'You use an entire can of hairspray on that do?'

Momma carefully patted her teased-up-and-out, bottle-processed hair, which added nearly a foot to her height. 'You know it.'

They grinned at each other.

Mia sighed.

Sugar shot her a dirty look. 'What's the matter?'

Mia knew better than to say. That would be like poking the bear. She still had the bruise marks on her arm from the last time she'd disagreed with Sugar. 'Nothing.'

Sugar went back to primping. She and Momma were getting ready to go to the monthly rec center barbeque. Tonight was extra special because there was a bunch of truckers in town for some big competition, and both Momma and Sugar had their eyes on a prize.

A prize with a steady job and benefits.

Momma's smile revealed a smear of lipstick. “Check out this color. Tastes like cherries. Somebody's going to ask me to marry him tonight.'

Sugar laughed. 'Looking like that, he's not going to ask you to marry him, he's going to ask you to

Momma's hand slapped over Sugar's mouth. Hey, not in front of Apple.'

Sugar's mouth tightened at the reminder that there «as a baby in the house that wasn't her.

Momma, oblivious, grinned at Mia. 'Be good tonight, you hear? I'm going to get us a rich husband. Then you two can go to college.'

Sugar laughed. 'I'm going to get a rich husband M my own, thanks. Apple here, though, you might want to worry about.' Sugar ran her gaze over Mia, a sneer on her painted lips. 'I don't see her ever.atoning a man, not with that scrawny body and mousy brown hair.'

Leave her alone, Sugar,' Momma said.

As for Mia, her eye began to twitch. She ignored Sugar. 'I'm going to college, Momma. But on my grades. You don't need a husband.'

Please don't get another husband.

Momma smiled and chucked Mia beneath the chin. You're so sweet. How did you get so sweet? You ain't your father's child, that's for certain.'

Maybe she's the mailman's,' Sugar said.

Momma smacked Sugar upside the head. Sugar rubbed the spot and said, 'Jeez, just kidding. You gotta admit, she's a weirdo.'

Momma stood up to primp in front of the mirror and began to sing 'It's Raining Men.'

Mia sighed. Momma loved men, all men, but mostly the kind that never stuck around-or if they did, you wished they hadn't.

Mia sank back to the bed, piled with tiaras and cheap makeup and the magazines Momma and Sugar liked to hoard their pennies for. She ran her finger over the cover of the Enquirer, which had a small picture of Celine Dion in one corner. Not classically beautiful. No red lipstick or teased hair. Beautiful, but almost… plain.

Like Mia.

She turned her head and looked out the window. The neighbors on the left, Sally-Ann and Danny, were fighting on their front porch again, screaming and hurling insults at each other like fastballs. Their dog, Bob, was howling in tune to the screeching coming from Sally. The sound was somehow both lonely and sad, and Mia put her folded hands on the windowsill and set her chin down on them. She felt like howling, too.

On the right, Bethie and Eric, two kids in her class, were rearranging the letters on the mailboxes, probably spelling dirty words, even though Tony, the trailer park manager, had threatened to knock their heads together if he caught them again.

'Hey,' Sugar complained to Momma. 'You're wearing my red lace bra.'

'You won't be needing it tonight.' Momma waggled her eyebrows. 'But I might.'

Nope, Mia was going. All by herself.

Chapter 2