lived in since before Victoria was born, and Jim was the head of the ad agency by then. He had a satisfying career, and Christine kept busy with her two girls. It seemed like the perfect family to them, and they didn’t want more children. They were forty-two years old, had been married for twenty years, and had a manageable life. They were happy they hadn’t had more kids, and were pleased with the two they had. Jim liked to say that Grace was their beauty, and Victoria had the brains. There was room for both in the world. He wanted Victoria to go to a good college and have a meaningful career. “You’ll need to rely on your brains,” he assured her, as though she had nothing else to offer the world.
“You’ll need more than that,” Christine had said. It worried her sometimes that Victoria was so smart. “Men don’t always like smart girls,” she said, looking worried. “You have to look attractive too.” She had been nagging her about her weight in the past year, and was pleased about the eight pounds she’d lost, with no idea of what Victoria had done to herself for the past month to shed the weight. She wanted Victoria to be thin too, not just smart. They were much less worried about Gracie, who with her charm and beauty, even at seven, looked as though she could conquer the world. Jim was her willing slave.
The family went to Santa Barbara for two weeks at the end of summer, before Victoria started high school, and they all had a good time. Jim had rented a house in Montecito, as he had before, and they went to the beach every day. He commented on Victoria’s figure, and after that she wore a shirt over her bathing suit and refused to take it off. He had observed how big her bust was, and had then mitigated it by saying she had killer legs. He referred far more often to her body than he did to her excellent grades. He expected that of her, but always made it clear that he was disappointed by her looks, as though she had failed somehow, and it was a reflection on him. She had heard it all before, many times. He and her mother went for long walks on the beach every day, while she helped Gracie build sand castles with flowers and rocks and Popsicle sticks on them. Gracie loved doing it with her, which made Victoria happy. Her father’s comments about her looks always made her sad. And her mother pretended not to hear, never reassured her, and never came to her defense. Victoria knew instinctively that her mother was disappointed by her looks too.
There was a boy Victoria liked in Montecito that summer, in a house across the street. Jake was the same age she was, and he was going to Cait in southern California in the fall. He asked if he could write to her from boarding school, and she said he could, and gave him her address in L.A. They talked late into the night about how nervous they were about high school. Victoria admitted to him in the darkness, as they shared a stolen bottle of beer, from his parents’ bar, and a cigarette, that she had never been popular before. He couldn’t see why. He thought she was a really smart, fun girl. He liked talking to her and thought she was a nice person. She’d never had beer before, nor smoked, and she threw up when she went home. But no one noticed. Her parents were in bed, and Gracie was fast asleep in the next room. And Jake left the next day. They were going to visit his grandparents in Lake Tahoe before he started school. Victoria had no grandparents anymore, which she thought was a blessing sometimes, since she only had her parents to comment on her looks. Her mother thought she should cut her hair and start an exercise program in the fall. She wanted her to do gymnastics or ballet, without realizing how uncomfortable Victoria was about appearing in front of other girls in a leotard. Victoria would have died first. She’d rather keep the figure she had than lose it that way. It had been easier just making herself sick with the nasty herbal tea.
It was boring for her in Montecito when Jake left. She wondered if she’d hear from him once he started school. For the rest of the time in Montecito, she played with Grace. Victoria didn’t mind that her sister was seven years younger, she always had fun with her. And her parents always told their friends that the seven-year age difference between them really worked. Victoria had never been jealous of her baby sister for a minute, and was a totally reliable babysitter now that she was fourteen. They left Gracie with her older sister whenever they went out, which they did with increasing frequency as the girls got older.
They had one big scare during the trip, when Grace ventured too far out at the water’s edge one afternoon, at low tide. Victoria had been with her and went back to their towel for a minute to get more sunscreen to put on her sister. And then the tide came in, and the current in the water got strong. A wave knocked Gracie over, and within an instant she disappeared as she was sucked out into the ocean and tossed under a wave. Victoria saw it happen and screamed as she raced to the water, dove into the wave, and came up spluttering with a grip on Grace’s arm as another wave hit them both. By then, their parents had seen it too, and Jim was running toward the water, with Christine right behind him. He rushed into the surf, and grabbed both girls with his powerful arms and pulled them out, as Christine stood watching in silent horror, frozen to the spot. Jim turned to Gracie first.
“Don’t ever do that again! Don’t play in the water alone!”
And then he turned to Victoria with a fierce look in his eye. “How could you leave her alone like that?” Victoria was crying, shaken by what had happened, with her wet shirt glued to her body over her bathing suit.
“I went to get sunscreen for her, so she didn’t burn,” she said between sobs. Christine said nothing and put a towel around Grace, whose lips were blue. She had been in the water for too long before the tide began to turn.
“She almost drowned!” her father shouted at her, shaking with fear and fury. He rarely got angry at his children, but he was shaken by the close call, as they all were. He never said a word about Victoria rushing in to get her, and pulling her out of the surf right before he arrived. He was too upset by what had almost happened, and Victoria was too. Grace had taken refuge in her mother’s arms, who was holding her tight in the towel. Her dark ringlets were wet and plastered to her head.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” Victoria said softly.
He turned his back and walked away as her mother comforted her younger sister, and Victoria wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry, Mom,” she said softly, and Christine nodded and handed her a towel to cover herself up. The message in her gesture was clear.
High school was easier than Victoria had expected in some ways. The classes were well organized, she liked most of the teachers, and the subjects were more interesting than they’d been in middle school. Academically, she loved the school, and was excited by the work. Socially, she felt like a fish out of water, and was shocked by the other girls when she saw them on the first day. They looked a lot racier than anyone she’d gone to school with so far. Some wore provocative clothes and looked older than their years. All the girls wore makeup, and many of them looked much too thin. Anorexia and bulemia had clearly entered their lives. Victoria felt like a moose on the first day, and all she wanted was to look “cool” like everyone else. She carefully observed the outfits that they favored, many of which would have looked terrible on her, although the miniskirts they wore would have looked great. Victoria had opted for jeans and a loose shirt to hide her shape. Her long blond hair was hanging down her back, her face looked freshly scrubbed, and she wore high-top sneakers she and her mother had bought the day before. Once again she was out of step. She had worn the wrong thing, and looked different from the other girls. The ones she saw congregating outside school when she arrived looked like they were entering a fashion contest of some kind. They appeared to be eighteen years old, and some of them obviously were. But even the girls her own age seemed much older than their years. And all she could see at first was a flock of thin, sexy girls. She wanted to cry.
“Good luck,” her mother said when she dropped her off, smiling at her. “Have a great first day.” Victoria wanted to hide in the car. She had her schedule clutched in her trembling hand and a map of the school. She hoped she could find her way without asking directions. She was afraid she might burst into tears as raw terror clutched her heart. “You’ll be fine,” Christine said as Victoria slipped out of the car, and tried to look casual as she hurried up the stairs past the other girls, without meeting their eyes or stopping to say hello. They looked like an army of “cool” girls, and she felt anything but “cool.”
She saw some of them in the cafeteria at lunch that day, and steered a wide berth around them. She helped herself to a bag of potato chips, a hero sandwich, yogurt, and a package of chocolate chip cookies for later, and sat at a table by herself, until another girl sat down. She was taller than Victoria, and rail thin. She looked as though she could have played basketball against most of the guys, and asked Victoria permission to sit down.
“Mind if I sit here?”
“No, that’s fine,” Victoria said, opening the potato chips. The other girl had two sandwiches on her tray, but she looked like nothing she ate would show. Other than her long brown hair, she almost looked like a boy. She wasn’t wearing makeup either, and she was wearing jeans and Converse too.
“Freshman?” the other girl asked as she unwrapped her first sandwich, and Victoria nodded, feeling paralyzed by shyness. “I’m Connie. I’m captain of the girls’ basketball team, as you may have guessed. I’m six-two. I’m a junior. Welcome to high school. How’s it been so far?”
“Okay,” Victoria said, trying to look unimpressed. She didn’t want to tell her that she was scared out of her mind and felt like a freak. She wondered if Connie had too at fourteen. She looked extremely relaxed and
