Big Girl

Chapter 3

Victoria’s mother taught her to do everything for the baby. By the time Grace was three months old, Victoria could change a diaper, bathe her, dress her, play with her for hours, and feed her. The two were inseparable. And it gave Christine a much-needed break on busy days. Victoria helping her mother with the baby gave Christine time to play bridge with her friends, take golf lessons, and see her trainer four times a week. She had forgotten how much work babies were. And Victoria loved to help her. The moment she came home from school, she washed her hands, picked her sister up, and took care of whatever she needed. It was Victoria who won Grace’s first smile, and it was obvious that the baby adored her, just as Victoria was crazy about Grace.

Grace remained a picture-perfect baby. By the time she was a year old, whenever Christine took the girls to the supermarket with her, someone stopped her. Living in Los Angeles, there were often movie scouts in ordinary places. They solicited Christine for movies, TV shows, commercials, print ads, and working in advertising; Jim had been offered his share of those opportunities too, whenever he showed her picture. Victoria would watch in fascination as people approached them and tried to get her mother to let them use Grace in every kind of ad, TV show, or movie, and Christine always graciously said no. She and Jim had no desire to exploit their baby, but they were always flattered by the offers and told friends about them later. Watching the exchanges, and hearing about them afterward always made Victoria feel invisible. It was as though she didn’t exist when the scouts talked to her mother. The only child they saw was Grace. Victoria didn’t mind it, but sometimes she wondered what it would be like to be on TV or in a movie. It was fun that Grace was so pretty, and Victoria loved dressing her up, like a doll, with ribbons in her curly dark hair. She was a beautiful baby and turned into an equally lovely looking toddler. And Victoria nearly melted the first time her baby sister said her name. Grace chortled happily whenever she saw her, and was fiercely attached to her older sister.

When Grace was two and Victoria was nine, their grandmother Dawson died, after a brief illness, which left Christine with no help with the baby except for what Victoria did to assist her. The only babysitter they had ever used was Jim’s mother, so after her mother-in-law’s passing, Christine had to find a babysitter they could rely on when they went out in the evenings. Thereafter there was a parade of teenage girls who came to use the phone, watch TV, and let Victoria take care of the baby, which both sisters preferred anyway. Victoria got more and more responsible as she got older, and Grace got more beautiful with each passing year. She had a sunny disposition and laughed and smiled constantly, mostly at the urging of her older sister, who was the only person in the family who could make her laugh through her tears or stop a tantrum. Christine was far less adept with her than her older daughter. Christine was only too happy to let her take care of Grace. And by then, her father still regularly teased her about being their “tester cake.” Victoria knew exactly what that meant, that Grace was beautiful and she wasn’t, and they had gotten it right the second time around. She had explained that to a friend once, who had looked horrified by the explanation, much more so than Victoria, who was used to the term by now. Her father didn’t hesitate to use it. Christine had objected to it once or twice, and Jim assured her that Victoria knew he was just teasing. But in fact Victoria believed him. She was convinced by then that she was the mistake, and Grace their ultimate achievement. That impression was reinforced by each person who admired Grace. Victoria’s sense of being invisible became deeply entrenched. Once people had commented on how adorable and beautiful Gracie was, they had no idea what to say about Victoria, so they said nothing and ignored her.

Victoria wasn’t ugly, but she was plain. She had sweet, natural fair looks, and straight blond hair that her mother put in braids, as compared to Grace’s halo of dark ringlets. Victoria’s hair had gotten straight as she got older. She had big innocent blue eyes the color of a summer sky, but Grace and her parents’ dark ones always seemed more exotic and more striking to her. And their eye color was all the same, as was their hair. Hers was different. And both her parents and Grace had thin frames, her father was tall, and her mother and the baby were delicate and fine-boned and had small frames. Grace and her parents were a reflection of each other. Victoria was different. She had a square look to her, a bigger frame, and broad shoulders for a child. She looked healthy, with rosy cheeks and prominent cheekbones. The one remarkable feature about her was that she had long legs, like a young colt. Her legs always seemed too long and thin for her squat body, as her grandmother had put it. She had a short torso that made her legs seem even longer. Despite her wider frame, she was nonetheless quick and graceful. And even as a child, she was big for her age, not enough to be called fat, but there was nothing slight about her. Her father always made an issue that she was too heavy for him to pick her up, while he tossed Grace in the air like a feather. Christine had a tendency to be underweight even after her babies, and in great shape thanks to her trainer and exercise classes. And Jim was tall and lean, and Grace was never a really chubby baby.

What Victoria was more than anything was different from the rest of them. Enough so for everyone to notice. And more than once, people had asked her parents within her hearing if she was adopted. She felt like one of those picture cards they held up at school that showed an apple, an orange, a banana, and a pair of galoshes, while the teacher asked which one was different. In her family, Victoria was always the galoshes. It was a strange feeling she’d had all her life, of being different, and not fitting in. At least if one of her parents had looked like her, she would have felt as though she belonged. But as it was, she didn’t, she was the one person out of sync, and no one had ever called her a beauty, as they did Gracie. Gracie was picture perfect and Victoria was the unattractive older sister, who didn’t match the rest of them.

And Victoria had a healthy appetite, which kept her body broader than it might have been otherwise. She ate big portions at every meal, and always cleaned her plate. She liked cakes and candy and ice cream and bread, particularly when it was fresh out of the oven. She ate a big lunch at school. She could never resist a dish of french fries, or a hot dog bun, or a hot fudge sundae. Jim liked to eat well too, but he was a big man, and never gained weight. Christine existed mostly on broiled fish, steamed vegetables, and salads, all of which Victoria hated. She preferred cheeseburgers, spaghetti and meatballs, and, even as a child, often helped herself to seconds, despite her father frowning at her, or even laughing about it and making fun of her. No one in her family ever seemed to gain weight except her. And she never skipped a meal. Feeling full gave her a sense of comfort.

“You’re going to regret that appetite one day, young lady,” her father always warned her. “You don’t want to be overweight by the time you go to college.” College seemed like a lifetime away, and the mashed potatoes were sitting right in front of her, next to the platter of fried chicken. But Christine was always careful what she fed the baby. She explained that Grace had a different frame and was built like her, although Victoria sneaked her lollipops and candy, and Grace loved it. She would scream with delight when she saw a Tootsie Roll Pop emerge for her from Victoria’s pocket. And even when Victoria only had one, she gave it to her sister.

Victoria had never been popular in school, and her parents very seldom let her have friends over, so her social life was limited. Her mother said that two children making a mess of the house was enough for her to deal with. And she never liked any of Victoria’s friends when she met them. She always found fault with them for one reason or another, so Victoria stopped asking to invite them. As a result, no one invited Victoria over after school, since she never reciprocated. And she wanted to get home to help with the baby. She had friends at school, but her friendships didn’t extend past school hours. The drama of her early school years was being the only child in fourth grade who didn’t get a valentine. She had come home in tears, and her mother told her not to be silly. Gracie had been her valentine, and the next year Victoria told herself she didn’t care, and braced herself for disappointment. She actually got one that year from a girl who was as tall as she was. All the boys were shorter. The other girl was a beanpole, and actually much taller than Victoria, who was wider.

And the next drama she faced was growing breasts when she was eleven. She did everything she could to hide them, and wore baggy sweatshirts over everything she owned, lumberjack shirts eventually, and everything two sizes larger. But they continued growing, much to Victoria’s chagrin. And by seventh grade she had the body of a woman. She thought of her great-grandmother often, with her wide hips and thick waist, large breasts and full figure. Victoria was praying she never got as big as her great-grandmother had been. The only thing different about her were the long thin legs that never seemed to stop growing longer. Victoria didn’t know it, but they were her best feature. Her parents’ friends always referred to her as a “big girl,” and she was never sure what part of her they were referring to, her long legs, big breasts, or ever-widening body. And before she could figure out which part of her they were looking at, they turned their attention to the elflike Gracie. Victoria felt like a monster beside her, or a giant. And with her height, and her womanly body, she looked much older than her years. Her art teacher in eighth grade called her Rubenesque, and she didn’t dare ask him what it meant, and didn’t want to know. She was sure it was just a more artistic way of calling her big, which was a term she had come to hate. She didn’t want to be big. She wanted to be small, like her mother and sister. She was five feet seven when she stopped growing in eighth grade, which wasn’t enormous, but it was taller than most of her female classmates, and all of the boys at that age. She felt like a freak.

She was in seventh grade when Gracie started kindergarten, and she took her to her classroom. Her mother had dropped them both off at school, and Victoria had the pleasure of taking Grace to meet her teacher and watched her walk into the room with caution and turn to blow a kiss to her big sister. She watched over her all year at recreation, and took her home after afternoon day care. And the same was true in eighth grade, when Gracie was in first grade. But in the fall Victoria would be entering high school, at a different school, in another location, and she would no longer be there for Gracie, or see her if she walked past her classroom during the day. And she was going to miss her. And so was Gracie, who relied on her older sister and loved seeing her peek into her classroom throughout the day. Both girls cried on Victoria’s last day in eighth grade, and Gracie said she didn’t want to come back to school without Victoria in the fall. But Victoria said she had to. Eighth grade was the end of an era for Victoria, and one she had cherished. It always made her happy knowing Gracie was nearby.

The summer before Victoria entered high school she went on her first diet. She had seen an ad for an herbal tea in the back of a magazine, and sent away for it with her allowance. The ad said that it was guaranteed to make her lose ten pounds, and she wanted to enter high school looking thinner and more sophisticated than she had in middle school. With puberty and a richer figure, she had put on roughly ten pounds over what she was supposed to weigh, according to their doctor. The herbal tea worked better than expected and made her desperately ill for several weeks. Grace said she was green and looked really sick, and asked why she was drinking tea that smelled so bad. Her parents had no idea what was wrong with her, since she didn’t tell them what she’d done. The evil brew had given her severe dysentery, and she didn’t leave the house for several weeks, and said she had the flu. Her mother told her father that it was typical pre-high school nerves. But in the end, just by making her so ill, the herbal tea caused her to lose eight pounds, and Victoria liked the way she looked as a result.

The Dawsons lived on the border of Beverly Hills in a nice residential neighborhood. They had the house they’d 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 comfortable with who she was now, but she was also sitting with a freshman, which made Victoria wonder if she had any friends. And if she did, where were they? She looked taller than almost every boy in the room.

“I reached my full height at twelve,” she said conversationally. “My brother is six-six and plays for UCLA on a basketball scholarship. Do you play any sports?”

“Some volleyball, not much.” She had always been more academic than athletic.

“We have some great teams here. Maybe you want to try out for basketball too. We have a lot of girls your height,” she added, and Victoria almost said, “But not my weight.” She was fiercely aware of how everyone looked, and looking at them on the way in, she felt twice their size. She felt less out of place with this girl, who at least did not look anorexic or dress as though she were going on a date. She seemed friendly and nice. “It takes a while to get the hang of high school,” Connie reassured her. “I felt really strange the first day I got here. All the boys I saw were half my size. And the girls were a lot prettier than I was. But there’s something for everyone here, jocks, fashionistas, beauty queens, there’s a gay/lesbian club, you’ll figure it all out after a while and make friends.” Victoria was suddenly glad that Connie had sat down with her. She felt like she at least had one new friend. Connie had finished both her sandwiches by then, and Victoria was embarrassed to realize that she was so nervous, all she had eaten were the chips and the cookies. She decided to eat the yogurt and save the rest. “Where do you live?” Connie asked with interest.

“L.A.”

“I drive in from Orange County every day. I live with my dad. My mom died last year.”

“I’m sorry,” Victoria said, immediately sympathetic. Connie stood to her full height, and Victoria felt like a dwarf next to her. She handed Victoria a piece of paper with her phone number on it, and Victoria thanked her and slipped it into her pocket.

“Call me if I can help with anything. The first few days are always tough. It’ll get better after that. And don’t forget to try out for the team.” Victoria couldn’t see herself doing it, but she was grateful for the friendly reception from this girl, who had gone out of her way to make her feel at ease. Victoria no longer believed that it was an accident that she had sat down at her table. As they chatted, a good-looking boy walked by and smiled at Connie.

“Hey, Connie,” he said, whizzing by with his books in his hand, “signing up recruits for the team?”

“You bet.” She laughed at him. “He’s captain of the swimming team,” she said when he was gone. “You might like that too. Check it out.”

“I’d probably drown,” Victoria said, looking sheepish. “I’m not a great swimmer.”

“You don’t have to be at first. You learn. That’s what coaches are for. I swam for the team freshman year, but I don’t like to get up that early. Practice is at six A.M., sometimes five before a meet.”

“I think I’ll pass,” Victoria said with a grin, but she liked knowing she had options. This was a whole new world. And everyone looked like they liked it here, and had found their own niche. She just hoped that she’d find hers, whatever it was. Connie told her that there were sign-up sheets on the main bulletin board outside the cafeteria, for all the clubs. She pointed it out on their way out, and Victoria stopped to look. A chess club, a poker club, a film club, foreign language clubs, a Gothic club, a horror movie club, a literary club, a Latin club, a romance-novel book club, an archaeology club, a ski club, a tennis club, a travel club. There were dozens of clubs listed. The two that interested Victoria most were film and Latin. But she was too shy to put her name on either list. She had taken Latin in middle school the year before and liked it. And she thought the film club might be fun. And neither of them required taking her clothes off or wearing a uniform that would make her look gross. She wouldn’t have joined the swim club for that reason, although she was actually a decent swimmer, better than she had admitted to Connie, and she didn’t relish the idea of basketball shorts either. She thought the ski club might be fun too. She went skiing every year with her parents. Her father had been a champion skier in his youth, and her mother was pretty good too. And Gracie had been in ski school since she was three, and so had Victoria before her.

“See you around,” Connie said as she sauntered off on her giraffelike legs.

“Thank you!” Victoria called after her, and then hurried to her next class.

She was in good spirits when her mother picked her up outside at three.

“How was it?” her mother asked pleasantly, relieved to see that Victoria looked happy. It obviously hadn’t been as scary as she’d feared.

“Pretty good,” Victoria said, looking pleased. “I like my classes. It’s sooooo much better than middle school. I had biology and chem this morning, English lit and Spanish this afternoon. The Spanish teacher is a little weird, he won’t let you speak English in his class, but the others were all pretty nice. And I checked out the clubs, I might do ski and film, and maybe Latin.”

“Sounds like a reasonable first day,” Christine said as they drove toward her old school to pick Grace up after day care. As they parked in front of the school, Victoria suddenly felt as though she had matured a thousand years since June. She felt so grown up now being in high school, and it wasn’t bad at all. Gracie was in tears when Victoria ran inside to pick her up.

“What happened?” Victoria asked her as she scooped her up into her arms. She was so small at seven that Victoria could carry her easily.

“I had a horrible day. David threw a lizard at me, Lizzie took my peanut butter sandwich, and Janie hit me!” she said with a look of outrage. “I cried all day,” she added for good measure.

“So would I if all those things happened to me,” Victoria assured her as she walked her to the car.

“I want you to come back,” she said, pouting at her older sister. “It’s no fun here without you.”

“I wish I could,” Victoria said, but suddenly not so sure. High school had looked okay to her that day, better than she’d thought it would. It had definite possibilities, and she wanted to explore them now. Maybe there was hope that she’d fit in after all. “I miss you too.” It was sad to realize that they’d never be in the same school again. The age difference between them was too great.

Victoria put her in the backseat, and Grace reported her miseries to her mother, who was instantly sympathetic. Victoria couldn’t help noticing, as she always did, that their mother had never been as tender with her as she was with Grace. Their relationship was different and simpler for her mother. The fact that Gracie looked like them made it easier for their parents to relate to her. Gracie was one of “them,” and Victoria was always the stranger in their midst. Victoria wondered if Christine also hadn’t known how to be a mother yet when she was born and had learned with Gracie, or maybe she just felt more in common with her. It was impossible to know, but whatever it was, Christine had always been more matter of fact with her, more critical and distant, and demanded more of her, just as her father did. And in his eyes, Gracie could do no wrong. Maybe they had both just softened with age. But her being a reflection of them seemed to be part of it. They’d been in their twenties when Victoria was born, and were in their forties now. Maybe that made a difference, or maybe they just didn’t like her as much. Grace hadn’t been named after an ugly queen, even as a joke.

Her father asked her about school that night, and she reported on her classes, and mentioned the clubs again. He thought her choices were all good, particularly Latin, although he thought the ski club would be fun and a good way to meet boys. Her mother thought Latin sounded too brainy and she should join something more sociable, in order to make friends. They were both aware that Victoria had had very few friends in middle school. But in high school she could meet people, and by junior year she’d be driving and wouldn’t need them to chauffeur her at all. They could hardly wait, and Victoria liked the idea too. She didn’t want her father making sarcastic remarks about her to her friends, as he did whenever he gave them a ride somewhere, even if he thought his comments were funny. She never did.

She signed up for the three clubs that interested her the next day, but none of the sports teams. She decided to fulfill her athletic requirement with just Phys Ed, although she could have taken ballet too, which would have been her worst nightmare come true, leaping across the gym in a leotard and a tutu. She shuddered at the thought when the assistant PE teacher suggested it to her.

It took her a while, but in time Victoria made friends. She dropped out of the film club eventually because she didn’t like the movies they picked to watch. She went on one of the ski club trips to Bear Valley, but the kids that went were stuck-up and never talked to her. She signed up for the travel club instead. And she loved the Latin club, although it was all girls, and she took Latin all of freshman year. She met people, but it wasn’t easy making friends in high school either. A lot of the girls seemed to be in airtight little groups and looked like beauty queens, and that wasn’t her style. The academic girls were as shy as she was and hard to meet. Connie proved to be a good friend for two years until she got a scholarship to Duke, and left when she graduated. But by then, Victoria was comfortable at the school. She heard from Jake at Cait once in a while too, but they never got together again. They always said they would and never did.

She had her first date during sophomore year when a boy from her Spanish class invited her to the junior prom, which was a big deal. Connie said he was a great guy, and he was until he got drunk in the bathroom with some other boys and got kicked out of the prom, and she had to call her father for a ride home.

She got her first car the summer before junior year, and had taken driver’s ed the year before, and had her learner’s permit so she was all set. From then on, she drove herself to school. It was an old Honda her father had bought for her, and she was excited about it.

It wasn’t something she talked about to anyone, but by junior year her body had gotten bigger than it was before. She had gained ten pounds over the summer. She had a summer job at an ice cream store, and ate ice cream on all her breaks. Her mother was upset about it and said it was the wrong job for her. It was too much temptation for Victoria, as proved by the weight she gained.

“You look more like your great-grandmother every day” was all her father said, but it made the point. She brought home ice cream cakes shaped like clowns for Gracie every day. She loved them and no matter how many she ate, she never gained a pound. She was nine by then, and Victoria was sixteen.

But the main benefit of her summer job was that she earned enough money for a trip to New York with the travel club during Christmas break, and it changed her life. She had never been to such an exciting city and liked it much better than L.A. They stayed at a Marriott hotel near Times Square, and they walked for miles. They went to the theater, opera, and ballet, rode the subway, went to the top of the Empire State Building, visited the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the United Nations, and Victoria had never had so much fun in her life. They even had a snowstorm while she was there, and when she got back to L.A., she was dazed. New York was the best place she’d ever been, and she wanted to live there one day. She said she might even go to college there if she could get into New York University or Barnard, which might be a stretch despite her grades. But she floated on the experience for months.

She met her first serious high school boyfriend right after New Year’s. Mike was in the travel club too, but had missed the trip. He was planning to go to London, Athens, and Rome with the club during the summer. Her parents wouldn’t let her go-they said she was too young, although she’d be turning seventeen. Mike was a senior, and his parents were divorced, so his father had signed the permission slip. Victoria thought he was very grown up and worldly and fell madly in love. For the first time in her life, he made her feel pretty. He said he loved her looks. He was going to Southern Methodist University in the fall, and they spent a lot of time together, although her parents didn’t approve. They thought he wasn’t smart enough for her. Victoria didn’t care. He liked her, and he made her happy. They spent a lot of time making out in his car, but she wouldn’t go all the way. She was too scared to take that leap. She said she wasn’t ready. And in April he dropped her for a girl who would. He took the new girl to senior prom, and Victoria sat home nursing a broken heart. He was the only boy who’d asked her out all year.

She never had many dates or a lot of friends. And she spent the summer on the South Beach Diet. She was diligent about it and lost seven pounds. But as soon as she got off the diet, she gained it back plus three more pounds. She wanted to lose the weight for senior year, and her PE teacher had told her she was fifteen pounds overweight. She lost five pounds at the beginning of senior year, by eating smaller portions and fewer calories, and promised herself she’d lose more before graduation. And she would have if she hadn’t gotten mono in November, had to stay home for three weeks, and ate ice cream because it made her throat feel better. The fates had conspired against her. She was the only girl in her class who gained eight pounds while she had mono. Her size was a battle she couldn’t seem to win. But she was determined to beat it this time, and swam every day during Christmas vacation and for a month after. And she jogged around the track every morning before school. Her mother was proud of her when she lost ten pounds.

She was determined to lose the other eight pounds, until her father looked at her one morning and asked her when she was going to start working out to lose some weight. He hadn’t even noticed the ten pounds she had lost. And after that she gave up swimming and jogging and went back to eating ice cream after school and potato chips at lunch, and bigger portions, which satisfied her. What difference did it make? No one noticed it, and no one asked her out. Her father offered to take her to his gym, and she said she had too much work at school, which was true.

She was working hard to keep up her grades, and had applied to seven schools: New York University, Barnard, Boston University, Northwestern, George Washington in Washington, D.C., the University of New Hampshire, and Trinity. Everything she had applied to was either in the Midwest or the East. She had applied to no schools in California, and her parents were upset about it. She wasn’t sure why, but she knew she had to leave. She had felt different for too long, and although she knew she would miss them, and especially Gracie, she wanted a new life. This was her chance, and she was going to grab it while she could. She was tired of competing and going to school with girls who looked like starlets and models and hoped to be that one day. Her father had wanted her to apply to USC and UCLA, and she refused. She knew it would just be more of the same. She wanted to go to school with real people, who weren’t obsessed with how they looked. She wanted to go to college with people who cared about what they thought, like her.

She didn’t get into either of her first-choice schools in New York, nor Boston University, which she would have liked, nor GW. Her choices in the end were Northwestern, New Hampshire, or Trinity. She liked Trinity a lot but wanted a bigger school, and there was good skiing in New Hampshire, but she chose Northwestern, which felt right to her. The greatest thing it had going for it was that it was far away, and it was a great school. Her parents said they were proud of her, although they were distressed that she was leaving California and couldn’t understand why she would. They had no concept of how out of place and unwelcome they had made her feel for so long. Gracie was like their only child, and she felt like the family stray dog. She didn’t even look like them, and she couldn’t take it anymore. Maybe she’d come back to Los Angeles after school, but for now she knew she had to get away.

She was one of the top three students in her class, and had been asked to give a speech after the valedictorian, which stunned the audience with the seriousness and value of what she said. She talked about how different she had felt all her life, how out of step, and how hard she had tried to conform. She said she had never been an athlete, nor wanted to be. She wasn’t “cool,” she wasn’t popular, she didn’t wear the same clothes as all the other girls during freshman year. She didn’t wear makeup till sophomore year, and still didn’t wear it every day. She had loved Latin class even though it made everyone think she was a geek. She went down the list of all the things that had made her different, without saying that she felt even more out of place in her own home.

And then she thanked the school for helping her to be who she was, and find her way. She said that now they were all going out into a world where they would all be different, where no one would fit in, where they had to be themselves to succeed, and follow their own paths. She wished her classmates luck on their journey to find themselves, and herself as well, and she said that once they all found themselves, discovered who they were, and became who they were meant to be, she hoped they’d meet again one day. “And until then, my friends,” she said, as tears rolled down her classmates’ and their parents’ cheeks, “Godspeed.” It made a lot of her fellow students wish they had known her better. The speech impressed her parents too with its eloquence. And it brought home the realization that she was leaving soon, and it softened both of them as they congratulated her on the speech. Christine realized that she was losing her, and she might never live at home again. Her father was suddenly very quiet too when they met up with her after the ceremony and they had all tossed their caps into the air, after saving the tassels to put away with their diplomas. Her father clapped Victoria lightly on the back.

“Great speech,” he complimented her. “It’ll make all the weirdos in your class feel good,” he added sincerely as she looked at him with wide-open eyes. Sometimes she wondered if he was just stupid, or maybe mean. He never failed to miss the point. She could see that now.

“Yeah, like me, Dad,” she said quietly. “I’m one of them. The weirdos and the freaks. My point was that it’s okay to be different, and from now on we’d better be, if we’re going to make something of ourselves. It’s the one thing I learned in school. Different is okay.”

“Not too different, I hope,” he said, looking nervous. Jim Dawson had conformed all his life, and he cared a lot about what people thought of him. He had never had an original thought in his life. He was a company man through and through. And he didn’t agree with Victoria’s philosophy, although he admired the speech and how well she had delivered it. He could see in her ability when she did it that she had inherited something from him. He was known for his excellent speeches too. But Jim never liked to stand out or be different. That had never been okay with him. Victoria was well aware of it, which was why she had never in her entire life felt at ease with them, and she felt even less so now, because she was different from her parents in so many ways. And it was why she was starting the most important adventure of her life, and leaving home to do it. She was willing to push herself out of her comfort zone if it meant finding herself at last, and the place where she belonged. All she knew now was that it wasn’t here, with them. No matter how hard she had tried, she just wasn’t like them.

She realized too that Gracie was growing up as one of them, and she did fit in. Perfectly. She and her parents were like clones. Victoria hoped that one day her younger sister would spread her wings and fly. And for now, Victoria had to do it. She could hardly wait, even if it terrified her at times. She was scared to death of leaving home, but excited too. The girl they had said looked like Queen Victoria all her life was taking off. She smiled as she left her school for the last time, and whispered to herself, “Watch out, world! Here I come!”