“What?” I asked, embarrassed, my buzz killed.
“Nothing. Nothing about you anyway.”
I smacked his hands down, pulled away from him. “Tell meright fucking now.”
He shook his head, then looked down at his lap, almost sheepishly. “That Jane girl.” His voice was rubbery from too much Hunch Punch.
“Whatabouther?” I asked, striking up a fresh smoke.
“She’s just…somethin’.” He shook his head again, smiling.
Fuck me. I couldn’t give two shits about Dustin, but it’s not like I need him having a crush on her.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I said.
“What?” He twisted in his seat to face me, tilted his head.
“You like her?”
He grunted. “Um, no.”
But I could tell from the way his face became splotchy and red that he was lying his ass off.
I opened the door.
“Hey! Where you goin’, baby?”
“Oh, fuck off, loser!”
Dustin was gross enough to me before, but at least we had each other. Now he’s gonna be dead to me if he doesn’t watch it. Jane doesn’t need any more attention than what she’s already been getting.
All the guys tonight were mooning over her. Making asses of themselves. Even Tommy had a chubby when he was talking to her.
I’ve never had the hot guys pay me any attention, other than to make fun of me. Push my buttons. I learned real early, like inelementary school, that I wasn’t cute. Not like the other girls, who already had boys asking them to “go” with them. And not like Mom and Dad, who are freakishly good-looking.
Other than my light-blond hair and blue eyes, I don’t resemble them. My eyes are just ordinary, dull, not the crystal shade they both have, which mesmerizes people. One day at church when I was little—and we never go to church except for the big holidays—some old lady with a loud voice stopped me in the hall and dug her bony hand into my shoulder. “You’re the Andersen girl?” she asked. “You don’tlooklike your mother. Humph! That’s unusual!”
I tried to step away from her, but she kept her grip on me. “You must look more like your father,” she said, as Dad was walking toward us. She stared him down quickly before adding, “Come to think of it, you don’t really look like him that much either!”
Even though I was only six, I knew exactly what she was talking about. But I’d never really thought of it like that before. That not looking like them meant something bad.
But the worst of it? That came when I was ten. Mom and Dad were out at some charity ball, and when they stumbled inside—no doubt drunk off too many martinis—they sent the sitter home.
They thought I was in my bedroom, asleep, but I was sitting at the top of the stairs, waiting up for them.
I heard Mom say to Dad, laughing, “How do we even know she’s really ours?”
“Hey,” Dad replied. “She’s beautiful.”
My heart swelled for him just then. But, after a second, headded, “In her own way.”
In her own way.
I didn’t know what to make of that. Was it a good thing? To be different? Dad made it sound like it was, but I wasn’t sure.
But I damn sure used all this to my advantage. The next morning, I demanded Mom take me on a shopping spree in Dallas. If I didn’t have the looks the other rich bitches did, then I needed to have more. Of everything. More makeup, more clothes, the latest, biggest TV set, the best Apple computer.
I waited for hungover Mom to say she wasn’t in the mood for the drive—then I was gonna tell her that I heard that nasty thing she’d said about me. But she just said yes, and off we went. So I never told her, but her evil words have been growing inside me ever since, festering.
