There are things about her I like, but we do seem so different that I can understand someone wanting to double-check my birth certificate to have proof she gave birth to me.
For me the envy was reversed when it came to our figures. Mother could never understand how I could eat whatever I wanted, as much as I wanted, and not become a blimp. She was always on one diet or another, and she had a personal trainer. A new ounce of weight, a wrinkle, something sagging, whatever, put her into a panic. When I was very little and I walked with her, I noticed how she would often pause to look at her reflection in a store window. She would never pass a mirror. I first thought she was checking to see if anyone was following us. I’d turn to look back. It didn’t take me long to realize I was right. Mother was being chased by age.
Now I often caught her looking at me. If envy could be translated into tears, she would be crying her eyes out. The only satisfaction she had was in telling me that if I didn’t take better care of myself, I would regret it someday.
“One day you’ll wake up and see fat where there wasn’t any or that firm behind of yours will suddenly turn into marshmallow, Teal. You’ve got to do preventive things. You don’t exercise like you should. You eat everything I tell you not to eat. I should know,” she concluded. “I had your figure and I discovered how hard it was to maintain.?
?
Sometimes, being spiteful, I would deliberately add another scoop of ice cream to my dessert or gorge myself on a bag of Kit Kat bars right in front of her. I knew she was dying to eat one.
“Who bought that?” she would cry. “I distinctly left orders not to buy that.”
“I did,” I said. “I love them.”
She would practically flee from me, or from the desserts.
Go on. Run away. I’ll never get like you, I vowed.
After my late lunch, I took my portable CD player and went for a walk. We had a telephone in the pool cabana, so I stopped there and called one of my so-called “beneath us” friends from public school, Shirley Number. I expected she would be home by now, and she was. I told her what I had done and what had happened to me. She thought it was funny, of course, and then went on to talk about some of the things she and the other girls I knew were doing. I really missed being with them.
“Do you see Del Grant?” I asked her. He was a senior I’d had a crush on since ninth grade.
“No,” she said. “Don’t you remember? Oh, I guess I didn’t tell you,” she added.
“What?”
“He dropped out of school when his father left them. You know what his mother is like, her drugs and all.”
“Dropped out?”
“Yes, he works full-time at Diablo’s Pizza in the mall. He says he has to help support his seven-year-old brother and five-year-old sister.”
“Oh. Bummer,” I said.
“He doesn’t seem unhappy, but you know Del. You couldn’t tell if he was unhappy anyway.”
“Is he going with anyone?” I asked, and held my breath.
“Not that I know of. Selma Wisner has a mad crush on him and practically stalks him, but he doesn’t seem terribly interested in her.”
“I’ll meet you at the mall this weekend,” I said. “Saturday, okay?”
“Really? I thought you weren’t allowed to hang out with us anymore.”
“I’m not.”
She laughed.
“Okay, we’ll meet for lunch. Are they going to let you out on the weekend?” she asked.
“No, but that hasn’t stopped me before,” I said dryly.
She laughed again.
“I miss you,” she squealed. “Everybody’s so… everybody,” she said. It brought a smile to my face.
“See you soon,” I said, and hung up.