younger sisters, Rebecca and Rachel, were forced to wear my hand-me-downs. Boy, do I miss the days when Rebecca whined and complained while stomping around in her Pepto-Bismol-colored room throwing hissy fits as only a pre-pubescent girl can.
“I don’t want Roxy’s clothes! Look, Mom! There’s a stain on these jeans. And this shirt is so out of style! No one wears puffed sleeves anymore! I’ll look like a fool and all my friends will laugh at me. Why can’t I get a new pair of Calvin’s or Jordache’s? Tennis shoes without holes in them, or even the latest design of a shirt?”
“Rebecca Denise, that’s enough. Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know. Your father works very hard to provide a good life for you girls so I can stay home and raise you. Stop being so unappreciative. I didn’t give up a chance for a career in nursing just to listen to an ungrateful child yell at me.”
“Mom! I can’t wear her shirts. Roxy’s big boobs stretched them out! I’ll have to stuff my bra!”
The memory made me smile, which I quickly concealed with my hand. This was not the place or appropriate time to be happy.
I glanced over at Rebecca. Though her features had matured and changed, her attitude certainly remained the same. Rebecca was the quintessential middle child. Textbook case. Hell, her picture was probably underneath the caption “Middle Child Syndrome” in every psychology book on the planet. If it wasn’t, they were missing out on the perfect poster child.
Cosmos, forgive me, but I’ve hated her ever since the day my parents brought her whiny ass home from the hospital.
Mom and Dad lived by The Suburbia Handbook. Roger and Claire Rayburn built their lives around the ancient, mental code of ethics. Mom and Dad almost nailed Rule Number Two, chapter and verse.
All married couples must procreate and raise, at a minimum, 3.2 children, preferably staggered in ages by three years.
They missed the target goal by having offspring of the same sex. They needed at least one with a set of balls to pass with flying colors. Unfortunately, the estrogen pool was deeper and stronger—or perhaps Daddy’s sperm refused to bring forth another knuckle-dragger into the world. Who knows? But, they made up for missing the bar by acing Rule Number One:
High school sweethearts must marry; the wife is to stay at home and raise the children while the husband brings home the bacon.
Nailed it.
Like my mother, I aced Rule Number One—the track star married the football jock. Boom! Item number one checked off the list. I didn’t count the demerit (we had to get married our second year of college). Getting married at 20 wasn’t because of overwhelming, all-consuming, mind-altering love. Nope. I tied the knot with Carl A. Davenport because I neglected to read the instructions that came along with the prescription—taking antibiotics might disrupt the effectiveness of birth control pills.
Fuck. I got knocked up at 20 because of a freaking sinus infection.
Demerit!
No, wait, I wouldn’t count that one. It was the manufacturer’s fault—they should have written that part in big, GIANT print, rather than using letters so small one could only read with a microscope.
Carl continued his studies and obtained a master’s degree in education and was now a tenured professor at the local college. Me? I gave up the dream of going back to school, following the guidelines of the invisible handbook passed on to me by my mother. I was a “stay-at-home Mom” (better known as Drunk Wino). I tried to follow the rules, but sometimes missed the mark. No one could ever label me an overachiever!
Rule Number Two altered a bit during the Nineties—inflation and such—and the required number of children went from 3.2 to 2.5 (unless you were a devout Catholic and preferred to birth an entire baseball team). I failed Rule Number Two and only popped out one child—a daughter— who decided I was the Wicked Witch of the West, minus a broom, when she hit puberty. Hormones turned my sweet child into a raging alien life force. Thank goodness Carol planned to attend college in a few weeks or our home would be a demilitarized zone.
God, I really miss Carol being little. My daughter is a replicated copy of me. Carol had dark, thick black hair; alabaster skin; long legs and full lips, and thankfully, a rack smaller than mine. Carol had been an inquisitive child, full of life, a sweet laugh, and boundless energy. A tiny shadow stuck to my side, mimicking everything I did. That lasted until Carol hit the age of 5 then poof! My clone rebelled, running in the opposite direction of my life. I sensed the disturbance in the force, so instead of attempting to indoctrinate Carol’s mind with the rules, I simply hoped she’d follow them later in life, after watching me from a distance.
Wrong.
Carol Claire Davenport put as much distance as possible between my world and the one in which she desired to live. Headstrong, and determined to succeed in life without a man’s help, paying her own way through life, and—gasp!—hiring help to perform such trivial tasks as cleaning or cooking, Carol bucked tradition every chance she had, including phases of punk haircuts, head-to-toe black clothing and makeup (for a while, it felt like Morticia Addams lived in our house) and refusing to clean her room. My little straight-A student and lovely mixture of introvert and extrovert wanted nothing to do with my “old school ways” as she liked to refer to how I lived my life. Carol idolized her aunt Rachel’s free-spirited approach to life, and jumped at every chance to spend time with Rach when she was in town.
Had I wanted another brat—er—offspring—I was shit out of luck. My ovaries opted to shrivel up and die not long after Carol was born. Maybe my body had the ability to see into the future and knew I couldn’t handle raising another bundle of flesh I’d give up my life for only to have him or her turn on me the second puberty hit. Yeah, that was it. Thank God for omniscient reproductive organs! There is a clause in the Handbook noting bodily failure in Rule Number Two, which kept me from accruing a demerit.
Score!
I took after my mother’s side of the genetic pool. Jet-black hair, long legs, and boobs the size of ripe watermelons. Everyone else adored my full chest, but not me. Carrying all the weight around—every freaking day—was painful. Running track was dangerous. I had to wear three sports bras just to corral the heavy flesh so I didn’t bust an eye socket. By the time I was 25, back problems surfaced, along with my preferred method of numbing the pain: Drinking wine. That little lesson landed on my doorstep, courtesy of Mom and Grandma. I watched them down wine like it was fresh mountain water all my life. Of course, they preceded the wine with handfuls of pills—Valium for Grandma and Xanax for Mom—a tradition I didn’t follow.
Other women flocked to their nearest plastic surgeon to get implants to look like me, which I found rather amusing. Why, oh why in the world did they do it? Personally, I think it should be required pre-surgical treatment to strap two, 10 lb weights on their chests for at least a full month. Get the entire “heavy breast experience” prior to undergoing the knife. Just one month of being forced to sleep on their backs, trying to find a bra that fits, enduring catcalls, and never having a man look you in the eye while speaking—ever again—would deter most. Give them a real taste of what to expect, before having some cocaine-addicted surgeon slice into their milk dispensers so they could then afford the newest Mercedes to drive around town.
Rule Number Eight: One must always drive a vehicle that is better than the ones owned by friends and neighbors.
(This is not a guideline it’s a hard-core edict! See Rule Number Nine about houses, too).
Then again, maybe the wretched experience with strap-on boobs wouldn’t matter. The media had ingrained its warped perception of beauty since the dawn of the big screen and TV. Boys were indoctrinated with ridiculous, impossible body types as their ideals, and young girls learned to be ashamed they weren’t “perfect” every single time they looked in a magazine, watched a movie, or plopped in front of the boob tube. Ah! Lightbulb alert! Boob tube—an appropriate name! And who paid for this mind-altering phenomenon? Not the men. They reaped the benefits of unhappy girls who went under the knife.
Pathetic.