Revenge of the Girl With the Great Personality (3 page)

“Yeah, Mac called me ugly. But you know, it was at the end of the day. She was tired.”

“You’ve got to stop making excuses for her.”

“Yeah, well, she’s
seven
.” My mind flashes to just an hour ago. “What excuse does Brooke have?” I fill them in on what happened at work.

“Oh, Lexi …” Cam shakes her head. “Brooke’s pure evil, and you shouldn’t pay any attention to her. But as far as Mackenzie’s concerned, there’s absolutely no context in which it’s okay to call anybody ugly.”

I want to say,
And there’s no context in which it’s okay to throw something at a complete stranger’s head
. But I know Benny doesn’t want to talk about it anymore.

“So what did you say?” Benny asks.

I feel even worse having to repeat those words. “I basically said that I’d rather be ugly on the outside than on the inside, and the only thing that separates me from her precious beauty queens is some makeup.”

Benny looks thoughtful for a second. “You know that you’re right.”

“I do. I’m a horrible sister.”

He shakes his head. “No. If you put some more effort into your appearance, you could look just like one of the Glamour Girls.”

I laugh. “Oh, come on, there’s more difference than that.”

Benny sits up a little straighter. “Well, yeah. Unlike Brooke, you have an IQ
and a soul
. But the outside … Brooke could never be you no matter how hard she tried, but you could easily transform into one of those girls.”

It would take a lot more than some foundation and lipstick to make me look like one of the Beautiful People. But I can’t help smile at what Benny’s said. He always knows what to do to make me feel better. Why can’t he believe these kinds of things about himself?

“It’s weird,” I say. “Logan” — both Cam and Benny groan at the mention of his name — “basically said the same thing today. Not like anything I could do could stop him from thinking that I’m just a girl with a great personality.”

“Great?” Benny teases. “I wouldn’t go that far.
Adequate
perhaps.”

I reach over and throw one of Cam’s fries at him.

“Not the carbs!” he shouts in mock horror.

I’m happy to see a smile return to his face, especially since I have to go back to work.

As I get up to leave, I whisper into Benny’s ears the three little words that make everything better, “New York City.”

Benny and I have already decided that we’re both going to New York once we graduate. I want to go to college at FIT and he wants to get into the creative writing program at NYU. Every once in a while, we’ll go online to look at apartments and start to imagine our new lives, even if all the apartments are basically glorified closets. But that doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we’ll both be able to have a fresh start.

But even as I leave them, I know that’s not good enough. Yes, New York will be amazing. But does Benny really need to wait another eighteen months to finally feel like himself?

I’ve got to figure out something to make him realize that all is not, in fact, lost.

M
y mind has been swirling with what to do about Benny. It’s all I could really think about this morning and afternoon. I head over to his house after work to try to encourage him to do something about Chris, even if it’s a simple “hello.” I hate seeing him so miserable. He deserves to have whatever or whoever he wants.

Benny’s mom answers the door and gives me a big hug.

“Hi, Mrs. Bayer.” I hand her a package. “This was at the front door.”

She looks at the package and shakes her head. “More of those crazy T-shirts for Benjamin.”

I’m always a little in awe when I walk into Benny’s new, huge house. They moved in last year after his dad became a partner at his law firm.
You walk into a vast entranceway with a spiral staircase stretching up to the second floor. You could fit my entire house in the foyer. (I didn’t even know what a foyer was until I saw this house and Mrs. Bayer explained.)

“How’s your mom?” Mrs. Bayer asks. “We’ve really missed y’all in church. We’d love to have you back.”

I give her a noncommittal smile. We used to go to the same massive church with Benny’s family back when my family was unbroken. Many of the parishioners were really helpful to us after Dad left, providing day care and casseroles in the beginning. Then Mom got into an argument with the pastor’s wife over pageants. Mom wanted some monetary help from the parish, but they didn’t approve of something that valued looks over someone’s faith.

There are many things that I don’t agree with the church on. However, in this instance, the pastor’s wife was truly preaching to the choir as far as I was concerned.

But Mom didn’t see it that way. She turned her back on them and hasn’t returned since.

“Well” — Mrs. Bayer can tell she’s not converting me today — “anytime you need some guidance, hon.”

Thankfully, Benny comes to my rescue as he descends the massive staircase. “We’re doing homework. Can we meet in my room?”

“You know the rules. No girls in your room.”

I was always allowed in Benny’s room when I was little. But I swear, as soon as we turned twelve, Benny’s parents started all these rules
about where we could or could not hang out together. Things got even stricter when Cam came along freshman year. Benny decided having a girlfriend would make his life easier with his family. So Cam became Benny’s fake girlfriend for a couple months.

At first I was offended he didn’t ask me (I can’t even get a
fake
boyfriend), but as he explained, he’s known me “since the womb,” so Cam would be easier to explain to his parents. Now when Cam comes over, we have to stay in the living room. Even though they “broke things off amicably.” It was kind of fun when it was going on, because I felt like we were playing different roles: Benny, the stud with the hot new girl in class as his girlfriend; Cam, the aforementioned girl; and me, as um, I guess the friend … with the great personality.
Gag.

One perk to being seen as relatively asexual by Benny’s parents is that I’m allowed in the game room, which is in an adjacent wing and has way more privacy than the living room, where the sound travels upstairs. Plus, it might possibly be the greatest room in the history of modern architecture.

Their game room has overstuffed chairs that you literally sink into and never want to leave. Plus, it has foosball
and
air hockey tables, a full-size Ms. Pac-Man arcade game (I’m currently the highest scorer, thank you very much), and pretty much every movie ever made, which we can watch on their gigantic drops-down-from-the-ceiling screen.

When I first saw this room, I immediately thought about all the amazing parties we’d have here. Then I had to remind myself that
Benny and I aren’t the type of people to have parties (that people would show up for).

“Do you want to see what I got?” Benny tears open the box and pulls out a few more T-shirts. He starts excitedly showing them off to me, but I have no idea what any of them really mean.

“Who is Charles and why do you want him ‘in charge’ of you?” I ask.

“Are you kidding me?” Benny teases me by hanging his head in shame.

“Ah, you know I wasn’t
alive
in the eighties, so …”

“It’s called the Internet,” he counters. “I found this awesome website with all these hysterical T-shirts. I bought pretty much anything that made my mom laugh or my dad groan.”

“Like, totally awesome.”

“
Now
you’re speaking my language.” Benny examines his recent purchases and I can’t help but be excited for him. Sure they’re just some funny shirts, but I know what it’s like to have something that makes you happy. I hope to someday make clothing that makes people feel good about themselves, no matter what their size.

He gasps. “I totally forgot about this one, and I
know
you’re going to approve.” He holds up a T-shirt with a drawing of Beaker from
The Muppet Show.

“You know he’s my favorite!” I exclaim. I can’t help but have an affinity toward Dr. Honeydew’s long-suffering lab assistant. We have a lot in common: We’re both forced to do degrading things at the hands of our bosses (in my case, my mother at the pageants), and we’re not
allowed to speak our minds. (At least I can talk, but I’m pretty sure when I do protest, my mom only hears “meep.”)

“If you’re lucky, I might even let you borrow it … as a tent.” He doesn’t even give me an opportunity to protest. “By the way, Mom’s really excited that you’re staying for dinner,” he says as he packs up his purchases.

“Me too.”

I went through a phase last year where I didn’t like going over to Benny’s house. Not because of anything the Bayers did; his parents are pretty much perfect. Well, maybe not perfect. Benny’s convinced they would disown him if he told them he was gay. The pastor at his church once even referred to being gay as a “disease.” But I’m not sure that’s how Benny’s parents would react. I see the way they look at him, and it’s obvious they love him. Sometimes I think his mom knows. Or maybe I’m just transferring my ideals of a mother onto his mom.

The reason I didn’t like being at Benny’s house was that being with them made me realize how much my own family had deteriorated. At Benny’s, everybody sits together at the table to have dinner; TV isn’t allowed since it’s time to catch up on everybody’s day. His mom makes real food like baked chicken with rice and green beans, lasagna with salad, or (tonight’s menu) roasted salmon with spinach and butternut squash.

Sitting with them makes me happy. It makes me feel like I belong somewhere.

But then I’m reminded of what I lost. What I’ll never get back again.

Cam may have been Benny’s fake girlfriend. But Benny’s family is my fake family.

I guess in some instances, fake is better than the real thing.

“So what’s the plan?” Benny brings me back to what’s supposed to be our homework time.

“You mean besides me kicking your butt in Ms. Pac-Man?” I give him a mischievous grin.

“Yes,
besides
that.” Benny picks up his stack of books in front of him. “Should we start with English or history?”

“I was hoping we could first talk a little bit about last night,” I say cautiously.

Benny nods like he’s expecting this. “Yeah, I want to talk to you about that, too.”

I feel a swell of relief, hoping that Benny realizes that he’s way too hard on himself.

I’m surprised when he speaks first. “Yeah, you know I love you, Lex, but you’ve got to stop being such a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Wait, what?
He thinks that
I’m
the one with the self-esteem problem?

“Look at you. Look at what you’re wearing.”

“What?” I look down at my dark jeans and black V-neck top. “What’s wrong with this?” It’s pretty basic, but I didn’t realize I was supposed to dress up for dinner at the Bayer house.

“It’s only about two sizes too big. Come here.” He leads me to a mirror in the hallway. He stands behind me and grabs the sides of my shirt
and tightens it. “Oh, look what we have here. A figure. Curves. Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to be into fashion?”

I’m used to people looking at me and thinking,
You want to be in fashion?
I do love clothes, although Benny’s right, I pretty much only wear jeans and cute, somewhat baggy shirts. I’ll admit to being envious when I see the Glamour Girls with their expensive outfits. They usually have on the latest dresses and skirts. I don’t really need to remind him why I don’t bother dressing to impress.

I wiggle away from Benny. “You know why …” I let the words hang in the air. Benny’s well aware that there was a time when I liked wearing pretty dresses and would even sneak into my mom’s dresser to put on some lipstick. But we both know that girl went away a long time ago.

“But you could change all of that. You could be that girl any guy would fall for, but you don’t believe in yourself. You hide behind messy hair and no makeup.”

“I don’t hide.” For the first time possibly ever, I find myself annoyed at Benny. “And what about you?” I give him a taste of his own medicine. “It was devastating to see you yesterday. You just think you don’t deserve happiness until we get to New York, but that’s ridiculous, Benny. You’re amazing. When are you going to see that?”

“When are you going to stop thinking that there can only be one beautiful sister in your family?” he counters.

“Well …” My mind races. “When are you going to put yourself out there?”

“You first.”

We’re both staring at each other, neither daring to blink first. Benny’s lips start to quiver and I can tell he’s about to crack. I hold my gaze a few more seconds before he bursts into laughter.

“I’m sorry.” He holds up his hands. “I’m only looking out for you.”

“Me too.” And I don’t know why, but I feel like humoring him. “What do you want me to do?”

His face lights up. “Wow. So many choices. Rob a bank? No, too complicated. Shave your head? No, too dramatic. How about you go up to a guy tomorrow at school and just talk to him? That’s easy enough, although you can’t be self-deprecating or be funny. Be you.”

“But I’m
hilarious
.”

He groans. “You know what I mean.”

Even though I feel sick to my stomach, I find my head nodding in agreement. “Okay, but if I do this, then you need to do something for me.” I reach my hand out to him. “Deal?”

He takes a moment before he hesitantly shakes it. “Deal.”