Page 10 of Meant to Be

“Joe Miller?” Kimberly said, guessing another football player.

“No,” I said, sipping from my carton of chocolate milk with a straw, buying myself some time. “You don’t know him. He doesn’t go to our school.”

“Where does he go?” Wendy asked.

“Um. He goes to school in Manhattan.”

“Oh,wow. What year is he?”

“He’s a senior,” I said.

“How did you meet him?”

“I went to work with my dad one day,” I said. “I mean, he worked while I went shopping with my mom. And we met Joe in the park…randomly. He was walking his dog.”

“Oh, wow. What does he look like?”

“He’sverycute—with wavy brown hair and brown eyes….”

“Is he tall?”

“Yes,” I said, nodding. “I only date tall guys.”

“That makes sense. Since you’re so tall,” Wendy said. “You could be a model.”

“Thank you,” I said, genuinely taken aback.

Wendy nodded, then said, “Is he romantic?”

“Oh, yeah. He just gave me his shark’s tooth necklace on the beach…in the Hamptons. It was really sweet….” My voice trailed off, as I knew I was goingwaytoo far, and suddenly feared that someone would ask why I wasn’t wearing the necklace.

That’s when I shrugged and said, “He’s great, but we actually might break up soon.”

“Is he, like,toonice?” Wendy asked.

The question confounded me—how could someone be too nice?

“No. He’s great,” I said. “But, you know, sometimes boys aren’t worth the trouble.”

—

From that dayon, I was officially popular, scoring invites to the movies and the mall and the skating rink with the rest of the in-crowd. Chip’s instinct was always to say no to anything I wanted. But when it came to my social life, the answer became a surprising yes, so long as it didn’t inconvenience him. He was more than happy to have me out of “his house” and have my mom all to himself; it was clear he was jealous of anyone or anything that took her time away from him, me at the top of that list.

I began spending as much time as I could at Wendy’s house, which was like being at a nice hotel. She had a pool in her backyard, a console television in her family room, and extensive stereo equipment in her bedroom, along with thousands of eight-tracks and cassettes that her father had gotten for free as a lawyer in the music business. She also had a king-size water bed, and her very own bathroom, attached to her bedroom, complete with a Jacuzzi tub. Wendy was spoiled, but I was more envious of her actual parents than of their money. Other than on television, I’d neverwitnessed such a harmonious marriage. Mr. Fine acted as if Wendy’s mom could do no wrong. He wanted her opinion and cared what she had to say. If anything, Mrs. Fine was the one calling the shots, and it was she, not he, who could be difficult and moody (a trait she passed on to Wendy). I was always nervous when one of them acted bratty, but Mr. Fine never exploded like Chip. In fact, their pouting and complaining only made him bend over backward more.

Meanwhile, I kept Wendy as far away from my house as I could. It wasn’t that she was a snob; she never seemed to look down on me or the other girls in our group with less money and smaller houses. But I desperately didn’t want her to know the truth about Chip. I knew it wasn’t my fault that my mom had married such a monster, and I had a hunch that Wendy would have been really cool and supportive about it. But a greater part of me worried that if she and the other girls found out what was happening at my house, they’d look at me differently. They might even put me in the “white trash” category—a delineation they often used about other stuff that was completely out of a kid’s control. At the very least, I worried that Wendy might change her mind about wanting me as her best friend, and I couldn’t take that chance. Other than Pepper, our friendship was the only thing that made me feel happy.

As an insurance policy against any form of rejection, I did my best to stay aloof. I pretended that nothing bothered me. I also made it a rule not to like boys. That game was way too risky. Along those lines, I gave up my teen bop magazines and took down my Joe Kingsley shrine, replacing it with a collage of artsy photos cut from the pages ofVogue, Elle,andHarper’s Bazaar.There was something about those models, with their passive expressions and irreverent glamour, that I found so intriguing. Inspiring, even. I wanted to be like them—how I imagined they werein real life, anyway—and I came to see clothes and makeup as my own sort of armor. I couldn’t change my life in anyrealway, but with fashion, I could construct a different identity—or at least hide my true one. I obviously couldn’t afford to shop at The Limited and Benetton and my friends’ other mainstays at the mall. Instead, I had to get both creative and resourceful, scouring thrift and consignment shops and stretching my babysitting wages, carefully assembling a wardrobe of secondhand designer goods and various pieces that looked nicer than they were.

It was fun, actually—both the shopping and the styling—and I felt flattered when anyone complimented my outfit or asked if I’d ever thought about being a fashion model. Of course I hadn’t—and knew they were trying to be nice. Either that, or they were just confusing style with beauty. It was still nice to hear, though.

Then, one night at the Fines’, Wendy and I did our hair and makeup and got all dressed up in our most glamorous outfits. We took turns taking photos of each other with her dad’s fancy Nikon. When we got the film developed, I was shocked to discover that the camera seemed to prefer my high cheekbones, wide-set eyes, and fair skin to her golden tan, cutesy smile, and perky ski slope of a nose. Equally surprising, my shots were more interesting. While Wendy stared right into the camera with the most obvious grin, I tried to channel the elusive expressions of my favorite supermodels.

“Wow, Cate! You look amazing,” Wendy said, staring down at the pictures. She seemed as surprised as I was, and maybe a little bit annoyed, too. I’d begun to notice that things went more smoothly when Wendy was on top.

“You look even better,” I said, then made a joke about how big my nose looked in one of the pictures.

“Iloveyour nose,” Wendy said. “It reminds me of Christy Turlington’s.”

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