she’d always reminded me physically of a made-over Wicked Witch of the West. Which was funny because I was often told, especially every Thanksgiving, when The Wizard of Oz came on, that I looked just like Dorothy, minus the braids. And the skipping. And Toto.
Veronica had then snapped at Opal for ruining the shot (“we’re going to miss our dinner reservations!”) and at Olivia for not smiling. “Why can’t you both act more like Abby!” she’d complained to her daughters, sliding the sunglasses on top of Opal’s head and squeezing Olivia’s frown into an upturn that didn’t last.
“You mean boring?” Opal asked, snickering.
My father moved the camera from his face and sing-songed, “There’s a twenty-five-dollar Tar- gzay gift card for any Foot-ay girl who smiles when I say ‘bacon-double-cheeseburgers.’”
On her first day of seventh grade, Opal had told her teachers that her last name was pronounced Foot-ay, as in French, and not Foot, as in feet (it is pronounced foot ). My father thought that was cute. Because my name was Abby, and not even Abigail, I hadn’t been able to go around telling people my name was Abby Foot-ay.
“Ha! Abb-ay Foot-ay! That does sound pretty stupid!” Opal had agreed.
“ You sound pretty stupid,” Olivia had shot back.
The Foot-ay sisters did not get along so well back then.
Anyway, the bribe worked. Opal had smiled from earring to dangling earring. Olivia, who’d been saving up for an iPod, forced cheer. My smile was school-pictures stiff, but my father and stepmother liked that kind of smile for family albums.
“Perfect!” my dad had said. “Just perfect. Okay, say bacon-double-cheeseburgers!”
“Shitburgers!” Opal had yelled simultaneously with the click! and then had been dragged off to the bathroom to eat some Zest.
The two photographs are side by side in my The Teen Years album—the left side representing the real moment, the truth of my family, which was why it was my favorite photograph, and the right side representing the manufactured, the cheeseburgers, when we all wanted to say shitburgers.
“Where’s that new boyfriend of yours?” my aunt Marian asked as she lowered the camera. “I’m dying to meet him. I hope he’s a nice young man, unlike that last one you dated. Or the last one. Or the last one.”
Shitburgers.
Chapter 3
I learned many boyfriends ago that an easy way to feel better (slightly better, anyway) after a breakup, even if the breakup was a godsend because the boyfriend was clearly a superjerk in hiding, was to look good. And so, on Monday morning I didn’t drag myself to work with bed head and the blues. I blow-dried my hair pin-straight, put on mascara and the pinky-red lipstick Opal had once given me. I slipped into my favorite outfit—a black wrap dress that managed to be both office appropriate and hot-date appropriate—my favorite shoes (glen-plaid tweed), and I looked much better than I felt.
Of course, a torrential downpour began halfway into my twenty-minute walk to work. My umbrella, which was usually in my tote bag at all times, was instead in the backseat of Superjerk’s car. I was dripping wet. My fabric shoes were soaked. My hair clung to the sides of my head. The moment I walked through the double glass doors of Maine Life magazine, Marcella French, our obnoxious receptionist, pointed and laughed. Marcella was enjoying the perks of a flirtation with Gray Finch, editor in chief of Maine Life and everyone’s boss on the small staff, so she felt free to ridicule whomever she wanted. Just wait till summer intern season started. Forty-year-old Marcella would be toast.
Henry’s face was the first thing I saw when I set foot inside my tiny cubicle. No, not his face-face. A photograph of his face. Ugh! Why had I put up that stupid picture of the two of us on our second date!
I’d had the photo in my desk drawer for weeks, but last week, after a particularly sweet date, I’d pinned it up