Sister Rivalry
By: Jessica Word | Posted: 21st May 2006
My mother never could keep a job. She got bored so easily. She taught pre-school, did reception work, she even sold make-up - just like those Mary-Kay ladies that win pink Cadillacs. She settled down when she became a flight attendant, and that's just the thing - she never could "settle down." City to city, night after night, that's the way she liked it. God, I wanted to be her. When she sold cosmetics, though, that was my favorite. She had this jacket - white, like a scientist - mixing and concocting - like some make-up mastermind.
The women in our neighborhood all sold things from their homes. "Luncheons" they called them Tupperware was for housewives; these meetings were about the new revolution: Monogramming. Peer pressure was swallowed like finger sandwiches on wonder bread. The women were hungry for acceptance, and my mother was no freak. She was a former cheerleader - bred for approval.
Mrs. Munson sold kids' clothes. My mom would carry home catalogs of little sweatshirts and towels with words spelled out in white thread. My little brother wore the "CRAIG" sweatshirt - the one with the little football on it - every time he played in the front yard.
My mother, in her stiff white robe, arranged make-up samples in a plastic caboodle case; she was nervous for the luncheon. She practiced her technique on my sister and me. My mom reserved the reds, greens and golds - beautiful earth colors - for my sister . The make-up manual said I wasn't "made" for them. Jenny, with her autumn red hair, was a "Warm". I was a "Cool". And suddenly there was my tiny freckled face, bare without warmth. Suddenly, I became just a little girl with sun-bleached eye-lashes, jealous and blinking.
Peer pressure allows beauty to become jealousy. Thus is a woman's plight.
When I dyed my hair red, my face still looked plain and uneven. I looked lonely, like the forts Jenny used to make - once she abandoned them. The extra closet became a secret corridor in her craft. The room that housed the furnace had a password I never could quite figure out. My conquest was to conquer them - and eventually she would grow bored, tired of me, and relinquish her space to go read "Seventeen" magazine or call boys I only knew from her diary entries. I'd covet her secret hideouts, and domination was always disappointing. The forts managed to revert back to just another unfinished basement or abandoned storage room. The cloth she draped would continue to hang, the same music she started had never stopped. But somehow, when Jenny left, she always left me cool.
About the Author
Occupation: Writer
Jessica Word loves writing, watching cooking shows, running on Lake Shore Trail, and sampling new restaurants. She lives in Chicago with her husband, Mike and Persian cat, Mr. Beef. Contact Jessica at jessica.m.word@gmail.com
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Tags: peer pressure, front yard, little brother, new revolution, tupperware, eye lashes, mary kay, flight attendant, mastermind, red hair, kids clothes, luncheons, finger sandwiches, earth colors