one

"You are beautiful and confident and wise. You handle all things with finesse and aplomb."

Okay, I'm glad Julie has a life coach who's helping her with her control issues, but the out-loud mantra thing is a little too eighties for me. Come to think of it, so is the back-to-school outfit I bought last week. Who in the world made me think I could pull off footless tights and this huge turquoise bead necklace? I'm not exactly M-K Olsen.

Getting ready for the first day of school has been angsty since kindergarten, when I let my mom talk me into wearing standard black Mary Janes instead of my sparklingly beautiful ruby slippers, thus establishing early on that I was P-L-A-I-N. Now that it's senior year, I think it's a little late to change my jeans-and-sweater image without seeming like a poseur. The thought that people might notice me for trying too hard makes me cringe, especially considering the mental list of goals I made for my last year in high school: (1) Get into college, (2) Don't grow.

I mean, emotionally I'd like to grow. You know, into a mature and graceful person, who's considerate and kind and not afraid of guys. And I'd like my hair to grow. It's been shoulder length for, like, months, and I think my follicles may be stunted. Julie says that's karma for cutting her CEO Barbie's hair down to the roots when we were six (I swear I was just going for a pixie cut I saw on Winona Ryder).

Anyway, body growth is more the kind I'd like to avoid. I pray every night that I won't get taller. Is it bad to pray only about that and not to bless my parents and my brother and my friends and starving children? Sometimes I add them in just in case someone or something is really listening. But so far, that supreme being is not paying attention to my very focused cries, because every year I look like I've gone through a taffy-pulling machine over the summer.

Last year I started as a six-foot-tall junior and I was sure that would be the end of it. But I was wrong. And so here I stand at six feet one, wearing my standard jeans (size 2, extra long) and light blue tank top (also extra long, lest my ridiculously elongated torso peek out) in the hopes that no one will notice me at all. The footless tights and chunky necklace? Made for someone cuter, smaller, and with a way more notice-me-I'm-fabulous vibe than I'll ever pull off. Someone like Julie. Or maybe Shelly Ryan.

I guess I should add that there's a number three on my mental list of goals for this year, but I'm not proud of it (and I will never tell Julie or Roger, who would skewer me with sarcastic barbs if they knew): I want to be a BK.

In a very emotional moment this summer when I was crying and obviously out of my mind, I confessed with heart-wrenching earnestness to my mom that I wanted to be a BK. She said I shouldn't have a problem getting a job at Burger King if I really went for it. That'll teach me to open up.

The three most popular girls at Chapel Hill High School call themselves the BK, which stands for the "Bee's Knees." Shelly Ryan is kind of the alpha BK; Tina Geiger and Jasmine Jostling are her drones. They walk around and twitter tooly things like, "You catch more flies with honey," flaunting their sickly sweet personas. In ninth grade, Julie and I made the comment that their fake niceness hides deadly stingers, and we thought we were totally genius for extending the metaphor. We've been making fun of them for as long as they've been ruling our school.

But the truth is, although I do think the BK girls are inane and I know high school may be their high point and I realize that in college I'll meet lots of different people who will appreciate my uniqueness and not care if I have the latest Juicy Tube color or not…I want to be them in the worst way. I want their glossy lips and breathy voices and fluttering eyelashes. I want their cute size 5 feet and their normal-length, bikini-ready torsos. I want their boyfriends—any of them—to know my screen name (which is just "Violet Greenfield," my real name, in case any secret admirers come looking for me). I want…

Ding-dong. Doorbell.

Julie. Oooh, she would be so annoyed if she could hear the internal dialogue I entertain in front of my mirror. I mean, I'm annoyed with myself. It's depressing! Maybe I do need a mantra. "You are beautiful and confident and…" Nope, too dorky out loud.

I take one last look at the business card on the corner of my dresser that I've been struggling to ignore all morning. Yup, still there. I hesitate for a minute, then slip it inside my front pocket, just so it won't get lost.

"Bye, Dad!" I'm out the door.

I can see Julie frowning at me through the windshield of her silver VW Rabbit as I walk to the passenger side. Roger's in the backseat, as usual, playing with his PSP. At least he won't notice that I was too chicken to wear my new clothes. As I open the door, even before I drop my bag onto the floor, I interrupt the speech Julie's about to give me.

"Those tights were totally tight! And that necklace was really heavy around my neck—I mean like rocks. I'm so glad these jeans were clean."

Julie looks at me like, Lame-o, I know you better than that, but at least I prevent her verbal chastening. Roger does get one barb in, though.

"The tights were tight? Shock." Then, with a barely audible tsk-tsk, he goes back to Tokobot.

The thing is, I would have worn the outfit Julie and I picked out together, but…ugh. I can't even really think of a good enough reason to justify it to myself. I'm embarrassed. I'm too tall. I don't want anyone's eyes on me, so why would I wear something colorful and trendy? That would just make people see me more. The fact that I think this way makes me not even want to be friends with me. But there it is.

"You guys look cute," I say, hoping to divert attention from my own cowardice. Julie's wearing the silky sundress we picked out at Forever 21—ivory with golden threads embroidered throughout and an empire waist. It looks great next to her lightly tanned skin and long, dark brown hair. Not to mention her short, curvy figure.

"Julie is very Gisele at the freshman-year Oscars today," says Roger, who's in his standard uniform of Original Penguin striped tee and thrift-store corduroys.

Copyright © 2007 by Melissa Walker.