School Pictures

The day when our picture-orders arrive at school, is always a good day. The teacher has all our packets to pass out, and that's time she can't give us work to do. I take out a book and read, keeping one ear open to hear when my name is called. When I get my packet, I open it right away. I sort through the pictures, the little wallet-sized ones for us at home to keep, and the bigger, portrait-sized ones that get sent to my grandparents.

I'm having trouble with my best friends, Diane and Karen. I see them whispering together before school. When I ask them what they're talking about, they always say “nothing.” They go off and do things together at recess, and they don't invite me. I ask them if something's wrong. Are they mad at me? No, they say, there's nothing wrong, everything's fine. Everything doesn't feel very fine to me, but I'm glad they're still my friends, anyway.

Diane peeks at her pictures. “Ohh, I'm so ugly,” she says.

Karen looks. “No,” she says, “you look good! It's me that looks terrible!”

I look at my pictures. They're pretty good, I think. I like the red jumper I'm wearing. I like the gold pin that spells my name in cursive that my Mama and Daddy bought for me in Mexico. And I love my white blouse, that's got floaty white sleeves like a princess-dress (even though you can't see them in the picture). “Ohh,” I say, “I look so ugly!” But nobody answers me.

At home, my Mama looks at my pictures. They make me look fat, she says. Maybe I'd better go on a diet. Fat is bad, I think. Fat is ugly. I see no fat in my picture, but that doesn't matter, not if it's there, and other people can see it. I start crying. “I don't want to be fat,” I yell, and I run to my room and slam the door.

Later on, I start the same diet as Mama's on. Foods aren't good or bad because of how they taste any more, but because the diet says they are. I learn to eat things like jelled sugar-free soda, and ground up cantaloupe mixed with skim milk, and call them snacks. I learn how to run over to the cupboard for a handful of Trix, chew it, and swallow it, and be back washing the dishes as if I've never moved, by the time my Mama comes into the room. I learn to ignore how my clothes fit. If they're tight, but I don't say anything, I hope no one will notice. And when I look at pictures of me, I always see fat. The only time when I don't, is right after a successful diet. I learn to ignore that too. I just don't look at the pictures.