Creepy Moment

My sister Karen is fourteen, and there are times when it feels like she is growing away from me. Even at her young age, she knows infinitely more than I do about style and popular culture. She knows how to make friends, and boys ask her out, whereas I am a lonely loser with only a few friends, and those feeling like they are drifting away from me. I would like to look like Karen. – I would like to be Karen, I think sometimes. I'm tired of my world of dead history and literature no one else reads. Karen's world is The Thompson Twins and wine coolers and Mollie Ringwald movies. It seems fresh and alive.

Karen has a boyfriend already. I don't. I haven't had one since I was 18 (and he was a weird older-man loser who wrote me letters while he was in prison, and then disappeared out of my life). She knows how to wear make-up and choose cool clothes, and she dances just like the videos on MTV.

Mr. S is the coolest man at my mother's church. He's a Baptist, but he's not weird about it. He rides a motorcycle. He has a glass of wine sometimes. He leads the Youth Group, which is how we know him. First Linda got to know him while she was in High School. – She's how I found out how cool he was. – Now it's Karen's turn. She and her friend Breanna are Mr. S's favorite kids in the Youth Group, I think. He buys things for them, pretty clothes, and earrings and record albums. He takes them for long rides to interesting places, on his motorcycle.

One time Mr. S comes by my parents' house when Karen isn't there. He invites me to take a ride with him. I think it's a consolation prize; he's never shown any more than a polite interest in me before. But I want the ride (and deep down inside I can't help hoping he'll grow to like me better and do nice things for me, like he does for Karen). We ride out into the desert. My leg is caught at a funny angle against the exhaust pipe, and I'm too shy to say anything until I have a nice second-degree burn there. I wear the scar for 15 years; it, and the motorcycle ride are the only things Mr. S ever gives me.

Later on, Karen and her best friend William plan a talent show as a fundraiser for the Youth Group. They ask everyone they know to perform. I choose a song,“Time in a Bottle.” Linda's boyfriend Scott, who plays guitar in a band, offers to play accompaniment. Karen and William choreograph a dance to Taco's “Puttin' On The Ritz.”

I go to college out of town. The first time I see Karen's performance is at the final rehearsal. I know “Puttin' On The Ritz,” though not the Taco version, but I've never thought to interpret it like this. Karen wears skimpy, provocative clothes. She has platform shoes and full make-up, but everything's a little worn, a little tattered. The effect is half waif, half prostitute. William's her John, or her pimp maybe. – He's the guy who takes her off the street corner (represented by a spotlight on a dark stage) where she's waiting, at any rate. They dance, and I am in awe. My sister's so good at it, and somehow she's come up with this interpretation that's adult and dangerous.

“She's every child molester's dream in that outfit, isn't she?” I turn, and see Mr. S standing beside me, watching Karen too. I feel jealous that he's noticed Karen's attractiveness. I want someone to notice my attractiveness too. I want to feel like I have attractiveness, but instead I feel like a fat white, nerdly lump.

Much later on, Karen tells me about the things Mr. S used to do to her. I wonder at myself, that I didn't notice anything at the time. But I didn't. I was too busy wanting what Karen had.