Linda's Loser Sister

For about five years, I am better at stuff than my little sister. Then Linda starts right out in Kindergarten, getting better at stuff than me. She can already color pictures in better than me before she even starts the First Grade. – How you do it, is you use your crayon to trace an outline around the edge, and then you fill the rest in. I know, because she explains it to me. Only I never care about coloring other peoples' pictures in enough to do it her way. She quickly becomes better at making friends than I am too. We share the same friends when she is in First Grade and we're going to the same school. Then I move to a different school from her the next year, and I start doing nothing but losing friends, while she starts gaining them big-time.

Linda is not fat. She never has to go on a diet, but gets to eat as much as she wants, even disgusting combinations like Trix with chocolate milk on it, and big bowls of chocolate chip ice cream, that she lets melt, then puts in the freezer, then takes out and eats more of later. When she gets around 10, she starts paying all this attention to how she looks. She lays out in the back yard to get a tan, and when it's time to buy back to school clothes, she goes with Mama and makes her buy all the stuff she wants.

Mama buys me what she thinks I need. When I can't wear my new slinky disco-outfit with socks, she gets me these ugly espadrille shoes that are designed to wear bare-legged. Nobody wears espadrilles at my school, and nobody wears skirts bare-legged, especially not fat white girls like me, who will do anything to hide our pale, slug-like legs. When it gets cold, Mama makes me this cardigan sweater with bright-colored blobs on it. I wear it once, and all the kids on my bus start yelling, “popcorn sweater, popcorn sweater,” at me, and after that I take it home and hide it at the bottom of the closet and go cold all winter. Linda tells Mama she wants a pale blue parka with fur on the hood, and she gets it, and she goes to school all winter, looking cool and perfect.

The spring when she's in Sixth Grade, Linda's class takes a field trip to my Junior High School. Linda tells me that some of her friends saw me while they were there. She says she lied and said I wasn't related to her because she was embarrassed. I feel sad, but I don't blame her, because I know I am the loser of the school. I just don't know how I can stop being a loser and start being cool like Robin.

By the time I finish High School, we all know who is best at what in our family. Karen is best at being nice, which does not give her very much power. I am best at schoolwork, which also doesn't give me much power. Linda is best at being cool. The family moves to Barstow, and she starts in right away making friends with all kinds of cool kids at her new High School. She goes out and gets herself a boyfriend, then, when she sees someone come along that she likes better, she dumps him and gets the new one to go out with her. She brings home interesting friends, and sometimes she lets me hang out with them for a little while before they go out and do cool stuff together. She doesn't invite me along. Maybe she's still ashamed of me.

I finish college, and I decide that I am fed up with being a loser. I am going to be cool if it kills me, no matter what I have to do. I go out on dates with whoever asks me. They're usually losers, but I go anyway. I figure that's how you meet someone you really like. I go on this really hard diet, and eat 600 calories a day for months at a time, until a size 10 is loose on me. Then I give all my size 14's and 16's away. I start drinking, then I stop again right away when I find out how many calories everything has. But I hide that I'm not drinking when I'm with people that are. I take drinks and pour them out somewhere, and pretend to get drunk.

I start listening to popular music instead of show tunes and classical. I find one Billy Joel song that I like, so I go out and get all his albums (and quickly grow sick of him). I collect everything Devo ever did, including a tape of elevator music you can only get through the fan club. Then I discover David Bowie and fall in love with glam rock (years before everyone else does). I stick with that, because Robin's friends think it's cool.

I discover that I can create outfits by mixing things I get at the mall, with stuff I find at thrift stores. I start wearing clothes that get compliments, instead of ones that no one else would be seen dead in, and I develop a taste for good quality shoes (which are affordable if you wait for final markdown). I talk about “my style”, as opposed to Linda's, which is more classic. I talk about “my colors” (mostly blacks with jewel-toned accents), as opposed to hers, which are all pales and neutrals.

Linda and I share an apartment when I am in graduate school. We spend the weeks together, and then her boyfriend comes over on the weekend and stays with us. I buy all the groceries and do all the cooking. Linda shares because someone gives her a television so we can watch TV.

Linda likes to point out people who are losers. She identifies them by their clothes, and their haircuts, and their way of talking. She says they need a loser-keeper, someone who will explain to them how things are done, so they won't keep on embarrassing themselves. I play the game with her. I point out losers too, and I name all the things about them that a good loser-keeper would make them change.

I don't ever mention anything about the past, when I was a loser myself. I hide all the albums from that era. The Billy Joel records go to the used record store for credit. The Devo ones go to the bottom of my record-pile where no one else will see them. I invite over friends that Linda thinks are cool and we all spend time with each other. The ones she looks down on, I spend time with by myself. Every now and then, Karen mentions the Ancient Days when I was a loser. She'll say how bad she felt for me then, and I'll let her because it's just her good heart making her talk that way. Linda never mentions those times. She's tactful enough to pretend I've always been cool, and I am happy to let her.