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RIVALRY by Laura Eppinger
We grew up along the same river, though my home was one town upstream. I sprang up next to a handkerchief factory, though I’m sure we were poisoned by the same Dupont chemicals throughout childhood. Still, our worst curse was dreams. We attended the same moldering parochial high, which did not encourage girls with ambition. A muscle car school, a diner and deli clientele. Nevertheless, we both wanted to write. In 9th grade she dipped in where I bobbed supreme; school paper, the school’s literary magazine. By then I was a senior, three years up the stream. Then there was the local newspaper experiment: Wednesday feature section staffed by teens. I’d held a column for two years when her name ran bolded in ink. If I am righteous, these were her sins: One, she was thin. She took up space in the background of school plays, while I built stages. I had to leave the dressing room when she and three chorus girls filled (barely) the borrowed floor-length mirror. Legs in black tights stretching, torsos lean under unitards. They were sharp elbows and firm skin, weighed down by caked mascara. They sang this new refrain:
“Your legs are long, not mine, I’m fat.” “No, I hate my hips, you have nice tight arms.”
I was wading into accepting my body, not quite comfortable yet. My own cheeks boiling with shame and self-recognition, I ached so I quipped,