“Do you want butter or cream cheese?”
“Neither,” Bridget says. She pushes her hair back. It is damp around the edge of her scalp.
“Oh. Well … congratulations again!”
“Thanks,” Bridget says quietly, taking the bagel in her hand. She can’t believe the weight of it.
Bridget walks into homeroom. She is shaky from the shock of it. Never, never in a million billion years would she have dreamed this would happen to her. Sure, when school started, she was taken aback by all the compliments she got. How fit she was looking. How thin! And now, to be on the list. To be the prettiest junior in the whole school. It is confirmation that there’d been something wrong with her before. That she had needed to lose weight.
It is terribly confusing.
Eat.
After putting down her book bag, Bridget steps over to the trash can and presses her fingers into the still-warm flesh of the bagel. She pulls out clumps of soft dough, then drops them like pennies into a wishing well until the shell of the bagel is all that’s left. She wants to throw that into the trash, too.
When she looks up, she sees Lisa running with Abby Warner down the hall. Lisa beams at Bridget, so unbelievably proud of her big sister. The lipstick Lisa had put on in the car has faded. It’s barely noticeable.
Bridget is light-headed. As right as things felt mere seconds ago, she knows better. Inside, she knows how wrong this is. She hates herself for knowing better, for robbing herself of one good feeling. One moment of being happy with herself.
Eat, Bridget.
Just five bites.
They can be little ones.
Bridget manages two.
It is not something she wants to celebrate.
Jennifer Briggis makes her way through the morning hallway traffic, head down, silently counting off the twelve green linoleum floor tiles she’ll cross before reaching her locker. The kids lining the walls keep their voices low, but Jennifer still hears every word. Most of her classmates don’t actually talk to Jennifer, just whisper about her, and all those hushed conversations over the years have done a strange thing to her ears. They’ve become tuned in to pick up what everyone’s saying, whether she wants to or not.
“Have you seen the list yet?”
“Is Jennifer on it? Oh my god, I bet she’s on it again. Oh my god!”
“Do you think she knows what today is? She has to, right? I mean, how could she not after the last three years?”
“Twenty bucks says if she’s the ugliest senior, she barfs again. For old times’ sake.”
Every conversation orbits the same central question: If this year’s list decrees it, how will Mount Washington’s undisputed queen of ugly accept her crown?
Jennifer has thought about little else since last year’s list named her the ugliest junior and effectively knocked down the second-to-last domino in this impossible chain of events. Despite the muddy feelings she had about her particular situation, a clear either/or presented itself.
Senior year would arrive, and either Jennifer wouldn’t be on the list … or she would.
But that’s not what captivates Mount Washington High this morning. Four lists or three or two or even one can’t change what is widely accepted as fact: Jennifer Briggis is clearly, certifiably, undeniably ugly. But Jennifer knows that what everyone in the hallway salivates for is her reaction. That’ll be the real show. And the expectations for something big, something messy, aren’t beyond her control, like being pretty or being ugly. They are, in fact, her fault.
When Jennifer was put on the list her freshman year, she became an instant legend. No one, in the history of ugly girls, had reacted so unattractively.
Jennifer had sunk to the floor in front of her locker and bawled unabashedly until her entire face was shellacked with a mixture of tears, snot, and sweat. The list, damp and twisted in her fists, was reduced to soggy pulp. Blood vessels burst in her cheeks and in the whites of her eyes.
She’d barely survived the worst summer of her life, and now this?
The freshmen collectively backed up and gawked in horror, the way one might upon seeing a dead body. Except Jennifer was very much alive. A gasp for breath turned into a choke, and then she vomited on herself. The metallic smell of it filled the hallway, and people ducked into classrooms or pulled their clothes up over their noses to avoid it. Someone ran for the nurse, who extended rubber-gloved hands to help Jennifer to her feet. She was led to a cot in a dark corner of the nurse’s office.
Jennifer couldn’t stop crying. She wailed so loudly, the science classes heard her even with their doors closed and the teachers lecturing. Her misery vibrated against the steel lockers, turning the halls into one big tinny microphone that broadcast her suffering to the whole school. The nurse eventually sent Jennifer home, where she spent the rest of the day in bed, feeling bad for herself.
When she returned to school the following morning, no one would look at her. She found some vindication in the school’s collective avoidance, but mostly Jennifer felt lonely. She knew for sure that her old life was officially over. Despite having played it cool for an entire summer, praying that things would return to normal, the list had ruined everything. She would never get back what she’d lost after the way she’d acted. The only thing she could do was move on.
It proved a difficult task. Before Jennifer, the prettiest girls were the ones remembered and the ugliest girls faded into the shadows. But Jennifer bucked that trend. No one would forget her.
Sophomore year, the second time, Jennifer was on her way to a fresh start and the previous year’s list was a distant memory, at least to her.
In 365 days, Jennifer had gained some confidence, having successfully auditioned for chorus, and had grown friendly with a couple girls who also sang soprano. They were nothing special, not even well known in the chorus/band circle. Their clothes weren’t particularly cool, and they never wanted to do the things Jennifer suggested — preferring to rent old musicals and collectively sing along with them rather than, say, trying to get into a party. But Jennifer knew that beggars couldn’t be choosers. Nothing would be as good as it had been. She’d just have to live within her means.
The morning of the sophomore-year list, Jennifer rode the bus completely aware of what day it was, but without a thought that she might make the list again. In fact, she couldn’t wait to see who had been picked for her grade. She had her hunches. Nearly every one of her chorus friends would have been a likely choice.
This time, after she spotted her name, Jennifer remained in school the entire day. She cried a little, alone in the bathroom, but she didn’t throw up or make a scene, which were marginal improvements. Her friends did their best to console her.
Junior year, when Jennifer saw her name on the list, she laughed. Not because it was particularly funny, but because it was so ridiculous. She didn’t delude herself — she knew she wasn’t going to be named prettiest. But wasn’t it only fair to pass the ugliest torch along to another girl?
She didn’t cry, not once. Her chorus friends comforted her again, of course, but more intriguing were the random students who sought her out to personally apologize. They never said what they were sorry for, but Jennifer had a pretty good idea; no one should have to be the ugliest girl three years in a row. It was too cruel, too