Eventually I started getting an allowance—ten dollars a week—and half of that was immediately put into a savings account. “You’ll thank us later,” my mother told me when I complained.
For me, the tangibility was everything. The feel of the five-dollar bill always gave me a burst of satisfaction, this knowledge that there was money and that I had it. But it was short lived. I always ended up thinking about how it was nothing compared to the other girls’ allowances. One time at the mall, Mackenzie flashed us the crisp one-hundred-dollar bill her father had given her, and we all stared at it, our mouths agape, like it was buried treasure.
It was almost disgusting how easily the girls flaunted their money, though in retrospect they hadn’t really shoved it in my face, even if that was how it sometimes felt. Mackenzie or Elise would just buy whatever they wanted at the shops or the food court, slipping cash out of their purses as if it were pocket lint, while I needed to conserve the little money I had.
And it was because of this that a sliver of resentment started to build toward my parents. Didn’t they realize how embarrassing it was? The other girls always had the nicest clothes and top-of-the-line makeup, while I had to settle for stuff my mom bought me from Walmart.
Part of me feared that my being poor—because that was how it sometimes felt, like we were destitute, just waiting for the bank to take away our house and force us to live on the street—would one day force me out of the group. In elementary school, being popular was never really a concern, at least not for those of us who were already there, but once we reached middle school, it became imperative for me to stay in the group.
Because if I was forced out, where would I go? I had no interest in sports—none of us did—so I couldn’t be friends with the girls who played field hockey or basketball or soccer. My parents didn’t have the extra money to sign me up for gymnastics even if I wanted to join. My grades were decent but not spectacular, so I couldn’t be friends with the nerds. The thought of ending up with the losers was unbearable. I’d probably become a nomad, one of those random kids who doesn’t fit in with anyone and grows up alone and dies without any family or friends.
Melodramatic, sure, but that was my thought process at the time.
It wasn’t until middle school that I realized I held no influence over my friends. When deciding what to do or where to go—to the mall, the movies, somebody’s house—it would always be Elise or Mackenzie who made the call. Sometimes Courtney. Even Olivia once in a while. But never once me.
Oh, I would offer suggestions, but it soon became clear that my opinion didn’t matter. I might get a smile, a nod, but that was the extent of it. Pretty soon I stopped offering my opinion at all.
This was compounded when Destiny arrived in eighth grade. I’d been friends with Elise and Mackenzie since kindergarten, so you’d think I would have more sway. But no. Maybe because Destiny’s parents had more money than mine did, maybe because she was prettier than me, she ended up having more say. More power. More influence.
Which made me realize I needed to do whatever it took to remain a Harpy.
Even if it meant breaking the law.
Looking back, it’s difficult to pinpoint when our delinquent behaviors began. And to call them delinquent is a stretch, at least when viewed against real crimes. The worst we’d ever done was some light shoplifting; I guess calling it light doesn’t quite make sense, but that’s how it felt. When we stole, it wasn’t for any nefarious reason. It was just something to do.
Before that, though, we’d started competing. At least, Mackenzie and Elise and Courtney had started competing.
Some things were beyond our control, like whose father made the most money (Mackenzie), while others were up to nature, like who had gotten her period first (Courtney, toward the end of fifth grade, though Mackenzie refused to believe it, and so Courtney marched us into the bathroom to prove it; the sight of the blood was enough to almost make me throw up and dread the day I finally got my period).
Then, of course, there were the things we had full control over, more or less. Like who got the first boyfriend (Mackenzie), who got her ears pierced first (Elise), who got kissed first (Mackenzie), who gave the first hand job (Elise), who gave the first blow job (Courtney), and who had sex first (Mackenzie, with her then-boyfriend Billy Maddox during Christmas break in eighth grade).
Sometime during middle school, our evolution from little girls to maturing teenagers had begun to take shape.
Mackenzie, who had been petite for years, grew several inches. She was always beautiful, but now her beauty had become much more pronounced, more palpable, but it was an artificial beauty, the kind that reminded you of a Barbie doll. Everything was just so perfect—her nose, her cheeks, her chin, her ears, not to mention her silky-smooth blonde hair—that it made you think she spent several hours in front of the mirror every morning, brushing and plucking and tweezing and searching her pores for any treacherous trace of acne.
Come to think of it, in all of middle school, I don’t think I ever once saw Mackenzie have a single zit.
Elise was different; she was just as beautiful as Mackenzie, but her beauty was more natural, more wholesome. I swear, there were days when she didn’t even wear a dollop of makeup and still looked pristine. Plus, it helped that everybody liked Elise—the boys especially but also most of the girls, even the teachers—and she had a slow, adorable smile that always made you smile too.
Unlike Mackenzie—who was popular because of her money and her looks and because she exuded a presence that demanded popularity—Elise got along with everybody. Walking through the hallways between classes, it felt like everybody wanted to say hi to her. And Elise said hi right back, that easy smile lighting her face.
Olivia, on the other hand, lacked the cool confidence that came with beauty. Starting in seventh grade, Olivia had begun to struggle with her weight. She had a sweet tooth, as my mother would say. Oreos were her true vice—eating them was a nervous habit—and Olivia would often keep a pack in her locker to snack on between classes.
She wasn’t overweight, but Mackenzie constantly gave her a hard time, sometimes reaching out and pinching her belly in the locker room after gym, more than once calling her Double Stuf while Olivia was in earshot, and despite myself I would giggle along with the rest of the girls, happy that I was able to maintain more self-control when it came to treats and that for once Mackenzie’s ire was focused on somebody else.
Still, the harassment drove Olivia crazy, and there were periods of time where she would try to starve herself or would force herself to throw up after lunch, yearning to reach some predetermined weight in her head.
Courtney had always had a willowy body, but it became more lithe in middle school, especially once she started gymnastics (her parents, of course, had the money to sign her up). Even before she learned how to vault and master the balance beam and uneven bars, she moved with a gymnast’s grace, seamlessly weaving between students in the hallways, performing handstands outside after school, and more than once she’d mentioned about one day trying out for the Olympics.
Despite being part of the popular crowd, I was still shy. I had a series of boyfriends in middle school (Matt Callow and Peter Lyons and Adrian Fitzsimmons), but those relationships didn’t last long, not after the guys realized I wasn’t going to put out or even jerk them off. I’d make out with them and I’d let them rub themselves up against me, ignoring the heat between my own legs, but that was the extent of it. It wasn’t because I was prudish, though my mother, who’d been raised a devout Catholic, lectured me more than once that I should save myself for marriage because “that’s what good girls do.” I just didn’t feel comfortable and always worried I would somehow mess something up if I let things get too far.