1. A condition, state or delusion in which things appear more beautiful than they really are.
In the dark of her living room, the glow from Maxine’s laptop illuminated her face, making it look like an impromptu full moon typing away at another misadventure. She pretended not to hear the metal scratching sound at her front door.
“Thought you changed the lock on me!” Suzanne exclaimed as her dizzy key finally managed to conquer the formidably fine slit. “You could have just let me in, you know…”
Tossing down her keys but keeping the light off, Suzanne took off her high heels and plopped down on the couch in front of Maxine’s desk. Resting on the arm of the sofa, Suzanne arched her back and repositioned her skirt so that it no longer felt twisted around her waist. From behind her laptop, Maxine could just see the tips of her sister’s toes as she removed her stockings.
“So how did it go?” Maxine pushed back her laptop screen so that it acted more as a candle rather than a spotlight.
“He was okay,” Suzanne said through a long stretch. “He had longer fingernails than I’m used to. I had to keep telling him to stop trying to de-goop my cantaloupe, if you know what I mean.” She closed her eyes and smiled a toothy grin, “But he took immaculate care of his you-know-what. It was like getting to touch, oh, what’s that thing called…that really popular statue with the naked guy…”
“The David?”
“Yeah! It was like getting to put my hands all over David and not a single person said I couldn’t. It was pretty alright, Max.”
Maxine got up, closed her laptop, and turned on the lamp beside her desk. She walked around to the opposite end of the couch where Suzanne’s bare feet were and sat on the arm.
“You do know I was asking how the date went, right?”
Suzanne laughed and sat up. She stuffed the smallest couch pillow behind her back and placed the largest pillow on her lap so that her previously exposed belly button ring was now covered.
“Yes, I know you meant the date. But you never ask about the fun stuff, so I figured I’d just offer it up and hope it was enough.” Suzanne took a deep breath and looked up as though the events of her date were projected on the ceiling. “Well, he looked like he did in his picture. He shaved his goatee thing, so his face was nice and smooth. He didn’t smell great or anything, but he wasn’t embarrassing to be seen with, you know?” Suzanne quickly glanced down at Maxine, whose expression had not changed. “Anyways, I can see you’re still not interested in the fun stuff. He said he really liked my work-“ Maxine shot her a look, “-your work… Anyways, he said your stories and essays were very impressive. Especially the thing you did about why babies are cute. He said your fresh take on nature's answer to strangulation was what really caught his eye. I was sure to remember that part.”
For the first time since Suzanne had gotten home, Maxine perked up and began to act like the girly mess her sister was. She moved Suzanne’s feet aside and sat at the end of the couch, pulling her knees to her and talking over them.
“Did you remember to tell him what I thought about his poetry?”
Suzanne looked down at her pillow and mumbled, “kinda…sorta…….lost it…….”
“What??”
“Well he took me to this really nice place and they wouldn’t let me carry my purse to the table cause of the size or something. Well I had it written down in there and I couldn’t find a good enough excuse to get it back!”
“Are you kidding me?? That was central to our messages! I told him that what I needed to say about his work needed to be said in person!” Maxine looked around the floor for something to throw at her, but settled for snatching the pillow off Suzanne’s lap instead.
“Hey! What was I supposed to do? Say I needed to get ‘something out of my purse’? Guys think that means tampons, and I don’t exactly cap the night off if he thinks I’m on the rag, Maxi Pad.”
Maxine closed her eyes and grit her teeth as her least favorite nickname lingered in the air. She turned away from her sister and sat facing forward toward the TV. Letting out a deep exhale, she calmed herself and asked, “So what exactly did I say about his work?”
Suzanne tugged at her shirt as Maxine’s pillowsnatching had, again, left her belly ring exposed.
“Well he started talking about the messages and stuff and when he leaned in to ask what was so great about his work that I couldn’t tell him via text, I, uh…ugh, look, I told him that my body spoke much easier than my words, okay?”
“You screwed him as a compliment to his work?? Well, that’s just perfect. He’s never going to take my work seriously now. You had one job, Fluzy.”
Maxine walked to her kitchen and pulled out a room temperature beer from an unopened case she’d forgotten to put in the fridge. Leaning forward on the kitchen sink, she drank hastily from it, spitting out every other swig. Suzanne didn’t say a word as she retreated to her bedroom, then to the bathroom, then back to the bedroom. Not counting the sips she spit, Maxine had burned through 3 bottles before Suzanne walked into the kitchen carrying her date clothes and wearing her pajamas.
“If you don’t like the way I do it, you should just go on these stupid dates yourself.” She walked past Maxine to the washing machine at the back of the narrow kitchen. She threw her clothes in and closed the lid, but didn’t start it. “In fact, I think I might like to quit this little pimping scheme of yours altogether.”
Maxine was older by five years. Even before Suzanne was born, Maxine knew that she herself was not destined to be beautiful. It’s not like she knew enough kids to make a fair comparison; it was just something she had always felt. Suzanne was a perfect baby from the get-go. Her hair was a glorious golden mass on her head. Nobody knew where the dimples came from. It further affirmed to Maxine that she and her baby sister would lead totally different lives with little to nothing to talk about between them. Over the years, Suzanne blossomed into a real knockout. Long legs. Curvy waist. Perky boobs. The works. And Maxine, well, she was no slouch in a classroom. That was for sure. She read every book she could get her hands on, became reasonably well versed in Spanish, French and German, learned how to play various instruments, taught herself how to sew and change tires. She dedicated her young life to learning everything she could, and now, at 32, she was a wonderfully creative mind, but the same old cardboard face. Suzanne had been fired from her waitressing job about four months prior to Maxine offering her the deal. I’ll tell you what to say and what you think, Maxine had told her, just be the pretty face and you can reap the rewards of free dinners, beers and whatever else happens to land in your lap.
True, the “job” didn’t pay anything, but Maxine agreed to let her sister live with her free of charge, so all she really had to do was maintain her perfect looks and represent Maxine in a way that properly showed her intellectual prowess. Since they’d begun the charade, Maxine had landed two guest spots in books published by authors her sister had managed to thoroughly impress. It didn’t feel great. Maxine wasn’t trying to fool herself into any sort of delusion that she had totally earned any acclaim. It was a man’s world and she was merely doing what she needed to do to be noticed. Suzanne returned from the washer and started to walk back to bed before Maxine put her bottle down in the sink.
“You don’t get it, Suzy…”
Suzanne crossed her arms and put her non-existent weight on her back foot.
“What don’t I get?”
“It’s like. Okay. You’re beautiful and all. Well what if you had all those good looks, but people weren’t allowed to look at you? People judged you on your ability to write about history or science or the naked sculpture guy with the nice pubic hair? You’d feel cheated. And that’s how I feel. Like a perfectly decent brain trapped inside a wet sack of potatoes.” Maxine’s shoulders slumped as she stuck her hands in her jean pockets and continued, “I have had to work twice as hard as pretty girls just to even be considered in the Drunk Enough to Fuck category. And don’t say that’s not a thing, I heard Leo that night. He told you that if he was drunk enough, he might consider it. But you, he said. You he’d quit drinking altogether for.” Maxine’s eyes began to ache and well with tears. She set her glasses down on the counter and dabbed at her face with her shirt sleeve.
Suzanne had never realized the grief that her sister had been carrying around with her for so long. It seemed shocking to her almost. Suzanne nearly flunked out of high school. Four times. She would have given anything to have Maxine’s test scores, and she really envied her when she got that flat tire a few spring breaks ago. Maxine would have had it changed all by herself. Not Suzy the Fluzy, though. She had to call AAA and pretend she was turned on by the lump doing the work just so he wouldn’t charge her. It's unsafe carrying around so much crap in the back of your car, he'd told her. Tires are easier to change when you can find them.
There was nothing either of them could really say. Maxine apologized and went to bed while Suzanne stayed up a while more. Her buzz had long gone and her stomach felt rumbly since she hadn’t really eaten on the date. She often felt too nervous trying to correctly recite her sister’s words to have much more than a few forkfuls of salad. She opened the fridge to make herself a midnight snack, but the realization came all at once that she couldn’t. Not until, at the very least, she cleaned out the junk in her trunk.
(End)