The Standishes lived a block away. The father was named Young Attorney of the
Year; the mother enjoyed the Junior League and the Neiman Marcus makeup counter.
They had two little girls, prim and pretty, and for a stretch of three years,
I was their babysitter.
"Help yourself to whatever," Mrs. Standish would say, slipping on a mink
as she rushed toward the Mercedes idling in the driveway.
"I'm fine." I would wave her off as she headed for the door. "I
already ate."
For the next few hours, I was an attentive babysitter. I bathed the girls and
played with their Barbies and laughed at their jokes though they were never very
funny. They went to bed at 8 p.m., at which point I began rooting around the
house — digging into the refrigerator, the bathroom cabinet, the closets.
See, whileWhile I did enjoy playing with the Standishes' children, what I liked more was playing
with the Standishes' things.
I did enjoy playing with the Standishes' children, what I liked more was playing
with the Standishes' things. Especially the missus — her costume jewelry,
her high-end makeup, her clothes in seductive, luxury fabrics. Eventually, I
became curious about their expansive liquor cabinet as well. By the end of our
three-year
run, I was stealing vodka and measuring my diet by how Mrs. Standish's
leather pants fit.
It's hard to remember when it started, how I became bold enough to do any of
this. Because, at thirteen, I was the opposite of bold — shrinking, nothing but
polite, save for the wicked interior monologues only given voice in personal
diaries and fanciful, incomplete novels. I did wear an awful lot of makeup — even
slept in the stuff — and so I wonder if the gateway was Mrs. Standish's
vanity. Maybe I peeked out of curiosity but couldn't keep my hands off
the stuff. All of it Chanel, candy colors hidden inside that glossy black lacquer:
the little dome of sparkly peach-pink blush; the blue shadow smeared on with
an index finger; the tarty red lip gloss thick as Vaseline. I would slather all
of this on my face — regard its wild iridescence, regard the way I resembled
a movie star (Kathleen Turner! No, a young Kim Basinger!) — only to wash
it off, almost immediately afterward. I'd go downstairs and call a girlfriend.
Or I'd stare at the food in the refrigerator like it was MTV.
During these years, I was on and off many diets. Some were self-made (the starvation
diet) and some were pre-programmed (Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers), but the point
is that food had become an epic preoccupation from which I sought any escape.
The place I didn't want to be — but the place I always wound up — was
alone, calculating calories with the refrigerator door hanging open. How much
for a slice of American cheese? How much for a tablespoon — okay, four — of
peanut butter? Sometimes I'd just go straight for the good stuff: an endlessI guess a lot of this is just part of being a thirteen-year-old girl.
supply of chocolate chip cookie dough in the freezer. I always made sure to eat
a negligible amount. I always rewrapped each package so that it sat in the very
place, at the very angle, where I had found it. The Standishes wouldn't
have cared if I had Hoovered their cupboard with a giant straw, but I didn't
want them knowing I'd taken anything. Not even a slice of Velveeta.
I guess a lot of this is just part of being a thirteen-year-old girl. So much
feels wrong that you're not sure what behaviors you should be hiding (lathering
your skin with someone else's high-end liquid foundation) and what behaviors
you shouldn't bother hiding at all (eating all the Triscuits). Once, I folded
and buried an empty box in my purse so they wouldn't find it in their trash.
But for me, in particular, food was a subject larded
with shame. It made me mental. I remember the Standishes had this gingerbread
house one Christmas — the kind made with real gumdrops and icing — and
I would drool over that thing. And eventually, I took a gumdrop and popped it
in my mouth. And the next week, I took another, and the week after that I took
two. And all winter long, I kept nibbling at it, one teensy bit at a time, until
it looked like something the birds had eaten. But no one asked me about it. It was possible no one cared. Actually,
it was possible no one noticed.
©2007 Rebecca Jones and Nerve Media
About the Author
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