Then Again - Diane Keaton [31]
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Looking inside the brown paper bag only to find a green apple, six pennies, four cherry suckers, and one Tootsie Roll Pop was way too disappointing. Why no Snickers or 3 Musketeers? With next to nothing to show for ringing neighborhood doorbells, shouting “Trick or treat!” in a gypsy costume, I worked the Randy front and conned him out of his candy by promising he could sleep in the top bunk for a week.
The next night I snuck into the kitchen while Mom and Dad were watching Milton Berle on TV. Just as I was about to snatch a handful of Hydrox cookies, I heard Dad’s voice. “Diane?” Many tears later, I tiptoed to the hideout where I’d stuffed Randy’s Halloween candy and ate the remains. No one found out.
You have to understand, Mom rarely bought brand names like Hydrox. Her budget did not include Hostess Twinkies, 7Up, Frosted Flakes, or, my favorite, Challenge Butter. Dinner, for example, was a generic affair. We ate a lot of meat loaf, spaghetti, hamburger patties with catsup, and casseroles—way too many casseroles. For dessert it was usually three oatmeal cookies apiece. Dad helped himself to as many as he wanted. Night after night I watched with envy as he ate his fill. Extra treats came at the beginning of the week. For instance, on Monday Mom gave me a whole piece of Wrigley’s Doublemint gum. On Wednesday the tight allocation of resources forced her to hand out half a piece. By Saturday it was a measly quarter. I continued to twist Randy’s arm, but the rewards were hardly worth it. My first real success came at Willard Junior High School, where I used my personality to convince several friends in dumbbell English to fund my need for Refresho ice cream bars and Fifty 50s.
Magazines, one of my ancillary fixations, fit neatly into the mix, starting with McCall’s, a fifties version of Martha Stewart Living. I had no interest in the fun activities on the back page for little girls. No, what I liked were the color pictures of smiling women selling Campbell’s soup and Pond’s face cream. They were pretty, and best of all they never changed. That was neat. Life magazine was neat too, because it told stories with photographs, but what really knocked my socks off was the first time I saw Miss Audrey Hepburn on the cover. She wasn’t pretty. She was beautiful. In fact, she was perfect. I began to notice disturbing things about my eleven-year-old body. It was too big in the bathtub. I didn’t like that. And people in real life weren’t always attractive, even Mom. That was concerning. But, worst of all, I began to understand the troubling concept of comparison. When I compared myself to Audrey Hepburn, something was off. My features were not symmetrical. I wasn’t pretty. At best, I was an affable-looking thing. Yuck. As I got older, it became painfully clear my appearance would always be a work in progress. I began to ponder solutions in the rearview mirror of our station wagon. The right side of my face was better than the left. Okay, not bad. If I kept my mouth slightly parted, I looked vulnerable. Vulnerable was good. By applying these new methods I was beautiful—well, not beautiful, pretty. Not really pretty, but attractive, definitely attractive. Along the way, I discovered fashion magazines like Mademoiselle and Vogue. They taught me to focus on my body as well as my face. I began to dress in a sixties version of hip. I wore miniskirts with white boots, and glittery box-shaped dresses, and even swinging ready-steady-go pantsuits. I painted my eyes with black liquid eyeliner, like Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra. I glued on false eyelashes and kept ratting my hair as if it would compensate for my failing face. I don’t know why I thought I could pull off perfection