For
the large part, I was a very good kid. In some ways, I was almost good to a
fault. I made straight A’s, rarely got in trouble and had more than a casual
relationship with the term “teacher’s pet.” I longed to be just a little bit
bad—to watch R-rated movies without guilt, say the occasional bad word when no
grown-ups were around, make telephone calls after 9:00 p.m.—but I was far too
afraid of anyone’s disappointment, judgment or disapproval to strive for
anything less than perfection.
In
fourth grade, Bethany
was the new girl in class. Our school had small classes and little turnover, so
a new kid was incredibly exciting. She’d also moved from the big city of Atlanta, so between the cosmopolitan background and
novelty factor, I liked Bethany
almost immediately.
She
had her own bathroom and a TV and VCR all to herself. When we had sleepovers,
her mom drove us to the grocery story and video store, and we could pick out
whatever we wanted. We usually came back from the grocery with sour cream and
onion potato chips, sour patch kids and a stack of Tiger Beat magazines.
(Bethany was also the only
girl I knew to actually read Tiger Beat every week, and her closet was covered
in tear-out pages of pop stars and sitcom leads. I can’t quite remember if it
was Kirk Cameron or Johnny Depp’s poster that had worn lips from her goodnight
kisses.)
Bethany sometimes called me Little
Miss Perfect, but it didn’t bother me too much, and it was pretty rare.
By
fifth grade, Bethany and I both loved to sing and perform. Fueled by too many
potato chips, we dressed up, staged photographs and choreographed dances during
most of those sleepovers.
The
only thing was that Bethany
was actually pretty good at singing, and I most definitely was not. (To love
Broadway musicals and be tone deaf is a burden I try to bear well.)
One
day when we were in the hallway at school, some older kids overheard Bethany singing.
“That’s
really good,” one of them said. “Sing louder.”
“Yeah,”
another seventh grader added, “You could totally be in the choir. Have you ever
tried out?”
Bethany was elated. “Can you
believe they said that? I thought I was pretty good, but I didn’t know I was
that good.”
I,
on the other hand, was not. I’d lost a solo in our school’s holiday program to
my friend Leah years before, and I still wasn’t over it, and now Bethany was being praised
for one of the talents I wanted most in the world.
“I
couldn’t actually join choir though. That’s too much, don’t you think? But, if
they really thought I was that good, maybe I should give it a shot.”
Thirty
minutes later, in art class, when Bethany
was still going on and on about her great singing, I’d had enough.
“I
think I’m going to do it. I think I’m going to try out for choir. What do you
think?”
“I
think it’d be great,” I said. “Then you’d have something to do other than brag
all the time.”
Bethany just stared back at me.
Another friend at the same art table said, “Geez, Laurel. That was harsh.”
I’d
done it. The rule-abiding, sweet teacher’s pet had stepped outside her box and
been sassy, confrontational—and mean. I felt guilty for days. As bad as it felt
to have my voice ignored while Bethany
was praised and lavished with attention, it felt far worse to have been so rude
to a friend.
My
one flirtation with the dark side out of the way, I went right back to my good
girl ways. For the time being, at least …
