The Makedown
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by Gitty Daneshvari
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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First eBook Edition: February 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-54439-9
Contents
Part III: The Downside of Dating Up
To my parents—thank you for everything.
I would like to thank the following people: Caryn Karmatz Rudy, Petersen Harris, Laurel Heren, Howard Abramson, Sarah Burnes, Shari Smiley, Breda Carroll, Jen Kleiner, Lucy Punch, Jessica Fantini, Shamsi Daneshvari, Stefanie Markman, Neosha Kashef, Keith Sweitzer, Lucy Rimalower, Swanna MacNair, Pam Silverstein, Marley Shelton, Beau Flynn and everyone at Contrafilm, Mara Jacobs, Amanda Coplan, Rosanna Bilow, Margo Klew ans, Stir Crazy, Victor Levin, Tanny Gordon, Theodore Gordon, Jonathan Gordon, Nicole Terry, Shirley Nagel schmidt Bessey, Candace Lilligren, Mike Carnes, Ann Cherkis, Claudine Auguste, Johanna Mawdesly, Judee Ann Williams, Kallie Shimek, and everyone else who supported me along the way.
makedown
pronunciation:
''daün
function: noun
definition: The lessening of external beauty and innate confidence as a means of leveling the playing field.
etymology: Modern English, derived from the work of Anna Norton, a pioneer in the field of dating beyond one’s reach.
Hello Fatty
I
was born into the sovereignty of nerds, from which few have escaped and of which even fewer have had sex. For thirteen harrowing years, nerdiness reigned supreme, leaving me unattractive and socially awkward with little more than a stellar report card to call a friend.
Life didn’t start off that badly for me. For my first decade, I enjoyed an utterly average existence: unremarkable brown eyes, brown hair, average height, and a tendency toward chubbiness, but nothing too dramatic. In these years, I was notable only for my proclivity to answer teachers’ questions with long and pedantic responses. For example, when asked the capital of Ohio, I couldn’t simply respond
Columbus
. No, I was compelled to explain that Chillicothe served as the capital from the state’s inception in 1803 until 1816, with a two-year sojourn in Zanesville from 1810 to 1812. This particular personality trait was irritating but tolerable to my peers. Well, at least until the age of ten, when I began the steep descent into ugly.
Puberty literally walloped the ordinariness out of me. My medium-sized lips, medium-sized brown eyes, and medium-sized nose became distorted with cystic acne and unruly eyebrows as my hormones surged. The coffee-colored locks that hung above my shoulders wilted dramatically as a result of my scalp’s excessive oil production. And as for my body, the bones, muscles, and organs were completely unprepared for the onslaught of weight, which ascended as my metabolism slowed to a crawl.
The rapid physical deterioration coincided with my classmates’ indoctrination into the art of Cruel and Unusual Punishment. They seemed hell-bent on escalating their insults, locked in a fierce competition to be the first to make me cry. Oddly, the more they antagonized me over my slovenly state, the worse I let myself become. Instead of propelling me to exercise and cozy up to the local dermatologist, the comments merely increased my sense of helplessness. The one with the longest staying power came from a fifth-grade despot, who thought it would be fun to give the entire class bear nicknames in honor of her peculiar ursine obsession. In a class of “Cute Bear,” “Smiley Bear,” and “Beauty Bear,” “Weird Fat Bear” rather stung. I prayed nightly for a coup that would overthrow the bear regime. Sadly, by middle school, I would have deemed Weird Fat Bear a compliment.
The girls’ bathroom at Paul Revere Middle School was my unhygienic haven, where I escaped prying eyes to scarf down lunch alone. Hunched over on the damp tile floor, I furtively hid behind a metallic trash can to avoid notice. When girls did happen to wander in for a smoke or to apply makeup and caught a glimpse of my Cro-Magnon eating habits, laughter and ridicule always ensued. My response never varied; I would silently stare at my bologna, mayonnaise, and Wonder Bread sandwich and wait. To pass the time while enduring the torture, I would inspect the amount of mayonnaise lathered on the bread. The importance of mayonnaise in my youth simply cannot be underestimated. I even created a litmus test for the correct amount of mayonnaise a sandwich required. The creamy substance had to squeeze out the sides of the bread while the sandwich was being heaved into my mouth or satiety did not occur. Subsequently, my shirts were littered with unsightly pea-sized oil stains. Even more distressing were the yellowing particles of white bread that decorated my braces, prompting students and teachers alike to turn away in disgust. But my eating habits were only a minor contributor to my appalling physical appearance.
My hair and clothing were the worst. The oily brown locks plastered around my face provided a stark contrast to the tangled rats’ nests occupying subprime real estate on the back of my head. My eyes watered with pain every time Mother attempted to brush out these dreadlocks. After all, some of my rats’ nests had been with me almost as long as my arms and legs. They were literally seminal parts of my childhood. Nostalgia and agony aside, hefty dandruff flakes also dislodged in the process, further deterring me from brushing. Any friction against my scalp resulted in a sprinkling of white on my fluorescent-colored T-shirts. These objectionable shirts, often with factory mistakes, were frequently paired with faded black stretch pants. In an era of flannel shirts and light denim jeans, these garments cemented my status as a fashion pariah.
My single-minded pursuit of academic success did little to alleviate my lowly status. Without pesky friends to drain my energy, I was able to concentrate solely on school, and here I did excel. Frankly, my academic aptitude was something of a genetic anomaly, having been raised by parents who reserved reading for the bathroom. My mother often commented on my father’s willingness to read anything from a shampoo bottle to a box of tampons while on the toilet. She considered her
Reader’s Digest
selection vastly superior. Mary Norton was a plump five feet six with short, shellacked brown hair and glasses that she considered the height of 1970s fashion. Of course, it was the 1990s then, but she cherished them nonetheless. Mother freely admitted that she didn’t need glasses but claimed them necessary to be taken seriously in “business.” Given an extra few seconds, Mother would explain that “glasses are to women what ties are to men; a standard in business, a sign of excellence.” This, of course, like most of Mother’s life lessons, made no sense, especially since she was a retired travel agent. Regardless of her ignorance, she freely offered her opinion on everything from ordering in restaurants to what “black people are really mad about.” And to emphasize a statement, she would lower the phony glasses to the tip of her nose. Mother had a limited worldview, although she would dispute that, citing her knowledge of Western Europe’s airport codes as evidence to the contrary.
My father, Fred, was a simple man and one of few words. He was a manager at Allstate Insurance, a company he had been with since graduating Ohio State. For all intents and purposes (or, as Mother would say, “intensive purposes”), he was an undiagnosed mute. My father’s quiet manner allowed us a “happy” home life, diffusing Mother’s madness through silence. While neither of my parents admitted regret over the twenty dollars spent at the justice of the peace, it was clear that the marriage was not a love connection. Or for that matter even a
like
connection. The fact that the marriage spawned Barney and me was rather surprising.
Two years my senior, my brother Barney was the only person in Norfolk, Ohio, further ostracized than I was, but to his credit, he never cared. He played Dungeons & Dragons, masturbated excessively, and felt generally satisfied by life. Barney was also challenged in the looks department and spent the majority of his teenage years in the hall bathroom with the school yearbook, much to Mother’s annoyance. “What are you doing in there with the yearbook, Barney?” she would ask suspiciously pulling her glasses to the tip of her nose. “Learning my classmates’ surnames,” Barney would reply. I thought she bought it, but her invariable response of “Dinner is in an hour, and don’t forget to wash your hands” leads me to believe Mother might actually have been clued in.
Luckily for my surprisingly small bladder, the Internet was invented. For Barney, it was life changing, and he literally divided his life into BI (Before Internet) and AI (After Internet). For those living in social isolation, hiding behind a screen is nothing short of a miracle. His trips to the bathroom with the yearbook petered off after he received his own computer, and so began the era of him locking his bedroom door. “Barney, why is the door locked?” Mother would demand as she cocked her ear against the hollow wood. “I’m exercising in the nude. It’s supposed to burn more calories.” “Don’t forget to wash your hands.”
But if Barney excelled behind closed doors, I was determined to shine in the classroom. In addition to my aforementioned knack for displaying my encyclopedic knowledge on any given subject, I was known for taking notes regarding everything from the school’s fire exits to class attendance, just in case the teacher needed them. Not surprisingly, this increased my peers’ interest in me as a target.
One cold November day in eighth grade social studies, I stood before the class in my favorite black stretch pants and lime green T-shirt, reading my paper on the Chumash Indians. While pleased that Mr. Van Leeuwin had chosen my paper as the best, I was uncomfortable speaking in front of my classmates. During my conclusion, a note passed from student to student, filling the room with laughter.
Naïvely, I assumed it to be about Mr. Van Leeuwin; after all, he did wear tie-dyed clothes, and surely that was enough to elicit some chuckling. I finished, carefully sucked in my fat rolls, and returned to my desk. From two seats away Kyle Mander, the most popular boy in school, passed me the note.