Free What She Saw... by Lucinda Rosenfeld

newfound respect. People started saving seats for her on the bus and in the cafeteria. Patrick McPatrick stopped reaching down her back—and started reaching down Phoebe’s with a fistful of yellow snow on her way out of school “as punishment,” he was kind enough to explain,
“for being so
friggin’ frigid.”
    THE FOLLOWING SUNDAY, in preparation for the first day back to school since Aimee Aaron’s Sweet Sixteen, Phoebe tried on seven different outfits:
    beige Et Vous khakis with narrowed ankles (hand-me-downs from Phoebe’s second cousin, Sasha), paired with a white-and-purple-striped cotton Gap sweater, purchased at the downscale Bergen Mall and accursed with a not terribly noticeable torn thread on the back shoulder;
    olive-green Liz Claiborne corduroy jeans with narrowed ankles (hand-me-downs from Lenore Greenbaum, the borderline anorexic wife of Travis Greenbaum, principal oboist for the New York Philharmonic), and a long-sleeved black ballerina-neck T-shirt of Emily’s;
    khakis (see above) and a pale pink Ralph Lauren polo shirt with a mysterious bleach stain beneath the left armhole, courtesy of Suburban Sophisticates;
    button-fly Guess jeans (Phoebe’s prize possession) bleached and bejeweled with hand-sewn calico knee patches, plus Roberta’s Indian cotton blouse with the drawstring collar, a relic of the 1970s;
    Guess jeans (see above) and a white Hanes T-shirt (men’s size extra-large) with Leonard’s forest green Shetland sweater tied around the shoulders;
    light-blue long-underwear bottoms of unknown provenance (i.e., found in the attic, at the bottom of a cardboard box filled with ceramic spoons, lace handkerchiefs, and early recordings of Schubert lieder), with one of Leonard’s white concert shirts hanging out on top;
    floor-length raspberry-hued cotton-flannel Putamayostyle drop-waist jumper hand-sewn by Leonard’s essentially deaf mother, Phoebe’s Grandma Edith.
    In the end Phoebe chose the drop-waist jumper, reasoning that Jason Barry Gold had probably been attracted to her for the very reason that she wasn’t immediately and overtly attractive. Which is to say that her beauty was subtle if it was anything. Maybe it was nothing. But she wasn’t ugly— she knew that much. She may have had chubby cheeks, rabbit teeth, a flat chest, and eyes more gray than blue. But she had long legs, a clear complexion, and a bump-free nose. And her shoulder-length hair could have been worse. While a bit on the stringy side, it was still shiny and a nice shade of light brown.
    Oh, but who was she kidding? So often when Phoebe looked in the mirror she didn’t even know who she was looking at. That’s how ugly she was—ugly by virtue of the fact that she was unmemorable, a slab of alabaster awaiting a sculptor who never arrived, a “nothing burger” if there ever was one. Take her nose: it just kind of ended. Just as her forehead just kind of began— kind of like the weeks in a year and the years in a life. It was the same with her waist and her hips, and her neck and her shoulders. There was nothing definitive about her. She was just this blob of human flesh—just this girl running laps behind the gym until she thought her legs would snap, her heart explode.
    Of course, as it happened, despite her better efforts, Phoebe didn’t see Jason once the whole schoolday—not in the halls, the cafeteria, the gym, or the library. But after school, while she traded topspin lobs with a stub-nosed string bean from Elizabeth Academy who muttered “bitch” under her breath every time they changed sides, she caught sight of him leaned up against the fence. She couldn’t believe he’d remembered the Counties! Or maybe he’d merely stumbled upon them on his way to lacrosse practice. He was dressed to play, complete with helmet, shoulder guards, and gloves. Either way, it was his show of support that inspired