Of all the lives I envisioned for myself as I filled out my registration form for East Bay High, Girlfriend of C.J. Logan, Mr. Sushi-on-a-Skateboard, Mr. Been-in-the-X-Games-and-on- the-Cover-of-Thrasher wasn't one of them.
Sure, I knew I was pretty. I'm not going to lie and pretend I don't know I'm pretty.
I'm pretty.
There. I said it. And not because I'm conceited either. I just hate it when pretty girls pretend they don't know it.
It's bad form. If the gene pool has been nice to you, you should own up to it. Pretending you don't know is stupid.
The gene pool was nice to me. Even at almost forty my mom is still pretty much a babe and my dad is very good looking and when they got together, they made a pretty baby who grew up to be a pretty girl.
But I'm ordinary-pretty, not exotic-pretty. The people who say "You should be a model" really don't know what they're talking about. You have to have freakishly big eyes or an extra-long neck or something that makes you stand out. And of course you have to be truly tall and totally skinny to be a model.
I'm just a tall ish--as in five eight--blonde, blue-eyed girl with good metabolism. I can eat what I want--and I do--and still I'm on the thin side of normal. Now, if I were five inches taller and willing to starve, then maybe, with the help of a professional make-up person, I might get some work.
How do I know this?
Carolyn, my dad's aforementioned ex-fiancée, brought me for a consultation with a friend of hers "in the industry." I think she thought she was going to score stepmother points by getting me a modeling job.
Well, that backfired. Big time. Her friend took one look at me and said that unless I grew five inches by the time I was sixteen, the only thing I could hope for would be the weekly Walmart newspaper insert, and even then I'd be competing with hundreds of other ordinary-pretty girls.
Still, even though I knew I was pretty, I was surprised that someone like C.J.--a guy who could have his pick of any girl in school--would pick me.
And he did pick me. Not vice versa as he has since claimed in his campaign of misinformation.
I was not hanging around the skatepark trying to get his attention.
And I never, ever stalked him.