Freak Magnet by Andrew Auseon

Author:Andrew Auseon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Fifteen minutes later, my sister and I loitered in cosmetics. The exotic smell of mixing perfumes hung over our heads. We had to talk a little louder than usual to be heard over the squeaking of hangers and the pop music. We circled the main counter, arms linked. Mom was nowhere to be seen.

I looked down at our two wrists. It was impossible not to notice how Maggie had already turned a deep cinnamon from the summer sun. You’d think she’d just returned from spring break. Her wide brown eyes sparkled. As always, a slight powdering of glitter stuck to her cheeks. She was a knockout, even having gone three days without bathing.

All my life I had been jealous of Maggie’s beauty. How had she ended up with more of our mother’s looks than I had? We both got along with her in equally dysfunctional ways. It wasn’t fair.

“Stop looking at me like that,” she said suddenly.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re about to cry,” she said. “I know what you’re thinking, because you’ve thought it since we were kids, and it’s not true. I’m not the one romancing the red-vested stud in Aisle Whatever.”

“You’d better shut up right now,” I said. “I’m not interested in Charlie.”

“Ha,” she said, laughing. “You’re celibate now, but last year was a different story. You would have gotten kicked out of a brothel, sister.”

The problem with siblings is that you can have the same argument with them for ten years and still not make any progress on it. In my eyes, all the kids in our family had roles to play. Maggie had always been the beautiful one. Me, I was the sensitive one. Faris, he’d been the responsible one. No doubt the two of them had seen things differently. The point was that I wasn’t the beautiful one.

Maggie constantly tried to convince me that I wasn’t unattractive; but walking around next to her made me ugly—or uglier. At least that’s how it felt.

She looked away. “I think a boyfriend would do you some good.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t know what to think,” I said.

“You think too much,” said Maggie. “That’s your problem. Always has been.”

Her grip on my arm tightened as she pulled me off the path. She stopped at a pair of tables alongside the escalators that led upstairs. It was a collection of discount merchandise. On a lonely metal rack hung a few spring outfits that were already out of style for the coming fall. A metal sign in the center of the table declared: “Seasonal Slashes: Everything 50% Off List Price.” Maggie began shuffling through the hangers on the nearly bare rack. There were sundresses, cute, with light colors. A few of them sprouted head to toe with flowers.

“I don’t think too much,” I said. “Sometimes it’s just better than feeling everything. Thinking about things makes them less painful, distant or something.”

“I understand,” she said, examining the clothes.

Maggie tugged a dress free from the tangle. It was simple, white with yellow embroidered petals circling the hem.

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