1983
Her sister had left for college two months ago. Since then, Leslie's room had become her favorite place to explore. It's true what they say: When the cat's away, the mice will steal your Harlequin romances.
From her seat on the carpet she heard vacuuming. A bit softer in the distance, she heard lawn mowing. Both parents were busy. She was free to be nosy. She ran her finger along the spines of the high school yearbooks...1981, 1982, 1983. She pulled the newest one and opened it to her sister's senior class.
To Pam, the class of 1983 looked like glamorous grownups, like people who were old enough to be lifeguards or even waiters. Having a sister almost six years older was fancy. It was like living with a celebrity. She sneaked into that bedroom so often she knew it better than her own. She knew every page of the mostly empty diary. She knew every signature in every yearbook. She knew which girls were friends and which would steal a boyfriend.
The first thing she did was look up each of her sister's ex-boyfriends. First was Vans Boy. He drove a TransAm and wore slip-on checkerboard skate shoes. No one in Pam's sixth-grade had these, but Leslie said they would find out about them soon.
Next was Sturdy Boy. He lived in the neighborhood and was sturdy in size and dependability. Sturdy Boy was the kind of guy who was nice to a little sister, but not exciting enough to be a boyfriend for every long.
She flipped the pages to find Dramatic Boy. Dramatic Boy.had a moustache and had a last name that sounded exotic, like he might be from Mexico or Tampa. One night Dramatic Boy had broken up with Leslie in their back yard. Her father had escorted him to his car quickly. Dad didn't have a lot of patience with dramatic boys or Floridians.
After the boyfriends, she went through her normal routine: Page 27, the boy who had a moped before anyone else. At first she'd thought it was because he was rich, but Leslie said he had some sort of young exotic arthritis. "Hrumph," Pam thought, "Still sort of lucky," she grumbled.
After Moped Boy cam the two sets of brothers. One set lived across the street. They were always playing guutars. The other pair lived next door and were always playing basketball. Pam noticed that Leslie's friends had crushes on the oldest brother in each set. She didn't see any big difference between the four herself. They all just seemed tall and noisy to her.
Finally, she found Leslie's senior picture. Leslie never had trouble posing for pictures like the rest of the family. Her smile was always ready and confident. In Christmas pictures, the rest of them looked shocked as though the camera snapping their photo was the first they'd ever seen. In some photos, they all seemed to have been struck with temporary bouts of palsy or had one eyelid glued down. Not Leslie, however. There she sat, staring proudly from the Yellow Jacket yearbook, as if to say, "Watch out, world! The future belongs to me and my Pat Benatar haircut."
"Pammy," her mom.called. "Did you finish cleaning the bathroom?" Of course not. Quickly she slipped the yearbook back into the bookcase, and hustled back out of the room. She always left the door open so it would feel like her sisterwasn't so far away.