away from the more boisterous part of the crowd, but still hanging with a few friends. It was an all-too-familiar reminder. “So, are those your friends?”
Stacy looked up and then down again. “Yeah.”
Kate squinted at the photo again. “What's that on your jeans?” She thought
she saw a pattern. “Is that needlepoint?”
“No. It's yellow paint.”
“Paint? Did you have an accident in art class?
“No. It was nothing. Just some guys.”
Kate's eyes narrowed. “What guys?”
Stacy shrugged. “Just…guys.” She moved a glass slide over by a gray
microscope. “It's no big deal. A couple of guys were messing around and flicked
me with yellow paint in art class. It's just high school, my dad says.”
A litany of similar memories flashed through Kate's mind. Laughing and
pointing in the hallway. Braces jokes. Snickers and glances. Not being picked for
teams at PE. Small things that piled up into big things. If you let them.
“Well, you're right about one thing. It is no big deal. You know you're not all
the things people say about you, right?”
Stacy nodded but kept working. “I know,” she said softly.
“And it shouldn't be 'just high school' either.” She could feel her ears warming.
“I know,” Stacy repeated, then glanced at Kate before returning to her test tubes. “I bet you probably didn't have…I mean, you're so pretty…” She trailed
off.
“I didn't have problems in high school?” Kate finished for her. She almost snorted. “Sorry. Stacy, the stories I could tell.”
Stacy now turned, head up, eyes wide. “Really?”
Kate pulled out a stool at the bench and sat down. “I had braces until I was
sixteen. My name's Katie Brady, so, of course, I was Katie Braces for most of high school. Then there were the boys who would bark or moo when I walked
by. And the girls weren't much better. One of them saw me reading a Harry Potter book. Started calling me 'Hairy Pitter' in PE.” She paused, remembering.
“Even the friends who you thought were your friends could turn on you.”
“I thought you would have…I mean, you're not…”
Kate touched the younger girl's shoulder. “Hey, Stacy? Listen to me. Just because you can't fit into a size six doesn't mean you're worthless. And just because you were born with your teeth at the wrong angles doesn't mean you aren't beautiful. At all. Right?” She gave Stacy's shoulder a squeeze for emphasis.
Stacy nodded yes. “I wish I was as pretty as you.”
“Hmph. Remember when your mom used to tell you to eat your vegetables?
Moms still do that, right?”
“Yeah?”
“I took mine real seriously. That's about all I ate for a while after college. It
was kind of a mission for me at the time. I thought that if I made myself look beautiful on the outside, it would make me beautiful on the inside, too. But after a while, I realized that was pretty much a lie.”
“Well, you are beautiful.” Stacy smiled shyly.
Kate touched her new friend's shoulder. “I was always beautiful, Stacy. And
so are you. I mean true beauty, not the stuff people see on the outside. That doesn't always mean it's true. Believe me, once people get to see the real beauty
you have—the beauty it takes time to see—it means a lot more. And lasts a lot…
longer.” She found her eyes staring at the photo of Peter the class had pasted on
the bulletin board, his blue eyes dancing over his joyful smile as the class clowned around him. She sighed.
