STEP-SISTERSI know my mom loves me and all that. It's just hard to remember sometimes because she worries so much more about Lucy than she does about me. After Lucy got that tattoo, all I heard from Mom was, ai yi yi, she's asking for trouble, and, ai yi yi, she's using her body as a billboard, and, ai yi yi, one day that girl will attract the wrong kind of man and.... She would pause there ominously.
Why are you wasting your breath telling me, I would ask her. You should be saying this to Lucy.
She would look shocked and say, she's not my daughter, a daughter that pretty, I don't need that kind of worry.
I didn't say anything but I thought, thanks, mom. Yeah, no need to worry about me, I look just like you. The uncontrollable frizz of hair, the bug-eyed flat frog face, the short, wide waistless body, just like you. And you attracted my father, whatever he looks like, who left soon after knocking you up with me. Was he the right kind of man?
Still, I feel sorry for Lucy because her mother cares way more about her ever-changing string of asshole boyfriends than she does about her daughter. My mom has spent a lot more time with Lucy than her own mother ever has. It was my mom that taught Lucy how to cook and clean and work. And since Lucy's mother never worries about her much, my mom does that too. So even without matching body art, Lucy and I really are like sisters. Or more like step-sisters: she is Cinderella, while I am ugly, and wicked with it.