At Lunch
"Something definitely isn't right here."
"That's what I just said! She's going to try to pull something soon."
"Ugh. You can't possibly be serious. There's nothing she can do." Leonard scoffed. "Besides, she doesn't even know you...right?"
Karyn swallowed a groan. "She knows me. I've seen her around. Sarah and me were friends in elementary school. And we live pretty close together anyway. Granted, she wasn't mini-Sarah yet, but she was on her way. How is it possible for a family to have two kids that fit the spoiled only child archetype?"
"She's, what, fourteen? Why would she even care? What would she have against you?"
Gladys spoke up. Well, as "up" as her speech went. She insisted on using markedly less decibels than anyone else in a given room. Annoying in a cafeteria full of high-school students. Six more months. Karyn found herself repeating that catechism at least every twenty minutes, even though she was only four hours into her first school day. Amazing what a summer away could do to make you forget how little you should appreciate your high-school years.
Then Karyn realized Gladys had started speaking. "-and she is her sister."
"So contempt for Karyn is a heritable condition?" Leonard smirked. Gladys's mouth twitched. Which was unfortunate, since it set her chins twitching too. It wasn't that Karyn disliked the girl. She was fat, she'd always been. But somehow little flaws like that seemed less tolerable than they used to. She was getting well into the obese range and Karyn was concerned about her health, but it all rolled off Gladys like lard on water.
Karyn rubbed her temples.
Gladys's tiny voice had managed to gain a tiny edge. "No. But, well...look at how alike they are."
Leonard didn't need much coaxing. In fact, all that Gladys's statement had accomplished was getting Leonard to stop pretending that he wasn't looking.
"Yeah. Definitely a McMillan. If I didn't know she was Sarah's little sister I'd think she was a senior. Is it even possible for a girl that age to have such huge..." He was interrupted by Gladys's elbow embedding itself in the general vicinity of his right kidney.
Leonard's laugh was grating, and tense. "Heh. Yeah. I see what you mean."
Karyn sighed. "So I have to deal with two McMillans making my awkward adolescence as awkward as possible. Joy."
"How do you know that's what's going to happen?" Gladys responded, now doing that meaningful look thing she did to people whose eyes she could stand to meet. Weird how Leonard came out of his shell while Gladys was just a larger version of the freshman Karyn had met three years ago. She could only assume Leonard had dumped his self restraint with the weight. "All she did was smile at you."
"You said it yourself. They're just the same."
"They look the same. But spending all your free time on fashion and sharing hair color and-' She gave Leonard a glance that was both annoyed and amused at once. 'physical attributes doesn't make them the same person. Maybe she's different. All she did was smile at you."
Karyn followed Leonards gaze as it relapsed to the table (appropriately in the middle of the room) where Paige sat within a small squad of giggling teenyboppers.
"Looks like the standard herding pattern to me. Face it, Glad. We're looking at Sarah the Second. Thank the Gods we graduate this year." And thank the Gods that Sarah and Paige don't have the same lunch period. One is enough.
Gladys made a noncommittal grunting sound that Karyn had never been able to decipher. In this context it seemed to be a mix of agreement and grudging acquiescence. "I guess. How could she be any different? Living with a sister like that. And I hear her mom is some kind of obsessive ex-model."
Leonard snorted. "Nature beats nurture, Miss Humanities' Major. Trust me, somewhere deep in Mrs. McMillan's ovaries is a set of genes that says-" Apparently in Leonard's case in an inappropriate falsetto. "-I'm a McMillan. I'm a bitch that uses my two best-and only-assets to coast through high-school before I snag a rich guy to parasitize for the rest of my life."
Gladys's face screwed up. Karyn knew what that meant. The girl was a mouse about any topic... except the nature vs. nurture debate that had started with a typically inappropriate comment from Leonard when he began to lose weight. "That's not true! Karyn is a blonde with big boobs and she doesn-"
Karyn's eye twitched.
Gladys's eyes widened. "Oh. Sorry."
But Leonard wouldn't let it go. "That just proves my point. Karyn-no offense intended- has the two traits everyone notices about each generation of McMillan immediately, before conscious thought even enters into it. When it's just pure, subconscious instinctual reaction without all the years of tact and personal knowledge, she's treated just like them. But...she isn't like them. She just doesn't have the bleach bitch gene."
Karyn nearly choked on her drink. "W-was that an attempt at a compliment?"
Leonard blushed. "Uh. Yeah. Maybe."
"I'll let it go this time." She smirked.
Gladys was mumbling, her eyes boring holes through the table. "It's not like she can even do anything. She's just a freshman, we'll hardly see her."
Karyn sighed. "Yeah, I know. I'm not saying there's some weird conspiracy hatched by the McMillan sisters to ruin my life. Just another lame annoying prank. But I've survived three years of Sarah, and there's no way this kid is as devious as her. At least not yet. But if Sarah has some kind of stupid welcome to senior year for me, and Paige knows, I wouldn't mind a little warning." She paused and tried to make her expression lighter. "Besides, I can bitch about having an extra bitch to worry about this year, right?"
Gladys smiled and nodded. She did that when she didn't feel like arguing anymore.
"I'm just saying I'm gonna keep my eye on her." Karyn left the table, turned in her tray, and left the cafeteria for her next class. Just as she passed through the door, she swore she saw Paige looking at her almost at the edge of peripheral vision. But she wasn't smiling.
