Mary Pfleuger's First Love

Mary Pfleuger began gaining weight when she was eleven. The freckles and myopia set in a few months later, and she didn’t stop growing until she was seventeen, coming in at a cool five foot nine. Her skin was cracked and pale and her hair, a dull, mousy brown, did not cascade down her back, rather it plummeted in uncoordinated waves that seemed more unfortunate than feminine. Most of these things, she couldn’t help. Mary had been genetically cursed. Her taste was questionable, like denim jumpsuits and plastic drugstore barrettes often are. Contacts were out of the question due to an inconvenient allergy, and makeup was far too much a mystery to even consider. Mary was the girl on the bus reading Japanese comics who most socially aware women would, perhaps not gawk at, but certainly wonder about: “Why does she dress like that? Does she care? Does she notice? Certainly she can see how much she stands out, but maybe that’s what she wants? She wants to look like that? I could understand being a Goth – at least the Goth girl can explain herself.”

Mary knew she was different, and she knew she wasn’t pretty, but she had never taken the time to address her flaws. There was no time for browsing fashion magazines when there were essays to write or levels to beat. Of course she wanted to, and of course she always meant to, but Lewinsky meant to dry clean the dress and The Beatles meant to copy write their work. Soon, she was twenty five, and she was sitting in a town café, running her fingers around the rim of her hot cocoa mug, while scanning the local classifieds for job openings and garage sales.