Mona Lisa of the Third Grade

By: Dottie Pond Rothschild

Even as far back as third grade, Becky had a stick up her already burgeoning ass. I guess I noticed, but didn't really care, but it drove Angie apeshit. "Why does she sit there and watch us like that? disapproving, but never turning us in?"

I remember the time on the carpet, Ms. Clodwell droning some story, our faces flush against Josh Reisman's Medusal spring of unkempt curls, what child could resist the lure of the snip? Angie had confiscated the purple handled, blunt tipped scissors from art class earlier in the day and shoved them up the right sleeve of her sweatshirt jacket, the one where she usually wiped her nose, no one would want to look there, even if they suspected. This was no manslaughter sort of prank, it was first degree murder, we had planned and plotted it for weeks, after all, Josh had sat in front of us on the rug since September and in all fairness, Ms. Clodwell was an unwitting accomplice of sorts because who the hell assigns seats on a rug? Back then we still believed in fairness, relied on it in fact.

Anyway, I was to distract Josh with a poem I'd scribbled on a scrap paper or a creation I'd fashioned out of paperclips and maybe an eraser I'd found on the floor or in the garbage when no one was looking, and Angie would lean in and snip. Instantly months of staring into that abysmal tatty mass would be worth while!

When we finally pulled it off, that sticky June day, let me tell you , it was revelatory, except for one small thing, or one big thing if you spoke to Angie. Not two feet away sat Becky, smart enough to devise our whole mastermind plan in a matter of seconds. With her smarmy perfection and her closed lip coy smile, glancing at us with her furtive eyes from her invisibly boundaried patch on the rug she hangs in my memory as the fucking overrated third grade Mona Lisa.

Angie would rant, "why couldn't she be a rat? a whiny tattle? Pick a side, inform the authorities or actually participate?" But she never did, she lounged in her superiority, lakeside, never dipping a toe and watched while Angie and I dived in, knee deep in the muck half the time, hands treading to keep our heads above the water. So went our scholastic career, Becky gliding, Angie and I ducking and dodging. Becky was omnipresent with her sage advice and uncanny perception. In high school, during our Jane Austen period, if you can believe that, Angie loved likening Becky to Lady Catherine de Bourgh: "If I played the piano, I would be a true proficient..." "Get It !" Angie would excitedly philosophize "she can't make a mistake because she never actually plays, she just tells everyone she would be great, but she never fuckin plays!"

It comes as no big surprise that Angie married the wrong guy, did her dance with drugs and alcohol, and now is putting herself through night school while working at Walmart and attending AA and occasional Saturday night mass at Our Lady if she knows Father Ed is doing the sermon. I heard Becky got a great job out of school, making her parents proud. She found a very respectable group of new friends to advise, and dated all the right guys who weren't quite good enough for her, and expertly discarded the wrong guys before they led her to compromise. She lives not even five blocks from where she grew up, she is a beacon to her family, all those wet hands clawing at her, someone had to stay dry. She assumed the role of spreading her umbrella of superiority over them, protecting them from the shit storm of their mistakes and they in turn felt lesser, but grateful. Leave it to Becky to find a way to turn never taking a chance on anything into a desired trait. But it is attractive, I know this for a fact.

I always thought I would pity the guy who would end up with Becky. The poor slob would have to toil with Becky's yoke of perfection and decorum around his neck. That it should turn out to be my husband, well fuck me. As I struggle my way through the murky waters of crushing loss and deceit to some sort of vague light on the surface, you would think my send off would be: "Good riddance, fuck off, hope you get what you deserve"... but as I break the surface and confront the smirk of destiny, I only feel pity. For once, I'm sitting on that patch of rug with the perspective of the fucking Mona Lisa of the third grade.