And then she thanked the school for helping her to be who she was, and find her way. She said that now they were all going out into a world where they would all be different, where no one would fit in, where they had to be themselves to succeed, and follow their own paths. She wished her classmates luck on their journey to find themselves, and herself as well, and she said that once they all found themselves, discovered who they were, and became who they were meant to be, she hoped they’d meet again one day. “And until then, my friends,” she said, as tears rolled down her classmates’ and their parents’ cheeks, “Godspeed.” It made a lot of her fellow students wish they had known her better. The speech impressed her parents too with its eloquence. And it brought home the realization that she was leaving soon, and it softened both of them as they congratulated her on the speech. Christine realized that she was losing her, and she might never live at home again. Her father was suddenly very quiet too when they met up with her after the ceremony and they had all tossed their caps into the air, after saving the tassels to put away with their diplomas. Her father clapped Victoria lightly on the back.

“Great speech,” he complimented her. “It’ll make all the weirdos in your class feel good,” he added sincerely as she looked at him with wide-open eyes. Sometimes she wondered if he was just stupid, or maybe mean. He never failed to miss the point. She could see that now.

“Yeah, like me, Dad,” she said quietly. “I’m one of them. The weirdos and the freaks. My point was that it’s okay to be different, and from now on we’d better be, if we’re going to make something of ourselves. It’s the one thing I learned in school. Different is okay.”

“Not too different, I hope,” he said, looking nervous. Jim Dawson had conformed all his life, and he cared a lot about what people thought of him. He had never had an original thought in his life. He was a company man through and through. And he didn’t agree with Victoria’s philosophy, although he admired the speech and how well she had delivered it. He could see in her ability when she did it that she had inherited something from him. He was known for his excellent speeches too. But Jim never liked to stand out or be different. That had never been okay with him. Victoria was well aware of it, which was why she had never in her entire life felt at ease with them, and she felt even less so now, because she was different from her parents in so many ways. And it was why she was starting the most important adventure of her life, and leaving home to do it. She was willing to push herself out of her comfort zone if it meant finding herself at last, and the place where she belonged. All she knew now was that it wasn’t here, with them. No matter how hard she had tried, she just wasn’t like them.

She realized too that Gracie was growing up as one of them, and she did fit in. Perfectly. She and her parents were like clones. Victoria hoped that one day her younger sister would spread her wings and fly. And for now, Victoria had to do it. She could hardly wait, even if it terrified her at times. She was scared to death of leaving home, but excited too. The girl they had said looked like Queen Victoria all her life was taking off. She smiled as she left her school for the last time, and whispered to herself, “Watch out, world! Here I come!”

Chapter 4

Victoria’s summer at home before she started college was bittersweet in many ways. Her parents were nicer to her than they had been in years, although her father introduced her to a business associate as his tester cake. But he also said he was proud of her, more than once, which surprised Victoria, since she never really thought he was. And her mother seemed sad to see her go, although she never openly said it to Victoria. It made Victoria feel as though they had all missed the boat. Her childhood and high school years were over, and she wondered why they had wasted so much time and concentrated on all the wrong things: her looks, her friends or lack of them, her weight was their main focus, along with her resemblance to her great-grandmother, whom no one knew or cared about, just because their noses were the same. Why did they care so much about the wrong things? Why hadn’t they been closer to her, more loving, given her more support? And now there was no time left to build the bridge between them that should have existed all along and never had. They were strangers to each other, and she couldn’t imagine it being any different later on. She was leaving home, and might never live with them again.

She still wanted to move to New York after college, it was her dream. She would come home for holidays, see them on Christmas and Thanksgiving and when they visited her, if they did, and there was no time left to put in the bank the love they should have been saving all along. She thought they loved her, they were her parents, and she had lived with them for eighteen years, but her father had made fun of her all her life, and her mother had been disappointed that she wasn’t prettier, complained that she was too smart, and told her men didn’t like smart women. Her whole childhood with them had been a curse. And now that she was leaving, they said they were going to miss her. But when they said it, she couldn’t help wondering why they hadn’t paid more attention to her while she was there. It was already too late. Did they really love her? She was never sure. They loved Gracie. But what about her?

And the one she hated most to leave was Gracie, the little angel in her life, who had dropped from the skies when she was seven and loved her unconditionally ever since, just as Victoria loved her. She couldn’t bear to leave her and not see her every day, but she knew she had no choice. Gracie was eleven now, and had already come to understand how different Victoria was from the rest of them, and how mean their father was at times. She hated it when he said things to Victoria that hurt, or made fun of her, or pointed out how much she didn’t look like them. In Gracie’s eyes, Victoria was beautiful, and she didn’t care how fat or thin she was. Gracie thought she was the prettiest girl in the world and she loved her more than anyone.

Victoria dreaded leaving her, and cherished every day they spent together. She took her out for lunch, to the beach, had picnics with her, took her to Disneyland, and spent as much time with her as she could. They were lying on the beach one afternoon in Malibu, next to each other, looking up at the sun, when Gracie turned to her and asked a question that Victoria had asked herself as a child too.

“Do you think maybe you were adopted and they never told you?” Gracie asked her with an innocent look as her older sister smiled. She was wearing a loose T-shirt over her bathing suit, as she always did, to conceal what was beneath it.

“I used to think I was when I was a kid,” Victoria admitted, “because I look so different from them. But I don’t think I am. I guess I’m just some weird throwback to another generation, like Dad’s grandmother or whoever. I think I’m their kid, even though we don’t have much in common.” She didn’t look like Gracie either, but they were soul mates and had been for all of Grace’s short life, and they both knew it. Victoria just hoped Gracie didn’t grow up to be like them. She didn’t see how she could, but they had a powerful influence on her, and once Victoria was gone, they would hold on to her even more tightly, and mold her to their own images.

“I’m glad you’re my sister,” Gracie said sadly. “I wish you weren’t going away to college, and that you had stayed here.”

“I do too, when I think about leaving you. But I’ll come home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and you can come to visit me.”

“It won’t be the same,” Gracie said as a tear sneaked down her cheek, and they both knew it was true.

The whole family looked like they were in mourning when Victoria packed her bags for college. And the night before she left, her father took them all out to dinner at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and they had a good time together. There were no jokes that night at anyone’s expense. And the next day, all three of them took her to the airport, and the moment they got out of the car, Gracie burst into tears and threw her arms around Victoria’s waist.

Her father checked in her luggage, while the two girls stood crying on the sidewalk, and Christine looked at her daughter unhappily.

“I wish you wouldn’t go,” she said softly. She would have liked to try again if she had the chance. She could feel Victoria slipping through her fingers forever. She had never really thought about what this day would feel like. The pain of it took her by surprise now.

“I’ll be home soon,” Victoria said, and hugged her, still crying, and then she hugged her little sister again. “I’ll call you tonight,” she promised her, “as soon as I get to my room.” Gracie nodded and couldn’t stop crying, and even her father’s eyes were damp when he said goodbye to her in a choked voice.

“Take care of yourself. Call if you need anything. And if you hate it, you can always transfer to a school out here.” He hoped she would. It was as though her leaving California for college were a rejection of him. They had wanted her to stay in L.A., or close to it, which wasn’t what Victoria wanted or needed.

After kissing them all again, Victoria went through security, and waved for as long as she could see them. They didn’t leave the airport until she had disappeared from sight. The last she saw of her family was Gracie leaving the airport, walking between her parents. They all looked the same, with their dark hair and slim bodies. Her mother was holding Gracie’s hand, and Victoria could see that her sister was still crying.

She boarded the flight to Chicago, thinking about all of them, and as the plane took off, she looked out the window at the city she was fleeing, to find the tools she needed for a new life somewhere else. She didn’t know where that would be, but the one thing she did know was that it couldn’t be here, or with them.

Victoria’s years in college were exactly what she hoped they would be. The school was even better than she had dreamed or expected. It was big and sprawling, and the classes she took and did well at were her ticket to freedom. She wanted to acquire the skills she needed to have a job and a life someplace other than L.A. She missed Gracie, and sometimes even her parents, but when she thought of living with her parents, every fiber of her being told her that she could never live with them again. And she loved her frequent visits to Chicago and discovering everything she could about the city. It was lively and sophisticated, and she thoroughly enjoyed it, despite the brutally cold weather.

She went home for Thanksgiving freshman year, and saw instantly that Grace had grown taller, and prettier, if that was even possible. Her mother had finally relented and let her do a commercial for Gap Kids. Grace’s photograph was suddenly everywhere, and she could have had a career as a model, but her father wanted a better life for her. And he swore that he’d never let a child of his go to college so far from home again. He told Grace that she’d have to go to UCLA, Pepperdine, Pomona, Scripps, Pitzer, or USC. He was not going to let her leave L.A. In his own way, he genuinely missed Victoria. He didn’t have much to say when she called, except that he hoped she’d come home soon, and then he passed the phone to her mother, who asked what she was doing and if she’d lost any weight. It was the question Victoria hated most because she hadn’t. And then she dieted frantically for two weeks before she went home.

And when she got back to L.A. for Christmas vacation, her mother noticed that she had lost a little weight. She had been working out at the gym at school, but she admitted that she hadn’t had any dates. She was working too hard at school to even care. She told them she had decided to get a teaching degree, and her father instantly disapproved. It gave them a new topic to disagree on, and distracted them from her weight and lack of dates.

“You’ll never make decent money as a teacher. You should major in communications, and work in advertising or PR. I can get you a job.” She knew he meant well, but it wasn’t what she wanted to do. She liked the idea of teaching, and working with kids. She changed the subject and they talked about how cold it was in the Midwest-she hadn’t even been able to imagine it until she was there. It had been well below zero for the whole week before she came home. And she was enjoying going to hockey games. She wasn’t crazy about her roommate, but she was determined to make the best of it. And she had met some people in her dorm. But mostly, she was trying to get accustomed to the school, and to being away from home. She said she missed decent food, and this time no one commented when she took three helpings of pot roast. And she was happy taking time off from going to the gym while she was home. She appreciated the weather in L.A. as she never had before.