The Unlovable Heroine
a mother and father. You deserve to live alone on a deserted island, where you can’t hurt people’s feelings.”
When she screams, “I’m just a girl,” she means a girl who’s not tall enough or sweet enough or feminine enough to fit in with the girls she hates . . . and would secretly love to be. She rants and raves because she feels helpless and boyish, wounded by her humiliating childhood memories — the childhood she spent trapped in a red Annie-esque afro that she tried to crazy glue to her scalp to keep it from ballooning up to twice the size of her actual head.
She’s just a girl with a pretty little sister, whom she never understood, because her little sister was normal. A normal, regular girl.
When I first set down to write her story, I kept getting up and leaving the room. She was too pathetic and I hated talking in her voice. She was the sort of girl I always avoided. Tough and rude. The type of girl I never wanted to be, but nonetheless, the girl germinating in my head. Go figure. So I wrote, “She’s Got Issues,” and instead of wallowing in despair, I laughed my ass off and had the best year of my life writing about the type of girl I knew people would think was me, and love.
But eventually my conscious got the best of me and I had to tell Zoë’s story.
The story about a girl who thinks she can go to work at a fashion magazine and turn it into something with a soul. Something that will ban women together and make them want to stop starving themselves for male attention. Something that will show women what they’re capable of once they stop wasting their energies competing with one another and start embracing one another. Imagine her walking into “Issues” magazine in her steel-toed boots and overalls throwing around her twisted sarcasm expecting the editors to suddenly throw their arms around her and vow to change. I just want to kick her for being so stupid and yet, I was secretly rooting for her the whole time — all the while knowing she was going down. The more the editors sabotaged her and ganged up on her, the more I cursed her for antagonizing them while trying to help her find a way out . . . but in the end, I knew I couldn’t do it. Because I would have been lying. And my readers would have found me out. So I did the next best thing.
I gave her “a real girl” who will love her unconditionally despite her inherent unlovableness. I’ve taken away the reason Zoë feels the need to expose people. I forced her to admit that she wants to be accepted by the very thing she’s fighting against. I removed her stinger and set her free. Granted, I doubt anyone will fall in love with Zoë the way they did with Chloe. Zoë will always be a fighter, in one way or another, but at least now she has a fighting chance.
Copyright © 2006 Stephanie Lessing
Stephanie Lessing is the author of Miss Understanding (October 2006; .95US/.95CAN; 0-06-113388-4) and She’s Got Issues. A freelance writer, she lives in Demarest, New Jersey, with her husband, Dan and two children, Kim and Jesse. Stephanie was formerly the Promotion Copy Chief for Mademoiselle magazine and traveled with Mademoiselle to co-host fashion and beauty events, going on to freelance for magazines such as: Vogue, Glamour, Vanity Fair, Conde Nast Traveler, Self and Women’s Wear Daily. While attending the American College in Paris, she interned for the Herald Tribune and then graduated from Boston University with a B.S. degree from the School of Public Communications.
For more information, please visit the author’s website at www.stephanielessing.com
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