A Face for Picasso: Chapters 17–22

Mom was always so happy to see me—as if the mere sight of me made something inside her spark—but I was too upset to feel it or reciprocate.

Because as soon as we felt okay, as soon as one person made us feel like we were worthy of kindness and compassion, five more told us we were nothing.

The first part of the game was the same as every other game, but by the end of the second quarter, the excitement was palpable.

Mom was appalled by the blatant disrespect and couldn’t believe Courtney’s mother not only allowed her daughter to openly harass Zan, but also supported her accusations that Mom had changed the votes.

It only got worse when we got to seventh grade, because people assumed from the appearance of our faces that we had a “cognitive impairment.”

The students who had stuck around after class stared at us: me and Mr. Jennings ready to face off and Zan in the middle—the levelheaded one just trying to keep the peace.

When looking at standards of beauty and ugliness throughout history, all we have to go on is art—the pieces created and revered by society during those times—but I did not share this with the class.

Mom said Dad stayed quiet for most of the meeting while she gave her spiel, then Mr. Jennings, then Mr. Tomlinson, while Mrs. Hardy took notes.

When a student asked why I wasn’t in class that day, Mr. Jennings told everyone Zan and I had been transferred out of his classroom, because our faces were too distracting and not conducive to their learning.

He thanked us for being examples of kindness and resilience, for inspiring our school community to be kinder toward one another.

“Was Nina given an award simply for being friends with Zan and me? Because befriending the ugly girls who everyone else treated as lepers was inspiring?”

Picasso loved pitting women against each other, and once, during a visit to his studio, he told Dora and Marie-Thérèse to battle it out. He would later say that the memory of their physical altercation was one of his “choicest memories.”

During tryouts, the high school gymnasium was crowded with girls all vying for a spot on the freshman, JV, or varsity cheer squads.

They didn’t ignore me per se, but I was not a part of their conversation.

At fourteen, I succumbed to this belief. Whereas I had once been driven by my need to show that my life, and the lives of others who were different like Zan and me, was of value, I now felt controlled by my desire to obtain beauty and acceptance the way Picasso’s lovers were controlled by him.