Watching Paige go through daily life is a lot like watching a character, like from a movie or a book, go through life. She's got the drama, got the looks, got the attitude. She's a fascinating blend of being bitchy and a drama queen, a prima donna, but deep inside, even where I'm not sure even she knows it, she cares about everybody and really wants everything to be OK. She's an epitome of perfection on the outside, but really she's an enigma, trapped inside a puzzle, kept inside by a riddle and closed with a whats-it.
Case in point- Saturday night sleep-overs. Paige and I order cheese pizza, thick crust, from Pizza Hut, make tons of popcorn, watch old chick flicks, and just sit and talk about anything and everything. This is what makes her real. When she's makeup-free, with her hair in a messy ponytail, sitting in flannel pajamas wrapped in a blanket telling me how she's afraid, still, of Dean. She tells me how Spinner is the best, how sweet he is, how kissing him feels with his cool tongue ring.
And I sit, and I listen, and I be the awesome best friend/manicurist/sidekick that I am and tell her everything about how I feel and how cool Jimmy is and she smiles, and laughs at my cheesy stories, and I tell her about detention. We talk about all the hot gossip at school, about the new makeup line that's out, and read the new Teen People and giggle over ice cream sundaes.
So I'm sitting here thinking about it now, and when most people find out my best friend is, like, Barbie, they realized I'm the under-played black girl and think that I must hate it.
But that's so not how it is. I like Paige because underneath everything she shows on the outside she's a real person. She has real fears, she has real compassion, and she has a real family and she has real problems, ones that she builds herself up on the outside to prove she's fine on the inside.
She's a mirage of what perfect is supposed to look like and teachers know it, and her friends know it, and her parents know it. She knows it and she really badly wants to play the part. She wants to be the one everybody loves but in the end she screws herself over when she lies or tricks people into doing something. Simply said, she has power. She can wrap people around her little finger, all the while soothing them and telling them that what they're doing is their idea.
Needless to say I totally admire her and wish I had those kind of powers, though I'd like to say I'd us those powers for good and not evil. Perhaps for awesome.
But whoever I am in my new high heels all made up clinging to the arm of Jimmy walking down the hall, it's all a façade, because really, I'll never be the under-played black girl. No matter how much Spinner's hair looks like it could be plastic, he'll never be a Ken. And whoever she is, batting her eyelashes, wearing a new mini skirt and training Spinner to do what she wants, Paige will certainly never be a Barbie.