English Original
This spring is my sister's fortieth birthday. More to the point, that means my fortieth birthday can't be far behind. Since my sister is only eighteen months older than I am, I followed a year behind her goody two-shoes all the way through school.
By second grade, I was already dreading the moment when Mrs. Stevens took roll for the first time. I knew that a beatific glow would transform her careworn face as she noted my last name. "Is your sister Vicki Christian?" she eagerly asked.
I squirmed uneasily in my chair and admitted that I was, indeed, the lesser sibling of Vicki the virtuous. St. Vicki, that is, of the immaculate anklet and continually upstretched hand. St. Vicki of the highest reading group and lovely manners, always appointed monitor when Mrs. Stevens was summoned to the office. St. Vicki, the tattletale and bossy cow, ever her sister's keeper when it came to matters of deportment and conscience.
I wish I had a nickel for every time I saw Vicki peer at me over the top of her bat-wing style, rhinestone-studded, blue eyeglass frames (which Mrs. Stevens thought were "very becoming") and sniff, "I don't think Mama and Daddy would like that very well."
A family legend was made the first time I had an opportunity to follow my own base instincts instead of her pure ones. One day after school, she and her best friend Cindy were recounting to my mother the incident in which the school's most loathsome boy, Edward, dropped his drawers to his ankles on the blacktop at recess, and bellowed, "Lookie here!"
"What did you do?" my scandalized mother asked.
Vicki and Cindy replied that they had closed their eyes and run down the hill, holding hands, in the opposite direction from Edward. "And what did you do?" my mother asked me.
Being only in first grade and not having the wits to dissemble, I replied that I was on the jungle gym at the time and had climbed to the top to get a better look.
As the years went by, the eighteen-month gulf separating us closed. Vicki was a voracious and indiscriminate reader. What she read set the scene for our dolls. Our mother wouldn't let us play with Barbies. "Their bosoms are too bodacious," she declared.
So we had Tiny Tears dolls instead. Vicki's was Tina; mine was Betsy. We also had a homely, rubber-faced doll we called Brother Deanie. Depending on what Vicki was reading, Tina and Betsy would rescue the hapless Brother Deanie from a prairie fire (our four-poster bed was the stagecoach), change his diaper at Plymouth Rock or present him to King Arthur's Court. It was wearying to play dolls with other girls, who didn't get it and had to be taught how to talk like a Quaker or an Arabian princess. "Now we can play!" we'd exclaim when they went home.
When we packed our dolls away we shared boyfriends, makeup, accessories and clothes. The boyfriends we were generous with, but we got pretty vicious over the rest. Our most memorable battles were reserved for a black velvet choker, a mink hair bow, a pearlized snood and a tube of Bonne Belle white-white. White-white was weird stuff, like typewriter correction fluid, that we dotted around our eyes to achieve the wide-eyed, sexy yet innocent look of Twiggy and Mia Farrow. I guess you had to be a skeletal blonde to pull it off.
Looking back at photographs, our generous applications of white-white made us look as if we were either recuperating from tuberculosis or else incredibly surprised. Why it never occurred to us to buy duplicates of such coveted items—none of which were expensive—I don't know.
My sister has become my dearest friend, and today I am ashamed of the names I called her and the fits I pitched. If they still sold white-white, I'd buy her a lifetime supply. All the same, I can't help gloating that she'll be forty before I will.
If we should live so long, I'll give her a mink hair bow for her eightieth birthday—right before reminding her that I'm still a mere girl of seventy-nine.
中文翻译
今年春天是我姐姐的四十岁生日。更重要的是，这意味着我的四十岁生日也不远了。由于姐姐只比我大十八个月，我整个学生时代都跟在她这个“假正经”后面一年。
到了二年级，我已经开始害怕史蒂文斯夫人第一次点名的那一刻。我知道，当她注意到我的姓氏时，一种极乐的光芒会改变她忧心忡忡的面容。“你姐姐是维姬·克里斯蒂安吗？”她急切地问道。
我在椅子上不安地扭动着，承认我确实是那位品德高尚的维姬的次等手足。圣维姬，那个穿着洁净短袜、手永远举得高高的女孩。圣维姬，阅读小组里最优秀的，举止优雅，每当史蒂文斯夫人被叫去办公室时，总是被任命为班长。圣维姬，那个爱打小报告、专横的讨厌鬼，在行为举止和道德良心方面永远是她妹妹的监督者。
我真希望每次看到维姬从她那副蝙蝠翼形状、镶着莱茵石、蓝色的眼镜框（史蒂文斯夫人认为“非常得体”）上方窥视我，然后嗤之以鼻地说“我觉得爸爸妈妈不会喜欢那样”时，我都能得到五分钱。
我第一次有机会追随自己卑劣的本能，而不是她纯洁的本能时，一个家庭传奇就此诞生。一天放学后，她和最好的朋友辛迪向我母亲讲述学校里最令人厌恶的男孩爱德华在课间休息时，在柏油路上把裤子褪到脚踝，然后大吼“看这里！”的事。
“你们做了什么？”我震惊的母亲问道。
维姬和辛迪回答说，她们闭上眼睛，手拉手朝与爱德华相反的方向跑下山。“那你做了什么？”我母亲问我。
当时才一年级，又没有机智去掩饰，我回答说我当时在攀爬架上，爬到顶上想看得更清楚些。
随着岁月流逝，分隔我们的十八个月鸿沟逐渐弥合。维姬是个如饥似渴、不加选择的读者。她读的书为我们玩娃娃设定了场景。母亲不让我们玩芭比娃娃。“她们的胸部太夸张了，”她宣称。
所以我们玩的是“小泪珠”娃娃。维姬的叫蒂娜；我的叫贝琪。我们还有一个相貌平平、橡胶脸的娃娃，我们叫他迪尼兄弟。根据维姬读的书，蒂娜和贝琪会把倒霉的迪尼兄弟从草原大火中救出来（我们的四柱床就是马车），在普利茅斯巨岩给他换尿布，或者把他引荐给亚瑟王的宫廷。和其他女孩玩娃娃很累人，她们不懂，还得教她们怎么像贵格会教徒或阿拉伯公主那样说话。“现在我们可以玩了！”等她们回家后，我们会欢呼。
当我们收起娃娃后，我们分享男朋友、化妆品、配饰和衣服。对男朋友我们很大方，但对其他东西我们就争得相当激烈。我们最难忘的争夺战是为了一条黑色天鹅绒颈链、一个貂皮发箍、一个珠光发网和一管Bonne Belle牌的“白白”化妆品。“白白”是种古怪的东西，像打字机修正液，我们把它点在眼睛周围，想模仿崔姬和米亚·法罗那种大眼睛、性感又无辜的样子。我猜你得是个骨瘦如柴的金发女郎才能驾驭它。
回顾照片，我们慷慨涂抹的“白白”让我们看起来要么像是刚从肺结核中康复，要么就是惊讶得不得了。为什么我们从来没想过买这些令人垂涎的物品的复制品——没有一样是贵的——我不知道。
姐姐已成为我最亲爱的朋友，今天我为自己曾骂她的那些话和发的那些脾气感到羞愧。如果他们现在还卖“白白”，我会给她买够用一辈子的。尽管如此，我还是忍不住幸灾乐祸，她会比我先到四十岁。
如果我们能活那么久，我会在她八十岁生日时送她一个貂皮发箍——就在提醒她我仍然只是个七十九岁的“小姑娘”之前。