2nd memoir piece

The Last Laugh
Cheryl Tiegs and I huddled on the green Formica counter in the upstairs bathroom. The more I stared at her straight blonde hair, perfect nose and flawless skin immortalized on the June 1963 Seventeen cover, the more desperate I felt. I took an inventory of my face in the three-way mirror. Broad nose, curly hair, big pores and a mole sprouting hair on my chin. This was no magazine cover.
“Where the heck do I start?” I demanded.
“Why don’t you try the hair coloring we bought yesterday at Rexall?” my younger sister Becky suggested from her perch on the closed toilet seat.
After spending an hour studying the labels of various hair coloring, we had settled on Summer Blonde that Clairol promised would produce a “sun-kissed” natural look.
“It’s got to be better than the lemon juice,” Becky laughed.
I glared at Beck, remembering the plump lemon head lice I'd had for two days after I'd tried to lighten my hair with unstrained lemon juice.
Maybe you should ask Mom to help,” Becky suggested.
“No way,” I hissed, “She’ll just tell me that I’m too young to mess with my hair. Besides I used to have blonde hair as a kid, so I’m sure it will work.”
“Okay,” Becky replied, “But she’ll be really mad if you mess up your hair.”
“How can I mess up this curly crap on my head?” I groaned.
Easily. I was so busy trying to transform myself into Cheryl Tiegs that I didn’t read the directions. “Brunettes get sun-bronzed. This natural color has red/gold tones that may show up when you lighten.”
“Beck, do you think Mom will notice?” I wailed.
“Well, your hair is pretty orange,” she admitted.
“What were you thinking?” Mom demanded all the way to the beauty parlor to have my hair dyed. “You have beautiful curly hair that other girls would love to have.”
“Yeah right,” I muttered, “maybe dorks like Mary Sue Bembe, but I want straight blonde hair. I hate this Squirrelly Temple look.”
“Oh Ter,” Mom chuckled, “You are my funny sunshine girl.”
The next week I was back on the counter and Becky on the toilet seat as I tackled my face. I had a movie date with Dickie Rausch to see Sean Connery in From Russia With Love, and I wanted to look great. I rolled my hair on giant orange juice cans to straighten it and set to work.
“Blend the concealer on either side of the bridge of your nose to minimize the width,” Becky read from the Cover Girl directions.
This time it had taken several hours at Rexall to plough through all the makeup possibilities. I slathered on the concealer and then began on the foundation.
“A light touch is best,” Becky directed. “Geez, Ter, that doesn’t look like a light touch. You look like you just finger painted your face."
hut up,” I snapped. “I have these huge pores to cover up.”
“Okay, it’s your face, but I think it looks stupid,” Beck giggled.
So did Dickie Rausch. When he picked me up, he started snickering because he thought I had done my makeup as a joke.
“Great,” I thought. “Funny girl again!”

By the time I was born, my older sister Lexi was the beautiful family ingénue just because she looked like a “separated at birth” twin of young Natalie Wood. I looked like a moon-faced hydrocephalic baby. That knocked out adorable younger sister, so I became the funny sidekick. Not exactly sidekick, more like second banana—a zany Jerry Lewis to Lexi’s sophisticated Dean Martin. Mom says that Lexi hid under the dining room table and begged her to send me back when I came home from the hospital. A few years later, Lexi convinced the neighbor girls to hang curtains on the basement clubhouse windows, so I couldn’t even watch their secret rituals.
“Mom,” I whined, “Lexi won’t let me in the club with the Moore girls.”
“Tattletale,” Lexi muttered as Mom jerked her out of that soon to be defunct club whose sole purpose was excluding me.
Lexi was undeterred. She cast herself in the starring roles in our backyard productions, and I’d find myself on top of the rotating clothesline sprinkling her from a watering can as she strolled underneath twirling an umbrella and warbling, “Singing in the Rain.”
“Mom,” she screamed, “ Terry isn’t sprinkling right. She’s trying to drown me.” “Ha,” I thought, “serves her right for sticking me on top of this creaky clothesline. Again!”

When Becky arrived as the adorable youngest sister, the typecasting was complete—pretty Lex, funny Ter and easygoing Beck. Dad’s 8 mm home movies are a silent testament to my early talent. I flash by in my favorite orange and gray-striped varsity sweater wrestling my younger sister Becky to the ground as I help her feed stupefied pigeons in a Washington park. Or I grin toothily into the lens as the camera pans from the waving hand of my baby brother Mike to me firmly attached to his elbow. Minutes later, I burst from our creme and green two-toned Chevy laughingly modeling my scratchy crinoline Easter dress.
The sound track was even better. I would introduce my visiting grandfather as “Peter Darago—he’s Hungarian and his teeth come out at night.” My early role model was Eve Arden as “Our Miss Brooks” who always knew just the right zinger to unleash on her principal Mr. Conklin. I laughed at Lucy’s silliness and Gracie’s daffiness, but I loved the wise-crackingly witty Miss Brooks who always bested the competition with a bon mot. Who cared if Libby Kimball with her button nose played Scarlett O’Hara in our seventh grade production of Gone with the Wind? I was the eye-rolling Prissy who got all the laughs by exclaiming,” Lawzy… I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout birthin’ babies.”
Getting the laughs felt like approval then, and maybe it still does. Despite those hours locked in the upstairs bathroom with my beauty acolyte Becky trying to transform myself into the “pretty one,” I’m still the family Funny Girl. Now, however, I don’t feel desperate about my role but relish it. I’m the one who could make my Dad laugh despite his crippling Parkinson’s. I’m the one who can cheer Mom up when she’s feeling her 80 years. I’m the one who calls my brother Mike with a silly, “What’s happening, Maxie Man?” and gets a laughing reply. My family counts on my sense of humor and quick wit, and I like making them smile. Health experts say that laughing keeps you young. Maybe that’s true because now people often tell me how pretty my skin is or how much they like my curly hair. Funny isn’t it?