My book No More Ugly Girls is the story of Auburn Halverson. Sheâs never met a mistake that she didnât then make. Now with two young daughters, sheâs determined to have a stable life. Yet she is tempted to fall back into her old patterns when confronted with her boyfriendâs infidelity.
What is causing her to fall back into those old patterns? Broken trust and trauma. People are judged (especially women) as weak for the choices they make. But mistakes are not a sign of weakness, but of staying strong too long.
No More Ugly Girls began as a way to honor that inner strength survivors have to keep moving while carrying their pain hidden away.
Our society tells abused girls they must hide these secrets. Then it tells them secrets make them ugly.
It is only through sheer strength of character that they carry on with life.
My book No More Ugly Girls is the story of Auburn Halverson. Sheâs never met a mistake that she didnât then make. Now with two young daughters, sheâs determined to have a stable life. Yet she is tempted to fall back into her old patterns when confronted with her boyfriendâs infidelity.
What is causing her to fall back into those old patterns? Broken trust and trauma. People are judged (especially women) as weak for the choices they make. But mistakes are not a sign of weakness, but of staying strong too long.
No More Ugly Girls began as a way to honor that inner strength survivors have to keep moving while carrying their pain hidden away.
Our society tells abused girls they must hide these secrets. Then it tells them secrets make them ugly.
It is only through sheer strength of character that they carry on with life.
Auburn hated the sound of the beads against the cement as she jumped-rope. Chnnnnt. Chnnnnt. Chnnnnt. It announced to the neighborhood the chubby whore that globbed on to Steve Johnson had to lose weight to keep him.
While she loved her body warming as she worked out and the lightness she felt afterward, she told herself healthy choices were not Auburn Halversonâs style. She consoled herself with the thought that it was a way to get a high naturally.
Chnnnnt. Chnnnnt. Chnnnt. She didnât admit to anyone that she wouldnât enjoy getting stoned anymore and that this is what she wanted. To be a good parent to her girls and a halfway responsible adult. Because everyone knew, she wasnât capable of it.
Chnnnnt. Chnnnnt. Chnnnt. Her four-year-old was watching a TV show and her eight-month-old napped upstairs. Steve bought her workout DVDs, but Emma interrupted and clung to her when she tried to do them. The only option was to sneak out to the backyard with the sound of her beaded jump rope raking across the concrete embarrassing her.
This neighborhood was Steveâs city, and he was her guide to this new place he brought her to. She had lived her whole life in Janesville, so she knew her way around. But this was not her Janesville. In her city, everyone knew each other and fought or fucked each other. Guys hung out on the street corner and gunned the engine when they left. In her city, your boyfriend parked around the corner from a house and then came back a few minutes later or your friend leaned into a car in the Burger King parking lot and a transaction took place. Later on, someone you knew got into a fight with someone you hated in that same parking lot.
In her new Janesville, girls walked home with their band instruments and moms carpooled the team to soccer practice. It wasnât that she missed gangs of kids walking down the middle of streets smoking and swearing, guys playing no fucking fouls basketball, or her neighbor riding his kidâs bike home with a case of beer on the handlebars.
It was that she couldnât believe the quiet neighbors and their houses with green front lawns and wood chips around their bushes actually existed. And whether they did or not, she did not fit into such a neighborhood.
Chnnnnt. Chnnnnt. Chnnnt. Chnnnnt. Chnnnnt. Chnnnt. She kept moving today because on Saturday, the superintendent of the school district was giving a party to celebrate the end of the school year. As the principal of the alternative school. Steve would have to attend, and Auburn would meet many of his coworkers for the first time. People he had known for fifteen years. She could only imagine the educated, spin-class people that would be there. In getting her mother to baby-sit for the party, she had referred to it as âThe Relationship Ender.â Auburn and her mother did not agree on anything, but they agreed that she did not measure up.
Chnnnnt. Chnnnnt. Chnnnt. She tried to keep going because his secretary hadnât known where he was in the middle of the day. Her feet though could only get off the ground three more times.
With her hands on top of her head, she noticed Chad come up the drive. He had his beige Amoco shirt on and a tie, his slacks slightly too tight. He fixed his shoulder-length hair with his fingers and then pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pants pocket. That right there, little girl, she told herself, is the only thing youâve decided to drag from your old neighborhood. She shook her head. Smiled.
âHey,â he said walking over to the wrought iron table set and sprawling out on a chair. âWhatâcha doing?â
She shook the jump rope at him. âWhy are you here already?â She couldnât help herself; she let her hand wave his cigarette smoke towards her. âUsually, I only do this when no oneâs around.â
âYou exercise? I thought I knew everything about you.â
âYou know enough to blackmail me if I ever get famous. I do this three times a day.
âThatâs a little extreme, Auburn. Itâs not like youâre fat.â
She started again. Chnnnnt. Chnnnnt. Chnnnt. The sound was insults yelled into her ears, but she kept going. âYeah right. After Emma was born, Derrick left me.â Her words came out hard. âHe didnât want someone fat like his mom. That was one thing he never lied to me about.â
âHe dumped you because he didnât want the responsibility of a kid. I would know right?â
Her legs and arms were lead now. Only her calculations spurred her on. âI put on thirty pounds after Emma. I only lost twenty of those pounds.â
Chad squinted at the sky. âYou looked good. You filled out.â
âEven if you werenât lying your ass off, I gained thirty pounds again with Jackie.â Thirty pounds overweight, she told herself.
âAnd how much of that have you lost? In eight months, Auburn?â Still squinting, he looked over at her.
âTwenty-three pounds.â Everyone at that party will be Steveâs age and I will be a joke. A twenty-two-year-old fat, ugly joke.
Calling herself ugly was one of the lies Auburn told herself. She knew many men liked her blonde hair and pale blue eyes. She knew guys had gawked at her all night when she worked as a bartender. Some of those nights, she looked in the mirror behind the bar and saw the swell of her chest and her butt in her tight jeans and believed the guys when they told her she was hot. Quickly though, she would reassure herself they were only drunk and horny.
She admitted to liking her petite nose, and her lips. Otherwise, she had an inventory of the things she hated about her body.
The way Chad had his elbow on the table while bringing a cigarette up to his mouth made Auburn want to sit with him and fill an ashtray together. Just as a little step back in time. A step she didnât want to take, but one that would feel so comfortable.
The rope whizzed past her ears. âIâm going to tell the girls to keep their bodies away from boys. So that they can be beautiful and thin and go to college.â
Chad waggled his crossed leg to the beaded click of Auburnâs jump rope. âYouâre already thinking about things like that?â
âI donât know what Iâm going to tell them about anything. How do I explain what slut means when the girls come home and tell me Mrs. So and So said in high school they called you rug-burn.â
Chnnnnt. Chnnnnt. Chnnnt. Chnt. Chnt. Chnt. Finally, Auburn stopped and put her hands on her knees to catch her breath. She looked at Chad no longer crashing up and down. When she first came out to exercise, she stopped constantly to adjust any of her lawn decorations or pull any errant weeds. The quietness of the manicured backyard brought her tranquility. But it did not bother her to be the only sound and motion in the scene. It was that it reminded her she was alone.
She lifted her hair to air out the damp nape of her neck. âLook at me. Iâm sweating like a drunk with the dry heaves.â She sat down in the chair opposite Chad. âIâm trying to do things right. Steveâs taking me to this big fancy party with the pillars of society there. So, I canât go around smoking and I have to look good in a dress.â
âSure.â
âNo not sure. Itâs the way it is.â
Chad adjusted the ashtray without moving it. âAuburn, you saved me from some crazy chicks, and Iâve saved you from some dirtballs. Are you sure you donât need saving here? Because every time he does something shitty, you starve yourself.â
âFuck you,â she answered without any anger because nothing he said had been untrue. âHeâs different now. Once we got engaged, heâs been committed. Heâs done screwing around on me. But thanks for your concern.â She sighed. âJackie is napping. I have to shower. And then wait until she wakes up. Otherwise, sheâll be impossible in the furniture store.â
âAuburn. Do you want me to pick it up alone?â
âNo, Iâll follow you. We wonât all fit in the truck.â
âIâll just go, Auburn.â He jumped up. âThereâs no reason for us all to go.â He slipped into the back door and came back with the receipt for the new table that had been pinned to the bulletin board. âSteve know you bought this yet?â
âThis way you donât have to wait on us,â she answered.
After watching him leave, Auburn hung the jump rope on a hook inside the back door. She tucked herself into the garage and hopped up onto the rough boards of a workbench Steve never used other than to set his beer on it when he started the lawn mower. She pried open the fold up stroller hanging on the wall and pulled out her cigarettes. The lighter was in a drawer of a screw and bolt organizer.
She lit up and enjoyed the first puff slowly. Then she puffed on it harder to finish it quickly to get back into the house.
Auburn stared at the empty dark space of the garage and plotted smoking fulltime again once the girls were in school. Then she could go all day without eating and keep her weight down the way she did in high school.
The children starting school was what drove her to her smoke getaway in the first place. She knew she had to call Eunice, Steveâs mother. She wanted Emma to start preschool and would pay for it. The thought of the girls being older and starting school made Auburn anxious. Just talking to Eunice alone required a cigarette for her nerves. The woman did not like anything about her.
Eunice looked down on people that smoked. That Auburn knew for sure. For Auburn though, it wasnât bad as long as she kept it from the girls. Cancer would only happen when she was old. Her daughters would have lives of their own by then. Still, she heard Euniceâs voice telling her that smoking was ridiculous in this day and age.
She snubbed the cigarette out in a Mountain Dew can. Itâs not even in my top ten foolish deeds, she thought in response to Euniceâs voice.
In the house, she passed by Emma lying on her stomach with her head propped up in her hands watching Angelina Ballerina.
Call Eunice, Auburn nagged herself. It was something she could do to look good to Eunice and everyone told her how it was good for Emma to be ready for kindergarten. Instead, she lay down next to Emma on the floor and stroked her stringy sandy-blonde hair. She studied Emmaâs delicate body in her orange outfit and her face. Emma had her mouth and her fatherâs dark eyes, but Auburn didnât care to divvy up her childâs features any more than that. She just loved to study them and kiss her rubbery soft cheeks. Emma, with her head propped up in her hands (her little fingers curled along her jaw), didnât look over, but she lifted her leg and dropped it on her mom.
After a few minutes, Auburn stood up, patted Emma on the butt and went upstairs. She would call Eunice. She had to.
She took a quick shower. If Steve didnât come home too late, she would shower again to be fresh. She got dressed in clean underwear and bra, a pair of jeans, a tank top, and a sweatshirt. Before leaving the bedroom, she picked up Steveâs crumpled suit off the floor. She hung the jacket and pants over a chair to iron later, and threw his shirt, socks, and underwear in the hamper along with her sweaty clothes. Steveâs line of when a suit became dirty was invisible to Auburn, so she hung them up until Steve yelled about how he had left a suit on the floor because it needed to be dry-cleaned. Then Auburn took it to the drycleaners.
Back in the bathroom, Auburn wiped the steamed mirror in the bathroom off with a towel and swiped dust off the water bong she had as decoration on the toilet tank. It was a pretty blue with the tube shaped like a trippy mushroom. Though she had not used it in years, she liked the shock value of it.
She knew she had to get rid of it someday. That she should get rid of it right now, before Emma was old enough to ask what it was. Steve was the one she wanted to shock. She wanted Steve to see how much his house didnât fit what a principalâs house should look like. Outside, the house was as nice as any in the neighborhood, but the dĂ©cor came from things she found in boxes in the corner of Steveâs den. Things Eunice gave him to fix up his house over the years and Auburn figured if she ever unboxed everything, they would have Steveâs childhood home.
He said he was too busy to do anything with the house. When Auburn and Emma moved in, Steve had four pieces of furniture and nothing on the walls. A large sectional couch and his large screen TV took up the living room. In his bedroom, he had a king bed and a stereo.
She wasnât sure Steve had ever noticed the bong.
Auburn went into the girlsâ room where Jackie was sleeping in the crib and quietly picked up the toys and put them in the toy box. This was the room she made Steve purchase because Emma had never had a decorated bedroom. The walls were pink with castle decals. Jackieâs crib bedding was Snow White, and Emmaâs bedding was Sleeping Beauty.
She laid her hand on Jackieâs back until she felt the rise of her taking a breath and then went back into her and Steveâs room and smoothed out the made bed.
Downstairs, she went to the junk drawer in the kitchen and got out a crescent wrench. For a moment, she stood with her hands on her hips; then she began carrying the kitchen chairs into the dining room. The antique dining table set had been her grandmaâs and she felt a great purpose in putting it into the right room, even though it would be under a wagon wheel light fixture. One of those things Steve was too busy to change.
Auburn put bath towels down on the kitchen floor and then gently turned her table over on its top. Then rolling the adjuster on the wrench, she closed its jaw around the nut on the bolt that held the closest leg in place.
She removed the legs and carried them into the dining room. Then carefully she dragged the tabletop along the towels and the carpet of the dining room, determined to make a home.
Emma turned the TV off and went to the front window to watch Chad back his pickup up onto the lawn.
âUncle Chadâs here,â Emma said.
âI see that.â She was glad he was back from the furniture store. But her first reaction was happiness to have a visitor. A friend that took the time to come and see her.
Chad opened the front door and the smell of cigarettes on his clothes hit her nostrils. âShh,â she said before he spoke. âJackieâs still sleeping.â
He smiled at Auburn. âI figured. Itâs still her naptime.â
Chad backed his truck up to the front door, opened his tailgate and stood on it. He undid the bungee cords and removed the blankets covering her new chairs. âHereâs your new table. Safe and sound.â The way he seemed proud to haul something in his truck made Auburn wonder if he was like the water bong. Perhaps she had outgrown both. With his facial hair along his round jaw line and his silver-capped teeth, he didnât fit in her new city.
Okay, we come from the same place, Auburn thought, but at least I try. âI know, Chad. It took my whole tax refund to get it.â She wanted to act as if it was no big deal that she was now part of a class of people that bought new furniture. Still her face flushed. âThis is the first adult thing I ever bought.â
âIt feels good to be a grown up, huh?â Chad said grabbing a chair and stepping from his truck bed to the front steps.
Auburn held the door open. She was never one to let a self-deprecating comment go by. âI never said I was that.â
Chad bolted the new tabletop to its pedestal while Auburn put the other table together. He came into the dining room as she was trying to put the table back on its legs. He grabbed an end. âI could have done this for you, Auburn. You shouldnât have used a crescent wrench to take it apart.â
âThe bolt thingeys were still loose from moving it in.â She put the chairs around both tables and then stood for a moment to look at both of them. From where she stared, getting a slice of the dining room and a slice of the kitchen, her house looked complete. It was an optical illusion. One that still made her proud.
âAre we going to be able to eat on it, or is it just to look at like it was a piece of art?â Chad said, next to her.
She body checked him. âDonât make fun of me. Itâs the only thing I ever bought by myself. I couldnât wait around for Steve to get it anymore.â
He gently brushed past her. âIâll go get the velvet ropes, then.â
The rest of the house was still bare. Yet, she felt like maybe she could fake respectability with people at that party, because now she was at least a girl, she always called herself a girl, with a kitchen table.
Chad sat in the kitchen and watched TV while Auburn was upstairs getting Jackie up from her nap. She came down carrying the crying baby who was crying. âWhat a crabby baby,â Chad said.
Emma, who was following her mother, told him, âSheâs not a crabby baby. Not all the time. Sheâs just frumpy from beinâ asleep.â
Chad smiled at Auburn and then smiled harder when Auburn didnât smile back. âI didnât mean anything, Aub. It was just something to say.â
âWell, donât say that crap.â Auburn sat down and held Jackie on her chest so that her legs dangled off her momâs lap. Jackie melted into the comfort of her motherâs heartbeat. Jackie, with only whiffs of blonde curls, looked like Steve with his brown, closely cropped hair. Steve said all he saw was the fat baby cheeks and slobbery lips, but Auburn saw his features. She tucked Jackieâs warm and moist head under her chin until Jackie was ready to begin moving. After a while, she leaned up and put her fingers into Auburnâs mouth. Auburn leaned in to smell Jackieâs sour breath. It was a stink of formula and a closed mouth, and she loved to sniff it in like perfume.
Auburn fed Jackie and then they had dinner with dishtowels under their plates. She made a plate for Chad and then cut up spaghetti for Emma and blew on it to cool it. She put Jackie in her high chair with a handful of Cheerios and some toys and then sat down herself. She felt the high back of the chair and the smooth wood as she rested her forearms on the table. For a moment, it made her think of the woman Auburn was almost sure that Steve was seeing. Then she distracted herself with talking to Emma, refusing to let anything ruin her accomplishment.
It was an accomplishment. The table was part of creating a home for Steve. She would make him see that family and home was what he really wanted.
âReef came into the gas station today,â Chad said. âYou remember him right?â
âFrom high school?â Auburn tore a piece off a garlic bread and ate it. âEvery stoner in our school bought from him, so yeah. Do you remember how he used to take his beat up van and go down alleys hitting trashcans and fences? I was with him the night he decided to knock over every trashcan in Janesville. Then he rammed into a car for no reason.â
Chad knew the story and as Auburn went on with it, he played âIâm going to tickle youâ silently with Emma. Emma screamed in delight. Then suddenly she didnât like the game and slid off her chair and ran from the room.
âI was in the back sitting on the floor and got thrown into Reefâs seat. I donât even know how I explained the gash on my forehead.â She pulled her hair back to show the scar.
âYouâre always telling your stories,â Chad said, smiling. âSince the day I met you.â
âAt my fifteenth birthday party Derrick gave me. You had just moved back from livinâ with your dad. I remember you standing by Derrick and me coming up and taking the beer out of his hand and drinking it. You were like, âWho the hell is that, Derr?â The image of Emmaâs father, Derrick, and Chad standing together, both with a beer and a cigarette made her wonder if he ever saw Derrick now. âAnd I said, âhis woman. Who the hell are you?â
Chad let himself laugh. âSo Reef mentioned that he works for the school district now doing maintenance. It turns out he works in Steveâs building.â
âI suppose you are going to tell me he canât stand Steve.â
âActually, Reef says he loves the guy. Which I donât get because Reef is basically a low life.â
Auburn felt panic about all the things Reef could tell Steve about her.
Chad watched as Auburn hefted Jackie out of the high chair. âWhy would those two be buddies?â he said. âWhat do they have in common?â
Auburn held Jackie with her back to Chad, gave the answer, an observation, and a confession. âThey both know me.â
When Chad started the dishes, Auburn went to the bathroom. She washed her hands and then looked at her reflection. She remembered being thirteen and standing in front of the mirror for hours. She wanted to see how people saw her and try to figure out which expressions made her look the most attractive. Her sister would get sick of her being in the bathroom for so long and would unlock the door with a paperclip and catch her.
Outside the door now, she heard Chad clang the dishes and sing a made-up song with Emmaâs name in it. It made Emma laugh.
When she came out of the bathroom, Chad was gathering up his cigarettes and lighter. It was a little after six and Steve had told Chad after dinner was family-only time. Still, Steve wasnât home yet, so Auburn knew tonight was Chadâs volleyball league night and maybe he would see Derrick at the bar. Perhaps he stopped at Derrickâs a lot and for a moment she had a flash picture of Derrick and Erica and their two kids, two kids that he saw every night but didnât even pay support for Emma. Auburn couldnât figure out how she could have ever loved him. She could only think of him as a loser. Erica, too. She had once been Auburnâs best friend. She tried not to be angry with Erica for marrying Derrick. She told herself how the people she used to hang around with was an inbreed lot. Everyone ended up dating everyone. She should pity her. Instead, she was jealous. Derrick was a drunken, stupid bastard, but he took Erica with her to the bars. He wanted her around.
âThanks for supper,â Chad said once his cigarettes were stowed in his pocket and his cell phone clipped to his belt.
âThanks for picking my table up for me.â Auburn picked Jackie up and replaced her on her blanket spread out on the floor. Then she looked down at the baby as she sat on the edge of the couch. Now was the time to let Chad know when he could visit next. If he wanted to. âFriday night my mom is watching the kids so we can go to this big fancy party. But Steveâs going out with some friends on Saturday.â
He smirked. âYour debutante ball?â
Auburn tightened her jaw. âItâs serious. You think Iâm crazy for worrying about it.â
âIf they donât like you, thatâs their problem. Steve needs to make sure you have a good time.â
âThis is something I have to prove to him.â
âIâll stop by Saturday then. Maybe Steve wants to go out on the boat in the afternoon. Then he can back you up when you tell me how everybody loved you.â
Auburn Halverson is a young woman who, it must be admitted, is not in an easy place, if indeed she has ever found herself in one. She is a mother of two young girls, `Emma and Jackie and clearly loves them. However, she also feels restricted with the life that having two young children gives her. Her boyfriend, Steve goes out to work whilst she remains at home and having left the district where she grew up to be with Steve, she now finds herself isolated and bored.
This allows her time to sit with her thoughts and her paranoias and over-analyse everything even though she desperately tries not to. But inevitably, this mulling over and over does not help her and she continually allows herself to be plagued by the memory of past indiscretions and behaviours. She veers between believing herself to be a product of her past and desperately trying to break out of the assumptions that she feels others make of her due to her lack of education and her unmarried mother status. (It is perhaps moot to say at this point that Emma and Jackie have different fathers.) But is there a further underlying reason for her low self-esteem and her continuing pattern of choosing the "wrong" men?
What Cannon has done in this book is create a character study of a confused young woman who has perhaps not had the best start in life and lacked parental encouragement and who, in a desperate drive to seek approval, ends up becoming a party girl, a drinker, knowing that her attractiveness will win men over. However, what she is increasingly finding is that the type of men her behaviour attracts are not the best. They are also, despite her best efforts at giving them what she thinks they want, difficult to keep.
I felt sympathy for Auburn and hopeful that her rising strength would win out. The ending brings you to a point of resolution to a degree, although to my mind, the book finishes abruptly and I was left with questions, most specifically about Auburn's relationship with Chad, her friend and stalwart advocate throughout the book. I suppose that Auburn's struggle didn't end here and that was what the author was trying to represent.
However, family dynamics and the confusion of someone battling to find their own worthiness are the book's strength and clearly depicted.