There I was, a gangly legged twelve year old who had all sorts of notions on what real beauty was. Sprawled on the vinyl folding chairs out on the lawn, I would stretch my pale legs out like white sprouts on a potato, slathering them with Coppertone. I wanted so badly to be tan. California-Coppertone-Beach Bunny Brown. The kind of tan where you could slip a watch off your wrist and see it's outline in contrast. All the popular girls at school could do that. I would see them at lunch, comparing 'white lines'. My whole body was a white line, thanks to the endless parade of very pale ancestors who looked on from old pictures with somber, chalky expressions. In class photographs, nobody had to ask where I was placed. They would just follow the glow of my face, reflecting the photographer's flash.

I was a persistant little cuss. Spreading a blanket out by the shores of Lake Chelan, I would immediately started basting myself like a turkey, while my best friend would casually lay in the sun without even worrying. She could grow effortlessly tan in less than an afternoon. I watched as she eventually flipped open her bottle of tanning oil and spread on a thin layer. Jealousy gnawed at me as it made her skin shine, deepening the tan she already had. No matter how much coconut oil I lathered on, it never shined like that. It just seemed to make me look...transparent. Fish belly. Beluga whale ruddy.

Ruddy! The word that echoed in my head like a donkey bray in a canyon. That pinkish-red hue would forever be 'my tan'. Of course, it was actually the signal that I had best get my wimpy skin indoors soon, or I was going to fry like cajun shrimp in that scorching summer sun. But sometimes I would fool myself into thinking I actually had a bit of color. I would rush up to my friend and stick my leg next to hers in comparison. And there it was - the obvious, flapping right in my face; golden brown, next to pig butt pink. I swear, it would have been good enough for me to simply have all my freckles connect. Individually...they had the tan I was longing for!!! But they taunted me, all sprinkled around, refusing to pony up to the cause.

And so one day the flowing river of Coppertone came to a stop. I put it on the shelf beneath the bathroom sink next to the Prell shampoo and the Aquanet. I let my freckles exist in peace, and started spreading my blanket in the shade while I read the stories of Anne Shirley on Prince Edward Island. Another daydreamer who fancied what it would be like to have exotic beauty.... and I related to every word.

Eventually it became a part of who I was, this pale self all dotted with freckles. "Comfortable in your own skin..." was a phrase realized, and I soon discovered that there were people out there who actually thought creamy complexions were lovely. I was never going to be Beach Bunny Brown... and that suited me just fine. I wasn't pale! I was alabastar, or so my grandmother would say. She was an alabastar girl too, and proud of it.

These days I still use Coppertone, but only because I like the smell.