Jessie's Journal (10/5/26) (Patreon)

Dear Journal:

At lunch, I’ve been sitting with my fellow Grease cast members.  Actually, it’s mostly a table of cool kids who sat together long before they were cast as Pink Ladies and T-Birds (a perfect example of life imitating art). But when I think about sitting at the cool kids’ table, I start sweating and stammering like a moron.  As long as I think of them as castmates, I fit in OK.

I’m not naïve enough to believe their sudden kinship is genuine, and I suspect that once the production is over, I’ll be cast back with the freaks and geeks, but for now it’s been fun.  They seem to appreciate my odd outlook on life and quirky sense of humor.  They’re likely just indulging me, like a genteel homeowner tolerating the idiosyncrasies of an eccentric houseguest they know will be leaving soon. Still, it feels good.

Today, Majorie Taylor, an overeager junior playing Patty Simcox (herself, basically), said, “We should do an off-campus lunch tomorrow.”

Everyone but me agreed enthusiastically.  I suspected an ulterior motive.

“Where?” asked Stacy Jack, the pretty senior playing Sandy.  If half the rumors I’d heard about her were true, she was much less virginal than her character.

“How about Mel’s Diner?”

There it was.  The choice of venue wasn’t arbitrary, and it wasn’t because they wanted a good burger. They wanted the skinny on my newly fat sister. 

It wasn’t the first time. 

“I hear your sister’s really porked-up,” Mitch Pearson, a foul-mouthed football player playing Kenickie (another inspired bit of casting), said to me on my first day at the table.

All the girls shook their heads and rolled their eyes, like they couldn’t believe their classmate’s crassness, but they still looked at me expectantly.

“Yeah,” I nodded.  “I put her on the Jessie Linder diet.”        

Everyone howled like I’d said the funniest joke of all time.  I felt a rush of excitement at the attention, but it faded quickly, leaving me numb.  Michelle was my sister, and most of these people had once been her friends.  It didn’t seem right.

Of course, it didn’t keep me from having fun at my sister’s expanse.

“Wanna come, Jessie?”  Luke Newman (the dreamy-eyed, shaggy-haired senior cast as Danny Zuko) said from across the table.

“No,” I said.  I may be a lipstick lesbian, but it took all my strength to resist those puppy-dog peepers of his.  “I’m watching my weight.”

The table erupted in positive affirmation.  There were a couple of “You look greats” and one or two “It shows.”

Then Gretchen Wilson, the group’s wry ringleader (who’s playing Rizzo, naturally), said, “It’s too bad Grease isn’t the Spring production.  You could’ve been a Pink Lady by then.”

I gave her a tight-lipped smile.  The implication was clear.   I was almost pretty enough to fit in with the cool kids. 

Almost.

--Jessie