Excerpt of Just Like Me, Only Better by Carol Snow

I remember the exact moment when Haley Rush’s fame reached
its tipping point. I was in the produce department of
Ralph’s supermarket, desperately trying to concentrate on
school lunches and the price of bananas, when all I could
think about was my husband, Hank Czaplicki, who days
earlier had announced - well, mentioned, really - that he
had found his soul mate, and she wasn’t me. An image of
Hank kissing Darcy DaCosta, a.k.a. "North Orange County’s
#1 Realtor!*" flashed through my brain just as a skinny
prepubescent girl with blue braces and a high ponytail
appeared at my side and blurted, "Can I have your autograph?"

Speechless, I stared at her, tears making my vision the
slightest bit blurry, and shook my head with confusion.

I blinked furiously, as if trying to hit the reset button
in my brain, when, suddenly, I understood. There was that
girl - what was her name? That actress who everyone said
looked like me. The one who could sing. She’d been in a
sitcom as a teenager, and now she had her own show on one
of those kids’ cable networks. Bailey? Kayla? Something
like that.

"I’m not who you think I am," I told the girl with the blue
braces, my voice tight from the force of withheld tears.

Her shiny smile faded, just a little bit.

"I’m not her," I said, more forcefully this time.

The smile dropped, her cheeks flushed pink, and her eyes
clouded with disappointment. "Sorry," she mumbled,
slouching away to rejoin her mother by the bagged salads.

A few minutes later, I stood at the checkout line,
clutching my cart for support, wondering what I had
forgotten to buy. I’d gotten milk for Ben, bananas for
Ben, Lunchables for Ben. If not for Ben, I would have
crawled into bed and stayed there forever. My five-year-old
son was the only thing standing between me and a complete
breakdown.

When the woman at the checkout counter looked at me funny,
I thought that tears had smudged my mascara. But no: I
hadn’t bothered with makeup since the day Hank walked out.

The checkout clerk pointed to the magazine display to my
left. There was that actress on the cover of a glossy
weekly - Haley Rush, that was her name. She was on a beach
somewhere, wearing a ridiculously small white bikini, her
skinny arms wrapped around the glimmering body of a
sculpted young man. Above the picture, three-inch tall
block letters read, "Haley & Brady: HOT!"

Below that, Haley’s self-satisfied face gazed at me from
the cover of a fashion magazine. A third magazine cover
showed her and the pretty boyfriend with the caption,
"Haley Rush: all grown up and head-over- heels in love."

I looked back at the checkout woman and shrugged.

"That Brady Ellis is pretty cute," she said.

I nodded and tried, unsuccessfully, to smile.

"So ... that’s not you?" she asked.

I looked back at the magazine covers and sighed. "Only in
my dreams."