Underneath It All

In a traditional family, the last thing you can be is who you really are, but it's time for Jacqueline Sanchez to find the woman underneath it all. . . Everyone has their role. My mother is the martyr, my father the distant unapproachable figure, and Noel, with a few brief stints in jail, is considered misunderstood, not a handsome loser. Yolie is just outspoken, not a miserable bitter shrew, which would be her clinical diagnosis in the "real" world. And the rest of my brothers and sisters have problems that my parents consider normal, like bad marriages, unruly children, and too many bills. So is it a surprise that I'm considered the troublemaker of the family? Not happy at home? Move away for college. Hate your job? Find another one. Fallen out of lust, er, love with your husband? Divorce him. I, so far, am the anomaly—or flake—in the family because I'm vocal about how unnecessary it is to be unhappy, and how important it is to do something about it to change your circumstances (thank you, Zoloft!) If I had it my way, my whole family would be comparing dosages at the dinner table the way some families talk about sports or politics. . . Jacquelyn, a politics-loving Berkeley grad, has somehow ended up employed by the former-soap-star wife of the city's ambitious mayor. Not only does she live in the bizarre bubble of a celebrity personal assistant, but her best friend, an Indian-American doctor, is freaking her out by "allowing her parents to essentially arrange her marriage to a man she's known only a few weeks." Mr. Mayor is ominously flirting with his (unhappily) married press secretary; and Jacquelyn's Oprah-watching mother is swamping her with waves of family guilt