For Better or For Worse

by Robin Palmer

  Just then my phone beeped with a text from Alan. LUCY—PLEASE REPORT TO THE LIVING ROOM ASAP FOR AN EMERGENCY FAMILY MEETING. THANK YOU. Uh-oh. All caps was never good, especially when they came from Alan.

  OK, I texted back. Did you tell Laurel yet?

  SHE’S ALREADY HERE, he wrote back.

  That meant he had told her about the meeting first. If we were equal, he would’ve texted us both at the same time.

  This was not good.

  This meeting had a special guest star—Laurel’s publicist, Marci.

  “Oh hiiiii, Lisa!” Marci said all fakely from the living room couch. According to Laurel, most everything about Marci was fake: her hair color, her nails…even her boobs. Just like when I had met her in Los Angeles, her shiny red hair was perfectly combed and she was wearing super-high heels. Even though she lived in L.A. and not New York City, she was dressed in all black, which, according to Pete, was the New Yorker’s uniform. (You only had to look at Beatrice to know that was true.)

  “It’s Lucy,” I corrected. “Lisa” was what all the gossip columns had called me when they thought I was dating Connor Forrester.

  “Oh right. Sorry,” she replied, flashing a very white smile. “Look at how…colorful you are.” She tried to make her voice sound like she thought that was a good thing, but I could tell from the way she cringed that she was anti-color. Which meant that she was anti-me because I was all about color and a big supporter of wearing as many different ones as possible at once. For instance, in the form of a purple corduroy miniskirt with a red angora sweater and rainbow tights and lilac Converse sneakers, like I was right then.

  Picking up the gavel that Mom had bought him as a jokey anniversary gift but that he took very seriously, Alan pounded it on the coffee table. “I hereby call this Parker-Moses Family Meeting to order!” he called out. “Laurel, sweetie, can you sit up straight and look a little less blind?” he asked. “I know you’re just preparing for your role, but because you’re so good at it, it makes me nervous.”

  She smiled. “You really think I look blind?”

  “Very much so, honey,” Mom agreed with a smile.

  A smile. Huh. That was very Change-like. Because the last conversation I had with Mom she hadn’t been smiling. She had been frowning—as she said, “Lucy Beth Parker, if you bring up that kitten idea one more time, I’m going to take away your DVR privileges. End of story.” (The use of my middle name was never good. And when paired with “end of story”? Even worse.)

  “Oh totally,” said Marci. “Like I keep saying…hello, Academy Award!”

  “An interesting opportunity has come up, but because it’s something that would affect the whole family, I wanted us to discuss it all together,” Alan said. “And now I turn the floor over to Marci. Please hold your questions until she’s finished.” He held out the gavel. “Would you like this?”

  “I think I’m okay,” she replied. She flashed us another one of her white smiles. “Okay, so yesterday, I came up with this very, very cool idea.” Things were always “very, very” in Marci’s world. Usually very, very cool or very, very uncool. “Okay, so Laurel? Even though you haven’t started shooting the movie yet and Oscar nominations won’t be announced until a year from January, it’s very, very important that we get started on your campaign, like, immediately. And while I know that it’s always been very, very important to you to keep your personal and home life personal and…home life-like, I got to thinking that it could be very, very cool if you did a Week with Wendi.

  When she heard that, Laurel didn’t look blind—she looked like she was about to die.

  “You know, so that when Academy voters go to vote, they’ll remember seeing the show and feel as if they really know you as a person,” Marci went on.

  Mom and Alan looked at each other. While Alan had one of his hopeful doesn’t-that-sound-GREAT? smiles on, Mom’s was more like I-think-I-just-ate-a-piece-of-bad-sushi. “So what you’re saying is that you want us to let this woman into our home and spend a week following us around?” she asked.

  Even though Marci shook her head hard, her hair barely moved. “No, no, no!” she cried.

  The color returned to Mom’s face. “Oh. Okay. So she’s just going to tape Laurel at the studio?”

  “No. What I meant is that she’d follow the family around for three weeks!” Marci replied. “From now through the wedding!”

  Now it was Laurel who looked like she was going to throw up. “Look, I know that there’s a few people out there who are interested in my life”—A few?! There were so many people interested that last time I Googled her, I counted 328 unofficial Laurel Moses websites—“but I highly doubt that if you asked Wendi Wallerstein if she wanted to spend three weeks following me around, she’d say yes.”

  “Actually, I did ask her—well, I asked her executive producer, Camilla—and Wendi called me back herself while in the middle of her private Pilates session and said that she’d be honored to follow you and your family around before this monumental event.”

  “I really don’t know why people are making such a big deal about this wedding,” Mom said with a nervous laugh. “In fact, it’s not even a wedding. It’s more like…a small gathering of our immediate family. And I can tell you right now—I think that following us around would be of very little interest to a TV audience.” Mom was a very private person. So private that she wouldn’t even watch any sort of reality show just out of principle because she thought that the fact that TV made celebrities out of regular people was not a good thing. She wouldn’t even watch Hoarders, which, if you asked me, was a total loss on her part because that show was the most awesome of all the reality shows.

  Marci shrugged. “Small gathering, monumental event—same thing. Anyway,” she continued, “you know I don’t like to tell you what to do, Laurel, but as your publicist, with three years of top-notch experience at the hottest PR firm in all of Hollywood, I strongly believe you should do this.”

  Laurel sighed. The only thing she wanted more than the NeatDesk, this digital filing scanner system we had seen advertised on TV one night, was an Oscar. She shook her head. “I don’t know. This is my family we’re talking about.”

  One of the coolest things about Laurel was that while she accepted the fact that because she was so famous, there was a certain amount of living in the public eye she had to do, she tried to do that only when she was at work on her TV show or a movie or at a special event. When she was with us, her family, she was super low-key. And if we were all out, she wore a hat and sunglasses or a full-on disguise. We weren’t one of those families where everyone became famous just because we were the Frister or Parents Of the famous person. (“I’m still waiting for someone to tell me what exactly those Kardashian people have done to make them famous,” Mom was always saying.) We were just…normal. Well, normal other than the fact that we had a lot of family meetings and a binder full of official rules and regulations.

  Laurel turned to us. “What do you guys think?”

  “I’d be okay with it,” I piped up. “Well, I’d be okay with it as long as Wendi didn’t come into my room on the days when it wasn’t clean.” Which, pretty much, was all days other than the first hour after Mom had forced me to clean it. While I didn’t have a problem with things not being in their proper drawers, some people in America did.

  Marci nodded. “I could totally put that in the contract, Lisa.”

  “It’s Lucy,” Laurel corrected her.

  “And I’m sure people would be very interested in seeing what went on during a well-run family meeting,” Alan added. “Who knows—maybe it would help other families get organized!”

  Or, maybe when that part came on, they’d take a bathroom or snack break.

  Still, Mom looked doubtful. And Laurel could tell. She shook her head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. The movie is important, but it’s not, like, everything to me.”

  Because of the actress thing, Laurel was an excellent liar. But even someone
who barely had any experience lying—like a nun or a priest—would have done a better job than she was right then.

  “Laurel, you spend every moment that you’re not sleeping practicing your lines and pretending to be blind,” I said. “And, on the nights you wear your earphones and listen to the script on your iPod as you fall asleep, you’re even rehearsing in your sleep.”

  “Okay, fine. So maybe this movie is the best role that’s ever been offered to me,” she admitted.

  “Did I mention that the last four Best Actress winners all did a Week with Wendi at some point before they won?” Marci interrupted. “Because they did.”

  “But, still,” Laurel went on, “having a camera crew follow you around for three weeks is a big deal. And I totally respect the fact that some people don’t like reality TV.”

  She made sure not to look at Mom when she said that, but it was obvious that’s who she was talking about because none of us had problems with it. Even Alan liked watching reality TV. Especially the shows where someone went in and organized a person’s life after totally shaming them for being such a mess.

  As respectful as Laurel was being, and as nice as my mother was, I knew my mom well enough to know that there was no way she would say yes to this. And I also knew her well enough to know that there’d be something about how the people who let their lives be televised were seriously hurting their karma.

  She sighed. “It’s okay. I guess I could handle it for a few weeks.”

  Wait a minute. Backspace. What? Who just said that? That was not my mother.

  “Really? Are you sure?” Laurel asked anxiously.

  “Honey, if you don’t want to do it, it’s completely okay,” Alan said.

  Mom shrugged. “No, it’s fine.” She looked at Laurel and smiled. “I know what this would mean to Laurel.”

  Another smile? It looked like Marissa was right. The wedding may not have happened yet, but already The Change was.

  Laurel squealed and threw her arms around Mom’s neck, almost pushing her over. “But I just have one request,” Mom managed to get out.

  “Anything!” Laurel squealed.

  Mom looked at Marci. “I want Wendi focusing primarily on Laurel. Not the small gathering with immediate family that’s going to take place in a few weeks.”

  “You mean the wedding,” Alan said.

  Mom started to scratch at the inside of her left wrist, something that happened when she got nervous about something. “No, I mean the small gathering of immediate family. End of story.”

  I watched as she itched some more.

  “Faaaaabuuuulous,” purred Marci as she took out her cell phone. “I’ll let Wendi’s people know.

  “So when would they start?” I asked, yanking at the ends of my hair in an attempt to make it grow faster so it looked long on camera.

  “Probably tomorrow,” Marci replied.

  At that, Mom didn’t look like she ate just one piece of bad sushi, but an entire meal.

  Dear Dr. Maude,

  You may have already heard the big news because Pete says that Mrs. Weinstein from 11F (I’m sure you know her—she’s one of the biggest gossips in the building) is blabbing on about it to whoever will listen and trying to call an emergency co-op board meeting to stop it. But if you haven’t, Wendi Wallerstein is doing a Week with Wendi based on Laurel! And because we live with Laurel, it’s based on our entire family. But in our case it’s not just a week—it’s THREE weeks because they’re going follow us through the wedding.

  The wedding I’m referring to is the one that’s going to happen between Alan and Mom in less than a month. I mentioned it in a previous e-mail but because I’m not sure you READ my e-mails, I thought I’d bring it up again. Although according to my mom, we’re not allowed to call it a wedding. It’s a “small gathering of immediate family.”

  I’m not sure what’s going on with her. I know because she’s a feminist, she’s not the type of woman to get all crazy about a wedding and talk about what kind of pots and pans she’s going to ask people to get her as gifts and wear a dress that makes her look like a meringue (BTW—do you like meringues? I used to not like them, but now I do.) But still, every time someone brings it up—ESPECIALLY if they call it a wedding rather than a small gathering of immediate family—she gets all huffy and says, “Can we please change the subject?” And then if someone says, “Fine. I have a subject we can change it to: how about we talk about how nice it would be to hear the patter of small kitten feet around the apartment?” she gets even huffier.

  Oh—BTW—I was wondering. Are YOU a feminist? Because I’m still not entirely sure what feminism exactly is, I’m not sure if I’m one. I think I am, though. Do you have any idea how old you have to be before you can be one? I guess I could always Google it, but I thought if you knew it would save me some time. Well, except for the fact that you never write me back so waiting for you to get back to me with an answer would probably be a waste of time rather than a time-saver.

  Well, I should get going. Mom’s making me clean my room extra good before school because Wendi and her crew are coming this afternoon. I’m actually excited about being on TV. Not because I’m full of myself like Cristina Pollock, but because I feel like it will be a good opportunity for me to show the world that you can be non-famous and live with someone famous and still lead a happy life. Plus, there might be opportunities for me to pass along some of my advice to a larger audience than just the kids who read the newspaper at the Center for Creative Learning. (I told you that I’m no longer going by “Annie” to keep my identity a secret, right? But don’t worry—it’s not like I’m trying to compete with you for business or anything like that).

  Okay, well, bye!

  yours truly,

  Lucy B. Parker

  P.S. If you have a chance to get back to me with some advice about what to do about people who get all snippy about their own weddings, I’d appreciate it. Thanks. Bye.

  “Can I can come over after school today?” Alice asked at lunch later. “I think I left my rhinestone barrette in your room last time I was there.”

  “You did, but I gave it back to you the next day, remember?” I replied.

  “Oh right,” she said, disappointed.

  “Plus, Wendi Wallerstein is coming over to go over everything so I can’t hang out.”

  Alice gave a (very fake) gasp. “Omigod—she is? I didn’t know that!”

  Even Malia—the nicest person in the world—let out a sigh.

  Beatrice rolled her eyes. “Yes, you did. You spent most of science class saying, ‘Omigod, I can’t believe my Wendi Wallerstein is doing an entire show about my best friend!’”

  “I did?” Alice said. “Well, I guess I keep forgetting.”

  “The show really isn’t about me,” I corrected, “it’s about Laurel.” I left out “and, Alice, while you’re a good friend of mine, you’re not my best friend” because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

  Alice smacked her forehead. “Oh no! You know what?”

  “What, Alice?” I asked.

  “Remember how last time I was there we snuck those rice cakes in your room?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, I think I left the crumpled-up package on your desk instead of throwing it in the garbage,” she said. “So I should probably check. I don’t want you to get ants or anything. Especially because I know that one of the Parker-Moses official rules is ‘No eating outside of the kitchen’ for exactly that reason.”

  Like Marissa, Alice was obsessed with trying to become famous. Unfortunately, for her, all five blogs she had started had no followers other than me, Beatrice, Malia, and Marissa (even though they had never met, they had agreed to link to each other’s blogs in order to try to get more traffic. Which, because no one other than us was following them, didn’t work.). And because we were also her only followers on the three different Twitter accounts she had, she wasn’t becoming famous that way, either.

  “Alice, I keep telling you, ac
cording to Laurel, being famous isn’t all that great,” I said. “You know, other than those fancy loot bags you get at special events and the gift baskets full of cookies and brownies and cupcakes around the holidays.”

  “Well, if I can’t be on the TV special, can I at least come to the wed—small gathering of immediate family?” she asked. “I just love wed—small gatherings of immediate family. I already have a dress picked out. It’s so pretty. It’s blue with—”

  “Alice, are you part of Lucy’s immediate family?” Beatrice demanded.

  The fact that Alice actually took a second to think about it made me really wonder about whether or not her brain had been knocked loose when she fell off a horse at camp this past summer.

  Before she could reply, Roger Friedman, this kid in our grade wearing a T-shirt that looked like a tuxedo top and high-waisted jeans, walked up.

  “Hey, Lucy!” he exclaimed. Roger was big on the exclaiming front. Because Alice was, too, Beatrice kept trying to convince her to use him as her local crush instead of Max Rummel, seeing that she had been crushing/stalking Max since second grade and it hadn’t worked yet. But Alice refused, saying that she was worried about hurting Max’s feelings if she gave him up.

  “Hey, Roger,” I said.

  “So I know in the paper it says if I want advice, I should ask you. It says I’m supposed to send all questions via e-mail but I was wondering if just this once you might be able to answer it this way,” he said. “Because it’s something I kind of need an answer on right away.”

  I shrugged. “Okay.”

  “Hold on a second!” Beatrice ordered. “If we do that for you, we’re going to have to do that for everyone. Guidelines are guidelines for a reason.”