by Robin Palmer
I kind of feel like I want to call an Emergency Parker-Moses Family Meeting to talk about this stuff, but then I bet Wendi would want to tape it and I do NOT want that to happen. If for some reason I ended up crying or something, I wouldn’t want that on national television. I mean, I know you try and get your guests to cry, which is fine and all, but I don’t want to be one of those people.
Wish me luck.
yours truly,
Lucy B. Parker
“Now, if you remember,” Wendi said as she clicked and clacked her way across Laurel’s not-one-piece-of-clothing-or-dust-bunny-on-it floor. “The last time we saw Laurel and Lucy together, it was not sunny in Philadelphia.”
“We don’t live in Philadelphia—we live in New York,” I said, confused.
She turned to me. “It’s a TV series,” she explained. “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia?”
I shook my head. “Never seen it.”
“Oh. Well, then let’s cut that reference,” she said. “We don’t want to alienate younger viewers! And again…” She clicked and clacked a little more. “Now if you remember—”
The longer we filmed this, the more I realized there wasn’t a whole lot of “real” in reality television.
“—when we last saw Laurel and Lucy together, there was a big blowup about the fact that Laurel had invited their housekeeper, Rose, to the wedding without first asking—”
“You forgot the part about how Lucy had invited Pete,” Laurel added quickly.
“I was getting to that,” Wendi assured her.
“I just think it’s important that people have the entire story.”
I was halfway through an eye roll before remembering that all of America would see me do it, so I stopped.
Wendi leaned in. “If you recall, Pete is Pete the Doorman,” she whispered to the camera.
“I keep telling you guys,” I said, “I didn’t invite him! He misunderstood what I said!” At that, Dr. Maude gave a little meow, which, to anyone who understood Catese would know that it meant “Exactly!”
Over on Laurel’s lap, Miss Piggy gave a low growl. It was as if even the cats had chosen sides. “You should let go of her,” I said to Laurel. “It’s a form of animal cruelty to hold them against their will like that. I think she wants to go back into my room.”
“I’m not holding her against her will,” she said. She lifted her hands up. “See?”
I waited for Miss Piggy to move, but she stayed put. Not only that, but she started purring. Loudly.
“I think Miss Piggy prefers an uncluttered environment,” she added.
Okay, that was it. I had had enough about my messiness.
I stood up. “I think we should let Wendi be the judge of my mess—sorry, my creative organization.”
Wendi’s eyebrow went up. “You’re finally going to let us go into your room?”
When we were coming up with the contract about the filming, one of the things I had insisted on was the fact that Wendi and her crew couldn’t come in my room. It’s not like I was embarrassed about it or anything, but I was afraid that some people in America—like, say, Laurel-types—wouldn’t understand my particular brand of organization.
“Yes,” I said as I led the group over. I opened the door a crack and peered in, checking to make sure there wasn’t anything embarrassing on the floor, like a bra or a pair of underwear. Once I was sure the coast was clear, I opened the door. Dr. Maude ran in and tried to jump up on the bed but failed due to her coordination issues. “See? My room isn’t messy,” I said.
From the looks on the faces of Wendi and everyone else, they didn’t look so convinced.
“Fine. Ask me where anything is, and I’ll find it,” I announced.
“How about…your cell phone?” Nikko suggested.
I marched over to my desk, swept aside the schoolbooks and pieces of notebook paper that covered it, and grabbed my phone. “One cell phone!” I announced proudly, as I held it up in the air.
“What about…your laptop?” Charles asked.
Striding over to the overstuffed purple and pink chair in the corner that was supposed to be used for reading but never was because of all the clothes that were piled on it, I rummaged underneath them and pulled it out. “One laptop!”
The crew looked at each other, impressed. Even Laurel looked surprised that I had been able to find it. “What about ‘The Official Crush Log of the Girls at the Center for Creative Learning in New York, New York?” she asked.
“What’s ‘The Official Crush Log of the Girls at the Center for Creative Learning in New York, New York’?” Wendi asked.
“Thanks, Laurel,” I said under my breath as I felt my face get red. Now everyone in America was going to know about my logs? “It’s just this place where everyone gets to list their local, long-distance-slash-vacation, and celebrity crushes.”
As Wendi and her group looked at one another, I felt my head sink down into my shoulders, like a turtle going back into its shell. I waited for them to burst into laughter. Instead they all began to nod their heads and hmmm and mmmm.
“Honey, that is so cute!” Wendi peeped. “What a fantastic idea!”
My head began to rise up again. “You think so?”
“Oh yes. It’s just darling,” she replied. The rest of them nodded in agreement.
I was back to my normal height. “Thanks.” I smiled.
“So where is it?” Laurel asked.
I walked over to my night table, which had a bunch of stuff piled on it in such a way that it looked like a mini Tower of Pisa. As I reached my hand into the middle of it and yanked, the group gasped, even more so when the pile stayed upright, kind of like when a magician pulled a tablecloth out without dumping over the plates. “It’s right here,” I said proudly.
“How’d you do that?” Wendi gasped.
I shrugged. “When you’re a creatively organized person, you kind of have to learn how to do those types of things. Otherwise you really make a mess,” I explained. “You want to see my advice notebook?” I asked.
They nodded.
“Great. It’s right…” Uh-oh.
“So you don’t know where it is?” Laurel asked smugly.
“Of course I do. It’s…” Where was it? Finally, I remembered and walked over to my drawers, opening the one that held my socks. “Right here,” I said, holding it up.
“In your sock drawer?” Laurel asked.
“Yeah. “’Cause the last thing I wrote down was about how important it is to wear comfortable shoes,” I explained.
Nikko shrugged. “Makes sense to me.”
“So you want to hear some of my advice?” I asked the group.
They nodded.
I thumbed through the pages. Where to start? With how to stop yourself from completely soaking your leg in winter by stepping into a snow puddle as you cross the street? (Make sure to tap around on the edges to see if it’s solid or not before stepping.) What to do when you’re talking to someone with really awful breath? (Just happen to arrange for a pack of gum to fall out of your bag right near their feet and when they pick it up to hand it to you, say, “Thanks so much. You’re totally welcome to have a piece if you want.”) It was all so good that to deny them any of the great advice that I had carefully put together felt wrong. I looked up at them. “I’ll just start at the beginning,” I said before clearing my throat. “Important Pieces of Advice. By Lucy B. Parker,” I read.
At first they seemed a little bored. (Personally, I thought that the bit I had gotten from Rose about using peanut butter to get gum out of your hair was pretty brilliant, but from the looks on their faces, they didn’t agree.) But when I flipped to the chapter entitled “How to Get Along with Others…Especially When They’re Being Super Annoying,” they perked up.
“Wait—can you read that one again?” Charles asked. “The one about right and happy?”
“Sure,” I said. “When you’re having an argument with someone—even if you’re absolutely, positiv
ely sure what you’re saying is correct, and know that you could prove it if they’d just let you Google it—think about this: Would you rather be right, or would you rather be happy?” I read. “Because sometimes being right, while it might make YOU happy, ends up making the other person very UNhappy, which therefore cancels out your happiness.”
“Huh. Interesting,” he said as he glanced at Wendi. “I know a few people in particular who could really benefit from keeping that in mind.”
“And the one about the finger pointing?” Camilla asked.
I flipped back a few pages. “Remember that when you point a finger at someone, there are three pointing back at you,” I read. “So if someone is doing something that really annoys you, chances are, you might be guilty of that yourself at times.”
“Oh, I just love that one,” Wendi chirped. “It’s utterly super.”
Laurel looked at her watch. “It’s time for me to go to the school for the blind to do some research. I thought maybe you’d like to get some footage of me there, Wendi.”
Wendi turned to her. “Oh, honey—that sounds interesting, but it’s kind of, you know, really depressing,” she said. “And research has shown that if something is too depressing, viewers tend to change the channel.” She turned back to me. “Lucy, you’re just terrific at this advice stuff. I completely understand why they gave you your own column in the school newspaper.”
“Thanks,” I said. Now didn’t seem like the right time, but once we were all done shooting, maybe I’d take Beatrice’s suggestion to see if Wendi might be interested in spinning me off into my own show. That’s how Dr. Maude had gotten her start after appearing on a famous talk show host named Ophira’s show a bunch of times.
“Well, what about afterward?” Laurel said. “When I’m practicing my synchronized swimming?” Feeling her character needed a hobby, the producers had made the screenwriter add in this whole thing about how, before she went blind, Jenny was training to go to the Olympics for synchronized swimming.
Wendi turned to Camilla. “What do you think?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Eh.”
Wendi turned back to Laurel. “Honey, why don’t you go do your thing and we’ll just stay here with Lucy?” she said.
“Oh. Okay,” she said, disappointed. “Well, have fun.” She walked toward the door, trying to muster a smile. “I wish I could stay and hang out with you.” But I could tell from the sound of her voice and the way that her eyes weren’t smiling that she didn’t mean it. That was covered in the section of the advice notebook entitled “When People Are Acting Weird.” (Also in this section was “When a parent is dating someone, and they say, ‘Things are getting serious,’ chances are, soon enough they’ll be sitting you down to tell you they’re getting married.” Followed by the advice, “If a parent says they need to talk to you and then takes you to a restaurant to do it, make sure you pick one that has excellent desserts because they’re going to feel so guilty for what it is that they’re about to tell you that you’ll probably get to order whatever you want.”)
When Laurel got to the door, she turned around. “What about shopping?!” she asked. “Do you want to film me shopping? Viewers love watching celebrities go shopping, don’t they? I mean, I know I do.”
Wendi nodded. “They sure do. And I definitely think we should do that—”
“What time?”
“—some other day,” Wendy finished. She turned back to me. “Now back to your advice.”
“Well, see you,” Laurel mumbled as she slunk out.
I stood up. “Excuse me just a second,” I said, and I ran after Laurel.
“Hey, are you okay?” I asked as I found her grabbing her cane and dark glasses near the front door.
“Of course I’m okay,” she snapped, sounding very not okay. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought maybe because—”
But before I could say, “because of the fact that they’re paying attention to me and not you,” she had walked out and slammed the door behind her.
I opened the door. “I know I’m not a director or anything, “I called after her, “but I don’t think a blind person would move so fast!”
But the elevator doors had already closed behind her before I got the whole thing out.
Dear Dr. Maude,
I’m not sure what you’re doing two weeks from now, but if things keep going the way they are then I have a feeling the wedding won’t be happening. Which means I’ll be in town, rather than at the Black Horse Inn in Vermont. So maybe we can hang out and take your dachshunds, Id and Ego, for a walk in Central Park. Also, I don’t know if you like thrift stores and flea markets, but I’ve become an expert on the ones in New York, so I’d be happy to take you around to some. Oh, and in case you’re worried about there being bedbugs in the stuff they sell there, you don’t have to. I’ve bought a bunch of stuff, including cowboy boots, and I’ve never had a problem. Not even athlete’s foot.
I have a feeling that if you DID read my letters you might think that I tend to exaggerate on account of the fact that a lot of things end up working out in my life. Like, say, me and Laurel becoming friends despite the Hat Incident. Or me beating Cristina Pollock in the election. However, a lot of things DON’T work out for me. Like, say, me getting my period. Or stopping my boobs from growing.
Which is why I’m not kidding when I say that I don’t think this blended family thing is going to work. Mom walks around like she’s plugged into an electrical outlet; Laurel only talks to me in one-word sentences (can a sentence only be one word?); and Alan spends all his time online checking the extended forecast to monitor any upcoming snowstorms that might interfere with the wedding. I just want things to go back to how they were, you know?
Any advice on that?
yours truly,
Lucy B. Parker
Not knowing where else to turn, I decided to go to Northampton for advice. Not literally, but via Skype.
“I know you’re bored just lying there in your crib staring at the ceiling most of the day, Zig,” I said into the computer as Dr. Maude napped on my head, “but I have to tell you—I hope you’re not in too much of a hurry to grow up because sometimes it’s really not fun.”
Most people would say it was my imagination, but at that, Ziggy made a thumbs-down sign with his tiny left hand.
“Exactly,” I said. “But I have some news that might make you happy.”
At that, he turned his head and cocked it to the side. Maybe some people would’ve thought that was just a coincidence, but I knew better.
“The news is” —I leaned into the screen— “I might be coming to live with you.”
At that he squealed so loud, it almost burst my eardrums.
“Ouch.” I cringed. “Look, I know you’re excited, but the squealing thing is not cool, Ziggy. In fact, it’s really annoying. Did you pick that up from Marissa?” I demanded.
He giggled.
I sighed. “I knew I should have told Dad she wasn’t the right babysitter for you.”
Suddenly, Dad’s face filled the screen. Actually, his ponytail filled the screen. Even though he was a guy, he wasn’t very guy-like when it came to electronic stuff and never knew where to look on the webcam. “Lucy, what are you talking about you might be coming to live with us?”
I jumped. That was one of the problems with talking to a baby who didn’t know how to talk yet. They couldn’t say things like “Adult at ten o’clock.”
“Dad, you were overlistening!” I cried.
“No, I wasn’t,” he replied. “The door was open, and at the exact moment that I was walking by, I got a cramp in my leg and had to stop to massage it.”
I rolled my eyes. That was the oldest excuse in the book. When you were an expert overlistener like I was, you knew these things. “So how are you?” I asked, changing the subject. “Any interesting photo shoots lately? Ooh—did Mr. Campbell hire you again to do Sam dressed as Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reinde
er?!”
Dad was what they called a “fine art photographer”—meaning he took pictures of things that were sometimes so blurry you couldn’t even tell what they were (I’m not sure why that was considered art, but it was). Because people didn’t always want pictures of blurry objects, or hands, or the corner of a bridge that was blown up so big that you could no longer tell it was a bridge, he sometimes took family portraits to make extra money. And, around the holidays, he took pet portraits that people then used for their holiday cards, like Sam the Dalmatian as Rudolph. Those were my favorite. Back when I lived in Northampton I used to be Dad’s assistant for those shoots.
“Don’t change the subject,” he said as his nostrils filled the screen.
“Ew—Dad! Can you please move back?!” I cried.
As he moved the laptop back, I could finally see him normally. Ever since having Ziggy, he looked so…dad-like. Not Alan-dad-like, meaning bald with unfaded jeans that were too high at the waist and too short at the feet. But he had cut his hair a bit, so his ponytail wasn’t as long. He looked like a man trying to grow a ponytail rather than someone who had had one his whole life.
“Is this better?” he asked.
I nodded. “Hey, so how was that special you and Sarah were about to watch on the Discovery Channel the other night?” I asked, still trying to change the subject. “The one about how following an ayurvedic diet can help you live to 117?”
At that, Ziggy made a raspberry sound. I knew from Sarah that ayurveda was this Indian way of eating for your body type. And I also knew from her that according to the people who practiced it, pizza and ice cream weren’t considered good for anyone’s body type, which immediately made it something I wasn’t interested in hearing more about, even though Sarah thought I should follow it because it would help me with my oily skin.
“It was interesting,” he said. “But you’re still changing the subject.”
I took a deep breath. “Dad, this whole wedding thing is a total mess,” I blurted out. As I told him all about The Change, I felt my stomach begin to unknot. Maybe there was something to this whole communication thing my parents were so big on. I told him how Laurel and I were fighting; about the running tally I was keeping of how many times Mom called her “honey” and “sweetie” versus me (Laurel—22, me—19); and about how every time a person used the word wedding in front of Mom she got all freaked out and looked like she was going to throw up.