by Mary Amato
I stopped in the bathroom and smiled at myself again in the mirror.
This might actually be fun.
Downstairs, my mom was sitting at the computer in the kitchen with a huge mug of coffee in one hand, scrolling through her Facebook posts.
“I got a job,” I announced.
She didn’t respond.
“I got a job, Mom,” I repeated.
She looked up. “What?”
“I got a job at Get Happy, doing kids’ birthday parties. I go for training on Saturday.”
“What in the world are you talking about?”
“I went to an audition with Fin for a job and I made it. We both made it.”
She turned to face me, finally listening. “Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”
“I didn’t know if I’d make it.”
Her face squinched. “Get Happy?”
“Yes. Get Happy. You can look them up. Get Happy, Incorporated. It’s a big company. They’re opening a new branch.”
Her fingernails began clacking on the keyboard. She was silent as she searched through the site, clicking on the various pictures, lingering on one with a girl in a princess costume, singing in front of an obviously staged living room full of smiling children. “I don’t know about this, Minny. The idea of going into strange people’s houses …”
“I knew you’d say something like that. It’s not strange people, Mom.”
“What if it’s a pervert’s house?”
I laughed. “It’s going to be a five-year-old’s house, Mom. I don’t think there are many five-year-old perverts.”
“It could be a pervert pretending to have a five-year-old.”
I gave her a kiss on the cheek and did a little waltz around the kitchen. “Mom, go back to Facebook and don’t worry so much.”
She smiled. “It’s my job to keep you safe.”
“I’ll be safe. You should be happy I have a job, Mom.”
“I’m pretty darn sure I could get you a job at the mall.”
I hugged her. “This is a job singing.”
“I just want to make sure this is legitimate. You have to be careful these days.”
“It’s not a scam. It’s a national thing.” I grabbed a banana from the counter. “By the way, Fin is coming. We have to go over our scripts.”
“I’m going to read up on this Get Happy thing. Did you clean your room?”
“Yes, Mommy.” Calling her mommy usually put her in a good mood for some reason.
“Did you do a thorough job?”
“Thorough enough for me.”
“Thorough enough for me?”
“You don’t have to sleep there.”
“Honey, if I go up there and discover that you didn’t do a good job …”
“I’m going. I’m going.”
I DECIDED THEN and there to stop thinking about the whole Keanu Choy thing. I didn’t have to prove who he was, because I knew I didn’t want to have anything to do with him. It didn’t matter if he was a hotshot scientist or a convict. Either way, he’d left us high and dry, and if he thought one little necklace was going to make me forgive and forget, he could just jump off his boat and get eaten by sharks. I had a job and I was going to earn money. I was going to buy myself a uke and live happily ever after.
Fin came over, and we made hot chocolate and watched Get Happy videos on YouTube and read through our scripts like good little employees. The whole Get Happy enterprise was extremely corny, but it felt liberating to have something positive to focus on.
I stood up and said in my new, giddy Get Happy voice: “Let’s be the best singing mermaid and pirate Joy Banks has ever seen. Let’s make Joy Banks so excited she barfs.”
Some people hear other people’s words as conversation. Fin hears other people’s words as cues. He immediately launched into singing the Get Happy song. I joined in, and we sang and danced around my room like insane asylum inmates. Thankfully, Joy Banks was not there to witness it, because if she had, she probably would have fired us. With a smile, of course.
Don’t send me pearls or shiny things,
Don’t give me any bling.
I’m not a girl who likes the tangled strings of debt.
Don’t give me gifts so I’ll forget
Mistakes you made, you’ll lose that bet.
My heart’s an iron fist inside my chest.
Been giving it, giving it, giving it thought.…
I will not be bought.
I got tens and Benjamins,
Got ’em from the ATM.
Money makes the world go round.
Gotta have that ching, ching sound.
If our roads should intersect,
Turn to the right, and I’ll go left
Elect to swerve and let’s avoid the wreck.
Don’t think I’ll behave the way
You want me to. Don’t hold your breath.
You’ll get depressed. I’m not some Juliet.
I’ll buy dresses, feather beds,
A brand-new house of gingerbread.
I’ll buy the dye and dye my hair bright red.
Cash my checks and buy some leather,
Velvet gloves for colder weather.
Buy some love for me and all my friends.
No, no, no, no,
I’m not gonna owe you,
Not gonna owe you,
Not gonna owe you, oh …
7
TRAINING DAY
MY MOM INSISTED on driving me and Fin to the Get Happy office. The sun was out and it was abnormally warm — I mean take-your-coat-off warm — and most of the snow had melted.
When we stopped to get Fin, his two little brothers were kicking the soccer ball around and his dad was outside, too, in his big green muddy boots, tossing small branches and twigs into a wheelbarrow. I rolled down my window.
“Hi, Pat. Hey, Min darlin’. Congrats on your first real job.” He took off his gardening gloves and walked over to the car. I’ve always loved Finnegan’s dad. He was born and raised in Ireland and still has an Irish accent and all these freckles and reddish-brown hair that sticks up. Meteors could be headed toward Illinois, and everybody would panic and run around screaming their heads off, except Fin’s dad, who would continue to calmly and cheerfully pick up twigs.
Fin walked out, and his brothers kicked the ball at him. He roared them away and got in the car.
“Have fun!” Mr. O’Connor said.
My mom wanted to come in and meet Joy, but I said absolutely not. She had already called Joy to make sure it was legitimate. We started having a big fight in the car, and Fin tried to negotiate peace, which didn’t help, and I finally opened the door. “We are getting out now, Mom. And if you come in, I will die.”
The heavens parted and, lo and behold, she showed me infinite mercy by driving away without saying another word.
As we walked up to the front door, Hayes arrived on foot, a big smile on his face, and shook our hands again, which cracked us up. “Minerva Watson and Finnegan O’Connor, future entertainers of young children, a pleasure to see you again.”
“Hayes Martinelli, giver of plakettes,” I said, “a pleasure to see you, too.” And then I felt self-conscious, wondering if it was pathetic that I remembered the stone and his improvisational word for it, but he just laughed.
When we walked into the Get Happy office, Joy stood up from her desk and applauded.
“Wow,” Hayes whispered. “I feel so loved.”
“She is a desperate woman,” I whispered back.
Cassie walked in. “Finally some great weather!” She twirled around, her coat flying open, another short skirt with bare legs.
“Yay! Here’s my princess!” Joy said. “We’re going to go over your scripts, learn the Get Happy theme song, and practice the games that you’ll each be leading. But, to put everybody in the Get Happy mood, first we’re going to try on our costumes!” She wheeled out a rack with four large white garment bags and four white boxes.
&
nbsp; “I was thinking of doing my hair up like this,” Cassie said, and in one deft motion, she swept her long hair into an updo.
“Yes!” Joy said. “Perfect. These are high-quality costumes, so take good care of them. Your costume goes in the garment bag, your accessories go in your box. We meet here, change here, and then I take everybody in the van and do a drop-off and pickup.” She pulled the first bag and box off the rack — Cassie’s — and started going over it with her.
“Shoot me now,” Hayes whispered.
“You’re a cowboy,” Fin said. “You can shoot yourself.”
“I don’t think that’s the proper Get Happy attitude,” I said.
“What’s up with cowboys anyway? Why are kids supposed to want a cowboy party? What do cowboys even do?”
“They eat beans and sit around the campfire,” Fin said. “And then they do it with the cows.”
I laughed. “Get Happy is probably thinking more like Woody.”
Fin started singing the theme song from Toy Story and then he said, “Golly, Hayes, everybody wants a cowboy friend because they’re loyal and brave and true.”
“Aw, shucks,” Hayes said. “You’re right.”
“Darn tootin’,” I added.
I was next. Joy handed over my garment bag and box. I lifted the lid off and pulled out a wig of long red hair. Fin pulled a wig of dreadlocks out of his box. We looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“Let’s see yours,” I said to Hayes.
He pulled out a cowboy hat and a fake gun. He pulled the gun’s trigger, and a flag popped out, which said HAPPY BIRTHDAY.
Joy snatched it. “Oh, rattlefinks! I meant to put that away. We had complaints, so we can’t use it anymore.”
Fin glanced at me, loving “rattlefinks,” and trying not to laugh out loud.
“I don’t get a gun,” Hayes said. “I don’t get a wig. What kind of cowboy am I?”
I nudged my box toward him. “Wanna switch?”
He smiled. “I guess cowboy ain’t so bad.”
Dimples aren’t fair. They make it very hard to focus.
“Try on your costumes and let me know if anything needs adjusting.” Joy gestured to the back. Curtains suspended from rods separated the back of the room into two changing areas. “Hayes, you can wear your own jeans with your outfit.”
Cassie and I took our costumes into our area. This is going to be fun, I told myself. Just have fun.
With serious difficulty and mounting horror, I pulled on the tan bodysuit, positioned the stiff, seashell-shaped pink cups, and then struggled into a tight green tube skirt with iridescent chiffon flounces at the bottom — the fins of a mermaid tail.
“That is so pretty,” Cassie lied through her perfect teeth. “I wish I got the mermaid.”
I looked at myself in the mirror. My hips and thighs looked enormous.
“Help me with mine.” She turned so I could zip up her white satin princess dress. “It fits.” She spun around in front of the mirror and then she went out to show Joy.
Fin’s voice came from the other side of the curtain. “These pants make my butt look HUGE. I want to wear my own jeans, like Hayes.”
“No,” Joy called out.
“Can I skip the wig and wear my own hair?” I called.
“No.”
“This is a disaster,” I whispered to Fin through the curtain. “I hate you for getting me involved with this.” I put on my long red wig and tiara, picked up the glittering pink trident.
“Rattlefinks, I need eyeliner,” Fin said, and then started laughing.
“Boys do not wear eyeliner,” Joy called out.
I braced for the side view. “This is truly hideous. Fin …”
“Seriously. I need eyeliner,” he whispered through the curtain. “And a tan.”
“I need a tan, too,” I said. “I look like a corpse.”
“We need to buy some of that fake tan-in-a-tube stuff. Wait. I think I put the shirt on backward.”
Hayes’s voice came through: “These buttonholes are too small for the buttons. How do cowboys live this like?”
I turned to see how the tail looked from the back. “Joy, can I be something different?” I asked through the curtain. “This costume doesn’t fit.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You have to be a mermaid, Minerva,” Fin said, and did the evil witch laugh from the Little Mermaid movie. “Remember how we decided that our utility closet was Ursula’s true lair and that her evil minions lived in the water heater?”
“We didn’t decide that,” I said. “You told me that, and you were completely convincing. I was terrified. I’ve been terrified of utility closets ever since.”
Hayes’s voice: “I look ridiculous.”
Fin: “I want those boots. You are so lucky. Trade.”
Hayes: “Dude, the wig is hilarious.”
Joy: “Come out!”
Cassie, Fin, and Hayes were all together, laughing. I peeked out. Cassie linked arms with Hayes and Fin and started singing the Get Happy song. She looked amazing. They looked funny, but really cute. Fin’s pants were too long and the dreadlock wig was crooked, but he was rocking the frilly white pirate shirt and the vest. Hayes, lean and taller, looked uncomfortably adorable, like a cowboy who woke up and found himself in somebody else’s dream, with boots a little too big and hat a little too small.
“Get out here, Minerva,” Fin cried.
I could have dissolved into a puddle of self-loathing or taken off the costume and quit on the spot, but the less embarrassing thing was to play the clown. I put on a fake smile and walked out singing “Under the Sea.”
Fin howled and hugged me, crushing my pink shell cups. “Ariel.”
I bowed and my tiara fell off, which gave me something to do while Joy took a million photos of Cassie.
When she took one of Fin, he said, “Arrrrrgh,” and tried to pull his fake sword from his scabbard, but it got stuck and he swore.
“For heaven’s sake, don’t say that, Finnegan,” Joy said. “Say ‘fudderudder.’ ”
“Fudderudder!” Fin screamed, and the way he said it cheered me up for a moment and almost made me pee in my mermaid suit.
8
JEALOUSY REARS ITS UGLY HEAD
I WAS IN A VIM-and-vigory mood, getting ready for our first gigs, practicing my mermaid lines, and playing the Get Happy theme song on my fake cookie-tin uke in front of the mirror in my bedroom. I had the brilliant idea that, once I bought a real uke, I could play it for all the little kiddies at future birthday parties.
After school one day, I got up the nerve to return to Tenley’s Music Store to test-drive my new Get Happy material on the uke of my dreams.
If you love ukes, entering a music store and seeing a row of them hanging up is like swimming into a cave and discovering a hoard of treasures.
The guy behind the counter — the one with the disgusting chest-length beard — gave me this look when I walked in because I had been there so many times before. “Let me guess,” he said. “You’re in the market for an uke?”
That an was not a typo, by the way. He pronounces it oo-kulele, not you-kulele. He told me once in his usual condescending manner that it can be pronounced either way, but that true aficionados prefer oo-kulele. I appreciate vocabulary. I do not appreciate condescension.
“I have birthday money,” I told him. “I’ve narrowed it down to two models and I just need to play those to decide.”
He shot me a poisonous look and said: “You know which one you want. I know which one you want. This isn’t a practice studio. This is a store.”
“Please?” I stood for a moment, lurking in the doorway, drooling over the ukes. I’ll do anything, sir; I’ll trade my soul for one moment of happiness. Please?
He stepped from behind the counter, hoisting up his baggy jeans. “This is the last time.” He lifted the one I wanted off the hook and gave it to me with his hairy arms and then went back to his magazine.
Grateful
ly, I sat on an amp and played through the chord shapes that I had learned from the book Fin gave me. The uke just felt right in my arms. I’m little. It’s little. I pluck it, without really even knowing what I’m doing, and it sounds beautiful. Other instruments aren’t like that. Blow into a clarinet without knowing what you’re doing and it sounds like a dying seagull.
When another guy came in to actually buy something, I put the uke back and slipped out. For a while, I wandered around downtown Evanston, imagining a whole scenario in which I stroll into Tenley’s with my first paycheck and shock the mice right out of the guy’s beard by buying my uke. I would bring it to Get Happy parties and wow the children and parents by singing my own songs—clever and funny and impressive songs. Minerva the Mermaid would become the most popular children’s party entertainer in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, more popular, even than, say, the princess, because I would have some original talent to share. I love daydreams.
As I wandered, I also looked at stuff in shop windows, but really I was looking at my reflection, imagining how much better I would look if I had a uke sticking out of my backpack. I wanted people to see me and think, That girl is a songwriter. Maybe that seems shallow, but to be good at something, you have to first look the part.
SOMEWHERE IN the bottom of my brain, I remembered Cassie Lott saying that she was writing a blog about diving. I should have left that alone, because, really, in the big picture of my life, Cassie Lott should have meant nothing to me, but the murky undertow inside me was hoping that if I looked at it, I would discover she had a flaw — perhaps her writing would reveal a decidedly inferior vocabulary, for example — and I could hold her flaw up to the light and feel better about myself. A more highly evolved person would not have such a thought, and I am embarrassed to admit it. But at least I am being honest.
When I had a moment alone at home, I did a little search.
Seeing the Sea through My Eyes—
a blog by Cassie Lott
The blog was about scuba diving, not swim-team diving. When she had said her hobby was diving, I had erroneously pictured her on a diving board. Photoshopped into the background of her blog was her official scuba-diving certification card. The portrait on the right showed her on a beach in a short-sleeved wet suit, with her long wet hair pulled back by the face mask on her head. Her arms were muscular yet feminine, her abdomen as flat and hard as a surfboard.