by Sonya Sones
What if we do it and then he just dumps me?
Like my father did to my mother.
Mom used to say that I should wait until I was married.
But a fat lot of good that did her.
Dear Mom,
How we things in Kingdom Come? ☺ I just checked! my e-mail box. Except for-the usual “Returned mail: Host unknown” message (and one very tempting offer to have my penis enlarged) it was empty. Again. Obviously, I didn’t expect you to write to me, but I hoped that Lizzie would. She hasn’t e-mailed me for like four days. Has she forgotten all about me? I sure haven’t forgotten about her. Or you. I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately, Mom. I’ve been thinking about how pissed I am at you. Pissed at you for dying. Pissed at you for leaving me. Pissed at you for wrecking my whole entire life.
In fact, I’m so pissed at you right now, that I’d be wishing you were dead, if you weren’t dead already.
Love u 4 Ever (but hate you today),
Ruby
Weekends with Whip
Every Friday after school
Whip whisks me away
on yet another so-called “bonding trip.”
Last weekend,
we sailed to Catalina.
I practically puked my guts out.
The weekend before that,
he dragged me to Legoland in San Diego.
What was he thinking?
The weekend before that,
we stayed in a cabin in the middle of nowhere
at this place called Zaca Lake.
There were bugs there the size of watermelons.
And the weekend before that,
Whip took me to Las Vegas
to play tic-tac-toe with a live chicken.
Funsies.
Whip never asks me where I want to go.
He never asks me what I want to do.
He says he gets a kick out of surprising me.
Has he ever
stopped to think
that maybe I don’t like surprises?
That maybe I’m tired of listening
to the story of his life?
And tired of all his nosy questions about mine?
Max says Whip’s just trying to show me
how much he wants to get to know me.
But I say he’s a decade and a half too late.
The Only Great Weekend I’ve Had Since I’ve Been Here
Was the one just after school first started,
when Whip had to go up to Vancouver
to reshoot the ending of Severe Tire Damage,
his latest piece of crap.
So Max and I got to hang out alone together.
I know he was only doing his job.
That Whip was paying him overtime to baby-sit me.
But Max never made me feel that way.
Not even for a second.
We just stayed around the house—
swimming, shooting hoops, listening to Eminem,
ordering in pizza and Chinese food,
telling each other bad jokes,
playing Scrabble, arm wrestling …
I loved every boring minute of it.
“You’ve Got Mail”
The little man sounds so happy for me.
And he should be:
there’s finally an e-mail from Lizzie.
Finally.
After five whole days
of shameless neglect.
I practically inhale each word,
the lump that’s lodged in my throat
expanding at an alarming rate.
First she apologizes
for not writing me sooner,
but she says her computer crashed
and she couldn’t call me
since The Evil Stepmom wouldn’t let her
because the phone bill’s been astronomical.
Then she tells me all about this amazing party
she went to last night at David Schweitzer’s.
About how absolutely everyone was there.
Including Ray.
And about how much fun they all had
bouncing in the moon bounce.
And about how Ray totally agreed with her that
it would have qualified as a peak experience,
if only I had been there, too.
Oh, Lizzie,
Lizulah, Lizorama,
I miss that raspy voice of yours.
And that funny rumbly laugh.
I’ve got to hear it.
Right now!
I grab the phone.
You’ll still be up.
It’s only ten o’clock.
I dial your number.
It rings.
You say, “Hello?”
But something’s wrong.
You sound listless,
groggy
That’s when I remember: it’s one o’clock in the morning in Massachusetts.
I hang up without saying a word,
too embarrassed to admit
it was me that woke you.
Now I’m just sitting here, gritting my teeth,
wishing I could scream it all out,
like one of those howlers from my dream.
But the last thing I want
is Whip all over me,
asking me to tell him what the matter is.
So I keep a lid on it.
West Coast Blues
It just isn’t fair
that Liz and Ray are there
while I’m stuck in L.A.,
day after sucky day.
It just isn’t fair
that Liz and Ray are there,
having so much fun
while I’m having
none.
Well, Almost None
I did manage to have a little fun
on my walk home from school today.
I’d just passed by Hamburger Hamlet,
when I saw this Latino guy,
not much older than me,
selling maps to the movie stars’ homes.
He didn’t say anything.
Just smiled the saddest smile in the world
and held out one of the maps for me to see.
I asked him how many maps he had.
And then I bought
every single one of them.
The lights that switched on in the guy’s eyes
told me I’d just made his day.
Maybe even his week.
I can do things like that now.
Because Whip gives me
an embarrassingly huge allowance.
I’ve always hated rich people.
Thought they were shallow
and stuck up
and snotty and spoiled.
Now I am a rich person.
How weird is that?
Not quite as weird as the fact
that my house is on the map! And hey, I didn’t know that we lived
six doors away from Kevin Spacey …
By the way, you don’t happen to know
thirty-six people with a burning desire
to know where Mel Gibson lives, do you?
Hi Roobie,
It’s me, Lizzie. And guess who’s sitting here right next to me? R-A-Y!
Hey, Ruby Dooby.
That was Ray. But I shoved him out of the way because he’s such a pitiful typist. It took him almost 5 minutes just to type those 3 words! Ray says to tell you that that’s not even slightly true. He says to tell you that I’m just a pushy bi—Hey, wait a minute!
Anyhow, we’re at my house working on this mega-dumb math project together. Ms. Welford says we have to take a small object and make an exact replica of it that’s 14 times bigger than actual size. We chose a Tic Tac box. We’ve worked on this idiotic thing every day after school for a week now and we aren’t even halfway through. Ray says to tell you, “This bites, babe.”And to complicate matters, The Evil Stepmom says she won’t let me go to the Halloween dance next Saturday night unless we’re finished by then. Ray says to te
ll you, “HELP!!!!!”
Loads of love from the Tic Tac Zombies
P.S. All your worries about You-know-who are unfounded. Trust me.
P.P.S. Ray’s demanding to know who You-know-who is. But I’m refusing to tell him. I guess he’ll just have to wonder, won’t he?
Dear Lizziopolis,
I loved your e-mail. But next time e-mail me when Ray’s not around, okay? So you can really fill me in. On everything. And please, don’t mention You-know-who in front of him again! if he starts asking you a lot of questions, he may figure out how truly insecure I am about our relationship. Which would be deeply awful …
How’s Project Tic Tac going? Will it be done in time for you to go to the dance? I sure hope so. Someone’s got to keep me up to date on the continuing saga of Ray and Amber …
Love,
Ruby
P.S. I was walking home from school yesterday and I saw Queen Latifah on a skateboard. I swear to God!
Dear Rube,
Don’t say I never did anything for you. The only reason I asked Ray to be my partner on this stupid project in the first place was to keep Amber from asking him. Which she obviously would have, if I hadn’t beaten her to it.
But I had no idea how pathetic Ray is at math. I have to explain everything to him over and over again. I’ve been way internalizing my anger so that I don’t cause permanent damage to his delicate male ego. But this project would be 14 times easier to do without him! You owe me one. Big time.
Grouchily yours,
Liz
P.S. I was walking home from school yesterday and I saw Bernie Glipman on a bench. I swear to God!
Halloween’s Not Till Tomorrow
But apparently it’s a Lakewood tradition
to celebrate a day ahead of time.
(A tradition no one bothered to inform me of.)
Absolutely everyone’s in costume.
And I don’t mean
the tacky kind you buy at Target.
These things look like they’re on loan
from major motion picture studios.
Which is probably because—they are!
Colette says that her mother
is friends with the guy who owns
Miramax.
That’s why they let her borrow
that shimmery dance costume
that Renée Zellweger wore in Chicago.
Wyatt says that his Uncle Jack
(by which I think he means Nicholson!)
pulled a few strings over at New Line Cinema.
That’s how he got hold of that Frodo costume.
He says it’s the actual one
Elijah Wood wore in The Lord of the Rings.
And he looks way cute in it …
When Wyatt asks me why I’m not in costume,
I tell him I am—
that I’m dressed as:
The Only Person at Lakewood
Who Isn’t Wearing a Costume.
He laughs at this,
and then he does that thing
with his left eyebrow again.
And asks me if I’d like to go
to the Halloween dance with him
tomorrow night!
I’m Speechless
So at first
I just shake my head no.
Then I explain
that Whip’s throwing his annual Halloween Ball
and I’m really sorry but there’s no way
I can get out of going to it.
And it’s only after Wyatt blinds me with his smile,
only after he rests one of his beautiful hands
on each of my shoulders,
gazes into my eyes and says, “Some other time …,”
only after he turns and saunters away,
that I suddenly realize I should have told him
that even if Whip wasn’t throwing a party
I couldn’t have gone to the dance with him.
Because I have a boyfriend back east.
That’s what I should have done.
But I didn’t.
What is the matter with me?
After School
Max and I
are lazing on two rubber rafts
in the middle of the pool,
floating in a galaxy of sun stars,
talking about life and love.
“Okay, Aunt Max,” I say.
“I’m in love with Ray, right?”
“Right,” he says.
“Then how come
I keep flirting with Wyatt?”
Max considers this.
“Well, maybe it’s because
sometimes your body does things
that your heart disapproves of. At least mine does.”
“You skank!” I cry.
Max splashes me.
“Look who’s talking!” he says.
I’m not a skank!” I say, splashing him back.
“That’s exactly my point,” he says.
“Are you in love with anyone, Max?”
My question seems to take him aback.
But he recovers quickly and says, “Yes. I am.”
“Then why haven’t you introduced me to him?”
“Your dad thought you might not approve.”
I’m stunned.
“You mean, he knows you’re gay?”
“Of course,” Max says. “Doesn’t everybody?”
“Oh. Sure,” I say,
trying to act like I knew that.
“What’s your boyfriend’s name?” I ask.
“Ripley,” he says.
“That’s not a very hunky name,” I say.
“He doesn’t look like a Ripley,” Max says.
What does a Ripley look like …?
Then I take a deep breath
and ask Max another question,
since we’re on the subject of love:
“Is there something going on
between Whip and Cameron?”
Max raises an eyebrow.
“Sorry, Ruby,” he says. “I’m sworn to secrecy.
If you want to know the answer
to that particular question,
you’ll have to ask your father.”
Yeah, right. Like I’d ever ask him.
Happy Halloween?
Whip and Max
and a cast of thousands
have spent the whole day
turning his palm forest
into a haunted cemetery.
They’ve rigged up leaping skeletons,
and all these mist machines
and spooky lights,
tested out recordings of evil cackling,
carved scary grins onto dozens of pumpkins,
and planted hundreds of grave stones.
I’ve watched it all from my bedroom window,
trying to push away the memory of Mom’s casket
being slowly lowered into the ground,
push away the memory of the echoing thud
that the wilted bouquet of roses made
when I tossed them down to her.
I am so not in the mood to party …
But, all of a sudden,
Whip’s hair guy and makeup lady
and wardrobe woman show up at my door
and start morphing me into Cinderella,
like a trio of fairy-tale mice.
Maybe I could party just a little …
Dear Lizterene,
Well? How was the dance? What was your costume? Who did you dance with? Was Ray there? Was Amber? What was she dressed as? Let me guess: a hooker? I bet she asked Ray to slow dance with her … Oh, I can’t bear thinking about it. But I can’t stop thinking about it. Lizzie, you have got to tell me everything! What happened at that dance?!
Whip’s bash boggled the mind. Try to imagine a party without any wannabes, just bes. There were so many movie stars wandering around here that I felt like I’d fallen right into the pages of People magazine. Everyone you can think of was here: Julia Ro
berts, Nicole Kidman, Jack Black, Reese Witherspoon. Even Ashton Kutcher and Ben Affleck, and that guy Damon Wayans with a couple of his brothers. When I was introduced to Steve Martin, he pinched my cheek and told me I’d grown into a fine young woman! And Leonardo DiCaprio kissed my hand, I swear to God! I kept wishing that you were here with me. But, on the other hand, I’m glad you were at the dance—so you can report on if anything happened between Amber and Ray DID IT? Come on, Lizzie, you have got to tell all.
xxx,
Ruby
P.S. Cameron was at the party, too, but she and Whip acted like they were “just good friends.” I wonder what the truth
Dear Ray,
Well? I hope you guys finished the Tic Tac box in time for Lizzie to go to the dance. Did you go, too? Was it fun?
I met loads of famous people at Whip’s Halloween party, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck, and Ashton Kutcher. They’re even sexier in person than they are in the movies. But not nearly as sexy as you. I can’t believe I’m going to see you in person - in just 25 days. I’m so excited!
xxx
Dooby
Even Whip’s Getting Into the Spirit of It Now
This afternoon he asked me to tell him what Ray was into.
And when I told him Ray wants to be an architect,
these two light bulbs switched on in his eyes.
He popped me into his 1953 Skylark roadster
and took me right over to this cool store
that specializes in books on architecture.
We spent a couple of hours there,
looking through the books together,
picking out a pile of them for the guest room.
Then we bought a deluxe set of wooden blocks.
“Just in case Ray gets inspired
while he’s out here,” Whip said.
I have to admit
that was sort of a cool idea,
even though blocks are for kids.
Maybe Ray and I will even play with them
when he comes out here …
build a model of Ruby’s Slipper together …
Some days
it’s a little harder to dislike my father
than others.
In the Guest Room
I put a few of the books
on the coffee table
in front of the love seat.
I set a couple of them
in the magazine rack in his bathroom.
And the rest I arrange on the shelves.
I pile the blocks into
a big wicker basket by the French doors
that open out to Ray’s balcony.