My Life Undecided

by Jessica Brody

  But see, that’s where you come in. Yes, all of you out there (hopefully) reading this. I think I’ve proven that I clearly can’t be trusted to make my own choices. And that’s why I need YOU to make them for me. That’s right. Every single one of them. I’m done with it. I’m done with all of it. From now on, every decision I’m presented with will be posted here. On this blog. Followed by a simple multiple-choice poll. Then you vote on what you think I should do and I do it. Whatever the poll outcome is, I will follow it.

  No questions asked. No hesitations.

  People tell me I need to find some common sense and so this is me doing exactly that. This is me fixing the problem. YOU are my source of common sense. YOU are my voice of reason. Please don’t steer me wrong. I entrust my life to your (hopefully) capable hands.

  So without further ado, my first set of choices.

  1) In English class, we are being asked to choose between reading The Grapes of Wrath or The Old Man and the Sea. If you think I should read The Grapes of Wrath, please vote 1. If you think I should read The Old Man and the Sea, please vote 2.

  2) Lunchtime. No one will sit with me in the cafeteria (due to aforementioned judgment lapse), so I’ve been skipping the meal altogether and hiding out in the library until 5th period starts. But I think the lack of daily nutrients is starting to take its toll. What do you think I should do on Monday? If you think I should hide out again to save my reputation, please vote 1. If you think I should suck it up and accept my fate as the cafeteria lone ranger, please vote 2.

  So there you have it. This poll will close on Monday morning. PLEASE VOTE!!! I know they’re not earth-shattering or life-changing decisions, but they’re all I’ve got so far. Like I told you, my life sucks. Please continue to check back for more exciting stuff as it (hopefully) develops…

  Thanks for stopping by!

  Your ever-helpless but ever-hopeful new cyberspace friend,

  BB

  * * *

  Vive la Democracy!

  As soon as I finish typing and press “Publish,” I feel exhilarated. Free. Knowing that the good people of the World Wide Web are going to be taking care of me from now on. It’s like a weight’s been lifted off my shoulders. No more decision-making. No more choices. No more opportunities for me to screw up my life (even more than I already have). I’ve officially thrown my hands in the air and said, “World! Take the wheel! I’m tired of driving!” Of course this would be a much better metaphor if I were actually old enough to drive, but whatever.

  I mean, if the producers of reality shows can trust the public to pick the next great singing sensation or the most talented person in the country, then why shouldn’t I trust them, too? After all, we are a democracy. We vote on everything from presidents to idols to all-star sports teams, so why not take that model and apply it to my own life?

  Obviously the blog has to be anonymous, though. It’s not like I can advertise who I am. Besides, that’s not the point. It shouldn’t matter who I am, but rather, what I do. Plus, I can’t run the risk of someone from school stumbling on it and knowing that it was me who wrote it. I figure the nickname “BB” (for Baby Brooklyn) is appropriate for this occasion given the fact that it pretty much sums up everything that’s wrong with me.

  For the next twenty minutes I obsessively hit “Refresh” on my blog to see if anyone has voted, but the polls remain at 0 percent and the visitor counter ticks up to only 23 (the exact number of times I’ve hit “Refresh”). Eventually, though, my mother comes into the den with a loud throat-clear and tells me that my Internet time is up. So I reluctantly shut down and trudge back to my room.

  I know I need to rest before my long day tomorrow at the nursing home (gag!), but there’s just no possible way I can sleep tonight. I’m way too excited about my new idea. So instead I lie awake, staring at the ceiling, fantasizing about all the magical ways my life is bound to change from here on out, until I finally drift off around two a.m.

  My alarm goes off at seven, and seeing that my parents are still asleep, I tiptoe into the den and turn on the laptop again. I wait impatiently for it to boot up and then quietly tap my fingers against the keys until I’m back at my new blog site.

  Without wasting a second, I scroll down to the bottom of the posting. My eyes immediately light up when I see that there are already two votes on my poll. Two whole votes in less than twelve hours! That’s gotta be a good sign, right?

  The only problem is, one vote is for The Old Man and the Sea and the other is for The Grapes of Wrath. And for the other question, one person thinks I should hide out in the library at lunch on Monday and one person thinks I should suck it up and face the cafeteria crowd.

  Not super helpful.

  But the important thing is that people are voting. And it’s only been a few hours. There are sure to be more opinions by the end of the day.

  Before my parents are able to catch me using the Internet and ground me until age forty-one, I switch off the laptop and scamper back into my room to get dressed.

  An hour later I walk back through the front doors of Centennial Nursing Home (barely) ready to face another day of odorous hallways and grumpy old people. Gail looks about as happy to see me as I am to see her.

  Hey, at least the feeling is mutual.

  I think she kind of hoped that after the bedpan incident, I might have opted not to come back. And trust me, the thought did cross my mind. But then I considered all the other horrifying community service gigs that I might be assigned in place of this and so here I am.

  Despite the fact that she caught me snoozing in Mrs. Moody’s room yesterday afternoon, Gail still assigns me to read to her again. Because apparently Mrs. Moody’s disposition was noticeably more cheery this morning and the nurses seem to think that I might have had something to do with that. In spite of how much everyone around here wants to (and does) hate me.

  I have to admit, I’m a bit relieved when Gail gives me the order and I head down to room 4A. I mean, even though Mrs. Moody is…well, moody, reading to her sure beats scrubbing smelly bedpans.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Moody!” I announce, trying to sound pleasant as I push open the door and step into her room. The window shades are still drawn and the room feels dank and depressing.

  Mrs. Moody, still tucked tightly under the covers, looks up at me from the bed and gives me one of her patented glares. “Who are you?”

  So much for making a good impression.

  “I’m Brooklyn, remember? I came in here to read to you yesterday?”

  “No, I don’t remember,” she growls back. “And I don’t want you to touch any of my stuff.”

  “Baby Brooklyn.” I try to jog her memory and suddenly feel a new and unfamiliar sense of ownership and acceptance about the nickname. “The little girl who fell down the mine shaft.”

  I can tell that her memory is properly jogged because her scowl shifts ever so slightly and although she’s still far from happy to see me, she seems to grudgingly accept my presence. “What do you want?”

  “I thought maybe I could read to you again.”

  She lets out one of her infamous grunts and directs her gaze to the ceiling. I take that as a yes and head to the bookshelf in the corner, scanning the collection of You Choose the Story titles. “So what’s it going to be today, Mrs. Moody? Time travel? A deep-sea adventure? Mission to Mars?”

  “I don’t care,” she grumbles. So I pull a random title from the shelf and bring it back to the bed, dragging the chair along behind me.

  “Okay,” I say, getting comfortable and flipping open the book with an illustration of the Serengeti on the front. “Let’s go on a safari.”

  I’m about to turn past the title page when I notice an old, mangled sticker on the inside of the front cover. I hadn’t noticed one like it on the book we read yesterday, but then again, I wasn’t really paying much attention. I was too busy trying not to take Mrs. Moody’s death stares personally.

  The sticker is circular in shape and in th
e middle are big block letters spelling out the words “This book is the property of” and then a space underneath where someone has handwritten their name.

  “Who’s Nicholas Townley?” I ask, barely managing to read the fading, childlike scribbles.

  “No one!” Mrs. Moody snaps suddenly, much louder than usual. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”

  “Well, then why do you have his book?”

  “He’s no one!” she yells again.

  The cutting edge to her voice frightens me. And for someone whose emotional arsenal consists of grouchy and grouchier, that’s saying a lot. I look up to see Mrs. Moody’s face turning a bright, alarming shade of red as her fingers tightly clasp the edge of the blanket that’s covering her. And when I peer closer, I can actually see that her delicate, bony hands are shaking.

  I’m not quite sure what to do at this point. Is she having some sort of breakdown? Or a heart attack? I’m thinking that maybe I should call the nurse.

  But then, as if able to hear my thought process, Mrs. Moody commands, “Just read!”

  And so I do. I hastily turn the page and start reading the text much faster than the average pace. “‘You are an ambitious young zoologist on a safari in the great African Serengeti, hoping to study an endangered pack of exotic tigers…’”

  It seems to be working because out of the corner of my eye, I can see the clutch of her fingers loosening, the white splotches around her knuckles fading, and the color of her face slowly returning to normal. So I keep reading, arriving at our first choice on the bottom of page two.

  “Do you want to ask the guide for help or do you want to continue out into the wild on our own?”

  “Alone!” she instructs without taking a moment to think about it.

  Feeling my panic slowly dissipate, I turn to the corresponding page and continue reading, laughing quietly to myself. I see her sense of judgment hasn’t improved since yesterday.

  But I guess I’m not really one to criticize.

  After several failed attempts, we finally manage to spot one of the endangered exotic tigers we’ve been seeking, but Mrs. Moody proceeds to scare it away by choosing to take a flash photograph, even though I warned her that would happen. She finally drifts to sleep around failed attempt number fourteen and I close the book and slip it back onto the shelf. I pause for a moment and take the time to run my fingers across the spines of all the other You Choose the Story novels lining the bookcase. I simply can’t believe how many she has. I quietly count them and am shocked to find over forty in total. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the concept is fun and all, but it just seems such an odd obsession for a woman her age.

  I know I should probably just let it go and chalk it up to the bizarre antics of a senile old woman, but my curiosity gets the better of me and with a quick peek over my shoulder to make sure Mrs. Moody is still out like a light—and she is—I pull one of the titles from the shelf and open it. The same mysterious sticker appears on the inside cover. Property of Nicholas Townley. I check a few additional titles, including the one we read yesterday, and they all contain the same matching label.

  Whoever the heck this Nicholas Townley is, Mrs. Moody is now apparently in possession of his entire You Choose the Story collection. I suppose Nicholas’s mother could have sold the entire lot on eBay after her son grew up and moved out of the house and Mrs. Moody could have been the winning bidder. I mean, the books do look pretty old. And loads of people sell their old childhood stuff on the Internet. But that doesn’t really explain why she reacted the way she did when I brought up the name. Plus, Mrs. Moody doesn’t exactly strike me as the kind of woman who spends a lot of time on eBay…or any Web site for that matter.

  I glance back at the bed, sensing there’s something more to this story, but not quite sure what it is I’m looking for. Or if I’m ever going to find it by watching her sleep. Her eyelids are closed, her mouth is slightly agape, and the hardened lines on her forehead and around her jaw are strained and tense, like she’s dreaming about something particularly unpleasant.

  Jeez, she’s even moody in her sleep!

  I shrug the whole thing off and slide the book I’m holding back onto the shelf. I eye Mrs. Moody’s empty water glass on the nightstand, pick up the cup, and refill it from the bathroom sink. Then I tiptoe out of the room to find Gail, making a point to walk especially slooooow down the corridor toward the activity room, one millimeter step at a time. Since I’m definitely not in any rush to discover what thrilling task she has in store for me next.

  Plus, it’s not like anyone moves any faster around this place. So really, I’m just keeping pace with the rest of the hallway traffic.

  To Make Matters Worse

  The Grapes of Wrath it is!

  Oh my God. I actually got eleven votes in one day! Eleven people read my blog.

  I almost don’t believe it. I have to double-check the results e-mail in my inbox just to make certain I’m reading it right. And then, just to be triple sure, I check the blog itself and look at the results posted there.

  It’s totally legit. Eleven people are out there showing their support for the lost and chronically undecided teenagers of the world. And eight out of those eleven people think I should read The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Granted, it’s not the book I would have chosen since it’s pretty much twenty times longer than the other one. But that’s the whole point! I’m not choosing anymore. They are. And they have chosen!

  The people have spoken!

  Of course, I had to wake up at the crack of dawn before my parents got up to sneak back into the den and find out what the people had to say about the future of my literary education, but so what? Pretty soon my entire life will be turned around and my parents won’t have any more reason to keep me grounded. And who knows, maybe I’ll end up liking The Grapes of Wrath. I mean, I like grapes. And wine is made out of grapes. So how bad could it be?

  I’m slightly less excited about the second poll result, however. Fifty-five percent of the people who voted think I need to swallow my pride and get my butt back into that cafeteria today. I haven’t been inside that place since Queen Shayne relieved me of my number one Lady in Waiting duties, and to be honest, I’m not too thrilled about the thought of showing my face in there…ever again. The vote was pretty close, too. I mean, six to five? Maybe I’ll drop by the library before lunch and take a look at the results one more time…just in case.

  After checking out the last available copy of The Grapes of Wrath from the library, I sit down at one of the computer terminals and direct the Internet browser to www.MyLifeUndecided.com (my blog’s Web address). My shoulders droop and I puff out a defeated sigh when I find that the poll result is the same. Actually it’s worse. Two more votes came in and both are in favor of the cafeteria outcast option. So I guess that’s my answer then.

  Grudgingly, I push back my chair and rise to my feet, mentally preparing myself for what is sure to be a torturous forty-five-minute lunch period. But I know that I made a promise to my blog readers (all thirteen of them now!), and more important, I made a promise to myself. And both of those promises have to be fulfilled.

  I stare longingly at the table in the back of the library that was once my safe haven from the sheer horror and humiliation that I’m about to encounter and make my way toward the door, nearly smashing into some guy I don’t know who’s on his way in.

  We both sashay back and forth as we try to find our way around each other. “Oh, sorry,” I mumble, still completely distracted by the daunting task that lies ahead of me.

  “That’s all right.” He offers a friendly chuckle as he finally manages to step past me and I start down the hallway toward the cafeteria. I know it’s just my imagination but my feet are feeling convincingly heavier the closer I get. Like they’re attempting a last-ditch effort to save me from what I’m about to do. Which is basically the equivalent of social suicide.

  Remember when I told you about the cafeteria? That it’s the place to see an
d be seen? The source of all tabloid-worthy gossip? Well, I’m about to enter it and announce to the entire world (or the world according to this school anyway) that I’m a loser. That I have no friends. That I’m no longer welcome at Shayne Kinglsey’s coveted center stage table. And that I basically suck.

  I make my way through the food line, choosing something light and easily digestible in case the stress of my looming brush with death becomes too much to handle and I end up having to throw it up later. The lunch lady swipes my meal card and I grab my tray and take a deep breath before stepping into the main dining area. I want to keep my eyes glued to the floor, but they act on their own accord and instantly redirect to the center table. Shayne is already seated, looking amazing in some new designer jeans that I’ve never seen before and surrounded by the same group of random people that I never once gave a second thought to.

  Before anyone at the table takes notice of me, I move quickly toward the back. Past the band geeks, past the art freaks, past the Goths, the chess club, the honor society, the debate team, all the way into social oblivion. There’s an empty table in the far corner and I drop my tray down and slide onto the bench.

  Okay, I tell myself. The poll just said I had to eat in here. It didn’t say anything about lingering around afterward.

  So I quickly start to shovel large forkfuls of food into my mouth, washing them down with ferocious gulps from my water bottle. Every once in a while I steal a quick glance around, fully expecting to see hundreds of eyes on me. To hear the whispers echoing around me like digital surround sound.