He walks away quickly.
I think I am going to die. Hobbits! I talked about HOBBITS!
Oh well. At least my shoes are polished.
Maya’s Popularity Tip
Bite your tongue off before nerd-talking about Lord of the Rings to the boy you like. Unless he himself is from Middle Earth.
Friday, February 3
I can not overemphasize how necessary it is to be neat about what you wear.
I iron my capri pants, make sure my makeup is neat, and slick back my hair, long before the sun rises, leaving me plenty of time to ponder on my idiocy. Ethan will never like me. Maybe it’s not so bad, dying alone. I could nerd-talk all I want and no one will hear me.
I pull on my pressed pants—or attempt to pull them on. I realize they are, in fact, my brother’s trousers.
Obviously no amount of deodorant will ever mask the eternal stink coming from my clueless glands.
Sunday, February 5
“No. I will not be a part of this.”
“Mom, tonight is our only chance.”
“No, we are not buying you a girdle.” She folds her arms and sits down on the couch. Her lips are pressed together in a tight line.
“Let her do it,” Dad says. He seems to be making more of an effort to be patient with me these days. Yesterday I curled up next to him on the couch and we talked for an hour about school. He actually listened instead of lecturing.
“See, Dad supports me!” I argue.
“Your father’s not himself. He’s trying to relate to you.” She glares.
“It’s true. You might as well call me Michael,” Dad murmurs from where he sits reading.
“Okay then. Michael supports me!”
We stare each other down until Natalia wanders in using her toy, Turtle, as a telephone for an imaginary conversation.
Finally, Mom gives in. We get into the car and rush to the mall in an attempt to reach it before closing time.
I am firmly of the opinion that almost every teen needs a girdle—not a whaleboned ironclad trap, but some sort of lightweight affair to control the curves. . . . Don’t turn up your nose at the idea of wearing these modern aids to figure beauty. Today’s girdle is a far cry from the cantankerous corset Grandmother wore. Nowadays a girdle is so light you scarcely know you have it on . . .
My panty girdle
Ha! The girdle I’m trying on at the moment is so tight that it makes my brain swell, not to mention my thighs. I try on four or five before finding the least repulsive one: a beige panty girdle with embroidered flowers. It’s rather snug, but gives me more of an hourglass shape than I ever thought possible. Hmmm.
After we leave the dressing room and it’s clear I won’t be talked out of my mission, Mom finally changes her attitude. We have fun and joke around as we smell the perfumes.
In addition to deodorants, you should get in the habit of using a light scent—any flower cologne will do, provided that it is fresh and fragrant.
With Mom’s help, I pay for the girdle along with a bottle of Lilac Blossom Body Spray, the best “scent” I could find.
It’s nice having Mom back and not the angry monster that momentarily possessed her. I’m guessing that her blood sugar was low. We probably should’ve bought some marked down doughnuts instead.
Tuesday, February 7
We’ve been working nonstop for the choir performance this week. We will be taking a bus almost three hundred miles north to San Antonio for a music convention.
Ms. Charles, the choir director, has been busy managing all the details.
“All right, girls,” she says, taking out a clipboard, “who are you sharing a bed with at the hotel?”
Everybody giggles and starts making that very distinct middle-school-girl sound—somewhere between a cheer and a shriek.
Ms. Charles goes down the list.
“Marina?” she asks.
“Victoria!” Marina squeals and the two start laughing.
“Nadia?”
“Selena.”
I don’t know what I will say. Beads of sweat start dripping down my face. It must be unusually hot in here.
If you perspire from nervousness, as many do, don’t be alarmed, it is just a normal bodily reaction. . . . If you feel the necessity sew protective shields in your blouses and dresses. . . . An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. A date once made uncomfortable or a friend offended by your carelessness will take a long time to forget.
Thanks for the cleanliness insight, Betty, now get out of my head!
I bury my face in my pressed skirt. The names continue on and on until . . .
“Maya?”
“I-I-I don’t really have anybody . . .”
“Well there are only four girls left. Leslie, who do you want to be with?”
Leslie glances at me. “Tina!”
Last person picked . . . last person picked. . . . That isn’t popular. That’s just sad.
I have to share a bed with someone I’ve never talked to before. I can’t imagine how she feels about it.
Thursday, February 9
It is 5:00 in the morning and bitter cold as we wait outside in front of the school for the fancy transportation to arrive. Because our district doesn’t have to pay for it, we get to stay in swanky hotels and ride buses that look more like airplanes. It’s very, very cool.
Of course, first we have to line up all our bags end-to-end in the parking lot. I know that it’s only procedure, but I can’t help wondering if we’re the only middle school that has to have our luggage sniffed by drug dogs before going on a field trip.
The police officers take the hyper beagle up and down the lines of backpacks and suitcases, while we’re made to stand fifty feet away. I don’t like drug dogs. Sadly, though, when you live in “Borderlandia,” you get real familiar with seeing them.
Since no one signed up to be my “buddy” on the trip, I’m forced on Eva, a seventh grader, whose best friend got the stomach flu and couldn’t come. We sit next to each other in silence at first, but we break the ice and talk for a while. I can still tell she’s sad that her friend isn’t there instead. At least I know I don’t stink.
Friday, February 10
The alarm on the side of the bed blares, and I smack the button. Slowly I creep into the bathroom and look at my reflection. Nope. No permanent-marker mustache. I smile. Maybe this trip won’t be so bad after all.
I shower quickly and put on my girdle before anyone can see. I gargle with mouthwash as Betty requires, then rush to wake up the other girls.
When we’re all dressed and ready, we get on the bus and drive to our concert. My heart beats loudly as we walk to the convention center. We do one final run-through and then are led silently to the risers at the front of a massive room filled with hundreds of people.
There is something really special about performing. From the moment Ms. Charles raises her hands, there is an anxious silence as the crowd waits. As we sing our first note, we notice the intake of breath in the audience. It’s magic. I sing like I never have before. I’m so happy to be alive, to be here, in spite of all the awkwardness. I smile as Ms. Charles’s hands dip and twirl. The music soars perfectly. I keep waiting for her to stop us because we forgot a staccato or to tell us that we’re off pitch, but she leads us on. The bright lights keep us from seeing the audience so it feels as if they don’t even exist. It’s just the choir, the conductor, and the music.
All too quickly it’s over.
The entire audience stands up. The applause is deafening.
. . . . . . .
“All right, everyone who’s skating, line up over there so that I can get you your passes,” says Ms. Charles. Mom and I decided earlier that I was not going ice-skating with the other choir girls after the concert. I have incredibly bad knees, and that combined
with my lack of coordination is a recipe for disaster. Mom even made me wrap my bad knee this entire trip just to be safe.
I sit down at a table outside the rink, parking myself near the window and pull out a book. After about twenty minutes, I look up and notice a growing cluster of concerned people. They peer down at the ice near where I am reading. I can see that it’s Isabella, a seventh grader in our choir, sitting there.
I watch as the workers from the rink roll a wheelchair to her location. Isabella tries to stand but collapses. She fights back tears as they roll her into the room labeled MEDICAL ASSISTANCE.
I try to read my book, but her pain is all I can think about. It’s all-consuming and I watch the door until it opens. Isabella limps out holding an ice pack to her leg. She carefully seats herself a few tables over.
I’d never so much as said hello to Isabella. But, I just get up without even thinking about it and sit down next to her.
“Hey. Are you okay?” I ask gesturing at her knee.
“Yeah,” she says, smiling halfheartedly. “I feel like such a loser. I was just starting to get good and then my knee went all crazy. It like popped out and then went back. It was really weird. Gosh, it hurts.”
We talk for a little while about everything from injuries to musicals, to the fact that she wants to write novels. I give her my Ace bandage and show her how to wrap her knee.
After skating for another hour, our choir leaves to go back to the hotel. I help Isabella on the bus and off again. As we stand outside the door she says, “Thank you, Maya.” Her eyes are full of tears. “Thank you for everything.”
What is this newfound friendship? What does it mean for popularity? The crazy thing is, I never would have been confident enough to say hello before I began this experiment. Maybe real popularity comes from when you take time to listen to someone else. When you actually care about them.
Saturday, February 11
Isabella and I talk the entire bus ride home. We discuss clothing and style (apparently her favorite article of clothing is a skirt), food, and she even asks me for boy advice! Me, Hobbit Girl! Granted, most of what I say is “Wow,” “Mmh,” and “He doesn’t deserve you if he acts like that.”
The five-hour trip home is much nicer because the seventh graders now welcome me into their group. After they saw me being nice to Isabella, they started talking to me. All of them.
I hate to say it so soon, but maybe things can change. Maybe there’s hope for me yet.
When Mom picks me up I tell her how it went. As supportive as she is, she didn’t dare believe I could overcome the stigma of being last picked.
Neither did I.
Tuesday, February 14
Today is Valentine’s Day. I hand out chocolates and cards to all my teachers. It’s amazing how many truly phenomenal educators grace this border town. I also pass out candy to my peers, including Leon, who thanks me genuinely. In my generous mood, I even give one to Carlos Sanchez.
“Gee thanks, Maya.” He smirks, swiping another valentine off my desk and “accidentally” rips it apart. “I appreciate it.”
I don’t think I’ll get anything in return, (the last two years I’ve only received three valentines) but maybe my luck is changing.
. . . . . . .
SIX! SIX WHOLE VALENTINES! SIX!
It’s all so wonderfully popular that I can hardly breathe. It started with the sixth grader who I’m nice to in the library. She gave me a package of M&M’s. Cards from two choir girls whom I smile at. Candy and a drawing from the girl I sat next to in art class last year when no one else would. Then some chocolate from a seventh grader I hung out with on the trip.
And when I thought that things couldn’t get any better, Isabella approaches me with a butterfly card and a stuffed dog. I’ve never gotten a plush valentine before.
I realize something as I thank all of these people for their gifts.
I have been kind to each of them in the past.
Saturday, February 18
Girdles really suck, in spite of the fact that they give me a flatter stomach. If it’s too low, it’s a muffin-top extravaganza. If it’s too high, you have a wedgie that has to be surgically removed.
I’ve also recognized another problem that proves Betty Cornell’s girdle theory wrong. I have diagnosed myself with it:
QUADRUPLE CHEEK SYNDROME
CAUSE: Badly placed elastic
SYMPTOMS: Bulges of butt where the girdle cuts off the circulation, resulting in what appears to be multiple bums.
CURE: Take off the curve control!
My butt has giant purple stripes across it, but at least none of my four backsides jiggle.
Sunday, February 19
I’m shaking as I walk into church today. I still haven’t seen Ethan since the ghastly Hobbit Incident several weeks ago, so I’m terribly nervous.
I’m wearing clean clothes and my girdle, but I must admit that my confidence level is low. I checked my e-mail and found that my grandma had sent me a link about how to get rid of acne, so I spent thirty minutes washing my face. After that, I applied quite a bit of that body spray stuff. Maybe he’ll notice.
. . . . . . .
He didn’t notice.
He did fall asleep during church, though, and when someone kicked him to sit up, he had a huge imprint of the seat in front of him on his forehead.
He’s so dreamy.
I get up quickly to go to the bathroom as I feel the first heave of words trying to spew from my mouth.
It’s a miracle that I get to safety before I can blurt out, “Your forehead looks just like my butt after I take off my girdle!”
Tuesday, February 21
All good grooming means attention to details. . . . It means looking after yourself and your clothes. It means hanging up your things when you take them off—a skirt that has lain rumpled on the closet floor all night is not going to look like a million dollars the next morning.
I have completely reorganized my clothing and cleaned my entire room. I’ve showered every day this month, endured the girdle, worn perfume, learned how to apply lipstick better, made sure my hair didn’t get frizzy and out of place, and cleaned out my nails with an actual nail cleaner from a store. My T-shirts are now arranged by color as well as by material. Betty Cornell would be proud.
But today I feel like the only one who keeps up her good grooming in this household.
Dad and Brodie walk downstairs shirtless. At least Brodie is wearing pants.
Brodie drags Natalia into where Mom and I are making dinner. Mom’s not wearing a bra.
“Mom, Natalia smells. When’s the last time you changed her underwear,” he asks.
“When’s the last time you changed your underwear?” she retorts.
He pauses and lets go of Nat’s wrist. “Touché.”
Wednesday, February 29
On the bus ride home from school, Kenzie sniffs my sweater, which is clean and significantly coated in perfume. “You smell . . . funny.” I sigh. It’s the last day of the month, and showering daily and ironing my clothes hasn’t catapulted me to the top of my school’s popularity scale. When I get home at the end of the day, I have a horrible red rash all around my waist from my girdle. Of course, Brodie mocks me for it and Natalia thinks it’s funny to step on the red sores over and over again.
But this month hasn’t been all bad. In fact, I have felt more popular than ever before. But it had more to do with kindness than keeping a wiggly backside in check. I find a box of fortune cookies hidden in back of the linen closet and crack one open.
GOOD LUCK WILL BE SHOWERED UPON YOU!
Gosh, I hope so.
March
MONEY (HOW TO EARN EXTRA) & ON THE JOB
The plaintive lament about money or rather the lack of it cannot fairly be said to apply strictly to teen-ager
s. . . . However, teen-agers are in rather a special position in regard to money—they need more of it than children do and yet they are not free to earn it as an adult would.
Even though we are well-to-do compared to a lot of other people in Brownsville, I’ve never considered myself wealthy. I grew up listening to Mom and Dad’s stories of sleeping on floors, pocketing food at film festivals, surviving off Ramen noodles, and saving up change to buy supplies for their next documentary. Although our lives have gotten a lot better since those days, my parents still worry about money. Mom bargain shops. Dad is always on the lookout for antiques to sell. He was a graduate student for years, believing that all that education would pay off financially once he got his Ph.D. I suppose he thought he would be making a lot more than he does now, which is less than my middle school teachers. I guess this is why we don’t get an allowance.
Mothers and fathers do the best they can to provide for their offspring’s needs, but when it comes to an extra formal or money for a froufrou blouse, things that aren’t desperately needed but desperately desired, then the best answer is to try and earn your own.
Baby-sitting can be a steady job or a hit-or-miss affair, depending on the way you want to go about it. If you want to work at it regularly there is nothing to prevent you from making up a list of clients and keeping in constant touch with them.
. . . . . . .
It shouldn’t be too hard to get someone to trust awkward me with their children, right? I’ll make flyers to broadcast my babysitting services, and while I wait for responses, I can do odd jobs around the house.
My moneymaking goal this month: fifty bucks. Maybe then I’ll be able to pay for some top-of-the-line girdle ointment.
Thursday, March 1
Dad walks through the front door. The look on his face is half fear, half excitement. He sits down at the kitchen table.
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