by Robin Palmer
But here’s my question. A lot of these letters have to do with things that I don’t have any experience with. Like being freaked out about getting your first less-than-100-percent on a math quiz. (I think if I ever got anything above an 85 my mom would faint.) Or what to do to get your hair to stop growing so fast (I’d kill for that problem). Or the best place in the city to go skateboarding (for someone who’s coordination challenged? Not so important).
So I’m not sure what to do—I mean, I don’t want to lie and make something up and give bad advice that somehow ruins their life, but I also don’t want to have to write “Ummm . . . you know, I don’t really know the answer to that. Why don’t you try Googling it?”
From the bio on your website, I know that you’re a “well-rounded individual with numerous hobbies” (BTW—I’d like to pick your brain about the hobby thing later on, if that’s okay, because even though I finally have one myself, I was thinking I should have some backups as well). But even so, I’m sure that at least once or twice, someone has come to you with a problem that you don’t have experience with, right? If you could give me advice on how to handle that, I’d sooooo appreciate it.
You may have ignored my other e-mails, but I’m really hoping that you’ll answer this one because now we’re not just talking about MY life. We’re talking about the lives of A LOT of people here—an entire school. And I don’t want you feeling super-guilty if something bad happens because I don’t handle this the right way. Plus, there’s the whole fellow-advice-columnist bond we now have.
Thanks so much.
yours truly,
Lucy B. Parker
* * *
Usually when Laurel and I had an IBS, we went to a thrift store. Or the movies. Or to various drugstores around the city to track down the Bonne Bell Lip Smackers we didn’t have yet in our collections. But Laurel had recently discovered in therapy that being a huge megastar had made her lose out on a lot of Regular Girl activities in her life (um, hello, I could’ve told her that for free). So she had put Operation Regular Girl into effect. Which meant that all her free time was now spent doing things she had never done before because she was too busy being a star. Like bowling at Lucky Strike Lanes downtown. And riding bikes through Central Park. And collecting money for UNICEF by knocking on our neighbors’ doors (even though it wasn’t Halloween).
And because she didn’t have any Regular Girl friends other than me, I was forced to do Regular Girl things with her. But when she chose American Girl Place as her IBS pick, I had to put my foot down. Especially when she said she wouldn’t wear one of her disguises because that would defeat the whole Regular Girl thing.
“American Girl Place?! But that’s for eight-year-olds!” I cried.
“But I was busy going to the Kidz TV Awards when I was eight,” she replied. “I totally missed out. You know, I realized in therapy the other day that that was about the time when I started wiping down the blinds in my bedroom every day.”
Laurel had this annoying habit of not only cleaning the dust from her own window blinds, but from the rest of the bedrooms, too.
“So you think that if you had done more Regular Girl things, you wouldn’t be so neat and organized?”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
Huh. I kind of liked the idea of her being less neat. That way my messiness wouldn’t stand out so much.
“Come on, it’ll be fun. Look at it this way—if anyone writes a letter asking for advice about American Girl dolls, you’ll be able to give it to them.”
This was true. Although I wasn’t sure I’d be able to help anyone who was still interested in American Girl dolls at our age. “Okay—we’ll go. But don’t blame me when you have a hundred eight-year-olds begging for your autograph.”
Try two hundred.
Talk about humiliating. And to make things worse, Mom decided to completely invite herself because she thought that “having the three women of the family do this kind of thing together is a lovely symbol of sisterhood,” even though I wasn’t technically a woman yet on account of the fact that I hadn’t gotten my period yet. As Beatrice said when I texted her about it, that part was “TRES TRES TRES mortifying.” Tres means “very” in French.
In the middle of the chaos, Mom grabbed hold of both of our hands so that we were standing in a little circle. Kind of like we were either about to say grace or play Ring Around the Rosie.
I could feel myself turning red. “Um, Mom? What are you doing?” I whispered as one girl poked her friend and pointed at us.
“I’d like us to just have a Moment, please,” she announced.
Oh no. Mom + a-Moment-with-a-capital-M = not good. In fact, any parent + Moments = potentially really, really bad. I had the kind of parents who were very into “sharing feelings and emotions.” They loved a good Moment.
I could’ve lived with it if these Moments took place at home—like in the kitchen or living room with the drapes closed—but the thing about Moments was that, a lot of times, parents ended up choosing very public places for them to happen. Like, say, the hallway of my school in Northampton after my chorus concert, in front of the band kids, where my dad announced how, even though Ms. Edut, my chorus teacher, had asked me to mouth the words because I was such a bad singer, he was still incredibly proud of me. Or the feminine products aisle of CVS in front of one of the guys who worked there when Alan said that, even though he wasn’t my biological father, he hoped I knew that I could talk to him about anything—even periods. Or the lobby of the Cinemark at Hampshire Mall movie theater when Mom went on and on about how grateful she was that I was still willing to spend Quality Time with her on a Friday night while Rachel and Missy, my two ex-BFFs, giggled in the corner, making me feel like even more of a loser than I already did.
“Can we have this Moment at home later, please?” I whispered. It was one thing to be humiliated in front of your ex-BFFs—it was a whole other thing to have it happen in front of a group of little girls holding creepy-looking dolls.
Mom cleared her throat and squeezed our hands. Apparently not. “I don’t know what wonderful things I did in past lifetimes to be graced with such a magnificent daughter as Lucy,” Mom began.
She had to bring up the past-lifetimes thing now? Sure, because of the Buddhism thing, I was used to it, but to the rest of the world, it sounded pretty weird. Like, the security guard who gave her a weird look.
“But with the addition of Laurel into our lives this past year, to now be blessed with two incredible daughters . . . well, that’s just an embarrassment of riches.”
Um, how about just an embarrassment period? I looked over at Laurel, who didn’t seem the least bit humiliated. Which was either because (a) she was such a good actress, or (b) she didn’t know enough about Regular Girlism to know it was completely okay to feel like your mother was being a freak. Yes, I was lucky to have a mom who paid more attention to me than her BlackBerry, which is what Alice’s mom did, but still, if Mom started to cry (something that often happened during Moments), I was going to have to do something about it.
“I remember thinking back in college that if I ever ended up having a daughter, I would try my hardest not to project any of my unlived dreams upon her so that she could grow up to be her own person.”
Laurel and I looked at each other. What the heck did that mean?
As Mom folded us in close to her—so close that it made me think that maybe she had forgotten to put deodorant on that morning—she started to tear up. “Laurel, I know that I can never take the place of your mom, but I hope you know that I love you just as much as if I had given birth to you myself.”
Laurel managed to unstick her face from Mom’s chest and look at her. “You do?” she asked. Because Laurel is the type of person who cries at most commercials—even non-animals-who-need-to-be-adopted ones—she was all teary, too.
“Absolutely,” Mom replied. “And you have no idea how much joy it brings me and your father to see how close you and Lucy have become.”
<
br /> Okay, I wasn’t the type of person who cried at commercials (other than the animal ones), but even I could feel a tear or two trying to squeeze its way out of my eye as I thought about how glad I was to have Laurel as my frister.
“To think of where you two are now,” she continued, “as opposed to that first day you met, with the Hat Incident . . .”
My eyes widened. Did she really have to go ahead and bring up one of the most embarrassing afternoons of my life? She knew how hard I had tried to block that memory out! “Mom!” I yelped. “Talk about ruining a Moment!”
She laughed and ruffled my hair. “Oh sweetie, but look at how much has changed since that day! Your hair growing back after you burned it off with the straightening iron—” she said. I cringed and pulled down my denim newsboy cap. Great. Yet another memory I had no interest in thinking about. “Laurel getting over her phobia of germs now that she’s spent so much time with you—”
At that, Laurel turned red and slumped down a little herself. I felt bad that Mom was embarrassing her, too, but I had to admit it was nice to be in it together.
“It’s wonderful that the two of you get to learn from each other like that,” she went on. “You know, back when I was an adolescent—”
Parent + Moment + any sentence that started with “Back when I was an adolescent . . .” = DEFINITELY not good.
I wiggled out of Mom’s embrace. “Hold on a second,” I said as I fumbled in my bag. “I just need to write something down.” I took out my advice notebook. “When a parent says it’s time for a Moment . . . RUN!!!” I wrote. I looked back up at her. “Um, Mom, Laurel and I would love to hear about what it was like back when you were an adolescent”—now that I thought about it, I don’t think I had ever heard anyone use “adolescent” in a conversation other than Mom—“but do you think we could maybe wait until we get home for you to do that? So we’re in the privacy of our apartment?”
“Of course, sweetie,” she said, finally letting go of our hands. “In fact, maybe I’ll dig out my old photo albums, make a big bowl of popcorn, and—”
“That sounds awesome!” Laurel said. “It’s so . . . regular-person-like!”
I sighed and uncapped my pen again: “And when a superstar decides she wants to be a Regular Girl, try and talk her out of it,” I wrote.
If I got any letters about embarrassing parents or fristers, I was all set on that front.
Luckily, no moment lasts forever. Even if it’s a Moment-with-a-capital-M moment. And no visit to American Girl Place lasts forever, either. Especially when some mom tweets that Laurel Moses is there, and the store is flooded with women and children and paparazzi, and you have to be escorted by security to the manager’s office and told—very nicely—to please leave before more dolls get trampled.
“That was so fun!” Laurel said as we walked up Fifth Avenue afterward. “Well, at least until we were kicked out.” She turned to Mom. “Hey, do you think maybe one weekend we can all go to Disney on Ice’s Princess Classics?” she asked. “I saw that it’s coming to Madison Square Garden.”
This was getting out of control. My grandmother had taken me to Disney on Ice . . . when I was six. So what if Laurel was neat? And had officesupplygeek.com bookmarked on her computer? I could live with that stuff. But Laurel was so into being a Regular Girl now that I could barely ever get her to do regular teen superstar things like send an e-mail to the Bonne Bell company saying that she was a huge fan of their delicious Lip Smackers and would they happen to know where she could get more of the Cotton Candy ones in New York City because everywhere she had gone, they were sold out. (My hope was that because she was who she was, they would say, “We’ll just send you a few for free!”)
“Sure, sweetie,” Mom replied. “I’ll look into tickets as soon as your dad and I figure out where to go for our anniversary.”
I cringed and tried not to get so nauseated that I upchucked the honey-roasted nuts I had just bought from one of the street vendors. The idea of them alone in a hotel was just gross.
“Trying to figure this out is harder than peace talks in the Middle East,” she sighed. “Maybe when we get home I’ll look on that woman Dr. Maude’s website to see if she has any advice about what to do when you and your partner can’t decide on where to go for a weekend away. In fact, I think I saw a link where you can send her an e-mail.”
Oh no. That was not a good idea. Mom and Alan knew I was a big fan of the show, but they knew nothing about my e-mails to Dr. Maude. It wasn’t like I was doing anything wrong, writing to her. But I was worried that Mom’s feelings might be hurt if she found out that I was going to Dr. Maude for advice on stuff. It’s not like you could blame me—Dr. Maude was a trained professional, and Mom, although she read a ton of self-help books, was not.
I know Dr. Maude hadn’t answered even one of my e-mails, but what if, for some reason, she answered Mom’s? And somehow it came up that Mom had a daughter named Lucy B. Parker and Dr. Maude would think to herself, Lucy B. Parker, Lucy B. Parker . . . where have I heard that name before? And she’d be so curious she’d go back into her e-mail in-box and she’d discover that she had a ton of unread e-mails from someone with that name? And then she’d TELL MOM that I had been writing her all this time, and Mom would be all hurt, and she’d schedule a Talk with a Capital T between the two of us on the family schedule that was kept in the kitchen near the phone. And during the TWACT she’d say that she was disappointed because she had thought I knew I could tell her anything, and I’d say that for the most part I did. And then she’d ask if I wanted to go to therapy like she and Alan and Laurel and Beatrice did. And I’d say no, even though for a split second I’d consider it because maybe it could be considered a second hobby. And then it would turn into a Moment with her getting all cry-y, and I’d make a mental note to myself that if I wrote to Dr. Maude again, it would be with a pseudonym.
“Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said quickly.
“Why not? You love Dr. Maude!” Mom said.
“Yeah, but I heard she’s really bad at answering e-mails.” That wasn’t exactly a lie. Other than leaving out the “I heard” and putting in a “my” in front of “e-mails,” it was totally the truth.
“I know—you should ask Annie!” said Laurel.
As Mom and I looked at each other, I shrugged. Why not? The kids at my school were happy with the advice I had given them. In fact, Laurina Gibbs had been so happy with the answer I gave her about what to do when you had a pet who seemed to hate you (ramp up Operation Get a New One was my response) that her Facebook status update yesterday was “Laurina thinks the Ask Annie advice column in her school newspaper is the best thing ever.”
“Good idea,” Mom said. She turned to me “So, Annie, any thoughts?”
My stomach started to get a little jumpy. It was one thing to come up with an answer to a kid’s question in the privacy of my own bedroom (I had recently found that I came up with some of my best answers while doing headstands against the wall, which, according to Alice, was also supposed to help bring on your period). But to answer right in front of the person who needed advice? That was a whole other story. “Um, would you mind phrasing it in the form of a question?” I asked. “Because that’s how I’m used to doing this, it’ll help me get into character more.”
“Sure. Okay. ‘Dear Annie—I need some advice. Just to give you some background about myself, I’m a forty-seven-year-old woman living in New York City. I was born in—’”
“Mom, you don’t have to start that far back,” I said. “You can just tell me the question you need advice about.”
“Oh. Okay. Well, then. . . let’s see . . . ‘Dear Annie, I’m trying to plan a weekend away with my partner but—’ No, wait, I don’t like the way that sounds. Let me start over.”
I sighed. Mom was a writer, so she was always rewriting. She had been working on her latest novel for seven years, and it still wasn’t done. We could be here for a while, waiting for her to compose a f
ake letter in her head, and I’d miss this special on Animal Planet about animals that no one liked, called Jackals Deserve Love, Too.
Luckily, Laurel knew about Mom’s writing problem and jumped in. “How about this? ‘Dear Annie, I love my partner very much, and while we have no trouble deciding on what comedy to see on a Saturday night, when it comes to planning a weekend away, it turns into a horror movie. The fact that I love the country and he likes the city is making me feel like I need a vacation from planning a vacation! Signed, Baffled in the Big Apple.’”
I turned to her. “Wow, Laurel, that’s awesome. If you ever get bored of acting, you could totally have a new career writing fake advice column letters! I can’t believe you were able to come up with that so quickly on the spot.”
She smiled. “Thanks. I think that improv class I took last year really helped.”
Mom nodded. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.” She looked at me. “So, Annie, any advice?”
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Okay, I could do this.
“‘Dear Baffled,’” I began, “‘because I’m a kid, I have to spend my vacations going where my parents take me because they’re the ones paying for it, so I don’t have experience with this exact thing, but I do know what it’s like when you can’t agree with someone on where to go for an after-school snack.’” I opened my eyes to see if they were still listening. When I saw that they were, I closed them again.
“‘As far as I’m concerned, the best thing to do is just take charge and plan it yourself, with the plan just happening to include the place you want to go, and then surprise them with your plan. That way, they’ll be all touched that you took the time to plan something, AND you’ll get what you want, even though they’ll be too touched to realize it.’” I opened my eyes again to find Mom’s left eyebrow lifted, which was Momese for “Hmm . . . I’m not sure I buy that.” I closed them again.
“‘OR,’” I went on, “‘(b) if you’re the kind of person who’s worried about karma, you could plan a trip to a place you know they’d like. That way, you’re not only a really nice person, but when you get into this position again, you can say, “Remember how last time we went to where you wanted to go? Well, because of that, it’s only fair that this time we go where I want.”’” I opened my eyes to find her cocking her head and holding her chin, which was Momese for “Hmm . . . I like that.”