Take My Advice

by Robin Palmer

  Dear Dr. Maude,

  I’m too upset at the moment to do much other than eat this entire bag of peanut-butter-filled pretzels that I’ve snuck into my room, but I did want you to know one thing and it’s this: Don’t bother giving your fans advice to pray because it turns out it doesn’t work.

  I mean, yes, it works in that if you pray, you’ll get signs, but just because you get signs you’re supposed to do something doesn’t mean that things will turn out the way you want them to. So if you tell them to pray, make sure they tell whoever they’re praying to, to please only give them a sign IF THINGS ARE GOING TO WORK OUT IN A GOOD WAY. Because if they’re going to work out in a bad way—which is what just happened to me—then they shouldn’t bother going through all the trouble.

  Instead, they should just stay in their room and eat peanut-butter-filled pretzels and watch television, which is what I’m going to do with my life from now on.

  I hope you’re having a great day. Because I’m sure not.

  yours truly,

  Lucy B. Parker

  * * *

  The good news about fristers is that they have to sit there and listen to you moan “I can’t BELIEVE I made such a fool out of myself!” over and over, no matter how many times you need to do it. It’s in the frister handbook, or would be if there was one, which was something Laurel and I were talking about writing together.

  “For what it’s worth, I think what you did this afternoon was amazing,” she said. That was something else they had to do—cheer you up by saying nice things. “And even if it didn’t work out, I bet you get some good karma from it.”

  “You already said that,” I replied glumly.

  “I did?”

  “Yeah. Three times.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s because I mean it,” she said, reaching underneath her sweater to take out a box of granola bars and a bottle of Hershey’s chocolate syrup. Not only did fristers have to listen to you, but they had to sneak junk food into your room. Even if only an hour before your mother told you that if she finds out you’ve been eating in your bedroom again when number 5 in the Parker-Moses Family Rule Book is “No eating outside of the kitchen, or—during Family TV Viewing Quality Time—living room,” you’ll be in big, big trouble. And they have to lend you their rhinestone barrette in the shape of a butterfly the next morning because it’s so sparkly, and everyone knows that when a person is sad, junk food and sparkly things are the only things that can cheer them up.

  But in this case, junk food and sparkly things didn’t do the trick. I spent the whole week depressed. My friends tried to cheer me up (“If you want, I’ll text you a lot during the dance,” offered Alice) but even the way Beatrice didn’t say one obnoxious thing about Blair didn’t make me feel better.

  “You need to promise me something, Zig,” I said into the computer on Thursday afternoon as I chowed down on fried plantains and he chowed down on his arm. “When you’re old enough to be asked to dances, you need to make sure you say yes. Even if you don’t like the girl, okay?”

  The meh-meh-meh sound he made obviously meant, “Of course, Lucy. I’ll do whatever you want me to do because you’re my big sister, which means you obviously know best.”

  “Because asking a boy to a dance is hard,” I continued. “I feel really bad for you, being a boy and all.” I swear, at that he nodded, even if Dad said his neck muscles weren’t strong enough for him to do that yet. “Maybe by the time you get older, it’ll be more common for girls to ask boys out other than just for Sadie Hawkins dance.” Before I could repeat the whole humiliating story to Ziggy (for some reason, I seemed to feel a little—not a lot, but a little—better every time I told it), there was a knock at my door.

  “Come in,” I called out.

  Alan walked in wearing a safari-looking outfit like the guys on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. “I just wanted to show you my latest purchase,” he said excitedly. “Isn’t it great?”

  Okay, this was getting a little out of control.

  “And I was thinking, in order to make the whole thing even more of a surprise, I might move the whole thing up a weekend—”

  Correction: this was getting a lot out of control. Moving things up a weekend? It was time to come clean about how all the advice my parents thought was brilliant had really screwed things up. I couldn’t let it go on anymore.

  I sighed. “Alan, I think I’d like to call an Emergency Family Meeting.”

  A few minutes later, I found myself pacing around the living room as Mom and Alan watched from the couch. I really wanted Laurel to be there for moral support, but the idea of waiting for her to get home from the studio made me feel worse than if I just did it without her.

  “Okay, there’s something I need to tell you guys,” I said nervously.

  Mom sighed. “Is it time for us to get you a math tutor?”

  “No. It’s—”

  “Are someone’s parents suing over some advice you gave?” Alan asked anxiously.

  “No.” But it got me wondering—could your own parents sue you? I sure hoped not, because between all the art supplies I had bought for my campaign and my maxipad collection, I was broke. “It’s about your anniversary. I know how important it is to both of you that it ends up being a special weekend.”

  “Oh, it is going to be special,” Alan said. He turned to Mom and smiled. “Just wait till you see what I have planned for you.”

  She laughed. “I bet it’s not as great as what I have planned.” She glanced at him and looked puzzled. “Alan, what on earth are you wearing?”

  In the drama of the Emergency Family Meeting being called, Alan had forgotten to change out of his safari outfit.

  “Here’s the thing,” I continued. “If I don’t get this out, your anniversary is actually going to be awful. See, it turns out that you both asked me for advice—”

  Alan turned to Mom, confused. “You asked her, too?”

  She nodded.

  “—and I was really flattered when you both decided to take it. But I guess I didn’t think it out very well because, see, if you follow my advice, you’ll be in different states that weekend.”

  They looked even more confused. “Lucy, what are you talking about?” Mom asked.

  “I screwed up,” I admitted. “See, Mom, Alan wants to take you to this cute little bed-and-breakfast place in Vermont—”

  She turned to him. “But you hate cute little bed-and-breakfasts in the country!”

  “I know, but you don’t,” he replied. “You love them. And because I love you, I want to make you happy.”

  She took his cheeks between her hands. “Oh honey . . . that’s so sweet of you!”

  “I know. It is, isn’t it?” he replied.

  “But wait, there’s more,” I said. “And Alan, Mom went ahead and booked a hotel downtown and got tickets for you guys for a play—”

  “Not just a play. A musical,” Mom corrected.

  He gasped. “You did?!”

  She nodded. “Not only that, but I also downloaded the original-cast-recording sound track for you.”

  Alan looked like he was going to cry. “But, Rebecca, you hate musicals—”

  She nodded. “I certainly do. But because I love you, I’ll gladly suffer through one.”

  They looked at me. “So, Lucy, what’s the problem?” Alan asked.

  “‘What’s the problem?’” I cried. “The problem is I totally screwed things up! You both did the same thing, only it wasn’t the same thing, and you can’t do both things at once!”

  Alan thought about it. “No you didn’t. We’ll just rearrange the schedules! I told you I was thinking of moving the Vermont weekend up, so we’ll go to Vermont one weekend and spend the next one at the hotel downtown.”

  “It will be an extended anniversary!” Mom said excitedly. She turned to him. “I can’t believe how lucky I am to have found such a thoughtful partner,” she cooed as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

  Okay, this was getting
gross.

  He put his arms around her waist. “Not as lucky as I am,” he cooed back.

  And now it was grosser. “Well, I guess we’re done here,” I said. “I’m going to go to my room now, if that’s okay.”

  They were too busy staring into each other’s eyes to notice as I walked away.

  A little later there was another knock at my door.

  “Lucy? Can I come in?” Alan asked.

  “Mmmffssseeec,” I said which was Full Mouthese for “Just a second.” Great. Not only was he coming to tell me he had realized I was average, but I was going to get in trouble for eating a candy bar in my room. Just as I managed to stash the wrapper under my pillow, the door opened.

  “Lucy?” he said, still wearing his safari outfit, because Mom had told him he looked handsome in it. “Sweetie, have you been crying?”

  Great. I couldn’t even do that right. “No,” I lied. As soon as I said it, I realized that now was not the time to be playing around with my karma. “Okay, fine. Yes,” I sniffled.

  He grabbed my arm. “What’s the matter? Is it the cramps? Did you finally get your period?” he asked anxiously.

  This was so embarrassing. Why did I have to live in a family where everyone told everyone everything? More tears came. “No.” You would’ve thought that with the day I was having, the universe could’ve been a little nice and brought it on, but no such luck. I had even gone and checked a bunch of times to be sure.

  “Then what is it?”

  I tried to stop myself from crying more, but I couldn’t. “It’s just . . . I just . . . you just . . .” I sniffled.

  “Lucy, what is it?”

  “I know you’re disappointed in me because I’m not talented and I don’t have hobbies, so that’s why I became an advice columnist, but even though I’m kind of good at it, I still managed to screw it up!” I blurted out.

  “What? Why would you think I was disappointed in you?!” he asked. “And who said you’re not talented?”

  I wiped my nose with my sleeve. I didn’t care that it was gross. “Because if I don’t have any hobbies, I won’t get into a good college, and then I won’t get a good job. And if I don’t get a good job, I won’t have any money. And if I don’t have any money, I’ll have to live with you and Mom forever. Even when I’m really old. Like fifty.” I thought about it. “But if I’m fifty, that’ll mean you guys will be really old—like so old you’ll almost be dead!” I wailed as a fresh batch of tears began coming down.

  Alan sat down on the bed and pulled me into a hug. “Lucy, you have a long time before you even have to think about college. You don’t need to worry about that stuff now.”

  “But you’re always talking about it.”

  He sighed. “I do talk about it a lot, huh?”

  I nodded into his shoulder. “Yeah. Like it’s the most important thing in the world.”

  “I’m sorry. I guess I’m doing what my parents did to me. Which, when I think about it, is not a good thing to do because when I was your age, it used to drive me crazy, too.”

  I looked at him. “But you went to the best college in the world,” I sniffled. Alan had gone to Harvard. Once when I was overlistening to Dad and Sarah, Dad said that even though everyone said Harvard was the best college in the world, it was actually overrated and that Hampshire, where he went, was a lot more fun, but I didn’t think now was the time to bring that up.

  He shrugged. “Yeah, and I’m very lucky to have gone there, but when I look back, I wish I had gone somewhere else.”

  “How come?”

  “Because all I did was study so I could keep up. Study and worry that I wasn’t going to be able to keep up.” He sighed. “It wasn’t a lot of fun for me.”

  Huh. Maybe that’s why Alan was such a worrier and got clammy hands all the time—because he went to such a good college. He tipped my chin up toward him. “I don’t care where you end up going to college. You can go to a community college for all I care,” he said. “Not that that would be my first choice,” he quickly added. “But the important thing is you girls are happy. That’s all I care about.”

  “Yeah, well, when you’ve got so much talent like Laurel does, you don’t have to worry about being happy,” I said. “She’s more talented at being a Regular Girl than I am, and I am a plain old average Regular Girl.”

  “Lucy, there’s nothing plain or average about you,” he said. “So maybe your coordination isn’t so great. And maybe your singing voice isn’t that terrific. And maybe you won’t be at the top of the honor roll—”

  I cringed. “Okay. You can stop now. I get it.”

  “But when it comes to courage, and kindness, and humor, and creativity, you’re off the charts.”

  “You really think that?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Nope.”

  I slumped.

  “I don’t think it—I know it. And so does anyone else who has the honor of knowing you. Sure, Laurel may be considered a superstar by the press, but you, Lucy B. Parker, are just as much a superstar as she is. And I am beyond lucky and grateful to be your frather.”

  Similar to “frister,” “frather” was the word I had come up with for stepfather.

  My eyes filled with tears again. “Alan?”

  “What?”

  “I really appreciate you saying that. But you’re going to have to stop because we’re out of Cold Care Kleenex so I need to stop crying now.”

  He laughed and hugged me. Even though physical strength definitely wasn’t one of my talents, I hugged back as hard as I could. Which, from the way he said, “Lucy, sweetie, you’re about to break my ribs,” made me think was pretty hard.

  I knew a lot of kids got really bummed out when their parents got divorced. Especially if their stepparents ended up being mean. As for me, I considered it one of the best things that had happened in my life. Because not only did I have Mom and Dad, but I got Laurel and Alan and Ziggy and Sarah, too, because of it.

  Even though Alan had cleared up the whole Lucy-is-so-untalented-I’m-not-sure-what-to-do-with-her issue, it didn’t mean that I was suddenly all happy. Well, I was for the rest of the night. But the next day, when I woke up and realized that all my friends were going to the dance that night and I wasn’t, I got sad again. Even the idea of the Hoarders marathon didn’t cheer me up.

  And when Mom told me that, as their IBS that week, she and Laurel were going to go to a special show at the Hayden Planetarium that evening, I got even more bummed out. It’s not like I wanted to go—as far as I was concerned, astronomy was almost as boring as math—but it made me feel like Alan and I were the only two people on the planet who wouldn’t be out doing something. Even Rose, who usually spent her Friday nights in her apartment in Queens catching up on all the soap operas she TiVo’d, was going to be out, at a church social.

  As I walked into the apartment, out of breath because I still insisted on taking the stairs to avoid Blair, I knew right away something was going on.

  “Um, what’s going on here?” I called out nervously. Not only had the furniture been moved around so there was a bunch of wide-open space, but there was some weird-looking mirrored ball hanging from the ceiling so that the walls were covered with little sparkly reflections. Sure, I liked sparkly things, but this was A LOT of sparkle. Like give-a-person-a-headache amount of sparkle.

  Alan, who was dressed in a suit and tie, looked up from the CD player and smiled. “Well, since it’s just the two of us tonight . . . and seeing that you’re not going to the Sadie Hawkins dance, I thought we could have a Lucy B. Parker one instead.”

  I looked around the room. There was a tray with cheese and crackers, and a punch bowl with two cups next to it. There was even a “Welcome to the Lucy B. Parker Dance” poster propped up in the corner with bubble letters done by Laurel (yet another talent of hers). My eyes filled with tears. “You did all this for me?” I whispered.

  “Yes, but it wasn’t supposed to make you cry!” he said anxiously. “It was sup
posed to make you happy!” He began to pace. “This isn’t good. Maybe we should call your mother. Do you want to talk to your mother?!” he babbled. Even though we weren’t technically related, I was beginning to think that maybe I got my babbling from him.

  I wiped my eyes. “No. It is making me happy,” I wailed. Even though Alan could be kind of weird and annoying, this was one of the nicest things anyone had ever done for me.

  “Then why are you crying?!”

  “I don’t know,” I sniffled.

  He nodded. “It’s puberty. It must be puberty,” he said nervously. “I remember when Laurel started with the crying. For a while there it was all day, every day. Oy, this is not going to be fun.”

  Great. Big boobs and nonstop tears. What more could a girl want? Except, you know, her period, which, for some reason was refusing to come.

  “If you want, we could do something else. Like . . . go through the pantry and check the expiration dates.”

  “No. We can have the dance,” I replied. Sure, on the surface it seemed a little—okay, a lot—dorky. I mean, I hadn’t wanted to go to the dance in the first place, and the idea of dancing with my frather felt kind of sad, even if I knew for a fact that because he showered twice a day he wouldn’t smell, but how could I say no? He had gone to all this trouble for me. Maybe we weren’t related by blood, but it was the kind of thing you’d do for someone who was your birth daughter. And who you loved even if she didn’t have any hobbies.

  He pointed at my jeans and T-shirt. “You want to wear that? Or you want to change?”

  “Into what?”

  “A dress? Isn’t that what girls usually wear to dances?”

  I shrugged. “I guess so.” The truth is, I didn’t want to—in fact, just a few minutes before I had been thinking of putting on Mom’s holey Smith sweatshirt—but seeing that Alan was wearing a suit, which was something, like Dad, he barely ever did, it would be the polite thing to do.

  I walked into my room to find my favorite dress of Laurel’s—a turquoise minidress made of silk and velvet—lying on my bed with a note. “Have a great time tonight at your ‘dance.’ Love, Laurel.” I smiled. Not only did I have the best frather in the world—I had the best frister.