Girl vs. Superstar

by Robin Palmer

  Pete didn’t say much as I went on and on. Instead, he just stroked his chin, although at certain points he did say, “Mmm,” and “Uh-huh, uh-huh,” and “I see.” When I was done, he stroked his chin some more. “Okay, so you didn’t ask or anything, but if I may, can I give you some advice?” he said.

  I nodded.

  “Now I understand that all this is a big change and all, but as far as I can see, the solution’s pretty simple.”

  “What is it?” I asked, leaning in to make sure I wouldn’t miss what came next. Since Dr. Maude wasn’t e-mailing me back, I’d take advice wherever I could get it.

  “Just be yourself.” He shrugged.

  “And what else?” I said.

  “What d’you mean, ‘what else’?” he replied. “That’s it. Can’t go wrong with that. See, if you’re yourself, then you’re gonna meet the people you’re supposed to meet, and become friends with the people you’re supposed to be friends with. Now, I don’t know you all that well, Lucy, but I can tell you this—I am very good judge of character. You have to be when you’re a doorman. And just from the short time we’ve known each other, I can already tell that you’re a very special young lady and you’re gonna do just great here in New York City and make lots of friends. So don’t worry about it, okay?” He reached into his pocket. “Now, you like Sour Patch Kids by any chance?”

  I nodded. “They’re my favorite candy.”

  “Good. Mine, too,” he said as he took out a box and shook some out into my hand. “I knew there was a reason I liked you right away. It’s all going to be okay, I promise. I’m a doorman—we know these things.”

  Boy, I hoped he was right. Pete may not have been Dr. Maude, but he seemed pretty sure of what he was talking about.

  chapter 12

  Dear Dr. Maude,

  Well, the good news is I made my first friend in New York. His name is Pete. The bad news is, he’s forty-nine years old and my doorman, so it’s not exactly like he’s someone I can go to H&M with. He’s really nice, though. Yesterday when I came back from my walk (I’m proud to say that this time I got only a little instead of a lot lost) and gave him the cupcake I had bought him (I will admit that the two cupcakes I’ve had since I’ve been here in New York City have been very good), he was so touched he actually started to cry. According to him, Puerto Ricans (which is what he is, even though he grew up in East Harlem rather than in Puerto Rico) are very passionate people. So I guess even if a lot of the people who live here in the Conran are stuck-up because, according to Pete, Central Park West is one of the fanciest streets in all of Manhattan, at least I have him.

  Unfortunately, I can’t have him with me all the time, like, say, tonight, when Laurel comes back from L.A. and we have our first family dinner, or tomorrow, when I have my first day of school. I’m REALLY, REALLY nervous about all of this. So nervous that, other than the cupcake, I’ve barely eaten anything all day. And that never happens to me.

  Pete says I just need to be myself and everything will work out just fine, but I don’t know if I believe that. Do you think that’s enough? Or is there more I have to do?

  If there is more I have to do, when you write back, do you think you could explain it with as few directions as possible? Because my brain feels like it’s going to explode from everything I have to remember nowadays.

  yours truly,

  Lucy B. Parker

  P.S. Not like I would ever stalk you or anything, but do you think when you write back you could also tell me what part of the city you live in, just so when I think about you reading this, I can picture where you might be? For instance, yesterday Alan took us to the Upper East Side, so now I know what that looks like. And the day before that we went down to Greenwich Village, so I know what that looks like, too. If I find out you live on the Upper West Side like I do, I’ll just die!

  Okay, that just-be-the-bigger-person-because-it’ll-give you-good-karma thing that Dad is always telling me to do?

  Total waste of time.

  Because after Mom and I got back from H&M (one good thing about moving=three new outfits for school), I spent the entire afternoon NOT doing stuff for myself and my first day of school—like, say, practicing getting my hair just right with the mousse and gel Mom had bought me—and instead being the bigger person and focusing on Laurel coming home. First, after finding my way home after ending up all the way over at Riverside Park instead of Central Park when I got lost on my way back from the art supply store, I made this really cool WELCOME HOME, LAUREL!!! sign—complete with glitter—and hung it above her bed, and then I blew up balloons and hung streamers. After that, Rose—who had become my second friend in New York after she found out that I liked telenovelas, too, which are soap operas in Spanish, even though I couldn’t understand a word of them—helped me bake a Welcome Home carrot cake. Other than the fact that it was a little lopsided and had a finger dent on the side from where I swiped some icing, it looked very professional.

  If anyone should have gone out of her way to be the nice and welcoming one, it was technically Laurel, since she didn’t have to give up her whole life to be there. But I figured that if I was the bigger person and did it first, maybe she’d suddenly be happy that I had moved into her house and I could get a good night’s sleep so I didn’t show up at my first day of school with dark circles under my eyes.

  Yeah, if, after being on a plane for six hours, I was pounced on by paparazzi shoving cameras in my face as I made my way to my car, and then, after that, if I had to go in the back entrance of my building because there were so many photographers camped out in front, I’d probably be cranky, too. But even if I were cranky because of all that, when I walked into my room and saw how someone had taken the time to decorate it with balloons, streamers, a sign, and confetti on my bed, I’d throw my arms around the decorator and say, “Holy moly—this is amazing! I’m so lucky to have such a thoughtful stepsister-to-be!” instead of just standing there like a lump and saying, “Oh. Wow.”

  “Do you like it?” I asked anxiously. I was especially proud of how well the bubble letters in the sign had turned out. Because of the coordination thing, anything art-related is also a problem for me, too.

  “Oh, it’s great,” she said, walking over to one of the streamers. For an actress, she didn’t sound all that convincing. “It’s just . . . did you use tape to put this stuff up?”

  I nodded. Of course. What did she think I used—glue ?

  She carefully lifted the corner of the streamer off the wall and peered at the wall. “Tape can peel the paint off, though.”

  What? Here I was, trying to do something nice, and instead I was getting accused of ruining her walls.

  “I mean, it was super-sweet of you to do this,” she said as she started to take the streamer off. “But if you don’t mind, I’m going to take it down because they just repainted the walls a month ago.” She walked over to the sign and took that down, too. “I’m totally going to prop the sign up in the corner, though, because it’s really beautiful. I love the glitter.” She picked up one of her pillows and brushed the confetti off. “A person could choke on this confetti, though.”

  “Sorry to make such a mess of your room,” I mumbled before walking out. Here I was just trying to get closer to Laurel, and instead I felt like a total screwup. Like any minute I was going to be arrested for breaking and entering and attempted murder.

  I didn’t exactly ignore Laurel for the rest of the evening, but I sure didn’t go out of my way to be extra nice to her, and she did the same. It was kind of like when you’ve had a fight with a person but neither of you want to acknowledge that you’ve had a fight, so you’re talking but you’re not really talking, if that makes sense.

  We had just finished our first official Parker-Moses Family Dinner of Chinese food from a place called Shun Lee (it’s supposed to be one of the best restaurants in the city, but, as far as I was concerned, it wasn’t half as good as Madame Wu’s) when Alan dinged his glass with his knife. I still
couldn’t get used to how all the dishes and glasses in their apartment matched. Back home, a lot of our stuff had come from flea markets and thrift stores because of Mom’s it’s-so-much-better-to-have-stuff-with-character-and-history thing. Obviously we washed it really well before using it. But before we moved, she sold most of it back to a consignment shop, so now, instead of drinking my iced tea out of my favorite VIRGINIA IS FOR LOVERS glass that we had found at the Pioneer Valley Flea Market one Sunday afternoon, I was using a plain-glass glass. Which matched the other plain-glass glasses on the table. And instead of my Chinese food being on my favorite chipped blue-and-white-checked plate, it was on an unchipped plain white plate, which was just like the other unchipped plain white plates on the table.

  “Okay, folks, it’s now time for the first official Parker-Moses family meeting,” Alan announced. He reached for the little notebook and pen he carried everywhere. “Lucy, would you like to be the one to take the notes?”

  I gave Mom a look. But she seemed just as confused as me. We never had official family meetings back in Northampton. Instead, our family meetings took place with me yelling through the bathroom door while Mom peed.

  “Uh, okay,” I replied. I did have good penmanship. Maybe my letters weren’t as bubbly as Laurel’s, but they were still neat.

  “So is there any old business anyone would like to bring up?” he asked.

  “How can there be old business if this is the first meeting?” Laurel asked.

  “Good point,” he replied. “Okay, so moving on to new business.” He reached for four copies of a bunch of typed pages stapled together and handed them out to us.

  “Honey, what’s this?” Mom asked, in the same worried tone she used when, back when I was seven, the sea monkeys I had sent away for using my birthday money from my grandmother had arrived.

  “Well, I took the liberty of putting together what I thought would be some helpful guidelines,” he replied.

  “One: The choice for what to watch during family TV hour will rotate weekly so each member will get to choose once a month,” Mom read aloud. “Two: A list of possible topics of conversation for family dinners will be presented to Alan fifteen minutes before said family dinner so he can prepare an agenda . . . Three: No going to bed angry with another family member.”

  Okay, we had had the “No going to bed angry” rule in the Parker house, too, but an agenda for dinner conversation? These other ones made it sound like I was at military school like Frankie Bankuti’s brother.

  “Ah, honey?” Mom said.

  “Yes, angel?” Alan replied.

  “Can we discuss this later?” she asked, motioning to the guidelines.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked anxiously.

  “Well . . . all of this just feels very . . . structured.”

  “Dad and I have always been really structured,” Laurel piped up. “My therapist says the more unstructured time a person has, the more anxious she gets.” I wondered if she was going to tell her therapist about how I had almost ruined her walls. Or how she had changed her mind and now wished she hadn’t said yes when her father had brought up the idea of marrying my mother.

  Mom and I looked at each other, and the panicky feeling that had been in the bottom of my stomach since we had arrived started moving up into my chest.

  All these rules. All these directions. Matching dishes. A soon-to-be-stepsister who thought I was trying to kill her with confetti. A new school. I wondered if it was too late to change my mind and ask Mom if we could move back. At Target, as long as you had your receipt, you had thirty days to return something, and we’d been in New York City only eight days.

  “Lucy?” Laurel said later as I was eating my second slice of carrot cake in the kitchen. There was a lot left on account of the fact that it turned out I had read the directions wrong and told Rose it had to bake for only thirty-five instead of forty-five minutes, so when we cut into it, it was really mushy. Personally, I liked cakes that were sort of raw because it made them more moist, but no one else seemed to feel the same way.

  “Yeah?” I was starting to feel a little nauseous, though, but I couldn’t tell if it was from the cake or the fact that in twelve hours I’d be at my new school.

  “When you’re done watching TV, you have to push the button on the clicker twice, or else the TV doesn’t turn off and it stays lit up even though you can’t see the picture, so it wastes electricity,” she said. “And we always put the remote in the drawer underneath the TV so we can find it easily.”

  “Oh. Sorry,” I said. Back in Northampton, our remote usually ended up underneath the sofa cushion.

  “That’s okay,” she replied with her fake smile. “I just wanted to tell you, you know, for future reference.” Maybe it was my imagination, but I felt like she was looking at me like my grandmother used to look at Daisy, her dog, before she was housetrained and kept peeing on the rug. “Well, good night.”

  “Good night,” I replied. I wanted to say, “Make sure you do a confetti check before you turn out the light,” but I didn’t.

  “Lucy?” she said the next morning as I was in my bathroom trying to copy what I had read in her Teen Vogue the week before about how to make my hair look just the exact right amount of messed-up with my new gel.

  “Yeah?”

  She held up the magazine. “I don’t mind if you borrow my magazines, but do you think you could make sure not to put anything on them? It looks like you put a water glass on the cover and it left a ring,” she said.

  “Oh. Sorry about that,” I said, feeling dumb again. I felt like the only thing I had said to her since she had gotten home was “Sorry.”

  “And when you’re done, if you could put them back in the magazine rack with the fashion magazines, that would be great.”

  “I did.”

  “Actually, you didn’t. It was with the news magazines.”

  Who had separate magazine racks for news magazines and fashion magazines? I hadn’t known I was moving into a library. Next thing you knew she’d have me alphabetizing my books.

  “Well . . . I hope you have a good first day at school,” she said. “Your hair looks really cute, by the way.”

  “It does?”

  She nodded.

  “Thanks,” I said. See, that was more the kind of thing I had been hoping to hear from a stepsister-to-be. “Your hair looks cute . . . do you want to go get manicures together?”—that kind of thing. Not, “Please don’t ruin my walls with tape and why do you have to be so messy?” I opened my mouth to say, “Hey, so do you want to maybe hang out after I get home from school and you get home from the studio?” but she was gone before I could get the words out.

  “I’ve just never met someone so . . . clean,” I said to Rose as I ate the homemade fried plantains she had brought me from her apartment in Brooklyn. Because plantains are bananas, which are a fruit, I figured they were okay to eat as a breakfast food, even if there was a ton of brown sugar and honey on them. But, still, I was glad Mom and Alan were on their morning jog (another thing they had in common! Ugh) and weren’t around to see it.

  Rose laughed her great laugh, which came all the way from deep in her belly. “Oh baby, you have no idea how clean that child is!” she boomed in her Jamaican accent. “One time after I dusted her room, I walked by ten minutes later and she was dusting it all over again!” She shook her head and sighed. “And the way she goes into her closet and makes sure there’s equal amounts of space into between her clothes.” She shook her head. “People have all sorts of ways to pretend they in charge of the world and not God.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “She doesn’t do that stuff just to be fussy and make you feel bad, baby,” Rose explained. “She does it because her life is so crazy. People are always snapping her picture and acting like they know her. That’s a lot for a little girl to handle, even if she makes almost as much money as the Oprah.”

  Okay, yes, having everyone stare at you everywhere you we
nt—especially if you were having a particularly fat-feeling day or a ginormous-zit-on-your-forehead day—sounded awful, but still, did she have to take it out on other people?

  “Yeah, but I feel like she doesn’t even want me here,” I confessed.

  “Oh, she wants you here—believe me. She told me so,” Rose said. “She just need to get used to it, that’s all.” She sighed as she reached for a plantain. “You see, even with so many people around her all the time, that girl has been alone for a long time. Ever since her mama died. You just need to give it time, baby. She’ll come around—don’t you worry. Believe me, I know about these kinds of things.”

  I sure hoped she and Pete were right about all these things they thought they knew.

  “Okay, you got your backpack?” Pete asked me. Mom and I were in the lobby, ready to head off to school. Because my school was only ten blocks away on Eighty-fifth and Columbus, we had agreed I could walk there by myself (we even did a few practice runs so I didn’t get lost), but for the first day Mom would come with me.

  I nodded.

  “You got your iPod?”

  I nodded again. According to him, even if I didn’t have it on, just having the earbuds in my ears would help cut down on the number of crazy people who tried to talk to me as I was walking down the street.

  “Phone?”

  I held it up for him to see. Since getting lost that first time, I made sure I never left home without it. In fact, I had Post-its up next to my bedroom door and the front door that read: DID YOU REMEMBER TO TAKE YOUR PHONE?

  “You got my number in there in case you run into any trouble or need to know where to find something, right?”