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Little Miss Red

Page 19

by Robin Palmer


  He nodded. “Sure.” He pointed at my feet. “Oh, and I’m digging the boots. I never would have thought they’d work, but they’re very you.”

  “Thanks,” I said with a smile. I stood up. I had an idea. “I’ll be right back,” I said. I walked over to the policewoman. “Excuse me—would you like this?” I asked, holding the hat out to her.

  She looked up and gasped. “Oh my. That hat—it’s just like—”

  I pointed at the book. “—the one Devon’s wearing in the book. Minus the feathers.” I shoved it toward her. “Try it on.”

  She took it from me and placed it on her rather large head.

  “It fits perfectly. You sure you don’t want it anymore?” she asked. She reached up and squeezed it. “This is grade-A felt.”

  “I know, but it’s time for me to find one that’s a better fit,” I replied, turning to make my way back to Michael.

  epilogue

  The first thing I did when I got back to L.A. was take all my Devon books, box them up, and put them in the garage. I’d already read them all, and after everything I had been through, it didn’t feel like I needed them anymore. As I set the box down, I was tempted to start reading some of the other books Mom had stored out there—especially one called Hollywood Wives by Jackie Collins, because when I flipped through, it seemed to have a lot of really juicy scenes. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I should be living my life for a while, rather than reading about someone else’s. In fact, instead of “WWDDD?” I decided to make my new motto “WWSGD?”—What would Sophie Greene do? Sure, it might take a little longer to come up with an answer, since there was a big difference between what a sixteen-year-old girl would do and what a thirtysomething, jet-setting, fling-having, jewelry-designing woman would do, but I knew it would be worth the effort.

  And when it came to Michael Rosenberg, it turned out that what Sophie Greene would do was give him another chance. It wasn’t like Florida had turned him into a brand-new person—he still paid more attention to the TV than to me when we were on the phone—but he was more affectionate. He even came up with a nickname for me, Motorcycle Mama, because of the boots that I continued to wear all the time (after Mom took one look at them and sent them to the shoemaker to have them disinfected).

  But when, a few weeks later, word spread through the cafeteria that Juliet DeStefano was moving again (the rumors covered everything from pregnancy to getting offered a job as Angelina Jolie’s stand-in—but because we were now friends, I knew it was because her dad was being transferred) and Michelle Goldman told me that they had to rework the calendar and that Miss April was mine if I wanted it, I knew that Devon and I would both say the same thing—yes.

  By then, I was officially off drama for forty-five days (no Devon, no SOAPnet—cold turkey), so I was crystal clear that drama was overrated. And I knew that being Miss April wasn’t going to drastically change my life or anything. But still, you never knew—it might change it a teensy bit. Like by, say, pushing me over the edge with the admissions committees who reviewed my college applications.

  When the day of the photo shoot came, I decided to still wear the milkmaid dress, but I ditched the cute little cardigan and added my new red cowboy hat—the one that Michael and I picked out, which actually fit—and my motorcycle boots.

  When Michael saw the pictures, he said I looked phat. Which, according to UrbanDictionary.com means “pretty hot and tempting.”

  And that’s exactly what the Nigerian prince-slash-cabdriver called Devon in Infatuated by Intrigue.

  prologue

  It was the Thursday after Memorial Day and the entire day had been a walking nightmare: snickers, whispers, conversations that ground to a halt whenever I entered the room. The kind of stuff that really pumps up a fifteen-and-a-half-year-old girl’s self-esteem. As you can imagine, with the name Cindy Ella Gold, I was used to a fair amount of teasing, but nothing like what I experienced that day.

  There I was thinking I was being of service to my fellow nonpopular/nonpromgoing classmates by being the official “We’re Not Going to Take It” poster girl, but instead of gratitude and respect, all I got were dirty looks and a schoolwide silent treatment. Even the weirdest kids in school—like Eliza Nesbit, who wore reindeer sweaters all winter, and Maury Scheinberg, who spoke in video-game-speak instead of English—wouldn’t look me in the eye. Within the course of a few hours, I had gone from being just another average kid to the most untouchable Untouchable of Castle Heights High.

  “Why’d this have to be the letter they finally printed?” I moaned to my two BFFs, India and Malcolm, as we sat under our bougainvillea tree that day eating our lunches. The smell of clove cigarettes wafted over from a group of girls dressed in black who were taking turns reading their Sylvia Plath–lite journal entries aloud. “Why couldn’t they have printed the one about how the cafeteria should be demolished so no one has to go through the awful experience of figuring out where to sit?”

  “You don’t think you’ll have to be homeschooled now, do you?” asked Malcolm.

  I ignored him. He could be such a drama queen at times. “I mean, I knew what I wrote would piss the popular kids off,” I said as I took a bite of my sandwich and watched a big glop of tuna fall onto my brand-new CULTURAL ICON IN TRAINING T-shirt. “But I honestly thought everyone else would be thrilled that someone was finally taking a stand about how the prom is just one more attempt by the establishment to keep us down.”

  “What are you talking about?” Malcolm stopped his lunchtime ritual of inspecting his khakis for the tiniest speck of dirt and looked up, sighing as his eyes zeroed in on my latest attempt to accessorize with tuna.

  “You know, how the prom separates the haves from the have-nots; the popular from the unpopular—” I stopped, as Malcolm started frantically rubbing at the blossoming stain on my nonexistent boobs.

  “Those who take deep full breaths from their core instead of quick shallow ones,” finished India, whose parents owned a chain of yoga studios in town called Blissed Out. “Cin, you spoke the truth—but unfortunately it’s one of those dirty little truths that people don’t like to think about. They’d rather remain ignorant than search within for answers.” She stood up and stretched before settling into a down-dog pose. “A tree doesn’t grow branches with water alone, right?” she said. With her long blond hair covering her face, she looked like a supergorgeous version of Cousin It from The Addams Family.

  Malcolm and I looked at each other, baffled. “Huh?” we said. Even though I’ve known India for years, and even worked part-time at one of the studios on Sundays, and was therefore used to hearing this kind of Zen mumbo jumbo on a regular basis, it still tended to go over my head.

  “Never mind.” India sighed from behind her hair.

  “Look, what it comes down to is that no one who’s unpopular wants to be reminded of that,” said Malcolm. “They want to believe that if they just hold on long enough, they, too, can pull a Farmer Ted.” Farmer Ted was the character that Anthony Michael Hall played in Sixteen Candles who went from geekness to greatness in ninety-one minutes. Malcolm processed everything in life by comparing it to eighties movies. Ms. Highland, our guidance counselor, was convinced it was some sort of personality disorder.

  India rejoined us on the ground. “Hey, Wally, I’m so with you in spirit!” she yelled out to Wally Twersky, Castle Heights’s resident tree hugger, as he strummed “We Shall Overcome” on his guitar for the tenth straight lunch period as part of his protest against the fact that the school had uprooted endangered trees from across the country and replanted them here in an attempt to spruce up the campus grounds. She patted me on the knee. “I’m sure it’ll all blow over by Monday,” said India. “Especially after Danny Miller’s party this weekend. And especially since Jessica Rokosny just got out of rehab.”

  Malcolm let out a relieved sigh and started inspecting his loafers for scuffs. “Brilliant. With Jessica back, you’ll definitely be in the clear.” Not only w
as Jessica a self-taught “pharmacist,” she was also the senior-class slut, so the chances of her doing something outrageous to take the focus off of me were pretty good.

  “I guess,” I said glumly.

  “Hey, no matter what happens—you know, if you do end up having to leave school because the teasing gets so bad or what not—you’ll always have us,” he promised.

  Malcolm was right. I did have them, and for that I was very grateful. I had met India on the first day of fifth grade when I moved to L.A. from New Jersey, and Malcolm, on our first day at Castle Heights. Malcolm lives in South-Central L.A., so he has to take three buses every day just so he can go to our school, which is supposed to be one of the best in the city, although I have no idea who exactly decides those things. So that they wouldn’t be accused of being too elitist, Castle Heights gave out scholarships to underprivileged youth and Malcolm was one of them, even though you’d never be able to tell by looking at his wardrobe and iPod library. But I don’t feel sorry for him, because while he may be one of my best friends, he can also be a total diva. He puts La Lohan to shame at times. However, I tend to cut him some slack when he starts to have a meltdown. Finding yourself in a predominantly white private high school after growing up in the ’hood is enough to cause anyone some angst.

  The three of us made up what we called the Outsiders’ Insider Club. Malcolm’s black and gay, so it’s pretty obvious why he’s an outsider. And India—well, even though we live in L.A., where there’s a lot of boho-lite going on, people aren’t all that tolerant when it comes to the old-school hippies like India who follow strict hundred percent vegan diets and don’t shave their armpits.

  And me? In a way I’m even more of an outsider because I’m just normal. I’m not gay and I’m not a hippy. I’m not ugly and I’m not beautiful. I’m thin (more like scrawny), but I have no muscle tone. I’m not remedial-math-class dumb, but I’m not egghead brilliant.

  I’m just…average. At least by L.A. standards. Now, if I lived someplace like Twin Falls, Idaho, maybe I’d be considered kind of special. But here in L.A., where everyone’s a size two, looks like an Abercrombie model, and has been on the road to Harvard since preschool? Forget it. At least Malcolm and India are dramatically different. But for me, the normal one who kind of blends into the crowd, growing up in L.A. can be hard. Because here, “normal” equals “invisible.”

  But that Wednesday I sure wasn’t invisible. As I skulked down the hall after lunch, trying to tune out the snickers and whispers that had become the sound track to my life, I prayed that Jessica Rokosny hadn’t completely cleaned up her act in rehab. Are You there, God? It’s me, Cindy, I thought as I wiped off the “Cindy Ella’s just pissed ’cuz she’s a freak and no one will EVER ask her to prom” graffiti that someone had scrawled on my locker during lunch. Listen, I’m cool with You keeping Jessica clean and sober, I thought, but can You make it so that she ends up making out with at least one inappropriate guy or girl at Danny Miller’s party this Saturday so that people will be talking about that on Monday and not me?

  I didn’t know where I stood on the God thing, and whether I was just wasting my time asking for divine intervention, but I did know that it sucked being a non-prom girl in an all-prom world.

 

 

 


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