by Meg Cabot
Like I had frostbite all over my face, and my nose had turned black and fallen off, like those people who climbed Mt. Everest.
Okay, I knew people were going to freak and stuff when they saw my hair. I totally washed it before I came over, and got all the mousse and goop out of it. Plus I took off all the makeup Paolo had slathered on me, and put on my overalls and high-tops (you can hardly see the quadratic formula anymore). I really thought, except for my hair, I looked mostly normal. In fact, I kind of thought maybe I looked good—for me, I mean.
But I guess Lilly didn’t think so.
I tried to be casual, like it was no big deal. Which it isn’t, by the way. It wasn’t as if I’d had breast implants or something.
"Yeah," I said, taking off my coat. "Well, my grandmother made me go see this guy Paolo, and he—"
But Lilly wouldn’t even let me finish. She was in this state of shock. She went, "Your hair is the same color as Lana Weinberger’s."
"Well," I said. "I know."
"What’s on your fingers? Are those fake fingernails? Lana has those, too!" She stared at me all bug-eyed. "Oh my God, Mia. You’re turning into Lana Weinberger!"
Now, that kind of peeved me off. I mean, in the first place, I am not turning into Lana Weinberger. In the second place, even if I am, Lilly’s the one who’s always going on about how stupid people are for not seeing that it doesn’t matter what anybody looks like; what matters is what’s going on on the inside.
So I stood there in the Moscovitzes’ foyer, which is made out of black marble, with Pavlov jumping up and down against my legs because he was so excited to see me, going, "It wasn’t me. It was my grandmother. I had to—"
"What do you mean, you had to?" Lilly got this really crabby look on her face. It was the same look she gets every year when our PE instructor tells us we have to run around the reservoir in Central Park for the Presidential Fitness test. Lilly doesn’t like to run anywhere, particularly around the reservoir in Central Park (it’s really big).
"What are you?" she wanted to know. "Completely passive? You’re mute or something? Unable to say the word no? You know, Mia, we really need to work on your assertiveness. You seem to have real issues with your grandmother. I mean, you certainly don’t have any trouble saying no to me. I could have really used your help today with the Ho segment, and you totally let me down. But you’ve got no problem letting your grandmother cut off all your hair and dye it yellow—"
Okay, now keep in mind I’d just spent the whole day hearing how bad I looked—at least, until Paolo got ahold of me and made me look like Lana Weinberger. Now I had to hear there was something wrong with my personality, too.
So I cracked. I said, "Lilly, shut up."
I have never told Lilly to shut up before. Not ever. I don’t think I have ever told anyone to shut up before. It’s just not something I do. I don’t know what happened, really. Maybe it was the fingernails. I never had fingernails before. They sort of made me feel strong. I mean, really, why was Lilly always telling me what to do?
Unfortunately, right as I was telling Lilly to shut up, Michael came out, holding an empty cereal bowl and not wearing a shirt.
"Whoa," he said, backing up. I wasn’t sure if he said whoa and backed up because of what I’d said or how I looked.
"What?" Lilly said. " What did you just say to me?"
Now she looked more like a pug than ever.
I totally wanted to back down. But I didn’t, because I knew she was right: I do have problems being assertive.
So instead I said, "I’m tired of you putting me down all the time. All day long, my mom and dad and grandmother and teachers are telling me what to do. I don’t need my friends getting on my case, too."
"Whoa," Michael said again. This time I knew it was because of what I said.
"What," Lilly said, her eyes getting all narrow, "is your problem?"
I went, "You know what? I don’t have a problem. You’re the one with the problem. You seem to have a big problem with me. Well, you know what? I’m going to solve your problem for you. I’m leaving. I never wanted to help you with your stupid Ho-Gate story anyway. The Hos are nice people. They haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t see why you have to pick on them. And"—I said this as I opened the door—"my hair is not yellow."
Then I left. I sort of slammed the door behind me, too.
While I was waiting for the elevator, I sort of thought Lilly might come out and apologize to me.
But she didn’t.
I came straight home, took a bath, and got into bed with my remote control and Fat Louie, who’s the only person who likes me the way I am right now. I was thinking Lilly might call to apologize, but so far she hasn’t.
Well, I’m not apologizing until she does.
And you know what? I looked in the mirror a minute ago, and my hair doesn’t look that bad.
Past Midnight, Sunday, October 12
She still hasn’t called.
Sunday, October 12
Oh my God. I am so embarrassed. I wish I could disappear. You will never believe what just happened.
I walked out of my room to get breakfast, and there were my mom and Mr. Gianini sitting at the table eating pancakes!
And Mr. Gianini was wearing a T-shirt and boxer shorts!! My mom was in her kimono!!! When she saw me, she choked on her orange juice. Then she went, "Mia, what are you doing here? I thought you spent the night at Lilly’s."
I wish I had. I wish I had never chosen to be assertive last night. I could have stayed over at the Moscovitzes’ and never had to look at Mr. Gianini in his boxer shorts. I could have lived a full and happy life without ever having seen that.
Not to mention him seeing me in my bright red flannel nightie.
How am I ever going to go to a review session again?
This is so horrible. I wish I could call Lilly, but I guess we are fighting.
Later on Sunday
Oh, okay. According to my mom, who just came into my room, Mr. Gianini spent the night on the futon couch because a train on the line he normally takes to his apartment in Brooklyn derailed, and it was going to be out of service for hours, so she told him to just stay over.
If I were still friends with Lilly, she would probably say that my mother was lying to compensate for having traumatized my perception of her as a strictly maternal, and therefore nonsexual, being. That’s what Lilly always says when anybody’s mother has a guy over and then lies about it.
I prefer to believe my mom’s lie, though. The only way I will ever pass Algebra is to believe my mother’s lie, because I could never sit there and concentrate on polynomials knowing that the guy in front of me has not only probably stuck his tongue in my mom’s mouth but also probably seen her naked.
Why do all these bad things keep happening to me? I would think it would be time for something good to happen to me for a change.
After my mom came in and lied to me, I got dressed and went out into the kitchen to make breakfast. I had to, because my mom wouldn’t bring me breakfast in my room, like I asked her. Actually, she went, "Who do you think you are, anyway? The princess of Genovia?"
Which I suppose she thinks is hysterically funny, but really it isn’t.
By the time I left my room, Mr. Gianini had gotten dressed, too. He was trying to be all jokey about what had happened, which is the only way you can be about it, I guess.
I wasn’t feeling too jokey at first. But then Mr. G started talking about what it would be like to see certain people from Albert Einstein in their pajamas. Like Principal Gupta. Mr. G thinks Principal Gupta probably wears a football jersey to bed, with her husband’s sweat pants. I kind of started to laugh, thinking about Principal Gupta in sweat pants. I said I bet Mrs. Hill wears a negligee, one of those fancy ones with the feathers and stuff. But Mr. G said he thought Mrs. Hill was more into flannel than feathers. I wonder how Mr. G knows. Did he go out with Mrs. Hill, too? For a boring guy with so many pens in his shirt pocket, he sure gets around.
After breakfast, my mom and Mr. Gianini tried to get me to go to Central Park with them, because it was all nice outside and everything, but I said I had too much homework, which wasn’t too big of a lie. I do have homework—Mr. G should know—but not that much. I just didn’t really want to be hanging around with a couple. It’s like when Shameeka started going with Aaron Ben-Simon in the seventh grade, and she wanted us to go with her to the movies with him and stuff because her dad wouldn’t let her go anywhere with a guy alone (even a totally harmless guy like Aaron Ben-Simon, whose neck was as thick as my upper arm), but when we went with her she sort of ignored us, which I guess is the point. Only for the two weeks they went out, you sort of couldn’t talk to Shameeka, because all she could talk about was Aaron.
Not that all my mom can talk about is Mr. Gianini. She’s not like that at all. But I had a feeling if I went to Central Park I might have to see kissing. Not that there’s anything wrong with kissing, like on TV. When it’s your mom and your Algebra teacher, though . . .
You know what I mean, right?
REASONS I SHOULD MAKE UP WITH LILLY
1. We’ve been best friends since kindergarten. 2. One of us has to be the bigger person and make the first move. 3. She makes me laugh. 4. Who else can I eat lunch with? 5. I miss her.
REASONS I SHOULD NOT MAKE UP WITH LILLY
1. She’s always telling me what to do. 2. She thinks she knows everything. 3. Lilly is the one who started it, so she should be the one to apologize. 4. I will never achieve self-actualization if I always back down from my convictions. 5. What if I apologize and she STILL won’t talk to me????
Even Later on Sunday
I just turned on my computer to look up some stuff about Afghanistan on the Internet (I have to write a paper for World Civ on a current event), and then I saw that someone was instant messaging me. I hardly ever get instant messages, so I was totally excited.
But then I saw who it was from: CracKing.
Michael Moscovitz? What could he want?
Here’s what he wrote:
CRACKING:HEY, THERMOPOLIS. WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU LAST NIGHT? IT’S LIKE YOU WENT MENTAL, OR SOMETHING.
Me? Mental???
FTLOUIE:FOR YOUR INFORMATION, I DID NOT GO MENTAL. I JUST GOT TIRED OF YOUR SISTER ALWAYS TELLING ME WHAT TO DO. NOT THAT IT’S ANY OF YOUR BUSINESS.
CRACKING:WHAT ARE YOU BEING SO SNOTTY ABOUT? OF COURSE IT’S MY BUSINESS. I HAVE TO LIVE WITH HER, DON’T I?
FTLOUIE:WHY? IS SHE TALKING ABOUT ME?
CRACKING:YOU COULD SAY THAT.
I can’t believe she’s been talking about me. And you know she can’t have been saying anything good.
FTLOUIE:WHAT’S SHE SAYING?
CRACKING:I THOUGHT IT WASN’T ANY OF MY BUSINESS.
I’m so glad I don’t have a brother.
FTLOUIE:IT ISN’T. WHAT’S SHE SAYING ABOUT ME?
CRACKING:THAT SHE DOESN’T KNOW WHAT’S WITH YOU THESE DAYS, BUT EVER SINCE YOUR DAD CAME TO VISIT YOU’VE BEEN ACTING LIKE A HEAD CASE.
FTLOUIE:ME? A HEAD CASE? WHAT ABOUT HER? SHE’S THE ONE WHO’S ALWAYS CRITICIZING ME. I’M SO SICK OF IT!! IF SHE WANTS TO BE MY FRIEND, WHY CAN’T SHE JUST ACCEPT ME THE WAY I AM???
CRACKING:NO NEED TO YELL.
FTLOUIE:I’M NOT YELLING!!!
CRACKING:YOU’RE USING EXCESSIVE AMOUNTS OF PUNCTUATION, AND ON-LINE, THAT’S LIKE YELLING. BESIDES, SHE’S NOT THE ONLY ONE CRITICIZING. SHE SAYS YOU WON’T SUPPORT HER BOYCOTT OF HO’S DELI.
FTLOUIE:WELL, SHE’S RIGHT. I WON’T. IT’S STUPID. DON’T YOU THINK IT’S STUPID?
CRACKING:SURE IT’S STUPID. ARE YOU STILL FLUNKING ALGEBRA?
That was out of the blue.
FTLOUIE:I GUESS SO. BUT CONSIDERING THE FACT THAT MR. G SLEPT OVER LAST NIGHT, I’LL PROBABLY SCRAPE BY WITH A D. WHY?
CRACKING:WHAT? MR. G SLEPT OVER? AT YOUR PLACE? WHAT WAS THAT LIKE?
Now, why did I tell him that? It’ll be all over school by tomorrow morning. Maybe Mr. G will get fired! I don’t know if teachers are allowed to date their pupils’ mothers. Why did I tell Michael that?
FTLOUIE:IT WAS PRETTY AWFUL. BUT THEN HE KIND OF JOKED AROUND, AND MADE IT OKAY. I DON’T KNOW. I SHOULD PROBABLY BE MORE MAD, BUT MY MOM’S SO HAPPY, IT’S HARD.
CRACKING:YOUR MOM COULD DO A LOT WORSE THAN MR. G. IMAGINE IF SHE WAS GOING OUT WITH MR. STUART.
Mr. Stuart teaches Health. He thinks he’s God’s gift to women. I haven’t had him yet, since you don’t have Health until sophomore year, but even I know that you should never go near Mr. Stuart’s desk, because if you do, he’ll reach out and rub your shoulders like he’s giving you a massage, but everybody says he’s really just trying to see whether or not you’re wearing a bra.
If my mom ever went out with Mr. Stuart, I would move to Afghanistan.
FTLOUIE:HA HA HA. WHY’D YOU WANT TO KNOW WHETHER OR NOT I’M FLUNKING ALGEBRA?
CRACKING:OH, BECAUSE I’M DONE WITH THIS MONTH’S ISSUE OF CRACKHEAD, AND I THOUGHT IF YOU WANTED, I COULD TUTOR YOU DURING G & T. IF YOU WANTED.
Michael Moscovitz, offering to do something for me? I couldn’t believe it. I nearly fell off my computer chair.
FTLOUIE:WOW, THAT WOULD BE GREAT! THANKS!
CRACKING:DON’T MENTION IT. HANG IN THERE, THERMOPOLIS.
Then he signed off.
Can you believe it? Wasn’t that nice? I wonder what’s got into him.
I should definitely fight with Lilly more often.
Even Later on Sunday
Just when I thought things might be looking very slightly up, my dad called. He said he was sending Lars over to pick me up so me and him and Grandmère could have dinner together at the Plaza.
Notice the invitation didn’t include Mom.
But I guess that’s okay, since Mom didn’t want to go anyway. When I told her I was going she got really cheerful, in fact.
"Oh, that’s okay," she said. "I’ll just stay here and order in some Thai food and watch Sixty Minutes."
She’s been really cheerful ever since she got back from Central Park. She says she and Mr. G went on one of those dorky carriage rides. I was shocked. Those carriage drivers don’t take care of their horses at all. There’s always some ancient carriage horse keeling over from lack of water. I had always vowed never to ride in one of those carriages. At least not until they start giving those horses some rights, and I always thought my mom agreed with me.
Love can do strange things to people.
The Plaza wasn’t that bad this time. I guess I’m getting used to it. The doormen know who I am now—or at least they know who Lars is—so they don’t give me a hard time anymore. Grandmère and my dad were both in kind of bad moods. I don’t know why. I guess they’re not getting paid to spend time with each other, like I kind of am.
Dinner was so boring. Grandmère went on and on about which fork to use with what and why. There were all these courses, and most of them were meat. One was fish, though, so I ate that, plus dessert, which was a big fancy tower of chocolate. Grandmère tried to tell me that when I am representing Genovia at state functions I have to eat whatever is put down in front of me or I will insult my hosts and possibly create an international incident. But I told her I would have my staff explain to my hosts ahead of time that I don’t eat meat, so not to serve me any.
Grandmère looked kind of mad. I guess it never occurred to her that I might have watched that made-for-TV movie about Princess Diana. I know all about how to get out of eating stuff at state dinners, and also about barfing up what you did eat afterwards (only I would never do that).
All through dinner, Dad kept asking me these weird questions about Mom. Like was I uncomfortable about her relationship with Mr. Gianini, and did I want him to say something to her. I think he was trying to get me to tell him whether or not I thought it was serious between the two of them—Mr. G and my mom, I mean.
Well, I know it’s pretty serious if he’s spending the night. My mom only lets guys she really, really likes
spend the night. So far, including Mr. G, that’s only been three guys in the past fourteen years: Wolfgang, who turned out to be gay; this guy Tim, who turned out to be a Republican; and now my Algebra teacher. That’s not so many, really. It’s only like one guy every four years.
Or something like that.
But of course I couldn’t tell my dad that Mr. G had spent the night, or I know he’d have had an embolism. He is such a chauvinist—he has girlfriends stay over at Miragnac every summer, sometimes a new one every two weeks!—but he expects Mom to stay pure as the driven snow.
If Lilly were still speaking to me, I know she’d say men are such hypocrites.
A part of me wanted to tell my dad about Mr. G, just so he’d stop being so smug. But I didn’t want to give my grandmother any more ammunition against my mom—Grandmère says my mom is "flighty"—so I just pretended like I didn’t know anything about it.
Grandmère says we’re going to work on my vocabulary tomorrow. She says my French is atrocious but my English is even worse. She says if she ever hears me say " Whatever" again, she’s going to wash my mouth out with soap.
I said, "Whatever, Grandmère," and she shot me this way dirty look. I wasn’t trying to be smart-alecky, though. I really forgot.
To date, I’ve made $200 for Greenpeace. I’m probably going to go down in history as the girl who saved all the whales.
When I got home, I noticed there were two empty containers of pad Thai in the trash. Also two sets of plastic chopsticks and two bottles of Heineken in the recycling bin. I asked my mom if she’d had Mr. G over for dinner—my God, she’d spent the whole day with him already!—and she said, "Oh, no, honey. I was just really hungry."