Confessions of a Not It Girl (15 page)

I
love
shopping.
Lucky
's great because when you see stuff you like, they tell you where to buy it. It's
totally
convenient.

That is convenient,
I wrote back.

We
should
totally
go shopping sometime,
Mandy wrote.

That would be great,
I wrote back. I couldn't bring myself to underline
great.

I tried to imagine a day spent going store to store in the East Village while Mandy checked off items she'd circled in
Lucky.
How long would it take before I got so bored my brain liquefied and ran out my ears?

When the bell rang I handed Mandy back her magazine. She tried to pin me down to a shopping spree over the weekend, but I told her my parents

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wanted me home right after school and I had to run.

It was weird to be at my locker without Rebecca again. Each year on the first day of school one of us finds out who has the locker next to hers and the other one trades lockers with that person. That way even if we don't have any classes or frees together, we always see each other at least a few times during the day and then right before we leave school. In September we'd gotten all teary-eyed about how this was the last year we'd have lockers at all, let alone next to each other.

How was it possible that three months later we weren't even speaking?

"Hello?" I called when I got home. "Hello! Anyone home?"

There was no answer. "HELLO!" Nothing. I went into the kitchen.

On the table was a note and a twenty-dollar bill.

Hi, Honey!

Dad and I are meeting the Colmans for dinner downtown--they're in town for the night en route to Paris!!! We should be home by 10 or 10:30. If you want to order in some Chinese or something, here's $20. Otherwise, there's sauce and pasta in the fridge. I got some ice cream, too. Hope school was fun. I'll try and call you before dinner.

Love, Mom

Here's twenty dollars? Here's twenty dollars? As I was

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processing the implications of my mother's note, the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Hi, sweetie. How was your day?"

"Fine," I said, knowing there was no way my mother would be satisfied with my terse answer. "Great."

I couldn't believe it. What happened to expressing an interest in your child's life? Where were all those irritating questions? What had become of the never-ending need to know more more MORE about how her darling daughter spends her waking hours?

"Did you find the money I left you?"

"Mmmm," I said. "I see you're hanging out with real jet-setters."

"I know!" My mom laughed. She actually
laughed!
Like,
Ha ha, Jan. Even your parents have a more exciting social life than you.
"Can you imagine? One night in New York before heading off to Paris. Doesn't that sound thrilling?"

"I suppose," I said. "If you like that sort of thing."

"What sort of thing?"

"Oh, I don't know," I said, sounding bored. "That whole...Europe thing."

"Sorry to leave you to fend for yourself tonight," she said. "I hope you won't be lonely."

"Ah, I think I'm a little too busy to be lonely."

"Well, that's great. What are your plans for tonight?"

Rap thumped in the background.

164

"I have a
really
big test tomorrow that I need to study for." Had I actually been reduced to lying to my parents so they wouldn't know what a huge loser I was? How had my life come to this?

"They certainly work you hard, don't they, sweetie?"

"I guess." I started tearing little pieces off the note and building them into a pile. The music suddenly got really loud.

"Okay, honey," my mom shouted. Even though I knew she was just sitting in the sound studio editing with one or two other people, it sounded like she was at a really hip party for Def Jam Records. "I gotta go. Love you."

"Love you, too, Mom," I said, but I think she'd already hung up.

My little pile of paper looked exactly like one of the sand dunes on Cape Cod.

Why wasn't it still August, when my biggest dilemma was Coppertone versus Hawaiian Tropic?

Tuesday Night (The Plan)

1. Use twenty dollars to buy low-fat dinner (salad, tofu, etc.)

2. Spend evening working on college applications to ensure acceptance at superb undergraduate institution and future of fame, fortune, and happiness

Tuesday Night (The Reality)

1. Use twenty dollars to buy greasy Chinese food and pay for movie rental

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2. Continue working through Jennifer Aniston's oeuvre with
The Object of My Affection

3. Eat entire pint of Chubby Hubby

I wish I could say the low point of the evening was the moment I dipped my spoon into the Ben & Jerry's container and hit cardboard, but really that can't compete with the experience of my laughing parents walking in the door at ten forty-five, having clearly had a fantastic dinner with their fantastic friends from their fantastic college. When my mom came over to the couch--where I was deep in my post-ice-cream-and-Chinese-food coma--hugged me, and said, "Oh, sweetie, are you drowning your worries in ice cream?" I decided it was nothing short of miraculous that I hadn't moved out years ago.

I saw Rebecca before she saw me. She was wearing a black T-shirt, tight jeans, and platform boots. Her hair was up in a ponytail, but there were a few wisps floating around her face. She looked very tan and very beautiful and very, very It Girl. I, on the other hand, clad in cargo pants and sneakers, did not.

"Rebecca," I called. She looked up when she heard her name. When she saw it was me she stopped, but she didn't come over to where I was standing.

I started to get annoyed. Would it have killed her to take one step in my direction? I almost turned to go into school, but then I pictured us standing at our lockers, staring straight ahead, not speaking to each other day

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after day until the end of the year. It was too horrible to imagine.

"Can I talk to you?" I asked, walking over to her. She nodded.

"Look, I'm sorry," I said. "I shouldn't have said that about you and Brian."

Rebecca didn't say anything.

"I know you guys are, you know, having a relationship, and I shouldn't have made fun of it."

She still didn't say anything. How could this girl possibly think
I
was the one who was being ridiculous?

"Maybe I
was
a little jealous." I looked away from her. She still didn't speak. "Anyway, I'm sorry." That was it. There was nothing left for me to say. If she thought I was going to fall to my knees and beg her to be my friend, she had another thing coming. My life without her was pathetic, true, but it wasn't
that
pathetic. I would not grovel.

I waited another minute, but Rebecca still didn't answer me. Her skin was perfectly tanned, and her hair had gotten blond streaks from the sun. But really, what can you expect from a perfect, skinny It Girl when you're a monster with a butt the size of a Humvee? I started to walk inside.

"Wait," Rebecca said. She put her hand on my arm.

And then Rebecca did something I had never seen her do before.

She started to cry.

***

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"I just hate them!" Rebecca concluded.

We were sitting at our favorite table at Starbucks, the one all the way in back with the huge, comfy chairs. I like to think of it as "our" table, which is ironic considering I never think of the place I sit in French class as "my" desk.

"Was it like that the whole time?" I asked.

Rebecca shrugged. "Basically. I mean, they didn't really start fighting until dinner Friday night, but things were definitely tense before then."

"Wow." I'd spent so much of the week being jealous of all the fun in the sun she was having, I needed a minute to adjust to this latest development.

"God, they just fight about everything." She took down her ponytail and ran her fingers through her hair. "If my dad says it's a beautiful day, my mom says it's too hot. If my mom says someone we meet is nice, my dad says he's a jerk. It's like they're constantly on the lookout for reasons to be pissed at each other."

"Do they fight about you?"

"Well...kind of. I mean, like, my mom will say my dad is too wrapped up in his work to care about the family, and my dad will say my mom is too wrapped up in
her
work to care about the family, and I'm like, 'HELLO! This is your family speaking. You're
both
too wrapped up in your work to care about family.'"

"Did you
say
that?"

Rebecca didn't answer. "Do you want to know the
worst?"
She dropped her chin into her cup. "What?"

"So after they've had, like, a dozen
screaming
fights

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and basically everyone on the island of Puerto Rico knows exactly how much they hate each other, on the flight back my mom turns to me and goes, 'Wasn't that a nice trip?' Like I'm
retarded.
Like I haven't just spent a week with two people who
hate
each other."

"What did your dad say?"

"Oh, he
is
retarded. He was just sitting at his computer screen typing away like, 'I have no relationship to anything that happens around me.'" Rebecca put down her cup and mimed someone blissfully typing.

"Was it worse than usual? I mean, because you're always saying how--"

"I don't know." She took a swig of cappuccino. "It was just so depressing this time. I mean they made this whole big deal about how it's our last vacation before I leave for college and isn't it going to be special and blah blah blah, and then they behave the way they always do. I just totally hate them."

"Do you think they'll...separate?" I asked, avoiding the D word.

"God, I wish. It would be so much easier. But they'll just spend their lives torturing each other. And me."

"Maybe you should apply to college in California," I said.

"Yeah, or China." She laughed. "God, you are so lucky to have your parents."

"Are you
insane?
Believe me, I just spent an entire week socializing almost exclusively with my parents. You do
not
want them to be your parents."

"Why? Did they spent the whole time screaming about

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how much they hate each other?" She took a bite of her muffin.

"No-o-o," I said slowly. "It's just that they're so..."

"So what?" She cocked her head to the side.

"... lame," I finished lamely.

Rebecca smiled.

"Really, Rebecca. They're total losers. Believe me, after the week I just had, I know. If you still weren't talking to me, I was planning to join the Foreign Legion."

"Maybe we should both join," she suggested. "What are the uniforms like?"

"Unclear. And I fear a language requirement."

"What language?"

"French."

"Ah, out,"
she said, nodding. "That would be
un
huge problem."

"Très,"
I agreed.

Rebecca stretched out her back and sighed.

"Look," she said after a pause. "I'm really sorry I was such a bitch about the whole Brian thing. I think I was just..." She looked at me and then looked down, toying with the edge of her cup. "I knew Puerto Rico was going to suck, and I was just feeling really tense about it. Anyway, I'm sorry I took it out on you."

"Don't worry about it," I said, watching her hand on the cup.

"No, really," she said. She waited until I looked up and met her eyes. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, too," I said. We sat there looking at each other, and I knew everything was really okay between us.

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I felt a huge wave of relief, like I'd been carrying something heavy and had finally put it down. Rebecca leaned back in her chair, smiling, and so did I.

"So," she said, "how was your week?"

"Well, as I said, I spent most of it enjoying quality time with my parents."

"Sounds fabulous," she said.

"Oh, it was." I told her about everything, including the English fight with Josh.

"So let me get this straight," she said when I was done. "He said you shouldn't judge people based on your first impressions of them, you said you should, and now you hate him?"

"I don't know if I'd put it
exactly
like that."

"Well, exactly how
would
you put it?" Rebecca scraped off the foam from inside her cup and licked her finger.

"I'd say he thinks I'm a bitch because I won't go out with his
humongous
loser of a cousin, and his judgment of me makes him an incredible jerk." I mumbled the last word because I had a huge chunk of Rebecca's muffin in my mouth.

"A what?"

I swallowed. "A jerk. Which is why I am officially over him."

Rebecca raised an eyebrow at me. It's an amazing trick she has, keeping one eyebrow down while the other one disappears up under her bangs. I've practiced doing it in front of the mirror, but I just look like I have to go to the bathroom.

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"Don't give me the eyebrow," I said, finishing the muffin. "Really. It's over."

"Fine," she said. "You're over him."

"Right."

"Totally." She didn't look convinced.

"Totally.
I'm
serious.
I don't see why I, a smart, funny, talented woman, should spend all my time thinking about some guy I--"

"What's your talent?"

"What?"

"You said 'talented.' What's your talent?"

"Well, maybe I haven't had time to
develop my
talent because I spend all my time analyzing the behavior of stupid, annoying, judgmental guys. I've decided to devote my life to my work."

"Don't forget more quality time with your parents."

"Okay, I admit that was a bad call." I finished my cappuccino and put down my cup with a bang (or as much of a bang as a paper cup can make). "But the work thing is for real. I'm going to get into an awesome school, work incredibly hard, and win the Nobel Peace Prize."

Rebecca kept looking at me.

"What?"

"So I guess cutting French is part of your new work ethic?"

I hadn't thought about that. "Well, it's like...you know how in Native American art there's always got to be one flaw because only God is perfect?"

"I thought Native Americans don't believe in God."

"I'm not sure."

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"Oh." There was a pause.

"Well, maybe it's Buddhist art," I offered.

"I don't think Buddhists have art."

I was starting to get annoyed. "Well, Hindu, then. The point is that the artist builds in a flaw right at the beginning. It's part of the art. The rest of the piece is that much better because of the initial flaw."

"So what are you saying? That cutting French is part of your plan to win a Nobel Prize?"

"Exactly," I said. "It's the flaw that makes my plan perfect."

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