Confessions of a Not It Girl (22 page)

"What?"
I'd spent the day being ordered around the house from one chore to the next, moving chairs around, putting plates out, and searching through cluttered cabinets in search of something called votive candles. Now I was lying on my back, exhausted, trying to muster up the energy to take a shower.

"He was with his parents over Christmas and his mother had the
Chic
with the It Girl article and he saw it."

"What was he doing reading his mother's
Chic?'"

"He wasn't reading it. She saw it at the hairdresser's and she stole it so she would remember to ask Brian if I was his boss's daughter. She didn't even know we were dating." Rebecca's last name, which is also her dad's last name, is also the first last name of the law firm he's a partner in.

That would be the law firm Brian worked for last summer.

236

No wonder his mom recognized it.

"What'd he
say?"
Pieter was curled up on my chest sleeping, though I honestly couldn't figure out what excuse
he
had to be tired.

"Well, there was a message from him on my machine when I got home saying I should call him, so I called him and he said"--she made her voice really deep-- "'Rebecca, I am extremely disappointed in you.'"

"What is he, your
father?"

"I
know!"
Rebecca didn't sound upset so much as she sounded indignant. "Then he told me about seeing the article, and he said, 'We obviously won't be seeing each other anymore given that you betrayed me.'"

"Oh my
God,
he sounds like he's from the nineteenth century or something." Pieter lifted his head and gave me an annoyed look before settling down again.

"And it was
so
obviously about my being in high school. I mean, do you think he'd care if I
betrayed
him if I was twenty-five instead of twenty-one?"

I couldn't figure out why someone would bother to say she was twenty-five if she was twenty-one, but this didn't seem like the time to bring that up.

"Are you bummed?" I asked, scratching Pieter's head to make up for having shouted right in his ear.

"Not really. I mean, I was thinking about it, and I think my interest in him was just the result of my repressed rage at my father for being too involved with his work to notice me. It was very Oedipal."

"You're probably right," I said, smiling.

"So, can I still come to your parents' party?"

237

I couldn't believe it. "Are you
kidding?"
I sat up fast, knocking Pieter off my chest. When I tried to pull him back on my lap, he shot me a dirty look and went to lie down on the end of the bed.

"Well, yeah. I mean, if you still want me to come."

"I so-o-o want you to come."

"I'll get dressed and be there around nine," she said. "Awesome," I said, hanging up. Suddenly, it felt like New Year's Eve.

When Rebecca knocked on my bedroom door two hours later, she found me in the midst of a paralyzing hair crisis.

"You have to help me chop off my head," I told her as she came in the room.

"Okay." She was wearing a long silvery dress with a high slit up one side. "Do you have a chain saw?"

"I'm serious," I said. I was sitting in my desk chair facing the mirror on the back of my closet door. My hair was still wet from the shower, and I looked like a huge, unruly dog that had just gone for a swim in the ocean.

"I'm one second away from cutting this all off." I waved scissors threateningly in her direction. "You have to do something."

"Okay, okay. First off, do not panic," she said. "The doctor is in." She took the scissors from me and stood behind the chair, looking at my reflection in the mirror.

"Will you blow it straight for me?" I begged. Rebecca's the only person who can get my hair stick straight. She learned the trick from a Hollywood makeup artist she met at a party.

238

"I don't know." She was fussing with my hair, moving sections from one side of my head to the other. "Let me see what you're wearing, and I'll decide."

I opened the closet door and took out the garment bag with the dress in it. "My mom bought me this dress yesterday, but clearly I won't be wearing it since it leaves me exposed from the neck up." I unzipped the bag and showed Rebecca the dress.

"Oh, Jan. It's beautiful." She looked from the dress to my head and back again.

"I know, I know," I said. "You're thinking it's a shame someone as repulsive as me is going to disfigure such a gorgeous piece of history."

"Hardly," said Rebecca. She hung the dress back in the closet and took me by the shoulders. "I'm thinking, 'Have I got a look for you.'"

Forty minutes later, when Rebecca finally let me look at myself in the mirror, I almost passed out.

"Not to be conceited or anything," I said. "But I am totally gorgeous."

"You certainly are," said Rebecca. She'd put on a T-shirt and a pair of my overalls while she was getting me ready; now she took them off and slipped back into her dress.

But even looking at myself standing next to Rebecca couldn't make me feel any less beautiful.

Instead of blowing my hair straight, she'd curled it with a curling iron so there were long ringlets framing my face. Then she put the back up in a bun and pulled some wisps out, which she also curled. She'd done my makeup,

239

too, giving me a twenties look she said was inspired by the dress. My skin was pale and my lips were a deep red. I was wearing a pair of very high heels and silky stockings.

"You should be in
Chic,"
she said, looking at me.

"No,
you
should be in
Chic,"
I said. "Well, I guess you
were
in
Chic."

"You know, I think we're really just too gorgeous for
Chic,"
she said, spritzing me with some perfume from her bag. "We should probably start our own magazine."

"Oh, definitely," I said, spinning around so the dress made its castanet sound, "with a sound track!"

By eleven o'clock I guess you could say the party was in full swing, except I don't think grown-up parties ever really get in full swing. You can always identify the climax of a high-school party because it takes place right before the cops come and everybody has to leave. But it seemed unlikely that was going to happen tonight.

Even with Rebecca there the night was turning out to be incredibly boring. There's only so much a hot dress, a great hairstyle, and a best friend can do to combat eighty fifty-year-olds and one grandmother. There was music playing, but it was stuff like Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra, the kind of music you really have to know how to dance to. For a while Rebecca and I faked it, taking turns leading even though we didn't know any of the steps, but that got kind of boring, too. Finally we just sat on the stairs and watched people. My parents were dancing together, and every once in a while they would start

240

laughing and then they'd kiss. It was simultaneously sweet and revolting.

"There's nothing handsomer than a man in a tuxedo," said Rebecca, looking over toward the buffet.

"Are you serious?" I looked where she was looking, but all I saw was a sea of guys who looked like my dad. If you ask me, an old man is an old man with or without a tuxedo. "Those guys are all about a million years old."

"He's
not." Rebecca pointed to the corner where our neighbor from Cape Cod was talking to one of the producers on my mom's movie.

"James?" James was only two years younger than us, but he looked like an eighth grader.

Rebecca nodded.

"Rebecca, he's a
sophomore."
I waited to see if she understood what I was saying, but she kept looking over at him. "In
high school."

"Younger guys have a lot to offer," she said, giving me the eyebrow.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "I thought you said high-school guys were totally immature and a complete waste of time."

Rebecca stood up and smoothed her dress, which wasn't actually wrinkled. "Did I say that?"

"Rebecca, are you
kidding
me? You practically haven't said anything
but
that since September."

"Hmm." She thought for a second and then flashed me her trademark smile. "You know it
is
a woman's prerogative to change her mind."

241

"You're insane," I said as she started walking down the steps.

"Coming?" she asked when she got to the bottom.

"I think I'll stay here," I said. "But call me if you need any help changing his diapers."

"Oh, I will," said Rebecca. She gave me a little wave over her shoulder and crossed the dance floor to talk to James.

I would have gotten up from where I was sitting and engaged myself in conversation, too, but there wasn't anyone there I wanted to talk to. Plus, everyone seemed pretty happy talking to people who weren't me. Even my grandmother was deep in conversation with some old guy who taught with my dad at Columbia.

It was like watching all the animals climb on board the ark while water swirled around my ankles.

I was almost tempted to go up to my computer and work on my applications.

When the bell rang, I was feeling too sorry for myself to walk down the last few steps and get it. A woman who had been standing by the door went over to open it. I decided, rather than get trapped into making small talk with whichever incredibly boring friend of my parents had decided to be a little
too
fashionably late by showing up just before midnight, I'd better find a mirror and check my makeup.

I was halfway up the stairs when I heard my name being called. I considered making a run for it since whoever it was was probably too old to chase me, but then the person said,
"Jan,"
again, louder, and I turned around.

242

It was Sarah and Mark.

And Josh.

"Hi, honey," Sarah said, slipping off her coat. She was wearing a pale blue floor-length dress, and her hair looked blonder than it had the last time I'd seen her.

I was so surprised to see the three of them I couldn't think of a response; I just waved stupidly. I heard my mom call Sarah's name, and Sarah mouthed, "Happy New Year," at me over her shoulder before taking Mark's hand and heading into the living room. For a second I thought Josh was going to follow them, but he stayed by the door. It was like he'd come inside by mistake and was about to leave again.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey," he said. He wasn't leaving, but he wasn't exactly staying, either.

"I didn't know my parents invited your mom," I said finally.

He shrugged. "Yeah," he said. There was a long pause. "Your mom looks nice."

He shrugged again. "We were at my cousin's wed-ding."

"Oh. There was another pause. "How was it?" My question sounded even lamer than it was because I had to raise my voice to be heard over the music.

"I don't know. Okay." He crossed to the foot of the stairs and put one hand on the banister and one foot on the bottom step. "You look...different," he said.

Different
wasn't exactly the adjective I'd been going for. "Good different or bad different?"

243

"Good different," he said. Now he had both feet on the bottom step. As he stood there, looking up at me, I couldn't read his expression.

"Do you want to take your coat off or something?" I asked. He unbuttoned his coat but didn't take it off.

"Can I ask you a question?" he said finally. "It's something I've wanted to ask you for a while."

"Um, sure," I said. I had to swallow before I said it since my mouth was so dry.

"Why did you lie to Tom about not being allowed to go out on dates?" He wasn't scowling at me, but he wasn't exactly smiling, either.

"You came all the way over here to ask me that?" I said. "Whatever happened to 'Happy New Year'?" I thought he would laugh, but he didn't. In fact, he didn't do anything. I changed tacks. "How did you know I lied?"

He put one foot on the second step, and then he took his coat off and hung it on the banister.

"If I tell you how I know, will you tell me why you lied?"

He was wearing a tuxedo. The shirt was crisp white and the tie was beginning to come undone, making him look like a movie star at an after-hours Oscar party. Now my mouth was way too dry to say anything. I just nodded.

"Remember on the drive home from Amherst when you were asleep?" I nodded again. "Well, my mom asked your mom if talking to all those girls who got pregnant had made her be really strict with you, and your mom