So then we had a sort of vacation, right there on her bed. I mean, she wouldn"t let me go study. Instead, she made me order a pizza, and together we watched the satisfying but completely unbelievable end of Mother, May I Sleep with Danger?, which was followed, much to our joy, by the dishiest made-for-TV movie ever, Midwest Obsession, in which Courtney Thorne-Smith plays the local Dairy Princess, who goes around in a pink Cadillac wearing cow earrings and kills people like Tracey Gold (deep in the throes of her postGrowing Pains anorexia) for messing with her boyfriend. And the best part was, it was all based on a true story.
For a while, there on my mom"s bed, it was almost like old times. You know, before my mom met Mr. Gianini and I found out I was a princess.
Except, of course, not really, because she"s pregnant, and I"m suspended.
But why quibble?
Friday, December 12, 8 p.m., the loft
Oh, my G.o.d, I just checked my e-mail. I am being inundated with supportive messages from my friends!
They all want to congratulate me on my decisive handling of Lana Weinberger. They sympathize with my suspension and encourage me to stay firm in my refusal to back down from my stand against the administration (what stand against the administration? All I did was destroy a cell phone. It has nothing to do with the administration). Lilly went so far as to compare me with Mary, Queen of Scots, who was imprisoned and then beheaded by Elizabeth I.
I wonder if Lilly would still think that if she knew that the reason I smashed Lana"s cell phone was because she was threatening to spill the beans about my having pulled the fire alarm that ruined Lilly"s walkout.
Lilly says it"s all a matter of principle, that I was banished from the school for refusing to back down from my beliefs. But actually, I was banished from school for destroying someone else"s private property-and I only did it to cover up for another crime that I committed.
No one knows that but me, though. Well, me and Lana. And even she doesn"t know for sure why I did it. I mean, it could have been just one of those random acts of violence that are going around.
Everyone else, however, is seeing it as this great political act. Tomorrow, at the first meeting of the Students Against the Corporatization of Albert Einstein High School, my case is going to be held up as an example of one of the many unjust decisions of the Gupta Administration.
I think tomorrow I might develop a case of weekend strep throat.
Anyway, I wrote back to everyone, telling them how much I appreciate their support, and not to make a bigger deal out of this than it actually is. I mean, I"m not proud of what I did. I would much rather have NOT done it, and stayed in school.
One bright note: Michael is definitely getting the cards I"ve been sending him. Tina walked by his locker today after PE and saw him take the latest one out and put it in his backpack! Unfortunately, according to Tina, he did not wear an expression of dazed pa.s.sion as he slipped the card into his bag, nor did he gaze at it tenderly. He did not even put it away very carefully: Tina regretted to inform me that he slipped his iMac laptop into his backpack next, undoubtedly squashing the card.
But he wouldn"t, Tina hastened to a.s.sure me, have done that if he"d known it was from you, Mia! Maybe if you"d signed it . . .
But if I signed it, he"d know I like him! More than that, he"d know I love him, since I do believe the L word was mentioned in at least one card. And what if he doesn"t feel the same way about me? How embarra.s.sing! Way worse than being suspended.
Oh, no! As I was writing this, I got Instant Messaged by, of all people, Michael himself! I freaked out so bad, I shrieked and scared Fat Louie, who was sleeping on my lap as I wrote. He sank all of his claws into me, and now I have little puncture marks all over my thighs.
Michael wrote: CRACKING: Hey, Thermopolis, what"s this I hear about you getting suspended?
I wrote back: FTLOUIE: Just for one day.
CRACKING: What"d you do?
FTLOUIE: Crushed a cheerleader"s cellular phone.
CRACKING: Your parents must be so proud.
FTLOUIE: If so, they"ve done a pretty good job of disguising it so far.
CRACKING: So are you grounded?
FTLOUIE: Surprisingly, no. The attack on the cell phone was provoked.
CRACKING: So you"ll still be going to the Carnival next week?
FTLOUIE: As secretary to the Students Against the Corporatization of Albert Einstein High School, I believe my attendance is required. Your sister is planning for us to have a booth.
CRACKING: That Lilly. She"s always looking out for the good of mankind.
FTLOUIE: That"s one way of putting it.
We probably would have talked longer, but right then my mom yelled at me to get off line, since she"s waiting to hear from Mr. Gianini, who, surprisingly, still wasn"t home from school, even though it was past dinnertime. So I logged off.
This is the second time Michael"s asked if I"m going to the Winter Carnival. What"s up with that?
Friday, December 12, 9 p.m., the loft
Now we know why Mr. G was so late getting home: He stopped along the way to buy a Christmas tree.
Not just any Christmas tree, either, but a twelve-footer that must be at least six feet wide at the base.
I didn"t say anything negative, of course, because my mom was so happy and excited about it, and immediately lugged out all of her Dead Celebrity Christmas ornaments (my mom doesn"t use pretty gla.s.s b.a.l.l.s or tinsel on her Christmas tree, like normal people. Instead, she paints pieces of tin with the likenesses of celebrities who have died that year, and hangs those on the tree. Which is why we probably have the only tree in North America with ornaments commemorating Richard and Pat Nixon, Elvis, Audrey Hepburn, Kurt Cobain, Jim Henson, John Belushi, Rock Hudson, Alec Guiness, Divine, John Lennon, and many, many more).
And Mr. Gianini kept looking over at me, to see if I was happy, too. He got the tree, he said, because he knew what a bad day I"d had, and he didn"t want it to be a total loss.
Mr. G, of course, has no idea what my English term paper topic is.
What was I supposed to say? I mean, he"d already gone out and bought it, and you know a tree that size had to have cost a lot of money. And he"d meant to do a nice thing. He really had.
Still, I wish the people around here would consult me about things before just going out and doing them. Like the whole pregnancy thing, and now this tree. If Mr. G had asked me, I would have been like, Let"s go to the Big Kmart on Astor Place and get a nice fake tree so we don"t contribute to the destruction of the polar bear"s natural habitat, okay?
Only he didn"t ask me.
And the truth is, even if he had, my mom would never have gone for it. Her favorite part of Christmas is lying on the floor with her head under the tree, gazing up through the branches and inhaling the sweet tangy smell of pine sap. She says it"s the only memory of her Indiana childhood she actually likes.
It"s hard to think about the polar bears when your mom says something like that.
Sat.u.r.day, December 13, 2 p.m., Lilly"s apartment
Well, the first meeting of the Students Against the Corporatization of Albert Einstein High School is a complete bust.
That"s because n.o.body showed up but me and Boris Pelkowski. I am a little miffed that Kenny didn"t come. You would think that if he really loves me as much as he says he does, he would take any opportunity whatsoever to be near me, even a boring meeting of the Students Against the Corporatization of Albert Einstein High School.
But I guess even Kenny"s love is not that great. As should be obvious to me by now, considering the fact that there are exactly six days until the Nondenominational Winter Dance, and Kenny STILL HASN"T ASKED ME IF I WANT TO GO WITH HIM.
Not that I"m worried, or anything. I mean, a girl who set off a fire alarm AND smashed Lana Weinberger"s cell phone, worried about not having a date to a stupid dance?
All right. I"m worried.
But not worried enough to pull a Sadie Hawkins and ask him to the dance.
Lilly is pretty much inconsolable over the fact that no one but Boris and me showed up for her meeting. I tried to tell her that everybody is too busy studying for finals to worry about privatization at the moment, but she doesn"t seem to care. Right now she is sitting on the couch, with Boris speaking to her in a soothing voice. Boris is pretty gross and all-with his sweaters that he always tucks into his pants, and that weird retainer his orthodontist makes him wear-but you can tell he genuinely loves Lilly. I mean, look at the tender way he is gazing at her as she sobs about how she is going to call her congressmember.
It makes my heart hurt, looking at Boris looking at Lilly.
I guess I must be jealous. I want a boy to look at me like that. And I don"t mean Kenny, either. I mean a boy who I actually like back, as more than just a friend.
I can"t take it anymore. I am going into the kitchen to see what Maya, the Moscovitzes" housekeeper, is doing. Even helping to wash things has to be better than this.
Sat.u.r.day, December 13, 2:30 p.m., Lilly"s apartment
Maya wasn"t in the kitchen. She was here, in Michael"s room, putting away his school uniform, which she just finished ironing. Maya is going around picking up Michael"s things and telling me about her son Manuel. Thanks to the help of the Drs. Moscovitz, Manuel was recently released from the prison in the Dominican Republic where he"d been wrongfully held for suspicion of having committed crimes against the state. Now Manuel is starting his own political party, and Maya is just as proud as can be, except she is worried he might end up back in prison if he doesn"t tone down the anti-government stuff a little.
Manuel and Lilly have a lot in common, I guess.
Maya"s stories about Manuel are always interesting, but it is much more interesting to be in Michael"s room. I have been in it before, of course, but never while he was gone (he is at school, even though it is Sat.u.r.day, working in the computer lab on his project for the Carnival; apparently the school"s modem is faster than his. Also, I suppose, though I hate to admit it, he and Judith Gershner can freely practice their downloading there, without fear of parental interruption).
So I am lying on Michael"s bed while Maya putters around, folding shirts and muttering about sugar, one of her native land"s main exports and apparently a source of some consternation to her son"s political platform, while Michael"s dog, Pavlov, sits next to me, panting on my face. I can"t help thinking, This is what it"s like to be Michael: This is what Michael sees when he looks up at his ceiling at night (he has put glow-in-the-dark stars up there, in the form of the spiral galaxy Andromeda) and This is how Michael"s sheets smell (springtime fresh, thanks to the detergent Maya uses) and This is what the view of Michael"s desk looks like from his bed.
Except that looking over at his desk, I just noticed something. It"s one of my cards! The one with the strawberry on it!
It isn"t exactly on display, or anything. It"s just sitting on his desk. But hey, that"s a far cry from being crumpled at the bottom of his backpack. It shows that the cards mean something to him, that he hasn"t buried them under all the other junk on his desk-the DOS manuals and anti-Microsoft literature-or worse, thrown them away.
This is somewhat heartening.
Uh-oh. I just heard the front door open. Michael??? Or the Drs. Moscovitz???? I better get out of here. Michael doesn"t have all those Enter At Your Own Risk signs on the door for nothing.
Sat.u.r.day, December 13, 3 p.m., Grandmere"s
How, you might ask, did I go from the Moscovitzes" apartment to my grandmother"s suite at the Plaza in the s.p.a.ce of a mere half hour?
Well, I"ll tell you.
Disaster has struck, in the form of Sebastiano.
I always suspected, of course, that Sebastiano was not the sweet-tempered innocent he pretended to be. But now it looks like the only murder Sebastiano needs to worry about is his own. Because if my dad ever gets his hands on him, Sebastiano is one dead fashion designer.
Looking at it objectively, I think I can safely say I"d prefer to have been murdered. I mean, I"d be dead and all, which would be sad-especially since I still haven"t written down those instructions for caring for Fat Louie while I"m gone-but at least I wouldn"t have to show up for school on Monday.
But now, not only do I have to show up for school on Monday, but I have to show up for school on Monday knowing that every single one of my fellow cla.s.smates is going to have seen the supplement that arrived in the Sunday Times: the supplement featuring about twenty photos of ME standing in front of a triple mirror in dresses by Sebastiano, with the words "Fashion Fit for a Princess" emblazoned all over the place.
Oh, yes. I"m not kidding. Fashion Fit for a Princess.
I can"t really blame him, I guess. Sebastiano, I mean. I suppose the opportunity was too much for him to resist. He is, after all, a businessman, and having a princess model your clothes . . . well, you can"t buy exposure like that.
Because you know all the other papers are going to pick up on the story. You know, Princess of Genovia Makes Modeling Debut. That kind of thing.
So with just one little photo spread, Sebastiano is going to get virtual worldwide coverage of his new clothing line.
A clothing line that it looks like I have endorsed.
Grandmere doesn"t understand why my dad and I are so upset. Well, I think she gets why my dad is upset. You know the whole "My daughter is being used" thing. She just doesn"t get why I"m so unhappy. "You look perfectly beautiful," she keeps saying.
Yeah. Like that helps.
Grandmere thinks I am overreacting. But h.e.l.lo, have I ever aspired to tread in Claudia Schiffer"s footsteps? I don"t think so. Fashion is so not what I"m about. What about the environment? What about the rights of animals? What about the HORSESHOE CRABS??????
People are not going to believe I didn"t pose for those photos. People are going to think I am a sellout. People are going to think I am a stuck-up model sn.o.b.
I would so rather that they think I am a juvenile delinquent, I can"t tell you.
Little did I know when I heard the front door to the Moscovitzes" apartment opening, and I hustled out of Michael"s room, that I was about to be greeted by the disastrous news. It was only Lilly"s parents, after all, coming home from the gym, where they"d met with their personal trainers. Afterward, they"d stopped to have a latte and read the Sunday Times, large sections of which arrive, for reasons no one understands, on Sat.u.r.day, if you have a subscription.