Me and Miranda Mullaly (12 page)

To: Erica

From: Miranda

Date: February 13, 2016 9:13 AM

Subject: Thanks

———————————————————————————

E,

You'll never guess what happened after we hung up (thanks for being there, by the way!). Chollie, Duke, and Sam were shoveling our walk and then started fighting. They attacked my father with a barrage of snowballs and smashed the window of my dad's new car.

My dad flipped out and hurt his back chasing them. I'm so embarrassed.

This house is crazy. Can you come over? You just have to see it.

M

15

I've had a
lot of bad weekends, but this is the worst weekend in the history of bad weekends. It's without a doubt the worst weekend since last Halloween, when Foxxy and I got nailed throwing toilet paper into the trees outside of the school. Why Lichtensteiner was at school that night, I'll never know. And this is much worse than the weekend I was punished for starting a teeny-weeny little fire in the science lab. And even worse than the weekend I was punished after using the school intercom to find out if anyone had seen my missing winter gloves.

This weekend is the worst because I haven't been
caught
yet.

After narrowly escaping the clutches of Mr. Mullaly, I am on edge. I mean, really on edge. My heart skips a beat and I jump every time a phone rings. And then when I forget for just a moment about the snow-shoveling disaster, I remember that Miranda wasn't at the dance, and that hurts, too.

To make matters worse, John Lutz is still hanging around the house. When I go into the kitchen to make a sandwich, he's there. When I go into the den to watch some television, he's there, too. And he's got his dirty hand wrapped around the remote control. I swear Lutz is like a female Erica Dickerson. He's everywhere you don't want him to be.

I'm about to tell him to stop changing the channel when the phone rings.

“Sam,” Mom calls from the kitchen, “it's for you.”

I freeze in my seat and suddenly begin to sweat. And I'm really thirsty. It must be Mr. Mullaly calling to tell me he's going to beat the stuffing out of me because of the snowball.

“Go on, get the phone, moron,” Lutz says.

I still can't move, and that's saying something because I hate being in the same room as Lutz. Then Mom comes into the room and she's talking on the phone.

“Okay, and best to your mom,” she says before tossing it to me.

“Hello . . .” I say.

“Sam, Foxxy here.”

For the first time since forever, or I suppose since an hour or two, I feel alive again.

“Foxxy! Foxxy!” I turn and look at Lutz and point to the phone. “It's Foxxy,” I tell Lutz. I just have to share my relief with somebody.

“Foxxy, what's happening?” I ask.

“You up for some sledding?”

“You bet,” I say. It's just what I need. I need to talk to Foxxy and tell him what's happening. If anyone can help me out of this mess and make me feel better, it's Foxxy.

“Great, Holly and I are heading over to the golf course. I heard the sledding is awesome. Do you want us to stop by on the way over?”

“No, no,” I say. “I'll meet you there.”

“Hey, you okay?” Foxxy asks.

“I'm fine. Did you have fun last night?”

“It was great. Holly and I had the best time.”

“Great,” I say. “I'll see you for sledding later on, okay?”

But I have no intention of sledding with Foxxy
and
Holly Culver. I saw enough of them last night. And believe me, they wouldn't be talking to old Sam Dolan while we were sledding. I feel bad enough without being a third wheel.

So I spend the rest of the day in my room. It's one of these days where I just can't stand any other human beings.

When I finally emerge, everyone is cuddled up in the
living room. And Lutz is acting like he's a part of the family. Sharon, Maureen, Mom, and Dad have hot chocolates and they're sharing the covers. And Lutz is sitting right in the middle, where I should be sitting.

I'm standing, looking at them all cuddling together, happy as can be. And there isn't room for me.

“What about date night?” I ask. The girls and Mom are supposed to go out and me and Dad are supposed to stay home and eat pizza and watch movies. John Lutz is
not
supposed to be part of any of this.

“We've decided to stay in tonight,” Mom says. “It's too cold.”

Mentioning the cold is the signal for Maureen to cuddle with Lutz. This is enough to turn my stomach.

Mom is the only one who notices me.

“Do you feel okay, honey?” she asks.

I shrug.

Mom puts her hot chocolate down and gets up from under the covers. She puts her hand on my forehead and I can feel her warmth.

“You don't look well. Do you want to rest in bed?”

Suddenly I feel like hugging Mom and crying and really telling her about everything that has happened. I mean, I have a lot of emotions going on inside of me. Thankfully, I don't cry (Lutz would never let me live it
down) and Mom just thinks I'm coming down with something.

Before I know it, I'm tucked under my warm covers and I have the second Twilight book to read. Mom gives me a kiss and leaves, and for the first time, I feel all right. I think it's going to be okay.

In no time I'm asleep, but it's like the old movie
A
Nightmare on Elm Street
. The difference is it's not Freddy Krueger who's after me, it's Mr. Mullaly. And this time, I'm the one wearing underwear and he's chasing me through the hallways of Penn Valley, and Lichtensteiner and the boys are laughing. And Miranda watches, horrified.

I wake up screaming. Once I realize I'm safe, I hop out of bed and write out a list.

How to make this up to Miranda Mullaly so she'll be my girlfriend:

*______________________________________________

*______________________________________________

*______________________________________________

*______________________________________________

All I can come up with is blanks.

Maybe Erica Dickerson is right. Maybe I am an idiot.

For some reason Billy thinks everything that happened at the Mullaly house is hilarious. But I'm honestly having a hard time laughing about it. And it really hurts that Billy of all people is laughing at me.

“Tell me again,” he says, wiping tears from his eyes.

“Come on, Billy, I told you like ten times already.”

Just telling the story is frightening. I have never seen the look that Mr. Mullaly had in his eyes on another human being before. I don't know what he would've done to me if he hadn't slipped on that ice.

“Just tell me exactly what happened with the broken window and the snowball,” he says, and he closes his eyes and rubs his head like a fortune-teller. “I need to see clearly what happened so I can figure out where we go from here.”

So I tell Billy the whole crazy, embarrassing story all over again. He stops me toward the end.

“What exactly did you see as you were walking up to the door?”

“I looked back and Sam was throwing a snowball at me. I ducked and it hit Mr. Mullaly right in the face. It was like a scene out of a movie, the way he fell back and screamed.”

Billy still has his eyes closed but he's trying not to laugh. “Go on,” he says.

“Duke swung the shovel and missed Sam and smashed the car window. The car alarm was really loud and Mr. Mullaly ran outside yelling and he slipped and I ran and ran and ran the whole way home.”

Billy doesn't say anything for a minute and then opens his eyes and smiles. And it's his good smile, his helpful smile. Not his smile that says he's laughing at me.

“Hey, Chollie, you know what?”

“What?”

“You're in the clear on this thing. You didn't break the car window, did you?”

“No.”

“And you didn't hit Mr. Mullaly in the face with a snowball, did you?”

“Yeah, that's right. All I did was shovel the walk.”

“You're clean in this, Chollie. You're going to come out of this smelling like a rose.”

Billy's right. I didn't do anything wrong. And for the first time since it all happened, I feel hungry. And I really feel like a weight has been lifted, like I can breathe again.

“So what should I do?” I ask, rubbing my hands together.

“It's obvious these other two dudes weren't shoveling
for their health. They were shoveling for the same reason you were. There's competition. So you need to forget about hoping to see her at a dance or anything like that. Now is the time to act.”

“Should I call her right now and explain what happened?”

“I don't recommend that. Her father is probably still stewing about the broken window and the snowball in the face. I know I'd be pretty mad.”

Billy takes his phone and starts working on it.

“I'll tell you what, Chollie. I'm going to free up Friday night and drive you and Miranda to the movies.” He looks up at me. “So as soon as you see her at school, go up to her and ask her out. Friday night. Movie. You and Miranda Mullaly.”

Never before has a young man looked forward to reading a sociological manuscript more than I did that afternoon. I usually dread reading Neal and Cassandra's academic work, but the manuscript (
Ethel's
Story
, if you recall) was just what I needed to keep my mind from stewing over Sam and Chollie.

When I came to the midpoint of their study, I got up from my desk and stretched and made myself a cup of tea. I contemplated calling the Mullaly abode and explaining myself but thought maybe I'd wait a couple of days to allow Mr. Mullaly to calm down.

Mr. Mullaly is surprisingly foulmouthed, and I was shaken to the core as he bolted from his house. But who could blame him after Sam had pelted him with snowballs? My only regret is that Mr. Mullaly didn't catch Sam. And there is the little matter of my lightly tapping Mr. Mullaly's car. Blast Sam Dolan for ducking! I'm certain that when Mr. Mullaly meets me and sees the kind of fellow I am, there won't be any hard feelings. I can even tell him I was protecting him from Sam's unprovoked snowball attack.

Perhaps we'll even laugh about the whole thing.

Perhaps he won't even want my money for the broken
car window; though, being a gentleman, I'll certainly offer to pay for the damages.

Perhaps he will agree with me that Chollie and Sam were totally out of line. After all, I was at the Mullaly house first.

I finished the manuscript and tried to no avail to clear Sam and Chollie from my head. Marcus Aurelius
28
wrote long ago, “The true worth of a man is to be measured by the objects he pursues.” Clearly, in this day and age, Miranda is not to be referred to as an “object” but as an erudite, passionate, and empowered young woman. And obviously my pursuit of Miranda says a lot about me, and about Miranda as well. But what I simply cannot comprehend is how Sam and Chollie—neither of whom could count past ten without the help of their toes—figure into the equation.

If they really think they are going to steal Miranda's heart from me, they are both sorely mistaken.