One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies (5 page)

This is so sick.
But the truth is I'm dying to know
exactly
who
those famous parents are.
Especially Colette's mom.

My Curiosity Is Killing Me

But before I can work up the nerve to ask her,
Colette says, “You know something?
I think your father and my mother
played a married couple in a movie once.”

“Then, hey,” I say.
“That means we're practically sisters”.
“Come on, Sis,” she grins.
“We've got a few minutes before class starts.

I'll show you around”.
And as we head off,
I casually ask, “What movie
was
it?”
“McKeever's Will,”
she says.

Oh. My. God.
Marissa Shawn's daughter just called me Sis!
(Will you listen to me gushing?
I am
such
a hypocrite.)

Colette's Tour

Well, let's just say
it's a wee bit more extensive
than the tour that the dean took me on.

First,
she shows me the spot behind the gym
where everyone goes
to sneak cigarettes between classes.
(I happen to think smoking's disgusting,
but decide it would be unwise
to divulge this information to my tour guide.)

Next,
she points out a tangled mess of weeds,
maybe twenty feet wide by forty feet long,
and informs me that it's
the organic vegetable garden.

She says there's a patch down at the far end
where a guy named Bing is growing some pot
that's so amazing it's not even funny.
He supposedly has the farming teacher
convinced it's a rare species of mint.
But the word on the street is that it's more like
a don't-ask-don't-tell kind of thing,
because Bing lets the guy “help with the harvest,”
if I know what she
means
.

Then,
before I even have a chance to stop reeling from shock,
she points out the spot
where the coke dealer hangs at lunch
as though
every
school has one.

After that,
she walks me past the two best places
for making out on campus,
introducing me, along the way,
to an enterprising senior named Lolita
(Lolita?)
who sells term papers.

And finally,
she points to a door
that's been painted to look like a starry sky,
behind which our Dream Interpretation class
apparently meets.

Whoa.
Whoa
.
If I was a coked-out nympho
stoner cheat who smoked a pack a day,
I'd think I'd died and gone to heaven.

Dream Interpretation

Maybe
this is the norm in Loser Angeles.
Maybe this is just how things are.

Maybe all of the kids in all of the classes
in
all
of the schools around here
have to sit on cushions on the floor
holding hands in a big circle
with their eyes closed

while their teacher burns incense
and strawberry candles
and makes them do deep breathing exercises
and leads them through
these excruciatingly lame things
called visualizations.

Maybe this is just
how things are in Califartia.
Maybe I'll just have to try
to get used to
all this touchy-feely stuff.

Maybe my dream class
is not exactly going to be
my
dream
class.

Then Again, Maybe It Is

Because I have to admit that after Feather
(she actually asked us to call her that!)
finishes doing her stupid visualization thing,
it almost starts getting sort of interesting.
Maybe even a tiny bit fascinating.

She tells us about this psychologist named Fritz Peris
who invented this bizarre technique
for interpreting dreams,
way back in the sixties,
called Gestalt Therapy.

Then she shows us this video
of Fritz doing this therapy on one of his patients.
In the film, the patient is telling Fritz
about a dream that he had the night before,
a dream about being at a train station.

And the patient says that
in
this dream
he's watching all these people climbing up a big staircase.
And then Fritz interrupts him
and tells him that he should
be
the stairs,
that he should talk as if he
is
the stairs.

So the guy looks at Fritz like he thinks
the idea of being the stairs is way idiotic,
but he starts talking anyway.
And he says, “I am the stairs.
People walk on me.”

And Fritz says, “Go on.”
And so the guy says, “People walk all over me.
People walk all over me to get to the top.”
And then he starts bawling like a little kid
and saying that he hadn't realized until this very minute

that he's been letting people walk all over him
his whole entire life,
that he's been letting them use him
and abuse him and it's been making him
angry and resentful and sad.

And I'm watching this film
and I'm really getting into it
because it is sort of amazing to see this guy
have this major epiphany about himself
just from one measly dream.

And, I don't know, I guess it feels good
to wrap my mind around some new ideas for a change.
Good to take a break from missing my mom.
And Aunt Duffy. And Lizzie. And Ray.
It even feels good to take a break

from hating Whip.

Multiple Choice Pop Quiz

I will:

1. get used to being expected
   to call all my teachers
   by their first name
   (such as Feather, Troy, Violet,
   and, my personal favorite, Proton)
   
2. learn not to burst out laughing
   when my math teacher suggests
   that I “take a moment to reflect”
   on how solving the math problem
   made me
   feel
   
3. adjust to the sound of a gong
   ringing at the beginning
   and the end of each period
   (naturally, they don't have
   bells
   here,
   that would be too normal)
   
4. grow accustomed to the fact
   that the cafeteria has
   waiters
   ,
   which is apparently what you have to do
   if you get detention here,
   instead of staying after school
   
5. none of the above
   

After School - Take One

I step outside—and there's Ray!
Grinning behind the wheel
of his battered blue 1989 Mustang.

He waves.
I melt.
He leaps out of the car
and we run toward each other.

Then he hugs me off my feet.
And I die from joy,
right there in his arms.

After School - Take Two

I step outside—and there's Whip.
Grinning behind the wheel
of a pale yellow 1929 Packard convertible.

He waves.
I freeze.
He leaps out of the car
and runs toward me.

Then he hugs me,
right in front of everyone.
And I shrivel up and die.

(
You
get to guess which one
actually
happened.)

On the Drive Home

Whip plays the concerned parent.
“I thought about you today,” he says.
Yeah?
Well, I tried not to think about you
.

“I kept wondering
how you were doing,” he says.
I bet. Just like you've been wondering
every minute for the last fifteen years, right?

“How was your first day at Lakewood?”
“It was fine.”
“How are your teachers?”
“Fine.”

“Are the kids nice?”
“They're fine.”
“How's the cafeteria food?”
“Fine.”

“I just have one more question then,” he says.
“Are things fine at Lakewood?”
He cracks up at his own joke
and pretends not to notice that
I
don't.

“I wonder why they call it Lakewood,” he says.
“There's no lake and there's no woods.”
Jesus H. Christ
.
If he does that one more time

I'm going to have to kill him
.

Aunt Duffy Calls

And all she has to say is,
“Hey, Rube. How are you doing?”
And my eyes threaten
to turn into two gushing faucets.

But it's an idle threat.
Because, of course, they
don't
.
They never do anymore.
My cheeks just do their hideous splotchy thing.

“I've been missing you,” she says.
Aunt Duffy's words sound far away,
and so thin, as though she's forcing them out through
a throat that's even tighter than mine is right now.

Sometimes I feel like I'm this geyser
with a cork shoved in its mouth.
Like I'm this overfilled water balloon
that's getting ready to blow …

“It's great to hear your voice,” I say,
barely managing to swallow back the quiver in my own.
But it isn't great.
It's awful.

Because Aunt Duffy's voice
is an exact replica of my mother's.
And hearing it
splits apart every atom in my body.

What I Say
(and Don't Say)
to Aunt Duffy to Keep Her from Worrying

Turns out Whip isn't as bad as I thought he'd be.
He's a hundred times worse
.

He's got a mega-cool collection
of classic cars in mint condition.
The sole purpose of which
is to draw even
more
attention to himself
.

He took me on an amazing shopping spree
and bought me everything in sight.
But he couldn't buy my love
.
'Cause my
heart's
not for sale
.
God. My life's starting to sound like a bad country song
.
(Is there such a thing as a
good
country song?)

Marissa Shawn's daughter and me are like
this
.
Who am I kidding?
She was probably only so nice to me
because she felt sorry for me and my enormous zit
.

My bathroom is to
die
for.
And if you don't come out here
and rescue me right now
,
I'm
going
to
.

What's that you say?
You're leaving on a six-month-long
archaeological dig with your new boyfriend?

And you won't be reachable
by phone or by e-mail or even by postcard
the whole entire time?
I'm so happy for you!
That's wonderful!
You deserter
.
You traitor
.
You scum of the universe
.
You call yourself an
aunt?

I Log on to AOL

And when I see FrankLloydWrong
in my “new mail” box,
my heart starts moshing against my ribs.
That's
Ray's
screen name!

He says that the first day of school sucked.
And that me being in L.A. bites.
Even more than he thought it would.
I like hearing that.

He says, “You're haunting me, girl.
Every night, when I try to fall asleep,
I see your face floating in front of me,
your killer green eyes staring into mine.”

I like hearing that, too.
And I like that he says he misses my freckles.
“All three thousand nine hundred
and seventy-one of them.”

Ray's so funny. And
so
far away.
I slide his drawing of
Ruby's Slipper
out from underneath my pillow,

and hug it to my chest.

I Can't Go
on
Like This

I've got to hear his voice—right
now!
I grab the phone and punch in Ray's number.
I hear it connect and start to ring.

I can picture the phone in his room,
lying on the nightstand next to his bed.
Ring. Ring. Ring
.

Why isn't he picking up?
Maybe he can't get to the phone.
Maybe he's in the shower.

Maybe he's in the shower
and he's completely covered
with suds right now.

Maybe he's even fantasizing
that
I'm
in there
with
him at this very moment
and we're
both
covered with suds.

Ring. Rinnng. RINNNNG
.
Come on, Ray, hear the phone.
Hear
it.

Now I can picture him cocking his head …
listening … “Is that the—?”
He hears it!

He grabs a towel
and races to the phone
because somehow he knows it's me.

He just
feels
it.
And he can't wait another second
to talk to me—

“Hello?” I suddenly hear
on the other end of the line.
“Ray!” I cry.

“Nah,” the voice says.
“This is his brother.
Ray's not home.”

Oh Raymeo, Raymeo,

Wherefore art thou, Raymeo? I tried calling you just now, and you weren't there, ??? Why weren't you sitting by the phone waiting for my call?! Just kidding. I know you have a life to lead. But I REEEEEALLY wanted to hear your voice. So if you get this e-mail before you go to sleep, CALL ME!

If I don't hear from you, then I'll sneak into your dreams later on and kiss you good night. Maybe I'll even do more than that …

Love,

Rubiet

P.S. I liked what you said about my face floating in front of you and about missing my freckles. I miss your freckles, too. All three of them.

Dear Rubinowitz,

Cameron Diaz lives next door?! Whoa! What's she like?

The first day of school wasn't any fun without you. Ray's in my math class. But, unfortunately, Amber is, too. You were so right about her. She's such a slut. She dropped her pencil (accidentally on purpose) right in front of Ray's desk and then leaned way over to pick it up so he could see right down her shirt. But don't worry. I was watching him closely, and he didn't even notice. Trust me.

Oops. GTG. The Evil Stepmom's screaming at me to get started on my homework. She is such a controlling bitch! I can't believe I have to live through ten more months of school before summer vacation. I can't do it without you. Come home right this minute!

Love,

Lizanthamum

P.S. I forgot to tell you - when Ms. Welford wasn't looking, Ray passed me a note that said “I miss Ruby.” That guy is SOOOOOOO sweet!