Pretty in Plaid: A Life, a Witch, and a Wardrobe, or the Wonder Years Before the Condescending, Egomaniacal Self-Centered Smart-Ass Phase (9 page)

I’m realistic enough to understand my royal plans might not work out, so I’ve come up with Plan B. I’ve got my eye on this one boy I met at our trip advisor’s house last weekend. His name is Tom and he’s a senior from Fort Wayne!
⁵⁵
He seemed kind of quiet while our tour group went through our Institute for Foreign Study
Get Ready, Get Set, GO!
brochures, but maybe he’s a total party animal when he’s not shoved into a tiny love seat next to his mother? (And how adorable was it that he kept his arm around her the whole time?) I can’t wait to go on our trip so I can get to know him better.

But until I meet my prince—or get Tom to notice me—I guess I’ll be content with how popular I’ll be after my feature runs.

Plan B

(Jordache Jeans, Part Two)

H
ey, wanna know what
doesn’t
make you instantly more popular?

Using a campus-wide publication to inform your classmates that your cheap-o-rama parents have the means to send you across the Atlantic for spring break while everyone else is going to a dirt rodeo. Maybe I should have mentioned in the article that most of the trip is covered by the scholarship I received because we hosted a foreign exchange student for three years?
⁵⁶
But if I had, I wouldn’t have had the column inches to include my photo. You can see my dilemma.

I can’t fathom how a trip to Europe is cause for teasing, but today felt like seventh grade all over again, like all the hard work I put in with vent brushes and cosmetics and
Seventeen
magazine was for naught.

How is it that a few mean comments can make me feel all chip-toothed again? Suddenly, instead of strolling along in my brother’s supercute fraternity letter sweatshirt, Izod shirt with a flippy collar, and excellent jeans on my way to world history, I feel like I’m on the back of the bus in seventh grade, being grilled by Kari and Jodi before I discovered contact lenses and vent brushes and they left me alone.

Anyway, today Justine Moore was the worst out of everyone and I had a total flashback. She cornered me after English class, saying I was going to stop shaving my pits like all the Frenchies.

My response? “Yeah, well, your boyfriend doesn’t seem to mind.”

So maybe I’ve learned a couple of things since seventh grade.
⁵⁷

All that school unpleasantness is behind me because I’m going to Europe! My mom takes me to the meeting point in a McDonald’s parking lot and I convene with the trip chaperones and the other kids from area high schools. We’re traveling by van to the airport in Chicago, then we fly to New York to meet up with students from Houston, then we all go to Germany as a group. I’m so excited it doesn’t even occur to me to grab some fries or a shake for the road.

Normally Mom would be sniffly and sad I was leaving, but tomorrow she and Dad are using his frequent flier miles to vacation in Hawaii for the first time. I feel more than a little liberated knowing we’re going to be on opposite ends of the globe for a whole week. (I wonder if Mom isn’t equally excited, because she almost burned rubber leaving the parking lot.)

I ride up to Chicago next to a girl named Sandy. She’s wearing a coordinated teal green warm-up suit and it’s wicked cute! She compliments my taste in jeans—Jordache are her favorite, and she brought a pair, too—and by the time we reach O’Hare we’re complete soul sisters. Sandy goes to school with Tom, so while we’re waiting for our chaperones to check us into the flight, I take the opportunity to grill her about him.

“Do you have any classes together?” I ask, rifling through my carry-on to find my passport.

“We both have advanced placement English with Miss Hoffman during fourth period.” Sandy grabs her passport and we hand them over to one of our chaperones.

“Uh-huh, yeah, and?” I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor of the terminal, which has only been made possible by changing into a different pair of pants. My mom insisted I’d be uncomfortable not being able to bend during the ten-hour flight, so I’m clad in a comfy pair of khakis. Oh, but trust me, I
will
break out the Jordache the second we hit foreign soil.

“And what? I’m not sure what you want to know. He’s really quiet. He always has the right answer when he’s called on, though.”

“So he’s smart and not arrogant about it—I like that. Tell me more!” I say, nodding eagerly.

Sandy looks up at the ceiling, concentrating. “Um, once he did a book report on the life of Oscar Wilde.”

I shrug. “Never heard of him. But I love Kim Wilde. Her ‘Kids in America’ song is one of my faves. I wonder if they’re related?” If so, this is yet another way the universe is telling me we’re made for each other. “What else? Does he play football? Basketball? Maybe he’s a swimmer? I kinda like swimmers for some reason.”

“No . . . nope, um . . .” Sandy snaps her fingers. “He’s in the marching band, though!”

I mull this over for a moment. “Band
could
be cool—does he play the drums?”

“Negatory. The guy who plays drums lives on my street.”

“Bummer. So . . . what kind of girls does he date?”

Sandy begins to gather her things and stand because our group is moving to the gate. “That’s the funny thing—I can’t think of one girl in our school he’s ever dated.”

I gasp. “Do you know what that means?”

Sandy’s eyes open wide and she leans in close. “Tell me!”

I look around to make sure no one else is listening in. “It means he likes girls who live out of town!”

Even though I’m sure to meet a European prince because of my
parfait français
, Tom is still my Plan B.

We sit behind Tom and this dweeby guy Brian on the flight to New York. I love how Tom looks right into Brian’s eyes while they speak—he’s so intense! I wonder what they’re talking about—maybe me?? Sandy and I can’t hear them over the roar of the jet engines. Instead of eavesdropping, we amuse ourselves by creating barf bag puppets of our dream boyfriends—Sandy makes Boy George and I make Freddie Mercury.
J’adore!

As soon as we get to JFK, I hit the ladies’ room. Sandy went to buy a New York T-shirt from the gift shop and I’m by myself. I wonder if we’re in the international terminal because everyone here is chattering in languages I’ve never heard before. Two ultrastylish girls all done up in wrapped scarves, skinny pants, and shortie boots are washing their hands at the sink. I notice their Air France bags and really take a listen to what they’re saying.

Sacre bleu
, they’re speaking
French!
My first authentic French people! I totally have to talk to them and show them my brilliant language skills! I run my hands over my khakis to smooth them out, adjust all the buttons with clever sayings
⁵⁸
on my jean jacket, and finally sidle up to the girls, employing my most authentic accent.

“Bonjour, mon nom est Jennifer! Je parle le français! J’aime vos chaussures! Je vais en France! Peut-être je,
um, will buy
vos chaussures!”
⁵⁹

The girls look at each other with their elegant raised European brows, then give me the once-over, their eyes lingering on my pants. Ahh! I
knew
these stupid khakis were a mistake! They finally respond in rapid-fire French, and to me? It sounds exactly like this:

“Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah bete blah blah blah.”

I stand there and nod pretend-knowingly.

Um, what just happened here? This is
not
the kind of French we speak in Miss Knipp’s class.

The girls appraise me once more, snicker, and walk away. It takes me a second to realize I actually recognize one of the words they’ve said.

Bete.

They said
bete
and gestured at me.

Bete
is French for “stupid.”

So much for my cunning linguistics.

I slump against the wall of the washroom. I guess this means even if I do meet Prince EuropeGuy, I won’t know what he’s saying to me. I’ll probably be all,
I love you, too
, when in fact he’s trying to tell me I have toilet paper on my shoe. If I can’t communicate with him (which I can’t because apparently I speak Miss-Knipp-Cow-Town-Indiana-style French and not real French), how will I ever have the verbal dexterity needed to trick him into buying me a pie? Or a tiara? Or a castle?

Plan A is over, which means so is my chance of becoming cheerleader popular.

I wash my hands hard to scrub off the sting of failure. I stare at my reflection for a long time and it occurs to me that I’m only sixteen and it’s possible this won’t be the worst thing that ever happens to me. So I square my shoulders and try to march out of the bathroom with confidence. Even if I don’t feel it, I have enough theater training to fake it.

As I shuffle toward the gate, I make the conscious decision to move on to Plan B. And now I’m off to figure out how to maneuver myself into the seat next to Tom on the flight to Germany. Although, I notice Tom brought a clarinet in his carry-on baggage. Is it just me, or is that kind of queer?