Without realizing it, I had been letting Joel hang out with me when what I really should have been doing (maybe) was dating him, even if
Mrs Jones
dictated his unsuitability. He was kind of bad. I didn’t have to ask Joel what he was doing here in the hallway again. I knew.
Joel had been suspended. His jeans hung low and you could see the top of his boxers and the bottom of his ripped torso peeping out from beneath his plaid shirt. His muscular arms carried a more than usually heavy bag, full of the contents of his locker.
We paused at the drink vending machine. Suddenly he stopped and turned around to acknowledge me.
‘Hey, Tuesday Girl...’
As I told you, he was kind of smart. It’s just that, as punishment for attempting to take a photograph up Miss Holland’s skirt (Miss H was our music teacher), he’d been assigned to hang out with a different ‘high achieving’ student every day for a month during ninth grade.
After that, he got the ‘dangerous’ rep. Today, the
rumor
about Joel’s suspension (for setting off the school smoke alarms ‘unintentionally’), had been posted on the Princess’s webpage. Thereafter it had multiplied like swine flu. I was not completely unaware.
‘Hey Pheebs...come here, there’s something I wanted to say to you before I go on vacation...’
‘You can say it from there...’
‘Why, because I’m such a bad influence you have to keep your distance?’
‘Of course not,’ the truth was, I admired his reckless abandon.
I moved forward but not too close.
He stopped and looked at me like I was soda in a fountain. He paused momentarily, then spoke.
‘You were my favorite,’ he said in a deeper than teenage rebel voice.
‘Your
favorite
what?’
‘Day of the week. We usually met on Tuesdays.’
This gave me an idea.
‘Mmm...can you put that in writing?’
‘Eager to please the lady...’ he said with a smile. Joel pulled out a docket or something from his pocket and wrote:
To Phoebe (Tuesday) Harris; you are my favourite day of the week, luvJoel.
I stopped feeding coins into the slot and shoved the note into my pocket. I was feeling all hot and sweaty from dance rehearsals and not
looking my best to greet a man
as per the guides I now read obsessively, but exceptions must be made and I wasn’t expecting this. I stood my ground and faced him.
‘Why are you carrying such a big bag? You don’t have, like, a
body
in there do you?’
He laughed and lit a cigarette.
‘No. Want one?’
‘It’s illegal to smoke at school. Besides, it’s bad for you.’
He stubbed it out.
‘I just gave up. I’m celebrating.’
‘What are you celebrating?’
‘I’m going to New York.’
‘What? You mean you’re dropping out of school?’
‘Yep. For two whole weeks. I got suspended but I don’t think I want to come back, anyways...’
‘Wow...I don’t know if that’s something to celebrate..’ then I forgot the
Mrs Jones Guide
and just said what I thought, ‘...that could be a really dumb idea...besides, I wasted loads of time checking your work.’
‘No time is wasted Phoebe Tuesday. Besides, I have an older brother there. I can catch up on
Wuthering Heights
when I’m gone. Don’t worry. I’ve never been to New York but it’s got to be more interesting than here. I can’t wait to go.’
I couldn’t wait to get out of Sunrise either. Maybe it had something to do with Mark.
‘Me either,’ I said, trying to sound way cooler than I am. I leant back on the door of the locker, ‘after the play is over, and I’ve graduated, I want to go to Julliard...if I get in.’ Joel smiled.
I gotta tell you being around him at that moment made me feel a little shy. This was starting to bother me. I was becoming the girl I was before I became the self-assured pre-woman I am.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘break a leg in New York. The drink machine awaits...’
But before I could turn he leant over and kissed me and the last thing I expected was to kiss him back, especially as he was all smoke-addled and I was sweaty.
Proof your love life can change in a second.
‘I always wanted to do that...’ he said. Then we heard the squeak of unoiled hinges and Mark walked out from behind a nearby locker. Trust Mark to ruin my day. He glanced at Joel knowingly, then turned around, and walked off in the opposite direction.
Joel smiled at me like the kiss hadn’t meant a thing, said
‘adios amigos’
and left.
‘
How rude,’
I wrote in the diary that night and when I told Mouche she agreed. ‘They just love you and leave you. What’s the point of that?’ I started to cry. Mouche consoled me.
‘This is so unexpected...’
‘I know,’ Mouche said. ‘...but was it good?’ she asked.
‘Well, it would have been...if we hadn’t been interrupted. It was
kind of
special because it was the first real kiss I’ve ever had apart from my dozens of stage kisses, as you know, and most of them were with Peter Williamson...’
‘Here, I have something for you. I found it backstage when I was going through the costume boxes.’
‘The vintage jeans...but don’t I have to obtain them via a date?’
‘
Obtaining items from so-called dates will not a self-determined woman make
...except maybe in France. So, I’m going to add that the rules of ‘obtaining items’ can be amended as and when we see fit. I think the unexpected encounter you had with Joel can definitely count as a date and you just need a little help with the items. Anyway, these jeans are perfect for
treasure trove item
three.
We both tried them on. They were a little long for me but I just rolled them up.
I got to keep the guide that night. I sat up in my canopy bed like Pollyanna thinking about Joel and how best to describe what had happened. A little part of me was seriously annoyed. For ten minutes he’d taken me out of my triple threat Princess-hating world and taken me into the possibility of Loveland. And in Loveland, it seemed to me all the rules, the entire plan, went out the window. It’s like that old disco record Mrs
Mouche
plays all the time when she’s doing the vacuuming once a year.
Love was way complex.
But in the end, I kept it simple.
‘Keep it simple sister,’ Wednesday was learning to say. I know because Mouche taught her and there is nothing funnier than a three year old with glitter face saying; ‘
keep it simple sister,’
in a bluesy voice. Thom is just chomping at the bit to take her on at Starz; I think he’s given up on Mouche and me, but what you really need in the biz is an agent who believes in you.
‘No’, I replied when Mouche asked me if I’d heard from Thom since the
Alien
audition,
‘I really need him to believe in me...’ I whined a few seconds later.
‘What you need is to believe in yourself,’ Mouche said.
In any case, Thom wanted Wednesday to audition for a commercial that will be ongoing and set her up for life, financially (or at least for college), if she gets it.
‘We shouldn’t exploit her talents,’ Mouche said.
‘But couldn’t we ask your mom?’
‘You know what she’ll say,’ Mouche replied.
Somehow, Thom convinced us to take Wednesday to the open call the next day. Thom rang and rang until we relented and Mouche agreed to take Wednesday to her first
Kidz
audition without telling her mother who, ‘didn’t want anything to do with that exploitative business,’ now that she had her own career and love life back on track.
If Wednesday gets it, the commercial will set up her college fund. Then Mrs Mouche might be happy about it, and glad we arranged to take her.
Besides we both love any excuse to drive to the heart of Los Angeles.
I was wiping sparkles and face paint off Wednesday’s face.
‘I want more,’ Wednesday said.
‘No Wednesday. Kids wearing make-up look like little hussies. They want to see you looking natural!’
Wednesday was immediately put out and crossed her tiny arms and legs and snuggled up to Mouche.
‘Okay,’ I said, finally deciding to use the curling tongs on Wednesday’s hair. Mouche’s mother had forbidden me to do this to Wednesday’s golden baby locks long ago. But Mrs Mouche was away on a business conference and wouldn’t be back until Sunday so I was in charge.
‘Okay girls, I trust you,’ Mrs Mouche assured us as she flounced off the front porch, her suit freshly dry-cleaned, her make-up newly applied, her hair blow waved. Mrs Mouche was really a great role-model for young girls. She had lifted herself up from male and financial disaster.
