Princess in the Spotlight (6 page)

After dinner I felt well enough to get out of bed, and so I did.

I checked my e-mail. I was hoping there might be something from my mysterious “friend.” If he knew my “snail mail” address, I figured he’d know my e-mail address, too. Both are listed in the school directory.

Tina Hakim Baba was one of the people who e-mailed me. She sent get-well wishes. So did Shameeka. Shameeka mentioned that she was trying to talk her father into letting her have a Halloween party, and that if she succeeded, would I come? I wrote back to say of course, if I wasn’t too weak from coughing.

There was also a message from Michael. It was a get-well message, too, but it was animated, like a little film. It showed a cat that looked a lot like Fat Louie doing a little get-well dance. It was very cute. Michael signed it “Love, Michael.”

Not Sincerely.

Not Yours Truly.

Love
.

I played it four times, but I still couldn’t tell whether he was the one who’d sent me that letter. The letter, I noticed, never once mentioned the word
love
. It said the sender
liked
me. And he signed it “sincerely.”

But there was no love. Not a hint of love.

Then I saw a message from someone whose e-mail address I didn’t recognize. Oh, my God! Could it be my anonymous liker? My fingers were trembling on my mouse. . . .

And then I opened it and saw the following message from JoCrox:

J
O
C
ROX:
Just a note to say hope you are feeling better. Missed you in school today! Did you get my letter? Hope it made you feel at least a little better, knowing there’s someone out there who thinks you rock. Get well soon.
Your Friend

Oh, my God! It’s
him
! My anonymous admirer!

But who is Jo Crox? I don’t know anyone named Jo Crox. He says he missed me in school today, which means we might be in a class together. But there are no Jo’s in any of my classes.

Maybe Jo Crox isn’t really his name. In fact, Jo Crox doesn’t sound like a name at all. Maybe that actually stands for Joc Rox.

But I don’t know any jocks, either. I mean, not personally.

Oh, no, wait, I get it:

Jo-C-rox.

Josie Rocks! Oh, my God! Josie from
Josie and the Pussycats
!

That is just so
cute
.

But who?
Who is it
?

I figured there was only one way to find out, so I wrote back right away:

F
T
L
OUIE:
Dear Friend, I got your letter. Thank you very much. Thanks also for the get-well wishes.
WHO ARE YOU? (I swear I won’t tell anyone.)
Mia

I sat around for half an hour, hoping he would write back, but he never did.

WHO IS IT??? WHO IS IT??

I have GOT to get well by tomorrow so I can go to school and figure out who Jo-C-rox is. Otherwise, I will go mental, just like Mel Gibson’s girlfriend in
Hamlet
, and I’ll end up floating in my Lanz of Salzburg nightie in the Hudson with the rest of the medical waste.

I AM BETTER!!!!!

Well, actually, I don’t feel all that great, but I don’t care. I don’t have a temperature, so my mother had no choice but to let me go to school. There was no way I was going to lie in bed another day. Not with Jo-C-rox out there somewhere, possibly loving me.

But so far, nothing. I mean, we swung by Lilly’s in the limo and picked her up, as usual, and Michael was with her and all, but by the casual way he said hello to me you would hardly have known that he’d ever sent me a get-well e-mail signed “Love, Michael,” let alone ever called me the Josiest girl he’s ever met. It is so very clear that he isn’t Jo-C-rox.

And that
Love
at the end of his e-mail was just a platonic
Love
. I mean, Michael’s
Love
obviously didn’t mean he actually
loves
me.

Not that I ever thought he did. Or might. Love me, I mean.

He did walk me to my locker, though. This was extremely nice of him. Granted, we were in the middle of a heated discussion about Tuesday’s episode of
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
, but still, no boy has ever walked me to my locker before. Boris Pelkowski meets Lilly at the front doors to the school and walks her to her locker
every single morning
, and has done so ever since the day she agreed to be his girlfriend.

Okay, I admit that Boris Pelkowski is a mouth-breather who continues to tuck his sweaters into his pants despite my frequent hints that in America, this is considered a
Glamour
“Don’t.” But still, he is a boy. And it is always cool to have a boy—even one who wears a retainer—walk you to your locker. I know I have Lars, but it’s different having your
bodyguard
walk you to your locker, as opposed to an actual
boy
.

I just noticed that Lana Weinberger has purchased all new notebook binders. I guess she threw away the old ones. She had written “Mrs. Josh Richter” all over them, then crossed it out when she and Josh broke up. They are back together now. I guess she’s willing once again to have her identity obfuscated by taking her “husband’s” name, since she’s already got three
I Love Josh
es and seven
Mrs. Josh Richter
s on her Algebra notebook alone.

Before class started, Lana was telling everyone who would listen about some party she is going to tonight. None of us are invited, of course. It’s a party given by one of Josh’s friends.

I never get invited to parties like that. You know, like the ones in movies about teenagers, where somebody’s parents go out of town, so everybody in the school comes over with kegs of beer and trashes the house?

I do not actually know anybody who lives in a house. Just apartment buildings. And if you start trashing an apartment, you can bet the people next door will call the doorman to complain. That could get you in major trouble with the co-op board.

I don’t suppose Lana has ever considered these things, however.

The 3rd power of
x
is called cube of
x

The 2nd power of
x
is squared

Ode to the View from the
Window in My Algebra Class

Sun-warmed concrete benches

next to tables with built-in checkerboards

and the graffiti left by hundreds

before us in

Day-Glo spray paint:

Joanne Loves Richie

Punx Rule

Nuke Fags and Lesbos

And

Amber Is a Slut.

The dead leaves and plastic bags scatter

in the breeze from the park

and men in business suits try to keep the

last few remaining strands of hair covering

their pink bald spots.

Cigarette packets and used-up chewing gum

coat the gray sidewalk.

And I think

What does it matter

that it is not a linear equation if any variable is raised to a power?

We’re all just going to die anyway.

LIST FIVE BASIC TYPES OF GOVERNMENT

anarchy

monarchy

aristocracy

dictatorship

oligarchy

democracy

LIST FIVE PEOPLE WHO COULD CONCEIVABLY BE JO-C-ROX

Michael Moscovitz (I wish)

Boris Pelkowski (please no)

Mr. Gianini (in a misguided attempt to cheer me up)

My dad (ditto)

That weird boy I see sometimes in the cafeteria who gets so upset whenever they serve chili and there’s corn in it (please please no)

AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

It turns out that since I’ve been gone, Boris has started learning some new music on his violin. Right now he is playing a concerto by someone named Bartok.

And let me tell you, that’s exactly how it sounds. Even though we locked him and his violin into the supply closet, it isn’t doing any good. You can’t even hear yourself think. Michael had to go to the nurse’s office for ibuprofen.

But before he left, I tried to steer the conversation in the direction of mail. You know, casually, and all.

Just in case.

Anyway, Lilly was talking about her show,
Lilly Tells It Like It Is
, and I asked her if she’s still getting a lot of fan mail—one of her biggest fans, her stalker Norman, sends her free stuff all the time, with the understanding that he wants her to show her bare feet on the air: Norman is a foot fetishist.

Then I mentioned that I’d received some
intriguing
mail lately. . . .

Then I looked at Michael real fast, to see how he responded.

But he didn’t even glance up from his laptop.

And now he is back from the nurse’s office. She wouldn’t give him any ibuprofen because it is a violation of the school drug code. So I gave him some of my codeine cough syrup. He says it cleared his headache right up.

But that might also have been because Boris knocked over a can of paint thinner with his bow and we had to let him out of the supply closet.

HERE IS WHAT I HAVE TO DO

Talk about embarrassing! Principal Gupta somehow found out about my giving Michael some of my codeine cough syrup, and I got called out of Bio and sent to her office to discuss my trafficking of controlled substances on school grounds!

Oh, my God! I really and truly thought I was going to get expelled then and there.

I explained to her about the ibuprofen and the Bartok, but Principal Gupta was totally unsympathetic. Even when I brought up all the kids who stand outside the school and smoke. Do they get in trouble for bumming cigarettes off one another?

And what about the cheerleaders and their Dexatrim?

But Principal Gupta said cigarettes and Dexatrim are different from narcotics. She took my codeine cough syrup away and told me I could have it back after school. She also told me not to bring it to school on Monday.

She doesn’t have to worry. I was so embarrassed about the whole thing, I am seriously considering never coming back to school at all, let alone on Monday.

I don’t see why I can’t be home-schooled, like the boys from Hanson. Look how they turned out.

HOMEWORK

Algebra: problems on pg. 129

English: describe an experience that moved you profoundly

World Civ: two hundred words on the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan

G&T:
Please

French: devoirs—les notes grammaticals: 141–143

Biology: central nervous system

ENGLISH JOURNAL

My Favorite Things

FOOD

Vegetarian lasagna

MOVIE

My favorite movie of all time is one I first saw on HBO when I was twelve. It has remained my favorite movie in spite of my friends’ and family’s efforts to introduce me to so-called finer examples of cinematic art. Quite frankly, I think that
Dirty Dancing
, starring Patrick Swayze and a pre–nose-job Jennifer Grey, has everything films like
Breathless
and
September
, created by supposed “auteurs” of the medium, lack. For instance,
Dirty Dancing
takes place at a summer resort. Movies that take place in resorts (other good examples include
Cocktail
and
Aspen Extreme
) are just plain better, I’ve noticed, than other movies. Also,
Dirty Dancing
has dancing. Dancing in movies is always good. Think how much better Oscar Award–winning films, like
The English Patient
, would be if they had dancing in them. I am always so much less bored at the movies when there are people dancing on the screen. So all I have to say to the many, many people who disagree with me about
Dirty Dancing
is: “Nobody puts Baby in the corner.”

TV SHOW

My favorite TV show is
Baywatch
. I know people think it is very lame and sexist, but actually it isn’t. The boys are as scantily clad as the girls, and in the later episodes at least, a woman is in charge of the whole life-guarding operation. And the truth of the matter is, whenever I watch this show, I feel happy. That is because I know whatever jam Hobie gets into, whether it is giant electric eels or emerald smugglers, Mitch will get him out of it, and everything will be done to an excellent soundtrack, and with stunning shots of the ocean. I wish there was a Mitch in my life to make everything all right at the end of the day.

Also that my breasts were as big as Carmen Electra’s.

BOOK

My favorite book is called
IQ 83.
It is by the bestselling author of
The Swarm
, Arthur Herzog.
IQ 83
is about a bunch of doctors who mess around with DNA, and they unwittingly cause an accident that makes everyone in the world lose a bunch of IQ points and start acting dumb. Seriously! Even the president of the United States. He ends up drooling like an idiot! And it’s up to Dr. James Healey to save the country from being populated by a bunch of overweight morons who do nothing but watch Jerry Springer and eat Ho Hos all day. This book has never gotten the attention it should receive. It hasn’t even been made into a movie!

This is a literary travesty.

What am I supposed to do about this stupid English journal assignment,
Describe an experience that moved you profoundly
? I am so sure. What do I write about? The time I walked into the kitchen and found my Algebra teacher standing there in his underwear? That didn’t move me, exactly, but it was certainly an experience.