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Only of course I didn’t say this. Because, you know, what would be the point? Instead I just nodded and went, “Okay, Mom. Thanks, Mom. I’ll be sure to, Mom,” hoping she’d finally give up and go away.
Only it didn’t work. She just kept hanging around, like one of Tina’s little sisters whenever I’m over at the Hakim Babas and Tina and I want to sneak a look at her dad’s Playboy collection. Really, you can learn a lot from the Playboy Advisor, from what kind of car stereo works best in a Porsche Boxster to how to tell if your husband is having an affair with his personal assistant. Tina says it is a good idea to know your enemy, which is why she reads her dad’s copies of Playboy whenever she gets the chance… though we both agree that, judging from the stuff in this magazine, the enemy is very, very weird.
And oddly fixated with cars.
Finally my mom ran out of steam. The Little Talk just kind of petered out. She sat there for a minute, looking around at my room, which is only minorly a disaster area. I am pretty neat, overall, because I always feel like I have to clean my room before I can start on my homework. Something about a clear environment making for clear thinking. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just because homework is so boring I’ll take any excuse to put off doing it.
“Mia,” my mom said, after a long pause. “Why are you still in bed at noon on a Sunday? Isn’t this when you usually meet your friends for dim sum?”
I shrugged. I didn’t want to admit to my mom that dim sum was probably the last thing on anybody’s mind this morning… I mean, seeing as how apparently Lilly and Boris were broken up now.
“I hope you aren’t upset with Frank,” my mom went on, “for ruining your party. But really, Mia, you and Lilly are old enough to know better than to play silly games like Seven Minutes in Heaven. What on earth is wrong with playing Spoon?”
I shrugged some more. What was I going to say? That the reason I was so upset had nothing to do with Mr. G, and everything to do with the fact that my boyfriend didn’t want to go to the prom? Lilly was right: The prom is just a stupid pagan dance ritual. Why did I even care?
“Well,” my mom said, climbing awkwardly to her feet. “If you want to stay in bed all day, I’m certainly not going to stop you. There’s no place else I’d rather be, I’ll admit. But then, I’m an old pregnant lady, not a fifteen-year-old.”
Then she left. THANK GOD. I can’t believe she tried to have a sex talk with me. About Michael. I mean, doesn’t she know Michael and I haven’t gotten past first base? No one I know has, with the exception, of course, of Lana. At least I assume Lana has, judging by what got spray-painted about her across the gymnasium wall over Spring Break. And now Lilly, of course.
God. My best friend has been to more bases than I have. And I am the one who is supposed to have found my soul mate. Not her.
Life is so unfair.
Sunday, May 4, 7 p.m., the loft
I guess it must be Check on Mia’s Mental Health Day, since everybody is calling to find out how I am. That was my dad on the phone just now. He wanted to know how my party went. While on the one hand this is a good thing—it means neither Mom nor Mr. G mentioned the whole Seven Minutes in Heaven thing to him, which wouldn’t have made him too ballistic or anything—it was also kind of a bad thing, since it meant I had to lie to him. While lying to my dad is easier than lying to my mom, because my dad, never having been a young girl, doesn’t know the kind of capacity young girls have to tell terrific whoppers—and apparently isn’t aware that my nostrils flare when I lie, either—it is still sort of nerve-wracking. I mean, he IS a cancer survivor, after all. It seems sort of mean to lie to someone who is, basically, like Lance Armstrong. Except without all the Tour de France wins.
But whatever. I told him the party went great, blah blah blah.
Good thing he wasn’t in the same room with me. He’d have noticed my nostrils flaring like crazy.
No sooner had I hung up the phone with my dad than it rang again, and I snatched it up, thinking it might be, oh, I don’t know, MY BOYFRIEND. You would have thought Michael might have called me at some point during the day, just to see how I was. You know, whether or not I was crippled with grief over the whole prom thing.
But apparently Michael is not all that concerned for my mental health, because not only has he not called, but the person on the other end of the phone when I eagerly snatched it up was about as far from being Michael as you can get.
It was, in fact, Grandmère.
Our conversation w
ent like this:
Grandmère:
Amelia, it is your grandmother. I need you to reserve the night of Wednesday the seventh. I’ve been asked to dine at Le Cirque with my old friend the sultan of Brunei, and I want you to accompany me. And I don’t want to hear any nonsense about how the sultan needs to give up his Rolls because it is contributing to the destruction of the ozone layer. You need more culture in your life, and that’s final. I’m tired of hearing about Miraculous Pets and the Lifetime Channel for Stay-at-Home Mothers or whatever it is you’re always watching on the television. It’s time you met some interesting people, and not the ones you see on TV, or those so-called artists your mother is always having over for girls’ Bingo night, or whatever it is.
Me:
Okay, Grandmère. Whatever you say, Grandmère.
What, I ask you, is wrong with that answer? Really? What part of “Okay, Grandmère. Whatever you say, Grandmère” would any NORMAL grandmother find suspicious? Of course, I’m forgetting my grandmother is far from normal. Because she was all over me, right away.
Grandmère:
Amelia. What is wrong with you? Out with it, I haven’t much time. I’m supposed to be dining with the duc di Bomarzo.
Me:
Nothing’s wrong, Grandmère. I’m just…I’m a little depressed, is all. I didn’t get such a good grade on my last Algebra quiz, and I’m a little down about it….
