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Wednesday, May 7, Algebra
Well, I did it. I can’t say it went over very well. In fact, it did not go over AT ALL well. But I did it. No one can say I didn’t do EVERYTHING POSSIBLE to try to get my boyfriend to take me to his prom.
Oh God, but WHY did it have to be LANA WEINBERGER???? WHY???? I mean, ANYBODY else— Melanie Greenbaum, even. But no. It had to be Lana. I had to grovel to LANA WEINBERGER.
Oh God, my skin is still crawling.
She was so not receptive to my offer, either. You would have thought I was asking her to strip naked and sing the school song in the middle of lunch (no, wait—Lana probably wouldn’t mind doing that).
I got to class early, because I know Lana usually likes to get there before the second bell to make a few calls on her cell. There she was, all right, the only person in the room, yakking away to someone named Sandy about her prom dress—she really did get a black off-one-shoulder one with a butterfly hem from Nicole Miller (I so hate her).
Anyway, I went up to her—which I think was VERY brave of me considering every time I fall under Lana’s radar she makes some catty personal remark about my physical appearance. But whatever. I just stood there next to her desk while she yammered into the phone, until she finally realized I wasn’t going away. Then she went, “Hold on a minute, will you, Sandy? There’s a… person who wants something.” Then she held the phone away from her face, looked up at me with those big baby blues of hers, and went, “WHAT?”
“Lana,” I said. I swear, I have sat next to the emperor of Japan, okay? I once shook the hand of Prince William. I even stood next to Imelda Marcos in line for the ladies’ room at The Producers.
But none of those events made me as nervous as Lana does with a mere glance. Because of course Lana has made tormenting me a special personal hobby of hers. That kind of terror runs deeper than the fear of meeting emperors or princes or dictators’ wives.
“Lana,” I said again, trying to get my voice to stop shaking. “I need to ask you something.”
“No,” Lana said, and got back onto her cell phone.
“I haven’t even asked you yet,” I cried.
“Well, the answer is still no,” Lana said, tossing around her shiny blond hair. “Now, where was I? Oh, yes, so I am fully getting body-glitter and putting it on my—no, not there, Sandy! You are so bad.”
“It’s just—” I had to talk fast because of course there was a strong chance Michael was going to stop by the Algebra classroom on his way to AP English, as he does almost every day. I did not want him to know what I was up to. “I know you’re on the prom committee, and I really think this year’s senior class deserves live music at their prom, and not just a DJ. That’s why I was thinking you should ask Skinner Box to play—”
Lana went, “Hold on, Sandy. That person still hasn’t gone away.” Then she looked at me from out between her thickly mascared eyelashes and went, “Skinner Box? You mean that band of geeks who played that stupid princess-of-my-heart song to you on your birthday?”
I said, taking umbrage, “Excuse me, Lana, but you shouldn’t speak so disparagingly of geeks. If it were not for geeks, we would not have computers, or vaccinations against many major diseases, or antibiotics, or even that cell phone you are talking into—”
“Yeah,” Lana said briskly. “Whatever. The answer is still no.”
Then she went back to her cell phone conversation.
I stood there for a minute, feeling color rush into my face. I must really be making progress with my impulse control, since I didn’t reach out and grab her cell phone from her and crush it beneath my Doc Martens as I might once have. Being the proud owner of a cell phone myself now, I know just how completely heinous doing something like that would be. Also, you know, considering how much trouble I got into the last time I did it.
Instead, I just stood there with my cheeks burning and my heart beating really fast and my breath coming out in these kind of shallow little gasps. It seems like no matter what kind of strides I make in the rest of my life—you know, behaving with level-headed calmness in medical emergencies, knighting people, almost getting to second base with my boyfriend—I still can’t seem to figure out how to act around Lana. I just don’t get why she hates me so much. I mean, what did I ever DO to her? Nothing.
Well, except for the whole cell phone stomping thing. Oh, and that time I stabbed her with a Nutty Royale. And that other time I slammed her hair in my Algebra book.
But I mean, besides all that.
