Confessions of a Not It Girl (17 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

If you didn't meet me but somehow saw my college interview outfit, there would be one and only one conclusion you could possibly draw: this girl gets dressed in the dark.

When my mom and I went shopping last spring for something for me to wear on interviews, I picked out a sexy but still fairly conservative short gray skirt and a tight black turtleneck sweater. I begged my mom to let me get it. It radiated cool sophistication. I could see interviewers from Maine to Georgia falling in love with my New York savvy, begging me to attend their selective yet terminally square institutions.

But after seeing me in the world's most perfect interview outfit, my mom decided to call the dean of admissions at Columbia, who's kind of but not really a friend of my dad's, and ask him what
he
thinks a candidate should wear. Like some guy who's about a thousand years old and probably doesn't even have cable understands anything about twenty-first-century fashion. And he told my mom that he would be "put off" by a candidate in a short skirt. "Put off." Those were his exact words. Rebecca said if you substituted "turned on" for "put off" you'd know how he'd
really
feel if I walked into his office in my little gray skirt. So then my mom made me get this

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skirt that practically goes to my ankles and has so many pleats it looks like I'm hiding a secret emergency butt in each of my pockets. And it's not even black or gray like the one I wanted to get. It's
dark green.
And to go with it, I have a
navy blue sweater set.
So now when admissions people meet me, instead of thinking,
She's so Carrie Bradshaw,
they're thinking,
She's so Laura Ingalls Wilder.

The night before my Amherst interview (after my mom made me check to make sure my revolting outfit wasn't stained or ripped or magically transformed into something I might actually want to wear), I was watching
Friends
and talking on the phone to Rebecca. We don't talk on the phone during the actual show, we just call each other at the commercials. Unfortunately, we'd both seen the episode already, so mostly we were talking about the commercials and whether Sarah Michelle Gellar is pretty.

"I think she's too skinny," said Rebecca.

"You can't be too skinny," I said.

"You can and she is. She looks like a rodent."

"You just think that because you have a perfect body," I said.

"What does my body have to do with Sarah Michelle Gellar looking like a rat?"

"Well, it's like
you
can afford to be generous, whereas if you have a butt like mine you can't."

"You don't have a big butt, Yahn," said Rebecca.

"Okay, now try saying that like you're not reading it off a cue card."

The ad ended, and an ad for Chevy trucks came on.

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Chiseled guys were hopping in and out of dusty trucks. I wondered if the ad was meant to appeal to women or men. "Would you ever date a guy who drove a pickup truck?" I asked. Now one of the chiseled men was climbing up the side of a mountain to get to his car.

"I think it would be kind of cool to
own
a pickup truck," said Rebecca. "I could have a cabin out in the middle of nowhere and a dog and a shotgun and I'd drive off-road in my pickup truck."

"I don't think you can find a MAC counter in the middle of nowhere."

"Are you saying I couldn't live without a MAC counter?"

"I just wouldn't say you're the--" Call waiting beeped.

"Hang on," I said. I clicked over. "Hello?"

"Elizabeth?"

"No, it's Jan."

"Oh, hi, sweetie. It's Sarah."

"Oh. Hi." It took more self-control than I knew I had not to spiral into a new baby-sitting-for-Hannah daydream.

"So tomorrow's the
big
day," she said.

"Um, yeah," I said. How did she know about my Amherst interview?

"I'm
really
looking forward to it."

I had no response to that. Suddenly I was getting a very bad feeling.

"Listen, will you tell your mom I
can
be ready at nine? I took care of the call today."

"Ah, sure," I said. My mouth was dry.

"Okay, hon. I'll see you tomorrow,
bright
and
early."

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"Right," I said. "Bright and early." Sarah hung up, but I didn't.

"MOM!"
I clicked back over to Rebecca mid-shout. "I have to call you back," I said.

"What happened?"

"I have to call you back." I hung up the phone.
"MOM!"

My mom
bates
when she's on the third floor and I yell something up at her. She's always going, "Don't yell. If you need to tell me something, come here." Usually what happens is I yell up at her, she yells back, and then I sit wherever I am for a while debating whether what I want to tell her is worth climbing two flights of steps.

Not this time, though. I yelled, "Mom! Mom! Mom!" and when she yelled down, "Don't yell! If you need to tell me something, come here!" I just kept yelling. She must have figured I broke my leg or something because finally she came running into the living room. She was a little out of breath.

"What
is
it?"

"Did you ask Sarah to come with us to Amherst?"

"That's what you had me run all the way down here for?"

"Did you?"

"Yahn Miller, sometimes you make me so furious!"

"Well, sometimes you make me furious, too!" I stood up so she wasn't glaring down at me on the couch.

"Why on earth would you be mad that Sarah's coming with us?"

"Because I--" What could I say?
Because I hate her

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son and I want him to be my boyfriend?
"You told me Aunt Carol was coming."

"Aunt Carol was about ten mutations ago. I
tried
to tell you each time I asked someone, and you said, 'Stop bothering me,' so I did."

I actually had a vague memory of that conversation, but I tell my mom to stop bothering me so often I can't be expected to keep track of everything I've told her to stop bothering me about.

"So what, so now we're providing an Amherst shuttle service for other applicants? 'Hey, Josh, here's a nice school for you. Actually, they'll probably accept you instead of Jan because you can play a--'"

"Josh isn't going."

"He isn't?" I sat down on the couch. "No." My mom went into the kitchen. I thought about what she'd said.

"Are you sure?" I asked finally.

"Yes, I'm sure." She came back in with a handful of potato chips.

"Well, fine," I said. I couldn't figure out why I was disappointed instead of relieved.

"He has a game he can't miss," she said.

"Fine," I said again. "Sarah just called. She can be ready at nine."

"Fine," she said, mimicking me. And she went upstairs with her chips.

Being sure--as in, "Oh, I'm sure Josh isn't driving up to Amherst with us"--is a funny thing.

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For example, Columbus was "sure" he was sailing to India. Astronomers were once "sure" the sun moved around the earth. Many of the girls in my mom's movie were "sure" they wouldn't get pregnant.

So given that I am aware of all these circumstances under which people were "sure" of things they shouldn't really have been "sure" of, you'd think I wouldn't have been surprised when my mom and I pulled up to Sarah's house and honked and Sarah walked out the door.

With Josh.

Yet I was. I was extremely surprised. I was so surprised that in the thirty seconds it took them to lock the door and walk down the steps, I couldn't manage to find the words to tell my mother what I thought of her. It wasn't until they were actually in the car that I figured out what I wanted to say, and I was truly sad to discover my sense of propriety prevented me from blurting it out once Sarah and Josh were sitting with us.

"Hey," said Josh, sliding in next to me and buckling his seat belt.

"Hey," I said.

"Hi, Mrs. Miller," said Josh. Actually my mom's last name isn't Miller, it's Simmons, but she never corrects my friends when they call her Mrs. Miller.

Not that Josh is my friend.

"Hi, Josh. I thought you had a game," my mom said as she pulled away from the curb.

"Well, we lost yesterday, so we're done." His hair was still wet from his shower.

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"I'm sorry I didn't call and ask if it was all right," Sarah said.

"Oh, don't be silly," said my mom. "It's such a treat!"

"Actually, we could
never
have come if Hannah hadn't
already
had a play date scheduled. What happened was..."

I completely tuned out what they were saying, which wasn't too challenging considering how boring it was.

My heart was pounding. I snuck a look at Josh. He was wearing jeans and a sweater and sneakers. He looked comfortable and sexy, like he was about to go rock climbing or camping. I, on the other hand, looked like some freakish character in a children's book about primary colors.
And what color is the fat girl's sweater, Little Tommy? Blue! That's right. And what color is her skirt? Green! Very good, Tommy! Now, Tommy, can you think of a good word to describe the girl's butt? Big? Excellent, Tommy. That's a perfect word.

Well, what did I care? I hated him anyway.

We sat silently for a few minutes.

"You look nice," he said finally.

I wanted to die. "Thanks," I said.

Sarah and my mom were talking about the routes they used to take from Manhattan, where they both used to live, to Massachusetts. Since we all lived in Brooklyn now, I wasn't sure why they were having that particular conversation, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Which is more than I was doing.

"So, is Amherst, like, your number-one choice?" Josh asked me.

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I shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. My parents went there."

"Yeah, my mom told me. She said your brother goes to Yale."

"Mmm-hmm."

The drive to Amherst takes three hours. It seemed to me we'd already been sitting in the car for about six.

I am not going to make conversation. I am not going to make conversation. I bate him. I hate him. I hate him.

"So," I said. "Are you even applying to Amherst?" I know there are people in the world who can handle a lengthy silence, but clearly I am not one of them.

"I wasn't going to, but Ms. Kaplan put it on my list, so I thought I'd go see it." Ms. Kaplan is one of the guidance counselors.

"Oh."
Don't say it. Don't say it. Don't say it.

"Henry said you and Leslie were applying early to Brown." There. I'd said it.

"Really?" Josh looked surprised. "Oh, yeah. I think I was probably talking about that last spring when he was out in Seattle." He laughed. "God, that's, like, ancient history."

Did he mean applying early to Brown or the girlfriend? I dug my nails into my palm so I wouldn't ask.

My mom turned on the radio, and the jazz station she and my dad always listen to came on.

"Hey, this is Sonny Rollins," said Josh. "This is a great song." Personally, I can't tell one piece of jazz from another.

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"I'm impressed," said my mom, turning up the volume. "Do you know a lot about jazz?"

"Not really," said Josh. "My dad's really into jazz. I like Sonny Rollins a lot."

"Do you know
Saxophone Colossus?"

"Oh, yeah. That's a
great
album."

My mom was so busy trying to look at Josh in the rearview mirror while she talked to him, I was pretty sure she was going to drive off the road. Ten minutes ago I might not have minded, but the latest development in the Brown-girlfriend situation made me want to live at least long enough to find out Josh's relationship status.

Not that I really cared, of course. I was just curious.

"Listen," said Josh after few minutes of music. We were on the highway, and the wind from Sarah's open window was blowing my hair around my face, no doubt turning my head into a natural disaster site. "I owe you an apology." He said it very quietly.

"You do?" I turned toward him, trying to hold my hair out of my eyes.

"Hey, Mom," he said, "could you close your window a little? Jan's getting blown away back here."

Sarah and my mom were deep in a conversation about the girls in my mom's movie. Sarah nodded and put her window up. My hair slowed down to thirty miles per hour.

Josh didn't start talking again right away, and it was all I could do not to say,
You were saying...
He sat tapping out the drum solo on his knee for a minute.

"I'm sorry I gave you such a hard time about...everything," he said, looking at me. "I was really a jerk."

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We made eye contact for a second, and then I looked away. When I looked back at him, he was still facing me.

"Oh," I said finally. "It's okay." We were driving over the bridge, and the New York skyline spread out behind Josh.

"You were pretty pissed at me, weren't you?" Josh was smiling now, that smile I used to love back before I hated him.

"Well ..." I said. I couldn't help smiling back at him. "Yeah, I guess I was kind of pissed."

He laughed his awesome laugh. "I could tell." Suddenly he made an angry face, squeezing his eyes together and frowning. "That's how you've been looking at me lately."

"How I've been looking at you? How about how
you've
been looking at me!" I scowled at him. "Hello, Jan," I said in a deep voice. "I think you are a total bitch."

We both laughed, and then Josh put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently.

If we'd had a sunroof, I would have floated out of the car.

"Seriously, though. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions like that. I was being a jerk." I was having trouble focusing on what he was saying. His hand was still on my shoulder.

It was like there was a switch inside me that I had no control over, and all the feelings I'd had for Josh two weeks before got turned on, while all the feelings I'd had two minutes ago got turned off. There was no warning.

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One minute I hated him, the next I liked him more than ever.

I was afraid I might start laughing like a lunatic.

The car slowed down through the toll and then picked up speed again. Josh moved his hand away and looked back at the view of the skyline.

"Wow, look at that view," he said.

"You know, I've always ..." I started to say, but Josh didn't hear me because my mom, who refuses to buy an E-ZPass, still had her window down from paying the toll. Sometimes I can't help but wonder what life is like for people whose parents actually live in the twenty-first century.

Josh turned back toward me as my mom put her window up. "Anyway," he said quietly. "It's a good thing Mandy told me the whole deal, or I might have kept thinking you were a bitch." He laughed and patted my shoulder when he said "bitch."

"Mandy?" I asked. What did Mandy Johnson know about Henry?

"Tom told her."

"Tom told her...?" I had no idea where this sentence was going, but I had a feeling it wasn't any place good.

"About your parents." Josh lowered his voice even more. "You know. Not letting you go out with guys." Josh was whispering so quietly I could barely hear him. "You know, Tom and Mandy are kind of..." A few words got drowned out by a loud solo; I had never been much of a jazz fan, and Sonny Rollins's sax wasn't helping. "... curfews. We thought
we
had it bad, but then we

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agreed your situation is way harsher than ours." He patted me again, but this particular pat definitely communicated "I feel so sorry for you, Jan," as opposed to "I want you so bad, Jan."

I didn't want to laugh anymore.

I wanted to cry.

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