Love and Other Things I'm Bad At (11 page)

10/5

Tried to talk to Mary Jo today, about Joe. I think he is truly evil. Insists on calling me “Truth or Dairy Queen,” which is not even a good name for a cross-dresser.

And also, I want our room back. Next thing you know he’ll be sleeping over, and THAT CAN’T HAPPPEN.

So we went to breakfast together, and over dry bran cereal and a banana, I said, “Mary Jo, have you ever thought about . . . I don’t know. Breaking up with Joe?”

She laughed. “Why would I want to do
that
?”

“Look at all the cute guys walking around,” I said.

I should’ve looked up before I said that. I never realized that most hotties don’t show up at the CF caf before 8
A.M.
Lots of guys wearing sweats and carrying stacks of donuts do.

“Anyway, you could go out with any guy here you wanted to,” I said.

“That’s not true!” Mary Jo said. “Besides, I’m really happy with Joe. Why are you bringing this up? He didn’t
do
anything to upset you, did he?” She looked very concerned as she buttered a butter roll.

“Oh, no. Not at all,” I said. She’s so sweet sometimes, it kills me. I can’t just
demand
that she break up with her boyfriend. That wouldn’t be fair. I can, however, continue to strongly suggest it.

10/6

Parents Weekend started tonight. Dad’s coming tomorrow. Mary Jo’s parents couldn’t come because they’re busy with a cow crisis, so 1 of her 6 brothers came—Ed. Mary Jo kept leaving us alone in the room while she went to look for Joe, who wasn’t answering his phone. Joe was supposed to introduce her to his parents and then they’d all go out to dinner, but he never showed up. Mary Jo was completely devastated, not realizing that 1 meal without Joe wouldn’t kill her and would only make her stronger. Maybe strong enough to dump him.

***ARE YOU READING THIS, JOE? I HOPE YOU ARE.

Anyway, Mr. Ed just sat there and stared at me, so I kept nervously talking. He kept smiling and nodding and laughing. He really needs to get out more, because I wasn’t being very entertaining at all, plus I have a chopped pixie cut. I think they need to find 7 brides for 7 brothers. 6 brothers. Like, soon.

Later, after Ed finally convinced Mary Jo they should go to dinner without Joe, and after Ed made a dozen excuses for Joe in order to make MJ feel better (very sweet of him), I ran into Thyme in the hallway with her parents. She calls them “Mother” and “Father.” Mother wears lots of plaid wool and expensive jewelry and calls Thyme “Morgan.” Father wouldn’t get off his cell phone, but did brusquely shake my hand. I think in their case the apple does fall far from the tree. Saw them pull away from dorm later in Jaguar, just as Dad was pulling up in rented mini-van. Mini-vans rule my life. Also ruin it.

Wait a second. Thyme said her family had lost all their money. So how can they drive a brand-new Jag?

10/7

Work today was insanely busy. You don’t want to know how many visiting parents want Knockwurst Knots for
breakfast
. Bluck. Shudder. Etc.

“This place is making so much money, it’s disgusting,” Mark/Marc/now Marque said as he shoved a wad of twenties into the safe. “The register is like overflowing. And we’re making six seventy-five an hour? I don’t
think
so.”

“Yeah, but we get these
aprons
,” Ben pointed out. Marque has decorated his with a large button that says “Have a Day.” “So Courtney, are you going to be doing your halftime show?” he teased me.

I’ve been trying to convince Ben and Marque to join our group, because we could use more members, especially ones that I’m already friends with. But they’re not convinced yet. Marque won’t wear heinous CFC sweatshirts, even if it’s to protest them. Ben is more interested in his slightly more respectable Political Debate Union group, which I would probably check out were I not so deeply embroiled in the CFC protest already.

Anyway, we were completely thwarted at the football game today. Dean Sobransky, or someone else in charge, had hired multiple security guards to surround campus, ring off football field, and prevent us from making our point. No halftime show. No radical Badicals presence at the game, though most of our people did wear the sweatshirts with the red line through CFC.

“What we have here is a case of Protestus Interruptus,” co-Badical Erik said when we all met under the goalposts before the game (I had told Dad a little about what was happening, but not much). “We might get a lot of publicity, but we might just look really, really bad.” Also, we all had to admit that the group was about ¼ the size it usually was, due to people hanging out with their parents.

I guess it was just as well, because I had my hands full with Dad. And then some. First off—he had to bring Angelina’s baby with him, because Angelina has the flu and so does her mom, Dad’s new wife, Sophia (not to be confused with Mary Jo’s cow Sophie). (Can I get a
chart
with this?) Nobody where they live could baby-sit, and Dad’s all of a sudden Mr. Grandparent of the Year, so he decided to bring her along, all the way from Arizona.

I have nothing against babies. I might have one, in like 10 or 15 years. But Bellarina isn’t just any baby. She’s the loudest baby in existence. And being away from her mom and grandma definitely wasn’t helping. So far, Mary Jo is the only one here who can get Bellarina to calm down. Wanted her to come with us but of course she had to hang out with Ed and look for Joe, who had once again mysteriously disappeared.

Dad, Bellarina, and I sat in the bleachers. Started out next to Thyme and her parents. At first Bellarina was being cute. I sat there with her on my lap and watched Corny Wittenauer posing for photos in front of the bleachers, wrapping his cornstalk arms around students as moms and dads positioned cameras.

Then suddenly it all went horribly wrong: Bellarina screaming, Thyme’s mom and dad casting many aggravated looks, people from different classes of mine scowling at me, Dad trying to put Bellarina’s binky in her mouth, Bellarina throwing it at Thyme’s mom with so much baby spit on it that it stuck to her blond coiffed hair. Thyme’s parents insisting they move; Thyme insisting that Bellarina simply needed a calming environment; taking Bellarina and leaving bleachers to sit under tree; Dad and I trying to ignore screams and cries becoming louder and louder.

End result: Thyme and her parents bought tickets and went to sit in the Preferred Parents’ enclosed Plexiglas booths section.

Bellarina decided it was time to become stinky while sucking her binky. So it was off to the restroom to change her. But then Dad had to go back into the bathroom afterward, so he asked if I would hold her. Which I was doing, and she wasn’t even screaming, so I thought things were looking up. Until Dean Sobransky came along. I thought he might be about to thank me for not staging a major protest, but his face turned all red when he saw me. Very embarrassed.

“Well, er, Courtney,” he said. “How old is your, ah, she?”

“Oh, um . . .” I had to think. “About a year, I guess. No, wait. Ten months.”

He seemed sort of surprised that I didn’t know, exactly. Then he bolted into the men’s room and that was the end of it. Very weird guy. Can’t talk about much except “college’s best interests.”

Later on, Bellarina finally went to sleep in the hotel suite, so Dad and I ordered in calzones (mine without cheese), which is what we always do together, and sat around talking. Somehow, God help me, we got on the topic of “my relationship.”

“Courtney, you’ll find out a lot about Grant in the year you’re apart.”

“Years, Dad,” I said. “It’s going to be four
years
.”

“Oh.” He rubbed the side of his nose. “Well. That’s a long time. Who knows what will happen.” He made it sound incredibly tragic, like we were doomed. And maybe we are. And if we are, it’s all my fault. I could have stayed home. Why was it so important for me to go 1,000 miles away? Just because Alison did it, in the opposite direction, and I must always copy her? Because I didn’t want to live at home and knew Mom would make me? Because I was afraid I’d be stuck in same rut, with same job, same friends, forever?

Nothing wrong with ruts. Wagons would never have crossed plains without them.

Then again, if wagons hadn’t crossed the plains, buffalo would still be around in the thousands and millions, not fighting for existence.

But then I might not exist.

Going to sleep now. Must stop this wagon train of thought immediately.

10/8

Finally got up the nerve to tell Dad over our good-bye brunch that I needed some extra spending money because my credit card limit wasn’t very high and I might be getting sort of near it. I said it while Bellarina was screaming and banging her spoon and throwing food, so that I’d seem like the good child, the easy child. We visited a Tyme machine before they left for the airport. I came home with $200 and scrambled eggs in my hair.

Very exciting news in cafeteria tonight. The student association is chartering a bus to take anyone who wants to cough up $20 to Madison next weekend—we’ll leave Saturday morning, come back Sunday at noon. Hurray! I’m going to see Jane! When I called to tell her, she was totally excited.

Grant called tonight. It was really fun because I kept making him laugh even though he doesn’t really know Dad (except for hanging out at graduation party) or Thyme and her snooty parents or anyone in the Ozone End Zone group. At the end of our talk he said, “I’m really proud of you, Courtney. It sounds like things are going really well.” Afterward I realized he hadn’t said much about his weekend. Was it good? Bad? Indifferent? What did he do? I don’t remember. Did he say? Did I monopolize the entire conversation? Maybe I should call back. But I have too much homework left to do before tomorrow.

10/9

Can’t believe what happened at work today. First, a group of men from some office all came in at the same time to order meat rolls, kept asking me what my favorite menu item was, kept making “knock knock” jokes, asked me if I thought the Brat Blankets were as good as the bacon bit Bacles.

“Sure,” I said. “They’re . . . wonderful.” If you like food involving casing, that makes you think of meat grinders, and slaughterhouses.

Oh God. Just realized something. Grandpa would be so happy if he knew I was in charge of the Best Wurst Bagels Ever team. All those years of lecturing me and showing me barbecue techniques for keeping burgers pink and juicy while at the same time killing
E. coli
. . . . Meanwhile I was trying not to spew on the lawn figurines. It was all actually paying off. Disgustingly.

Anyway, finally got the annoying guys through the line when Dean Sobransky came in. Either he’d just heard about our exciting new menu (and it’s true, the line has gone out the door for these Brat Blankets) or he was continuing his plan to spy on me and watch my every move and turn me in to campus authorities before I succeed in changing the school name.

I guess Dean S. didn’t know I worked there and was very surprised to see me. So he ordered a few items and started stammering something about how my BF job must help me “make ends meet,” with “your little one at home to consider.”

“What? You have a baby?” Mark/Marc/Marque asked. “How adorable.”

“You never mentioned that. I thought you lived in the dorm,” Ben said. Looking totally shocked and defrauded.

My face burning. Me trying to pretend it was because I was standing too close to steam table. “I
do
live in the dorm,” I said. “And I don’t have a baby.”

“But I saw you on Saturday. And you know, it’s appropriate for students to be parents as well as children. And—oh, she’s the spitting image of Courtney,” Dean S. went on.

“That’s because she’s my dad’s stepdaughter’s—wait a second, we’re not even related by blood. She doesn’t look anything like me!”

“Courtney, what’s this I hear? You’re a single mom?” Jennifer asked as she rushed over to horn in on the conversation from hell. “You never mentioned that! You need family health insurance coverage, you need company-credit day care, you need some of our bagel teething rings—”

“No! My stepsister.
She
has a baby,” I explained. “My dad brought her—the baby—for Parents Weekend, because my stepsister was home sick, and
that’s
who you saw me holding.”

Jennifer and Ben and Marque all stared at me, like they were trying to figure out if I was telling the truth or not.

“Guys! If I had a baby, don’t you think I would have mentioned her by now?” I asked.

“Um. Well. No,” Dean S. murmured.

“See, people here don’t really, um, talk about stuff like that,” Jennifer said. “Which is okay!”

People here are so weird.

10/10

Can I leave for Madison tonight? I am so embarrassed! There was an article about me in the school paper today, about the CFC protest last week (yes, the paper’s notoriously slow about getting the word out) (or maybe Dean S. made them “hold the story” until now?). There was even a little picture of me, leading the chant. Why couldn’t they use my school ID photo when I had hair, when I was vaguely attractive? Then again, real politicians don’t think about these things. I should really be more serious about this.

“Next time you’re getting your picture in the paper, you should really let me give you a makeover,” said Julie, a girl on the hall, when I saw her in the cafeteria. “I used to work at a cosmetics counter.”

“Oh?” My voice wavered as I realized she was really insulting me.

“I’m only saying that because I want you to win. I once set my sister’s hair on fire by using hairspray in an aerosol can while I was smoking,” she said. “Those cans are so dangerous, they definitely should be banned.”

1. We clearly need to better explain what our cause is.

2. I won’t ever let her give me a makeover.

LATER . . .

Just got back from taking a shower. When I went in, Tricia was standing at sink, brushing her teeth with battery-powered toothbrush. I said hi, trying to be civil. Which was useless. She gave me the cold shoulder, like I’m all of a sudden a terrible, horrible person, because I want to get rid of CFC sweatshirts. Oh yes. I really
should
do some jail time for that.

Then I had turned off the shower but I was still standing in the shower stall, drying off, when I heard Gretchen and Peña come in and discuss how the school was even more political than they’d hoped, how they admired me for taking a stand, and how everyone needs to get involved at a grassroots level. (Does that include a grass football-field level?)

Then I was walking down the hall when I heard Tricia telling Brittany and Kirsten how “It’s like, I don’t know how it’s like where she’s, like, from? But Courtney has no like
morals
?”

Never knew I could cause so much controversy.