One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies (9 page)

“They don't call me Aunt Max for nothing.”

Max Stands Up and Holds Out His Hand to Me

But I'm not exactly ready to head downstairs.
“What am I going to say to him?” I moan.
“How about something simple and to the point,
like ‘I'm sorry'?” he suggests.

“Sorry never works,” I say.
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“Well, it never worked with Mom,” I say.
“She sucked at accepting apologies.”

“That must have been hard on you,” Max says.
And my stomach twists
with a sudden wave of guilt
for dissing my poor dead mother.

“Not really,” I say, trying to downplay it.
“Besides, after enough time passed,
she usually just forgot about
whatever it was that I'd done, anyway.”

But Max's eyes
go all soft with sympathy,
as though he thinks having a mother like mine
must have been a real test.

So I add,
“It wasn't
her
fault she was like that.
It was Whip's.”
“I see… ”Max says.

But it's pretty obvious
that he
doesn't
.
So I explain it to him:
“Mom never got over Whip dumping her.”

“Well,” Max says with a shrug,
“I guess some people
never get over what happens to them in life.
And some people do.”

Then he grabs hold of my hand
and I let him yank me toward the stairs.
But I can't shake the feeling
that I'm about to walk the plank.

Two's Company, Three's Much Better

Max and I sit down to dinner with Whip
at the table in the gazebo.
No one says a word.

Max gives me a look.
I know what he's hoping I'll do.
And I
want
to do it for him.

But when I try to force the words out,
it feels like they've been glued
to the inside of my throat.

I cough and I splutter
and I finally manage to croak,
“I'm sorry I slammed the door in your face.”

“I'm sorry, too,” Whip says,
grabbing hold of my hand.
“And so am I!” Max suddenly says.

Whip and I turn to look at him.
“Well, everyone else was apologizing…”
he says.

And the three of us crack up.

If This Was a Movie

This would be the scene where
Whip's eyes would start getting all teary.
And mine would, too.

Then he'd hug me.
And maybe I'd fight it for a second,
but then I'd give in and hug him right back.

And it would be
perfectly clear
to any idiot in the audience

that in spite of everything
we were somehow going to manage
to live happily ever after.

And then
the music would swell,
and the credits would roll,

and Whip and I
would walk off together
arm in arm into the sunset,

and Max would stand there
waving after us,
fondly nodding his head…

But this
isn't
a movie.

So I Quit Laughing at Max's Joke

Even though it's funny.
And I yank my hand back from Whip,
in a way fully intended to show him
that I think he's seriously
invading my space.

Because there's a part of me
that's not at all satisfied
with Whip's little apology.
A part of me that wants to know
exactly what it
is
he's sorry
for
.

But there's no way
I'm going to come right out and ask him.
Because I'm scared that his
things-I'm-sorry-for list
won't be long enough to suit me.

No matter how many things are on it.

When I Stop Off at Dukes Coffee Shop

To buy a pack of gum on my way to school,
the guy behind the cash register
starts getting way too friendly.

“You're Whip Logan's daughter,
aren't you?” he asks.
“What gives you
that
idea?” I growl.

He points over to the magazine rack.
And there, right on the cover of
Us
magazine—
is
us!

He grins at me.
“I've written a script that has a perfect part
for your father in it,” he says.

“Make sure he reads it, okay?”
Then he shoves a heavy envelope into my hands,
and says, “The Bubblicious is on me, Ruby.”

I wish it
was
on him—
stuck in his hair!

As I head out the door,
a middle-aged woman grabs my arm
and asks me to autograph her copy of
Us
.

Sometimes I feel like screaming
even louder than those monkeys
in my recurring dream…

The Longer I'm in Caliphonya

The more I feel
like that guy Holden Caulfield,
from
Catcher in the Rye
.

Because
I can't help thinking
how phony everybody seems.

Just look under any rock.
I bet there are more phonies in Lalaland
than there are cockroaches in New York City

Take the kids here at Lakewood, for instance.
Fake smiles flash on and off their faces
faster than strobe lights.

There are girls in my class
who've already had their breasts done.
I swear to God.

Holden Caulfield's just a character in a book.
But
I'm
real.
I'm made of flesh and blood and bone.

Flesh and blood and bone
that's aching
to go home.

And the worst part of all is:
there
isn't
any home
to go home to.

Last Night

I woke up in the middle of the night
and I was so jazzed
because I'd finally remembered a dream!

It was completely surreal—
all about Ray and me and hundreds of babies
living in
Ruby's Slipper
together.

I whipped open my blank book
and recorded the whole thing
in minute detail.

Then I drifted back to sleep,
deeply relieved that I'd finally
have something to show Feather.

But this morning
when I woke up and opened the book
to read what I'd written…

What the—?!
Every single page
was still blank!

I felt totally ‘Iwilight Zoned.
Then I realized what had happened:
I'd only
dreamt
that I'd remembered my dream.

So then I wrote down
that
dream.
And hoped I wasn't
just dreaming.

When Feather Asks Me

If I have anything to “share with the circle,”
I open my dream journal ceremoniously,
and read the dream about the dream.

Everyone in the room cracks up.
And I have to admit,
it is pretty funny.

All around me,
kids give me the thumbs up.
Even Colette.

Feather flutters over to me,
saying, “
I knew
you could do it!”
And she pulls me to my feet for a hug.

Without thinking, I let my head fall,
resting my cheek on her shoulder.
Just the way I used to with my mom.

Then she starts going on and on
about how my dream is such a
perfect example of what Freud meant

when he spoke about
dreams being the fulfillment
of our wishes.

And I just stand here,
with my head on Feather's shoulder,
wishing it was Mom's.

And Speaking of Wish Fulfillment
…

Dear Ray,

If you were here right now ̷ If you were here … Well, let's just put it this way: if you were here right now, you'd be
real glad
that you were here right now.

And speaking of you being here, I finally talked to Whip about Thanksgiving. The poor guy broke into a sweat and started asking me all about “the nature of our relationship.” He looked like he wanted to say no, but I knew he wouldn't dare because I made sure to ask him right in front of Max. And Max was giving him this heavy-duty evil eye the whole time. So now it's official!

But Thanksgiving's still seven weeks away How will I survive till then?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Dooby

A Star Is Born?

Feather decides we need to take a break
from our discussion of
Freudian dream interpretation techniques
versus Jungian ones,
and do some improvs.

She says it'll help us all
get to know each other on a deeper plane.
So that our collective unconscious
will be more collective,
or more unconscious, or something like that.

I squeeze my eyes closed and think,
“You can't see me. You can't see me. You—”
But she picks me to go first anyhow,
and sticks me with Wyatt Moody,
the worst Brad Pitt wannabe of them all.

Feather asks Wyatt to choose a prop.
So he digs around in his pocket for a minute,
snickering at some kind of private joke,
and then pulls out this floppy rubber thing
and plops it into my hand.

I stare at it blankly for a second,
trying to figure out what it is,
until some wires finally sizzle in my brain
and I suddenly realize
that I'm holding a condom!

A red-hot flash of lightning zaps through me,
and without even thinking
I fling it to the floor.
Which causes everyone in the room to break up.
Even Feather. That bitch.

Then, with throbbing cheeks,
I launch into an improv.
It's all about how angry I am with Wyatt
for always making
me
buy the condoms.
“Why the hell don't you ever buy them?!”

But I don't even let him answer.
“Why am
I
always the one who has to do it?
I am so sick and tired of it.
From now on, you no buy, you no sigh.
No glove? No love. No way, Jose, no how!”

And I guess all my real embarrassment and anger
makes it seem like I'm doing a pretty good acting job,
because when I finish with my tirade a few minutes later
everybody starts clapping,
even Wyatt.

And I nearly faint from shock.
And from how much fun I just had.
Is that how Whip feels when
he
acts?
Suddenly I have a million questions
I want to ask him.

Then Wyatt says, “You were awesome!”
And Colette smiles at me and says, “Yeah.
You're a real Whip off the old block.”
And when she says this, it's truly bizarre.
Because half of me feels proud,

and the other half feels horrified.

Lunchtime

I'm heading toward
my usual solitary table by the window,
when Wyatt motions for me
to come and sit with him and his friends
instead.

They all start waving and calling out my name.
Which is way strange,
because before today
I had no idea that any of them
even
knew
my name.

I'm too stunned to blow them off,
so I walk over and sit down across from Wyatt.
Right away he starts telling all his homies
about how cool it was
the way I handled that improv today.

“You should try out for
Pygmalion
,” he says.
Then he grins this deeply
Brad Pitty smile at me.
And I notice for the first time how
gorgeous he is underneath all that stubble.

Wyatt locks eyes with mine,
tucks his chin down just a little,
lifts his left eyebrow
slightly higher than his right one,
and presses his knee against mine.

Suddenly,
this wave of heat shivers all through me
and the sun seems to be beaming
straight out of Wyatt's eyes,
directly into mine.

Without thinking,
I grin right back at him.
But then I realize what I'm doing—
and stop myself.
How could I be so unfaithful

to Ray?

It's So Weird to Think

That I'm not even
in the same time zone as Ray.

That when it's lunchtime out here,
Ray's already heading home from school.

And when I'm eating dinner,
Ray's finishing his homework.

And when I'm still asleep,
Ray's eating breakfast.

And when I'm eating breakfast,
Ray's eating lunch.

And it's so weird to think that when
Ray was heading home from school today,

I was eating lunch.
And flirting with Wyatt.

Bad Ruby.
Bad,
bad
Ruby.

The Most Astonishing Thing Just Happened

I stopped off at Book Soup
on the way home from school
to buy Laurie Halse Anderson's new novel,

and who do you think was standing
right in front of me
in the line at the counter?

Brad Pitt!
The
real
one.
I'm positive it was him.

That was pretty astonishing in itself.
But that's not the thing
I'm referring to.

The thing I'm referring to
was that when Brad turned around
and flashed his sizzling smile at me,

I suddenly realized that even if
Brad Pitt himself asked me out,
I'd say no.

Ray's the only one I want.

Hey Lizerini,

I haven't heard from Ray in like three days. What's up with that? Is he avoiding me because he's dumped me for Amber and he can't bear to tell me? My imagination's taking me places that I definitely don't want to go … Please! Put me out of my misery. Let me know what's happening. E-mail me. Call me. Send me a telepathic message. Whatever. This sucks. Truly.

I hunger for Ray's font. Is that, like, a sick thing?

Obsessively yours,

Ruby

P.S. Caroeron was fust leaving our house when I got home from school today 1 think maybe she and Whip are seeing each other on the sly. How bizarre is that?

P.P.S. I still can't believe my father's name is Whip. Have you ever heard a dumber name than that in your whole entire life?

Hmmm …

A dumber name than Whip? Can I get back to you on that?

Listen, Rubella, you have
got
to quit worrying about Ray hooking up with Amber. Didn't you learn anything from all those years we spent playing therapy while the other little girls were playing house? Don't you remember what I used to tell you when I was therapizing you? Worry is negative prayer. Besides, Ray isn't the
slightest bit
interested in that smut tart. He never even seems to notice her, not even when she bats her lashes at him all during math class and keeps running her tongue over her lips like she's doing a bad impression of Marilyn Monroe or something. I watch him the whole time, and trust me, he literally doesn't even look in her direction. You rock his world, Ruby. So RELAX!!!