There’s no school because it’s a “teacher planning” day, so I’m sitting at Gigi’s house. I’m helping her dye her hair. Miss Davis told her she had to choose a color a little “closer to nature” for the performance. We’re dying it Light Spice—a reddish brown, and we’re channel surfing. Gigi stops at this morning show where a girl about our age is talking about how she got pregnant.
“There’s just three guys it could be,” she’s saying.
Gigi snorts. “Just three!”
“Shh. I want to hear this. Have some respect for the pregnant.”
“And one’s a one-night stand,” the TV girl continues. “He won’t support me.”
Gigi rolls her eyes. “Big surprise.”
“Shut up! Shut up!”
“I’m not sure I’m ready to be a mother,” the TV girl says.
Gigi starts to make another crack, but then looks at me and gets quiet. She waits until the show cuts to a commercial and then says, “Let’s make popcorn.”
“We just ate,” I say, not getting up. “It’s ten-thirty, and we had bagels before we went to Walgreen’s for the hair dye.”
“Pleeeeze, Cait, I’m starving. Humans actually need calories to sustain life.”
“Okay, but I’m not eating any.” I follow her into the kitchen. While the popcorn pops, I say, “Do you think people on those morning shows are for real?”
“Sure. Why not?” she says.
“I hear a lot of them are aspiring actresses.”
“We should go on one then—you and me—when we’re in New York trying to make it.” She checks out her reflection in the door of the microwave. “This is gonna look soooo totally lame.”
“It’ll look fine. What would the show be about—the one we’re going on?”
“I was a Teenage Pageant Queen,” Gigi says.
“No. I Was a Drama School Dropout.”
“No, wait. I have the perfect one for you,” Gigi says. “My Mother Won’t Stop Dressing Like Me!”
“Hey, watch it.”
“You’re just mad you didn’t think of it first.”
“Am not.” I glance at the microwave clock. “Be quiet. We have to listen to the popcorn now.”
So we stand there listening to the pops, inhaling the smell. When the pops slow down to five seconds between them, we take the bag out of the microwave. I reach for it.
“Thought you weren’t having any.”
I stick my tongue out at her.
“What’s the Toe-Jam update?” she asks.
“She still thinks they’re getting married.”
“Are they?”
“He’s still with his wife.”
“I wonder what she’s like.”
“I don’t know. I looked up his address on the computer.”
“Really? You know where his house is? Have you gone there?” Gigi asks.
“Too chicken.”
That’s all Gigi needs to hear. As soon as she washes out the hair dye (she looks really pretty, but I don’t mention it since I know she’s not happy about looking so conventional), we’re in her mom’s car heading there.
The house is an ordinary, very nice house like Dad’s. But one thing I notice is there’s a yellow Lab in the backyard. I always wanted a yellow Lab. I used to ask Mom for a dog every year for Christmas. (“Dogs are creatures that eat their own puke, Caitlin,” she told me.) What I wonder now is, Is it Arnold’s kids’ dog? Did he get it for them for Christmas or Hanukah or whatever they celebrate?
“Nice place,” Gigi says.
“Yeah.” I chew my cuticle. “Can we leave now?”
Opera_Grrrl’s Online Journal
Subject: The Kind of Thing I Love About This School
Date: November 2
Time: 8:14 p.m.
Listening 2: “The Lullabye of Broadway” (finale 4 our show)
Feeling: Amused
Weight: 115 lbs.
In English class we’re reading this book called Stargirl, which is basically abt. embracing non-conformity (like people at this school need a lesson in *THAT!*). The whole grade is reading it. Anyway, 2day the principal, Mr. Cirrone, actually came 2 school *dressed* as Stargirl, wearing a wig and a long prairie dress, and carrying a ukulele. In my old school, people would have def. thought that was très lame, but here they thought it was funny.