Dear Dr. Maude,
I was wondering whether you’ve heard about The Change. And I’m not talking about the “change of life,” which is what kept coming up when I Googled “The Change.” In case you didn’t know, the “change of life” means menopause, which, when I Googled that, is what happens when you get really old and stop getting your period. But you probably already know that because (a) you’re really smart and a doctor even though you’re not a real doctor but only a shrink one and (b) you’re old so for all I know that may have happened to you already. (Wait. That came out wrong. I didn’t mean you were old-old. I just meant…You know what? Just forget that last part.)
The Change I’m talking about is the thing that happens after adults get remarried and start showing their true colors. Marissa told me about it. As I may have mentioned, you can’t believe a lot of what Marissa says because she has what Dad calls an “overactive imagination” and tends to exaggerate. But when it comes to stuff having to do with divorce, you kind of can believe her. So I’m worried she might be right.
Anyway, without exactly knowing whether this Change thing is real or just something that Marissa made up, I will say that there’s definitely something weird going on. First of all, whenever anyone brings up the wedding—like Mrs. Chin at the cleaners—Mom starts to scratch the inside of her wrist, and even though she tries to sound all polite, you can hear her voice get all high as she tells people that she really doesn’t understand why they’re making a big deal about it because it’s just a regular day like any other.
And then there’s the way that Laurel’s acting all star-like whenever Wendi and her crew are around. I know her new movie is really important to her because it’s a great role that will show the world that she can do more than be Madison Tennyson, but, still, part of what was so great about Laurel was that she was so NOT starlike. But now, whenever Wendi and her crew are here she does stuff like flip her hair and laugh really loud at the things they say that’re not all that funny.
I haven’t mentioned this to anyone yet, but what if Laurel stays like this even after Wendi is gone? What if part of The Change is that all this time I’ve known Laurel, she’s just been ACTING like she’s a normal person when in fact she’s REALLY this fake superstar? Because if that’s the case, I’m not sure I can keep living with her. I really love my life in New York City, but if I’m going to feel like the unfamous, not-as-good-as little sister of the most famous girl of the world all the time, then I’d rather move back to Northampton and live with Dad and Sarah and Ziggy. Even if that means sleeping on an air mattress in the basement.
And if that happens, you and I won’t be neighbors anymore, which would make me really sad. Not that being neighbors has mattered anyway. I mean, it’s not like it made you answer any of my e-mails.
Thanks in advance for the advice you’re finally going to give me about how to make things—and people, like Laurel and Mom—go back to normal.
yours truly,
Lucy B. Parker
P.S. I think it’s so awful that you stop getting your period when you’re old. Do you happen to know if there’s anything to do to keep that from happening? Because even though I haven’t gotten mine yet, I already know that I’m going to love it and want to have it forever.
“Sisters,” Wendi gasped dramatically the next afternoon as she paced around Laurel’s bedroom while Laurel and I sat on the bed behind her. My back was killing me from sitting up so straight. Usually when Laurel and I hung out in her room, I sprawled out on the bed, sometimes in a giant backbend with my head hanging over the foot of it almost touching her floor. Having the entire world see that—especially if something happened and my shirt flew up so everyone could see my bra—felt like a dangerous thing to do.
“Who else can you laugh with?” Wendi demanded as she click-clacked across the room.
I glanced over at Laurel to maybe share a can-you-believe-her? look, but Laurel was staring straight ahead with her can’t-you-tell-I’m-blind sunglasses and a movie- star smile.
“Cry with,” she went on.
I felt like crying right then and there. And if there hadn’t been a camera pointed at me, I probably would have.
“And, of course…shop with?”
I snuck another look at Laurel, who was still blind, and still smiling.
“To the world, superstar Laurel Moses has always seemed to lead a charmed life. Award-winning television and film star. Grammy-nominated singer. Over two million followers on Twitter,” she went on. “But behind the gloss and glitz of Laurel’s life was a tragic secret.”
“There was?” I blurted out. I looked at Laurel, confused. Here I was, thinking we had been BFFs all this time, only to find out that obviously we were not. Because BFFs did not keep tragic secrets from each other.
Wendi continued to slowly click-clack across the room, so slowly that each click and each clack had an almost hypnotizing-like feel. “Yes. There was,” she went on. “You see, what the world did not know was that Laurel was desperately.…lonely.”
Laurel’s face turned red. “I wouldn’t say I was lonely.”
“Of course you were,” Wendi said as she click-clacked over and wedged herself between us on the bed. “But when your father, Alan, fell in love with Lucy Parker’s—”
“Lucy B. Parker,” I quickly corrected.
“—Lucy B. Parker’s mother, Rebecca,” she went on, “both of your lives were forever changed. And do you know why they were changed?”
“Because I had to move from Northampton, Massachusetts, to New York City?” I guessed.
“No. Because both of you finally knew the joy of having a sister. Someone you can tell your secrets to.” Or, in mine and Laurel’s case, not tell your secrets. “Someone you can—”
“Play The World’s Ugliest Outfit with at the Holyoke Mall and then end up in the security office once everyone realizes that the girl wearing the yellow sequined top is the most famous girl in America?” I guessed.
“Well, I was going to say ‘someone you can rely on,’ but I guess that works, too,” Wendi replied.
When I looked at Laurel, she was smiling. That had been a great day. Although Laurel had made us stop every two seconds so she could take pictures of things like the food court and the have-your-name-written-on-a-grain-of-rice necklace kiosk because she hadn’t ever been to a regular mall. That had gotten tiring.
“We actually prefer the term ‘frister,’” I said. “It’s a combination of friend and sister.”
“That is so cute!” Wendi squealed. “Laurel, you are very, very clever.”
“Actually, it’s my word,” I piped up.
“Oh. Interesting,” she said in a way that made it sound like because I was the one who had come up with it, it was suddenly a lot less interesting. She turned to me. “Lucy, I would really love it if you could let us in on what it’s like to like to live with the most famous girl in America.”
I forced myself to not roll my eyes. The last thing I needed was for people to write all sorts of stuff on message boards after the show aired about how I was jealous of Laurel. But if Wendi pointed out one more time that Laurel was famous and I wasn’t, I was going to scream.
“It’s…uh…interesting,” I replied.
Laurel gave a tinkly laugh. Since when had she started to tinkle? “What does that mean, Lucy?” To the average person the question would’ve sounded normal, but because I knew Laurel so well, I could hear the nervousness underneath it.
“Interesting meaning…interesting,” I said. It wasn’t like I was going to tell all of America about the fact that she had went through a bottle of Purell a week. Although with the way she was acting, she kind of deserved it.
“Why don’t you girls tell us about the first time you met,” Wendi said. “Was it BFFdom at first sight?”
Laurel tinkled again. “Not exactly. In fact, it’s a very funny story—”
My hands got clammy. “You know, Laurel, I doubt anyone wants to hear that story,” I said, trying to sound equally tinkly. Unfortunately, when I did it, it sounded more like a donkey braying. I leaned in to Wendi. “It’s kind of boring,” I whispered.
“No, it isn’t,” Laurel said.
“Yes, it is,” I said, giving her a look that said, Okay, Laurel, because we’re fristers, I know you can hear what I’m thinking even though I’m not actually using my voice to say it. So since that’s the case, you know what I’m thinking is that if you tell the story about the Hat Incident on national television, I will have to kill you.
Laurel smiled at the camera. “Lucy calls it the Hat Incident, which I think is super cute.”
“Oh, that is super cute!” Wendi agreed.
This time I let my eyes roll. I bet if Laurel had said, “Pink is a really ugly color,” Wendi would’ve said, “Omigod—so ugly!” even though it’s all she ever wore.
Laurel went on to tell the story about the first day we met—in front of the Tattered Cover bookstore in Northampton when the director of the movie she was shooting grabbed the hat off my head, exposing the horrible haircut I had gotten after the Straightening Iron Incident that made me look like an egghead. I sat there with my fake smile, holding on to the blanket with both hands in order to stop myself from smothering Laurel with a pillow.
After she was done, she threw her arm around my shoulder and smiled at me. “And the rest is history, right, Lucy?”
I studied her face. Had she been trying to embarrass me with that story, or was she just totally clueless and really thought it was super cute? After a second, I decided she just thought it was a super cute. Which, frankly, was a little scary.
Wendi shook her head slowly. “What a beginning to a friendship.” She turned to me. “Now Lucy,” she said. “What would you say the biggest difference is between you and Laurel? You know, other than she’s famous and you’re not.”
Laurel raised her hand. “Oh, I know one way!” she cried.
If Laurel was just a regular girl who went to regular school, she’d totally have a reputation for being a bit of a know-it-all.
Wendi smiled. “What is it?”
“Well, I’m a little on the neat side,” she said. “Whereas Lucy…um…” She held up her hands and shrugged.
I turned to her. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing. Just that you’re a little on the…other side,” she replied.
“Are you saying that I’m on the messy side?” I demanded. “We’ve talked about this before. I’m not messy,” I said stubbornly. “I’m…creatively organized.”
Wendi nodded. “’Creatively organized,’” she said. “I like that.”
I smiled. Score one for Lucy B. Parker. Finally. “Thanks. I came up with it the other day.”
Laurel laughed. “I guess that’s one way of putting it.”
Okay, that was it. To tell embarrassing stories about your frister was one thing, but to accuse her of being messy on national televsion? That was crossing a line. My eyes narrowed. “At least I don’t wipe down my blinds for fun. Or sneak into other people’s rooms and wipe down theirs.”
If Dad were there, he’d tell me that a true Buddhist doesn’t try to get back at someone by saying something mean to her, but (a) I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a Buddhist yet anyway and (b) between mentioning the Hat Incident and my creative organizing to the entire world, Laurel deserved a dose of her own medicine.
Laurel sat up straight and crossed her arms. “Dust is a silent killer,” she replied. “There was an entire special about it on the Discovery Channel last week.”
I couldn’t believe she had just admitted she watched an entire program about dust. And not just to me but to the world. I didn’t have to worry about embarrassing her—she had just done it herself.
“Yeah, well, a certain amount of dust is also healthy,” I shot back. “It helps your immune system.”
“Who told you that? Sarah?” Laurel asked.
“I can’t remember,” I replied. Okay, so maybe I hadn’t exactly heard it. But even though I hadn’t, I bet that someone, somewhere had once said it. “Plus, a little bit of unorganization is good for your brain.” Maybe I hadn’t exactly heard that, either, but I was even more sure of that one than the dust-being-healthy one. “It makes it…work harder.”
She laughed. “I guess we have different ideas of a ‘little’ and ‘a lot.’”
“I guess we do,” I tinkled as I smiled for the camera.
As Wendi continued the interview and Laurel and I pretended that nothing was wrong even though, because we knew each other so well, we both knew something was wrong, I thought about how it now seemed like we had different ideas about a lot of things.
That night, after Wendi and her crew left, for the first time since it had come on the air, Laurel and I didn’t watch The Real Ghost Housewives of Des Moines together. Usually we crawled into her bed together (not surprisingly, she didn’t like watching in my room…probably because of the invisible dust that apparently really bothered her even though she had never actually told me that). During the really scary parts (and there were many because some of those housewives were mad) we’d grab onto each other. But that night I was forced to watch it by myself. At first I tried to make Miss Piggy watch it with me by locking her in my room, but being hissed at isn’t much fun—especially when you’re already scared. I tried to ignore the fact that once I let her out, she ran straight for Laurel’s room and pawed at the door until Laurel opened it (it took her a few tries because of the blind thing).
After the show was over I decided to do some brainstorming about how to make things go back to the way they used to be. Taking out my favorite purple marker and my notebook that was titled “Miscellaneous Lists and Other List-Like Things” (there weren’t actually any other list-like things in it, but to use Wite-Out to take that off the cover would’ve made it look ugly), I turned to a clean page and wrote “Things to Do to Make Things Go Back to How They Were Pre-Change aka Before Everyone in My Family ESPECIALLY My Mom and Laurel Started Acting All Weird).”
1. Invent a time machine in order to turn back time. Which isn’t going to happen because (a) I’m not an inventor-type person and (b) that only happens in movies and children’s books.
2. Follow Rule #7 of the Official Parker-Moses Family Rule Book, which states, “All family members must try to resolve any and all conflict that arises within the family so that it does not turn into a resentment.” But that’s not going to work because that would mean going into Laurel’s room and saying I wanted to talk to her, which she would take to mean I was there to APOLOGIZE, which I AM NOT because I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING WRONG.
3. Try that praying thing again because back when I was scared to tell Beatrice about my crush on Blair and I did it, it kind of worked. But from what I had heard, you can’t really control when you receive an answer to your prayer and I need one immediately.
4. Write Dr. Maude an e-mail asking for advice. Also not going to work—see #3 for why.
5. Get into bed and go to sleep and hope that things will be better in the morning.
I looked at the list and realized that nothing I had come up with so far seemed all that inspired, so I decided it was time to step things up. Which, in this case, meant doing a headstand. According to Alice, doing headstands helped you come up with answers to problems. (“Something about the blood leaving your brain or the dizziness when you stand up.”) The whole thing sounded pretty fishy to me, but because (a) I was out of ideas and (b) I wanted to see if by any chance my coordination had improved at all, I decided to give it a try.
When you’re a person with coordination issues, getting up into a headstand takes a few tries. Like, say, five. It also results in your mother standing outside your door demanding, “Lucy Beth Parker, what is going on in there?!” and you saying, “Nothing. Just trying to practice doing a headstand,” and her replying, “Your bedroom is not a yoga studio so unless you can do it away from the wall like Laurel, save it for gym class.” (One thing I had noticed post-Change was that Mom compared me to Laurel more than usual. And not in a good way but more like pointing out things that Laurel was better at than me.)
Finally, I made it up. But once there, I wasn’t sure what to do—did I think about my problem and hope that the answer came to mind while I was up there? Did I not think about my problem? Did I try not to get grossed out by the dust bunnies under my bed that I could now see and worry that maybe Laurel was right and if we ever made up, I should let her move my bed and sweep under there like she was always begging to do? Did I worry about what my life would be like if I broke my neck while in the headstand and became a paraplegic? (I wondered if that happened, if Laurel would want to play me in the movie version.) After what seemed like about a half hour but, when I looked at my bedside clock, was only more like two minutes, I came down. Not only solutionless, but with a crick in my neck.
“So much for that,” I sighed as I stood up and cringed at the heel prints I had left on my purple walls. Although there was nothing in the Parker-Moses Family Rules Book that stated, “No heel prints on walls,” I had a feeling that, in Alan’s eyes, it was almost as a bad as sneaking food into the bedroom. But then—as I walked over to my desk to make a new list titled “Things NOT to Do to Make Things Go Back to How They Were Pre-Change” where number one would be Do a headstand to help with brainstorming for an answer—it hit me.
I would come up with the best, most fantastic, unbelievably awesome wedding toast ever. It would be a video and when everyone saw it, Mom would be so impressed that she’d go back to being normal, and Wendi would see that Laurel wasn’t the only talented, creative person in the family.
And I would ask Blair to help me because he was the ex-president of the AV club.
Although I preferred the idea of asking Blair via e-mail—especially because I had dots of zit cream on my face—I decided that asking someone for such a big favor for nothing other than payment in fried Oreos (that was what I had paid him in when he did the video for my class president election) meant I should probably do it in person.
After washing off the zit cream and changing out of Mom’s holey Smith sweatshirt into my new Woodstock Animal Sanctuary one (we had gone there for a field trip a few weeks before and other than the fact that I got stuck sitting next to Mallory Sullivan on the bus, who, apparently, was not familiar with the word “deodorant,” it was an awesome day), I took the elevator down to Beatrice and Blair’s apartment on the tenth floor.
Well, first I stopped on the twelfth floor, which was where Dr. Maude lived. Pete was always telling me that stalking other residents was “severely frowned upon” by the co-op board (that was the group of snooty adults who were in charge of saying who could move into the building, and whether or not people could leave their bikes in the basement), especially since he was the person who had originally let it slip that she lived there. But after I explained to him that it wasn’t stalking unless you actually went up to the person’s door and put your ear to it to see if you could hear whether or not they were home, he let it go.
Because what I was doing was not stalking. I just pushed the button in the elevator so that the door just happened to open on her floor, which allowed me to possibly run into her if she was coming out of her door at that moment. That was more like attempting to get to know my neighbors because I’m a very friendly person. Well, except when it comes to crazy people on the subway who mutter to themselves about how that morning as they were eating a hardboiled egg, the egg turned into a goblin and whispered that the world was going to end in six days and thirty-two hours. In that case, I just stared at the ground like all the other passengers with a don’t-even-THINK-about-talking-to-me look on my face.
As usual, when the elevator doors opened, there was no sign of Dr. Maude. There was, however, a sign of what I was pretty sure was Dr. Maude’s umbrella (black, with a real wooden handle, which made me think it was kind of expensive as opposed to the small ones you could buy on the street for five bucks—seven, if it were particularly rainy—that always blew inside out and almost took your eye out before you had even made it down the block). Not only that, but there were two pairs of dog booties—one pink, one blue—neatly lined up next to it. I knew they belonged to her dachshunds, Id and Ego, and was a little tempted to go knock on the door and, if she answered, tell her that usually I found dog booties to be pretty silly looking, but in this case they were super cute. But because that came somewhat close to stalking, I stopped myself and let the doors close and continued down to the tenth floor.
When Beatrice opened the door, she was holding a yellow highlighter. “Here you go,” she said, thrusting it out to me. I had decided that while it was a little bit of a stretch (i.e., somewhat close to a lie) for me to text Beatrice and ask if she had a yellow highlighter I could borrow, and if so, could I come down to her place and get it, it wouldn’t affect my karma too much.
“Thanks,” I said, taking it.
“But why didn’t you ask Laurel for one?” she asked. “She’s got an entire desk drawer of them.”
That was true. Not only that, but they were all lined up perfectly. “Because we’re kind-of, sort-of in a fight,” I replied. I wasn’t sure if that was entirely true, but to find out would have meant asking Laurel, and I didn’t want to do that.
“Oh. Okay. Well, I’ll see you in the morning,” she said as she started to close the door.
I put my foot out to stop it. “Wait!” I cried.
She opened it. “What?” she asked impatiently. “Pageant Queens Rehab is on.”
Pageant Queens Rehab was Beatrice’s favorite show. The rehab that they sent the girls to wasn’t for drugs but for makeup and diet food and hairspray. Basically, they got them off all that stuff and turned them into normal people again. Usually, Beatrice only liked documentaries about chimps in Africa or travel shows about Paris (she was planning on moving there when she grew up and becoming a famous writer), but after Alice forced us to watch it one night when we were having a sleepover at her house (“I know you guys are guests and all, but because it’s my house I get to pick what we watch on TV”) Beatrice was hooked. I found the way the women all looked like dolls with big blue eyes and spider-like eyelashes kind of creepy, but because I was a huge Hoarders fan, I wasn’t in any position to judge.
“Okay, okay. I just…need to use your bathroom,” I said. In an effort to look somewhat believable, I crossed my legs. And then added a hop and a wince. It would’ve made things so much easier if I felt more comfortable about having a crush on my best friend’s brother.
She narrowed her eyes. “Where’s your zit cream?” she demanded.
“Huh?”
“You always put your zit cream on at seven thirty.”
Whoops. That was the problem with having a best friend who knew everything about you. “I, um…see, the thing is—” I mumbled.
She cocked her head. “Ohhhh. I get it. You’re here to see him.” She gave me a look of utter disappointment. Much like Miss Piggy did when I walked toward her with my arms open so we could spend some quality bonding time together and she ran to the nearest small space where it was impossible for me to get to her. “He’s in his room,” she said as she padded back to the couch.
“It’s a business thing,” I called after her. “Not, like, you know, a crush thing.”
“Whatever,” she said.
I tried to think of something else to say to help my case, but I figured it was easier to just let her go back and watch her show. When I walked over to Blair’s room, the door was closed and there was some sort of weird music playing. It was one thing to show up at someone’s apartment to ask them something, but it was another to knock on their closed door behind which they were doing who knew what. Which is why I did what any normal person in my situation would do: I went and waited in the bathroom for him to come out.
Luckily, I didn’t have to wait too long. About two minutes later, my overlistening skills allowed me to hear the click of his door as it started to open. After waiting what felt like the right amount of time so that when I opened the door it would seem like I just happened to run into him, in his own house, at eight o’clock on a school night, I opened the door. And smacked him right in the face with it.
“OW!” he screeched after his nose bounced off it like one of those silver metal balls in a pinball game.
“I’m so sorry!” I cried. I wasn’t sure what to do. In movies when that kind of thing happened, the unhurt person tended to the hurt person by checking to see if anything was broken. But because that would mean actually touching him, I hung back and just stood there as he jumped around from foot to foot like some sort of oversize Zombie High T-shirt-wearing leprechaun holding his nose saying, “Owowowowowow.” Finally, he stopped and uncupped his nose. “Is it broken?” he demanded.
I leaned in and looked at it, but I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be looking for. Blood? A piece of bone sticking out? “How am I supposed to tell?”
“I don’t know! Is it swollen?”
I shrugged. “I can’t tell. It’s as big as it always is.” The minute the words left my mouth I realized that probably wasn’t the best thing to say to either someone you had a crush on, or someone you were going to attempt to hire to help you make a kick-butt video toast so that America would find out you, too, had some talent. Or, in my case, both.
“Well, touch it and see if it’s squishy.”
I cringed. “You want me to…touch your nose?”
“Yes! I’d do it, but I’m in so much pain I think my neural transmitters are all screwed up.”
I wasn’t sure what a neural transmitter was, but it sounded pretty serious. I really hoped (a) they weren’t screwed up, and (b) if they were, he didn’t sue me because I was probably going to end up using the last of my savings to pay him in fried Oreos. It felt weird to be touching the nose of a boy you hadn’t even kissed yet, but seeing that this was a medical emergency, I decided to go for it.
“OW!” he screeched again. “What are you doing?!”
“You told me to touch your nose!” I cried.
“I didn’t tell you to press it so hard! If it wasn’t already broken, it is now!” he yelled.
I took my finger away and stood back. “You know what? I think you should just touch it yourself, then,” I shot back. This was not going well.
He did. Like from every angle. Once he had determined it wasn’t broken (“Maybe seriously sprained,” he said, “but probably not broken. Although we’ll have to wait twenty-four hours to really know”), he turned to me. “So what are you doing here?” he asked. “I thought you didn’t like Pageant Queen Rehab.”
“I don’t,” I replied, making a mental note to Google “What does it mean when a boy knows what TV shows you do and don’t like” when I got back upstairs. “I’m actually here to see you.”
It kind-of, sort-of looked like he turned a little red when I said that. It was a little difficult to tell because he was a bit sweaty from hopping around. “Oh yeah?”
I gave a half nod/half shrug. “Yeah.”
“Why?” he demanded.
Jeez. Could he make this any harder for me? I wondered if I should find a crush who didn’t make me feel like I was being grilled like a crime suspect in those SUV shows Beatrice liked to watch. (“It’s SVU,” she was always correcting me, “not SUV.”) “I have a business proposition for you.”
His eyes narrowed. “Is it legal?”
I rolled mine. “Of course it is! Why would you ask something like that?”
He shrugged. “Because in movies, when someone says that, it’s usually not.”
“Well, this is legal. Not only is it legal, but it’s official,” I replied. “Meaning I’m even going to pay you for your time.”
His eyes lit up. “With money?”
“No. Even better. With fried Oreos.”
He shook his head. “I’m off the Oreos,” he said. “I’ve moved on to Coca-Cola cake. You ever had it?”
I shook my own.
“Well, it’s awesome. It’s an international thing.”
“Well, not exactly international,” he admitted. “More like…southern.”
Because people who had only lived in Manhattan tended to think it was the center of the universe, anywhere outside of the city pretty much was considered a foreign country to them.
“Can you get it at street fairs?” I asked. That’s where I had had to get the fried Oreos last time. Lucky for me, the campaign had taken place during the height of the street fair season so it hadn’t been too much of a problem.
“Nope. But you can get it at that new bakery on sixty-eighth and Amsterdam,” he replied. “They also have these things called pralines that are from New Orleans. They’re awesome. So what’s the business proposition?”
“So my mom is finally marrying Laurel’s dad and I get to give the toast at the wedding, and I thought it would be cool to make a video toast,” I said. “And because you did a good job on the video campaign, I thought I’d ask you if you’d help me.”
He nodded. “I did do a great job on that one, didn’t I?” he asked. “Maybe I should drop out of school and just start making films. I bet I could get an agent and everything.”
I rolled my eyes. “It was pretty good.”
“Pretty good?! It got you elected!”
“It was one of the things that got me elected,” I shot back. “The fact that I have a non-threatening personality and I smell like watermelon helped, too.” I wasn’t exactly sure what a “non-threatening personality” was, but at one point during the campaign while I was in the stall of the bathroom near the cafeteria I had overheard Odile Majer tell Claudia Lowenstein that. And Alice had reported back on the watermelon comment, made by Kurt Ogilvy when I sent her to overlisten (because it was overlistening and not eavesdropping, it wasn’t like it was illegal or anything). Kurt was known for having an oversensitive nose and liked to compare everything to smells.
He leaned forward and sniffed. “I don’t smell anything watermelon-like.”
“So do you want to help me or not?” I asked, moving back. It wasn’t so much that I was worried that he could smell me as much as the fact that I had a slight suspicion that I was getting my period at that very instant. Stress and excitement were known to bring it on (at least according to Marissa), and I had definitely had a lot of both of those lately.
He shrugged. “Okay.”
“Great,” I said.
“But I’m not sure I want to be paid in Coca-Cola cake,” he said. “I might want it in some other sort of dessert currency.”
I looked at my watch. It was already eight-thirty and I hadn’t even watched the episode of Come On, People—Get with the Program that I had DVRed earlier. If it turned out that I did get my period, that was going to push me back even further. “Can we decide on the payment stuff at another time?”
“I guess so,” he replied. “I’ll start writing a contract up and e-mail it to you.”
Yeah, well, we’d see about that. So far his track record with following up on his promises to get in touch was about as good as my promise to Mom to keep my room clean for longer than three hours.