Dear Dr. Maude,
Not to tell you how to run your business or anything, but if you had a Yelp page where people could leave comments and ratings, I’m pretty sure you’d only average like one star and some very not-so-good comments about the fact that you don’t return people’s e-mails. And because a lot of people base their decisions on those comments—like, say, Sarah, my dad’s girlfriend-slash-mother-of-Ziggy-my-half-brother—this might eventually make you lose a lot of your popularity. Which would mean no one would watch your TV show anymore or buy your books. And ultimately you’d end up with no money and you’d have to get a job as a waitress at a diner or something like that.
Or who knows—maybe it’s just MY letters that you’re not returning. Which therefore makes you guilty of discrimination, a subject I feel very passionate about. (If you remember from when I ran for class president, my whole campaign platform was that I was going to try my best to stop dork discrimination.) (Which, BTW, I’ve been very successful at.) (But seeing that you NEVER READ MY LETTERS you probably didn’t know that.)
But the reason I’m writing today is not to tell you how disappointed I am about the fact that you never write me back (even though I am). It’s to ask for some advice. Okay, so you know how our family is being taped for Wendi Wallerstein’s show? (You’d know that if you read my e-mails.) Well, Laurel and I sort of got into a fight on-camera. Not really a fight, because Laurel would never do that on national television since her publicist would yell at her and tell her it would ruin her image. But she totally embarrassed me by basically telling all of America that I’m on the messy side. WHICH IS NOT TRUE—I’m just CREATIVELY ORGANIZED. If you ever want to come over, I’ll show you my room so you can see that I’m not lying.
Even though we’re not exactly in a fight-fight, Laurel and I are not really talking. If I went to my mother and told her what was going on, she’d probably say, “Lucy, sometimes it’s better to just put your ego aside and go and be the bigger person and start talking to her as if everything is fine.” But (a) I can’t even go to my mother because SHE’S acting all weird, too, and (b) I’m a little sick of being the bigger person all the time.
Is there any way to fix this situation that does not include me doing anything bigger-person-like?
yours truly,
Lucy B. Parker
“Oh! Oh! I know!” Alice gasped the next day at lunch, waving her arm around as if we were sitting in a classroom rather than at a cafeteria table.
“Yes, Alice?” I asked.
“You could e-mail yourself for advice about what to do about Laurel,” she replied.
I shook my head. “No. This one is too hard,” I said glumly. “I don’t think even I can come up with the answer to this.” I had tried, for hours last night. I had even tried to enlist Miss Piggy’s help by locking her in the room with me, snuggling her, and whispering the whole thing into her ear. (I didn’t want to risk Laurel hearing in case she was standing at the door overlistening or something.) But all I got were some scratches on my arms.
Before Alice could wave her hand with another idea, Malia tapped me on the shoulder. “Cristina Pollock at nine o’clock,” she said.
We all turned to see a girl who looked like she had just sucked on a lemon striding over to our table. The fact that she had left Kansas to come over to Arizona was NOT a good sign. Usually when Cristina did that it was to threaten me about something—like when she told me that if I ran for class president against her I’d be seriously sorry. (Which, BTW, I ended up not being on account of the fact that I beat her.)
As usual, her long blonde hair flowed and bounced behind her like the actresses in shampoo commercial. It really wasn’t fair that someone so mean had such good hair. I wondered if it was a karma thing. Although the idea that Cristina had been nicer in a past life was hard to imagine.
“Hello, Lucy,” she said as she flipped her hair.
Unlike Beatrice, who had no problem rolling her eyes in front of Cristina, I was only brave enough to do it in my mind. Maybe if I had once been BFFs with Cristina before being dumped like Beatrice had it wouldn’t have been so hard, but because Cristina was known as not only the most popular girl at the Center but also the meanest, I didn’t feel like taking any chances.
“Hi, Cristina!” I said, all friendly. “How are you today? That blue sweater goes really well with your eyes.” I left out the fact that I knew it was from Laurel’s new clothing line that had just started selling at Always 16. Cristina totally tried to copy Laurel all the way from her head (long, layered haircut) to her feet (the same lilac Uggs that Laurel had worn in the latest episode of her show, also for sale at Always 16 but in knockoff style); it was pretty lame. Instead I was practicing what Dr. Maude called “reverse psychology,” which was where, in hopes of getting someone to do what you want, you did the OPPOSITE of what you really felt like saying or doing. Like, say, being really nice to someone who was always really mean to you.
She wrinkled her nose as if I had just said, “Hi, Cristina! You know, sometimes when I eat too many pickles, my stomach gets all wonky and I end up burping a lot.” “Yeah, well, anyway,” she said, all snotty. “So I was wondering what a person has to do to get an invitation to that wedding.”
“What wedding?” I asked innocently.
She rolled her eyes. “Um, your mother and Laurel’s father’s?” she said as if I were super dumb. “It’s all over those Week with Wendi commercials.”
Right. The commercials. Mom had not been happy when she heard about those. Even though the show was nowhere near to being on TV yet, because Laurel was such a big star, from the minute she had agreed to do the show, the network had started advertising it. When you’re trying to keep a wedding quiet, having it announced on national television every commercial break didn’t help. Suddenly, Mom’s phone was ringing off the hook with calls from people she hadn’t talked to in years.
“And on Austin’s Twitter feed. He just Tweeted that Laurel invited him,” she added.
My eyes widened. What?! Okay, yes, so Laurel and I weren’t getting along so great at the moment but the fact that Austin was coming was BIG news. How could Laurel—as my BFF and frister—not tell me about this first? Was this part of The Change? Like, because she was older and famous she now got to do whatever she wanted? And what about the whole this-wedding-is-only-going-to-be-immediate-family thing? My grandmother wasn’t even invited—and because she followed Austin on Twitter, she was now going to know he was coming and be really mad about that.
I rummaged in my I Hate Mean People Even Though It’s Mean to Hate tote bag for my phone. (When you had to lug around various logs and a notebook called “Important Pieces of Advice,” a regular old purse wasn’t big enough. Which was why I now had almost as many tote bags as I did pairs of Chuck Taylor sneakers.) Right before I pushed Laurel’s name in the address book, I remembered that they were shooting a scene from her sitcom at Billy’s Bakery that afternoon. Forget about trying to handle this on the phone—I needed to handle this in person.
And not just because Billy’s was my most favorite place in New York City.
Since they had the most delicious cupcakes in the world, Billy’s was always crowded to begin with, but with the crew there from Laurel’s show it was even more crowded—not to mention very hot because of all the bright lights. I had learned from the time I went to L.A. with Laurel that movie sets were definitely not the greatest place for people with coordination issues to hang out because of the fact that there were lots of expensive things to bump into and break. Which is why I stayed near the back with my friends until I felt like it was a good time to confront Laurel about inviting Austin without getting permission was totally unfair. Plus, that’s where the craft services table was, which had unlimited snacks…for free (including cupcakes, my favorite food).
A red-headed, freckled-faced woman with braids wearing overalls and a walkie-talkie strapped to her right hip ran up to us and plucked the red velvet cupcake I was just about to take a giant bite of out of my hand. This was Cricket, the Second AD, which stood for assistant director. I had heard from Laurel—back when we were getting along—that Cricket was a little on the bossy side. (“Honey, that’s not very nice,” Alan had said when Laurel had brought it up during one of our official family dinners. “‘Overenthusiastic’ is a much nicer term.”)
“Hey! What are you doing?” I cried.
“Didn’t you hear me yell all extras on set! ASAP?” she barked.
“But we’re not extras,” I replied, standing on my tiptoes for the cupcake but missing, because although my boobs had missed the no-more-growing memo, the rest of me had not.
“Then what are you girls doing here?” she demanded.
“Hey, has anyone ever told you look a lot like Pippi Longstocking?” Alice asked excitedly.
I looked at Alice and gave a little shake of my head. According to Laurel, Cricket was very sensitive about that.
As usual, Alice just kept right on going. “Your braids even stand up at the ends like hers do!” She leaned in for a closer look. “How does that happen? Do you put wire in there or something?”
I stepped in front of her. “I’m Lucy B. Parker. Laurel’s frister?”
Alice ducked her head around. “That’s a combination of friend and sister,” she explained. “Isn’t that neat? Once the wedding happens, then they’ll be stepsisters, but Lucy doesn’t like that word, so she came up with ‘frister’ and—”
I put my hand over Alice’s mouth to shut her up.
Cricket’s eyes narrowed. “How do I know that’s true? How do I know you’re not some crazed fan who’s going to reach into your pocket and take out a pair of scissors and snip a lock of her hair to then use in some spell you found in a book at a Wiccan bookstore? Because that happened to Miley once. Or would’ve, had I not stepped in.”
“Um, because I don’t lie since it’s bad for your karma?”
Cricket took out her walkie-talkie. “Red Earth to Swan Song—possible stalker situation here,” she growled. “Copy.”
“I’m not a stalker!” I cried.
“She’s not,” Malia chimed in. “She doesn’t even stalk Blair Lerner-Moskovitz, her unofficial official local crush.”
I cringed. I loved my friends but they definitely tended to forget that less was more when it came to talking about my personal life to total strangers.
Beatrice shook her head. “I know I said I was okay with you crushing on my brother, and I’m not going to go back on that, but I just have one question: Why, out of all the boys in Manhattan, him?”
This was not the time to be having this conversation. “Look, if you could just get Laurel over here, I can explain.” Lucky for me, just then Laurel walked out dressed in a bubblegum pink velour tracksuit—a very Madison-like look. “Laurel!” I yelled. Unluckily for me, she didn’t answer, which didn’t help my case with Cricket. “Laurel!” I yelled, louder. This time, she looked over but didn’t acknowledge me. Then I remembered—she liked to stay in character on set. “Madison,” I called out.
At that, she came bounding over. “Hola, chicas!” she bubbled, giving us all hugs. This staying in character thing was getting really annoying. “Hola, chica!” was the way Madison greeted everyone, which, for some reason, always got her a huge laugh from the studio audience on Friday nights when she taped the show. And if for some reason it didn’t, then they just added it with the fake-laugh machine.
“You know these people?” Cricket asked suspiciously.
Laurel/Madison nodded. “Yeah. It’s okay. In fact, it’s…fantabulous that they’re here!” She turned to me. “What do you think? Catchy, right? I’m thinking of trying that out in the next scene.”
“It’s great,” I said. “I can already see the T-shirt. Listen, I need to ask you something.”
I turned my back toward Cricket, but she just moved closer. Sheesh. This wasn’t overlistening—this was plain old eavesdropping, which was very rude.
“It’s okay, Cricket,” Laurel said,
“You’re sure?” she asked again, just as doubtfully. “Because in addition to being a second AD, I also happen to be a self-defense instructor.”
“Thanks, but it’s fine,” Laurel said. “You can go.”
After Cricket walked away, I turned to her. “How could you invite Austin to the wedding?”
She looked confused. “What are you talking about? I didn’t,” she replied. “That would be breaking rule number one on the Official Rules of the Parker-Moses Family Wedding list that says, ‘Wedding will be restricted to immediate family.’” The way she said it, kind of in her dust-is-a-silent-killer tone, was definitely not Madison-esque.
“Yeah, well, apparently he doesn’t know that because he Tweeted that you did.”
“What?!” she cried.
“Did you say anything that would’ve made him think that he was coming?” I asked.
“No. All I said was ‘Boy, it would be so great if you could be at the wedding.’” Suddenly she looked nervous. “But when I said it, he was on location in the mountains in Colorado ’cause he’s shooting Monkeyin’ Around 5 and the cell reception was really spotty, so maybe what he thought I said was ‘You should come to the wedding.’” she added. “How am I going to tell them he’s coming?!”
“You don’t have to,” I said. “Because he’s not.”
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t actually invite him,” I explained.
“Well, no, but because he thinks I did, I can’t now uninvite him!” I could tell that she was trying to look concerned. From the way she was moving her weight from one foot to the other, either she was really excited or she had to go to the bathroom really bad. She let out a little squeal. “Omigod—if Vermont is half as pretty as it looks in the pictures, this is going to be so romantic!”
“I can’t believe I finally have something interesting to tweet!’ Alice exclaimed as she whipped out her iTouch.
I grabbed it from her. “No, you don’t. ’Cause he’s not coming!” From the second that I had found out my mom was dating Alan this had been my biggest fear—Laurel would get whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, because of who she was. And now it was happening.
“Lucy, I really feel like you’re overreacting,” Laurel said in her best I-may-not-be-all-that-much-older-than-you-but-I’m-still-older voice. “I mean, sure, this isn’t the best way for this to have happened. But because Austin is my boyfriend, he’s almost like family.”
“Well then if Austin is coming”—I grabbed Beatrice’s arm—“then Beatrice is, too. Because as my BFF, she’s almost like family, too. You’re not the only one who gets to go inviting people without asking.”
“I didn’t ask him,” she said. “He misheard it.”
“Oh, like that’s any better?” I said. What was going on here? Laurel and I barely ever fought and now, it was all we were doing.
“Fine. Do what you want,” Laurel sniffed. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a show to shoot.”
“That’s fine,” I sniffed back, “because I”—what did I have to do?—“have a cupcake to eat,” I said, grabbing a banana one.
I came home later to find Mom sitting at the kitchen table looking like a character on one of those crime shows being questioned by a detective. If detectives dressed all in pink and chirped.
Wendi turned to the camera and leaned in. “Marriage,” she said dramatically. “The biggest and most important commitment a person can ever make to another human being.”
Mom turned a little yellow as she gave a nervous laugh. “You make it sound so…serious,” she said.
“That’s because it is!” Wendi chirped.
“Well, yes, but it’s also…Can we change the subject and talk about something else?” she pleaded.
Wendi stood up and began to slowly walk around the table. “Now, I’m no psychologist, but you know what I think, Rebecca?” she asked, as her heels clicked.
“What?” Mom said nervously.
“I think that you’re a little…nervous about this upcoming wedding,” she said as she clacked.
“Nervous?” Mom peeped. “Why would I be nervous?! Especially because, as I keep telling anyone who will listen, even though no one is listening, it’s not a wedding, it’s a—” Just then she saw me. “Oh, look! There’s Lucy. Lucy, why don’t you come join us and tell us about your day?”
As Nikko turned around, he caught me on tape shoving half a cupcake in my mouth. (I had taken a few for the road.) Before I could respond—although I wasn’t sure “Mmmffff” was much of an answer—Alan came rushing into the room dragging Laurel by the hand. “Oh good—you’re both here! I’m calling a family meeting STAT.”
“Fantastic!” Wendi trilled. “I’m so glad we’re here for it. Nikko, make sure you get every second of this,” she ordered. She turned to us. “Don’t mind us. Just pretend we’re not here, okay?”
Mom gave her a doubtful look.
“We’re just…flies on the wall. Not making a peep.”
“We don’t have flies,” I said, mouth safely free of cupcake. (Except, I would see, later on when it aired, not cupcake frosting—there was a big blob on the left corner of my mouth.)
“That’s right, Lucy,” Alan said. “And do you know why we don’t have flies?”
“Because we’re not allowed to eat outside of the kitchen.” I sighed. Back in Northampton I had been able to eat wherever I wanted. Sure, once in a while I came across a fly, or an ant, but I didn’t mind. I was going to have to ask Marissa if kids had any say in what happened during this whole Change thing, because if so, I was going to change it so that I could eat in my bedroom without sneaking around.
“Okay, then. I’ll just…act normal, then,” Mom said. She cleared her throat. “Alan, honey, you need to calm down.”
That sounded about as real as the one time I tried out for a role in our school play in fifth grade and was told very nicely by Mr. Richards, the gym-slash-drama teacher that I’d probably do better with something in, say, the chorus. Except Ms. Edut, my chorus teacher, had asked me to mouth the words because my singing voice was so bad.
Wendi turned to Nikko. “Are you getting this?” she asked in a loud whisper.
As he nodded, the camera bobbed up and down and hit Siouxie the makeup woman in the shoulder.
“Ow!” she yelled.
“Flies on the wall, people,” Wendi hissed. “Flies on the wall.”
“Who says I’m not calm?!” Alan cried. Unlike Mom, he was having no trouble being himself. His very nervous self. “I’m calm. Well, as calm as a person can be about the fact that our very small wedding in a very small town is now going to be overrun by people with cameras!”
Even though I was not a fan of the I-told-you-so look, I couldn’t stop myself from giving Laurel one. I knew I was right in thinking that Laurel’s screwup was going to be a big deal.
“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Wendi interrupted, “but as you can see, because it’s very important to me to create a real sense of intimacy with my subject, I make sure to only have one camera in the room—”
Mom went from yellow to green. “What do you mean it’s going to be overrun by people with cameras?”
Alan turned to Laurel, who now looked a lot less sure of herself than she had back on set. “Laurel, tell Rebecca what happened,” he said somewhat sternly.
“Yeah, Laurel. Tell her what happened,” I added.
After giving me a look, she screwed her eyes shut. “Austin kind of sort of now thinks he’s invited to the wedding!”
I waited for Mom to go completely ballistic, but nothing happened. Not even a twitch of her eyebrow, which always happened when I brought up Operation New Kitten.
Wendi gasped. “Austin Mackenzie?!”
Laurel nodded. “It’s not like I invited him,” she went on. “It was this misunderstanding because he was on top of a mountain and—”
Wendi clapped. “Ooh—this is juicy. In fact, this might make this the highest-rated Week with Wendi ever!” She turned to Camilla. “We’re holding this for sweeps.” I knew from Laurel that sweeps was considered the most important time of the television season. It was when all the Very Special episodes and the ones with the big guest stars were on. Wendi turned to Laurel. “Honey, you don’t know who his agent and publicist are, do you? Because I’m thinking I should get in touch with them and see if I can tape him, too.”
Laurel’s right eyebrow shot up. “I thought this was MY Week with Wendi.”
She smiled. “Oh, sweetie, it is! It is!” She turned to Charles and gave a snap. “Find out who the agent is,” she whispered.
I leaned in to Mom and squinted to see if I could see anything that showed how mad she was that Laurel would do this without asking. A frown. A sigh. Even just a blink. But there was nothing.
Laurel sighed. “You know what? This is just going to end up getting messy.” She walked over and picked up her iPhone. “I’m going to call Austin and tell him that he can’t come—”
Mom shook her head and sighed. “No, you’re not. It’s fine. He can come.”
“But it’s your guys’ wedding,” Laurel said. “I don’t want it to become all about Austin and me.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. Whoops. Had I said that out loud? I hadn’t meant to.
“It’s all of our wedding,” Mom corrected.
“Well, if she gets to invite Austin, then I get to bring Beatrice,” I said.
“Lucy, we’ll talk about that later,” Mom said firmly. She shot a look at Wendi. “In private.”
“But it’s only fair!” I cried.
“Lucy,” she said sharply as her right eyebrow shot up.
“Oh, thank you, thank you!” Laurel cried as she threw her arms around her. “You’re the best mother in the entire world!”
Wendi pushed Nikko forward. “You better be getting this,” she ordered.
“I am!” he said.
There were so many things wrong with this situation I didn’t even know where to start. First there was Marissa being right about this Change business. Who knew how long I was now going to have to listen to “I hate to say I told you…but I told you so.” Then there was the fact that Mom had just totally given in to Laurel and was shushing me.
But that wasn’t the worst of it—it was Laurel using the word mother that had really freaked me out. Sure, I felt beyond awful for Laurel that her mom had died when she was six. I honestly couldn’t imagine anything worse happening to a person. Even when Mom was completely embarrassing me by talking about how big my boobs were getting in a voice so loud that people in India could hear her, just thinking about the idea of her not being on this planet to do things like that made my stomach get all rumbly like the way it did right before I was going to start crying. And even though Laurel and I had made fun of all the self-help books that Mom and Alan had bought about how to mix and stir your way into a happy blended family, I had to admit it had worked. We were a family, and I loved Laurel like a sister and Alan like a dad.
But even though I was probably doing serious damage to my karma for even just thinking it, I guess I hadn’t thought that Laurel would actually think of my mom as her mom, too. As a frother (that was friend + mother, which was the term we had come up instead of stepmother), sure, but as a mother? As excited as I was about the wedding the idea of really, really sharing my mom—like in an official way—suddenly felt a bit scary. What if, as part of The Change, she started loving Laurel more than me?
Alan walked over and got in on the hug. “I’m really proud of how you two handled that,” he said. “That was excellent conflict resolution!”
As I stood off to the side, I couldn’t deny that The Change was happening. To the point where I was now totally left out.