Dear Dr. Maude,

I’ve been thinking a lot about this and I’m worried that the reason you’re not writing back to me is because you think that I have a bit of a girl-who-cried-wolf thing going on. Looking back at my e-mail file where I keep all of the e-mails I sent you (I may not be organized in other areas of my life, but I’ll have you know that when it comes to my friendship with you, I’m VERY organized), I noticed that more than a few times I mentioned that whatever it was I needed advice on was VERY, VERY important—like, more important than anything else I had written to you before—and therefore I really, really, REALLY needed you to write back to me right away.

Well, as much as you probably don’t believe me at the moment, this time I’m not kidding when I say that this time it IS very important that you get back to me. We’re talking more important than ever.

And the reason for that is that things with Laurel and me are bad. Like, really, really, REALLY bad. Probably worse than they’ve ever been. I don’t have the time to go back and see if I’ve ever written that exact sentence to you in the past, but trust me when I tell you it’s true.

And it’s not just Laurel—it’s this whole Change thing, and the way that Mom didn’t even get the tiniest bit mad when she found out that Austin thought that Laurel was inviting him even though he just heard her wrong because he was on top of a mountain. And then how when I said, “Well, if Austin gets to be there, then I’m bringing Beatrice,” she said, “Lucy, we’ll talk about it later.” And then it took TWENTY-SEVEN HOURS for me to pin her down to do that. (She did say yes, which is good.)

I thought that officially becoming a family was going to make things better, but, frankly, if things are going to continue to go like this, then I don’t think it is. In fact, they might even get WORSE.

Not only that, but as hard as I try, I can’t seem to get into the mood to work on my video toast for the wedding—the thing that was going to prove that Laurel isn’t the only talented person in the family. It’s like I have toast block or something. So if you have advice for that, too, that would be great.

Thanks in advance.

yours truly,

Lucy B. Parker

“Did you get knocked on the head and get amnesia or something?” Blair asked later as he slumped on our living room couch crunching on some chocolate-covered pretzels I had smuggled out of the kitchen. “I mean how hard can it be to come up with a few examples of fun times you’ve had with your sister? Even I can come up with some and I can’t stand mine.”

It used to be that I couldn’t not think of fun times I had had with Laurel because there were so many of them. But for the last hour my mind was totally blank. I stopped pacing and turned to him. “I’m just…it’s just…” I sputtered before plopping down in a chair. “You wouldn’t understand.” My brain was so exhausted from all the wracking I had been doing that when I saw Blair drop half a pretzel in between the cushions I didn’t even say anything. I figured if things kept going the way they were and Laurel kept being everyone’s favorite, I could just move back to Northampton and no one would really care. And by the time the pretzel was discovered between the cushions I’d be long gone.

“Try me,” Blair said.

“It’s just that ever since my mom and Laurel’s dad chose a wedding date, everything’s different.”

“Ohhh. You mean The Change.” He nodded. “Yeah, that stuff is rough.”

How was it that everyone in the world except me knew about this Change business?

He reached for more pretzels and promptly dropped a few on the rug without even noticing. “My friend Sam?” he said with his mouth full. “Things got so bad between him and his stepsister that his parents tried to convince him he was crazy and sent him away to a mental hospital.”

“Really?” I gasped.

He shrugged. “No, but it sounds good.”

I threw a pretzel at him. “Well, I read a script once for Laurel where the character got sent to a mental hospital against her will and it was awful,” I said. “Her parents told her that they had a surprise for her and then—bam—they threw her in there. Although because it’s a hospital she got to eat dessert before dinner, which was pretty cool.”

“Pre-dinner desserts are the best,” Blair agreed.

I was glad that I had picked a local crush with whom I was very in sync with on the food front.

Just then my phone beeped with a text from my mom. I paled.

“What’s the matter?” Blair asked.

“It’s from my mom. Can you come meet me at the corner of 72nd and Columbus? I have a surprise for you.”

We looked at each other.

Usually I loved those words. But today? Not so much.

Just to be safe, before I left the house I packed my laptop, two changes of clothes, all my savings ($22.57), a healthy supply of maxi- and minipads, and my passport. I didn’t know what Mom’s idea of a surprise was, but I wasn’t taking any chances in case I found myself having to make a run for it.

“Lucy, I know that the last few weeks have been a little strange,” Mom said as we walked up Broadway.

A little?! I didn’t even want to know what she considered “a lot.”

“Obviously, it’s a time of transition,” she went on.

I glanced behind at my knapsack to make sure nothing had fallen out. Was this transition going to include me having to bolt? I sure hoped not, because if they gave out grades for cardio, I’d get, like, a C minus.

“Even though, if you ask me, people are making a much bigger deal out of this even than they need to,” she said. “But that’s another subject—”

As we came up on Town Shop Lingerie on our left, I held my breath. Was the surprise new bras? Because if it was, I was so making a break for it.

“At any rate, last night Alan and I were talking and we thought with all the change that’s going on, why not throw in more and—”

I exhaled as we passed it and kept walking.

“—let you get a kitten. We’re going to Petco.”

My mouth dropped open so wide you could have fit the M72 bus in it.

Mom nodded. As she smiled, I realized it was the firstnon-fake I’m-going-to-kill-the-next-person-who-brings-up-this-wedding smile I had seen in a long time.

“For real?” I asked, dazed. I threw myself toward her and smothered her in a hug. “Thankyouthankyouthank-you!” I cried.

She laughed—a real laugh. “Don’t thank me yet. First you have to find her. Or him. You need to choose carefully—it’s a big decision.”

I took a deep breath and nodded. That was true. This wasn’t like choosing which pair of Chuck Taylors out of my collection to wear. This was going to be Miss Piggy’s sister or brother. For a second I wondered whether I should ask if we should go home and get Miss Piggy and bring her so she could be part of the decision making, too, but then I remembered how much she hated being out of the house and the weird noises she made. The last time we had brought her to the vet, the cab driver said that she sounded like a sick goat. “I will,” I said solemnly as we continued walking.

Once we got to Petco, we made our way to the adoption area. There were so many cats to choose from. There were older tabbies who were so fat they looked like they had pinheads. Silver-colored Siamese cats who meowed nonstop. Fluffy little Persians who looked like ragweeds.

And then I saw her.

People talk about love or crushes at first sight in terms of people, but I totally believe it happens with animals, too. There was nothing particularly special about this one. She was small and scrawny and all black, and she didn’t even look that soft, like the mountain of sleeping kittens piled up on top of each other in the corner of the same cage. But the minute I saw her trying to gnaw on the metal bars before sticking her head through the side and getting it stuck, I knew she was mine. If I were a cat, getting my head stuck is totally something I’d do. And when the woman who worked there told me that she had been adopted by someone else the week before but then returned because the person wanted a kitten that was less “rambunctious” (when I looked it up on dictionary.com, I found that it meant hyper-like), I knew even more that the whole thing was fate.

“That’s her,” I said to Mom.

“Are you sure?” she asked as we watched her try to chase her tail but fail miserably.

“Uh-huh. Look—she’s even got coordination issues.”

“What do you think her name is?” Mom asked.

I didn’t even have to take out my “Miscellaneous” notebook and turn to the list titled “Possible Cat Names Once I Finally Convince Mom and Alan to Let Me Get One.” Because the kitten had the same kind of look on her face that Dr. Maude gave her guests when they were on the crazy side—kind of a Oh-my-God-did-you-REALLY-just-say-that-because-you-sound-REALLY-nuts-right-now look, it was completely clear.

“Her name is Dr. Maude,” I announced.

“Okay, then,” Mom said. “Let’s take Dr. Maude home.”

I knew there were a lot of books about how to blend families because Alan owned all of them, but I had really wished someone had written one about how to blend pets because I sure could’ve used one that night.

In the movie in mind, I had always dreamed that when I got a new kitten, not only would it love me best, but as soon as Miss Piggy saw it, all of her meanness would disappear as she fell madly in love with this little kitten that she could teach to do various cat things. (Not that Miss Piggy did anything other than sleep, eat, and throw up hairballs. She didn’t even like to play with toys—which I had learned the hard way after, in an attempt to buy her love, I spent almost all my allowance on toys five weeks in a row.) Unfortunately, when we got home, a different movie played out. One that was more like a horror movie.

When we opened the door, Laurel and Alan were waiting in the living room.

“Where is she?” Laurel asked excitedly.

Okay, I’m sorry, but Laurel hadn’t even liked cats before she met Miss Piggy.

“In here,” I said, holding the carrier even closer to my chest. While Mom had reminded me during the cab ride home that Dr. Maude was a family pet, I needed time to make it love me the best before Laurel got her hands on it.

“Let me see,” she said, running up to it and sticking her face down to the mesh to get a better look. “Ohhhh…she’s so…OW!” she yelled as Dr. Maude tried to nip her on the nose through the mesh.

“What happened?! Are you okay?! Did it break the skin?!” “Alan cried. He turned to Mom. “It has its rabies shot, right?”

I held Dr. Maude closer to me. “She’s not big on strangers,” I said. It wasn’t like I wanted Dr. Maude to hurt Laurel, but I had to admit I was relieved that Dr. Maude hadn’t instantly fallen in love with Laurel like Miss Piggy had. I began to walk toward my room.

“Where are you going?” Laurel asked. “All the Google results say that when you bring home a new cat, it’s best to put it in a room by itself with the door closed for a while so that the two cats can get used to each other’s smell before you actually put them face-to-face.”

I shook my head. “It’s okay,” I said. “Miss Piggy and I have already discussed this. It’ll be fine,” I said as I went into my room and shut the door.

I found Miss Piggy where she always was: in the corner trying to groom herself but repeatedly falling over because she was so fat. For some reason she seemed to like my room the best…as long as I wasn’t in it. “Miss Piggy, I have a surprise for you,” I said in my sweetest voice. “I think you’re really going to like it.” I cringed. I sounded so sweet I was giving myself a toothache.

She looked up and gave me a yeah-right look.

“It’s in here,” I said, patting the carrier. At that, Dr. Maude gave the cutest little meow I had ever heard. It was sweet and dainty and everything that I was not but sometimes wished I could be. Not to mention, she totally understood English.

Miss Piggy struggled to her feet, and her ears went back. Maybe not the most welcoming reaction in the world, but I knew that once I opened the carrier and she got a look at Dr. Maude they’d be instant BFFs.

“Because I have Laurel, I didn’t want you to feel left out, so I got you a frister of your own!” That was true. So what if I left out the part about how I thought it would be nice to have a pet who didn’t hate me.

“So now, without further ado—meet Dr. Maude!” I cried as I unzipped the carrier.

The next part was a blur. There was a lot of yowling, a lot of fur flying, and what I’m pretty sure was one giant fart from Miss Piggy before Dr. Maude leaped on my head (a good way to discover her nails definitely needed a clipping) before scrambling under the covers.

“Lucy, is everything okay in there?” I heard Mom yell.

“Yup—everything’s fine!” I panted as I patted my head feeling for blood.

“I told her she should have followed the advice to introduce them slowly,” I heard Laurel say.

“I know you did, honey,” I heard Mom reply.

I rolled my eyes. I couldn’t even remember the last time I was honey’d or sweetie’d. “I don’t need advice!” I called out stubbornly. “I’m an official advice giver!”

As I reached for my iTouch so I could Google “what to do when your cat tries to kill another cat,” Dr. Maude popped her little head out from under the covers. “See, Miss Piggy? She just wants to be friends.”

Miss Piggy cocked her head and thought about it. Then, after what I swear was a nod, she began to make her way toward us. By this time, Dr. Maude had wriggled out from under the covers and climbed up on my shoulder and had begun to nibble on my ear. “I knew you’d come around,” I said as I started to relax. “Believe me, no one knows better than me how hard change is, but you’ll see. Having a frister—”

Before I could finish with “—is the best thing in the world,” Miss Piggy jumped up on the bed and lunged at Dr. Maude, setting off another flying furfest.

After I managed to pry them apart with only a few scratches on my arms, I flopped back on the bed.

Maybe Miss Piggy knew something I didn’t.

“Whoa, chica—what’s goin’ on?” Pete asked the next day as I dragged myself into the building after school. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like something the cat dragged in.”

At the word cat, I cringed. “That’s because I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“Well, babies’ll do that to you,” he said. “You know that from your time with Ziggy.”

Actually, I didn’t, because when I was around Ziggy, I turned into a baby whisperer and could make him fall—and stay—asleep immediately. I shook my head. “It’s not because Dr. Maude’s a baby.” I yawned. “It’s because I had to stay awake to make sure Miss Piggy didn’t eat her.” I had tried to set up a kittycam by turning on Skype on my laptop and trying to sync it with FaceTime so I could watch them while I was at school, but I was too tired to get my head to work that way and too embarrassed to ask Blair for his help.

“Well, they’ll be getting along soon enough,” he said. “These things take time. Remember how it was with you and Laurel at first? And look at you guys now—you’re inseparable!”

“Actually, we’re not talking,” I said glumly as I caught the Gummi Worm he threw my way.

“Still?”

I nodded, trying not to let my face fall into the plant on his desk. “It’s one of those things where because we haven’t talked for a while, it would be weird at this point to just start again, so we’re not,” I explained. I shook my head. “It’s this wedding. It’s making everyone all nuts. Last night I walked into the kitchen and found my mom shoveling ice cream in her mouth with one hand and cookies with the other.”

He thought about it for a second. “What’s wrong with that?”

It was exactly things like that that explained why Pete was my best adult friend. He may have been a fifty-year-old Puerto Rican guy from Queens, but we were so alike it was scary. “Nothing’s wrong with it other than the fact that Mom’s idea of a wild and crazy dessert is a Fruit Roll-Up.”

“Eh, so she’s just a nervous bride,” he said. “It happens. Believe me, as a doorman, I know about these things.”

“Yeah, well, we’re not even allowed to use the words bride or groom. Or wedding.” I shook my head. “If they’re going to have a wedding, they should just have a wedding, you know? So all the people we love can be there. Like you.”

“Aw, Lucy, I thought you’d never ask!” he cried. “I’d be honored.”

At that, I sat up straight. I was no longer exhausted. Instead, I felt like I had drunk three Red Bulls even though they were number one on the official Parker-Moses No Eating/Drinking list. “Huh?”

He rubbed his hands together. “This is going to be great.” He rummaged in the drawer for the schedule. “I just gotta see who I can swap days with for that weekend—”

I was just…talking. Off the top of my head. I wasn’t inviting him to the wedding. “Wait, what I meant was—” I started to say.

He got up and came over and gave me a hug. After he let me go and he took my cheeks in his hands, the mist in his eyes had turned to full-blown tears. “You know, in my line of work, I come across a lot of different kind of people,” he said. “And part of the doorman’s code of ethics is ‘Thou shall not play favorites.’ But in the case of your family, that’s impossible. Because the four of you? You’re just the best. And I wouldn’t miss this wedding for the world.” After he kissed me on the forehead, he let go of my cheeks. “Now what were you going to say?”

I could do this. Wasn’t Pete always telling me to be direct and just be myself? I could tell him that he had misunderstood me and I hadn’t actually invited him to the wedding because to do something like that without first talking to Mom and Alan would not go over well. Especially when Mom was already acting all stressy. Except, of course, if I did it in front of Wendi. Then it might not be so bad. “I was going to say…”

“Before you go on, I just wanna say I’m so touched that you would include me, Lucy. It means the world to me.” He blew his nose into the handkerchief he carried around in the pocket of his doorman jacket. “Now that’s the last thing I’m going to say. The floor is now yours.”

I took a deep breath. “I was going to say…I should really get upstairs…to check on the cats. You know, to make sure they’re still alive.” So much for coming clean and being direct.

“Okay,” Pete said. “That’s good because with the wedding coming up, I don’t really have the time to be chatting. There’s a lot I have to do before now and then.”

So did I. Like figure out how to get myself out of this mess.

I walked into the living room to find Mom and Alan sitting on the couch holding hands, explaining to Wendi how they had met, when Alan hired Mom to be Laurel’s on-set tutor in Northampton. (Mom was a writer, but because she had been working on the same novel for eight years, the way she made money was tutoring.) Actually, it was more Alan who was explaining it all, on account of the fact that Mom was busy unwrapping miniature Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups as fast as she could and popping them into her mouth without missing a beat.

Alan turned to her. “Honey? Maybe you could hold off on eating those until after we’re done filming.”

“Bmmffhhmmmrry,” came her reply. Most people probably wouldn’t understand what she was saying, but it was very clear to me that it translated to “But I’m hungry” because I said that very thing with my mouth full at least once a day.

Alan looked at the camera and flashed a nervous smile. “She’s a little hungry. Pre-wedding jitters.” He laughed nervously.

She glared at him. “I mean, pre–small—”

Another glare.

“Okay, I’m just going to get back to the story,” he said. Luckily, he left out the part about the Hat Incident. “And now, a year later, we’ve finally agreed on a place to get married,” Alan went on. He laughed. “Although I have to say, at times, that felt harder to do than coming up with a plan for peace in the Middle East.”

Mom wiped some (but not all) of the chocolate off her face with her hand and flashed a fake smile. “While we have a lot in common, we sometimes have a little trouble when it comes to choosing places to travel.”

A little trouble? See “having to ask for Lucy’s advice-giving expertise when searching for a place to go for their anniversary” for more information.

Alan held up a bunch of menus. “And what to serve at the wed—”—another look from Mom— “—ing.”

Mom’s popped another Reese’s in her mouth. “Sweetheart, I’m sure Wendi is sick of hearing about this thing,” she said. She gave a little laugh. “I know I am.”

“No, no, no! I’d love to hear about it!” Wendy squealed. “Viewers just love drama!”

This time Mom popped three Reese’s in at once. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she laughed nervously. “There’s no drama. We’re a drama-free household.”

Alan turned to her. “I have an idea—let’s ask Wendi what she thinks about the meal thing. She looks like she has a lot of experience going to weddings.”

I shook my head. If that kind of thing came out of the mouth of a Mean Person—like, say, Cristina Pollock, it would be completely obvious that they were just stirring things up with one of those big electric mixers. But in Alan’s case, he really was that clueless and was just trying to help. Unfortunately, from the look on Mom’s face, he wasn’t. At all.

“Oh, I totally do!” Wendi said. She sighed. “Always a bridesmaid but never a bride, though.”

Mom’s smile got a little smaller. “I have an idea—let’s not ask Wendi because it’s a private issue that is probably of absolutely no interest to anyone but us!” she said through gritted teeth.

Alan turned to Wendi. “Wendi, at weddings, aren’t there usually two choices for the meal? Like, for instance, chicken and fish?”

I don’t know who the heck came up with the idea of offering people fish at a wedding. Most people—i.e., me—hated fish. And if they were going to do that, it should at least be something decent like fried clams from Friendly’s. With tons of tartar sauce on the side.

She nodded. “Absolutely. You know, the last wedding I went to they had this roasted chicken with pomegranate sauce, and it was just divine.”

Mom’s smile twitched. “But, Alan, darling, like I keep saying, seeing that there’s such a small group, I don’t think we need to have two different meal choices.”

Nikko put his camera down. “Not to interrupt or anything, but you might want to take into consideration those of us who are vegans.”

“Nikko! What are you doing?! Keep shooting!” Wendi cried.

“Okay, okay,” he sighed, putting the camera back up on his shoulder.

“That’s right,” Alan said “How can we forget the vegans! Like Sarah!”

Mom got up and started to pace.

“Honey, you’re pacing,” he said nervously. “You never pace. Why are you pacing?”

This was true. Unlike Alan, who paced a lot, Mom only did it when she was extra nervous or upset.

“Why does this wedding have to be so…weddingly?!” she cried. “Why can’t it just be a nice small gathering with almost-immediate family?” she went on.

“Because it is a wedding!” Alan cried. “A ceremony where we honor our commitment to each other as life-long partners!”

At the word commitment, Mom’s face went from green to yellow, like mine had the time I had eaten some cottage cheese that was two weeks past its expiration date.

“And I don’t know why you have such a big problem with the word,” he went on. “Honestly, Rebecca, the way you’ve been acting lately, you’d think you were getting ready to have a root canal.”

Wendi turned to Nikko. “You’re getting this, right?” she whispered. “Please tell me you’re getting this. Research shows that there’s a huge spike in ratings with on-air fights.”

Mom stopped pacing. “We’re not fighting!” she said nervously. “We’re just having a discussion. In a very passionate manner!” Mom was not a fan of the f-word, but I don’t know why she was so against fighting. I had learned from my fights with Laurel that they actually ended up bringing you closer because you got to air out all the stuff that was bothering you so it didn’t get stuck inside you like old gum on the bottom of a chair. Suddenly, she saw me. “Look—it’s Lucy!” she cried. “Let’s talk about Lucy’s life for a while now! What’s new in your life?”

As Nikko aimed the camera on me, I could feel my face get all red. I cleared my throat and prayed that my forehead wasn’t too shiny because that would look very gross to people across the country. “Umm…” Sometimes I had a lot of success asking Mom for things in front of other people because it made it harder for her to say no, but I was thinking this was not the time to bring up the fact that Pete now thought he was invited to this wedding that she didn’t seem all that interested in going to herself even though she was the bride.

“Before we go on, let me ask you something,” Alan interrupted. “If you were at a wedding, wouldn’t it make you happy if you found out that you had your choice of what you wanted to eat for the main course—”

“Alan!” Mom cried.

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry to have interrupted you, Lucy. That was very rude of me. So what’s going on?”

Mom reached into her bag and pulled out a York Peppermint Pattie. Okay, this was serious. “Oh, you know, not much,” I said as I inched my way back toward my room. “Nothing that can’t wait until later.”

Or, you know, never.

Between me in my room trying to make sure Miss Piggy didn’t devour Dr. Maude (after so many years of not being able to make Miss Piggy stay put in my room, I now found myself unable to make her budge as she gave Dr. Maude a there’s-only-room-for-one-of-us-and-I-am-NOT-leaving glare); Laurel in hers practicing her weeping over her discovery that she was blind; Alan surfing the Internet for articles about what to do when your wife-to-be is less than excited about your upcoming wedding; and Mom scarfing down more mini-size candy bars than even I would’ve been able to stomach, there wasn’t a lot of QFT (Quality Family Time) going on.

In fact, it seemed like the only time we were together nowadays was when we were being filmed (why Wendi thought her audience would be interested in us bringing our recycling down to the basement didn’t make sense to me, but I kept my mouth shut). But even then, we barely talked. Although Wendi started every segment with a whole thing about how we weren’t nearly as dysfunctional as the families of the other Week with Wendi’s subjects she had followed, we sure didn’t come off as all that loving and happy.

“Okay, I’m calling an emergency family meeting,” Wendi announced one evening as we played what was probably the most quiet game of Monopoly in history. Well, quiet except for Miss Piggy’s low growls and the continual thump of Dr. Maude falling onto the floor whenever she tried to jump up on something because unlike most cats—but like me—she had serious coordination problems. While Laurel and I still weren’t officially fighting, we sure weren’t officially friends. We were barely even talking to each other. And when we did, we were polite, but it was the kind of politeness you’d show to someone you ran into in a girls’ room and you were the only ones there.

That being said, I decided to take some of Dr. Maude’s (Dr. Maude–Dr. Maude—not the cat–Dr. Maude’s) advice about how to make up with people even if you were NOT the one who started the whole thing. I had found it during my most recent search through my DVR library of her shows. According to her, the best thing to do was extend an olive branch. Not, like, an actual olive branch with olives on it, as she impatiently told this woman in the audience who had raised her hand to ask whether you had to go to a nursery for one or if she’d be able to find one at Walmart because now that there was a Super Walmart in her town she could get everything from tires to milk to laundry baskets in one place. It was more a fancy way of saying to suck it up and be the bigger person EVEN IF THE OTHER PERSON HAD JUST AS MUCH OF A PART IN THE WHOLE THING.

I leaned in toward Laurel, whose fake blindness miraculously hadn’t gotten in the way of her getting ahead of me in the game with four more hotels. “I didn’t think non-family members could call family meetings,” I whispered. That seemed like a decent-size olive branch to put forward.

I waited for her to say something but she didn’t.

“I guess you’re not just blind, but deaf, too,” I said.

Just as she turned to me, Wendi clapped her hands. “Nikko, camera off for a minute.”

At that, we all looked at one another. Wendi never wanted the camera off. This was serious.

“Look, per my editor, there’s been a severe drop in fun over the last few days of footage,” she said. “And while research has proven that viewers like drama and conflict and intrigue, they also like fun. So to that end, Camilla and I had a call with the network this morning and we’ve come up with what we all feel is a fabulous way to infuse more fun into things.”

“It’s not bra shopping, is it?” I blurted out. Because if it was, I was taking Dr. Maude and bolting.

She shook her head. “No. Although that is a cute idea.” She snapped her fingers. “Charles, write that down.” She smiled. “We’re going to go…wedding dress shopping!”

From the look on Mom’s face, she was ready to bolt.

In the movies wedding dress shopping looks fun, but in real life? Not so much. We were at Saks Fifth Avenue, our third store of the afternoon that Saturday when it got very unfun.

Mom held up a flowy multicolored thing. “How about this one?”

I wrinkled my nose as I slumped down in a chair. I was all for color, but this was just wrong. “Maybe if you were getting married on a beach in Hawaii,” I said.

At that, Wendi and her crew burst into laughter.

“Lucy, you are just so funny!” she chirped.

“Really? You think so?” I asked, sitting up a little straighter. I glanced over at Laurel to see her reaction, but she was too busy rehearsing the scene where she’s gotten her sight back and is seeing herself in the mirror for the first time to notice.

Wendi turned to Nikko. “You got that on tape, right? That’s going to be a nice bit of comic relief among all this drama of the upcoming wedding.”

“I keep telling you—there’s no drama!” Mom laughed nervously as she dug in her purse for a mini Mounds bar. It was a good thing Mom had no interest in being an actress because she was awful at it.

Nikko rolled his eyes. “Of course I” —as he looked at the camera, his face paled— “didn’t. Whoops. Seems I forgot to turn it on.”

Wendi snapped her fingers at Charles. “Charles! Put ‘Find new cameraman’ on my to-do list,” she said as she glared at Nikko. When she looked at me, she smiled. “Lucy, love, do you think you can do that again?”

“Do what again?” I asked, confused.

“Say that line about the beach in Hawaii,” she replied.

Before I could say, “Um, I hate to tell you this, but this is a REALITY special not a MOVIE where you get to do scenes over and over again,” she waved her hand. “Never mind, it’s fine. Let’s move on. Go back to bonding.”

Mom, Laurel, and I just looked at one another.

“Bond! Bond!” Wendi chirped.

We shrugged and continued looking through the racks.

Suddenly, Wendi click-clacked over and picked up a frilly, lacy-white-gauzy thing and held it up to Mom. “Oh, this would look just so darling on you!”

Mom wrinkled her nose and gently pushed it away. “Thanks, but that’s not really my style.”

Wendi yanked another white dress off the rack, this one equally girly and nightgowny-looking. “Then how about this one?”

Mom shook her head.

Wendi sighed. “I don’t know why so many women don’t like to wear white to their second weddings.”

“I didn’t even wear white to my first wedding,” Mom said. Because my parents were creative hippy types, their first wedding was held at one of their friend’s houses on a farm in upstate New York. I was glad I hadn’t been born yet and didn’t have to suffer through it. They used to make me watch the DVD of it back when they were still married, and it looked like it had been a super-weird day. There were people playing all sorts of corny instruments like the ukulele and the zither, and instead of a priest or a rabbi doing the whole thing, they had a bunch of friends read different poems, and sing songs. It was like a really bad school talent show but with adults. And Mom wore this funky boho-like patchwork-dress thing that she had gotten in Russia because back when she was single she used to travel all around the world. She still had the dress. She didn’t wear it anymore, but she kept it in a fancy plastic cover so it wouldn’t get eaten by moths, which was something that had tended to happen in our house in Northampton because it was so old (needless to say, moths—like ants—were not a problem in our New York apartment).

Laurel picked up a yellow dress with a lace collar that was about ten sizes bigger than Mom. “Ooh—this would be perfect for Rose!”

I wrinkled my nose. “That’s a little fancy to wear while you cook, don’t you think?” I asked.

“No, I meant for the wedding,” she replied.

Mom looked over at her. “Laurel, honey, what are you talking about?”

I reached into my Girls Rule…Boys Drool tote bag and took out a pen and the small notebook I had started carrying around titled “The Change.” Tuesday, 4:17p.m.—Mom calls Laurel “honey” AGAIN—making that the seventh time this week. # of times she’s called ME “honey” this week? ZERO!!! I wrote. I figured that having all this evidence might come in handy if The Change started to get really out of control.

Laurel cringed. “I…kind-of, sort-of ended up…inviting her to the wedding,” she said sheepishly.

“You invited Rose to the wedding?” I asked excitedly. This was great. If Laurel invited Rose, that meant I wouldn’t get in trouble for inviting Pete.

Mom glanced over at the camera and put on one of her fake smiles. She was using them more and more and getting a lot better at them. “Laurel, sweetheart, we really wanted to keep this a family-only affair, remember?”

# of “sweethearts”—5, I wrote.

“Well, she is family,” Laurel replied. “She’s been with Dad and me since I was five.” Oh, so now Rose belonged just to her and Alan? That was definitely something to add to the notebook. “She just looked so sad when I was talking about it.”

“Yes, but honey, we said immediate family,” Mom said.

Another “honey.” I should have bought a bigger notebook. At the rate things were going I was going to fill this one by the end of the week.

“She is immediate family—she lives with us five days a week,” Laurel replied.

Mom shook her head “Fine,” she sighed.

Here was my chance. “Well, if Rose is coming, we should probably invite Pete then, too, don’t you think?” I asked innocently.

When Mom turned to me, I could tell from the look on her face that, actually, this was not fine. “Lucy, we’re not inviting Pete,” she said firmly.

“But why?!” I asked.

“Because Pete is not family.”

I waited for my “honey” or “sweetheart” but it didn’t come. “He is to me!” I cried. “If Austin and Beatrice and Rose are coming, then Pete should be able to!” I glanced at the camera. I really, really hoped this part ended up on the cutting room floor because Pete’s feelings would be beyond hurt if saw this.

“Oh, this is good,” I heard Wendi whisper. “This is really good.”

So much for that happening.

“Lucy, that’s enough,” snapped Mom. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore right now. We can talk about it later. In private. But the answer is still going to be no.”

I had learned my lesson enough times the hard way to know that the longer I waited to come clean about something, the bigger the mess I made. “There’s something I should probably tell you, then.”

“What?”

“You know how Austin misunderstood Laurel and thought he was invited?”

Mom nodded.

“Well, the same thing happened with Pete,” I said.

“You invited Pete to the wedding without asking us?” Mom demanded.

“No! I just told you—he ended up thinking he was invited!” I cried. Jeez. If this was a listening- comprehension test, Mom totally would’ve failed.

Mom put her hands on her hips. Never a good sign. “I have an idea,” she said. “Why doesn’t everyone just invite everyone they want and we can just broadcast the whole thing on national television?” she cried.

Wendi shook her head. “Don’t take this the wrong way, honey,” she said, “but I don’t think the public would be all that interested.” She click-clacked over to Laurel and put her hands on her shoulders. “Now if it were this one’s wedding,” she chirped, “that would be TV-worthy. Especially if she were marrying Austin. Talk about a royal wedding!” She looked at her. “Have you guys discussed that possibility, sweetpea?”

Laurel looked at her like she was crazy. “I’m fourteen.”

Wendi shrugged. “Never too early to start thinking about this stuff.”

Mom glared at me. “Lucy Beth Parker, you had no right inviting Pete.”

“I just told you I didn’t invite him!” I cried.

Wendi poked Nikko. “You’re getting this, right?”

Mom shook her head. “And I can’t believe I agreed to live my life in a fishbowl like this,” she huffed as she started to walk toward the escalator. “I’ll meet you girls in the sock department.”

At that, Laurel looked like she was going to cry. “But I told you I wouldn’t have agreed to do this if you guys didn’t want me to,” she called after her. She turned to me. “You really should have asked them before you did that, you know.”

Huh? What was this about?! Where was the big fristerly pat on the shoulder with an “It’s going to be okay—she’s just acting super weird nowadays, and as soon as we get home we’ll figure out a way to fix things”?

“Wait a minute—so it’s okay for you to invite Rose, but then when Pete thinks he’s invited, even though I didn’t actually invite him, I’m the one who screwed up?”

“But I told you—Rose is like my family.”

“Oh, so now she’s your family?” I demanded. “Not mine?”

“Lucy, that’s not what I meant—”

“Fine. Well, if Rose is your family, then Pete is part of my family,” I shot back. By saying that I was probably giving up my right to any of Rose’s yummy fried plantains, which had become one of my favorite foods since moving to New York, but that meant I’d just have to learn to make them myself.

By this time even more of a crowd had gathered. “But I want Pete to be part of my family, too,” she said.

I shook my head. “Nope. You already chose Rose.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Okay, now you really are being immature.”

I narrowed mine. “And now you really are embarrassing me in front of not only a camera crew but half of Saks.”

Laurel twirled on her heel. “I’m going to the sock department, too.”

“Well, I’m…not,” I huffed. The socks were right next to the bra department, and with the mood Mom was in, I was not taking any chances. The last thing I needed was to have America watch me be humiliated as some saleswoman talked about how bosomy I was. “I’m staying right here.”

“Fine,” she huffed as she strode away.

“Fine,” I called after her.

After she was gone, I looked over at Wendi and her crew. The way their mouths were in little O’s, it was like staring at a bunch of Cheerios. How could I save this? “So, uh, seeing that the camera’s still rolling, is there anything you wanted to ask me about?” I asked. “Like, I don’t know…my advice column I write for the school paper?” I sure hope no one asked me for advice about what to do when your family went nuts because I had no idea. “Okay, then. Well, I guess I’m going to…go to the sock department, too,” I squeaked as I slithered away.

I don’t know why people said weddings were supposed to be such a happy time in your life.

Because this one? Was a mess.