CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

When angry, count to four.

When very angry, swear.

Mark Twain

“Frick’n Frack’n F*#!!?/*#@*#.” If you’d asked Rhonda why she was so hair-ripping furious (’cause, like, let’s face it, it’s not as if she’d been caught playing the violin naked, or anything), she wouldn’t have been able to tell you. No, she would have refused to tell you, because she refused to even think about it herself. The word “embarrassed” embarrassed Rhonda. The word “emotions” wasn’t in her vocabulary. She wasn’t interested in having feelings in the first place, and if she did, she certainly didn’t want to talk about them.

“For the millionth time, nothing’s wrong with me,” said Rhonda to her mother.

“Oh, yeah?” said Mrs. Ronaldson. “Then why are you murdering that chrysanthemum?”

Rhonda looked down at the mess of purple petals on the kitchen table. She’d absentmindedly taken one of the flowers from her mother’s vase, but she didn’t realize she’d been sitting there pulling it to pieces the whole time.

“I’m just bored,” said Rhonda, hoping that would put an end to the inquisition.

“You’ve been cranky for days,” said Mrs. Ronaldson. “If you’re so bored, why don’t you go for a bike ride, or see what Daddy’s up to.”

“Daddy?!” spat Rhonda. “He’s the last creep in the world I wanna see.”

“Rhonda!” said her mother. “How dare you talk about your father that way!”

Rhonda gave her one of her “hello?” looks. “What’s my father got to do with this?”

“You just said …”

“Oh,” said Rhonda, “that Daddy. I thought you were talking about Daddy McGill …”

“Aha!!” interrupted Mrs. Ronaldson. “I suspected as much.”

Rhonda gave her mother another “have you gone totally batty?” look.

Her mother continued. “That Beanpole boy has something to do with your foul mood these days, am I right?”

Rhonda opened the fridge and faked looking for something inside, just to hide her face (which by now was as red as the hot-sauce bottle in the fridge door).

“Rhonda,” said her mother, her voice softening, “do you have a crush on that boy?”

Crush. Crush! Rhonda hated that word. It embarrassed her more than “embarrassed.” She slammed the fridge door, walked past her mother without dignifying her question with an answer, and walked straight out the front door. Then she saw Lee coming down Agnes’s front steps and she did an about-face and came straight back in. She looked at her mother, who was looking back with an amused smile. That did it! She stormed to the back door, slamming it big-time on her way out, and took the long way to school, mumbling under her breath the entire way:

“… a crush? On that ‘Beanpole boy’? Give your head a shake, Mother. Are you on crack, or what?”

All mothers are slightly insane.

– J.D. Salinger