Monday 10/30

Brady had a game Friday afternoon, and I managed to talk Coach into letting me skip football practice to go, because I explained all about how Brady has only had one game where she’s been hitting, and there’s this whole superstition thing— sometimes having to do with socks and hats—and when I got to the part about her trying different things, including a different sports bra, he said, “OKAY, OKAY, GO!”

So I high-tailed it to the game and sat there on the bleachers and bad-mouthed her, which wasn’t so easy, since I wasn’t WITH anyone and I had to talk to strangers, who gave me some very nasty looks. Which would have been worth it, but guess what? It didn’t work. She fanned EVERY pitch.

(Did I just say that? Geez. I am SO jock now. I’ll need some kind of exorcism when this is all over.)

Luckily, Tatyana and Noori arrived this weekend, so that was a distraction that kept Brady from dwelling too much on the return of her sports failures. We went to the airport to get them on Sunday, and my mother was kind enough to take us early, so we could lie on top of her car at the marina next to the airport, and have a Wayne-and-Garth-AAAHH experience, while planes flew so close over us that we thought we would surely die each time. It was GREAT.

“Delia,” Brady said between airplane encounters, “do you find Bugs Bunny attractive when he puts a dress on and pretends to be a girl?”

“Nooo,” I said, “Noooo!” I added (just like Wayne, by the way—I could be his understudy, I’m so good at his lines). “And, see? You ARE Garth, Brady. That’s his line.”

She was about to push me off the car, but the next plane was coming in for a landing, so we went into our AAAAHHHH thing, which we freeze-framed in mid-AAAHHH for as long as we could, but then started laughing until we both rolled off the car.

We do amuse ourselves.

I called Giulio before we went to the airport, thinking that he might want to go with us, since almost getting hit by airplanes can really cheer a person up. But he said he still couldn’t be with Brady, that it was too painful.

“I know Brady and I were only together for, uh, only about—“

“Fifty and a half days, approximately,” I said, helping him out with the math.

“But it feels like a wound that will not heal if I see her,” he said.

“Giulio, maybe it’s just culture shock, because of the traveling and all, and you’ll wake up tomorrow, and you’ll feel fine, and you’ll be ready to DEAL,” I said, with an emphasis on the DEAL, which I hoped would make him think of DEEL, as in me, and it would have one of those unconscious (or is it called unbliminal?) advertising sorts of effects, and he’d wake up the next day and not be able to get his mind (or maybe even something else) off of me.

Well . . . could happen.

When we got to the airport, Tatyana and Noori were just arriving. It was neat to meet them, except for the part where they said, “So, Delia, what does it mean to be a ‘Rogue’?”

(FaceBook. Bringing the planet together.)

Before I could (attempt to) explain about that, AJ came running up a nearby escalator and threw himself into Noori’s arms. He was sobbing like a baby. It was quite a spectacle, which could only have been improved if Shakita had been there to witness it.

My mom had to drop me at the football field right from the airport, because Coach had called a special practice. I was very happy to get out of the car, since Noori and AJ were PDA-ing in the back seat. Surprisingly—but not surprisingly, from a PDA-avoidance standpoint—Brady and Tatyana jumped out of the car, too, and announced that they wanted to watch the practice.

Tatyana enjoyed meeting the football players—a little too much, in my opinion. (Did I used to act like that before I settled down with my imaginary fulltime boyfriend?) She was especially impressed with Richard’s shoulder pads.

“So, you have a ‘friend’ coming soon, I hear,” I said, feeling a little troubled by her going on and on (with a maddeningly excellent sort of Britishish English) about her “lurve” of American football quarterbacks. “That tall, French-Vietnamese guy from the cruise, right?”

“He’s not coming after all,” she said. “He had a family thing, but I went to see him in Paris a few weeks ago.”

“So, you’re real attached, then?” I asked.

“Pals, actually. Cozy pals.”

“What are cozy pals?” I asked (fearfully).

“You get, uh, COZY sometimes, like when you’re watching a movie. Some snogging, maybe, but not really serious. I have several cozy pals.”

I made a mental note to keep Giulio far, far away from this girl.

After the practice I had to go visit my X-Men for “final fittings,” and I made Tatyana and Brady come with me. I have to say, these boys are skilled, and I am sure they will be very successful at getting into Parsons, which is their common goal, I have learned.

“It fits like a glove,” Prof X said.

“It is a glove,” I said, holding up a yellow hand.

“I mean the whole package,” he said. “You’re stunning.”

I looked in the full-length mirror they’d set up. I was wearing Spandex. Lots of Spandex. Yellow and green, mostly. Except for a silver belt made of fun foam.

“This will be the best Halloween ever!” Wolfie cried.

“I don’t know what it is that really happens on Halloween,” Tatyana said. “I’ve never seen one.”

The boys looked at each other, smiled like little kids and began rummaging through a closet. Then they threw a black gown over Tatyana’s head and fluffed around her for a minute or so and said, “Meet Mystique!”

“She’s perfect!” Cyclops said.

“I lurve it!” Tatyana said, admiring herself in the mirror. “What am I, though?”

“You’re one of us, honey, an X-Man,” Wolfie said. “And looking good, too!”

“Oh, guys??” I said. “Little question: How come I didn’t get a choice to wear the attractive, black gown instead of this lemon-lime thing?”

“Because you’re the Rogue,” Prof X said. “Duh.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I chose not to.

“What should we use to make Mystique’s skin blue?” Cyclops asked, his finger tapping his cheek.

“My what what?” Tatyana asked.

“Just say no,” I whispered to her. “That’s what we do in America, or else we get into trouble.”

“Who’s got the camera?” Magneto cried. “These will be great shots for the Parsons’ portfolio!”

I may spend this Halloween looking a little weird (okay, a lot weird), but at least I will be in the company of goal-oriented people. My mother will be very proud.

Brady has a game tonight, and I have, by some miracle, convinced Giulio to go. He protested at first, saying, again, that he couldn’t be close to Brady. But I pointed out that we could sit at the very back of the bleachers, and he’d be, like, miles away from her. (Or some distance or other.) Then he made the argument that he jinxes her, and I pointed out that she’s been striking out plenty without him being there, so he obviously had nothing to do with her luck. Then he did his sad nodding thing and agreed to go with me.

There’s a GO, and a WITH, and a ME, all in a row, there. Progress, yes?

Now my only worry is that the cruisers are going, too, which means Tatyana will be there. She’s really nice, and I do like her, but she obviously can’t be totally trusted around a person’s guy.

Much the way I can’t be totally trusted around a person’s guy, I guess, but we don’t need to make EVERY connection that comes into our heads, now do we?

Tata!