Dream Girl Page 17

  “Marv,” she said, sounding like her old self. “And while we’re both here, I’ll help you tidy up a little.”

  I followed her out of the kitchen, and we began to clear the living area of all the pizza boxes, paper napkins, and newspapers. I was amazed at how much better the place looked after just five minutes.

  “I’m going to go home, but I’ll pop in tomorrow morning to check up on all of you.” She picked up the trash bag and headed toward the door. “I’ll take this to the garbage chute.”

  And then I saw something.

  “Oh, wait,” I said. “Before you tie it…”

  I grabbed a back issue of the Planet that was by the foot of the coatrack and crammed it in the bag. I’m usually good about recycling, but given the recent turn of events, I felt strongly that the magazine’s Young Love Heats Up headline belonged with all the greasy napkins and snot-covered Kleenexes.

  { 20 }

  Shakespeare in Sheep’s Clothing

  Not to get all sentimental or anything, but even though Mom had barely been gone four days, I was beginning to see her in a new light. You could even say I was starting to appreciate her. Kiki had always made it sound as though my mother’s household management skills consisted of nothing more than making croque-monsieurs and decorating the walls with Le Bon Marché ads, but now I was starting to have my doubts. Could it have been a coincidence that as soon as Mom left, our household began to fall apart at the seams? On Monday, my first full day back, Dad slept through his morning class, Henry showed up for school lunchless, and when I got home that afternoon, there was a card in our mailbox from the Department of Sanitation notifying us that a random garbage check had turned up a magazine with our address label—and we owed a fifty-dollar fine for failing to recycle.

  This must have been for the “Young Love” issue of the Planet I’d thrown out. I was terrified Dad was going to kill me, but he took the news in stride, and even put his anti-American spin on it. “What is this, a totalitarian state? They want to tell me how to throw out my trash, fine. Then I would like to tell them how to spend my tax money. More gardens, less guns.”

  “You are so right, Papa,” I told him.

  I’d been home for less than half an hour when Becca called to invite me on a walk. “I’m in your neighborhood,” she said. “Orthodontist appointment. I got a new retainer. Wanna see?”

  “You know how to put an irresistible offer out there.”

  It wasn’t one of our best times hanging out together. The sense that I should be home with my family was weighing on me, and after she showed me her new retainer, Becca fell into an unusually quiet mood, continually looking down at her feet. There was a small chance she was admiring her mustard tights and deep blue shorts combo, but it was far more likely that something was bothering her.

  On Bethune Street, we passed a store called Boyfriend’s Closet. The windows were filled with female mannequins wearing rolled-up chinos and oversized button-down shirts—clothing that was supposedly on loan from a boyfriend.

  “It’s a good thing there are so many single women in New York,” I said. “Otherwise they’d be out of business.”

  “Hmm.” Becca barely glanced in the window’s direction.

  What was going on? Was there any chance Andy had read my mind in the car and told her about what a loser I’d been, sitting there and wanting more than anything for him to kiss me?

  “B, if you were mad at me, you wouldn’t have asked me to come out on a walk, would you?” I asked.

  Her shoulders rolled forward and she sighed. “Considering the fact that you’re my only friend in the city, I probably would have.” She jabbed me in the rib. “But no, I’m not mad at you. I’m just a little annoyed.”

  “Huh? Did I say something?”

  “It’s not you. Look…when I was leaving the orthodontist’s office I got this weird text message.” Becca’s fingers did a little tap dance on the gizmo and she passed it to me. I zeroed in on the text.

  WHAT HAPPENED TO THE REST OF YOUR PANTS?

  “I think you were right about Sheila,” she told me. “It’s her. And she has to be the one doing their dirty work.”

  “Actually, I’m not so sure,” I said.

  “Who else could it be?” Her mouth hung slightly open.

  “No, no, it’s practically got Sheila’s fingerprints all over it. But I remain convinced that she’s just harassing you for the sake of it. I bet it has nothing to do with the Soyles.”

  Her lips were quivering. “I don’t see how that’s possible.”

  “No offense, but what makes you that different from everybody else? My money says Sheila’s just being a jerk and the Soyles aren’t even thinking about you.”

  “Maybe.” Her tone was anything but satisfied. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  When I got home, all I wanted to do was go to my room and lie down and listen to the Shirelles. But Henry was looking at me with puppy dog eyes, so I joined him on the floor and helped him build a spaceship out of cotton balls, Q-tips, and glue. My selflessness evaporated when Dad remembered to give me a message. “A young man called.”

  “Who!”

  Dad frowned and tilted his head the way he does when he’s trying to remember something. “Liam?”

  I was racking my brain for Liams. “You mean Ian?”

  Dad nodded. “C’est ça.”

  Crap. I’d totally forgotten that we were supposed to meet up at the diner after school to go over our English story-writing project.

  “Time out,” I told my brother as I lurched over to my backpack, glue bottle still in hand. I ran to the phone like a mad person and punched in the number scribbled on the back of my English notebook, waiting impatiently while it rang.

  “I’m so sorry I stood you up. I totally forgot,” I said once Ian was on the line. “Any chance you can come by my apartment later? You’ll get to meet my cool fish.” Dad was watching me, clearly amused. He never got my fish fixation. “And my very cool father,” I added.

  That night we ordered broccoli pizza and ate picnic style—or, as Dad called it, au picnic—on the living room floor. Apart from Henry’s minor Coke spill, the meal went without a hitch, and afterward Dad suggested we all stay put. “Let’s make an independent work circle. Your mother and I used to do them all the time when we lived on Hester Street.”

  Reenacting Mom and Dad’s former days in a quasi-commune (they’d lived with two other couples) sounded kind of weird, but soon enough we were absorbed in our projects: Dad was revising a chapter in his book, Henry was using tongue depressors and markers to invent a new language called Glow-Ki, and—though exhausted from my Noctolux ban—I was pretending to study math while actually fantasizing about Andy showing up at the door on bended knee.

  I was the size of an elephant, and my black and white polka-dotted maternity dress was flapping every which way. It wasn’t pretty. Being pregnant wasn’t all that physically uncomfortable, but walking down Madison Avenue was a bitch—you try putting one foot in front of the other when you can’t even see your feet.

  As if being a mom-to-be wasn’t weird enough, I was the only actual person on the sidewalk—everybody else walking around me was a plastic mannequin. I slowly crossed the street and a doorman stepped out from under an awning and tipped his hat to me. At first I thought he was saluting me for being the biggest lump he’d ever seen. Then he gestured to the sidewalk. A baby was sitting on a picnic blanket, smiling and cooing and reaching out to be picked up.

  I must have dozed off, because when I woke up, Ian was sitting on the floor, flipping through his sketchbook for my family.

  “Hi, sleepyhead,” Henry teased me as I rubbed my eyes and made my way up to a seated position.

  “That looks just like Sheila,” Dad was saying to Ian.

  “How do you know Sheila?” Ian looked confused.

  “She lives here,” Henry said. “Our parents all used to be friends, but not anymore. Well, they’re still friends with her mom, but her father
left the family for a German grad student.”

  Dad looked like he was about to choke. “Henry! That’s private.”

  “Your secret’s safe with me,” Ian assured him. He still hadn’t looked at me—he probably thought I was a freak. First I stand him up, then I invite him over and fall asleep.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. Henry passed me the book. There she was, my least favorite redhead, standing at the top of our school’s steps and looking as big-shouldered and bossy as ever. Sheila was holding a tangle of leashes that were attached to about a dozen guys from school, Ian included. It was pretty awesome.

  “I thought you only drew superheroes,” I said skeptically.

  “I’m a man of many talents.”

  “Apparently.” I eyed him admiringly.

  We moved ourselves to the polar bear rug in my room and tried to brainstorm a story idea for our English assignment. But we couldn’t agree on a genre, let alone a plot; I wanted to write a mystery and Ian wanted to do a—surprise!—superhero story.

  “Why did we have to do them in pairs anyway?” I asked.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” He smirked. “This way Mr. Bunting only has half as many stories to grade.” He opened his sketchbook and began to add shading to the Sheila drawing.

  “So what exactly led you to draw this?” I asked.

  “If I tell you what happened, you’re going to say I’m an idiot.”

  “There are worse things to be called.”

  He squinted and told me about his latest humiliation. On Saturday a girl who introduced herself as Maxine had called him and asked him to meet her at Sammy’s Noodle Shop.

  This setup was starting to sound familiar.

  “Did she say her locker was near yours?”

  “She said she had lunch the same period as me.”

  “And let me guess. You went?”

  He turned red. “So did, like, five other guys. And then some girl in a wig showed up and took pictures.”

  “God,” I said, burying my face in my hands. “You are an idiot. Now might be a good time to introduce you to my fish. You should take a lesson from Didier. Whenever Margaux acts coy and teases him, he becomes very angry and attacks her.”

  Ian pressed his face against the tank. “You’re saying I should attack Sheila? She’s twice my size.”

  “Not physically. But you don’t have to take it lying down. When she’s mean to me, I stand up for myself.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “Well, I try.” I picked a Waldorf notepad up off the floor and started to doodle, spelling out Sheila’s name, then rearranging the letters as if a clue might be hiding in there. I picked it apart, looking for little words contained within. Shed. Rad. Lash. Drivel. And then something clicked.

  “Ack! Ian, will you look at this?”

  Ian glanced at my paper. “Evil radish? I don’t get it—do you have something against vegetables or something?”

  “Look closer.” A smile tugged at my mouth. “It’s Sheila’s name jumbled up. So now you know what we have to write our story about, right?”

  “Um, an evil radish?”

  “Bingo.”

  Ian looked at me as if I were crazy.

  “And you know what else? Our writing project should be a comic. Seriously, Mr. Bunting never said it can’t be illustrated, did he?” I batted my eyelashes. “Oh, c’mon, it will be so good…. Please?”

  “I’ve never drawn a radish before. I guess I could try.” Ian flashed me a weak smile.

  “Chalk it up to a learning experience.”

  The next morning I crawled out of bed feeling dog tired. After a quick shower, I threw on an easy outfit of black lace tights and a blue turtleneck dress. I barely had time to dry off and still felt a little damp under my clothes. I hoped I wouldn’t arrive at school smelling like mildew.

  When I came out of my room, Dad was at the table, reading the paper and administering his morning shot of espresso—he is adamantly opposed to carrying around a paper coffee cup like all the other professors did; it’s too American for his tastes or something. My brother was seated across from him, building a fortress out of his Eggos and wearing the same GREETINGS, EARTHLING T-shirt he’d had on the previous day. And in the background, Cheri-Lee was noisily fiddling with something in the kitchen.

  I kissed Dad good morning and went into the kitchen to down a glass of Orangina.

  “Don’t mind me,” Cheri-Lee said, brushing against me as she opened the fridge. “I just popped in with some of last night’s leftovers. It’s Caesar salad with dried cranberries and roasted peach slivers.”

  “You shouldn’t have,” I told her.

  And I meant it. The slimy greens looked positively disgusting.

  “Nothing as impressive as what your mother would make, just simple healthy food,” she said.

  “Thanks.” I smiled. “Did Dad offer you some coffee?”

  “Oh no!” she said with a wave of her Gumby bracelet. “I woke up feeling inspired to write for the first time in years. I’d better buckle down before the feeling eludes me.”

  “By all means, buckle away.”

  “Are you poking fun at me? I can tell you are.” Cheri-Lee grinned and started to skitter across the apartment, then turned back around. “Oh! How could I forget? I’m going to a crafts expo in Brooklyn later this afternoon. Last time they had these fabulous knickknacks made out of antique typewriter keys, and there was a girl who sewed used kitchen sponges into skirts. Sheila said it’s not her thing, but how can you say that about a place where there’s something for everyone?”

  For once, Sheila and I were in agreement.

  “Would you like to come along?” she asked.

  “I’d love to,” I told her, “but I’m supposed to meet Kiki this afternoon.”

  “No hard feelings, then.” Cheri-Lee made a strange gobbling noise as she headed for the door.

  “Are you going through a layering phase or is this an invitation for another strange message?” I asked Becca. Her outfit was only slightly less outrageous than her Shakespearean getup from the day before: she was wearing a paisley minidress over a pair of cropped leggings and, for good measure, gold boots.

  “I’m just trying to get away with whatever I can before I have to enter the Witness Protection Program.” She said it like it was a joke, but her eyes weren’t laughing at all.

  “Oh, look,” she said, her gaze fixed across the street. “Here comes my favorite.”

  Eleanor was making her way down the school steps, listening to a pair of purple headphones. She didn’t bother to look at any of the kids clogging her path—she just sailed around them, as if she were the only person in the entire Lower East Side. She was my guru.

  “I love that girl,” I murmured.

  “And I bet she has no idea how cool she is,” Becca agreed.

  “Wanna get out of here?”

  “Can’t,” she said, still studying the school steps. “I’m doing an experiment. I got another text today.”

  “What did it say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Tell me,” I urged her.

  “I just did. It said nothing. No letters, no characters. Just black space. Fade to black. The most classic threat in—”

  She stopped short. The BDLs were streaming out of the building, all wearing matching polka-dotted tunics over their yoga pants. Sheila had taken the look one step further, with a yoga mat bag.

  “Roll out the red carpets,” I groaned.

  “Or red yoga mats, as it were.” Becca pulled out her phone on the sly. “Now, keep your eyes on them, will you?”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  Facing away, she punched a message into her PDA. “Now we wait.”

  “Aren’t you crafty?” I complimented her.

  “Did you see any of them reach for their phone?” she asked.

  “You’re also impatient. Give it a chance to go through.”

  She counted to ten so fast I couldn’
t hear the spaces between the words. “Anything yet?”

  “Nope. They’re all just standing around by the bottom of the stairs, asking guys to pose for pictures with them. Looks like Ariel got a new digital camera.”

  “Oh, the MySpace fun that awaits,” Becca wisecracked. “Well, back to the experiment drawing board.”

  When Becca turned back around, the quintet was encircling a bushy-haired guy who was in my music appreciation class. “Why would they choose the day they all wear maternity dresses to take pictures?” Becca mused.

  Maternity clothes? And with polka dots, too?

  Just like what I’d been wearing in my pregnancy dream!

  As I was having my lightning bolt déjà vu moment, Sheila pulled her phone out of her pocket. She checked something and then spent an entire minute pressing keys. Unless she was playing tic-tac-toe on her screen, she was sending somebody a message. And considering her mom was prehistoric about all things technological and all her friends were standing two feet away from her, the only person I could possibly imagine her contacting was one of the Soyles.

  Maybe Becca’s suspicions weren’t so off the mark after all?

  I turned to Becca so we could bug our eyes out at each other, but she was telling one of the Queen Bees where she’d bought her gold boots and hadn’t noticed a thing.

  I was practically shaking. As I was about to interrupt Becca to tell her what I’d seen, something stopped me. I paused to take stock of the situation and ask myself what I had really seen: just a girl playing on her cell phone. For all I knew, she’d been checking her horoscope or downloading a ring tone. This wasn’t exactly evidence that would hold up in court.

  That photo session finished, the girls set their sights on a group of vaguely goth guys standing on our side of the street.

  Becca’s phone gave a little buzz, and before I knew it she was talking to a member of her family, assuring them that she hadn’t forgotten about some fancy dinner that night. My eyes lowered, I tuned out my friend and strained to listen as the BDLs bum-rushed their next victims.