Ten Good and Bad Things About My Life (So Far)

by Ann M. Martin

  16

  VII. My family went on a lame staycation.

  A. We pretended to be tourists in our own city.

  B. Even though we were on vacation, I mean staycation, my sister got an idea about becoming a working girl.

  One thing about my parents is that when they say they’re going to do something they really mean it. They said we were going to be tourists in our own city, and they meant it. I thought our staycation had gotten off to a slow start, what with that first day of newspapers and pajamas and plastic movie cups. But by Day Three I had so much to put in my scrapbook that I barely had time to think about JBIII or our Wild West adventure that had tragically disappeared into the sunset.

  Here are the highlights of the rest of our week:

  MONDAY

  We spent the entire day in Central Park. I had no idea there was so much to see and do in the park, since mostly we just nip into one end of it if we happen to be uptown for some reason, like if I need to have my teeth cleaned at Dr. Rice’s office, which is on East 57th Street, or if Mom has taken me to FAO Schwarz, which is a fancy toy store that Lexie is embarrassed to be seen near, but that I still like very much. It turns out that there’s a lot more to Central Park than the zoo, which I’ve been to a few times. For starters, the park takes up 843 acres, and in case you don’t know how big that is, it’s a rectangle that is two and a half miles long and half a mile wide, so you can imagine how much stuff you could fit in that space.

  We found out an awful lot about Central Park by taking a guided tour of it that lasted two hours. When the tour was over, I said, “Can we go back to the zoo and see the penguins?” and Lexie said, “Can we go back to Belvedere Castle?” and Mom said, “I didn’t see the statue of Alice in Wonderland,” and Dad said, “I’m feeling a little peckish,” which it turns out meant he was hungry, not that he was about to barf.

  So first we bought hot dogs from a vendor and carried them to the pond by the boathouse, and ate there while we watched kids sailing their model boats around the pond, something Lexie said she remembered reading about in Stuart Little, which sort of made me want to read the book, but not enough to actually decide to do it.

  Then we went to the castle, which is very realistic-looking and was built in 1869, but not for anyone to live in, just for show. And here’s something interesting: There is weather equipment on top of the castle now, so when a TV weather lady says what the temperature is in Central Park, she means the temperature on top of Belvedere Castle. This is true.

  After the castle we found the Alice statue, and it turns out that unlike statues in museums, which have barriers around them because they’re ancient and precious and the museum officials don’t want any fingerprints on them, you’re allowed to climb on Alice. Really. Of course, I was the only one in my family who climbed on her. My parents just admired her and fondly recalled reading the book (which I also decided not to read), and Lexie said the statue was creative and imaginative and she wondered a lot of dreamy, artistic things about the sculptor.

  Finally we walked back to the zoo, where I watched the penguins for a while and Lexie said they reminded her of the book Mr. Popper’s Penguins, and I truly hoped no one would get any ideas about summer reading for me.

  TUESDAY

  Our first stop was the Statue of Liberty, which I went to once on a field trip in second grade, but all I remembered about that trip was that we got to eat our lunches on the ferry on the ride home. This time I paid a little more attention. The statue was a gift to our country from the country of France in 1886. It was created by a sculptor named Frederic Bartholdi. The whole statue including the pedestal is 305 feet tall, but the lady herself is just 151 feet tall, which is still about 1⁄32nd of a mile. The statue’s head—just her head—was on exhibit at the World’s Fair in Paris in 1878, which must have been a little bit creepy.

  Guess what. The Statue of Liberty is another statue you’re allowed to touch. In fact, you’re allowed to climb up inside her all the way to her crown. Sadly, you have to make reservations months ahead in order to do that, and since months ago my dad was still teaching economics and wasn’t a fired person and we were still going to fly out to the Wild West in August, all we could do was stand at the bottom of the statue with the other people who hadn’t planned ahead and crane our necks back until we saw the crown from the outside. But that was still pretty impressive. I made a point of grinning at my family so they would see that I wasn’t disappointed and that I was enjoying the staycation after all.

  Our next stop was the Liberty Science Center, which is in the same general area as the Statue of Liberty, and is like a museum of fun, with all sorts of science exhibits and things you can experiment with and touch and climb, plus an IMAX theater where you can see very exciting movies about, for instance, tornadoes that look like they’re going to whirl out into the audience. I had to shut my eyes a few times during the movie.

  WEDNESDAY

  This was a quieter day, which was good, since I was a little tired from all the sightseeing. Everyone slept late including Bitey and me, and then instead of a breakfast of BASICS rice cereal (which is a cheap version of Rice Krispies and hisses instead of crackles, and also doesn’t have elves on the box) and BASICS bread and BASICS orange juice, we went to the Daily Grind for brunch. We sat at a little round table and Mom and Dad let Lexie and me order whatever we wanted, so of course Lexie ordered a Mocha Moxie with her food, and when I asked if I could have one, too, Mom and Dad looked at each other and then said yes. It turns out that coffee isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, even when it’s served under a mountain of whipped cream. But no one said anything about my watering eyes, or the fact that I left most of the Moxie untouched. I concentrated on my seasonal fruit salad that was served in an elegant parfait glass, which everyone was afraid I would break.

  What we were going to do next was a surprise for Lexie and me. Mom and Dad had planned the adventure but wouldn’t tell us about it ahead of time. So when we all got on the subway at Fourteenth Street my sister and I had no idea where we were going. We got off in midtown and followed Mom and Dad for a few blocks, and the next thing I knew we were standing in front of Madame Tussauds, which is a wax museum, but really so much more than a wax museum. There is also “Scream,” a scare experience with real live people, who, let me tell you, are a lot scarier than wax people, and a 4-D movie theater where you can not only see and hear a movie but feel and smell things, such as ocean spray and chocolate. Some of those things, I’m sorry to say, were on the gross side, like this one smell that I thought was the smell that wafts off of a garbage truck. But Madame Tussauds was so much fun that it was almost as good as being in a ghost town or riding the range. I didn’t want the afternoon to end.

  THURSDAY

  Well, if the trip to Madame Tussauds was one of my favorite events of the staycation, the event on Thursday was one of Lexie’s. We spent the day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

  The entire day.

  Inside one building.

  And I didn’t see a single sock monkey. There were some interesting beaded things and pieces of pottery, and thank goodness the museum also has a cafeteria and a gift shop, but how Lexie could get so very, very excited about, for instance, an exhibit called The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini is beyond me. But I kept remembering Lexie’s words about how our job was to not make things worse for our parents than they already were, so I pretended the hours in that museum were just fabulous, and as we were leaving I even said, “Oh, do we really have to go?” But when Dad said, “Of course not. Is there something else you’d like to see, Pearl?” I answered very quickly, “No, I just can’t believe how fast the day went by,” which was the opposite of the truth, but whatever. And then I ran down the museum steps before Dad could turn around and go back inside.

  The night was a relief because we went out to dinner at a restaurant called Cowgirl Hall of Fame, where there’s cowgirl stuff all over the walls and you can order food with names like Ba
r-k’s Stockyard Hangar Steak and Branding Iron BBQ Chicken, and also buy prairie bead bracelets at the General Store that you walk through before you get to the restaurant part.

  FRIDAY

  Something so wonderful happened on Friday that it’s too bad it wasn’t the very last thing we did on our staycation. It would have been a great way to end our adventures. But as I have learned, things don’t always happen the way you want them to.

  On Friday morning Mom walked into the family room, yawned so widely that I knew it was a fake yawn, and said to Lexie and me, “Well, your dad and I haven’t planned anything for the day. We’ll just relax, okay?”

  Right away I realized that Dad wasn’t around, so I said, “Where’s Dad?”

  And Mom tried to lie and say she didn’t know, but a parent always knows where the other parent is, so her reply (“Goodness, isn’t he here in the apartment?”) made me totally suspicious.

  Dad came back that afternoon looking very proud of himself, pulled an envelope out of his pocket, and handed it to Lexie and me (the envelope, not his pocket).

  Lexie opened the envelope and before I could say, “Hey! I wanted to open that,” she started shrieking and running around the family room.

  “What is it? What is it?” I cried.

  “Tickets to Amazing! We’re going to a Broadway show!” She shrieked again, then studied the tickets, and added, “Tonight! We’re going tonight!”

  “Count the tickets,” said Dad with a smile.

  Lexie counted. “Five,” she reported.

  Daddy Bo was going to go to the theater with us, which made the evening perfect.

  It was the best surprise of the staycation.

  SATURDAY

  Spent day at Museum of Natural History, scene of biggest embarrassment of my life as student at Emily Dickinson. Refused to go anywhere near dinosaur wing. That’s all you need to know.

  * * *

  And then it was Sunday, the last day of our staycation. My parents had not planned anything, saying that we needed to wind down. Another day of resting and relaxing before Mom started her new writing schedule and Dad went back to job hunting. I wondered what the last weeks of August would be like, with no Camp Merrimac, no staycation, and no JBIII.

  I realized that I felt a little nervous.

  “Lexie?” I said, peeping into her room.

  My sister was sitting at her desk with her computer on. She was about to Skype with Liam. I knew this because she was wearing brown plaid pajama bottoms, socks with holes in them, and a freshly ironed pink and lime green top that Valerie had said showed off her bust, which means bosoms. I hoped my sister wouldn’t have to get up from her desk for any reason, because then Liam would get a look at the lower half of her.

  “Yeah?” Lexie swiveled around in her chair.

  “Um,” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  What I had meant to talk to Lexie about was my nervousness, so I was surprised to hear myself say, “I have an idea. Let’s make dinner for Mom and Dad tonight. A fancy dinner. They did so much for us this week, and now we can do something for them.”

  “Pearl, that’s a wonderful idea!” is a comment people don’t often make to me. But Lexie said it now. Then she switched off her computer and frowned thoughtfully. “Of course, we don’t really know how to cook.…”

  “We could fix something, though. And we could ask Dad if it would be all right to clear his desk and then we could put out a tablecloth and nice napkins and the fancy china, and we could even light candles.”

  “And you could make a menu!”

  We got right to work. We told Mom and Dad we had a surprise for them and that we needed the apartment to ourselves for a couple of hours in the afternoon. While they were gone we went through the refrigerator and the cupboards, and in the end I made up a menu that I thought was better than the one at Ollie’s:

  * * *

  ~DINNER SPECIAL~

  PEARL AND LEXIE’S CAFÉ

  Orderves: saltines with chedder cheese slices

  Beverage: ginger ale or water or whatever you want

  Main Course: freezer pizza with salad a la Lexie

  Note: We have two pizzas so you can have three or four slices if necessary

  Dessert: chocolate chip cookies and vanilla ice cream

  Also available: after-dinner coffee for anyone except Pearl

  * * *

  Mom and Dad got dressed up for dinner, so then Lexie and I did, too. We sat at the table in the family room, which was set with dishes we hadn’t used since Easter, and ate our freezer pizza by the glow of candles.

  “Isn’t this just like in a restaurant?” I said, even though it was nothing at all like Cowgirl Hall of Fame.

  “Better!” Mom replied.

  “I love the menu,” added Dad.

  The menu was propped up against a bottle of salad dressing. I looked at it fondly. I had decorated the corners with the embellishments I had bought at Steve-Dan’s a week earlier. They hadn’t gone to waste.

  We sat and sat and sat at the table, long after the cookies and ice cream were gone and Mom and Dad had each polished off two cups of coffee. No one wanted the staycation to end. And I didn’t want to clean up the kitchen, but cleaning up was part of the dinner surprise, so finally Lexie and I got to work, and Mom and Dad disappeared into Mom’s office.

  It was later, when the kitchen was spotless and the dining room table had been turned into Dad’s desk again, that I passed the closed door to the office and began to wonder why my parents were still in there. I glanced down the hall. Lexie was in her room Skyping with Liam. I paused. Then I pressed my ear to the office door.

  “If my editor will agree to change the series deal to six books instead of four,” Mom was saying, “that would make a big difference. And I talked to Patti about writing articles and reviewing books.”

  “How are you going to have time for all that?” asked Dad.

  “I’m not sure,” said Mom, which was not the answer I was hoping to hear, since there was this edge of nervousness to her words.

  “There’s a good chance I’ll be out of a job until at least January,” Dad said, and it sounded as though it was something he had already said several times, because it was followed by a long sigh. Then he added, “More likely, I’ll be out of work until the beginning of the next school year. Although you never know.”

  I realized I couldn’t hear Lexie anymore, which meant she had probably said good-bye to Liam. I sprang away from the office door. And just in time. Lexie poked her head into the hall.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  I decided to be honest for once. “Eavesdropping,” I hissed, pushing Lexie back into her room and closing the door behind us.

  I told her what I had heard.

  Lexie sat at her desk chair. She rubbed her eyes. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. Then it’s time.”

  “For what?”

  “For me to look for work. I’ll start tomorrow.”

  “You’re going to become a working girl?”

  “I have to.”

  I frowned. Why did Lexie always get to be the mature sister?

  But I didn’t say anything. I left her room quietly, passed the office with my parents’ voices drifting out of it, and stood at the window in our family room. I looked across the street. JBIII’s apartment was dark.

  17

  VIII. My sister and I went job hunting.

  A. Lexie got all the jobs.

  The next morning I woke up at my usual summer hour of 5:00, switched on the light, and began a search of my closet. Six years ago, when Lexie and I were eight and four, Daddy Bo invited us to his house in New Jersey for Easter weekend. Just us girls, no Mom and Dad. He planned to take us to an Easter egg hunt on Saturday, and to church and out for brunch on Sunday. Since we never go to church, we didn’t have appropriate clothes, so Mom popped Lexie and me in a cab and we rode to Lord & Taylor, where Mom bought us matching dresses (yellow with daisies) and straw hats decorate
d with yellow ribbons. We had outgrown the dresses years ago (I gave mine to Justine), but my hat was still in the closet. Somewhere.

  I kicked aside several pairs of shoes and a box that turned out to be my old Chutes and Ladders game and a green plastic bag that had fallen on something else, which turned out to be the missing bubble blaster, and finally, hanging on a peg behind my shirts, I saw the Easter hat. I stepped out of the closet and tried it on. Apparently your head grows a lot in the six years between when you’re four and when you’re ten because the hat instantly slid off. It landed on Bitey, which terrified him, and he shot out of my room and down the hall to the kitchen where he jumped onto the counter and crashed into the coffeemaker.

  I paused for a moment, listening, but I didn’t hear any other sounds. No one had woken up. I picked the hat up and jammed it on my head, and it popped back up like toast out of a toaster. So I put it on for a third time and pulled the fraying elastic band under my chin. The band was way too tight, but at least the hat stayed on.

  I wanted to look nice for my first day of job hunting. On I Love Lucy when Lucy and Ethel decide to go job hunting they get all dressed up in suits and high heels and hats. I didn’t have a suit or high heels, so I put on the outfit I’d worn when I won first prize in the art exhibit. Then I waited for Lexie.

  I thought I might have to wait all the way until 11:00, but Lexie got up in a big hurry at 8:30, and at 9:00 she ran into the kitchen for a bowl of cereal. She saw me sitting at the little table, wearing my pink shirt and pink skirt and yellow-ribboned Easter hat, my thumbs hooked through the elastic band to keep it from leaving a red mark under my chin.

  “What’s with the outfit?” she asked.

  I ignored her. “How come you’re wearing shorts?” Lexie’s job-hunting outfit was a T-shirt, sandals, and a pair of shorts that were so short they could have been the bottom half of a bathing suit. “I thought you were going to look for a job today.”

  Lexie had been rummaging through our cupboard of BASICS food. She whipped around to face me. “SHHH!” She glanced into the family room, where Dad was sitting at his computer. “That’s supposed to be a secret.”