Perfectly Ridiculous

by Kristin Billerbeck

  © 2012 by Kristin Billerbeck

  Published by Revell

  a division of Baker Publishing Group

  P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

  www.revellbooks.com

  Ebook edition created 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  ISBN 978-1-4412-3806-1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  The internet addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers in this book are accurate at the time of publication. They are provided as a resource. Baker Publishing Group does not endorse them or vouch for their content or permanence.

  Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920, www.alivecommunications.com.

  To my sixteen-year-old self and anyone resembling her. You are God’s beloved. Make sure any guy you’re interested in treats you well. If he doesn’t, move on before your heart gets too involved . . . so you will never feel “perfectly ridiculous.” It’s not your job to fix someone—only God can do that. So if a relationship makes you feel bad most of the time, that’s not God’s will for your life. Enjoy the world around you and your friendships to the full.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  1 2 3

  4 5 6

  7 8 9

  10 11 12

  13 14 15

  16 17 18

  19

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Kristin Billerbeck

  Back Ads

  Back Cover

  1

  June 20

  Fun factoid of the day: Abraham Lincoln never graduated from high school. He seemed to do all right for himself.

  This was supposed to be my first travel journal. Travel! As in away from home and the rules and the stifling closeness of five people living in such a small house, which is covered with craft supplies and love, as my mom likes to say. This would be my first vacation, really, unless you count the time I went with my parents on that tour of Civil War battlefields—and I don’t count that. Somehow I thought I’d feel different after graduation. Fulfilled, maybe? Accomplished? Something! High school was heinous, an insidious evil forced upon society’s youth under the guise of education. (My best friend Claire and I made that up when we had to use insidious as a vocabulary word—nice, huh?)

  Granted, high school is better if one is acne-free, can afford Forever 21 clothes, and manages to nab a boyfriend. Sadly, I was not one of those girls. I was the one who was good at math, wore homemade clothes, and had to work every day after school, while the wealthy kids at my private high school hung out at their country clubs. My mother claims this was character building, but by my calculations, I should be as big as Mickey Mouse when it comes to character. I was the nerdy girl who cute boys talked to only if they needed tutoring help or a lab partner.

  I possessed none of the accessories that improve one’s stock price in high school. At least, not until the bitter end when I managed to get a date for prom—sort of. (I was actually there doing community service—long story—but I did get one dance, and I told myself I could live on that.)

  Naturally, no one will remember the bitter end. No, reality says they are going to recall the sum total of my high school experience and be surprised when I show up at our reunion in a store-bought dress. I know it’s wrong to find my worth in what others think of me, or in material goods—my mother has told me so since birth, I believe. However, my mother also buys upholstery fabric to make her own dresses. She claims it has more structure and works like a built-in girdle. I think it just makes her look like furniture.

  I’ve tried to explain Spanx, but that’s just more consumerism on my part, and she goes right back to looking like a floral sofa (only she’s lost weight, so now she’s more of a love seat). We’re different, my mom and me, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find out I was switched at birth.

  I want her to know that I’m not defective just because I don’t think exactly like her. Is that too much to ask? We can have different personalities and still both love Jesus. I fail to see how not being able to make a decoratively crafted fabric apple makes me less of a Christian. Doesn’t Jesus need some people who are good with numbers? People who want to be out in the world and live, not just those who want to have a quiet life of crafting? Paul traveled, did he not? Even Jesus traveled!

  My mom would say that the gift for numbers is for men—that finance is a “man’s job”—but see, that’s hard to stomach because I’m tutoring those “men” at school. It’s a gift. God just gave it to me. I think he had to notice I was female. He doesn’t miss details like that. I mean, the guys at school may not have noticed I’m female, but God knit me together in the womb and all that, so he knows!

  Travel journal, you know how extremely strict my parents are, and that would have been fine if they had understood that just because I went to a Christian school, it doesn’t mean I was protected from the cruel, harsh world. How much easier my high school life might have been if my parents understood that mean girls are still mean girls, and all the human frailties that still make Lord of the Flies relevant reading go on in every high school across America. Albeit without the pig head. But maybe somewhere in the Midwest where they have access to a pig head, that’s part of the deal too. Who knows?

  So while guys weren’t knocking down my door and I wasn’t allowed to date during high school, prom stuck out in my mind as something I had to accomplish. Like a decent SAT score. If I could get to prom, I reasoned that it would make up for my complete lack of a social life during high school. And like I said, through a series of mishaps, I did manage to get there, with Argentine hottie Max Diaz. So I was running the Breathalyzer machine at the front door, but it still counts. Max was a transfer student from Argentina. Sí, el es muy caliente. Very hot! But after graduation, he went back to Buenos Aires to live with his mother and somehow seemed to forget I exist.

  Now, I highly doubt that after a nearly perfect record of being dateless throughout high school, anyone is going to remember my brief love connection with the Argentine. Or my brief stint in real jeans. So it’s time I wrote off high school altogether and concentrated on my future.

  Max wanted to be a preacher, and my parents saw that as the perfect type of husband for me. They allowed a brief “courtship” (emphasis on brief) but then decided I was too young to consider marriage (um, yeah!) and started harping on how difficult a culturally diverse marriage might be. They practically had a parade when he left. In other words, they got scared and decided majoring in finance was better than marrying a foreigner without a real job. Not that he asked for or considered more than a tango at prom, but if that and a full scholarship to Pepperdine make my parents see the benefits of majoring in finance, I’m all for it.

  So it’s kind of like my life has totally been erased. Everything that happened before now is over, and I get to create a whole new future as a finance major at Pepperdine University in Malibu. Now I can focus on the future and success and what God has for me without being held back by high school.r />
  No one can blame me for feeling defeated at this juncture. I assumed I’d magically wake up, but now I understand that it didn’t matter what kind of jeans I wore or even if I wore jeans, since my mother tended to make most of my clothing. But there’s a letdown that no one tells you about. You’ve done it. You’ve accomplished your goal and graduated with honors and . . . and . . . oh, did we forget to mention that no one cares?

  High school graduation is a goal that’s given to you. You are not given a choice. You either do the work or you practice this saying: “Would you like fries with that?” After all, we’re told, “Go, apply thyself and bring home thy best letter grades so that ye might find a good return in thy labor.”

  So as a good Christian girl, I did what was commanded of me. I honored my parents—okay, maybe not as well as I could have, but I wore the ugly clothes my mother made. (Look, I know I was lucky to have them and all, but at my wealthy college prep school, homemade clothes are not what you want to stand out for—so go ahead, judge me, but walk a mile in my fake Nikes before you do.) I abstained from makeup and most of the “evils of the vain world,” as my mother calls them.

  But I did not ever feel that fitting in was evil. God never gave me that mandate. He did, however, tell me to honor my parents. Which I did, but not without a bit of residual effects. I wanted more control. I now see that maybe I could have spent a little of the money I made and done more for myself, but that’s another story.

  My current story is much more complicated. College begins in two months. I’m on a full-ride scholarship to Pepperdine University to major in finance because I don’t ever plan to live hand-to-mouth as my parents seem to. I want more say in my life. More control.

  My best friend Claire’s father is sending us to Buenos Aires for a graduation trip. That’s Argentina! Are you kidding me? Did I hit the jackpot when I chose a best friend or what? I mean, I think my parents might have sprung for a foreign movie festival at the Cineplex, but this!

  Buenos Aires . . . sounds like perfection, right? I might see Max. I might learn more about a different culture. I might find they have really great jeans for less down there.

  But then the letter came. Once again I had started to fly, and then another weight was added to my wing, pulling me down, down, down to what seems to be my lot in life.

  The letter read as follows:

  Dear Daisy Crispin:

  We look forward to partnering with you, the recipient of this year’s Gold Standard Insurance Company scholarship, in a lifetime of good stewardship. As you may have noticed on the list of requirements, Gold Standard asks that all its recipients begin with stewardship of their time. We want all of our students to understand the benefits of stewardship from a human perspective.

  Each summer, before tuition and lodging bills are paid, you, Daisy Crispin, will be required to fulfill two full weeks of mission work in the ministry of your choosing. We will count one week already completed in a current mission position, but for at least one week, you must raise your own finances and do such work in another state or, preferably, another country. You may not receive pay for this time, and the forms enclosed will need to be filled out and signed by your immediate superior.

  When the forms are received, payment will be remitted to Pepperdine University.

  Sincerely,

  Bob Torkson

  President & CFO

  Gold Standard

  Insurance Company

  All this is well and good, except I’ll be in Buenos Aires. Or I won’t. I stare at the date. Two months prior! Clearly my letter had taken a vacation of its own, and now I’d pay the price.

  My whole world opens up, and I’m not able to enjoy it—I’m allowed to go on an international vacation and see how the “other half” lives, and that other half may end up being the slums of Buenos Aires, not the elite of the South American Paris lounging at the pool.

  So it begins, my new travel journal. I’m titling this one “My Life: Stop.” Because it’s like a bad telegram from my mom’s old movies.

  “Daisy!” my mom shouts from the house. (My room is in the garage underneath the toilet paper stash in case there’s ever a worldwide shortage.)

  “Just a minute!” I snap my journal shut, throw a kiss to my David Beckham poster, and slide the journal under my mattress.

  “What is it?” I ask as I open the kitchen door.

  “Is that any way to ask? Claire’s here,” Mom says.

  Claire’s my BFF. She’s unfamiliar with the word no, and she was not happy about my need to work over the summer versus taking vacation. She feels vacation was my birthright before I submitted to the perils of college so soon after the perils of high school. Yes, I know that’s usually the way it goes, but Claire sees the world differently.

  Living in Malibu doesn’t feel that perilous to me. Nor does a college dorm, where I’ll officially not have to share my space with my mother’s lifetime supply of toilet paper and craft supplies. My mother runs her own business selling high-end pot holders and aprons to women who shop in fancy cooking stores and never actually cook. The Martha Stewart image is big. Business is good.

  But back to my BFF.

  Claire’s always been a bit of a wild child. She’s good at heart, but like a cat, she cannot cure herself of pressing curiosity, even if it leads her into trouble. And it usually does—and takes me right along with her. Then, somehow, I seem to take on the consequences while she skates on with her unusually breezy life. So wrong. Some days I almost feel that’s my purpose in life—to take on Claire’s consequences—but I’m officially over that job now. She’s going to have to find someone else to take the fall.

  She looks at me now with her eyebrows knit together. The look that lets me know her discussion is not for my mother’s ears.

  “We’ll be in my room,” I say and head out to the garage. Without another word, Claire follows me and shuts the door behind her.

  “I’ve got the answer.” She waves a brochure in her hand. “You see, Daisy, you always give up too early. You were just going to nix a free vacation to Argentina—the land of the tango, the land of Max Diaz. But I, your best friend, persevere. I’m like that, you know.”

  I roll my eyes. “Except when it comes to homework.”

  “International ministry exchange.” She waves the brochure again.

  “Pardon?”

  “I found a ministry online where you trade with someone, go to their country, and learn the needs, and they come here.” Claire pauses. “By that, I mean they come to my house, because I’m not sure yours exactly represents America as people imagine it.” She scrunches her nose as she looks around my garage/room.

  “I think I’m offended.”

  “No you’re not.” Claire breezes past me and makes sure my door is firmly shut. “You see your reality, even if you want to make me the bad guy for pointing it out. It’s hard to explain your house to a foreigner. It’s hard to explain your house to anyone.”

  I feel the need to defend my mother. “True, but my mom would be great with a foreign missionary. Let me see that.” I reach for the brochure.

  Claire pulls it away. “Wait a minute. This is my idea.”

  “My mom would show them how to make the most of living in a wealthy place with few resources. That’s a skill anyone but you could learn and use.”

  “If the missionary could find her in this mess, sure. But Daisy, you’ve got your grandparents’ furniture in the living room while they remodel, your mother’s craft supplies everywhere while she expands the business, and then there’s your father’s costumes. Seriously, I’ve known you practically your whole life and it’s never been this bad. How would you explain that to someone in a foreign language? Este es hoarders, no?”

  “Not funny. Don’t they expect to go into a Christian home? Christians usually live frugally,” I say, trying delicately to avoid calling her parents heathens, or young in their faith.

  “You’re getting lost in the minut-ay.”

&n
bsp; “Minutia.”

  “I graduated high school. You’re done correcting me. If it’s wrong, change the dictionary.” Claire sulks. “New words are created every day. It’s strategery.”

  I stare at the brochure in her hand. A woman in a colorful dress is posed for the tango. “I do so want to go to Argentina. Just when I think it’s safe to embrace something good, another stick gets thrown into my wheel spoke.”

  “Only if you let it. Your problem is when someone tells you no, you’re too quick to believe it.”

  “Because I have no other choice,” I tell her. “Besides, I would think it’s part of the requirement that a visiting missionary stay with a Christian family.”

  “My family is Christian, Daisy. Maybe not the same way yours is, but my mom could certainly make sure they get to church, and they’d have my car to drive while they were here. They could just work in the food bank at church like you do.”

  “You know what my mom will say. I can just stay and work at the food bank.”

  “I can’t believe your mother would let you turn down a free trip to Argentina over a few details.”

  “I’m only saying if you’re planning to trade with a Christian ministry, my parents seem to have the obvious home for them. Not your mansion in the hills.”

  “Like they’d complain! Maybe they’d learn that they want to go to college and sponsor a church back home or the like.” Claire lies down on my bed. She’s wearing a black maxi dress to her ankles with big, clunky red shoes, costume jewelry up her arm—nearly to her shoulder—and a long, genuine strand of pearls. In other words, a typical afternoon outfit for Claire.

  Claire’s father is a well-known attorney. My dad’s an actor. A self-employed actor, which means he does a lot of singing telegrams dressed as fowl, crustaceans, and Star Trek characters. You wouldn’t think there was a huge market for that kind of thing, but apparently the engineers of Silicon Valley like to say it in song. It helps that my father speaks Romulan.

  Mom makes Dad’s costumes and now has her own line of upscale novelty aprons and oven mitts. This year it officially became a business —and it cracks me up that my mother would never pay for store-bought jeans, but she has the gall to sell overpriced kitchenware in that same mall I felt banned from.