Dream Girl

by Lauren Mechling

  His pockets were bulging, and I saw a familiar shade of yellow poking out by his belt loop.

  I grabbed my Mr. Goodbar out of his pocket. “This isn’t exactly a help-yourself buffet.”

  “C’mon, you have so much candy under there!”

  “Shh!” I didn’t want Dad to hear.

  “But I already started it,” Henry said, pulling the chocolate bar away. “You’ll get germs.”

  “You’re my little brother.” I snatched it back. “Our germs are already well acquainted.”

  Henry dropped his arms and his face assumed a worried expression. “Hey, what’s going on with Didier? Why’s he making those weird bubbles?”

  “What do you mean?” I twisted around to face my tank. Just as I was determining my fish looked perfectly content, Henry the con artist seized the candy from me.

  “You little troll!”

  Henry was laughing as we tussled over the candy. And then came the loudest whistle I’d ever heard.

  Dad was standing all of three feet away, holding the phone. He removed two fingers from his mouth and gave a satisfied nod. “I repeat, there is someone on the phone for you, Claire.” He handed me the cordless and snatched the Mr. Goodbar from his son. And then he took a bite. “Pas mal,” he said. Henry looked as if his eyes were about to roll out of his head. Served him right.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Sounds like I interrupted some very interesting family ritual.”

  “Andy?” I squawked, shooing everybody away.

  “If I say yes, are you going to hang up on me?”

  I knew I should be furious, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t occur to me that maybe, just maybe, he was calling to offer me an explanation. I inhaled deeply and waited.

  “So what’s up?” I asked, trying to sound as if I weren’t losing my cool. It worked, and the words rolled off my tongue like cigarette smoke in an old movie. I have to say, as much as I might bitch and moan about sounding like a 900-number worker, I can always count on my voice to make me sound blasé, even in moments of extreme discomfort.

  “First, I wanted to apologize about ditching you the other night. I can’t imagine how awkward it must have been for you.”

  “You seemed to be the one feeling awkward,” I said quietly.

  “I had to get out and talk to Rye. If you knew how jealous she can get, you’d understand…”

  I stuffed my Eiffel Tower pillow in my mouth and waited for him to get to the point. But after a short silence, I began to wonder whether there was a point, and took the pillow out. The drool had darkened the Seine River from aqua to navy. “Is that it, then?”

  “No.” He sounded jumpy. “Listen, I know I’m going to sound like a jerk when I say what I’m about to, but I’m in a tight spot here.”

  “And what’s that?”

  I drew a deep breath and looked out the window. A plane was moving through the sky, and the bushes in the courtyard looked like no more than shadows. From the plane, all of us—me, Andy, Rye—must be barely passing specks. If only it felt that way to me.

  “Here’s the thing. She’s going to be staying with my parents for the next week, until Thanksgiving break is over. Her parents are renovating their house and their water will be turned off.” He took a long breath, and exhaled noisily. “I know you don’t come over and visit Becca all that often, but in case you’re going to…if you could hold off, I think that would be for the best. She sort of has…issues with you.”

  “You’re banishing me from your house?”

  “I’m just doing what I think will make the situation easier for everyone, you included.” Now he sounded unfazed, professional, even. I couldn’t believe it—it was as if he were an entirely different person.

  “Well, that’s considerate of you,” I huffed, but he must have taken my words at face value, because he thanked me.

  “I knew you’d be cool,” he said.

  I let the pillow drop to the floor and shook my head in disbelief. What was the point of saying anything else? I had my pride, and I wasn’t in the business of bullying people into liking me.

  He went on, the relief in his voice unmistakable. “I’ll probably see you soon, after the wedding.”

  “You guys are engaged?”

  I wasn’t sure if this was tragic or funny.

  “Not quite,” he laughed. “Our cousin Emma is. Sorry, I thought Becca would have told you. We’re all going to London on Thanksgiving weekend for her wedding. Rye wasn’t originally planning on coming, but she’s never been to England before, and she says she’s dying to see some art show by this guy who makes eighty-foot-tall mannequins with baby heads. She’s been working so hard at school, she deserves a break.”

  I’ll say.

  “It’s supposed to be a great town,” I offered feebly.

  “Well, you know, I’m partial to New York, but I guess it’s not bad.”

  “Sure,” I said in a withered voice. “I just…Becca didn’t…This is the first I’ve heard of her going to London.”

  “She’s not. She has to stay behind for some voice rehearsals.”

  “By herself?”

  “Well, with the housekeeper.”

  And that’s when the idea of Andy deciding to jet off to Europe with his pseudofeminist girlfriend ceased to trouble me—for all I cared, he could get I RYE tattooed on his forehead.

  Becca was going to be in the country alone. Alone and unprotected. Which meant I should probably get a move on things.

  { 23 }

  Tired of Waiting

  On Thursday, I woke up feeling as deflated as a punctured beach ball. Nothing had come to me that night, just a bizarre dream about sharing the elevator up to Kiki’s with a haughty ostrich who kept glaring down its beak at me until I exclaimed, “We both know who’s the ostrich here!” In my dream life, this had felt like the wittiest remark of all time, but now I was left with a dissatisfying aftertaste. More dissatisfying, though, was that the dream was in color.

  I sat on the window ledge to sprinkle in Didier and Margaux’s breakfast and collect my bummed-out thoughts. What would it take to get a clue around here?

  Margaux was playing hard to get, circling the plastic chateau on the bottom of the tank. Didier, blessedly, rose to the surface and wiggled his little orange and white tail at me.

  I threw my cadged Waldorf bathrobe over my pajamas and headed for the shower. I took off my necklace and pulled the curtain shut. Standing under the stream of warm water, I stopped thinking about Becca, and my outlook started to improve—but not for long. Midway through lathering on Mom’s Institut de Beauté Derrière Minimiseur, I slipped on one of Henry’s bath toys.

  “La vache!” I hollered, tumbling down.

  Most of the time I can hold off from blurting out stupid French expressions, but when you find yourself butt-up on the bathtub floor, it’s hard to remember to keep your cool. When I got out of the bathroom, prepared to yell at Henry for nearly killing me, I found him at the breakfast table, dressed in a green argyle sweater and eating leftover spaghetti and meatballs. A clump of hair shot up, Einstein-like, from the crown of his head.

  “Nice look. Do you have a Young Republicans Club meeting today?”

  “I’m practicing for school picture day. It’s tomorrow.” He said this without any irony, and I felt a smile tug at my mouth.

  I leaned in to kiss him on the forehead and fish the cordless phone out from under a bundle of Dad’s notes. “We can practice some more outfits tonight, and Mom will be back tomorrow morning to help us out,” I told him. Phone in hand, I walked over to the reading nook and dialed Kiki’s number.

  “Yes?” she asked after five rings, stretching the word into as many syllables. I pictured her sitting up in bed, pulling her baby blue silk eye mask up by her hairline and squinting at the cable box to see the time.

  After a minute of small talk, I couldn’t contain myself any more. “I’m all blocked up,” I blurted out.

  “Darling, there’s a r
eason God put prunes on this earth.”

  “I’m talking about the dreams!”

  “Oh. Your generation has to stop being so vague about everything. Now, what’s the matter, dear?”

  “I’m trying to tell you….” I looked over my shoulder to make sure nobody was eavesdropping, then went ahead and told her about how the cameo had stopped working. “I did everything you told me to do—I polish the necklace, I keep it dry, I look into it every day. What else am I supposed to do—sing love songs to it?” I was so exasperated I could have ripped my hair out. “The Shuttleworths are going to London and they’re leaving Becca behind by herself. The whole thing makes me feel supremely nervous. I need answers, and fast.”

  “Oh, Claire, there’s nothing attractive about getting hysterical. If something is supposed to come to you, it will.”

  “But what if it comes too late?”

  She made a light clicking sound with her tongue. “What if, what if, what if? You need to get out of your head.”

  “Unfortunately, I’m sort of stuck to it.”

  “And unfortunately, you’re sort of literal, too!” I could hear her throwing her arms in the air. “How’s this for a thought? Why don’t you call Louis and take a trip to the Metropolitan Museum? Go and have a good time, get your mind off your troubles. Clem and I just saw a marvelous show on Art Deco Paris.”

  “Art Deco Paris,” I repeated dryly.

  I was reminded of my first day at summer camp, when all the counselors were ordering us to make friends with each other and have fun. Why didn’t people ever understand that what sounded so logical—and easy—was anything but?

  “Yes, my lemon drop. You mustn’t worry overmuch.”

  “That’s not exactly an option at this point,” I said. “Becca’s family is leaving in a week.”

  Kiki sighed. “You don’t have much wiggle room, do you?”

  “To put it lightly.”

  “Well…I do have one little suggestion. It worked for my grandmother, but I’m telling you, was useless when I tried it.”

  “I’ll try it. What is it?”

  “Look in the mirror.”

  “Okay,” I said, walking over to the mirrored Renault poster. It looked like a new freckle was coming up on my right cheek. “I see a girl in her bathrobe. Now what?”

  “No, darling, not now. Bring a mirror into bed with you at night, and look at the cameo before you fall asleep.”

  “Really?” I looked at my necklace in the mirror, half expecting a jolt of inspiration. “I’m doing it now. What should I be feel—”

  “Before bed, dear. Not now.”

  Just as I was returning the phone to the cradle, Dad sloped out of his room.

  “Was that Mom?” he asked me.

  “Kiki. Why?”

  A corner of his mouth twitched. “Mom was going to tell you herself,” he said softly.

  “Supposed to tell me what?”

  “They’ve extended her job. She’ll be in Florida until the Tuesday after Thanksgiving weekend.”

  “What?” My heart started to race and I glanced over at Henry, who was mixing pizza-flavored Combos into his cold spaghetti. How was I going to get to the bottom of this very important mystery if I had to stick around doing Mom’s job and look after Henry? “She’s not going to be here until after Thanksgiving? She can’t just do that.”

  “I’m disappointed, too. Now she can’t come with me to the conference in Paris.” Dad frowned. “We’ll have Thanksgiving the next week. And you can help me cook a welcome-home supper for your mother, ma petite puce.”

  “I am not a little flea!” I huffed. I was so incensed—couldn’t he tell I had better things to do than hang out in the apartment cooking welcome-home suppers and reminding my little brother to brush his teeth?

  “Whoops!” Henry cried. “They make these grape juice boxes so wobbly.”

  Dad cut me a look. “Can you help him clean that up?”

  Well, there was my answer.

  I showed up for school a little early, and there was no shortage of kids hanging around outside the building. Some were bent over their notebooks, cramming for tests. Sheila and her gang were wearing matching pink tutus and laughing like a bunch of drunk sorority girls.

  “Okay, who’s going to get him?” Sheila shrieked, pointing at a guy who was approaching school. Everything about him was scrawny except for one thing: he had a nose that I could picture his grandmother constantly assuring him he’d “grow into one day.”

  “Hey, baby,” Sheila greeted her victim.

  He turned to look behind him. “Me?” He grinned like crazy.

  “You don’t have to sound so scared.” She waited until he’d come nearer. “Do you know what day it is today?”

  “Um, your birthday?”

  “Try again,” she said, strategically playing with her sweatshirt to expose an inch of abdomen. I could feel the waves of nausea rolling through me.

  “Thursday?” the kid tried again.

  Sheila laughed for what seemed like ten minutes. “That’s not what I meant. It’s Send a Flower Day.”

  “Oh yeah, I heard something about that,” the guy said.

  Send a Flower Day was a cheesy Hudson tradition where kids could pay two dollars to have a wilted carnation delivered to a classmate of their choice. For reasons that had not been made clear to me, the proceeds went to the Lower East Side Veterans Association.

  “I’d love it if a flower came from a cutie like you….” Her bug eyes grew big, and she cupped her hand over her mouth as if she were embarrassed. Talk about bad acting. No wonder she hadn’t made it into the cast of Hudson’s production of The Vagina Monologues last year.

  “Cool.” His head was eagerly yo-yoing up and down. “I’ll send you one, sure.”

  And as he walked away, the girls waggled their fingers in a manner that I could only assume was intended to be seductive.

  “Don’t look so sad!” Sheila called out. I realized with a start she was talking to me. “I’m sure somebody will remember to get you a flower.”

  God, it was maddening. The local veterans might get some extra winter socks out of it, but that didn’t feel like much consolation.

  The girl who came to our homeroom to hand out everyone’s flowers introduced herself as Winnie. She had long oily hair and a habit of staring at the floor while she talked.

  She gave out the flowers one by one, which would have made sense had every flower not been for Sheila. After watching Sheila get up from her seat for the fiftieth time to accept a flower, I lost interest and turned my attention to Sofa City, a miniature comic book Ian had lent me.

  A few pages in, somebody pinched my arm.

  “Claire Voyante?” Winnie was saying.

  “Me?” There had to be a mistake, unless Becca had bought me a flower as a joke. I stuffed the comic book into my desk, straightened my back, and went up to the front of the room to take the pink carnation. It wasn’t until I was back in my seat that I opened the little envelope that was attached to the stalk.

  CLAIRE, YOU ALWAYS LOOK FANTASSTIC. XX

  The message was so subtle I didn’t get it until the second reading. Right there, wedged between the fant and the tic, those magic three letters: ASS. The handwriting was loopy—definitely a girl’s. My eyes darted to Sheila, but it was impossible to see her face through the thicket of flowers in front of her.

  “None of you have any idea where this came from, do you?” I asked during the following period, dragging a chair over to Ian and Zach’s table.

  All blank expressions.

  “Didn’t think so.”

  Apart from Becca, there was only one other person at Hudson who knew about my possibly paranoid butt hang-up. I flung the flower onto a seat at the empty table next to ours. “I think I know who to thank…Can you believe what they’re up to today?”

  “I know,” said Ian. “These burgers are even more repulsive than usual.”

  “I wasn’t talking about the burgers, buddy,�
�� I said, pulling out my lunch bag. “Look at them.” I gestured toward the milk station, where three of the BDLs were holding enough flowers to fill the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. “They were outside school this morning like sleazy politicians, practically trading kisses for flowers.”

  Zach turned white.

  “You totally bought them flowers,” Ian said. “You are an ass.”

  “Not true,” Zach said in a falsetto.

  “Zach,” I said, “can you help me understand something? Are those girls even attractive to you or are you just suckered in because they deign to talk to you?”

  “Can I get back to you on that one?” Zach asked.

  “Let’s not blame the victim here,” Ian said. “He’ll learn. But while we’re on the subject of your friends, check this out.” He zipped open his suitcase and slid something over to me.

  “No way!” It was our English assignment—the “Evil Radish” comic book we’d started the other night. I couldn’t believe how awesome it looked fully illustrated. I flipped through the booklet’s sixteen pages, following the evil radish as she and her yoga-pants-and-hoop-earrings-wearing evil radish clones spend a day on the farm intimidating scrawny little alfalfa sprouts into paying them radish compliments. My favorite part was the end, where the evil radish and her gang get their comeuppance and are chopped up and tossed into a huge mixed salad.

  Or at least, I thought that was my favorite part, until Ian showed me the back cover, where he’d drawn a police lineup of radishes next to a sign that said CHARGE: INDECENCY. VERDICT: GUILTY. And then I noticed he’d added tutus, just like the ones the BDLs had worn to school that day.

  “I work quickly when inspired,” he explained.

  Even though the handiwork was all Ian’s, the story line had been all mine, and I felt enormously proud. All through English class I was excited for Mr. Bunting to wrap up his fascinating lecture on the inherent superiority of college-ruled paper to wide-ruled and collect our stories. When the bell rang and everyone woke up, Ian handed in our comic book. Mr. Bunting did a double take. “‘The Adventures of Evil Radish’?” he mumbled dubiously. “We’ll see about this.”